Some 20 DVD titles fitted with Sony DADC's proprietary ARccOS copy protection system are affected by an incompatibility problem with a small number of DVD players. Titles include Open Season, Casino Royal, Stranger Than Fiction, Rocky Balboa, and The Holiday.

Sony says the copy protection technology was used on a small number of DVDs that passed initial compatibility tests with DVD players. The company estimates as many as 25 million DVDs have the incompatible version of the ARccOS copy protection technology on them.

ARccOS is a digital rights management technology used on Sony's DVDs. The protection has been widely discussed in various online forums in the past due to its sophisticated function to introduce errors to certain sectors of the DVD, making the ripping process complicated. Most DVD players are capable of skipping these intentionaly introduced errors and read the DVD discs, but the latest update to the copy protection scheme caused some DVDs to be incompatible.

According to reports, the problematic DVD titles caused title screen to freeze, when the DVD is loaded. After about 60 seconds the player turned itself off.

"Sony DADC has offered its customers ARccOS copy protection for more than two years. In order to protect content, ARccOS is frequently updated. Recently, an update that was installed on approximately 20 titles was found to cause an incompatibility issue with a very small number of DVD players. Since then, the ARccOS system has once again been updated, and there are no longer any playability problems," reads Sony's official statement.

Story filed 22.04.07