A new way to fight the Pirates of the Carabean of the movies, was presented recently at the DVD Forum in France. The system is different than the ones made before, and it relies on sound instead of vision.

This will be implemented in the new era of DVD's, the High Definition DVD that will be out in 2006.

What's so good about HD-DVD? Here's an example: The HD DVD-Video structure includes extended versions of the conventional DVD-Video object (VOB) and Video navigation. Exclusive to HD DVD-Video is the Advanced Object, encompassing advanced graphics and text that, for example, makes possible user selection of subtitle font and positioning, benefiting both hearing and visually impaired viewers. Learn more about the HD-DVD at the DVD Forum site.

OK, back to the point of this post and to explain how the new protection system works, let's just say that the soundtrack of the movie will be one important thing: All HD-DVD players will have a sensor that looks for inaudible watermarks in the soundtrack of movies. The watermarks will be included in the soundtracks of all major movies released to cinemas.
If a DVD player detects the telltale code, the disc must be an illegal copy made by copying a film print to video, or pointing a camcorder and microphone at a cinema screen. So the player refuses to play the disc.

Interesting news via Gizmodo and New Scientist