Slysoft shutdown (by government action?)

[mwb1100]

Slysoft, makers of CD, DVD & Bluray copy-protection circumvention software, has had their operation (or at least their website) shutdown in February.  They were incorporated in Antigua in order to try to prevent this kind of thing, but I guess after a few years their opponents were able to work around that.  It looks like Slysoft (or some group of employees) are trying to resume operation from some other country (Belize?) and maybe under a new name - RedFox.

If you are a customer and want to grab their latest software, the downloads are now hosted here: https://forum.redfox.bz/download/  Who knows how long that'll last, but there seems to be quite a bit of optimism that the operation will resume.

They have moved the forum to another server, https://forum.redfox.bz. Most of the discussion and news about the shutdown and the efforts to resume are in the "General Chat" area of the forum:

  - https://forum.redfox...ums/general-chat.12/

I found out about this when I went to download a copy of the free Virtual CloneDrive software to mount an ISO file.  Note that this particular software is also available at Elaborate Bytes, which is the original author of that particular utility (I think):

  - https://www.elby.ch/en/download.html

[hpearce]

LOL, just remeber that the government/state does these things to protect you

[MilesAhead]

That whole disc decryption thing seems to be a jungle.  I wondered why the author of DVD Shrink was forced to stop developing or hosting it, but other web sites still make it available.  It always seemed like if you charged money for disc copy utilities you weren't shut down but if it was free you were(or maybe income means you can put a laywer on retainer.)  Also I always thought it kind of strange that MakeMKV would decrypt BluRay discs but not standard DVDs.  The author of MakeMKV wants no part of decrypting the DVDs.  The law sure is weird.

[IainB]

@mwb1100: Thanks for this notice.
Included in the list of proggies is the freeware Virtual CloneDrive 5.5.0.0: 2016 01 13.
I already have Virtual CloneDrive 5.4.5.0: 2011 3 6  installed on my laptop, so I upgraded to the latest version, which has undergone quite a lot of change, according to the changelog.

I have the excellent shellcity.net in my feed-reader, and always check that site whenever they make a post. I think I would probably have downloaded Virtual CloneDrive from the link they give at: http://www.shellcity.net/alpha/V
It says there:

VIRTUAL CLONE DRIVE
Comments | Report Entry
Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD can be mounted onto a virtual drive from your hard-disk or from a network drive and used in the same manner as inserting them into a normal CD/DVD drive. Probably the best virtual drive software, Virtual CloneDrive allows you to enjoy the freedom of a virtual drive and is completely free .....(free).....
GO THERE

The "Go There" link is to the now defunct slysoft URL, giving a 404.
I have left a comment about this at shellcity.net re this software.

[Deozaan]

LOL, just remeber that the government/state does these things to protect you

-hpearce (March 06, 2016, 07:14 PM)

Renegade, is that you?

[Tuxman]

Elaborate Bytes, which is the original author of that particular utility (I think)

-mwb1100 (March 06, 2016, 02:47 PM)

Elaborate Bytes were the original makers of CloneCD and CloneDVD, but, being a part of Europe (while still not being a part of the EU), they were forced to sell their "copyright infringing software" to SlySoft.

[wraith808]

LOL, just remeber that the government/state does these things to protect you

-hpearce (March 06, 2016, 07:14 PM)

Renegade, is that you?

-Deozaan (March 07, 2016, 01:01 PM)

Speaking of that, where is Renegade?  Haven't seen him around lately...

[BGM]

I've used Virtual Clone Drive on a hundred and one different computers.

[mwb1100]

I've used Virtual Clone Drive on a hundred and one different computers.

-BGM (March 09, 2016, 11:20 AM)

Yeah - I really like that utility.  It just works and doesn't do anything to annoy me.