Subversive DSV (SDSV) sequences of data symbols having a large absolute value of DSV are extremely valuable in the copy protection of optical discs as they can induce uncorrectable read errors. However, very few SDSV sequences of data symbols can be found in multimodal codes such as Eight-to-Sixteen Modulation (ESM) utilised in DVDs. It is required to select data symbols, for encoding using a multimodal code, which are capable of forcing an encoder to produce at least one subversive sequence of code words. A possible code word for a data symbol is selected if the code word has a large absolute value of DSV and there are no alternative code words, or all alternative code words are equivalent, or all alternatives except one are ruled out by RLL rules.