The music industry years ago lost much control of its CD, which is not encrypted, to peer-to-peer file-sharing services and technology allowing CDs to be burned easily -- even by the technologically unsophisticated. Now Hollywood worries that RealDVD and other fledgling DVD copying services will ruin the market for DVDs.First of all, marvel that Big Content still hasn't grasped the lessons of the Internet age, importantly in this context that all you need is One Smart Cow -- it doesn't matter how easy it is to rip CDs or DVDs, if they're uploaded to the Internet everyone has access.
Hollywood is already reeling from open-source DVD decryption software that is free on the internet. It also says it's losing billions in sales because of BitTorrent tracking services like The Pirate Bay that allow users to upload and download decrypted movies and other content for free.
DVD Decrypter and Handbrake make all of the MPAAs protestations about controlling their content via encryption worthless and silly. DVD sales are doing fine, once you consider that America is in kind of rocky economic straits right now.
This is still basically the Napster gambit: if we sue enough people, we can keep precious control of our content. I think it's ridiculous, but when you've got more money then brains there's a bunch of things that look appealing I guess.
1 comment:
I've got a new insight into how taxes should be done?
People hate doing taxes. Well, why? Because every year their T4 slips comes in and reminds them of how much money they spent on taxes. If you can find another reason, other than it's a pain in the butt, then you sir, are Stephen Harper.
The simple solution. Send T4's to the government. Anything involving a T4 should send a T4 slip to Canada Revenue. Let them do your taxes, since they go over them anyway.
This makes them more honest, too. Instead of letting mistakes in their favour pass.
It's so fucking insulting that one has to pay taxes and then fill out the tax form. This is what we call, "Rubbing it in your face."
Personal note: I love this site. It's an oasis of sanity. I don't read all posts because I am not a fan of John Dymaxion. But he is a good writer and when I come upon a favourite subject that he's blogging...
Well then I read it. What else was I going to do with it.
This idea has a good chance to hit the presses, eh? What say you?
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