Posted by Goro on 02/23/06 04:03

Hurry, everyone buy SAMSUNG products!

They are currently being sued by US movie studios for having a DVD
player that bypasses Region Coding and HDCP! Hey, ANY manufacturer
that bypasses DRM is worthy of MY support. I'll take a DOZEN! (i hear
it's not really that great a DVD player, htough). I wonder if it also
bypasses PUOPs...

-goro-

http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/20/samsung-sued-over-dvd-duping-by-discontinued-player/

Like a number older DVD players, Samsung's long-discontinued DVD-HD841
can be hacked via a sequence of remote-control keystrokes to, among
other things, become a region-free player and disable copy protection.
And even though Samsung stopped selling the DVD-HD841 in the US in
October 2004, the big US movie studios have decided to make an example
of the company. Disney, Time Warner, Fox, Paramount and Universal have
filed a suit against Samsung, demanding that the company recall all
affected players. Samsung execs are puzzled by the lawsuit and can't
understand why the studios are going after the company over a player
that the company says was discontinued after the copy-circumvention
issue came to light. In the meantime, the lawsuit will likely only
serve to call attention the player, which is still available via eBay
and other sources for as little as $50. Thanks, guys!

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/200602/kt2006021919273711910.htm

Samsung Electronics, Asia's most valuable high-tech company, is
scrambling after multiple U.S. movie studios reportedly took the
Seoul-based firm to court, alleging glitches in its DVD players.

Over the weekend, Bloomberg news reported Walt Disney, Time Warner and
three other major film makers filed the lawsuit against Samsung in U.S.
court.

They claimed that Samsung's DVD players allowed consumers to avoid
encryption features that prevent unauthorized duplication and demanded
a recall of all the problematic products, Bloomberg said.

The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that the movie
industry lost $5.4 billion last year due to piracy.

In response, Samsung refused to confirm the high-profile suit that
involves Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios on
top of Disney and Time Warner.

``In fact, we do not exactly know the contents of the lawsuit and the
intention of the plaintiffs. We have yet to receive the
complaint,'' a Samsung spokesman said.

He guessed that the film makers take issue with DVD-HD841, which
Samsung had sold in the United States between June and October 2004.

``If so, I do not know why the movie studios are complaining about the
products, of which production was brought to an end more than 15 months
ago,'' the spokesman said.

``We stopped manufacturing the model after concerns erupted that its
copy-protection features can be circumvented by sophisticated
users,'' he said.

In this climate, he said Samsung would react to the lawsuit after the
outfit recognizes its real intention.

Samsung Electronics is the flagship affiliate of Samsung Group, the
nation's foremost conglomerate. It is the world's biggest maker of
memory chips and flat-panel displays.

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