About Gilmore's letter on IBM&Intel push copyprotection into ordinary disk drives

[sunder]

Peter Wayner wrote:
 
> But I was quite worried until I began to see the dangers for IBM and
> Intel in the scheme. This is not an easy play for them because it
> threatens much of the entire industry in these ways:

You've answered it yourself in the last two paragraphs.  Screw IBM, 
screw Intel.  In order for this nonsense to work, the operating system 
has to support it.  You can bet Linux, and *BSD won't support it, or if 
they do, they'll provide the  "extra" access needed.

More and more I find, I need less Microsoft software*.  Even at work where
it's a mostly Microsoft shop and the standard desktop is W2K.

GUID's, CPU Serial numbers, and now hard drives.  That's ok, this will
wind up killing Intel, and hard drive manufacturers that insist on this.
Many like us, won't buy the shit.  We'll buy hardware without serial
numbers, or at least those whose serial numbers can be overwritten.

i.e. SPARC's, Mac's, etc. and we'll be running *BSD/Linux.


* Anecdotal: I've recently purchased a home entertainment
PC as a replacement for my DVD player and CD changers, etc from 
qbex.com.  It's basically a small PC in a very small form factor.

If I ever get my hands on a good Linux based DVD player, I'll use
that.  (I guess I haven't yet been trolling the DivX stuff as I've
had no need for it yet.)

It pisses me off that the DVD player tells me that after five more
plays, it will lock itself to "Region 1" and that while I have both
VGA and RCA+SVIDEO out, that it would refuse to play on any RCA/SVIDEO
hardware that doesn't have Macrovision.   This is insane.

Anyone can build such a Home Entertainment PC as the QBEX simply by
purchasing an infrared keyboard+mouse and a VGA to RCA scan converter
and likely get much better output...  I bought this piece of shit
simply because it already had all the drivers and pieces in one box.

All I have to say is this: you bastards!  

Copyright protection is getting out of hand when it gets in my way.  
I've paid for the DVD's.  
I've paid for the player software.  
I've paid for the hardware.  
How dare they tell me how I may use it so long as I don't make copies other than backups?
So what if I buy a perfectly legitimate DVD from a different country?  I should be 
able to watch it without going through acrobatics!  
So what if I back up my legally purchased DVD's to VHS tape so I can watch it 
where I don't have a DVD player, or on my camcorder?  
So what if I can copy the raw bits off the DVD platter for backup incase I scratch
it?  When was the last time you saw a movie house offer to replace
damaged media for nominal cost?  (i.e. you've damaged accidentally, 
or your kid decided to use as a frisbie, or your dog as a chew toy?)
So what if I hook up the VIDEO out signal of the DVD player or PC to a 2GHz
transmitter so I can watch it in my bedroom instead of my living room?
So what if I can have ten friends come over with beer and popcorn to watch
a movie I purchased?
So what if I chose to let a friend borrow my DVD's or if I borrow theirs?


> This is another opportunity for Red Hat or some other Linux box
> company to walk into companies and say, "Use Red Hat, Mozilla, and
> Star Office and you'll never have license problems again. The
> hardware guys claim that they can take care of rights management
> issues for you. So can we and we cost alot less."
> 
> I think this may be the greatest thing that's come along for open
> source OSs yet. As Princess Leia said in the Hollywood content "Star
> Wars", "The harder you squeeze your fingers Vader, the more planets
> slip through the fingers." Do those content wrangling lawyers down
> there ever look at the content they protect?


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