After seeing how much work has been put into HD DVD's copy protection, AACS, not to mention causing the formats to be delayed, it looks like someone has already succeeded in developing a HD DVD ripping tool (titled BackupHDDVD) that not only copies the content from HD DVD, but also decrypts it like DVD Decrypter.
Going by the developer on this Doom9 forum thread (nicknamed Muslix64), he started off with an Xbox360 USB HD DVD, but could not play back his disc in HD due to his graphics card not being HDCP compliant and a similar issue with his DVI monitor. While he could watch his HD DVD titles on his old VGA monitor, this defeated the purpose of even having a HD monitor! So out of frustration, he aimed to create a tool to decrypt his HD DVD, something that is suppose to be much more difficult to do than DVD, since the AACS protection used in HD DVD is designed to withstand various forms of attack. However, the author discovered that while the encryption keys are protected on the HD DVD disc, to his surprise they are actually stored in memory while the title is playing (possibly with PowerDVD HD DVD edition) and thus has been able to obtain the Title and Volume keys for his HD DVD titles.
However, while this may seem like good news for now for those interested in ripping HD DVD discs, unlike the DVD format, the AACS protection used in HD DVD (and Blu-ray) has been designed to overcome attacks by having the affected software or player revoked in new titles. For example, there will most likely be a security update to plug this hole, followed by this version being revoked in upcoming HD DVD releases. See this FAQ on Blu-ray & HD DVD for further details on the blacklisting capability.
The BackupHDDVD Java tool has been publicly released, however this version requires the user to supply the decryption keys. On the other hand, the tool comes with decryption keys for a handful of HD DVD movie titles. The author aims to include volume & title key support in his upcoming version. A video demonstration of BackupHDDVD in action can be seen on YouTube here.
Thanks to our system administrator Liggy and senior reviewer Womble for spotting this news.
