Sony has said that it will replace the DVD titles that caused problems for many of its customers thanks to the company"s ARccOS copy protection. ARccOS is a secondary level of DRM on Sony"s DVDs, used in conjunction with the standard form of copy protection: Content Scramble System. ARccOS intentionally introduces errors to certain sectors of the DVD so that ripping software sequentially will generate errors in the ripped product. Most, but not all, DVD players can read instructions on the disc to skip over these intentional errors without affecting the expected video output.
Although the company has been using ARccOS on its DVDs for some time now, a recent update to the copy protection scheme caused the DVDs to be incompatible with certain DVD players. Sony has apparently decided to tweak its ARccOS software once again in an attempt to fix the problem. Sony claimed in its statement that they only received a miniscule number of complaints "on less than one-thousandth of one percent of affected discs shipped," and said that the update has solved all compatibility issues. It looks like Sony decided to head the lawsuits off at the pass this time by fixing the DVDs" protection software before too many discs got out, but the company sure isn"t making a good name for itself.