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>> What copyright laws are used to protect HDVD copyright holders? <<
This is a really good question. The answer is that copyright holders have the same rights regardless of whether the media used to transmit the copyrighted work is an HDVD, a CD-ROM, an internet stream, or a roll of film. Exactly what rights they have depends on what country you are in, for example in the USA copyright is significantly limited by the right to Fair Use, whereas here and in the UK, we have much a more limited exemptions regime called Fair Dealing.
>> My original question for a project is: "Should hdvd copies/copiers be regulated to protect copyright holders?" <<
That depends on whose job it is to enforce copyright. I would argue that it is the job of the courts, not hardware manufacturers. Having manufacturers regulate HDVD equipment to "protect" copyright actually means intentionally crippling the hardware they sell us, so it can't do everything it's capable of for us. This may prevent one way of making unauthorizied copies of copyrighted works, at least until a workaround is developed, or someone sells hardware that's not crippled and everyone buys that instead. However, it also prevents us doing lots of legitimate things with out equipment (including using our Fair Use/ Fair Dealing rights), which means we are getting riped off.
Hollywood tried to stop VCRs being sold with a record function, because they feared that if people could record movies off television, or copy them from VCR to VCR, they would stop going to the movies, and Hollywood would go out of business. History tells a different story. The DRM that Hollywood is currently pushing is based on the same faulty logic, and needs to be dismissed for the same reasons.
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"A government is a body of people, usually, notably ungoverned." - Shepherd Book, 'Firefly'
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