RFID Embedded Discs to Stop Piracy for Good Says Ritek

Daily Tech
Sep. 16, 2006

According to reports, DVDs, CDs, Blu-ray discs and HD DVD discs may soon have RFID chips embedded into them to prevent illegal copying of movies and music. The chip is currently in development by a company called U-Tech, which is a subsidiary of Ritek, the world's largest manufacturer of DVD discs -- both stamped and recordable. The company developing the actual RFID chips is IPICO, and both U-Tech and IPICO have announced production at one of U-Tech's main production plants located in Taiwan.

The technology will also find its way into drives and players. When a user places a disc inside a player, the RFID reader will verify whether or not a disc has been copied or whether or not a movie is being played in the correct geographical location. Unfortunately, this also means that users will be unable to make home backups of discs and store away originals for safe keeping.

Ritek's chief executive officer Gordon Yeh said "this technology holds the potential to protect the intellectual property of music companies, film studios and gaming and software developers worldwide." Apparently, a new RFID equipped DVD drive will perform the security check by hardware, and not require system drivers or specialized software. The intent is to prevent users from creating software to circumvent the RFID mechanism. The online enthusiast community however, has been successfully modifying driver firmware for a number of years.