Why is Valentine's Day special?

Because it's the day after the first news was published on the internets on how to break Blu-Ray and HD-DVD copy protection.

Shattered. It now lies in pieces on the floor. Thank Arnezami for the crack.

This means if you have a computer, and a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive, and the crack, you can rip your own copies. There doesn't appear to be a fully stable UI for the crack yet, but undoubtedly, the coming days will see its arrival.

Of course, with the cost of the blank media still being relatively high, it's not that attractive, but the implications of the hack happening so fast is mind-boggling.

If you want to learn more, then head over to the infamous Doom9.org forum site to get you your answers. I'm not posting links there as specific information about how to break the encryption is published, and I know big brother sniffs long and hard throughout the ether.

SlySoft (maker of AnyDVD) has also put out a beta version of their HD-DVD decrypting software. You can download it directly from their environment.