LOS ANGELES at E3 - May 14, 2003 - Macrovision
Corporation (Nasdaq: MVSN), the leading provider of copy protection and digital
rights management ('DRM") technologies, today unveiled its new DVD version of
SafeDisc® during the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3 Expo) at the Los
Angeles Convention Center. SafeDisc-DVD protects DVD-ROMs from unauthorized
copying.
SafeDisc is the most effective and widely used copy
protection available for CD-ROMs, protecting over 70% of the top 20 PC games
titles sold to retail in the United States, according to the NPD Techworld data
for 2002. Once again demonstrating its industry leadership, Macrovision has
extended the patented SafeDisc technologies for the growing DVD-ROM market to
provide developers and publishers with a high level of copy protection for this
higher capacity format.
The number of DVD-ROM games available is growing
rapidly due to the popularity of DVD-enabled consoles such as the Xbox and
PlayStation2, and due to the increasing use of DVD media for PC games. While the
current version of SafeDisc-DVD is optimized for PC DVD-ROM drives, the same
technologies can be used as a second-level copy protection enhancement to the
proprietary copy protection and security features that are used by console games
manufacturers.
Steve Weinstein, executive vice president of
Macrovision's Entertainment Technologies Group said, 'SafeDisc provides the
highest level of security against both unauthorized copying and hackers by
effectively encrypting each title and incorporating a sophisticated digital
signature. The widening availability of games titles on DVD-ROM is expected to
provide a boost to the industry and fuel demand amongst consumers. Macrovision
is pleased to extend our de facto industry standard software copy protection
solution from CD-ROMs to the DVD-ROM format."
About SafeDisc
SafeDisc is a software-based solution that does not
require any changes to the publisher's application code and is compatible with
standard PC or Mac environments and CD/DVD-ROM hardware. It is comprised of
authenticating digital signatures embedded on the disc, an encryption wrapper,
and various anti-hacking technologies that secure the CD/DVD-ROM executable. The
patented SafeDisc digital signatures are added to each original disc during the
mastering/replication process and prevent copying by standard optical disc
writers.
SafeDisc is comprised of three main
feature-modules:
⋅ An encrypted wrapper, using the industry-proven
SafeDisc Toolkit.
⋅ Anti-hacking software, which is added at the time
of encrypting the application. This anti-hacking technology prevents hackers
from de-bugging the software or reverse-engineering the product.
⋅ A digital signature, which is added at the time
of mastering and is required to decrypt and run the application.
With a number of security options available,
depending on the requirements of the publisher, SafeDisc DVD is extremely
flexible. It can be set up to require the original DVD-ROM be present in the DVD
drive each time the main application is accessed, or for the DVD-ROM to be
inserted after a specified number of days, at the discretion of the publisher.
Alternatively, the configuration can be formatted to lock the application to a
particular PC, so that the DVD-ROM is only required for installation.
Source: Macrovision.com
