14 DAY TRIAL // Legal pressure has forced SlySoft, maker of AnyDVD and CloneCD, to shut down its website after two weeks earlier an alliance of Hollywood movie studios have pressured US state officials to intervene on their behalf.
SlySoft Inc. is a software company registered in the Carribean country of Antigua and Barbuda. For the past few years, the firm has been a thorn in the side of Hollywood studios and game makers by creating and releasing software that would circumvent DRM and copyright protections on CDs and DVDs.
Its product line includes tools like AnyDVD, AnyDVD HD, Clone CD, CloneDVD mobile, Virtual Clone Drive, Game Jackal, and Game Jackal Enterprise. Without any doubt, the company's most known product is AnyDVD, a device driver used by many movie, game, and software piracy groups (and even home users) to go around DRM restrictions in off-the-shelf DVDs.
SlySoft was at the heart of a drawn-out lawsuit
In 2012, the company and its owner were sued by AACS LA (Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator), a coalition of various movie studios and software makers like Warner Bros, Disney, Microsoft and Intel.
AACS is the legal entity that develops and licenses the AACS copy-protection system used on most of today's HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs.
In 2014, AACS won, and an Antigua judge declared SlySoft's owner guilty of all (six) charges and ordered him to pay a total fine of $30,000 / €27,000 ($5,000 per each charge). Failure to pay would result in three years of prison, or six months per each charge. SlySoft filed an appeal, and the case drags on even today.
AACS asked the US Government to intervene
Seeing their profits diminish because of legal procedures, AACS has asked the U.S. Government to intervene on its behalf to Antigua authorities. AACS asked the US to place the entire country of Antigua on the copyright Priority Watch List, a severe measure that would impose trade limitations between US and Antigua companies.
Eleven days after this incident, the slysoft.com website has gone down and is now showing a message that reads: "Due to recent regulatory requirements we have had to cease all activities relating to SlySoft Inc. We wish to thank our loyal customers/clients for their patronage over the years."
Up to the moment of this article, SlySoft has not confirmed that it shut down because of its lawsuit with AACS, nor because of US' intervention. We believe our users to be smart enough to draw their own conclusions based on all these coincidences.
