Mike Rosing wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, Dave Emery wrote:
And telling the public that they face serious jail time if they don't turn in that Creative Soundblaster from the old PC in the attic closet isn't going to fly. The sheeple may be sheep but even they aren't going to accept that kind of nonsense from Hollywood or any corrupt congress.
I'd even venture to say that if this issue breaks out into the big time and the public really is faced with crippled devices that don't work and mandatory obselescence of existing expensive computer and entertainment systems with potential jail time for use of old equipment that the backlash will be so intense that raw public votes will control over Hollywood money.
I think that's what boils down to the "bottom line". Because there are so many units in place that can do the bypass, there will be enough time to create a backlash. There's already a backlash on "protected" CD's, mostly by consumers who can't play them on older CD players. It's just
And/or indeed, on newer players. In the UK at least (http://uk.eurorights.org/issues/cd/docs/celdion.shtml) the new generation of anti-theft CDs have been reported to be useless on modern DVD players/car stereos, by design. Some older players either lack the "feature" or are less sensitive, I assume, so can be ok. It's just a case of matching a technology with the right player... So not content with limiting public demand for new hardware (a minor issue), the extra precautions actively encourage consumers to not buy legal content. Woo. Better to get illegal content that you can do what you want with. With regards to the analog[ue]/digital stop-gapping, r o f l m a o. This would be just as effective as, ooh, copy-protecting CDs? Oh, humm... Chasing down peer-to-peer outfits? Uhh... Trying to ban videos? Oh, wait... Firstly, in order to prevent widespread ripping of analog signals through disabling mass consumer device, there needs to /be/ mass consumer ripping. How many people do you know who actually go to the trouble of transferring their taped episodes/films onto their PC? It's not as simple as grabbing mp3s. As with other such "distribution" in its relevant infancy, the hard work's carried out by a much smaller number of people - millions of films may be downloaded every month, but there's generally only 2 or 3 versions of each film, from different sources, max. Believing that crippling the populace will fill this tiny leak is... well, amusing. Secondly, how much work is going to go into protecting a fading technology? This is from both the MPAA's and the consumers' points of view. For the former, analog avoidance is only of any use if the content is not readily available in digital format already. Most of the analog content that I guess the MPAA want to stop conversion of is either people in cinemas with cameras, or people with tapes of episodes at home. The former is hard to stop through watermarking (I'm unsure of the technicalities, but I'd have thought preserving it between screen and camera would be tricky? Even without people geting uo and walking past the view...), and even then it's only one source of films. The latter is, I suspect, more the target of the MPAA's volley. If this doesn't move towards digital origins, i.e. through PVRs or cable-streams obtained via PC (which are subject to a different smother), then the abundance of existing technology, and probable (anonymous) circumvention of new ones anyway renders all actions proposed useless. The question then is how much investment do you want to throw away? Outside the US, I suspect that the circumvention may go the same way as DVD region "control". Looking at players recently, it was quite hard (after checking around, as most people would) to actually _avoid_ region-locked DVD players. The only real factor that really keeps regions in place is their localised supply to meatspace shops, or the boundaries of international postage & packing. Foolishness, foolishness, and yet more foolishness. Perhaps if we just ignore them, then they'll go away eventually :) .g