Despite the best efforts of the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) Licensing Administration (AACS LA), content pirates remain one step ahead. A new volume key used by high-def films scheduled for release next week has already been cracked. The previous AACS volume key was invalidated by AACS LA after it was exposed and broadly disseminated earlier this month. The latest beta release of SlySoft's AnyDVD HD program can apparently be used to rip HD DVD discs that use AACS version 3. Although these won't hit store shelves until the May 22, pirates have already successfully tested SlySoft's program with early release previews of the Matrix trilogy.

AACS LA's attempts to stifle dissemination of AACS keys and prevent hackers from compromising new keys are obviously meeting with extremely limited success. The hacker collective continues to adapt to AACS revisions and is demonstrating a capacity to assimilate new volume keys at a rate which truly reveals the futility of resistance. If keys can be compromised before HD DVDs bearing those keys are even released into the wild, one has to question the viability of the entire key revocation model.

After the last AACS key spread far and wide across the breadth of the Internet, AACS LA chairman Michael Ayers stated that the organization planned to continue clamping down on key dissemination, despite the fact that attempts to do so only encouraged further dissemination. In a monument to comedic irony, the AACS LA has elected to put out the fire by pouring on more gasoline.

AACS clearly has yet to stop those determined to break the DRM scheme from copying movies, but its key revocation model does create additional burdens for device makers, software developers, and end users. As the futility of trying to prevent copying continues to become more apparent and the costs of maintaining DRM schemes escalate, content providers will be faced with a difficult choice of whether to make their content more or less accessible to consumers.

We are already seeing the music industry beginning to abandon DRM, but it doesn't look like the movie industry is ready to take the same logical step. Instead, the MPAA wants to have the best of both worlds by making DRM interoperable and designing it in a manner that, according to MPAA head Dan Glickman, will permit legal DVD ripping "in a protected way." Although the MPAA's plans for DRM reform could reduce the incentives for hacking AACS, the war between hackers and DRM purveyors will continue for the foreseeable future.