That may indeed be the case soon, if this next flap goes anywhere.

A German magazine reports a huge gaping hole (the size of a hallway) in the playback of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD content on a Windows PC that effectively skirts around the whole DRM issue.

 As you probably know — and if you didn’t, you’re about to learn it — in Windows, pressing the Print Screen key on your keyboard saves a snapshot of the currently-active window to the clipboard. The image can then be pasted into Paint (or other, similar program) and saved to a file format that’s readable by everyone on the planet.

That little feature is what’s at the core of this latest discovery. Apparently, it is possible (note the key word: possible) to employ the Print Screen key to take a frame-by-frame recording of any movie — including DRM-protected content — paste the still images together into a video file, rip the audio track, marry it to the video, and presto… instant pirated movie.

Well, if by “instant” you mean “mind-numbingly tedious work that would take a week and a half of effort.” And while, yes, the process could be automated, it still seems like too much work for not nearly enough reward, and I honestly can’t see even the most dedicated pirate wanting to put up with this sort of “ripping.”

A major computer manufacturer, when contacted about this “security issue” (that some sites are erroneously listing as a “hack” of DRM), confirmed the hole and stated that future releases of their bundled DVD software will have the Print Screen function disabled. However, this now opens the door for some very interesting (said Confuscius) developments in the future direction of DRM technology. Now that the Print Sceen “back door” has been discovered, how much longer will it be before the MPAA, in their never-ending quest to remind you all that every single one of you is a criminal and that “fair use” doesn’t exist, starts tightening down on consumer rights even further than they already have in past years. Will it even get to the point where they start demanding peripheral manufacturers stop making keyboards with a Print Screen key?

Time will tell, as it always does.  In the end, however, I predict that the only real losers will be — as usual — the honest consumers, who will have to jump through yet even more hoops before being able to legally watch and/or otherwise use the content they actually paid for and have a right to watch and/or otherwise use.  Meanwhile, the pirates and computer underground will simply keep finding ways around them, as they have always done with every content-protection scheme there’s ever been — as Scotty said in one of the Star Trek movies, “The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain” — and ultimately nothing will change.  Except, perhaps, there’ll be a lot more disgruntled consumers out there annoyed with everything they’ll have to put up with as new technologies and media are created.

Perhaps this whole thing could be avoided if the MPAA stopped trying to find a foolproof anti-piracy system, like a paranoid bunker-dweller attempting to close every concievable door that might lead to someone copying their content illegally, no matter how unlikely or inconvenient that door might be to use.  (Hey, they sell pencils and paper in the corner Family Dollar; I could use these tools to hand-copy the latest David Weber or Elizabeth Moon novel, so maybe those should be illegal too, right?  It’s the same principle, after all…)

If you liked that, try...

1. An End to DRM?
2. Apple Showtime Announcements
3. Macrovision says DRM is “Okay”!
4. God Emperor of Zune…
5. Apple Launches ‘iTunes Plus’

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