UK-based 10th Planet has announced the first use of DVD Sequr Copy Protection on replicated DVD.

The system has been used on high profile content in the US under the Fortium Technology brand, but has until now, not been applied to content outside of North America.

The first production that will use the specific copy-protection is 'Chris Crudelli on Crime,' an independently produced documentary by the martial arts expert and TV presenter.

Chris felt that his content was too valuable to risk ending up on the Pirate Bay's of this world. His target audience is technically savvy and the usual mix of CSS and other system would not prevent erosion of DVD sales.

Chris said: "I can honestly say that this copy protection is "kick ass". I used the guys at 10th Planet for the initial promotional run, and they were very helpful in recommending the DVDR version of DVD Sequr. Ensuring that none of my hard work made it out into the public domain before release was very important for me. This DVD will be available on Amazon so I wanted to protect sales in a cost effective way and DVD Sequr provided that for the pressed run too."

Until recently only available on DVDR, this technology is now fully compatible with the DVD replication process, allowing standard DDP images to be protected.

10th Planet claims that DVD Sequr is able to defeat ripping applications and disc to disc copy processes on both PCs and stand alone duplicators.

DVD Sequr is a passive anti-rip solution that encapsulates data files on a DVD disc causing access to the content by common ripping programs to be controlled. The original media content is not modified and play-back quality remains unaffected. This is achieved by introducing copy control encapsulation in areas of the disc that are not read by DVD players during playback. Copy controlled discs are designed to provide effective speed bump protection from unauthorised casual copying. Menus, special features, extras and even dual layer DVDs can be protected without affecting the original content.

The result is a manufactured disc that is fully compliant to the DVD standard, 10th Planet claims.