Netflix has began warning users of DVDs with the ARccOS copy protection. The copy protection was developed by Sony that intentionally puts corrupted sectors on the disc to prevent it from being copied. As a result of those bad sectors though many DVD players are unable to play the discs.
Netflix has been replacing their inventory of these discs with new ones that don’t have the terrible copy protection but their are still 13 discs left that are affected.
I’m glad that Netflix is warning their users about this but I still can’t believe that Sony did this. Especially since many of Sony’s own DVD players won’t play the discs back, the PS2 slim comes to mind.
I just can’t wait until the movie studios catch up with the music industry and start selling their content DRM free. I just have a feeling it’s going to take them a lot longer to come to their senses then it took the music industry.
I’ve copied the FAQ on this subject from Netflix’s site, you can find it after the jump.
Q: Why won’t some discs play on my DVD player?
A: Certain movies released by Sony Pictures (listed below) were encoded with a version of the ARccOS copy-protection software that made the DVDs incompatible with certain DVD players.The titles that are affected are:
- Black Christmas (2006)
- Casino Royale (2006)
- Crossover
- Curse of the Golden Flower
- The Grudge 2
- The Holiday
- Marie Antoinette
- Open Season
- Pursuit of Happyness
- Rocky Balboa
- Running with Scissors
- Stranger Than Fiction
- Zoom: Academy For Superheroes
The DVD players that are affected are:
- Cinevision RV4000
- Go Video VR3930
- Harman Kardon DVD 25
- JVC DR-MV5
- JVC DR-MV7
- Koss KS4100
- LG LDA-511
- LG LRY-517
- Memorex MVD2042
- Mitsubishi DD-6030
- Philips DVDR-3400/37
- Pioneer DVR 810H
- RCA DRC 6300 N
- RCA DRC350
- Samsung DVD-V3500
- Sony DVP CX777ES
- Sony DVP-CX995V
- Sony DVP-NS9100ES
- Sony PS2 Slim
- Toshiba SD-3750
- Toshiba SD-3800
- Toshiba SD-H400
If you have one of these movies or DVD players please select another one of our 90,000 DVDs until we have received replacement inventory. If you have already rented of these movies, please return it to us and we’ll send you the next available movie in your Queue.