AACS LA Updates Content Protection Technologies

The content protection developed by the AACS LA for high definition DVD (HD-DVD and Blu Ray) have been the most robust one while being rapidly hacked, and one could find more than 100 keys published on the Internet, offering customers an easy way to bypass the AACS protections. So the AACS LA had to fire back and speed up the implementation of the hardware revocation technology as well as add a watermark system.
Of course, AACS claims that with those new technologies, it should be possible to stop the piracy of HD DVD and Blu-Ray contents. However, new movie discs will require players to be frequently updated, and if the procedure can be carried for some HD players through the internet, other players will require physical update via a firmware-containing disc. It remains unclear if customers will follow hardware makers and perform such frequent updates. One the other hand it might be the only way to play full high definition contents of recently released blue laser DVDs, and at the end customers will be the victim of the war between pirates and movie industry majors.