Popular Blu-Ray Ripping Software Shuts Down Following Legal Pressure

[RZeroX]

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The Antigua-based software company SlySoft has shut down its website and ceased sales of the popular Blu-ray ripping software AnyDVD. The action comes several days after a group of Hollywood studios and technology partners asked the U.S. Government to intervene.

Earlier this month AACS LA, the decryption licensing outfit founded by a group of movie studios and technology partners including Warner Bros, Disney, Microsoft and Intel, reminded the U.S. Government about the unauthorized activities of SlySoft.

SlySoft is known for selling various copyright protection circumvention tools including the popular AnyDVD software, of which it sold tens of thousands of copies over the years.

In 2014 AACS-LA won a court case against the software manufacturer in Antigua, where a local court found SlySoft owner Giancarla Bettini guilty of six charges under the 2003 Copyright Act and ordered him to pay a fine of $5,000 per offense. Failure to pay would result in six months in jail for each offense.

However, despite the win for AACS not much changed. SlySoft’s owner immediately filed an appeal which effectively put the convictions on hold. Meanwhile, AnyDVD remained widely available.

This changed yesterday when the site suddenly went blank as the domain’s main nameservers were removed. Initially it was unclear what triggered the downtime, but a few hours ago SlySoft put up a brief statement confirming an early Myce report that legal problems are the cause.

“Due to recent regulatory requirements we have had to cease all activities relating to SlySoft Inc. We wish to thank our loyal customers/clients for their patronage over the years,” the message of the site’s homepage reads.

Slysoft.com down
 

 

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While there’s no confirmation on the exact reason for the sudden shutdown, it’s not unlikely that AACS-LA’s pressure to the United States Trade Representative had a significant impact.

I've used SlySoft software in the past for dvd ripping but it taking down one dvd ripping software isn't going stop people from ripping dvd's and it sucks for anyone who used this software.

[The Benjamins]

Is their still no free way to watch BD on a pc?

[Centurius]

This is BS, once I buy a show or movie no one should get to decide what I do with it for my own personal use. At least there is plenty of other software left.

[79wjd]

11 minutes ago, Suicidal Korean said:

Is their still no free way to watch BD on a pc?

Of course not. Blurays are shit. 

 

Also, crap, I like AnyDVD HD, it's ten times better than the other crap on the market. 

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, Centurius said:

This is BS, once I buy a show or movie no one should get to decide what I do with it for my own personal use. At least there is plenty of other software left.

Like what? Most other software doesn't work consistently/well.

[Robin88]

MakeMKV + Handbrake. 'nuff said.
Seriously though this sucks for AnyDVD users and for SlySoft, but we should have seen this coming, Hollywood are tossers for this kind of crap and were bound to win a court case involving this, they've got the money and the friends in government to succeed.

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, Robin88 said:

MakeMKV + Handbrake. 'nuff said.
Seriously though this sucks for AnyDVD users and for SlySoft, but we should have seen this coming, Hollywood are tossers for this kind of crap and were bound to win a court case involving this, they've got the money and the friends in government to succeed.

MakeMKV will lock up if you try certain discs, plus it's not as consistently effective as AnyDVD HD. 

[Robin88]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

MakeMKV will lock up if you try certain discs, plus it's not as consistently effective as AnyDVD HD. 

What discs are those? I never seen it lock up personally although I have seen it sometimes fail with discs the first time you scan a disc, but usually works the second time round.
I've used the MakeMKV + Handbrake method on over 200+ films and it worked on every one of them, including Disney films which are notorious for being hard to crack.
I tried AnyDVD and it actually was totally useless for me, it simply didn't work on many of the DVD's I then successfully copied using MakeMKV, but even so, it sucks for those who did use it successfully.
But MakeMKV is an option even if you feel it isn't perfect so we're not totally up shit creek right now, and if it's been a while since you last used it, you might find it's improved since then, it's getting fairly regular updates and is still free so maybe give it a go, it might be a viable alternative for you now.

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, Robin88 said:

What discs are those? I never seen it lock up personally although I have seen it sometimes fail with discs the first time you scan a disc, but usually works the second time round.
I've used the MakeMKV + Handbrake method on over 200+ films and it worked on every one of them, including Disney films which are notorious for being hard to crack.
I tried AnyDVD and it actually was totally useless for me, it simply didn't work on many of the DVD's I then successfully copied using MakeMKV, but even so, it sucks for those who did use it successfully.
But MakeMKV is an option even if you feel it isn't perfect so we're not totally up shit creek right now, and if it's been a while since you last used it, you might find it's improved since then, it's getting fairly regular updates and is still free so maybe give it a go, it might be a viable alternative for you now.

Star Trek (2009) caused MakeMKV to completely lock up and not work on any BluRays (even ones that it used to work with). I used MakeMKV a couple months ago and was forced to stop using it and look for an alternative (which turned out to be Any DVD HD which works flawlessly for me).

[corsairian]

31 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Of course not. Blurays are shit. 

 

Also, crap, I like AnyDVD HD, it's ten times better than the other crap on the market. 

Blurays aren't shit. They usually have crazy high bitrate. Netflix 1080p is around 4mbps, Blurays can be over 40mbps. I prefer Blu-ray movies over streaming movies because Blu-rays look better to me.

[Robin88]

3 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Star Trek (2009) caused MakeMKV to completely lock up and not work on any BluRays (even ones that it used to work with). I used MakeMKV a couple months ago and was forced to stop using it and look for an alternative (which turned out to be Any DVD HD which works flawlessly for me).

That's strange, a quick google tells me that people have successfully copied the disc, so it must be something with your specific setup that caused the issue, maybe try again and post the error logs to their forums? I'd hazard a guess at a dirty lens in the drive or a scratched, or dirty disc or a bad pressing and AnyDVD can somehow work around it, it happens.

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, corsairian said:

Blurays aren't shit. They usually have crazy high bitrate. Netflix 1080p is around 4mbps, Blurays can be over 40mbps. I prefer Blu-ray movies over streaming movies because Blu-rays look better to me.

I should have been more clear. The BluRay standard is shit. The companies fought so hard to put insane levels of encryption on BluRays that in the early days it was possible to have a Bluray disc that would NOT play on certain BluRay players. 

5 minutes ago, Robin88 said:

That's strange, a quick google tells me that people have successfully copied the disc, so it must be something with your specific setup that caused the issue, maybe try again and post the error logs to their forums? I'd hazard a guess at a dirty lens in the drive or a scratched, or dirty disc or a bad pressing and AnyDVD can somehow work around it, it happens.

It's not that it failed to rip, it through an error and then MakeMKV refused to work -- and when I did a google search for the issue it said something along the lines of you ran into some encryption that locked the software and is preventing it from working (the fix being to reinstall windows). 

[RustyZombie]

4 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

It's not that it failed to rip, it through an error and then MakeMKV refused to work -- and when I did a google search for the issue it said something along the lines of you ran into some encryption that locked the software and is preventing it from working (the fix being to reinstall windows). 

I doubt that windows somehow got altered from ripping a disc, but I can't say that I would be surprised if they really did put some "anti-piracy" virus on there.  

[ADM-Ntek]

1 hour ago, Suicidal Korean said:

Is their still no free way to watch BD on a pc?

yes there is it is called leawo it was payed before but is now free i have tested it and it worked with the blu rays i have.

[Arty]

Gotta love the fucking curropt government

[Robin88]

1 hour ago, djdwosk97 said:

I should have been more clear. The BluRay standard is shit. The companies fought so hard to put insane levels of encryption on BluRays that in the early days it was possible to have a Bluray disc that would NOT play on certain BluRay players. 

It's not that it failed to rip, it through an error and then MakeMKV refused to work -- and when I did a google search for the issue it said something along the lines of you ran into some encryption that locked the software and is preventing it from working (the fix being to reinstall windows). 

Hmm, I searched for issues with that particular disc and there is nothing that matches anything you encountered at all, Star Trek 2009 afaik only uses AACS and should not cause the issue you describe, something else was screwing up your system as far as I can tell.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling you a liar, I don't have that BluRay so I can't test it but I found nothing with that particular BluRay and most people have had success except for dirty/damaged discs or dirty lenses or ISO mounting software causing conflicts etc.
And you're right, BluRay is shite, they made it harder for legitimate purchasers of the films to enjoy the content the way they choose and killed BD's chance of ever truly replacing DVD before it even got released, but what do you expect? It was co-developed by Sony, it should have been obvious they'd fuck it up somehow

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

If AnyDVD is not available legally anymore, everyone who would have considered buying it will be using a pirated copy now. 

 

What a win, US Government.  Congratulations, you've achieved NOTHING.

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

If AnyDVD is not available legally anymore, everyone who would have considered buying it will be using a pirated copy now. 

 

What a win, US Government.  Congratulations, you've achieved NOTHING.

Well, now no one is profiting off the illegal software. So, I'd technically consider it a win (not one I'm happy about, but a win nonetheless). 

[-BirdiE-]

I understand they're trying to stop pirating...

But at some point you need to stop screwing over the consumers who are buying their products in an ineffective attempt to stop pirating.. If anything their efforts are encouraging people to pirate their content. "I had this nice software that let me watch the content I bought wherever I wanted, but now if I buy it I'm actually more limited than if I pirated it."

 

ADDED: For example... I actually buy blu-rays because I like the much better quality (vs streaming or digital download). When I buy a blu-ray I rip the video file, put it on my home server so I can access it from anywhere, and then store the physical disc in a box in my basement. If I lose the ability to rip the video off the disc, that's a HUGE inconvenience for me. I have to go search for the disc every time I want to watch something, I can't watch it if I go somewhere and don't bring it with me, and I risk damaging the disc and never being able to watch it again.

 

If they shut down the program I'm using, I'm just going to stop buying and start pirating.

[Misanthrope]

I'd be outraged about this....if optical media was still relevant. This is mildly annoying and extremely worrisome on principle, but mostly on principle only.

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I'd be outraged about this....if optical media was still relevant. This is mildly annoying and extremely worrisome on principle, but mostly on principle only.

Optical media is still relevant if you want to watch high quality 1080p 5.1/7.1 content. I can distinguish between a native Bluray rip (30GB~) and a high quality encoding that's still 20GB~ let alone the crap Netflix streams.  

[-BirdiE-]

2 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I'd be outraged about this....if optical media was still relevant. This is mildly annoying and extremely worrisome on principle, but mostly on principle only.

^^ You just know this guy bought a 4K TV to watch 4K Netflix and Youtube....

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

Well, now no one is profiting off the illegal software.

It's not illegal everywhere, there are a lot of countries where the legal status is unclear. 

 

The Belgian law allows me to make a backup copy of any software/movie/music I buy, regardless of the manufacturer's restrictions.  If I need to bypass encryption to achieve that goal, there is no law in place to stop me from doing so.

 

At best, the court has the authority to prohibit sales in the US.  However it looks like they are trying to police the world again.  

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

It's not illegal everywhere, there are a lot of countries where the legal status is unclear. 

 

The Belgian law allows me to make a backup copy of any software/movie/music I buy, regardless of the manufacturer's restrictions.  If I need to bypass encryption to achieve that goal, there is no law in place to stop me from doing so.

 

At best, the court has the authority to prohibit sales in the US.  However it looks like they are trying to police the world again.  

I meant from the perspective of the US government (where it probably is illegal). From the US governments perspective it's a win as the developers are no longer profiting off of what is considered by the US to be an illegal activity. 

[-BirdiE-]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Optical media is still relevant if you want to watch high quality 1080p 5.1/7.1 content. I can distinguish between a native Bluray rip (30GB~) and a high quality encoding that's still 20GB~ let alone the crap Netflix streams.  

Exactly. That's the thing people don't understand... All people know is resolution. When you get into higher resolutions, bitrate is SO much more important.

 

People see 4K Netflix and Youtube and think they're getting 4K content... But really, just putting a 1080p blu-ray on their TV would look better. I know you know, but for those who don't, a 1080p blu-ray is 30-40Mbps... 1080p Netflix and youtube are ~5Mbps, and at 4K they're ~25Mbps...