It was only a matter of time. In shades of DVD Jon’s DECSS, a clever member of Doom9’s forum has released a video showing him copying and playing an “uncrackable” HD-DVD on a Windows PC. The HD-DVD was protected by Hollywood’s vaunted Advanced Access Content System, which is the DRM of choice for both HD-DVD and BluRay discs.

Details are somewhat sketchy at this point, but it seems that the clever cracker found a way to retrieve the software DVD player’s AACS access key from computer memory, and use that key to decrypt the content. The cracker is shown using PowerDVD in the video, though it’s not clear if the keys were obtained from that software.

Ironically, one of the protections offered by AACS is what angered the cracker enough to devote time to cracking the DRM…without a PC equipped with HDCP compliant video card the DVD wouldn’t play.

“…I started to get mad… This is not what we can call “fair use”! So I decide to decrypt that movie. I start reading the AACS specification I have found on the net. I estimate it will take me about 4 weeks of full time job to decrypt that. I was wrong, it was in fact, easy…”

It’s worth noting that contrary to old fashioned CSS keys, the new AACS keys are supposedly revocable. If it is determined that a licensed software DVD player’s key was compromised, that key can be revoked in new media releases. So what happens when Joe Consumer purchases a HD-DVD, and suddenly cannot play it on his Media Center PC without an update? I don’t think that consumers would tolerate that. Will studios risk it?