Cinavia Anti-Piracy Technology Circumvented By DVD-Ranger Team

For a while now Cinavia has been an unbeatable anti-piracy technology that protects Blu-Ray discs from being copied and shared illegally.

However, a pirating team by the name of DVD-Ranger recently figured out a workaround that is making headlines in anti-piracy news.

Cinavia works by imprinting a sound watermark over the audio stream. The watermark acts as a digital signature - if the playback device detects that the watermark does not match the associated security key, then the disc cannot be played.

Because of their efficacy and security strength, Cinavia watermarks became mandatory for all Blu-Ray discs back in 2012, and since then nobody has been able to find a crack that works. That is, until now.

A Long and Challenging Process

Earlier Cinavia crack attempts involved trying to exploit bugs in specific Blu-Ray players to allow for playback, but needless to say, this was an inconsistent and temporary solution.

Crackers then went on to try and detect, process, and remove the watermark, with limited success. It was originally thought that the watermark could not be removed no matter how much transcoding, compressing, processing, or modifying was done.

The breakthrough came when DVD-Ranger team recently figured out how to effectively strip the Cinavia watermark off of Blu-Ray discs without compromising audio quality.

Making the Impossible Possible

DVD-Ranger team initially notified TorrentFreak.com about their new paid software called CinEx HD Advanced, which was then verified to be able to remove play restrictions on videos of various formats - something that was previously thought to be literally impossible.

Legit Blu-Ray Backup Tool or Massive Piracy Risk?

Although DVD-Ranger team says that their software simply provides a way for Blu-Ray owners to ethically backup their own media collections, there is obviously a huge potential for this to be used as a pirating tool.

With Cinavia no longer a factor, pirates can now easily burn their downloaded movies onto Blu-Ray disc and play them in any player without playback restrictions being enforced. So this software essentially opens the gateway for all Blu-Ray pirates.

Regardless of which stance you agree with - the ethical backup approach or the unethical piracy-oriented use of the software - Cinavia's developers (Velance) and the movie industry are certainly not going to be happy about it.

How Will Cinavia and the Movie Industry Respond?

We know that there will be some sort of response to this groundbreaking crack, but it is not yet clear whether Cinavia will be able to adjust accordingly.

In other words, the movie industry and its software developers may need to find an entirely new way to protect their Blu-Ray discs now that the leading security measure has been completely circumvented.