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Philips vs Unlicensed DVD Players
Kallahar writes "NewScientist is running an article about how Phillips, Sony, and Pioneer have "asked customs officials throughout Europe to seize players made by unlicensed factories."
Philips, Sony and Pioneer have pooled many hundreds of patents covering all aspects of the DVD system. Philips administers the pool, grants licences and collects royalties, which are then shared three ways." This comes
on the heals of philips going after
copy protected CDs. The draw for these DVD players for consumers
is probably both price, and the fact that they are often free of
those pesky region encodings (especially nice for anime junkies)
Is this going to be the top priority for European enforcement? I really doubt it.
I think that from the perspective of deciding how to use their resources, European nations have have bigger concerns than where the DVD players are coming from... and any associated patent issues.
A few might be taken off the streets, but I doubt they are going to expend great resources to rid Europe of "unauthorized" or "unlicensed" machines...
Sam Nitzberg
sam@iamsam.com
http://www.iamsam.com
Where's the incentive to create if it's legal to just steal the invention and pay nothing?
Saying this is contradictory to Phillips's position on copy protected CD's is not correct. Phillips going after illegal DVD manufacturers is very similar to them chafing against copy protected CD's.
Someone is using a format that they invented, have the patent on, and should for a reasonable time, have the ability to apportion the use of that patent(s) out as they will. The difference here is that the folks they are going after are making money "stealing" Phillips's technology, unlike a certain sixteen year old kid from Norway.
While I don't agree with everything they do with their patents (region encoding is complete bullshit theivery....glad I don't live in the UK and have to pay $30 per DVD), this is a relatively new technology and they do hold the patent...this is what patents are for, to keep lazy assholes from making money off you your invention for a certain period of time.
Other than that I think what's going on is perfectly fair, just that it's a little odd to be going after this at the customs level.
Look, I know these electronics compaines fronted the money to research DVD technology and they were it's main pioneers.. However as a consumer, I just don't give a damn, to put it bluntly. It's my dollar, I'll spend it how I choose. If I purchase a machine I'll perform whatever hacks or workarounds necessary to make it function the way I would like it to. That's just how it goes. If we just stop buying products from companies we don't care for, they'll get the message or they'll go away..
This is a civil dispute between the manufacturers and those who claim patent rights. Surely it should not be the business of customs to close down manufacturers of DVDs without some kind of civil decision in a court.
Note that the customs officials have not only been asked to impound players thay are also impounding disks. The disks are not being impounded because the content is copyright, they are being impounded because the media is owned by these corporations.
This is an outrage. It's like impounding books because someone claims they own the patent on the printing press. We need some protection against companies claiming to own and control the information medium in common use today.
Sorry. Not that I'm for region encoding or anything... But the "especially nice for anime junkies" parenthetical just doesn't ring true. Any anime DVDs released in the states will play on a Region 1 (?) DVD player. Any DVDs released in Japan... are going to only be in Japanese. So unless you went from just-discovering-anime-isn't-all-porn to fluent-in-Japanese in one year, the "anime junkie" you speak of sure as hell ain't you.
On the other hand, I -do- know people who speak Japanese and appreciate imports. These are the same ones who modded their SNES to play imported Super Famicon games.
The enemies of Democracy are
Today's typical mass produced consumer electronic device is manufactured just as shoddily. Unless you get into the real high end, the quality of the average product, esp. when compared with earlier times is catastrophic. My father's 30 year old record player still works like a charm, only few of today's DVD players will work in 30 years. Why? Because today cheapness always wins over quality and because with digital devices, shoddy manufacturing doesn't imply bad function.
I've found it interesting how patents and other `intellectual property' tend to get pooled by a handful of major companies. This, my friends, is how standards really get made these days. Heck, similar practices date back a hundred years or more.
This is really annoying to me, as these companies kind of turn the idea of a patent on it's back. Sure, they defend them from the man on the street til the cows come home, but then they collude with other big companies. Am I the only one that thinks this is backward?
I agree with you that Philips and the bunch have the patents, and that the manufacturers of cheap crappy dvd players should pay licenses. I disagree with some of the problems you've listed though as apparent reasons they should go after the manufacterers. The only real reason for it is because these groups do owe them money. for the rest: if they don't run native code and cause problems, thats something the customer should have to deal with for not paying money for a nicer player. macrovision prevents legal uses of dvd players and i would want it disabled on mine. i don't have a dvd player for all my entertainment equipment. say i want to watch the movie in my room, without moving to vhs, i can't. layer compatablity, the user has to deal with it, again, if they want it, they can pay the extra for it hackability is a good thing, it lets you watch the movie you want to even though it wasn't poorly enough done to have been made in here america.(or if your from another country maybe you just want to watch a garbage movie in order to laugh at us)
It's not just because of the parts.
In a record player, typically there aren't as many parts that are static, humidity and voltage sensative.
Nor are there delicate bits of optical equipment with lenses and lasers and other solid state gear.
It's like comparing the amount of maintance an F-105 needed compared to an F-15. Or the Folk-Wulf crews that bitched about the work it took to keep a Me-262 flying.
My mom's Sony record player works like a charm, but it has about 1/8th the number of electrical systems a CD player has.
It's apples and oranges to compare a record player with a CD/DVD player. A better comparision would be a 1st Gen LaserDisk or one of those magneto-optical disk drives from the early 80s and a DVD player from today.
I don't think it's a customer's obligation to check if the manufacturer didn't break any laws in producing the goods.
However, this would leave you with a bill for a product you never received. Who pays for that? What if you payed in advance?
No security through obscurity: my password is goatse. Stop me before I troll again.
Sadly, most people don't want to be educated about complex issues. The reason rights erode is because the average sheeple doesn't care and doesn't want to care.
Cynical? Not really; I'm being realistic based on years of experience in activism. People only care about issues that directly affect them; it is very difficult to get people interested in anything that might inconvenience them. People watch DvDs, but don't exercise their rights to free speech -- so guess which one they care about more?
All about me
There has to be a real and credible threat of getting ticketed for violating traffic laws. If there wasn't, there would be more deaths and injuries on the roads, and our insurance rates would probably go up. On top of that, this is a cheap revenue source... or would you rather pay more taxes so the "real crimes" can be solved?
You chose to break the law, either through negligence or laziness or premeditation. Don't whine about it. If you disagree with the law, petition your elected representatives. That's how democracy works.
Right now I would like the police to pull over more people who haven't swept the snow of their cars, or cleaned their lights of salt and grit, or who have misaligned headlights. It will make my driving easier and safer.
Will you still defend patents when the WTO makes governments extend patents to 100 years? Patents make sense as long as the duration is short, say five years. In other words, you have five years from the time your product hits the market to make a monopoly profit. The only qualm is that they create a "standard" and then patent it. Standards are meant for interoperability. Who cares about interoperability if you are the sole controller of said technology.
To answer your question, yes. Someone would have developed some kind of DVD like video system. Why? Quality in movies. The studios love DVDs and would have at some point created this technology.
Actually, it is a zero sum game. Time spent by customs officials maintaining & checking a list of 'official' DVD players, rejecting & filing paperwork for noncompliant players, etc. is time that can't be spent checking for goods that are (presumably) more threatening to our national well-being.