What Is CSS Encryption?

CSS encryption is really short for Content Scramble System encryption. It is a Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme that is currently in use to protect intellectual property contained on DVD media. Almost all of the DVDs produced today contain some form of CSS encryption. This system was implemented by the entertainment industry in an attempt to stop video piracy. With the advent of the Internet and the growing popularity of peer-to-peer sharing networks, the leading companies in the entertainment industry found that they losing tens of millions of revenue each year due to illegal sharing of copied media.

The purpose of CSS encryption is to make it impossible for byte-for-byte copies of commercial DVDs to be made. While the implementation of this system did indeed make it impossible for regular users to copy DVDs, computer-savvy internet users soon came up with a way to circumvent CSS encryption. Today, there a great many programs available online that will allow even the average user to strip the CSS encryption from commercial DVDs, allowing copies of that DVD to be made with little more than a DVD copy program and a DVD burner drive.

CSS encryption also allows certain large companies in the entertainment industry to control the production of standard DVD players. In order for DVDs with CSS encryption to work in a standard DVD player, the player will need to include a CSS decryption module. The rights to these modules lie with those companies, and DVD player manufacturers must sign a contract agreement in order to license the technology required to produce the CSS decryption modules. With that contract, the entertainment industry is able to control the DVD player manufacturing industry to a certain extent as well.

With CSS decryption programs now easily available online, the entertainment industry is no longer able to exert the same kind of control over DVD media as before. It is, however, still illegal to make use of any program that removes CSS encryption from DVDs. This helps to prevent video piracy to a certain extent. Most home users hesitate to make use of CSS decryption programs as their use is illegal.

There is a gray area in the laws surrounding CSS encryption, however, as the law also contains a 'fair use' clause that allows people who have bought DVDs a certain amount of liberty with them. This means that most countries technically allow people who have bought DVDs to copy them, so long as these copies are to be kept solely for their personal use. In most cases, this means creating backup copies of DVDs in case something should happen to the original.

CSS encryption is simply another chapter in the long-drawn-out fight between video pirates and the video entertainment industry. The problem for the entertainment industry is that whenever they develop a new protective measure to thwart video pirates, someone, somewhere, inevitably invents a way to circumvent that protective measure, usually within a matter of weeks or even days after the new measure is introduced.