Slashdot Mirror
The Movie Studios' Next Step in Online Movie Delivery
Con Zymaris writes "Here's another piece on the how the movie studios are trying to co-opt the movie delivery mechanisms of the 'counter-culture' set, but instill major restrictions such as IP-address range verification to ensure country of origin, and maximum 24-hour-play lifetime for each downloaded movie."
Just a note before the usual /. yelling and screaming about how bad all the corporates are. Remember that the people trying this sort of stuff are still working out what works. Sure, it might seem over controlling now and make people just use KazaaLite etc instead but eventually we should reach a fairly agreed level of freedom.
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It is pretty unfair to think they should give everything away for free however it's also unfair to impliment such strong rules on the end user. Maybe in five to ten years we will have a solid system that (most) people like. [Plus maybe some decent broadband to help online movies become more of a reality
Anyone agree?
My blog [.net, rants, general IT]
I am preoccupied with my digital rights like most /.ers. Hence, I don't participate in this garbage. However, since the fall of Napster, many have sought legal and legit ways to get media on the Internet--the Internet is more than suitable. Hence, they accept license agreements that resemble the physical limitations on renting movies at Blockbuster, for example.
As much as I hate the DMCA, etc., this doesn't bother me too much. I don't lose any rights by not using the service which I frankly don't really have a burning desire to use, as others do.
So others may face crappy lame restrictions. If they don't like it--stick with Blockbuster. However, a number of people here on Slashdot have been asking for similar services for a while, and now that it's coming, I see no reason for anyone to whine (what did you expect?).
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
The article says that this is limited to people from the United States. Couldn't someone setup a proxy or NAT server in the US to make WB's servers think that the request comes from the US?
They want it to fail. That way they can say "we tried online delivery, but the pirates stole it and we didn't make any money, see?" And buy some more laws to take control of our machines.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I have little desire to stream anything because I cannot archive it. Getting my hands on plain old media is still the better value. It can be loaned, watched later when the mood arises, resold (I know they *hate* that one.), played on just about any device I have, or destroyed. All my choice all the time.
Now getting the streams at the same time the movie is in the theatre would be interesting. It would be nice to check out a movie before dropping $50 on a flop. You would not have to watch the entire thing, just sample until you know you want to go. They could even include exacly this sampling feature.
So, it is likely I will remain uninterested in this --for now.
Do I wish it would fail? Not sure really.
Even though, I am not likely to use the service, I do know plenty of people that would. They should have the choice to do so.
Problem is that boom or bust, our Internet will be changed to meet the needs of those providing these services. I think this means more lockdowns, slower access for 'non monetized' traffic, and trouble for open systems in general. Think about it, they will *NEVER* make this avaliable on an open platform because they know better. Though they could just produce a binary, but why bother. Most of the money will be in the win32 user market.
This really is just continuing evidence that we are all still in trouble. Open systems and networks will suffer because they do not generate revenue which is what this is all about right?
Something to keep an eye on though.
Blogging because I can...