Personally I am strictly against piracy and therefore I am not very enthused by this development. Also, I seriously doubt Indian Video distributors really keep in mind the actions of piraters while making their pricing or for that matter any other decisions. Because, if that was the case, then the quality of Indian DVDs would have improved immensely to outshine the piraters. But not only has that not been the case, their quality at times and with certain companies has detiorated to worse than the pirated DVDs.
Well, I'm happy that it happened. and let me clarify why -
While I've never purchased a pirated disc in my life and I certainly do not encourage piracy, I believe that the AACS and other scrambling systems, restricts a person's rights!
On purchase of the DVD/Blu-ray/ CD
you don't purchase the medium (which would in theory give you right to make as many copies as you want)- you simply get a limited license to view / listen to the content for personal use.
however, the nature of the medium itself is limiting - for example you cannot watch your movie on the go. this is where the concept of "Fair use" comes in - making copies for your personal use. - this is what makes your copying your own CDs to your ipod legal, or to your HDD to get low jitter output from the fancy soundcard / DAC. And it is legal - otherwise (esp in india where itunes does notsell music) selling any PMP would be illegal
while in audio it's easy to move your content around, with DVDs and BDs with CSS/AACS, it's more complicated. hence circumvention of CSS/ AACS is critical to allow a genuine consumer to make the same choices! BTW- anyone who has put a regionfree hack on his BD-player has already "gone the distance"
I
do use AnyDVDHD, not just to watch movies on my work computer, but also to backup some movies on my NAS. It's a personal choice, to ensure that I can watch movies anywhere without handling the discs (ensures that they are scratch free, which with kiddies discs is close to impossible). it's insurance against damage in more ways than 1.
I own many HD-DVDs, and while I have 4 PC players for hddvd, I know they will fail much before the HDDVDs get damaged. (it still enjoy the first CDs i got in 1988 and I've changed many players in that period) - without AACS circumvention to copy those hd-dvds to BD, I'd be stuck, because toshiba decided to withdraw.
piracy would have happened anyway - you do not need to circumvent AACS- to make a pirated disc. there are many links in a film's distribution & production, masters can be stolen, (since most films are processed digitially, it's easier than we think, a couple of TeraByte hard drives can do it); you can telecine an actual print when it is distributed all over the world; and then there's the camera print.
how do you think pirated DVDs come out before the original dvds are released? there are many "3 idiot" dvds doing the rounds (I haven't seen that movie - am waiting for the BD)
AACS was more to discourage the private copies - not wholesale piracy - since there is a belief among the music /movie companies that paying customers will pay again (thats why I am eagerly waiting for the LOTR trilogy & starwars on BD, despite owning the full box sets on DVD? - and while we are on conspiracy theories, why are the BDs of these movies not out, yet?)
sorry for a long rant, but as a law abiding citizen (not really - i have got fined for breaking the speed limit), one would expect that your interests get protected.