New DRM Scheme To Make Current DVD Players Obsolete 544
Oneflower writes "ExtremeTech reports that a proposed new DRM scheme could make current DVD players obsolete. The scheme, from Hewlett-Packard and Philips, targets DVD+R and DVD+RW and is an attempt to enforce the FCC broadcast flag on DVD recorders."
Nothing to see here, please move along (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nothing to see here, please move along (Score:4, Funny)
New DRM Scheme To Make Duplicate Slashdot stories Obsolete
Might just get some support!
Re:Nothing to see here, please move along (Score:3, Funny)
How 'bout: New DRM Scheme to Make Duplicate Slashdot stories illegal. You're not allowed to do that anymore.
In Tonight's News (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In Tonight's News (Score:5, Funny)
Pfft. Platinum Edition. Your geek license should be revoked.
Re:In Tonight's News (Score:4, Funny)
You can get like 400 pounds of titanium for the cost of an ounce of platinum.
Now Plutonium Edition would be plausible.
Re:In Tonight's News (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In Tonight's News (Score:4, Funny)
Hurrah! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Funny)
The more you tighten your grip, Ms. Fiorina, the more engineering talent will slip through your fingers.
Re:Hurrah! (Score:4, Funny)
Not after we demonstrate the power of our lawyers. In a way, you have determined the choice of the poor bastard that'll be sued first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the SuprNova mirror, I have chosen to test the DMCA's destructive power... on your ISP.
No Big Deal (Score:4, Informative)
DVD-R is the preferred recordable DVD flavor for movies these days. It's cheaper than +R and more compatible with DVD players.
FU CARLY
Re:No Big Deal (Score:2)
Re:No Big Deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No Big Deal (Score:3, Informative)
B&W has good values in truly great speakers--you can get brilliant sound for $300 or so (and when I say brilliant, I mean even Stereophile and places like that rate it very high, AND it just plain sound great). Or Hale, or Paradigm.
If you really want to spend thousands, look at the Magnaplanar 1.6Q or the Vandersteen 2ce signature.
Re:No Big Deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No Big Deal (Score:3, Interesting)
No kidding...
Wow, thanks HP and Phillips. Really looking out for your customers, aren't you?
Not that I was planning on buying anything DVD related from those two companies in the future, but I will be avoiding them like the plague now. And advising my family and friends to do the same.
Re:No Big Deal (Score:2)
Can't be long though before the Chinese start making DVD TV recorders. With any luck, they'll even include an AGC that doesn't get thrown by crap in the retrace period
Huh? The +R format is compatible BY DESIGN (Score:4, Informative)
ROFL. Slashdot man speaks with forked tongue.
DVD+R was designed specifically to have a format that is compatible with the DVD-movie standard. In other words, a DVD movie player doesn't even need to know about DVD+R to be able to play movies written to a DVD+R disk. It's hard to get more compatible than that, and I'm proving the compatibility daily on my antique DVD movie-only players.
No other DVD format is compatible with DVD movie in this way. All the other formats require the player to have been programmed explicitly to handle them.
Re:Huh? The +R format is compatible BY DESIGN (Score:3, Informative)
+R is significantly less compatible.
+/- compatibility is the same (Score:3, Insightful)
1. It can't handle the optical properties of the DVD*R(W).
2. It doesn't recognize the media type and refuses to play.
DVD+R(W) and DVD-R(W) use exactly the same materials. Once burned, the optical properties are identical (the differences are in the technology used for tracking the burning process), and the bit pattern of the same data is the same (assuming no record-time glitches that trigger Just-Link type compensation, and ignoring some extremely
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Score:3, Funny)
It already has Digital Video Express (DiVX) written all over it. Adding Betamax on top of that could only improve its chances!
Re:HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one of those myths that has been repeated so often that people believe it. Betamax was at most very slightly ahead of VHS on picture quality, but even that is arguable (though certainly there were brief windows where one or the other would debut a new technology that gave it an edge). See, for instance, http://tafkac.org/products/beta_vs_vhs.html [tafkac.org] (which has many source references, including independent comparisons published at the time); here
Re:HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Score:4, Insightful)
MP3 still rules music because it's good enough and small enough. Other formats may be better/smaller, but they aren't better/smaller enough to warrant people wanting to swap.
But they have to standardize on the new scheme (Score:3, Informative)
This is the new standard whether we like it or not since many dvd makers will be fined if they do not include the drm.
Isn't corruption great?
Re:But they have to standardize on the new scheme (Score:3, Insightful)
By law where, exactly? It sure as hell isn't law here in the UK, and I'm betting our export market in DRM-free DVD players/recorders will get an enormous boost around July 2005 if that's the case where you are. :-)
Re:But they have to standardize on the new scheme (Score:3, Informative)
Re:But they have to standardize on the new scheme (Score:3, Interesting)
If such a law actually exists (and I'm not convinced it does), then it would only apply to the US. However, players imported into the US would have to adhere to the US regulations. Namely, if the law says the players must obey a "broadcast" flag, then the players coming in from overseas would have to be modified for sal
Re:But they have to standardize on the new scheme (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the new standard whether we like it or not since many dvd makers will be fined if they do not include the drm.
Yes the law mandates equipment not ignore the broadcast flag, but I don't recall it mandating new MEDIA that are incompatible with existing drives.
As far as accepting it, I suspect this is going to be one of those issues that gets enough of the general public pissed to get something done. When su
Nothing to do with players .... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, from R'ing TFA, the article headline is very misleading. This will not make any change to current DVD players. It makes changes to make the recorders obey the evil bit/broadcast flag.
The fact that they expect the media and the players to cost more once this is in place (so Hitachi can get their royalties of course) is going to slow adoption of this.
Cheers
Re:Nothing to do with players .... (Score:4, Informative)
Not very likely.... (Score:3, Interesting)
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
And a hack will be made, a firmware update released and in the end we will be back to what we are doing today.
Weird thing is, they seem to acknowledge that:
From TFA: "In large part, the issue with the new players will solve itself," said Chris Buma, an A/V program manager with Philips Consumer Electronics, at a press conference held by the DVD+RW Alliance here. "It is a restriction, but a restriction that can be overcome."
Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)
In a related story... (Score:5, Funny)
Protecting me from who? (Score:5, Insightful)
from the article, emphasis mine: Hewlett-Packard and Philips said Wednesday that they have developed a content-protection system for DVDs, designed to protect users from burning "protected" DTV broadcasts.
How on earth does this "protect users"? It only tries to protect the bottom line of media megacorporations. Being manufacturers of the physical drive units I don't doubt they may try backtracking and manufacturing drives for stand-alone DVD players which only play +R(W) media, too, thus locking out the -R(W) media which won't work with this new scheme.[0]
Fortunately the general public seems to be getting more tech savvy (the refusal to accept Circuit City's Divx scheme, rising awareness of spyware and solutions, etc) so hopefully people will see this as it is: a money grab.
[0] - a bit of irony on Philips part there I think; I just picked up a Philips DVP642 DVD player which can also play divx and xvid on cdr/dvdr/etc. Surely they know the great bulk of those are downloaded.
Re:Protecting me from who? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Protecting me from who? (Score:5, Insightful)
The VCTS scheme will also be built into next-generation media, which will slowly replace the non-DRM encoded DVD+R discs over time. The new discs will be somewhat more expensive than their DRM-free counterparts, explained Jun Ishihara, a product manager for Mitsubishi Chemical Media Co., also known as Verbatim. Likewise, the new players will probably be priced somewhat higher than conventional players, HP executives said, although pricing will be up to individual manufacturers.
"So" says the guy in the shop, "your telling me that I have to pay more for less? And this is in my best interests? Your protecting me from what exactly?"
Re:Protecting me from who? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean lets face it John Travolta worked hard for that 11 million to buy a zeppelin. The head of Sony might have to get a smaller jet if we do not do something now! It is to save you from a world with out sitcoms and mindless movies. You need to start helping yourself. Send you money right now to
Save the poor Millionaires
666 Sony Way
Santa Anna CA.
Or you can buy my book called "Who is stealing from you?" just send $500 dollars to me and I will let you know who is ripping you off. I promise that I will provide you with information about someone that has taken at least 500 dollars from you in a totally legal if unethical way. Makes a great gift as well.
Re:Protecting me from who? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds a lot like "audio CD-R media" to me, which cost at least twice as much as general-purpose data CD-R's, due to the piracy levy, and are flagged so that you can't record them with the $30 CD-RW drive in your PC, you have to buy a separate $200 CD deck.
That idea never caught on outside of a small niche, and neither will this one.
Re:Protecting me from who? (Score:3, Interesting)
Music CD-Rs work just fine in regular $20 CD-R drives, and tons of consumers are stupid enough to think you *need* the music ones if you want to burn music.
Re:Protecting me from who? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, the DRM problem, real or perceived, has to be addresses and s
Re:Protecting me from who? (Score:3, Funny)
Your bitter cynicism troubles me. Must you be so negative?
I will protect you. Go stand by the stairs. (Score:3, Funny)
Pak Chooie Unf (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Pak Chooie Unf (Score:3, Funny)
Pushing is the answer
Humans must be pushed
They must go down the stairs
Re:Protecting me from who? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are using the word "protect" in the old, unfashionable sense.
The new meaning (popularized by the true cancer of the Earth - human greed, incarnate here in the ever growing metastasis of megacorporations, always looking for more resources to eat into and exploit, eventually killing the host organism in the process), the new meaning of the word "Protect", is, of course, no secret here, "To hinder from, to restrict". Just as in the good old meaning of the more p
Ironay and codecs - geeks strike back (Score:3, Interesting)
I think rather than irony this is a fun example of how geeks can pull one over on increasingly clueless higher ups - to upper management at Phillips Divx is nothing more than another item on a checkbox list of features!! I'll bet some guy got Divx added in just that way. It's what I would do, were I wor
Even if that worked... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a threshold to just how much crap people will put up with it. Mine and some fellow geeks may have lower thresholds, but eventually the public threshold will be met as well and the companies that keep pulling these silly stunts will get a thrashing in the form of competition that treats customers like customers, not like crooks.
Competition is already here (Score:4, Insightful)
Ultimately, TV and Movies are just another form of entertainment. If they make access to these things expensive and inconvenient, people will simply choose another way to be entertained. They'll go watch the latest e-mail from strong bad. They'll download some fan produced star wars movie. They won't have to pay a dime and ultimately they'll be as entertained, if not more so, than they were from TV and Movies.
So go ahead mega media empires. Go ahead and DRM and freak out about all of this, and watch it all crumble underneath your feet. We are your CUSTOMERS, and you are supposed to provide us a service. If you actually think that intentionally introducing confusing, complicated, and inflexible products will make us more willing to give you money, you need to get into rehab.
sue! (Score:4, Funny)
If the eye can see it, or the ear can hear it.... (Score:5, Interesting)
When are they going to learn?
yeah, right... (Score:2)
consumers have the money companies want. consumers decide what's worth their money. if these companies think they can just release a product that will make DVD players obsolete and consumers will accept it, they are dead wrong.
it has nothing to do with rights or DRM, it's a simple matter of average joe's seeing that things doesn't work the way they used to. and he/she will not buy any more of them because these things "don't work."
Re:yeah, right... (Score:3, Interesting)
After all we all now use macrovision and many of us bought new TV's because we could not figure out why we could not watch some certain movies. I know my parents did and it was years later until I found about Macrovision.
This new standard will be standard. It has to be by law. June 2005 is the deadline for the old standard to become obsolute under the DMCA.
Its also a crime punishable to 10 years in prison to copy movies you own or practice fair use.
The US government is alwa
New DVD DRM? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:New DVD DRM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Works for me... (Score:2)
---
Guess I should add "Bids" as well as comments here [blogspot.com] ;-)
Can't wait for the crack (Score:2, Funny)
In other news, 15 years ago a woman in Lithuania gave birth to a kid who will crack the new scheme shortly after his sixteenth birthday.
Dearest Consumer, (Score:5, Funny)
In order to secure our profits, you must go out and buy new hardware.
Re:Dearest Consumer, (Score:5, Funny)
Protect our schools from the terrorist threat. Buy our new hardware.
Do it for the children.
The proper response (Score:2, Insightful)
Stop sending money to the MPAA and RIAA by buying the goods which support them.
If they don't have money, they can't buy congress-kritters. If they don't have money, they will wither away and become dust.
The market will decide... (Score:5, Insightful)
The same thing has happened with multi-region DVD players here in Europe. If it doesn't have a way to get round the illegal-restriction-of-trade technology, then people simply won't touch it.
Every player in every store now has a hastily applied sticker saying "Multi-Region!". Once the new recorders come out, word will get around about any models that can be bypassed, and sales will take off, leaving others face down in the dust.
And, of course, since US companies aren't allowed to do this, only overseas companies who deliver to several markets will have a legitimate excuse.
So, congratulations, once again US legislators are outsourcing American jobs and increasing the trade deficit.
Well done!
Re:The market will decide... (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't even bother doing that any more, because it's pretty much taken as read that all players, certainly here in the UK, are multi-region out of the box. I just bought a cheapy-cheapo 14" TV/DVD portable for the bedroom, which didn't have any mention of multi-region, but that didn't bother me much because the bulk of my DVDs are now R2. But I tried an R1 disc anyway - and whaddya know, it worked!
AFAIK, the only name-brand players on the high street that aren't already multi-region (or at least hackable via remote) are Sony, because their ties with Columbia-Tristar mean they have a vested interest in maintaining the blatantly consumer-unfriendly region coding system alive. But even then, you can probably get chipped Sony players for a minimal premium from places like Richer Sounds anyway.
Considering how DVD has taken off - way above what the corporations behind it expected - I think they've made a rod for their own profit-projecting backs. VHS has had a highly profitable lifespan of, what, 20+ years? No way is Joe Consumer going to buy his favourite films all over again in just five years simply because there's new premium-priced hardware to sell and stronger region coding/DRM to enforce!
Re:The market will decide... (Score:5, Interesting)
Tescos, Asda Walmart and Sainsburys.
The supermarkets have reputations to keep. If the average shopper cannot play every disk under the sun then he returns the DVD player with no questions asked. He also grumbles about the supermarket to all his friends in the traditional British way.
Tescos want everyone to be happy with their purchases. They want everyone to be happy with their cheap 30 pound player. Everyone is happy, including me.
Now is the time... (Score:5, Funny)
Unless... this is a scheme to make us buy shedloads of cheap DVD players and VCRs. Argh! What's the conscientious paranoid supposed to do with himself nowadays?
Not going to change anything (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not going to change anything (Score:3, Insightful)
The people behind that anouncement are probably just trying to appease a bunch of idiots in Hollywood.
This may be true, but in the meantime a lot of time, energy and money is going to be wasted that could be going into something innovative.
One of the definitions of insanity is exhibiting the same behavior again and again but expecting a different outcome each time.
Sound familiar?
-Sean
I'm confused. (Score:3, Interesting)
Current DVD players obsolete???? (Score:3, Insightful)
If that's not the case, then it's bullshit. Although I won't argue that a lot of media piracy is abound, by _FAR_ the biggest use for DVD players is to watch actually legally purchased or rented content, and if these changes won't interfere with that on old players then the whole "making DVD players obsolete" thing is just mindless hype.
Boycott (Score:3, Insightful)
Go read a book, go surf the net, go create something or take up cooking or amature botany or anything rather than give your attention and money to these schmucks who want to eliminate rights you've had for the past however many years.
This isn't food or shelter or clothing. If the supplier abuses you - abandon him.
Well, I'm fine with it... (Score:4, Interesting)
However, I bought a DVD player, and if it stops playing DVDs for no good reason, I'm not going to be enthusiastic about buying another...
Re:Well, I'm fine with it... (Score:4, Insightful)
sellout!
What are your personal liberties worth? Are you so eager to return to feudalism? That's what the future currently holds. Private property (fair use, first sale) is slowly being replaced by perpetual leases to our "benevolent" corporate overlords. What happens when the hardware DRM infrastructure is in place and they decide to stop being so "benevolent"? DRM offers the consumer no benefits, while giving corporations abusive opportunities.
Reject any short term incentives for accepting DRM in any incarnation, whether it be a free hardware player or otherwise. In the long term, you lose.
Freedom isn't "free".
Decide that open formats and technologies that respect your rights are worth more, even if they require more financial outlay.
arg!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would consumers willingly pay MORE for LESS functionality, and kick their current gear to the curb to boot?!
*shudder*
e.
This has failed every tim it's been tried (Score:3, Interesting)
Each time they made money for the sellers of the scheme, but harmed the purchasers. And I don't mean the end-users, I mean the companies that shipped software that depended on unreliable and sometimes deliberately broken hardware.
Customers couldn't use the products, and returned them for a refund. Which made the dealers relctant to stock them, and eventually the products were supplanted by their more functional competitors.
--dave
Not new (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not new (Score:3, Informative)
This is a standalone unit and you were trying to record from an analog source right? Sounds like macrovision.
You were probably trying to record another DVD or VHS tape by playing it into the panasonic.
This new stupidity from HP is about digital recordings only.
BTW, for about $60 you can buy a "video clarifier" from radio shack which will effectively strip macrovision from the analog video allowing
Fine. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fine. (Score:3)
I don't have a DVD player... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still waiting for two features they never brought over from VHS:
1. A format that will ALWAYS fast forward when I hit the fast forward button. (same with rewind)
2. A format that will withstand the destructive force of a toddler. (Though I do applaud the DVD's resistance to heat from a car.)
If this new-fangled DRM standard player would provide me with those things (and have a low cost), I'd look into buying one. I'm not holding my breath.
Re:I don't have a DVD player... (Score:5, Funny)
2. A format that will withstand the destructive force of a toddler. (Though I do applaud the DVD's resistance to heat from a car.)
Excuse me sir, but how long do you plan on keeping this toddler?
Hm... Seems to me that you have no reasons... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I don't have a DVD player... (Score:3, Funny)
hehe..the child of a friend of mine thought the slot in the VHS was a receptacle for the remains of his peanutbutter sandwich. And then said child (tried to) put a tape in after it.
When will DRM oriented companies learn? (Score:4, Insightful)
To get around this, companies would have to then have to figure out how to pick up traits in the music/film as opposed to relying on actual markers. This too can be easily overcome though for example for the case of music, the pitch can be altered by less that 1% and for most people the difference would be virtually nill.
What I resent is that film studios and distribution companies are making a fortune here, while something which was one of the basic given rights, to make a legit backup, is being taken away. I'm sure as hell not going to be spending another $70 on some box set when some rugrat happens to scratch one of the DVDs. If film companies were really threatened by piracy and weren't using this as some kind of "anti-double jeopardy" thing they'd have some way that you could prove that you'd bought the original and they'd send you a replacement if you damaged yours for a minimal fee. After all, the media costs literally pence to produce and it is the content that we are actually paying for.
Re:When will DRM oriented companies learn? (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's really about the IP, where's my cheap replacement copy to remove the NEED for a backup?
Thanks for writing that.
What is in it for me? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Better picture quality
- Better sound quality
- Additional extra's
- No need to rewind the tape
- Ability to skip to certain sections of the film
- Smaller physical size of the DVD medium
There are 6 keys things there that satisfy the "what is in it for me?" factor.Having a new format with better DRM fails this test completely. The only way it will ever get adopted is if people are forced to change - and there will be public uproar.
In short, if they're going to want to introduce it, then they have to come up with some other features that really will make people want to "upgrade". If not, then it is pretty much dead in the water from the beginning.
Re:What is in it for me? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm thinking that if they offered this for cheaper than what we pay now, they would get some sales. For example, I don't like paying around $1 per blank dvd but that's about what I pay. I can get a stack of 50 for $40 and with tax it comes to maybe $.83 or so... but that's three
Compelling reason for users to upgrade? (Score:5, Insightful)
DVD worked where LaserDisc failed, because the electronics became cheaper, and the quality was much better than VHS, while not taking any more physical space than VHS.
Better quality + same price point = commercial success
However, if this new stuff requires consumer purchase without consumer gain, it will be relegated to the halls of failed products, in the display case between DIVX (the single use disc, not the codec) and SunnComm's CD copy protection which could be bypassed through the use of the shift key.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SONY tried this crap and LOST big time. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just think, what would happen if they sold DVD music albums amungst the CD music, but didn't make it clearly apparent on the outside to a reasonable person (read: fine print on the back of the case or absense of an emblem is not clearly labeled)? That's pretty much what happens now.
A modest proposal... (Score:5, Insightful)
The author suggests that IFF an activity (copying) is prohibited via technical or practical means, it follows that activity is restricted by copyright law.
This is the view that the **AA has been promoting for some time now, through propoganda and the DMCA.
That is--if it's technically difficult, it must be illegal. And, via the DMCA, that we, the **AA, will decide what's legal and what rights you have. You will be informed of our decision after you buy our product.
Folks, it doesn't work that way. Fair use has not been repealed. Not by the unelected and un-apointed **AA, and not by the passage of the DMCA.
The DMCA gives a group of unelected people the practical ability to make certain legal activities illegal. Our constitution doesn't allow that. The power to pass legislation comes from the whole of the people. The select group that we give this task was ostensibly elected by the whole of the people they represent. Not by a small group.
A person (or corporate "person") who wishes to apply for this sort of protection should not be allowed to arbitrarily remove rights from other persons.
I propose a test:
"If you want your RM system to be protected under the DMCA, you must submit it for approval. (leaving the approval process and challenges to improperly approved systems to another discussion). If your system inhibits legally protected activities, your system may not be protected under the DMCA. You may implement the system, as long as it doesn't break existing laws. But if someone chooses to break your system in order to exercise their rights in an otherwise legal manner of their choosing, the law will not stop them. However, if your system ONLY inhibits those activities in a manner you are already legally entitled to control, then it may be protected."
Seems to me a fair test--Everybody's existing rights are protected. No unelected person gets to make arbitrary decisions for the rest of us, then use the penalty of law to enforce those decisions.
It removes the power to enact laws from the **AA and the puts it back into the hands of the legislature where it belongs.
This assumes, of course, that legislators answer to the will of the majority of the citizens they represent--not to the citizens offering the biggest bribe.
No sir, I don't like it. (Score:3, Insightful)
What this will do is force more people to get on the Internet to download cracked versions of DVD images on the file sharing networks and burning their own copies, because the new DVDs won't play in their $60 DVD player they bought a few years ago. Rather than spend $120 for a new DVD player, they spend $59 on 100 DVD-R disks in bulk and start up whatever P2P file sharing program they can and make DVD-R copies of movies from that.
Way to go, the more you tighten your grip on the DRM movement, the more revenue that slips through your fingers.
P.S. The Hackers/Crackers will find a way around this protection in less than a month, and turn protected DVDs into DVD ISO images using a DVD ripper. The ISOs can then be burned back to a DVD-R or DVD+R or DVD+RW disk after that, the DVD ISOs can be shared over file swapping networks.
Planned obsolescence? (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly, were I a lawyer, as soon as these things started being sold to the channel, I'd try to put together a class-action lawsuit claiming harm to the class of people who previously purchased recording devices that were being legally used that now had to go out and purchase new units.
Also, the fact that these new units would cost more due to the implimentation of this copy-protection scheme creates additional actionable harm.
I would add, for the benefit of karlandtanya that the term fair use also refers to the permission to exhibit or broadcast copyrighted material due to a news event, like the death of a person connected with the material, a photograph of a person and so on. Fair use in the United States exists for a period of 48 hours and then it expires. In that event, one might be able to use one's home-digitized material on a blog as long as the link was removed in 48 hours, though this has certianly not been tested.
What he is referring to is home copying, which is legal as a result of the Sony Betamax Case [museum.tv] that specifically allows home recording and copying and storing of material for personal use.
Remember Gutenburg (Score:4, Insightful)
All these DRM/Copy protection schemes are an attempt to return us to the days before the Gutnburg printing press when an elite group (in those days the Church) were the only people who could read and write the Latin books and hence the only people that could interpret the Bible for you.
Add to this the fact that with a closed proprietary format then in X years time you may not be able to view content you've paid for (the hardware is no longer manufactured, the format is proprietary and the skills/information needed to decode it have been lost/forgotten)
What we have with all these schemes is utter barbarians trying to appropriate culture for their own use and profit.
Monopolise the means of production the means of distribution (digital certificates, DRM) and kill any minor players (independent producers who are priced out of the process) These people want an Eastern Bloc style Communist entertainment industry ! "The party makes good stuff huh and you will buy".
What cultural inheritance will our current generations leave for future historians ? Nothing at this rate (min you that could be a blessing for the ones to come
All together now.... vote with your wallets and just say no.
Re:Oh the irony (Score:5, Interesting)
The media companies are trying to find ways to curtail not just piracy but legitimate fair use. They fought VCR's when they first came out and the movie studios fought television when it first came out.
They are short sighted and almost always fight what ends up making them a lot of money when they lose. The danger is they may not lose this time.
Re:DivX WTF!?!?!? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:In Europe we say... (Score:3)
Re:In Europe we say... (Score:5, Funny)
Federal Censorship Committee. You guys should really look into getting yourselves one. They're great!