Santa Clara (CA) – A $45 million investment hands Macrovision the keys to a fundamental piece of Blu-ray’s content protection technology.  

According to a press release issued earlier today, Macrovision now owns Cryptography Research’ SPDC (Self-Protecting Digital Content) technology, which represents the framework of BD+, one of the key elements of security platform of the Blu-ray format. Macrovision said that the purchase includes “certain” patents, security software code, and related third party customer and partner agreements: Upon the close of the purchase, Macrovision will be the primary licensor of BD+ technology to movie Studios.

BD+, a virtual machine embossed in Blu-ray playback devices, has been adopted by the Blu-ray Disc Association as an added layer of content protection for Blu-ray media. Compared to DVD digital rights management technologies, BD+ can respond dynamically to security threats as BD+ is integrated into both players and Blu-ray discs, Macrovision said. The virtual machine and APIs that are integrated directly into the media player  communicate with the code from the discs, which enables new titles to carry optimized security code, which, if necessary, can be installed by the platform to update itself. BD+ can also verify whether a player has been modified and whether a player’s key have been changed.

While BD+ has been considered a critical element of Blu-ray DRM, there are already tools to circumvent it: Slysoft recently released a beta version of its AnyDVD HD software, which claims to be able to break the content protection technology.