New DVDs already sparking copy-protection confusion

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Won't stop the pirates, just annoys the customers

Does anybody believe for one moment that this will put any serious dent in the piracy problem. I can personally guarantee that as soon as the first High Def DVDs hit the market, there will be high quality knock-offs on streets in Taiwan, Thailand, Phillipines, Malaysia and other asian countries where pirates are headquartered. The technology to defeat these copy protections get more advanced along with all other technology advances. That's the problem and that's the point.

Just like we pay for bottled water and cable when free alternatives are at our fingertips, we will pay for high quality movies if the price is right and easy to get and use. Consider, why will I buy my movies from the guy on the street corner, when for the same price I get the same movie at guaranteed high quality with the ability to return it if I have a problem using it? The catch is the movie must be available at a low cost and with reasonable (read few and easy to use) copy protection. Better yet, remove the copy protection completely and pass the savings on to me to lower the cost even more. Now it's a volume game and Hollywood and it's partners have that game won. No single pirate or group of pirates can crank out more copies than Hollywood, so the cost goes down as volume goes up. Now anyone can afford to purchase movies and Hollywood makes more money than they know what to do with. It's the same argument I've made about the Music industry. But I doubt that Hollywood will display any more intelligence and foresight than the Music industry has.

Boardroom discussion:
Suit#1: I say let's add the most difficult copy protection scheme we can find, don't release the specs right away and make sure that you can only play the disk on non-computer equipment.
Suit#2: But won't that anger some of our customers who buy the disc hoping to watch the movie on the plane trip home or during the 3 hour car trip to Aunt Judy's?
Suit#1: So what! What are they gonna do? It's not like they have much choice. They are sheep just waiting for us to herd them into the pen and sheer them. So let's not keep them waiting, huh?

If we were serious about our consumer rights and believed in our own power as consumers, we'd just not buy the new discs. Let Hollywood crank out millions of these new discs and we just let them sit on shelves. If Hollywood follows typical patterns, they won't even make the new movies available on the older formats. That would mean NO (or very few) movie sales to home video over a period of months to a year or more. The message would be loud and clear. "We decide what format works for us and this one doesn't. Change it now or sit on your worthless inventory till someone else figures out how to give us what we want and will pay for."

But I believe we are sheep and will happily let ourselves be herded into the pen. Only then will we wonder "what happened?" "How did we get here?". "Baaaaaa".

I won't be buying these new discs until the copy protection allows computers to play them with high quality and little effort. Or until someone prys the money from my cold dead hands.

Consider also that while I don't pirate movies and I don't buy boot-legged movies or music, I would consider buying boot-legged movies as an option if there were no alternative. I would purchase the legal disc, then pay another $8-10 for the boot-legged version that I can play anywhere, including on my computer. Yeah, I spent more, but I got what I wanted. If only Hollywood could learn this lesson as well as the pirates have. Oh well.

Posted by: gigglypuff   Posted on: 02/16/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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