US 7,609,944 B2 · Copy protection of optical discs

Abstract

To copy protect an optical disc, such as a DVD, program chains additional to the main program chain are provided. These program chains may lead to the genuine data but in an incomplete or incorrect order or to false data. Sufficient additional program chains are provided to make it difficult to identify the main program chain amongst all of the program chains provided on the disc. The structure of the further program chains ape that of the main program, again to hide the main program chain. The navigation path which leads to the main program chain, and hence to the content on the DVD, is dynamically generated and at least some of the information required to generate the navigational path arises by setting parameters associated with a player or with a user. Thus a search of all of the navigation information on the disc will fail to reveal the navigation path to the content.

Claims32

Dependent claims

A machine readable copy protected optical disc having embodied thereon content and control data, the content and control data comprising:

at least one region of genuine data, at least one region of false data, and the control data having been written on the optical disc by a mastering device, the control data including navigational information to enable access to the content, wherein the navigational information includes at least one main program chain leading to the region of genuine data, wherein the navigational information also includes one or more further program chains, each further program chain leading to the at least one region of false data, and/or incompletely and/or incorrectly leading to the region of genuine data, wherein the structure of at least one of the further program chains resembles the structure of the main program chain, wherein the main program chain including at least one program, the at least one program including at least one cell incorrectly leading to the region of genuine data, and wherein the control data is arranged to generate a dynamic navigational path to enable access to the main program chain upon the setting of parameters associated with a player or a user.

A computer-implemented method of copy protecting an optical disc having embodied thereon content and control data, the content including at least one region of genuine data and at least one region of false data, the method comprising:

providing control data including navigational information to enable access to the content, wherein the content having been written on the optical disc by a mastering device, wherein the navigational information includes at least one main program chain leading to the region of genuine data, wherein the navigational information also includes one or more further program chains, each further program chain leading to the at least one region of false data, and/or incompletely and/or incorrectly leading to the region of genuine data, wherein the structure of at least one of the further program chains resembles the structure of the main program chain, wherein the main program chain including at least one program, the at least one program including at least one cell incorrectly leading to the region of genuine data;
and
providing additional control data arranged to generate a dynamic navigational path to enable access to the main program chain upon the setting of parameters associated with a player or a user.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Copy protection of optical discs

Life of this patent

Copy protection of optical discs

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims32