Lawyers representing the DVD industry made an embarrassing blunder when they accidentally published a program for copying DVDs on the Internet.

The mistake occurred during a trade secrets lawsuit filed by the DVD Copy Control Association against 72 websites and individuals earlier this month. In a hasty court hearing, a US court judge placed DVD decryption source code - known as Decss - under seal.

While the gaffe may have been covered over up the order, it is thought that many thousands of Internet users have already downloaded the Decss program.

The Decss program allows compressed video images to be copied from a DVD disc onto a computer's hard drive.