The WSJ reports ($) that new copy protection on some Blu-ray discs makes them not work on some players:

The password change caused problems for those who watch discs on a computer using software from Cyberlink Corp., of Taiwan. An upgrade, released Sunday, is required to play the new discs. And Fox’s fortified discs won’t play properly on some Blu-ray players for television sets, including a model from LG Electronics Inc. and two from Samsung Electronics Co., both based in South Korea.

The change was prompted by hackers who quickly figured out how to break the heralded copy-protection on the discs. This all seems relatively minor, and company spokespeople say the problem is fixable. But it’s another step in a cat-and-mouse game that hurts both consumers and the industries. Here’s the best part of the story:

Twentieth Century Fox began releasing new Blu-ray discs with an added layer of copy protection called BD+. Fox had stopped issuing new Blu-ray discs in April — shortly after hackers defeated the existing protections — and has called BD+ a “key factor” in its decision to publish only Blu-ray discs.

Blu-ray plus! Shouldn’t a product that works worse than the previous edition be called Blu-ray minus?