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In Stores Soon: Perishable DVDs
Makarand writes "Technology that renders optical media useless after a short lifespan will soon find its way into stores
in the form of perishable DVDs. Retailers in the Southern United States will soon start giving a sample DVD to buyers of a CD (by Nappy Roots, a hip-hop group). This promotional DVD from Atlantic Records will work for only 8 hours. This promotion is aimed at finding if music fans would be interested in buying a package with both audio and video instead of just plain audio. A special dye sandwiched between the layers of the DVD will interact with air making it opaque and unreadable later. If this media catches on you may not have to return your DVD rentals in the future." We noted this 2.5 years ago.
Pathetic attempt at locking out consumers once again.
we will buy expensive hard drives that are designed to fail after a short time...
Oh wait... we already do.
Notice on the disk will read "You have 8 hours to listen to this music"
Geek reads "You have 8 hours to rip this data to your RAID 5 dedicated music storage facility".
hehe.
You buy something that breaks after a few hours, its then just plain trash.
So apart from being bad from an environmental, consumer and most other perspectives this is a good thing because it helps push up the pollution rates even further.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Why is the entertainment industry so hell-bent on NOT giving us entertainment?
You'd think that will the failure of DivX (the Circuit City one), they they would realize that when someone buys something, they expect to keep it...
Even for Video rentals, I wonder if we're SUCH a disposable society that creating this much waste is worth it.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
Too bad I couldn't put the same coating on my dollar bills that would cause them to decompose as soon as the MPAA or RIAA touches them.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
Walk a mile. Human beings walk for short distances. That's what the things dangling down from your chair to the floor are. Try it some time!
if the air can't reach the dye in between, I guess the cd stays readable, no ?
a just a thought.
rkoot
I'm not as think as you drunk I am
Actually, I wrote an e-mail to the company developing this when the story ran 2.5 years ago -- I'll quote the response in full (Yes, I'm a packrat):
Thank you for your comments. We have been sharing your frustration as the new reports have failed to report this product will be a recyclable. Just a drop the disc in the bucket next to the butter container and milk bottle. It also eliminates the car pollution of returning the movie to the store. avg. 10 miles and 1/3 gallon of gas.
We appreciate your concern.
SpectraDisc
I still think it's a stupid idea, but it's moved from monumentally stupid to moderately stupid.
After a few years on the dash of a car, it all becomes "Best of Queen" anyway...
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I live in Germany were they have fairly high recycling laws.
When I asked about CD when I was turning in some batteries I was told to toss them in the bin where non-recyclable items are put.
Fortunately I live in a Neon/Argon atmosphere, so this shouldn't be much of a problem for me.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Stand back for a minute and look at the big picture. Take a breath, take a minute, and think about it. They encrypt their content and then store it on self destructing disks. HA! It's so pathetic it's funny. If there was ever an example of the dead horse (Rosen?) getting another whack (DMCA?) this is IT. They lost.
Imagine the munks, years ago, using disapearing ink in their scrolls so you didn't have time to read it long enough to place letters on a plate at a printing press! Same shit. Different day. "DISTRIBUTION" is dead. If any 5 year old can publish themselves WORLD WIDE 24/7, then the business of distrobution (of "information") is dead. Ever see a little kid make a homepage on AOL? They do... it ain't XHTML but it's there for the world to see 24/7. Tell me again why I need YOU to publish my info for ungodly sums of money? Tell me again why I should listen to one artist for one hour at a time on obsolete media?
I guess things are coming full-circle when Slashdot editors are pointing out the retread stories for us !
You have a good point. Their model is based on you not returning the videos on time so they collect late fees. But, if you think about it, it's also based on you actually *returning* the movies, as well. You're probably something like 50% more likely to rent *more* movies if you already have to go back to the store to return the old ones. I know I am.
In any case, I really don't think Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are going to warm up to the idea...
Seems like a disaster waiting to happen. No to mention that it will drive MORE people to rip this video in order to be able to rewatch it - exactly what the RIAA and MPAA do NOT want.
Interesting...I never heard of ogg. I had to look it up. I'll have to give it a try and see how it compares. Thanks. ;-)
right now my g/f has a $300 fine for having 2 videos that are like 6 mos overdue which is completely insane..
It is. She should have returned the videos. What a whiner.
God is real unless declared integer
The goal will be to make **ALL** media time sensitive, so you cant actually retain anything and must continue to pay for listening/viewing/reading time.
Would be applicable in the software market too, forced upgrades since your original cant be used after the next release is out. ( using estimated time of next releases )
Or in the case of E-books, ' sorry that document is no longer acceptable speech, that isn't available for lease any longer'
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So: One acre hole in Nevada, or 1 million tons of pollution. Your choice.
How are you going to move all of these discs to that hole? Magic? I'd say some fuel might be expended in the effort... how much does pollution is produced by all the garbage trucks in the US for a year? What's, say, 0.5% of that?
deus does not exist but if he does
I think self-destructing DVDs are a great idea as long as I can pay for them with dollars printed with disappearing ink.
This is yet another glimps into the minds of the entertainment industry's marketing people. The holy grail is pay-per-use consumer products, which unfortunately is a concept that is fairly new in capitalism, especially in the United States where property laws reflect mostly tangible goods. This helps to explain why companies and consumers are having so many problems with each other.
Anyway, the distribution methods look somethin like this, from most desirable (and most profitable) to least:
Pay-per-Use - Require consumer to pay for each experience (i.e.: theater movies, pay-per-view, arcade games)
Subscription - if pay-per-use isn't possible, require the user to pay a recurring subscription fee for access to the material (i.e.: cable)
Media Ownership - if subscription isn't possible, sell the media in a permanent form to the consumer.
Media ownership is of course the most desired for the consumer. It allows them to experience themusic/movie/etc whenever they want, trade or sell it to friends, etc. Of course it's the least profitable for the industry.
The problem media companies are facing is that, as technology matures, it's allowing consumers to use the media in any way they want. For example, using a Tivo to turn subscription-distributed media into owned permemant media.
What we're seeing now is the entertainment industry scrambling to use laws that were originally enacted to protect companies from each other, and bend them to try and keep consumers from using the media for which it wasn't originally intended.
Here's a hypothetical situation: In 15 years medical science progresses to the point where they fix eyesight with little nano machines. In the process they also give people the ability to record what they watch and play it back (kind of like a Tivo built-in to your head). Thus turning everything you experience into the potential for permenant media. What do you think the entertainment industry will do then? Legislate congress to make all medical nano devices capible of recording motion images be part of a digital rights management royalty payment system, and likely called something along the lines of the Digital Medical Device Copyright Act. That's if the entertainment industry is still alive in the same for it is today, which I doubt.
_______
2B1ASK1
This won't catch on. Rental companies have a significant revenue stream from people returning stuff late. (Blockbuster - 15-20%) If the stuff is disposable, then they can't charge you for not returning it. They mightn't care about the enviornment, but they do care about their shareholders.
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
Nope. Get a 10 gallon aquarium (they cost like $10-$20), and a tank of helium (the party-balloon filling small tanks, they cost as high as $40 but half that you get back when you return the tank, and one full tank lasts almost forever).
;-)
Put the wrapped DVD in the aquarium. Take two rubber gloves and some saran-wrap to effectively seal the top of the aquarium (make sure to use enough that putting on the gloves won't break the seal).
Tip the aquarium on its side, and peel away a small hole in one top and the opposite bottom corner.
Light a votive candle and place it in front of the lower hole.
Add helium, via the PVC tube that almost certainly came with the aquarium (if not, pay the $0.15/foot for a few feet), to the upper hole. Add it slowly, and when the candle goes out, keep adding for a few more seconds.
Voila! You now have a home-made, inert-gas, anhydrous glove box! Put your hands in the gloves, unwrap the DVD, and apply the clear nail polish to the edge. Oops, you *did* remember to put the nail polish in the aquarium before sealing it, right?