Has anyone seen discussions on how these protection mechanisms can be circumvented?
http://techweb.cmp.com/eet/news/97/942news/encryp.html
To summarize, the Digital Video Disk standard contains an encryption standard for copyright and anti-piracy protection. however, "some U.S. PC and silicon vendors have just about abandoned hope of keeping to their revised launch schedules for DVD-enabled systems." [snip] A solution may be in the offing within days. Some sources said late last week that Matsushita [who owns license rights] and key U.S. computer companies may resolve the software-licensing issues by the end of this week. The PC industry seeks amendments to the licensing-agreement language that would result in equivalent treatment of software- and hardware-based CSS decryption.
... there apparently has been some speculation among the U.S. PC community that Matsushita may be stonewalling on the software-licensing issue so that it can establish its hardware-based decryption solution in the marketplace.
--Steve