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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)
please grow up people
Then we will have sector free tenticle forever!
Will decide to find some arguement that they've licenced the GUI (yes I mean GUI) and get customs to confiscate all other OSes that have any form of GUI..
But seriously yet again the consumer is going lose.
'branded players' -- more expensive but sometimes better quality...
'unbranded' -- cheaper and sometime shoddy.
Let the consumer decide - over time the shoddy players will become history, the cheap but good players will become brand names etc...
Score: Big Corp's 1; public 0; little corps -1
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
- They don't run native code. Most DVD players support a modified
version of the Z-80 instruction set which DVDs can use to render menus,
omit scenes when a ratings limit is lowered, and handle substitution of
audio without mis-synching actors' lips. These bootleg DVD players do not
properly implement all of the instructions and may not work right with many
DVDs.
- Content protection. Macrovision is an unbreakable encryption system
that keeps pirates from copying DVDs onto VHS tapes or video CDs. Many
bootleg players do not implement it so we can expect the rate of piracy to
skyrocket.
- Compatibility with layers. Most bootleg DVD players have serious
trouble handling two-layer discs, meaning that the users' experiences are
affected in a very bad way.
- Hackability. Most bootleg players run an embedded unix operating
system, like linux, and can be tampered with easily by malcontents.
It is for these reasons that we must all stand up and oppose the manufacture and sale of unlicensed DVD players.df
The typical anime shows weirdos with giant eyes and green/purple/blue hair fighting monsters. That is so stupid!
This infuriates me. I'm an anime fan and was intending to get my hands on a regionless player eventually so I'd not be stuck with only US dubbed and subbed releases. I'm currently struggling financially and I can't afford luxury items like DVD's and players, though. So it looks like by the time I do get around to affording them, regionless players will be a thing of the past (I can imagine a conversation with a future child: "Daddy, what was 'Fair Use'?"). None of my friends or family have been able to find regionless players either - one of them got one that was advertised as regionless and it was in fact region 1. Where the hell do you find them??
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
A fucking informative for idiot ramblings of crow?
Why limit it to intellectual property ?
Cause fucking Stallman says so ?
You say steal but you seem to mean reuse.
Look at the GNU project, the Apache project(s), the Linux kernel, the *BSDs, count the number of Debian packages, all the applications on Savannah, Sourceforce and Freshmeat. Look at all the great technologies created at Universities (which are often the basis of those "great" technologies, or cheap ripoffs if you like, that are sold in the industry).
There are a lot of more incentives to create great technology then making lots of money of it. Focussing on how to make money on something often
You might want to read Anarchism Triumphant by Eben Moglen who explains this a lot better then I can.