DVDFab development stopped due new German copyright law


A recently introduced more restrictive version of the German copyright has made its first victim. The new law is based on the European Copyright Directive (EUCD) and can be compared to the DCMA in the United States. The law should protect content owners and forbid circumvention of copy protections. The same law is currently scheduled for many other European countries.

On the Movie2Digital forum we can read that the German developer of DVDFab (DVD copy software), Joerg Plenert, felt so insecure about this new law that he has decided to stop the development of his project to make sure he and his family would not be sued by content owners and copy protection developers and get in financial trouble. "I heard many times, DVDFab does not even crack CSS, and indeed it doesn't", Plenert said, "but also Macrovision is a copy protection, some people even say that region codes and UOPs (User Operation Prohibition, e.g FBI warning red.) are copy protections". Plenert does not seem to be up to challenge this in court; "I have a responsibility to my family and my company and don't want to bring them in trouble".

After the decision DVDFab was however still available for a small time. On the 11th of July has the latest version been released and till yesterday this version could be downloaded. On the 31th of July the DVDFab website will be shut down.