Intel, HP, Toshiba, Disney call for DVD backup ban

THE DVD COPY CONTROL Association (DVD CCA) is planning an amendment to the licence rules governing DVDs that would completely ban all DVD backups.

It will also insist that a DVD not be able to play without a valid DVD disk being present inside the drive.

According to PC Magazine, a vote on the proposed amendment is scheduled for a vote next week. The amendment is being mulled over by the Content Protection Advisory Council (CPAC) of the DVD CCA. If enacted, it would become binding in 18 months.

The cunning plan has been revealed by Michael Malcolm, the chief executive of Kaleidescape, the DVD jukebox outfit which successfully defeated the DVD CCA last month on its rights to store content on servers.

The amendment was drawn up Warner, Walt Disney Studios, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, and Pioneer Electronics.

Malcolm claims the Association wants to tighten its licence to put him out of business. He said that the group was acting as an unfair monopoly that should be broken up.

However, it is obvious that the amendment goes far beyond his little company. It would add hardware restrictions to prevent DVD data from being descrambled and then copied.

It would also prohibit software manufacturers from creating "virtual drives," running a DVD image from a hard drive. µ