According to Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) President Dan Glickman, the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) support for "managed copy" of HD DVD and Blu-ray movies will be available before the end of the year.

This will finally let users create their own official backup copies. Whenever we talked about backup copies, we all know that there's potential for exploitation. This is the very reason why studios are going to implement some other security measures.

Accordingly, once the "managed copy" specification is already in place, studios will be able to specify what options they would like to offer and for how much. An example of which is users having an option to create just one free backup copy.

Other options include creating a version suitable for mobile usage for a nominal fee and multiple copies at discounted pricing. The HD DVD Promotional Group added that the new feature is going to be retroactive meaning discs sold prior to the "managed copy" support still have to deal with DRM.

On the other hand, the same is not true for the Blu-ray format. One major Blu-ray partner maintains that there is a fear that managed copy could be exploited and provide a backdoor to AACS security. Speaking of which, certain reports are saying that the recently compromised AACS security is delaying the release of the new feature.

Does this seem all right to you? There is a company that sells pre-loaded iPods, charging people for the service of buying specific DVDs, loading them onto iPods, and then selling them to you. Customers pay for the DVDs, the iPod, and the loading service, and they get everything they bought in the transaction, DVDs included.

For people who don't know anything about video loading or who just want to make a special gift for someone tech-savvy, this doesn't really sound like such a bad deal. For the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), however, it's something they don't like. The MPAA is suing Load 'N Go Video for performing said actions because, according to the MPAA, ripping a DVD is against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and, thus, a violation of copyright.

Here's a problem to think about though. Is it illegal to rip the media you legally purchased onto your iPod? One thing the author of the article brings to light is something Apple did during the early years of the iPod, citing an article from MacWorld and putting in the forefront the idea of fair use:

At the end of the event, we all took home pre-release versions of the iPod, which were already loaded with music. To make the point that the iPod wasn’t meant as a vehicle for music piracy, our iPod packages also contained a stack of audio CDs, the contents of which matched the music pre-loaded on the iPod.

That being said, why can't these DVDs be fair use as well?

There's a reason why the ORLY and YARLY owl phenomenon managed to reach so far. We're not quite sure what it is, but this this sort of news probably got the ball rolling.

There are a majority of young people who don't see the copying of CDs or DVDs to share with friends as wrong, and these people also include a number who are vehemently against downloading pirated media.

Oh, really?

Yah, really.

A poll by the Los Angeles Times and the Bloomberg News Agency discovered that 69% of teens aged 12-17 believed it was legal to copy a CD from a friend who has an original copy. Strangely enough, only 21% thought it was legal to copy a CD if the content inside it was free to begin with. In the same vein, 58% found it legal to copy a video a friend purchased, but the percentage dropped to 19% when the video in question wasn't bought. As 15 year-old Evan Collins puts it, "I think you're allowed to make, like, two or three copies of a CD you bought and give them to friends. It's only once you make five copies, or copy a CD of stolen music, that it's illegal."

This past June The Pirate Bay torrent site's headquarters were raided by Swedish authorities. Afterwards, the site quickly rebounded and it has been in near constant operation since. The site's operators were accused by corporate interest groups like the MPAA and RIAA of being at the center of the rampant piracy which was being conducted with impunity by the users of The Pirate Bay.

While there is little argument over whether or not illegal activity was taking place, representatives of The Pirate Bay and others claim that Bit Torrent technology is used (by tracking sites like The Pirate Bay) simply to track users, establish and maintain connections between the appropriate users and then wrangle the complex algorithms necessary to get complete files distributed to the entire swarm.

The full article awaits after the jump!

As many of you know, The Pirate Bay was recently raided by Swedish authorities in an attempt to bring an end to what the MPAA and RIAA allege is rampant piracy conducted with impunity. While the raid may have brought the site down temporarily, The Pirate Bay is alive and well, and with the help of a generous "anonymous benefactor" the site was only down for a few days.

There are now rumors appearing that assert that the people behind The Pirate Bay plan to file a lawsuit against the MPAA and others for falsely accusing them of committing copyright crimes. The Swedes behind the Pirate Bureau (the politically linked group that supports and funds The Pirate Bay) have been a defiant force both online and in the political arena for years and a lawsuit in the near future would not be too surprising.

They have managed to avoid ending up in the cross hairs of major anti piracy players like the MPAA and the RIAA and until the raid they have not faced prosecution from the government or law enforcement. An effort to legitimize the Pirate Bureau organization would be in line with their view that they are doing nothing wrong and it is the copyright laws that need to be changed instead. Until the most recent situation is ironed out though, questions will remain and the long term fate of online trackers like The Pirate Bay will remain uncertain.

The MPAA has been vocal in their opposition of The Pirate Bay and other file sharing organizations and has reveled in the recent events surrounding the raid. Some online reports suggest that the The Pirate Bay will need to be moved to another, more tolerant, nation in order to remain out of the reach of the MPAA and gain long term stability. Others seem to believe that since the site has weathered this most recent attack, it will be impervious to any future attempts from anti piracy groups to prosecute it. One thing is certain, until some universal ground rules are established regarding the rights of copyright holders and the privacy rights of downloaders, everything will remain up in the air and the fight will continue.