What a Bunch of CRAP!

[Pain_Man]

Amen, Shamus.

 

Can't put it much better than that.

 

My dodgy, thirty dollar DVD player looks mighty good compared to this. I?d love to know what the benefits are of having a network capable DVD player that can secretly talk to its manufacturer. I don?t think so.

[Pain_Man]

It correct that VCRs were "legalized" by the 1986 "Betamax" decision. The crux of the decision was that the VCRs had "substantial non-infringing uses"; i.e. video-taping junior's 8th birthday or security cameras, etc.

 

Related to this, Congress has passed a law called the American Home Recording Act. It put a tax of a few pennies on casette tapes, blank CDs, etc. The tax is collected into a fund and then paid out to the record companies.

 

Yet the same record companies receiving the money are allowed to attempt obstruct what our tax money is paying for.

 

The bullshit from the RIAA?

 

"The law doesn't stop us from trying to protect our content."

 

So STOP taking the goddamned money!!

 

There's been some talk in Congress of stopping payments to companies that use Right's Destruction Technology. Nothing concrete so far.

 

 

I'm no expert, but, as far as I know, Congress never passed any laws, even with the Betamax case. That that was a Supreme Court decision. If it was laws put into the books, then, none of the media companies would have any leverage at all in terms of copying from TV, etc. The DMCA and useless copyright extensions ad infinitum are the only laws I know of that were passed to give the content owners the strong arm they currently have. Which was exactly what they wanted. Something like DMCA passed that was so vague it gave virtual power through fear over everything.

[Pain_Man]

There is absolutely one thing we CAN do.

 

NOT BUY THESE FUCKERS!!

 

If they don't sell, then they won't make them.

 

These are corporations. If they can't sell these Stalin boxes, then they'll quit making them. It doesn't matter what the "content owners" want. The CE manufacturers aren't going to make equipment people aren't going to buy.

 

Frankly, I'm not too worried.

 

Every encryption scheme of any kind has been broken. That's not going to change no matter what they do.

 

And if a company were to "deactivate" every player because of the hypothetical Singeporean, then there would be legions of American lawyers just waiting to jump on the company's ass with dozens of class action lawsuits.

 

There are factors working for privacy, as well as against it.

 

The biggest one, to reiterate, are our dollars.

 

We do NOT have to have DVDs or CDs to live. In fact, for 200,000 years we did just fine without them.

 

Hollywood's going to put itself out of business with this kind of shit.

 

 

I keep thinking of a line from an episode of Star Trek: TNG:

 

"Television, as a form of entertainment, died out in the early 21st century."

 

Data may have been closer to the truth than the writer realized...

 

Christ, this almost seems like an invasion of privacy. Where will this end............. A line surely has to be drawn somewhere.......

Edited June 17, 2006 by Pain_Man

[Pain_Man]

The best line in the article:

 

given a choice between Blu-ray and a less-restrictive DRM format, I'll go with the latter

 

That's what's going to happen.

 

I'm not going to buy a BR or an HD-DVD player or burner until there's a way to defeat Rights Destruction Technology.

 

The article writer makes another point, one which I've long made: the studios don't want use to make any copies, ever, whether legal or not.

 

Their REAL goal is charge for EVERY TIME WE WATCH. The "Bill bill" revivied.

 

Well, I'm not playing. Regular DVDs look just fine on my HDTV.

 

And until consumer rights are respected by these choadswallowers, they aren't getting any more of my money, I don't give a fuck how good BR or HD-DVD looks.

 

 

But let's not panic. As I said before (and as the article writer also says) the encryption will be broken not matter what it is, not matter how sophisticated the scheme.

 

Despite the cable and satellite companies best efforts, you can easily acquire equipment to steal cable or intercept satellite signals.

 

Even if some company invents a player that forces consumers to "phone home" to Big Brother's server, some fifteen yr old kid, in his bedroom, will figure out a way to fool the player.

 

I guarantee it.

 

I'll got even further than that. I'll lay a $20 down that AACS has already been cracked. And we'll see the programs soon...