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Self-Destructing DVD's Coming Soon
BrianH writes "Looks like a close cousin of everybody's favorite self-destructing video format is making a comeback. Four years after Circuit City and its Hollywood backers pulled the plug on the self-expiring DVD concept, FlexPlay Technologies has introduced the EZ-D...a 48-hour self-expiring DVD disk. The difference? This time around you don't need a special player, and "time extensions" are no longer an option. It looks like Buena Vista has already signed on to the format, so Disney, Mirimax, and all of their other companies should be using this soon. As if that wasn't bad enough, it looks like this works for music and software disks too!" Here's an older story on these technologies.
Also great for those messages that just need to self destruct. Kind of reminds me of Inspector Gadget. I'll get you next time gadget! NEXT TIME!
I'm assuming the disc reacts with gasses in the air, so all you have to do to get unlimited viewing time is keep the dvd in a vacuum, nothing major.
Is this really a problem for people who have access to DeCSS and a DVD burner?
To forget it "expires" and put it in late and be in the middle of watching your movie and it just die? Would that happen? I would be kinda pissed, but I guess if you buy it knowing you have 48 hours, who would you complain to?
Is there any way we can blame this all on Microsoft?
Cool,
:)
I hate the whole thing where you have to return rentals, now mabey those lazy folk like me will be able to rent, happy in the knowledge that we're helping create usefull landfill
Umm, can I submit a response later?
"As if that wasn't bad enough?" What's so bad about this? Saves me a trip back to Blockbuster and a whole mess of late fees. What's the problem?
It doesn't take 48 hours to rip a DVD. ;)
Now I don't have to return the DVDs after I rent them to rip and encode. Thanks MPAA!
Surely we've pumped out enough of the standard plastic DVD's to create ourselves a major polution problem, without introducing this styrofoam container style throw away idea....
That aside, since nothing stop you from ripping the movie in the mean time, it's hardly a very effective measure ^_^
greedy capitalist assholes.
... and then I'm sure they'll cry victim when everybody starts copying the damn things and starts giving them all out to their friends because you can't get a permanent copy of the work.
I'll tell ya, the first thing I would do with such a thing is to back it up. Or better yet, I would just return it after it expires and tell them that it never worked right in the first place. It's not like they could prove otherwise.
DVDs without scratches and no need to return the movie... Why didn't someone think of this sooner?
Gotta get me one of these!
Inspired by HP and its printer cartriges and now Flexplay, Ford has decided to make its cars cease to function after 60,000 miles or 10 years, whichever comes first. A press release says that "this will ultimately help consumers, as older cars just aren't as safe - for the driver or others on the road." When the time runs out, strong chemicals will be released to distroy most of the cars internal components. Disabling this protection will result in prosecution under the DMCA
newer versions of the dmca...
I think this is just a bad idea to make more plastic for the landfills mostly, but maybe you could have a
cd with a backup copy of the software for short term license until you can talk to the vendor or something like that.
Maybe a database server's source or something like that encoded with a key which is registered with the
vendor or something like that.
eh?
Besides the obvious environmental problems with creating millions of disposable DVD's (ala AOL cd's), I don't really see much bad about these. If I could buy (read rent) a DVD for $2.00 that I didn't have to bring back to a store then I'd likely do that. Or play a self-destructing game as a sample of the full game and save $48.00 if I don't like it. Looks potentially like a money saver to me.
--
Omeganon
Omeganon
That is why they invented GreenCine or it's lame cousin NetFlix. :)
:)
Good thing I rip my rentals. I won't have to worry about them expiring. Will this make rentals cheaper? Oh well, the hdd space costs more than the rental anyway.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I guess I just have to remember to copy it faster than I normally do
...well at least to put the environment before profits. As for the coffee drinkers who throw away a foam cup every time, fuck them too.
Try Netflix. You can watch and return movies at your leisure, and they have a much, much better selection of movies than Blockbuster.
If you read the article (which is breif, since its really just a feature description), you'd notice that the discs are recyclable after their "self-destruct".
This means one of two things: either they're recyclable in the generic sense that most plastic trash is recyclable, or the disk itself can be re-used by the distributor.
In the latter case, it may just mean you return a big bundle of them next time you go to rent a disk.
"Stumble before you crawl"
1. I can rent a DVD for $3 and watch it anytime over the next 2-5 days.
2. I can buy the DVD for $15 and watch it as many times as I want over the next few years. And, I can lend it my friends and they can watch it. And, they can lend me some of their DVDs.
3. I can pay $unknown and watch a FlexPlay DVD over the next 2 days. And then it self-destructs.
4. Therefore, $unknown must be less than $3 for me to have ANY interest in this stupid concept.
5. Only people who buy government-run lottery tickets will go for this. The scary part is that is a large percentage of the populace.
Dave Barnes 5 breweries within 6 blocks of my house
Oh, you think these things are gonna be cheaper? The old format cost about $20/disk. Unless they fix the cost problem this time around, it'll die the same way... unmourned.
The solution is scavenger robots, that search for used-up dvds =)
"Hey give that back! I was using that as a coaster! GNggghhhh!!"
This is capitalism at it's best: The people who make them get more and more money while those who purchase are forced to suffer. I don't like this idea at all.
We are but a pixel in the JPEG of life.
I gets me a DVDR. Then I copies it, since it's just a standard DVD that degrades over time. Voila!
I guess this will make DVD burners illegal, since they circumvent a copy protection mechanism. But sharpie markers hasn't faced a lawsuit yet, so I think we're ok. Damn DMCA.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
If they but a few bubbles between the label and the disc itself, the thing would destruct in a vacuum.
Maybe an unreactive gas rather than a vacuum? Wouldn't that be easier?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I mean, they should know by now that "EZ-:D" will be the name of the new video format clogging up KaZaa in two or three years.
If you can't manage to get the vobs off of there and create yourself a longer lasting copy in 48 hours you probably don't deserve anymore stolen movies IMO. At the very least you lose your honorary "Pirate" title.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Shouldn't all copies of The Hot Chick be destroyed after 48 hours?
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Somebody tell me again how this reduces the impulse to bootleg? They might as well just sell the nicely-printed cover art, and let people get the bits from their friends, or wherever. (Maybe they can get AOL to send them out.)
Like any technology it will have a a certain % failure, what will the rental place do if you come back before 48 hours with a dead disk?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I guess I will just have to copy them faster. Ohh well... doesn't effect me. Just a waste of money for them is my opion. Havn't come acrossed one that I haven't been able to copy. You make my stuff expire that I paid for and I will make it less profitable for you in the long run evil companies. Hehehe
No.
I know what else just expired: My willingness to plunk down my hard earned money supporting the music and movie industries.
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
It seems to me that this would be a great idea if it's cheap enough to mass-produce them. That way, I could rent a DVD from my local video store (no, not the evil Blockbuster) and not have to worry about late fees (which us forgetful people often incur). I would recommend expanding this to video game discs.
Obviously, this would be a bad idea for purchasing DVDs.
Overall, it seems like the poster hates the idea. I think he just misunderstands the technology or he thinks that this will impede his piracy attempts. It won't hurt those, you little script kiddies with your DeCSS and such. Those of us who live the legal way will applaud this new technology.
In fact, the only thing I'm worried about is the environmental impact of all those DVDs. Then again, it doesn't seem to bother AOL all that much.
Obviously, nobody is going to pay full price for a DVD that self destructs. This is meant as a rental replacement. However, something like this could put rental places out of business.
Why? Rental places typically buy a certian number of new copies and rent them out repeatedly, after a few rentals the disc is paid for and it is pure profit on the disc after that, especially when you factor in the real money maker, late fees. When the movie is no longer a hot rental, they'll then just sell off their excess copies as pre-owned DVDs.
With the self destructing DVD, rental places will continuously have to replace their stock. They will not be able to charge late fees, nor will they be able to sell excess copies they've already made money off of. Ultimately, the rental place will no longer even be necessary since you'll likely be able to buy the destructable disc at any retail outlet or direct from the company for $2 a pop.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I don't have nearly as much a problem with the concept of a self-expiring disc as I do with the concept of disposability. I see that they can recycle the discs, but that you (the consumer) will have to pay postage. I think that they will have a lot more success in getting people to send the discs back to them if they are willing to pick up the tab on shipping them back. They can cut costs by not manufacturing disc blanks, the environment doesn't choke, you get a warm fuzzy feeling for doing something good. Everybody wins. My other problem is that it's called "Flexplay" when it is blatantly inflexible. Talk about a misnomer.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/23/130257
Not if want to be guaranteed to get exactly the movies you want, when you want them.
When I buy something, I like it to stay bought, thank you kindly. Being recyclable and all, I think this technology is awesome for DVD rentals.
Note: What follows is my conjecture, not something actually announced. Just so we're clear.
I'm just shuddering to think of what will happen when the "one year music licenses" start rolling out. Sure we'll rip it before the expiration date anyway, but it's the thought that the RIAA would defineitly try that and get away with it (with a vast majority of consumers too lazy/inept to make proper backups) that gives me that bad tingly feeling.
So let me understand. I pay a rental fee price for a DVD, then 2 days later the DVD stops working and I chuck it? Cool.
I'll never pay another late fee, but I'll still have to rent a movie twice sometimes because I couldn't watch it before my time was up. Still cheaper.
Didn't Blockbuster make most of their money in late fees? Hmm...sounds like technology they'll hate to see in use.
I don't know about anybody else - but the fact that this could be used to make DVDs simply "stop working" after so long seems to cry out "planned obsolescence". As an example, maybe they make a new generation of DVDs only lasts 6 months before it wears out (and don't tell us). That would generate a lot of profit if somebody's DVD stopped working and they really liked it (they'd either have to go buy it again, or get it copied). Ick. -6d
It's funny *and* true!
It's the same idea (AFAIK), but this doesn't require that you own some stupid player to play the things. The old Divx idea was it's own standard/format and required a Divx player. This EZ-D stuff you can play in your DVD player... big plus, I'm sold.
Gotta love it.
"The first thing I will do is make an illegal copy, then I will return it and ask for my money back by lying and saying that it never worked."
I'm no angel, but what ever happened to ethics? Are we now so numb to piracy that stealing and lying are considered the "first thing" one would do?
Am I the only one who thinks there is something just a little cracked in the general conscience?
-sk
Ethics don't save any money/get free stuff. They're just self-imposed limitations on personal gain in order to feel like one is "a good person". To echo Mr. Johnathon Swift, no matter your ethics/breeding/birth/nobility/state-of-being-Jesu s-Christ-himself, you're still full of shit. (literally)
-insert a witty something-
This is just a cheap excuse to avoid digital distribution. Downloading the movies would be cooler, and more enviro.
It seems the polution comments are not getting modded up. Why? How many billions of these things are going to be produced? Where does plastic come from for the most part (hint - we just had a war over this stuff)? And recycling? Just how easy is it separate the thin metal film from the plastic? Besides that, if these things are reactive to air - the article mentions that they begin to expire as soon as their opened - that would suggest some sort of strong plastic/foil packaging.
Scrap the crap - just put it up for download.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I wonder where the brains are that thought of this scheme. Probably expired after their 48-hour use period.
So, I oblige. *Inserts DVD into DVD-R*
I don't call it ripping...I call it saving lives, one movie at a time.
Should be ok for rental companies - no mussing around with returns. Rent it, watch it, dump it. Nobody'll care except for ecology nuts, and by the number of SUVs on the road nobody cares about ecology anyway.
Might be interesting if the big studios get into this, then get some big retailers into selling them, then the DVD burner market will really heat up. Those of us with burners can make some side $$$ by copying shows onto non-expirable DVD-Rs and selling them out in front of those big retailers selling the expirable DVDs.
Get to see half a movie? Will my player freak out?
I did RTFA, captain planet... I realize that it's not until you open it. I'm not that stupid. But it's habit for me to open a new DVD when I get it, even if I'm not going to watch it. I would be worried about doing that with this, and then I'd be fucked. Point being that people forget these things.
No really. If it's a software thing, shouldn't be too hard. If it's physical, like reacting to a catalyst, there is most likely some way to treat the discs so that they will remain usable longer...
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
I thought that many rental places, as well as Libraries, made most of their money from Late Charges on movies. With this new system, all that valuable income would be lost. I personally can't see why any video rental store would wish to sign on to this thing.
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
They are trying to stop people from using it longer correct? What happens when people figure out how to copy them?
Sure, they are in the same boat as before, but the problem is, the people that they are most concerned about arent going to be stopped at all by these if they can copy them and have a near perfect copy residing on their computers...
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Incentive to buy a DVD burner, and burn it. They're getting cheap too now, and disks are down to $1 a disk w/rebates!
First of all, what does this Lexan material do after 48 hours? Does it desinigrate? What if the disc doesn't last the full 48 hours, are they liable for the remaining time on the disc?
I'm also curious to the cost of these discs, and wondering if they will provide a viable option for production companies to record on.
Finally, I just have issues with the usefulness of a self-destructing DVD, I know it would be nice for trials of software and stuff, but honestly, I can't see them being that useful.
Just my $0.02
---
Mike
I'm going to kick the next person that I see with their karma rating in their sig.
Wow! What great news! That's what, double their usual lifetime?
Please help metamoderate.
Duh...I want DVD...two dollah at checkout register...works once...what a bargain!
More disposable crap to fill up the landfills with. I'm sure glad our kids are going to have to solve the problem of a throwaway society.
I guess it'd be too much to ask them to make the discs out of something degradeable or to include a mailer for recycling - but instead, they place the burden on the consumer to recycle the discs by asking us to mail the discs in off our own volition. Something I'm sure we all have time to do.
In other words, these discs will NEVER get recycled.
Seriously, as the alpha-geek crowd, we should do our part to dissuade everyone we know from even thinking of buying these.
I would do a refund thing: charge 8 bucks for the disc, and give 5 bucks for the emptied disc. This would more than encourage recycling, yet keeping the low cost.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
won't buy or rent any of these. simple as that, they won't make money off me, in the mean time i'll go download the movie so they can lose more money before they come to their senses. did the same thing with TurboTax, then complained about it ;)
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
Disney to Begin Renting 'Self-Destructing' DVDs
The discs stop working after a change in color renders them unreadable. They start off red, but when they are taken out of the package, exposure to oxygen turns the coating black and makes it impenetrable by a DVD laser.
Don't these people realize that we actually ENJOY developing methods to get around this stuff. People will have ways of applying a protective coating (open package submerged, apply coating, what is concentration 02 in water[~6ml 02/L]?) to prevent exposure of the surface to O2.
It may have taken a few dozen engineers at 3M two years to perfect, but my guess is that it will take a few thousand determined geeks about one month to circumvent.
And worst case is that we can't circumvent it and people simply have to spend a few hours ripping them.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
How long is it going to take for companies like this to realize it? turn-around traffic is way too important to rental stores for disposable media to work. IIRC, Blockbuster claimed that a full 1/3 of their rental business comes from turn-arounds.
For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to a customer returning one video and renting another, usually on impulse, in the same visit to the store. Obviously, if there's no returns, there's fewer opportunities to visit the store. Thus, fewer rentals, impulse or planned. Needless to say, that's a Bad Thing when rentals are your business. And how much of an impact is a constant flow of disposal DVDs going to have on inventory management?
It was a loser with Circuit City DIVX. Earlier generations of self-destructing media were losers. No matter how much they improve the materials, it won't stop being a loser until they can make up for the lost traffic at Blockbuster and Hollywood.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Buena Vista: "You hear that, Mr. DVD? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death. Goodbye, Mr. DVD." ... DVD-R!!!"
Mr. DVD: "My name is
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
...at ITS BEST allows us to exploit the fuck out of it.
Good bye BLOCKBUSTER!! Fucking crooks....
According to MSNBC, the process is "similar to rusting", confirming our suspicions that it is a reaction to the air. They also say it's a perfectly normal DVD in the interim, so bring on DeCSS.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Doesnt sound like much of a dilemna for a Linux Computer... People with Windows have umlimited cash anyways, so money dont matter to them... :)
HenryJamesFeltus.com
Thanks, I read that article when it came out. In fact I did a lot of my own additional analysis on the data (I think the author credited me when he updated his paper) and found that you can get 5 rentals/month on a basic account with no trouble, and only minor problems occur with 6. Also, the queue lag vs. rentals/month is determined by how much you are paying. That is, if you want to rent more movies per month, then upgrade your subscription to a higher level, and you will continue to have high availability in your queue.
On the empirical evidence side, I've had no troubles at all getting any movie I want in a timely fashion from Netflix.
Bah, just rip it before it expires :)
My plans to run DeCSS with my Commodore-64 are now spoiled... 48 hours isn't enough time to get all the bits through the tape drive.
This space for rent.
You'll have 48 hours to finish and file your taxes.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
And crap it is. I'm no environmentalist but the last thing we need is more garbage. If they had some recycling plan in place where the DVSs could be returned (even if its not as convenient as a video store) I might consider it. Otherwise it is one of the most obviously wasteful plans I've heard of in recent years. I wouldn't mind collecting 10-20 of them and dropping them off somewhere - it would still be easier than rental but as is I'll never tough it.
God, I wish I could think of a sig!
Yet another technological triumph for out throwaway society..hurrah
Considering the cr@ppy quality of most DVDs
and how easily scratched they get, how will
you tell the difference? My kid plays a DVD
4 times and it's trashed.
And, of course, it's illegal to make a backup.
Well...it works for the MPAA and RIAA. I guess the "consumers" are catching up. ;-)
Just remind me to pay for this by check signed with my disappearing ink...
maybe they can put the disposable CD in 6 layers of plastic wrap..
RETARDS... stop making usless products..
Speaking as someone more than 30 miles from the nearest "good" rental shop, I really hope this catches on.
They want the customers to come back return the disc and while they're there pick up another.
If this disc just expired and they never had to go back, the dvd library would lose the repeat business.
While it would be good for people that might decide to hire a DVD if they couldn't be bothered taking it back it would more likely be a service you would need to pay extra for.
Getting (advertising for ) new customers is expenstive. It's much cheaper to get the repeat business.
regards,
Chris Caston
The movie you are watching is one of the "blah, blah, blah blah", This DVD will self destruct in 2 days. Should you object, Disney will deny all disavow all knowedge.
I got the impression from the article that they may be able to tune the technology to expire in whatever length of time they want, which opens up other purchasing possibilities.
Does this mean we will be seeing a "Special Economic Suicide Edition" of all the movies out there now?
Or will they just be "Straight to Landfill" releases a la The Onion?
As I recall, they did not like the rental business very much in the beginning.
Given the money made by these chains, maybe they still don't like them, but have had to live with them until now...
This model is a lot closer to pay per view than the rental one is. In the end, they DO want pay per view in every venue they can get it.
You know some stores are selling DVD media at pretty low prices --even for new release.
That expectation devalues DVD in general. How much are these going to cost?
$5.00? Probably not worth it for two days. $2.00?
Maybe they can work hard at keeping these at $4.99 while slowly raising the prices of the normal DVD media...
Something to think about.
Blogging because I can...
Then why aren't non-degrading (cheaper produced) DVD costs down around rental fee costs? This proves that they can do it for around the same $$$... so the argument of "We can't make money" has just been blown away by one of the greediest members of the MPAA.
if they want to make it easier on the person renting a dvd (no returns), and also not waste material and landfill space or recycle costs, then: they should just include an postage paid envelope with your rental.
rent it, watch it, copy it....or whatever
then pop it into the mailbox and forget about it.
it just occured to me though that someone might steal it from your mailbox. but thats federal property right? you would probably get stuck with the bill anyway, but, thats another issue.
They make shit, I won't buy. What's the point?
I only wish this pirates^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hstudios and recording companies would die off already, since they are unwilling or incapable of finding a new business model.
``L'imagination au povoir.''
EXPLOIT: Ziplock baggie in freezer!
(Or just fill ziplock with non-oxygen based gas such as pure nitrogen, the same gas we use to protect the us constitution and other documents from oxygen)
Exploit should be 100% effective, but every two hours of play degrades it further unless you put your player in a nitrogen environment and perhaps keep it cold.
These things have been around ages but are all based on oxygen.
I saw them in testing in a dvd plant in boston area.
this message vialotes DCMA!!!! HA! freedom of speech "my ass"!
Nope, I'm baffled by how acceptable theft has become. I know the big media companies are bad and want to restrict our rights, but that does not justify consuming their product and not paying for it.
The attitude of "if I can get away with it then I should do it" seems to be everywhere.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Luckfully it doesn't take 48 hours to rip a dvd, even less for a cd.
I don't knoiw the specifics of how it could be done, but someone out there will create a new "EZ-D Extender" or "EZ-D Clean" which will reverse the blackening of the disk.
I ONLY WISH IT WAS ME!!!!
-- James Dornan
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
My bet is that they will get greedy and end up killing the technology by overpricing it. Their mindset will go a little like this. Well, they are paying upwards of $4 to rent a DVD at blockbuster now and they have to hassle to return it and it may not be there, so we ought to be able to charge $5 for these things.
Blockbuster won't buy into this, they get something like half their revenue from late fees. But, this isn't really targetted toward blockbuster, this is a way for the movie studios to directly cut in on blockbusters gig.
Right now, Blockbuster will buy one DVD movie and rent it out 50 times. The movie studios make a one time fee of maybe $10. With the new scheme they can get $1 from each of the 50 copies, and consumer usage will go way up to boot.
How many times have you gone to the rental store and found out they were out of the new-release you wanted, so you ended up not renting anything, and never bothered to ever rent it again? How many times have you found 5 movies that you wanted to rent, but knew you would only have time to watch 2 of them within the 2-5 day rental period?
The biggest hassle of the rental business is managing the rental process, getting the movies returned and restocked, blah blah blah. These are so simple, every retailer on the planet (including 24 hour/day grocery stores) will have a complete selection of the latest movies. You can haphazardly pick up everything you might possibly want to ever see and just have it sitting around for those times when you are bored.
I see no downside here, unless it drives the price of permanent DVD's higher by canabalizing standard DVD sales.
I can just see an industry-funded movie about a race to get some meaningless thing done before the DVD expires.
Actually, more like a 48-hour scavenger hunt with clues on the expiring DVD.
Which no one will buy because who wants a DVD that self-destructs?
In a year, there will be cases of hundreds of unopened expiring DVDs one sale on eBay for the cost of delivery.
I hope.
I can see it now. We'll be able to buy these 48 hr movies for a few dollars but we'll have to wait a few months to be able to purchase the standard always-lasting DVD.
I know that's how VHS works, but I've been spoiled by DVD and I don't want to go back to that. For me DVD purchases are impulse buys. If I rent a movie first, I'm much less likely to buy it later on. If I'm forced to buy a 48-hr movie instead of buying the unlimited disc, I'll buy considerably less movies in the long run.
Personally, I don't care too much because it makes it one less trip to return the DVD's I rent. However, I would certianly be pissed if an attempt was ever made to replace a more permanant media.
--
Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
I guess vinyl records last a bit longer than 2 days, but if you play one enough, it will wear down, especially in the old days. Then you've got to go get a new one. I'm sure back before tapes, repeat record purchases were at least a noticeable boost in a record company's profits.
-S
Self-destroying discs for a self-destroying industry.
Most of the video stores where I live give a 5-day rental. If the disc is unusable after the first 2 days (assumng I open it within the first 48 hours of rental) then the way I see it they must either provide me with more discs to cover the rental period or change the terms of their agreement which might drive me away from doing business with them. All of this, of course, assumes this technology will be heavily used in the reatil sector, whereas this tech. could be better used as promo/giveaway discs for new movies/music/software, etc...
With the existing rental system there isn't much in the way of waste - DVDs get rented, brought back, and continue to circulate until they get sold off as "used" stock.
With these limited-lifespan DVD's, instead we're just going to generate a huge amount of disposable waste -- something we already have way to much of these days!
For a most insightful comment. I like the entitlement attitude of the original poster:
Oh woe is me! I now have the option of renting a movie and don't have to return it! I am so oppressed! I suffer so! Oh those nasty corporations hook me on their entertainment from my childhood so I have no choice but to consume their videos in near-perfect digital quality in my own home! And I must pay for this! Oh woe is me!
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Yes, that attitude seems to be everywhere, especially in government, big business, etc. :)
Why not?
Copyright is basically a bargain between authors and the public (which includes authors as well).
The idea is that the public wants certain desires it has fulfilled more than they would be without any copyright law at all. It grants a certain extent of copyrights in order to come out ahead. The authors often like this as well, so it's win-win.
But there are two limits: First, that if the public isn't doing better than they otherwise would be, why should they have that copyright system? Shouldn't they change it to something that better suits them? Second, the public needn't even bother having one at all. True, we'd all probably be better off with a copyright system that was just right. But we can decide not to bother, in whole or in part.
So if everyone really does feel that it's okay to copy creative works and not pay for them under some circumstances -- and we realize that this will have certain consequences and we're alright with that -- then perhaps we ought to do that.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
:o/ Ya, I've waxed that one a few times - but regardless of the what/how/why of ethics, there is still a basic right and wrong in the world. Stealing something is wrong and lying for personal gain is wrong. There are certainly different degrees of right and wrong, it's never completely black and white, and sometimes it's justified to do something that's wrong, and sometimes a victimless wrong may not be so bad - my comment was more on a general level, I'm just scratching my head as to why the "first thing" people think of now is "how can I cheat or lie" to get personal gain when it comes to things like movies, software, games, etc... -sk
It would make more sense if it reacted to light than gases, and the bottom of the disc slowly darkened until it was unusable. Of course, you might very well be facetious, and I just don't have my boots on. >;^)
Spread the RC luvin'
Petty and literal-minded, but a genious nonetheless. =)
... but "The Stakes are Open"? What the hell does that mean?
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Quality is excellent
Running Time: 110 mins.
Language: English
Directed by some guy
Cast: Some People
Ejoy contless hours with this action packed extras loaded DVD. Package includes slightly used EZ-D based DVD in excelent condition, no scratches and comes with the mind condition packaging. The DVD was recently purchased a month a go, and watched three weeks ago...
Enjoy the movie!.
Cheers
Seller.
How come everyone is completely missing the point? The idea is to provide an alternative to conventional _rental_ of DVDs, not sell them normally while restricting use. As long as the price is about the same as a regular rental, it seems like a perfectly good idea. It would be a problem if self-destructing DVDs started to replace normal sales at full prices, but I don't get the feeling that that is the plan. (The other obvious issue is the environmental cost. They claim the discs would be recycled, but who knows exactly what that means.)
You just reminded me that I forgot to return that blockbuster new release before I left the state for the weekend...
There goes $12. Bah. Could have just bought the stinking thing.
paintball
Well the only good thing that could come of this is the fact we can see a cheaper DvD compared to the more expensive counter parts. We can also use some commen sense to figure out the process of creating this CD will be more expensive.
SOOO, if they could utilize and bring to market this technology for DvD's and Cd's and sell at a price considerably less then we know they can actually afford to lower the price on current stocks.
Another great example of the "use it and toss it" philosophy for useful objects. Is anyone going to recycle a DVD? Given the fact that nobody really keeps all the pop cans and paper for recycling if a recycling box / station is not within walking distance, I highly doubt it.
As if our trash problems are not severe enough.
Please direct all bug reports to
...now if the hollywood movie machine could actually produce content for audiences over 14 ....
More crap to clog up our landfills..
What wonderful foresight these folks have.
And I wonder what sort of toxins these things leech out over time as they sit in the ground, usually right over the local water table....
Stupid bastards. They only care about that bottom line, more money, total profit. To hell with the enviroment, as long as the fat cats at the top of the food chain get fatter than they already are. They don't care about anything or anyone else..
Just boycott this crap and kill it off like the last wonderturd they laid....
I can just see the next 2 seasons of 24....Jack trys to crack the DVD before it expires!! how exciting!!
This comes out just after I finished installing a dvd player to watch in my hyperbaric chamber.
Um, what happens to my 5 day rentals now??
It looks like I'm gonna be screwed out of 3 days now...
Will there be an old guy counting down the seconds before it self-destructs ?
And will the disk start to smoke?
i would never consider this form of entertainment, i prefer my movies last a little longer than a chocolate bar
"Hey give that back! I was using that as a coaster! GNggghhhh!!"
I got one of those coasters a couple of years ago with a new PC - It is called the "Windows ME" cd. The bots can have it...
Yea, but I thought it was decided that proper landfilling and burning was cheaper and better for the environment than recycling.
/ ne ws/2003/03/02/wrecyc02.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=
Throw away the green and blue bags and forget those trips to the bottle bank: recycling household waste is a load of, well, rubbish, according to leading environmentalists and waste campaigners.
In a reversal of decades-old wisdom, they argue that burning cardboard, plastics and food leftovers is better for the environment and the economy than recycling.
They dismiss the time-consuming practice - urged on householders by the Government and "green" councils - of separating rubbish for the refuse collectors as a waste of time and money.
Your disposable lifestyle is dooming the all of us. It is definately not A Good Thing for the majority of all movie rentals to end up as garbage. This isn't paper we're talking about, it's fucking plastic, which requires non-renewable fossil fuels, and takes eons to degrade. Now I'm hardly someone that anybody would mistake for a leftwing environmentalist, but it doesn't take a hippie to see that Americans are addicted to creating garbage, and their tolerance seems to be growing.
On these new discs there's actually no copy-prevention mechanism besides CSS, which has been around for a very long time already. DVD burners aren't illegal because they don't circumvent copy-prevention mechanisms, and they are quite useful to the home-movie afficionados like me.
Nothing to see here folks.
Glad I don't own a rental store, this could be the end of the business.
So wait, if you can mass produce dvd's that are "more sophisticated in design" than current dvd's -- for a rental fee of $1 or $2 bucks, then why cant a $15-$22 dollar dvd be produced for that? Even Microsoft will let you install a copy of windows OVER and OVER. I guess that the MPAA thinks that you should have to pay more since you can watch it as many times as you want by buying it.
I think everybody here has totally missed the point - rental stores WON'T be handing these things out, because
A) they make 80% of their money from overdue rentals - what will they do to get that lost income back, push more chips/chocolate into fat Americans? Not possible.
B) current rentals are $3 for a new release, so the new disc will have to be cheaper than that to make a dent, which means that
C) they are more expensive to rent out, since each disc can only be used once and stock must be maintained.
What idiot rental store owner will want these things? It's a dead end.
Will they put all of John Travolta's movies on self destructable media? Please please please...
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
EZ-D's goal is to expand the overall home entertainment market by appealing to consumers whose rental consumption has diminished due to the perceived inconvenience of the current rental process.
As DIVX demonstrated, the reason the rental market has "diminished" isn't because of the inconvenience. It's because of the price. All changes to business model are made to increase revenues. Consumers know that. Some increase revenues by decreasing costs. Some do so by screwing consumers out of more money. With the MPAA or RIAA, it's safe to assume that all changes are intended to do the latter, because they simply can't conceive of the former.
And rentals cost too much now, compared to simply buying the DVD.
But the won't learn. Not from this, and not from too-expensive "streaming video that can't be recorded" schemes. They're just too stupid.
I guess I won't bother buying a DVD player then and just wait until iDVD can connect to Apples EDVD store to download the latest and greatest.
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
The primary mover of self-destructive media will not be Blockbuster and friends, but Wal-Mart and other department stores.
Such retail outlets could care less about people coming back to the store to return rented media, because folks are already due back in a few days when they need to buy more condoms, beer, food, and - if they liked the movie - a real DVD of it at 5x the price.
Besides increasing same-store sales, it gives them a part of the rental market, without them having to actually rent/clean/repair/chase/bill anything. Retail inventory control is cake compared to that which a rental business must go through.
In closing, I'd like to submit that your assertion of reduced turnaround business at Blockbuster as being somehow indicative of a "loser" product is completely baseless, unsupportable, and lacking of any attachment to reality.
Here's to fair-use DVD-R backups of $2.99 Disney films, paid for with good ol' anonymous cash.
Kid-proof tablet..
Hey.. if they want to blow another $100 million to try it again, go ahead. I personally would have figured it out the first time, but that's just me.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
That's a good thing
So now when i want a copy to keep, "yours to keep forever" as the disney advert says... i`m FORCED to use DeCSS to copy the dvd..
But how about the expiring media we already have? movie companies expect you to buy new copies if the media gets damaged (happens eventually even if your carefull.. not to mention accidents and kids) or stolen (this is why i only have burnt cds in my car)
Media companies should provide replacement media free or at cost if you can show proof of purchase of the original.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
If Windows was on an Expiring Media Format... does that mean that their EULA expires after 48 hours too?
Environmental impact aside, this is a decent idea for rentals. But why is the first thought on everyone's mind, "so I'll just need to rip it within 48 hours"? Say what you will about the nefarious plans of RIAA/MPAA; sometimes their paranoia makes sense. And the rest of the time, I'm busy fuming that they're still too paranoid to release a majority of albums on iTunes or Rhapsody.
You're looking at pressure the wrong way. It isn't the zero pressure that's actually the problem. Its the pressure of the gas in the bubble. The same thing with human beings.
OK, it seems to be a process of oxidization which renders the disk unreadable.
How about making it fail early by placing it in a vessel of pure O2?
Under pressure.
And warm it up a bit, just for kicks.
How fast could you make this thing fail? 24h? 12h? 2h?
Tip: Don't get it too warm, and avoid using a flame as your heat source!
Depending on what gas in the air causes the reaction, it's probably the oxygen or nitrogen.
If the reactant is oxygen or nitrogen just place the dvd player in an open box with a piece of dry ice or another source of CO2. The CO2 is heaver than air so if you don't disturb it, the CO2 will stay in the box. If it's not O2 or N, bolt the box to the ceiling and fill it with helium.
... then would it not make sense then to either a) remove the activating layer (probably difficult to achieve) or b) apply an additional layer to prevent the oxidation (process assumption) of the polymer from occuring (much easier).
A very quick search of the net revealed a few products that promise to do just that. I find it interesting that for a bottle of of sealant ($25) which covers 300+ discs I have to potential to add an additional 8.3 cents to the cost of whatever their "rental" pricing might be. Jeez, I'll be a pessimist and assume I'd use 10x the normal amount; I still can coat a dvd for less than a dollar. Hmmm, sounds like a great way to get a movie for $5.00 (assumption) and keep the movie even longer....
Does anyone in the movie industry have just half a brain? I sincerly hope that the oxidation process is activated by the dvd laser and not contact with the air...
G
What if "certain consequences" means that talented artists are less likely to produce creative works? And no, it wouldn't just be Jerry Bruckheimer productions that would cease to exist.
Submerge the disc in an oxygen-poor environment. Someone already noted nitrogen. Possibly water (I guess it depends on the chemical reaction), oxygen gas is O-O, water is H-O-H, depending on the chemical they use it may not react with the oxygen in the water. Watch DVD, submerge in tupperware DVD holder until next viewing cycle :)
h arpie.
:)
CD/DVD layer cleaners. Those Dr. Fixit things that clean scratched CD's. The chemical has to be exposed to oxygen, why can't you just scratch off the opaqueness? Kind of a reverse write-over-the-copy-protection-on-the-CD-with-a-s
Least cost-effective: Open the DVD in a vacuum and put it in it's player, in a vacuum.
Seriously though, unless these are recycleable, I hope they fail miserably. What a huge waste of resources. More crap to throw away. What irresponsibility. What happened to ethics? Corporate responsibility? I guess you save some gas not having to return them tho. It better be cheaper than renting, cuz I live a quarter mile from a blockbuster. I don't mind renting and returning every once in a while.
More chemistry to think about: Is it the oxygen that bonds to the disc that makes the disc opaque? Or does it bind and pull whatever off the disc causing it to be unreadable, kind of like an oxygen wash? Would another chemical binding cause the disc to not be opaque and never fail? I'm no chemist, I only have a rudimentary understanding of the underlying forces. Your thoughts?
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
The "something better" being advocated here is better only for the consumer. There are two particapants in this transaction, the consumer is happy to get something for free, but the producer has no incentive to create anything (or share it if he did).
So if everyone really does feel that it's okay to copy creative works and not pay for them under some circumstances -- and we realize that this will have certain consequences and we're alright with that -- then perhaps we ought to do that.
The problem is that there is nothing more than a desire to get something of value for free on the part of the consumer in this case. This is not making a back up copy, or lending a movie to a friend, this is you renting the right to view a movie for 48 hours and cheating. The author (or owner) of the creative work is not paid what he is owed.
How is that anything other than theft?
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Would be samples of games for various systems. If they can get / keep the price down low enough (say under $5), this might work. See a new game for you PS2/XBox/GameCube/PC, but aren't sure you'll enjoy it enough to warrant dropping $40+? By the trial disk. You now have 48hrs to try the game. Probably wouldn't work as well / at all for the PC, as all I need to do is copy the disk, and then find a no-CD crack for it, and I never need to buy it, but might work for the consoles. However, for movies? No way. I thought DivX (the Circuit City one) blew chunks, and am glad it died a (fairly) quick death. Unless you either sell me these disks for under $2, OR give me a VERY large discount AT THE REGISTER when I buy a non-expiring copy of the same movie, I would not buy ANYTHING in this format. As I said, NO mail-in rebate crap, as I would not want to wait 3-4 months for a rebate. Jason A.
Do you see the FNORDS? I refuse to post anonymously, as I am fireproof!
And this is definitely a COMPELLING solution. The way I see it, every product should self destruct after 48 hours. Bought a computer? Well, a $2,000 computer should be the first thing to self destruct after 48 hours. The warranty card would read, "This warranty expires 47 hours and 59 minutes and 59 seconds and 999 milliseconds after you make up your mind to buy a computer, and not even this particular one!"
Bought a new car? They should attach explosives all over the car... don't worry, 48 hours after leaving the dealership, a buzzing sound will alert you and your passengers that you must exit the vehicle, and then the car will drive itself under automated control to a safe part of the desert before exploding. And yes, you still have to pay off the financing for the new vehicle. In fact, dealers will be extra innovative in this respect: You'll simply subscribe to receive a new car every 48 hours and your bank account will simply be debited for the $25,000 or whatever the MSRP is for each occasion. If you don't have that amount of money at the bank, the dealer will provide an alley for you to prostitute yourself in order to earn the money. In fact, it will become federal LAW that you MUST prostitute yourself in order to pay for self-destructing products, as it is the God given right of multinational corporations to enjoy eternal perpetually increasing profits, and it will simultaneously be illegal to prostutute yourself, thus putting you in a situation that you will go to jail no matter what you do, and you will have to subscribe to a new "eMafia" protection service to avoid such arrest. It will obviously be illegal to bypass any devices that make the car blow up after 48 hours, and if you do so, you'll get more time in jail than a murderer or a rapist. In fact, to make the justice system more balanced in light of today's enormous piracy problems, murder charges and rape charges will be reduced to misdemeanors, because those crimes aren't all that bad, but if you God-forbid copy an album so you can perform the horrendous crime against humanity, a thousand times worse than any genocide this world has ever seen, the criminal act of listening to an album that you paid 20 bucks for... you should be beaten nearly to death but simultaneously kept alive, and tortured, and made to suffer the worst of all sufferings of the world combined and then some, because you are the dirtiest, slimiest, shittiest, more horrible criminal this world has ever seen, and shame on you.
Oh yeah... Houses will be made to self destruct in 60 hours, to compensate for the fact that you need to move your belongings in before they self destruct.
Christ. Trust a geek to come up with a plan for bolting a helium-filled DVD-playing box to the ceiling to avoid the ELEVEN DOLLARS a brand-new DVD costs. Or are we doing this because we can? Slashdot makes me laugh sometimes.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
I'm surprised that all of the comments here are negative. True, attempts at this sort of thing have failed before, but just because the MPAA is supporting something doesn't mean it's a horrible idea. For one, I don't think blockbuster's lost business is much of a problem. They, much like the music industry have a business model that is being made obsolete by new technology. Admittedly, expiring DVD's might be an attempt by the movie industry to get your money, but personally I am happy to see new technology being innovated that give you incentive to buy there movies (convenience) as opposed to the MPAA trying to make it so we are unable to use the technology we already have (P2P, DVD writing) to prop up an obsolete business model.
Search me
What if you just sprayed some clear coating on the dvd to protect it from air? Would that affect the laser reading it?
The RIAA and MPAA are hoping to hell that it is only the geeks who are ripping these movies and CD's to a non-protected format. They do NOT want the general consumer to find out how to do it.
And all it would take is for someone major like FOX News to do a story about how this "brand new technology" has been cracked 5 seconds out of the jewel case due to existing technology like DeCSS. That would blow the whole thing wide open and raise awareness on how to be able to keep what you pay for.
Poor xxAA, I weep for thee!
I submitted this story hours earlier than the one that got posted and it got rejected, just like every other thing I've ever posted. No reason of course. Do I have to subscribe to get something posted? Like THAT's ever gonna happen. Bite me /. editors. Really. For that matter 98% of /. readers can bite me, too. Always moaning about how evil MS is and how great you are because you take the so-called high road of Linux. Read up on Darwinism. MS will be around long after most of the Linux startups.
Mark
I just thought of the killer application for this: Porn.
Just like the magazine in a brown wrapper these things can be mailed to eager beavers discretely and encourage repeated purchases. Porn DVDs are fairly expensive, but they could sell these fairly cheaply for LOTS of repeat business to customers who are nervous about adult shops and rental places (where you have to go there TWICE and usually pay a huge deposit to rent).
I'll bet that's what's behind this.
The "something better" being advocated here is better only for the consumer.
Well, as it is the public that is sacrificing something in order to grant a copyright to begin with, it doesn't seem inappropriate for them to be the only people that count.
However, you're underestimating what the public wants. Essentially there are two goals. First, the public wants works created. Original and derivative works. Second, the public wants to use them. And not to merely use them, but to be able to get them for free, copy them, change them, distribute them, base derivative works upon them, etc.
So you're right: this would trade off some added satisfaction for the second goal in exchange for less satisfaction of the first. However, bear in mind that there is some addition satisfaction of the first goal in the form of derivative works.
Sometimes expanding copyrights will leave the public better off than before; other times it will be harmful. Sometimes reducing copyrights will leave the public better off than before; other times it will be less better off.
Note the subtle difference -- it's because at our baseline, where there is no copyright at all, there is nevertheless satisfaction of the first goal somewhat, and total satisfaction of the second. Too much copyright, however, might be able to reduce the overall public benefit below the baseline, due to overprotection inhibiting the creation of original works (perhaps because they're labeled derivative by entrenched interests) and of course as we've seen, inhibiting public use, in the broad sense above.
Basically, there's some optimal point out there, and the idea is to find it and stay atop it. At the moment, I think we're overprotective and have overshot the optimal point.
And as already noted, there is another option. To set aside taking pains to balance the system, and instead just satisfying specific goals. Perhaps due to administrability issues. If people wanted noncommercial copying to be legal, even though this might prevent the optimal point from being reached, so long as it is above the baseline, I don't have a serious problem with that.
In short: if fewer works are created, but everyone is overall happier and better off -- so be it. Some things come at too high a price.
The problem is that there is nothing more than a desire to get something of value for free on the part of the consumer in this case.
That is in fact the entire purpose of the copyright system to begin with.
The author (or owner) of the creative work is not paid what he is owed. How is that anything other than theft?
Well, assuming we're dealing with legal reforms, the question is in error. The author isn't owed anything to begin with if the law doesn't extend his copyright that far.
And theft of course is a pejorative that really has no place here. It doesn't describe what's going on in a legal sense, and the only reason people bother to invoke the T-word at all is to make a cheap character attack. Would it kill you to use the proper term? Aren't your arguments strong enough to work without slurs?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Heh. That would be nice.
But yeah -- that is EXACTLY the consequence I anticipate. Sometimes, however, it is acceptable. Because we're overall better off without those works. I don't mean that as a bit of cultural snobbery.
Rather, I mean that if the loss of some original works coincides with an increase in derivative works, and an increase in public use (broadly defined), then the overall public benefit might nevertheless be greater despite the loss of those works.
That only is true, though, if we have been been granting excessive copyrights, since this draws us closer towards the optimal balance point. If we are not granting enough copyrights, such an action would be harmful.
Personally, I think we're on the side of excess right now, and it would benefit everyone to reduce copyright protections somewhat. But your opinion as to where we stand might differ.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
This means that fewer people will waste their time (and limited, that is) on the second-rate offerings from Disney. More power to the other entertainment companies.
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
XviD on a PIII 1.2GHz encodes (striaght from the VOBs) at 1/3rd realtime in 2-pass mode. While it's not blistering fast, its easy to queue up overnight.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
When a video store rents something to you, the thing they rent to you remains their property, and so they can still charge late fees for not returning the defunct disk on schedule.
Is it really so hard to understand?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The "something better" being advocated here is better only for the consumer.
At this point, better only for the consumer shouldn't be a stretch. Don't forget that the original argument for copyright is to maximize the value of the public domain. By encouraging authors to produce works that will later enter the public domain and benefit everyone, that is. From the current state of the laws, we could back all the way out to registered copyrights with one extension and your argument is still valid, but just as irrelevant.
The fundamental issue is that moral and legal are not the same thing and these laws are the perfect example of that observation. In general, law is a tool for society to express a consensus morality (simplistically, it's right for people to be compensated for their work). In copyright law, however, that good idea got hijacked by people with the funds to get the law to say "It's mine and you can't have it ever." Just about everyone interested enough to pay attention to the issue recognises the imbalance of the laws and the reaction is predictably rebellious. When a law doesn't represent consensus morality, we naturally become scofflaws.
So with an attitude even more brazen than most people have about ignoring speed limits, we as a society have decided that copying most works is not wrong, even though we are aware that it's illegal. With the laws so far beyond ridiculous, the right question is not to wonder why people are happily copying DVD's, but to wonder who thought that these laws could possibly reflect morality or influence behavior?
But then, a quick analysis quickly leads to the conclusion that the DMCA was not intended to reflect morality but to simply keep money in the hands of the moneyed. Which is a crying shame, since most of the benefit of capitalism comes when there are serious financial consequences for failing to provide competitive value to your customers. As Marx should have taught us, when the playing field can be changed to benefit those with capital, you don't have capitalism any more. It's mercantilism and it's our modern reality.
Regards,
Ross
I'm not a Marxist, but his criticisms of the system of his day were quite cogent. He was objecting to moneyed interests levering government influence to further their own interests at the expense of their employees, their customers, those who had to live near their stinking polluted plants, etc. He just happened to believe that all of that was part and parcel of capitalism when instead it's an unfortunately common corruption of capitalism.
I would definately watch a lot of movies this way if it were actually cheaper than renting them for 5-7 days.. If these only last 48 hours, and you dont have to return them, that means no late fee's which is good. As long as they're around $1 or $2 a movie for 48 hours i'd be okay with it. Anything more and it would be a very very dumb idea.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
The public is granting the right to control a creative work for some period of time. This gives the creator a chance to make some money, gives the public the chance to enjoy the work, and gives the public complete control of the work when copyright expires. That seems like a good basis for a fair system.
If you take the period of control away from the creator then the system is no longer fair, the public is granting nothing to the creator.
However, you're underestimating what the public wants. Essentially there are two goals. First, the public wants works created. Original and derivative works. Second, the public wants to use them. And not to merely use them, but to be able to get them for free, copy them, change them, distribute them, base derivative works upon them, etc.
The existence of copyright does not prevent people from releasing their work directly into the public domain. These two goals could be fulfilled with public domain works, but the public seems to have a preference for professional works produced with the expectation of payment.
I recognize that there are many issues with the current infinite copyright, restricts on fan fiction, restrictions on media transfer, etc. But I don't think removing copyright is ever going to happen or that it would even be a good idea.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
guys this isn't a technology that will have any type of effect on piracy. it won't help pirates or deter them. if you want to copy a dvd, you can rent a real one for probably the same price as the self destructing ones. it doesn't take 48+ hours to rip a dvd.
i can see this kind of dvd being preferred by grocery stores, online rental companies, airports, and possibly even gas stations. this is perfect for them. i think it would be a smart move to buy stock in these companies who are developing the new dvd's.
No, no, no... The attitude is:
There is a huge difference.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Consider yourself shot.
One simple reason: It gives people an excuse to produce more garbage ("hell, it will be recycled anyway").
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
I understand the original reason for copyright. My point is that if there is no possibility of making money creating content then fewer people will create content. Many valuable works of art, literature and film would never have been produced without a profit motive.
As I've stated before I recognize that there are many problems with modern US copyright, but abolishing copyright or making unauthorized copies is not the answer.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
This makes me miss the days of VHS and dubbing.
>This is designed to be similar to a video shop transaction.
Okay, lets assume this isn't a hamfisted attempt to push DRM down the throat of Joe Sixpack. While all these useless DVD discs pile up in the local landfill, someone out there is getting a pizza delivered.
I wonder what's best for the long-run? A peapod-like video store or 48-hour DVDs? You still have to drive out to the store to buy the DVD in the first place.
Also, video stores makes a lot, if not most of, their money off late fees. I wouldn't expect these things to be that much cheaper than the offerings at your local video store.
Also, where exactly is the market for this? People too lazy to goto the video store AND who also don't have pay-per-view AND don't want to subscribe to NetFlix? Yeah right, I'm sure these 800 people are going to love DRM-DVD.
..capitalism needs educated consumers to continue to function.
The DIVX rejection was a fluke, nothing more.
Well, I wasn't discussing not granting copyrights. I had been talking about -- though not proposing -- that noncommercial copying be exempted. Thus, people could share data via P2P, but you still couldn't charge people for such things. Commercial exploitation of the work, which will pretty typically include anything involving physical media, would still be exclusive.
At any rate, the point I was trying to make is simply that there is a continuum of copyright protection. It's possible to scale back without getting rid of the entire thing.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
All this is is a more efficent way to rent a movie. No one is going to pay $15 for these things.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It should be interesting to see how these effect the storage market and the film industry. Imagine a game that requires a CD that expires in 48 hours.
..
Hmm.. When I first read that, I misinterpreted your mention of the "film industry" to mean they'd use this as a plot point.
NEXT SUMMER.. IT'S JAMES BOND.. IN A RACE AGAINST TIME!
[M] James Bond, we need you to get this DVD to a scientist held prisoner in a North Korean jail!
[James Bond] Sounds too easy. What's the catch?
[M] You only have 48 hours-- before the DVD's copy-protection makes it disintegrate!
And of course james bond slams the dvd into the north korean prisoner's imac with 5 seconds left before the disk oxidizes or whatever, after which we get to see a tense moment while COPYING FILE appears on screen and a progress bar tries to outrun the dying DVD while the seconds tick down... will it be copied in time?
Find out, in
007: JAMES SCREWS SOME CHICKS AND THINGS BLOW UP
[[ This film is not yet rated ]]
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I swear I must have paid more in late fees than I ever paid for video rentals. I bet I'm not alone. Late fees are an important revenue stream for video stores. Since there is no chance of them collecting late fees on these disposable disks, they will definitely have to charge each customer more per rental. And that's saying nothing about the actual cost of the disposable disk itself...
Yippee! Something else for the landfill! Right next to those paper phones and all those failed attempts at Floppy Disk Enterprises (TM) ;)
...a carrot!
A)[snip]"Not possible."
Don't underestimate the bandwidth of a fat American.
P.S. I'm absolutely certain you will be one of the first casualties of the war against the "software" companies. I'm also certain that you will not be missed. Good riddance to bad rubbish!!
...we have a limited time to rip it to divx?
--Joey
Perhaps out of environmental concerns, this won't work out for mass produced DVD rentals. But I believe that more and more professional movie critics will be receiving DVDs of this type for review. Just a thought.
Sure, sucks for some people but really there will be so many hacks out for this. I'll be able to "rent" music for a dollar an album and crack it. It's not like the data can be destroyed, and if even if it can you have to be able to some how crack it and use it. What a joke. Will people actually fall for this?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
First they dug their own graves...
Now they are shooting themselves in the head.
hmm..
Sorry, I just don't get it. You would think these "special" DVDs cost more to produce yet they sell them for cheaper than a normally priced movie? If this is true then why do I have to pay $20 for a DVD that lasts a lifetiem instead of 48 hours? If I could buy a DVD for as much as I could rent one, then I'd own a ton of DVDs. Just kind of strange.
Ahahahahahahahahahaha!
+5 HIGH-LARIOUS!
Get it ? ITS FROM TEH MATRIX!
Can't speak for the 799 others, but I'd like this. If I could pick up a 48-hour DVD for a few bucks, that'd be a good deal to me. I don't have pay-per-view, I hate making two trips to Blockbuster for a single movie, and Netflix is a bad deal unless you rent at least four or five movies a month. There just aren't that many movies I'd like to see. Plus, since you don't need to have a rental system in place, they could stick these things anywhere: 7-11, grocery stores, Wal-Mart...all places I usually go anyway. I'd love to be able to pick up an occasional movie "rental" when I stop for gas or groceries, without having to worry about returning it by such-and-such a date. It's like DivX without the expensive equipment, the invasive privacy issues, or the hassle. Pretty cool stuff, actually.
And what's with all the yelling about DRM? I hate overly-restrictive DRM as much as anyone, but how is an essentially normal DVD that just stops playing after 48 hours any worse than a normal DVD that you have to give back to Blockbuster tomorrow? DivX, with all its nonstandard technology, "activation" crap, etc. was ugly. But this EZ-D thing you can play in any DVD player, there's no one tracking what you're doing with it...what's the big deal? It's not like these are going to replace real DVDs in the market. This technology is made to target renters, not buyers...
DennyK
As if that wasn't bad enough, it looks like this works for music and software disks too!
Bad enough? This sounds great. They're actually going to GIVE you a disc to keep at Blockbuster (or wherever)? Let's count the benefits:
A. No need to return the disc.
B. No late fees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
C. No returns means they can't have a fixed number of rental discs that circulate. This ought to improve availability, i.e. on Saturday night.
D. All those chemists can start contributing. Can't be more than a week before somebody figures out what house-hold products form a suitable "anti-expiration" sealant.
What are these people thinking????
Don't buy them. Educate everyone you can, so that they won't buy them.
If they don't make money, they'll go away... just like Divx did.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Wel, did they think about the enviromental waste this causes!
Concerned reader...
Good thing dvd recorders are coming down so you can make a permanent copy of what you OWN. These corporate nazis will have to try harder than this.
This could be a great rental-fee saver for my friends and I.
If I unseal the movie and watch it in 3 hours, it still has 45 hours of life left. I can then pass it on to someone else to watch because, unlike regular rentals, I don't have to trust them to return it.
I have a feeling video stores are not going to like this. Or do they get the majority of their money from people without friends?
- mib
I gave up caring when I knew that it was illegal to watch dvd's in linux, and illegal to put any tracks from my cd's onto my mp3 player. (The UK doesn't have fair use - we aren't allowed to copy cd's _at all_.
I was going to buy a music cd for my gf, and the one she wanted had "Does not work on pc's" on it. So I had no choice but to download it off the internet so she could listen to it on her laptop (poor students etc)
And on top of all of this, I hear so many stories that the money I pay doesn't even get distributed fairly between those who helped make it.
So I personally gave up caring about paying for music and dvd's. With the exception of the occasional dvd (southpark/simpson, since I have downloaded so many episodes, I feel it only right to buy a few dvd's, and I really want to buy animatrix despite having already downloaded it because I think it's very cool. I'll have to wait for my credit card to work again.)
The real goal is to kill off rental altogether! They pick one or two big rental chains to sponser and the rest die off. The movie houses can sell them thru anyone with this tech--netflix would be killer for them because they could keep all the profit! And they get a pay-per-view customer base. Video rental and return is a anomaly they've been trying to kill for years.
Maybe this is my European mindset, but how will this affect the environment? First of all, the production of optical media is quite environmentally unfriendly, and second, how much people will actually return a DVD like that? Imagine the extra amount of waste...
Let's think about the concept of renting a movie at all.
We are usually so integrated in our daily world, we rarly have the time to step out once in a while and think over it a bit of the box. (reflect)
Why is the time limited you are allowed to use a movie? On a rental store this has a solution, since there is only one movie tape, you borrow, give it back, and the next once borrows, etc.
So whats the concept of renting? Do borrow a material a finite time, and return it so the next one can take use of it.
Now as usually our thinking is based on corporal things. However data is not, it can be copied at zero cost. So is the concept of 'renting' data not a bit out of place?` Why is it necessary to limit the time your allowed to have the data?
So the future might be, you will be paying differently in relation of the time you are allowed to keep the data.
In my personal valuation this is an oppression.
--------------------
My humble opinion to this all. Our social system, sense of justice and from this derived also the legal system has evolved for thousend of years since the romans. And it works quite well for bodied things, things that are need at least work to be copied.
However today the general concept of "things" is expanded over data, not taking account of it's special traits. (Namely beeing able to be copied at zero cost).
I think it will take primary just time to have a good system to evolve to handle these things in the best interest of our social community.
However secondly more important it needs us all to be able to think out of the box. To question the rules we were raised up, if they truely apply well to this concept. Right now we've just different interests clashing on each other.
I personally think the law of property which is in it's way in place since the romans does not well handle the concept data, However the roman concept might be a value,( free translated from my german) "the same rule equally, the different rule unequally"
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
You know, I got about halfway through your post before discerning whether you were talking about consumers infringing copyrights or multi-national conglomerates price-gouging and price fixing.
I pay for t-shirts, cds, tickets, etc to support local, unsigned bands. But when it comes to the major media companies, I'm going to play their game until they either play fairly or die. I prefer the latter.
They want to hike up the price for CDs to rates so high even the FTC can't stand it? No problem; I'll just make sure that the CD gets spread around a bit to compensate. They want to screw over artists who are too small to fight back? No problem, I'll simply refuse to montarily support the lying bastards.
You see, you don't get that this isn't about theft, or copyright infringement, or intellectual property. This is a cat and mouse game between the average Joe and massive multi-nationals. They started this little game, and now the average Joe has the technology to fight back. I support the rights of artists to profit from their works so they may continue to produce them full time. I support the securing of those rights via copyright. I support the general idea and original intent of intellectual property. What I do not support is the crminal enterprises which use copyright, patent, and intellectual property laws as a weapon to hold artists and consumers hostage. What I do not support is the abuse by these criminal enterprises of the laws and the judicial system to further their solitary purpose: bleeding the world dry of all possible disposable income through all means necessary.
My attitude has nothing to do with "getting away with it". There are a lot of things I could get away with, which I choose not to do. No; I choose to do what I do out of a conscious effort to level the playing field. I see no problem with robbing the crooks to fullfill the original intent of securing rights to intellectual property - the advancement of art and entertainment for the benefit of the general public.
Call it piracy, call it infringement, call it theft, call it whatever you like; I call it winning one for the home team, and we're by no means finished yet. The stricter the laws they lobby for, the harder they push to control the masses, the more people like me will backlash against them. If Hilary Rosen wants to claim she's starving because of myself and those like me, I have this to say to her: Let her eat cake.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
As in re-burning? Personally I cant wait to put a good Linux distro on that shitty movie I rented.
Seriously though, you have to think about this, is it copyable. In theory, it would be as a regular DVD for the first 48 hours, so I would assume the answer is yes.
Now you must consider the new age hackers (er, crackers for that matter) would come up with some form of reversing it, even if it is a chemical change in the dvd. For all I know though, it could be as simple as throwing it in the microwave for a few mins to "burn" the data on it permanently. Or, you might simply be able to write a stream of 0's onto it from a cdrw burner which has been modified. As impractical, and stupid as that sounds...I really have no clue as to the specs of the technology. Time to pull out the old phone and "ask" them.
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
And on that note, I have just stolen your .sig.
Not because I wanted it, but because I could.
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
While the movie companies do not directly get compensation for rentals, rental tapes and DVDs cost significantly more than consumer tapes and DVDs. Something on the order of $100 to $250 depending on the film.
Incidentally, I found this out when I was looking to buy a copy of Barenaked in America. I found out the company licensed it exclusively to Blockbuster and subsequently went out of business. The only copies available for purchase were rental tapes, and they were really effin expensive.
The previous sig has been removed due to
I think this will be intresting, it will show the real cost of pressing DVD's. which would be intresteing to know.. if they did the same thing for music cds, the whole argument on how much cd's should cost would end.
This has evem more striking implactions if they can vary the amount of time it take for a cd/dvd to kill itself.. temporary licence for a month then the KEY CD/DVD dies and you cant use that software any more.. sure technicly inclined people will hack it, but it will deter people..
I think this technology will have a very small niche area, and that area whon't actually be for mainstream DVD movies. I cant think of too many Video Stores wanting to use this altrenitive.
or is this a dupe with all references to divx replaced by dvd ;P
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Damn! If only there existed some sort of device that would copy a DVD in less than 48 hours, a so-called 'DVD-copier'. May thee rot in the depths of technological hell, Flexplay Corporation and your cursed, foolproof technology.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
OK.. I lied. So there is a line of text here...
I hope they have considered the effect of computer DVD drives and DivX/DVD-R copies of the movie that might not self destruct. But if it somehow worked - great idea. Choices are always good. Just imagine Blockbuster where you don't have to return movies.
Good to see that Slashdot is keeping up with technology:
v d/
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/11/22/bond.d
Next week's topic: Potential Fraud at Enron?
"As if that wasn't bad enough, it looks like this works for music and software disks too!" Bad you say? The only bad thing I can think of is that they would cost too much. If that is the case, you either have too little money, or they aren't worth it. Either way, nothing bad about the actual concept. ---- How big is big? Well, if its bigger than 4294967296, then it's big.
A DVD or VHS used for rental typically costs six times more than a retail copy.
At (for example) GBP60 for a new movie on VHS (as Rainman was on it's release), the tape has to be rented 120 times at GBP2 just to break even on the purchase price - that's every night for 3 months - to say nothing of the store overhead.
Now add to this the fact that you can never have just *one* copy of a new release on the shelf, or your customers will go elsewhere.
This is why your corner video store HAS to charge late fees, and sell off pre-rental tapes... and why they get annoyed at customers who complain about paying a GBP10 late fee and then won't return the tape, saying "That's what the tape costs, why shouldn't I keep it?"...
The economics of a single video rental shop are marginal (pardon the pun) - the bread and butter is made not from A-list movie releases, but B-list and back catalogue material, as well as actual "retail" meterial like snacks and drinks.
Now, consider instead the disposable DVD scenario: the economics change from the rental to pure retail model.
Instead of having to buy 5 copies at GBP60 each and rent them 600 times at GBP2 a time to break even, they can buy 200 disposables at GBP1.50 each and make a guaranteed GBP0.5 on each sale.
Even better, if 50 customers want to see the new Vin Diesel exploderama on the day it is released, they can, and they don't need to go to your competitor.
Plus, the opportunity of "sale or return" on stock arises, so the video store can hold a thousand copies of "Things Exploding" on the day of release, and send back any used copies for credit.
Finally, expect this "disposable format" to only be used for A-list titles in the first 3 months or so of their release, and subsequently revert to standard "long life" format.
In fact, it's a shame that this didn't/couldn't happen a long time ago, as Blockbuster would never have got a foothold in the market.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Anyone who knows cars will tell you the cars made in the last decade keep running like no others. Those "classic" cars you see on the road (like the old Falcons and Mustangs) are kept where they are today through lots of TLC. Old Mustangs and Falcons had glove boxes and air ducts in the dash made out of goddamn cardboard because it was cheap and light and plastic wasn't a mature "technology" in 1965; you'll be hard pressed to find a (US) Falcon that hasn't lost at least part of it's floors to rust, and I can't recall my parents ever keeping a car past 60,000 miles back in the 60's and 70's - by the time they had 80,000 miles on'em they were money pits.
I realize aussie cars are a bit of a different breed than US cars (they seem to have kept the drivetrains from the 60's much longer, which likely explains the lower durability) but today (in the US) you can buy an american car with 100,000 miles on the clock and expect, if it was well cared for, to take it at least that many miles again. It may not look pretty; the door panels may rot away from the sun and the dash may split - but today's american cars, if well maintained, have a useful lifetime just as long as the "classic" Mercedes of the 70's enjoyed - but for a lot less money.
If only they would learn to put the damn EGR valve in a sane place...
Anyways, I don't know about you, but I save all those old CD cases. You can't find cases made that sturdy anymore.
I'm betting that the disk is made with photo-sensitive plastic, and that the envelope it comes in is sealed against light, not air.
To activate the disk, (to make it readable), you probably need to let it expose for a while, (like a Polaroid snapshot), and then 48 hours later, after the initial exposure, the chemical photo-alters beyond the range readable by the average disk player.
Not a bad system. --If you're a paranoid media company charged with keeping a stranglehold on knowledge.
If you want to crack such a system, you'll need to own a computer with ripping software. Luckily, this will remain a possibility forever, since the National Security State wants people to remain distracted with all the dumb movies and bullshit media designed to keep their attention away from the actual important things going on in the world.
The best way to lock down a geek? Give them a technical puzzle and 'forbid' them from solving it. You could sell pig-shit to a nerd if you encrypted it first.
-FL
...now Microsoft software can fail before you install it...
Not to be totally redundant, I have to point out the fact that not every place supports recycling - my surrounding towns do on-street pickup, but we don't, the closest thing we have is a redemption center which is just for bottles and cans. That doesn't even matter, because most of the items I see in the recycling bins by the street are milk jugs and soup cans, no newspapers, no various other plastics, nothing.
I'm not a big eco-freak, but I'd rather see the oil they're using go towards gasoline. At least that's a necessity (especially for my V8, heh) for pretty much everyone.
If there isn't a redemption value on these, nobody will recycle them.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall
With your opinion which is of no consequence at all
I swear I must have paid more in late fees than I ever paid for video rentals. I bet I'm not alone. Late fees are an important revenue stream for video stores. Since there is no chance of them collecting late fees on these disposable disks, they will definitely have to charge each customer more per rental. And that's saying nothing about the actual cost of the disposable disk itself...
--Which I think is an interesting point!
Mind you, (when I last checked, and this was years ago), the average cost of a new video cassette of a recent movie release purchased by a video rental store was about $100. --All those rows of the latest Bruce Willis film represent a one or two thousand dollar investment for your local Schlock Buster. This expense will clearly not be an issue with a disposable medium.
Which is interesting! The video rental market, if this meidum is adopted, will transform into something resembling the book or direct comics market, where disks are paid for by the retailer at a discount on the 'cover' price, which is then paid in full by the customer.
--And here's the best part; There will probably be some system whereby disks are returnable after a set period of time if they don't sell. (Talk about time-sensitive media!) Which means that the selection in the average video store will become even worse. Yay for that. Now, more than ever, our media libraries will be as limited as people's memories. People will watch what they are directed to watch. (You can have your car in any color, so long as it's black.)
Hopefully, this will only spur on the media pirate market, which will almost certainly NOT sell self-destructing media. --In this sense, China is a good example of the free market driving in a sensible direction. Go out to a Chinese mall sometime and look at the pricing scheme on DVD's and VCD's. Pirating is rampant, with stolen disks costing only about $5 each. Strangely enough, the official media companies, (in Asia at any rate), don't seem to be suffering much, still making lots of movies with huge sales. --They have been able to compete, selling new and offical disks for about $8. Which would you rather own? A half-assed copy or a well made real copy for a couple of dollars more? Instead of buying no DVD's when I last visited a mall, I bought 4, one of which was an official disk. That's exactly $8 more than I would have normally spent.
And this is exactly the way a free market is supposed to work! Pirating is the American way. Too bad the American is no longer the American way. --Through state sanctioned monopolies and the whiney, patent-based outlawing of competetion, the US has managed to become a communist state, (and without any of the benefits of communism, no less!)
What a joke.
-FL
If something like this was to be used either for a rental (no return neccessary) or a pay-per-view market, what would the production runs be like? Rental stores only have so much storage space and a self-destructing DVD that doesn't get returned would require the store to purchase and stock hundreds more of the same title. How would this keep the prices down? Before a rental could be rented say 100 times for a one time purchase. Now you have to buy 100 DVDs and hope to god that they *all* get rented. Something just doesn't seem thought out here (and it may be me).
I know that this technology isn't supposed to replace rental stores, but what no-one has pointed out yet is another money-making factor in the rental model: When you make the trip to return the film you rented you may well make an impulse rental of another film.
graspee
with their software and file formats.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Why not have it decay into a regular DVD-RW?
It would start as a DVD-RW with the movie on it, and then with the magic chemical on top. After 48 hours, rather than making it unreadable, it triggers a reaction that erased the DVD.
Then it could be used in a vanilla DVD burner for anything.
That gets rid of all the environmental problems: When you're done watching it, reuse it!
Bad laws foster disrespect for the law, and there is a distinction between legal and ethical. Laws allowed slavery (not just in the US, and people all of ethnic origins have been enslaved), women did not have the vote, there are many bad laws - how many residents of states which outlaw oral sex respect that law? Convicts were transported to Virgina and Australia for petty theft...
Civil disobedience is a respected form of protest - now a few geeks copying dvds isn't necessarily civil disobedience a la Gandhi, but if most of the population of the US accepts this behaviour- then that law must fall. The copyright laws should be adjusted back to the previous state - the life of the creator plus a few years, and the principle of First Sale should be enshrined in law.
If EULAs are unlawful for books, then are they lawful for software? Both are published works protected by copyright, First Sale should apply here too. Software should not have any less protection than other copyright works (which have too much anyway), but it should definitely have no more.
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
A think 48 hours will be plenty for the pirates to get a copy made.
The Destruct-O-DVD will only encourage more copying. The main reason many people copy is for backup purposes. This plays right to the instinct most consumers have to get their money's worth and not be ripped off.
-- $G
They may be outside the capability of the average consumer, but if anyone figures out a way of doing it cost-effectively in volume, then there's a business opportunity there;
Step 1: buy a self-destructing rental for $5,
Step 2: run it through your process which you've got down to $4/disc
Step 3: sell it for $15.
Step 4: Profit!
Sure, it may be of dubious legality, and will be made definitively illegal in the U.S.. But that will not stop some shady organizations from trying to espablish a huge grey market in the U.S. or elsewhere!
You think that's unrealistic? Well, disposable camera producers are fighting a similar problem. Disposable cameras typically get returned to the manufacturer for recycling. But several "businesses" started buying used camera bodies for $.10 each directly from photo developing places and re-loading them with film and re-selling them on the grey market. The big disposable camera producers are pissed off about this and fire off lawsuits left and right when they find someone doing this, but there's not much more they can do. Everyone involved is just trying to make a profit: the manufacturer can try to buy back the camera at $.15, but someone will offer $.20, and how much profit do you thing those camera manufacturers really make per unit?
of course if they dont apply this technology to paperbacks and the page turns black and unreadable 48hrs hours after cracking the cover-of course the books have always been more interesting than the movies anyway (opps I just got modded down to lesser geek because I like paper)
It worked with DivX. The reason that failed
was that MOST people avoided it. If you ever
see a product you want that is only available
in this new EZ-D format, contact the company
and tell them that you are not only not buying
it, but that you will not buy any of their
other products either, until they stop using
that system. When enough of us do that, they
will have a simple choice; stop using the
system and have out money, or continue to use
that system and NOT have our money. I believe
that like DivX, they will choose our money...
Just get a can of clear laquer and spray the surface
It will dry translucent and stop any further reaction with the air.
This sounds great! Just imagine, no more late pornos! Don't you just hate it when you've got your S.O. at the rental place and they ask for a late fee on "Lesbo Love Fest #69"
Now we can really feel like Leonard!
Hey, let the big corporations build these things. They did it before and they'll regret it again.
The analogy here is anti-piracy. For the last year, I have railed loud and long to everyone I met because I *KNOW* how to kick a corporation's ass when the subject is copy-protection^h^h^h^hprevention. One simply has to tell every joe-shmoe that this new something sucks, and go into detail.
So, the moment that I learned that TurboTax was using this shit, what did everyone do? They ranted, they bitched, and I even used a bit of FUD (I *very* intentionally would leave out the part where after a year the Product Craptivation (tm) would be turned off). Result: Intuit (who I used to adore for being an example of a little guy surviving in a war against Microsoft) took it in the shorts, financially. I (after over a decade of loyalty on tax software) am using TaxCut.
Evidence is STRONG that since introducing Product Crapivation (tm) even Microsoft is getting hammered. That's right... the ALMIGHTY-CANT-LIVE-WITHOUT-IT Microsoft can't overwhelm the public disdain for uncopyable stuff! There are plenty of paranoids that think Intuit will ALTER their Product Craptivation (tm) to something less insidious and nasty, but I'm here to tell you that MOST people will grumble unless a bypass is obvious.
And, given a choice, people will base buying decisions on this. It happened before in the first golden age of copy protection, it will happen again.
Oh, and the analogy to hold (Ediron's Rule) does involve DiVx a bit: if a 'feature' is universally rejected once (divx, or copy-protection), it will probably fail on subsequent reintroductions (self-destructing DVD's, or product activation).
And retailers are going to HATE having customers come back in with a disc that is unreadable in less than the warranted 48 hours. If a small army of pissed-off customers isn't enough to kill this idea, the lawyers that flock to this sort of mess will make bank until the idea dies dies dies.
----
Funny thing is, I'm looking forward cloning these disks onto never-expires media. More on that in a new post!
I thought the prime time for ripping CD's and DVD's was as soon as you got them out of the box? that way there are fewer scratches and less chances of errors (ok modern error correction is pretty good but still..) So this is another pointless technology? well atleast now people will have a real reason to "backup for personal use"
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Seriously, does anyone think that some little startup has so completely exhausted the realm of human knowledge in proving there are no countermeasures? I doubt it.
There's nothing like 5 billion people looking for a Something-for-Nothing win to subvert a concept like this.
I have a feeling video stores are not going to like this. Or do they get the majority of their money from people without friends?
Yes.
Everyone seems to be interested in the chemistry behind this, but the article posted here does not go in-depth about this, which has lead to many misunderstandments.
We will never know what happens exactly, as this will obviously be a trade secret. I will buy a DVD like this as soon as they are available, even though I don't have a player for it. Just to see the effects of changing the environment in which the DVD is kept, and see if it slows down or speeds up the process.
Let's summarize:
There are two technologies, SpectraDisc and Flexplay.
Both Flexplay and SpectraDisc add a chemical time bomb to DVDs that begins ticking once the package is open and the discs are exposed to air.
SpectraDisc applies an outer chemical layer to the disc that begins evaporating and changing in color as the expiration time nears.
Flexplay integrates its chemicals into the inner layers of the disc.
SpectraDisc DVDs turn blue. Flexplay discs also turn darker, becoming so opaque that the laser inside a DVD player no longer can read the disc. Eventually, the laser beam is not reflected anymore, because the disc has become too dark.
Spectra Science won't say exactly how its technology works, just that the chemical reaction is similar to how litmus paper works. Once the disc is put in the player and is hit by the DVD laser, it starts a process that eventually turns the disc blue, and blocks the DVD player's ability to read the disc.
SpectraDisc's self-destructing DVDs can be reused if a new coat of the play-limiting chemicals is reapplied. Apply those chemicals, and your DVD works again.
Flexplay's discs can only be broken down and recycled as plastic waste. Without opening the Flexplay package, the DVD will become unreadable after a year. Which means the reaction also occurs in the wrapping, although a lot slower.
None of these technologies disable the possibility to be copied. A DVD can be ripped in about half an hour, and no technology is built in to stop you from doing that. But you can also copy a rented VHS. In fact, this is renting, it's just that "giving it back" is replaced by "making it unreadable", which has the same result: you once had a working copy, and a bit later, you don't.
Someone will find out that some kind of spray or coating (or even clear tape) actually delays or stops the rusting process.
We'll only have 48 hours to rip it now... :)
Think about it. Now Disney has a way of milking more money from you. If you have kids then you will know what I am talking about. Kids' don't watch the movie once or twice they watch it until they can recite the movie word for word. Come to think of it I know some adults that are like that too. If they make this into the DVD sales then your movie expires after say 6month then your kids are wanting to watch the movie but it has expired. So you run down to the store to buy another copy. Or if they start counting the number of times the movie is watch. Expires after 4 viewings. This could get ugly.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.
now not saying this is to foil piracy as it's clearly not. but won't this encourage piracy. now instead of paying three to five dollars to rent a movie and copy it. now you drop a buck in a vending machine and copy it for even less. Thus the DVD hacker on a budget could double or triple the number of movies copied.
not to mention the ungodly environmental impact of throwing away even more discs. AOL is doing enough damage already.
I'm wondering what will happen when a batch goes out with defective packaging so that they arrive at the retailer already expired.
Good luck returning defective goods, it sounds like a nightmare for customer and retailer.
Maybe they will cost little enough that lawsuits won't be an issue? Oh, maybe not, perhaps a class action suit for 10 Million USD for emotional distress? this could be fun.
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Take a look at the following US Patents: 6537635 and 6511728. My best guess is that their first gen disc uses the Silver/Aluminum redox effect. This is dead easy to block, and, moreover, is reversible. This stuff could be a lot of fun to play with. (p.s., the full text of the patents is available on the US PTO database- use any search engine to get the URL)
A lot of people are speculating that exposure to air is what will cause these disks to cease working. My hypothesis would be an exposure to light.
.02
After being exposed to light, the disk then takes approximately 48 hours for the chemical agent to cure. It's probably some derivative of silver nitrate (used in photographs) and will opaque the disk, and the laser will then be unable to read it.
Just my
Everyone is railing against this as if it is doing some personal harm when all this is about is allowing rentals without worrying about returning the DVD.
Now grocery stores can sell DVDs in the check out lane for $5. When you want to watch it, you take it out of the package and now you have two days to see the movie. No one in their right mind would watch Lord of the Rings special extended ultramega DVD this way as it takes a week to watch all the extra stuff, but for Disney Cartoon #a004-d this is perfect.
It isn't about anti-copying really, it is about not having to set up a system to track returns. My only key concern is they've set up a shelf-life for media that stores now have to worry about. So instead of having a copy of every possible movie, the stores will only stock the movies that get rented constantly. So much for getting "Escape to Witch Mountain" on DVD this way.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
...they STILL don't have curbside recycling in Delaware. Dorks.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
All this tells me is corporate america loves disposable society where everything moves towards use once and throw away. There is no way in hell I'm going to fork out 2 or 5 dollars for once of these lame DVD's. Hell, i will gladly pay 25 to order DVD's from Canada, UK or any other country that treats consumers like human beings. Disney can take their straight to video crap and blow it out their rear. Disney hasn't made anything good in the last 8 years and never will until the idiot CEO is kicked out of office. Eisner has done everything in his power to ruin the company walt built. for those who don't remember, disney was created so that both parents and kids could find entertainment. He made the point of making his movies intelligent and thoughtful. Not moron, thoughtless pieces of snot.
...the dvds they burnt the data on, that automagically timed out, was also edible. Then, no probs with disposal!
--of course, then we'd have to open source "cracker" it anyway, and because it was originally coded under e-vile borg riaa and mpaa, and we'd have to deal with their "pretzel" logic. And no matter how much they complained, it would be apparent to see how they had "sugar coated" their responses, in order to get the consumer to "eat" their products.
Given that,I dunno, now I'm not so sure if I can "digest" what their purpose is here. Throw away "fast food" entertainments have as much appeal as SPAM. Maybe as a snack once in awhile, hate to have my entire pantry stocked with such edibles though, I prefer "real food".
Remember that not all trash goes to the landfill- incinerators are a common destination for all the junk nowadays. This is just about as bad for our planet as one can get- not only do you not get the secondary resale benefits of recycling (many municipal recycling centers don't just break even... the Chinese buy all the recycled trash and sell it back to us again in reconstituted form,) you also get to suck down whatever nasty chemicals comprised the items. That is, if you're a person economically disadvantaged enough to live in the city, they never build these devils in the suburbs.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Probably wont work that well, as people who keep them in a moderatly dark area will end up with a much longer life, and if someone accidentally leaves a disk for a minute on a table in direct sunlight might end up with a borked disk.
;)
Exposure to air sounds more reasonable. They likened it to rust. I assume oxidation causes the data area to deteriorate.
Problem is this will be a gradual proccess however its done, and you will be likely to end up with DVDs which have a lot or read errors after a while, rather than being fully watchable, or not at all.
Not that I care much. Ripping and reencoding a DVD to fit on a DVD-R takes all of 30 mins using DVDShrink. If this technology means I can get good films as cheap promos, and I can easilly defeat the protection, im all for it
At the indie store at which I used to work, most of the $$ was late fees and porn.
What is the problem with a self-destructing disk? It probably saves the environment as much in pollution (because we don't have to drive BACK to the rental store) as it creates in a disposable disk.
Rip it the first time you play it?!
Gawd Ormighti!
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I would never use this product there are two more attractive alternatives that should be used instead. I think that with broadband and compression should make movie on demand better. No disk to make or throw away. Another is with the cost of removable hard drive getting lower I do not see why one could not purchase one and take it to the local video rental store and have a movie copied onto that hard drive. Software to prevent more copies and to limit the time of viewing could be circumvented but so could this new device.
Oh good, the landfills aren't full enough and this recycling fad has really slowed their growth. Throwing out every movie we rent ought to help destroy our planet all that much faster.
This business model will collapse in short order, and here's how:
Picture Joe Familyman. He's stretching the budget to make ends meet for his family. He sees these movies out on disposable DVDs for a fraction of the normal cost. He spies a DVD in this format of a movie that Junior really wants to see because all his friends have seen it and (using typical 5-10 year old logic) you're a total dork if you don't see it.
So Joe Familyman buys the DVD, plays it for Junior, who loves it. Two days later, the DVD goes out in the trash.
A week or two later, Junior wants to see the movie again (I'm basing this prediction on what others have told me about their children wanting to see favorite movies and shows over and over ad nauseum). But, alas, the movie was thrown out. So Junior throws a tantrum. So Joe Familyman buys the movie again.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Same thing happens another week down the road, at which point Joe Familyman says "fuck this" (though probably not in front of Junior -- think of the children, and all that), and goes and buys the permanent version.
Naturally, given many children's proclivities, this is when Junior will lose all interest in the movie because his peers have now all decided that it sucked after all since something better came along, but you see my point.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
You're listing the full selling price for all these things that "self-destruct"...the analogy would be accurate if you took into account the fact that you can still presumably buy and keep the DVD for full price, or you can "buy" the self-destructing version for a couple of bucks, akin to renting a movie. Plus, you don't have to return it.
Is most peoples' problem here not that this could be a viable and convenient replacement for the rental process, but that this technology exists in the first place?
what environmental consequences are we going to suffer from simply throwing away millions of discs every week? can they be recycled? if so, how much does it cost? we might find out later on that it is cost prohibitive and therefore most people will just throw them away. americans already throw too much away, its like economical slash and burn. it sickens me to see the entertainment industry continuously offer products that only contribute to the planets waste problem
Looks like a job for the great SkipDoctor! At least if the special chemical is just on a layer and not dissolved in the platic.
It's because the obvious next step is content that ONLY comes out on this media... like a movie your kids really want to watch. Think they are not this stupid/greedy? Then you don't know the Disney of today and its ilk.
A very plausible scenario is releasing a time-decay DVD version of a cartoon months before a full DVD... and also making the price of full DVD's a lot higher because there is a time-limited version.
It will be good for rental stores though, no returns...
Personally, instead of trying to thwart the physical medium I think I would tend to just copy the data if it were all that important to me!!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Lexan is not gas-permeable. So if there is something that's taking down the disc by exposure to something in the atmosphere, it can't be sanwiched in the middle of the disc. So it's either (A) eating away the media layer (top, just under the label) or it's reacting with something on the underside to block the read laser. I'm going to assume it's not attacking the data layer because of the difficulty in getting exposure past the label that covers the data layer.
If we then assume it's on the bottom, then what's to stop me from buying a $25 CD polisher kit from my local music store, and buff off that clouded layer? Forget ripping, I'll just keep the DVDs and play them as much as I like.
And then how long will it be before the RIAA moves to get CD scratch removers banned under the DMCA?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Considering the extreme amount of energy required to break the triple bond between the two Nitrogen molecules, it's probably not nitrogen.
If it were, then those DVDs would have enough potential energy to be hazardous, if not a convienent form of fuel.
~~~
Most of you are missing the point. This technology eliminates late fees and the hassle of returns. Just buy the disc at a supermarket or convenience store and watch when you want to watch. Most movies aren't worth watching more than once anyway. Sounds like a winner to me.
Nope, I'm baffled by how acceptable theft has become.
Theft has always been acceptable. It just used to be harder to do it without getting caught.
I know the big media companies are bad and want to restrict our rights, but that does not justify consuming their product and not paying for it.
Depends on your values. Some people believe in "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth." Some people believe that just because their parents were poor they shouldn't be forced to accept a lower standard of living than those whose parents were rich.
Others are content to live their life as a proletarian working all day for a system with no real chance to ever enjoy most of the benefits offered by "the big media companies." You appear to be in that category. But not everyone is.
Probably no one will read this because its old news, but...
The technology cannot be hacked by programmers who would want to view the disc longer because the mechanism which closes the viewing window is chemical and has nothing to do with computer technology.
Two things: who cares about the orignal disc? 'Programmers' (now every programmer is also a cracker, according to MSNBC) will just copy it to a new non-degrading media. And of course, there will be real 'hackers' that will figure out the chemical reaction and a way to prevent it.
The technology used is called Lexan, and probably holds a patent, which can be viewed and figured out. When the article says recycled does that mean it will degrade? or does it mean it can be returned to factory to 'reset' the coating? it it's the latter, then we'll probably figure it out on our own sonner or later.
Who really benefits from this schema? not rental stores, which usually depend on late fees and impulse-rental that comes when returning the video. Probably only the distribution houses. Which brings another point. I assume this process adds a cost to the manufacturing and packaging of the DVD, yet the final price will have to be lower than a normal one (I'd guess between 5-10 dollars). So that means that the real profit comes from normal DVDs for the higher margin in the sale. Then, if they just lowered the prices for normal DVDs, they'd still make more money and not pollute the environment with useless DVDs.
Just some thoughts for now.
Signatures are supposed to be funny?
I didn't know Ford could build cars that lasted that long!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
No. They should expire in 15 minutes.
No. Make that 15 seconds.
Ug.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
When I took computer ethics the first things that I learned was that the incredible maze of laws and restrictions made things that promoted the public good mostly illegal.
Company A is out of business and company B uses their product but requires fixs the the code which company B somehow has a copy of? Do you fix it? NO! You would be infringing on the debtors of company A! End result company B suffers because the debtors of company A might some day sell off the assets of company A to someone who miracalously could make a profit off of the product (unlike failed company A) and provide the same service you would provide (but compensate the debtors by paying them for the product).
No where in the class did the idea of the greater common good appear, something that I believed was core to ethical behavior. But then again, I've only taken COMPUTER ethics.
When an ethics class has to identify itself differently from a standard ethics class by stating, "No this is COMPUTER ethics", then perhaps there isn't anything ethical about it at all.
Am I the only one who thinks there is something just a little cracked in the general conscience?
When business and government rediscover ethics, I'll reinstate mine. Until then, it's counter-productive to my personal well-being to allow myself the luxury of ethics.
The "something better" being advocated here is better only for the consumer.
Most content producers I know are also the biggest consumers.
In the link you provided they refer recycling to the GreenDisk company without linking to them. I looked them up.
I haven't found DVD recycling yet, but for CD, floppy disk and video tape recycling it says:
I was a half-assed recycler when I lived in an area with curbside pickup or recycle pickup at an apartment, but in Plainfield, Indiana my apartment doesn't have recycle bins. After a few months of throwing away my plastics and aluminum I felt a little guilty and investigated recycling. The nearest recycling dropoff is 15 miles away. Screw 'em, I'm tossing them until it's more convenient.
Here is a description of recycling pressed CDs, but it says this process is patented. I recall reading somewhere that CDR's and CDRW's data layers cannot be recycled, but they chip up the discs and the data layer flakes or otherwise separates, but I can't find a link to that info right now. (Too lazy.)
My "dvd recycle | recycling" Google search (without quotes) brought FlexPlays link up as the first listing and nothing that looks like a process on page one.
Well, like the grandparent said, there are 800 of you lazy fucks.
Finally, someone solved the problem of late fees and rushing back to the video rental store after watching movies. How many millions of hours and gallons of gasoline have been wasted returning videos? If these DVDs cost around the same as a rental, I will never rent again. A winner!
As a start, this band has already perfected the self-combusting drummer
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
If you drive more than 1 mile to the rental store to return a DVD, then this technology is BETTER for the environment than rentals. 1 mile ~ 1/20 of a gallon of gasoline burned up in smoke 1 EZD ~ much less than 1/20 of a gallon of plastic, plus it can be recycled. This technology could save millions of gallons of gas and tons of CO2, CO and NOx. (Not to mention millions of wasted hours driving.) Sounds like an improvement to me.
DVD burners are now a reality. Back in 1998, when we were fighting the good fight against Divx, Disney wouldn't release anything on DVD. We rallied on websites like www.hometheaterforum.com and the now defunct dvdforum.com. We'd make visits to Circuit City to see what kind of lies...er marketing they were using and try to inform the public that their ability to own a licensed copy of a film was in jeopardy.
So even if you think this is a good idea just because you and use your Studio 3-2-1 software again, think of the consequences. Disney does not want you to be able to own a DVD, they came into the fold kicking and screaming before "Disney DVD" became a reality.
In 1998, the public obviously wasn't ready to accept time destruct DVDs and Divx failed. But this is yet another attempt to get the public to accept the rental-only model. Just because you can burn a backup (for now) doesn't make it any less sinister.
You can't rob a thief.
The studio will only release destructable DVD so the consumers need buy again and again if they want to watch the movie again. No more permanent DVD.
This is a great way to make a 1 time pad. Just put a random bunch of 1s and 0s on 2 discs with this tech. Then when you have a sensitive message to send you encode it with this disc, which then self destructs after 2 days. If the time could be made shorter it would be good. But it would be pretty obvious if someone had peeled off the protective layer that your message had been compromised. The only danger would be if the media was somehow readable after the rusting process with a special treatment or the like.
I guess you could always make doubly sure by damaging the disk further.
Then one side decided to defect from the agreement and stop acting in good faith. They started deploying copy protection schemes. They bought laws to legitimize those schemes and to increase the terms of copyright.
It became an us-vs-them thing. When one side declares war, it insane for their "enemy" to just pretend that nothing is wrong. When someone shoots at you, shoot back! This is not bad ethics; it is good ethics. Ethics are alive and well. Tit for tat, and all of that.
If the entertainment industry would like to go back to mutually beneficial agreements between them and their customers, and they would like to start raking in big money again, all they have to do is this:
This is not a troll, I really want to know. Does the plastic leach some chemical or something? The disc seem like they'd be pretty inert to me. On the subject of landfills - why don't we put landfills for nasty stuff on a downgoing subduction plate, where "in the long run" the stuff ends up in the earths magma to be recycled?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Time to find sites for more landfills........
By my rough calculations, 100 million DVDs would take up less space than a small house -- not exactly a huge landfill problem, compared to say, SUVs, pepsi bottles, grocery bags, etc. On the other hand, millions of people driving to the blockbuster each time they rent a disc generages millions of tons of pollution and wastes millions of gallons of gasoline. If you actually think about it, this product is better for the environment than the alternative.
Yep, an airbrush would work. With mine, three passes from about 8 inches away gives 200 nm (about), so you could go apeshit with the thing and never get 300 microns.
I wouldn't use acrylic - it's going to be fairly permeable to oxygen, and some of the solvents you might use to dissolve it contain oxygen as well. I would use something like polypropylene (soluble in xylene), which is fairly resistant to oxygen.
Question still becomes, how long can you extend the lifetime? I'm still not betting on forever. However, as I have access to a variety of polymers, solvents, and airbrshes, I'll be playing with this when it comes out. ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
games, software, and music. Then everyone who wants to actually OWN any sort of content for even legitimate re-use can be considered a criminal.
Ayn Rand was right: governments have to create criminals. Well, in this case, it's a group of corps, but it's the same notion, and only the government can enforce crappy legislation like DMCA, anyway.
Rest assured that I will NEVER buy this movie media format. Let's just hope this goes the way of Divx and the dodo bird.
Here a thought experiment:
What if all pepsi bottles had to be returned within a 2 day "drinking period" or else the consumer would face a "late penalty" for not bringing the bottle back?
Would the extra driving be good for the environment, even if the bottles were re-used? They have more plastic than a DVD after all. Would it be good for consumers?
Would you try to stop pepsi if they said they would introduce a no-return pepsi bottle (like we have now)?
I don't get some of the anger at the EZD idea.
It sounds like a big improvement over the current wacky video rental system.
Yup, as others have posted, here is a list of things that this would be useful for.
Seems like a good idea to me. Just make sure they don't degrade until you open the package and it's OK with me.
This won't kill the regular DVD's that are for sale.
Not so great for video games as you generally want more time then 48 hours. But I don't rent games to play to win. I rent to try it out before I buy it. If it sucks, I don't buy a copy. If I find I really like the game I buy it. There's a whole lot of crappola PS2 titles out there so I've been burned before and I don't have time to read all the reviews and keep up on the latest one hit wonder game title. I also don't have 48 hours to play the game non-stop, I have a job and girlfriend so that's out.
No return DVD rentals! Just pitch it after watching it a couple of times.
if they get rid of regular dvd's, i'll put the self destruct ones in my drive, rip them to my computer, and burn myself vcd's.
or download them
The movie industry hates when anyone but themselves make money off of movies. They don't like the fact that Blockbuster is a successful business. To them, blockbuster is stealing their money. Self-destructing dvds is an attempt to put the movie rental shops out of business.
I wonder what they'll do when they figure out that Walmart makes money selling dvds?
-- Will program for bandwidth
How can they be developing concepts like expiring media, and still expect to discourage people from copying (backing up) copyrighted media?
Possibly the agent could be activated by the laser, as opposed to ambient light. This then would be activated by the first use, as opposed to when the package is opened.
> That would blow the whole thing wide open and raise
> awareness on how to be able to keep what you pay for.
How to keep what you pay for? But you paid for a rental. You didn't pay for keeping it forever. As long as purchase is an option, I see no reason to treat rental as this horrible thing. I really like the idea of rental time limits based on non-technological control measures.
Just because you have something in your hands, doesn't mean it's 'yours'.
Seriously,
Can anyone think of a better way to encourage proliferation of DVD copying technology / know how?
I'd love to be able to pick up an occasional movie "rental" when I stop for gas or groceries, without having to worry about returning it by such-and-such a date.
That is, unless your grocery store is next door to a video store that offers 7-day rentals.
Will I retire or break 10K?
guys this isn't a technology that will have any type of effect on piracy.
Sure it will. It will condition DVD purchasers to purchase a blank DVD at the same time that they purchase a self-destructing DVD, and to copy the DVD before it becomes unreadable.
I started watching a movie last night, but got tired, turned it off, and went to bed. I'm not going to be around tonight, so I probably won't get to watch the rest of the DVD until tomorrow. If this particular DVD had been one of these self-destructing DVDs, I would be ripping that DVD right now, so I could finish watching the movie later, and that copying would most certainly be considered fair use if ever challenged.
This would be a completely new activity for me. I have never copied a DVD, because I have never had a need to do so. This product would create a reason, out of nowhere, for me to adopt a mode of behavior that the movie industry desparately doesn't want people to adopt -- purchasing DVD copying software and copying movie DVDs.
if the studios have any common sense whatsoever they will not only not adopt this technology, but work to somehow make it illegal. It completely undermines their business model.
http://news.excite.com/tech/article/id/326498|tech nology|05-16-2003::19:44|reuters.html
it is indeed oxygen. This is my favorite quote:
"The technology cannot be hacked by programmers who would want to view the disc longer because the mechanism which closes the viewing window is chemical and has nothing to do with computer technology."
Chemistry has nothing to do with computer technology eh? and physics has nothing to do with biology, and math has nothing to do with astronomy, and ketchup doesn't go well with ice cream...
I'm willing to wager that certain players won't like red media. I've found that even some new CD players don't like certain blue-green hues, this highly unstandard red will probably cause some problems as well.
What happens when there is a minor leak in the packaging of the disposable DVD? These things start to degrade as soon as they are exposed to air....how many, with the cheap packaging we find everywhere now-a-days are going to have that microscopic hole/tear where air gets in ...and guess what! your dvd is unplayable straight out of its wrapper!!
So now instead of renting a DVD and making a copy that sits on your shelf in a generic looking package, then having to drive back to the store to return it, you can now buy a nifty looking package to sit on your self, just make a quick copy of the DVD before it expires. After all, isn't the packaging one of the reasons to buy legitimate media?
Self-deteriorating paper could finally end the reign of piracy by selfish people who pay the artist *once* then continue enjoying the work *many times* over the course of *years*. Van Gogh's heirs ought to get a quarter every time I glance at a print of one of his paintings, and self-destructing paper might be a good way to approximate that.
What we need is a chemical that you can spray on your local currency that will make it turn to dust in 48 hours.
That way both parties loose the benefits of the exchange in 48 hours.
Reminds me of Inspector gadget. This message will self destruct in 10 seconds. What if you give your boss a cd of a draft MPEG4 of the next infomercial you want to release and it self destructs before he gets to see it. That excuse will become to your boss as "my dog ate my homework" has to your teachers.
~Just keep eating, porky. Fat people are harder to kidnap.
The relationship used to be based on mutual gain: we would get movies, they would get money. Everyone won.
Then one side decided to defect from the agreement and stop acting in good faith. They started deploying copy protection schemes. They bought laws to legitimize those schemes and to increase the terms of copyright.
Actually, the comsumers are largely the ones that stopped acting in good faith. Consumers are the ones that downloaded millions of music tracks when Napster was around. Copy-protected CDs came about as a direct result, not of fair-use, but of illegal copying and distribution.
On slashdot the popular cry is "The antiquated business of the xxAA will kill them" and other similar sentiments. If consumers truly want the entertainment industry to go back to mutially beneficial agreements, stop stealing music. If the xxAA didn't know for certain that any un-protected music would be downloaded by millions, they would stop aggressively pursuing new techniques (which requires effort and $$$) and do things the way they did it before. The entire reason the RIAA makes CDs that don't work on computers is because they know damn well that they would be all over Kazaa in about 10 minutes if they didn't.
Both sides of the fair-use table need equal protection. Obviously consumers want to be able to play their CDs in their car or on their PC, but as far as thats concerned, consumers gave up that right when they trampled all over the creators right to profit (copyright) by sharing thousands of files with millions of others. Consumers have in large numbers decided that they don't want to pay for music (their end of the bargain), but are surprised when the the RIAA decides that it has little interest in supporting their side of the deal, offering fair-usable content(non-DRM content, CDs playable on anything). If consumers want fair-use, they need to use media fairly. This doesn't include copying software for friends, this doesn't include sharing music with millions on Kazaa, and it sure as hell doesn't include copying rented DVDs.
5. Declare that customers are no longer an enemy.
Consumers will always (and should always) be considered an enemy by the xxAA when they exploit every single concession and good faith act ever attempted by the media companies. You want an example?? How about the slashdot article regarding the new apple iTunes store?? Probably a third of the comments were about ways to remove the DRM so that the songs could be used illegally (either shared on P2P or for more copies than were purchased). Why should any organization make any attempt to reconcile when the other side has no intent of ever honoring those terms? Consumers don't give a flying fuck if artists and producers ever see a dime, they want free music (hence the slashdot logic "It's better that the artist get no money when I download stuff off KazaA than the 10% the RIAA gives them").
I agree with just about every point you made about benefitting both parties, except that it is not the xxAA that has gone too far, it is the millions of consumers (if you can call them that) that repeatedly break the law and take content that they are not entitled to.
When one side declares war, it insane for their "enemy" to just pretend that nothing is wrong.
Just as equally insane as expecting the xxAA to stand idly by and watch as consumers steal their content. Ethics are indeed alive and well, but not with the "how-can-I-cheat-the-system slashdot crowd"
There is going to be some percentage of these things that have broken seals. What happens whensomeone gets one of these home and doenst open it for a week and it dont work, and then another week goes by before you get to return it? (people have real lives and they *dont* revolve around DVDs). I can hear the backlash now abot stores not taking back these thigns as defective because the consumer has no way of proving it. "Well its past it 48 hour time period, you must have opened it"
Just where is this blockbuster you are going to that it's too difficult to make two trips?
As it was for DIVX. And we all know how many of those were recycled (hint - more than expected, since most of the discs were never bought!)
sulli
RTFJ.
And all it would take is for someone major like FOX News to do a story
You'd be more likely to get a coverup than a story out of Fox "We distort, you comply" News because Fox News's parent company owns a major American movie studio.
MSNBC, on the other hand, is the only major American cable news outlet not affiliated with an MPAA member. Microsoft could even spin the story to push Windows Media over DVD as a "stronger digital restriction solution".
Will I retire or break 10K?
If they can make it degrade in 48 hours, they can probably make it degrade over a longer period of time. Just wait until "regular" DVD's and CD's are made from stuff like this that degrades within a year or two and, due to DRM etc, can't be backed up. (Yes, I know anything can be backed up if you know how. Not everyone knows how.)
**AA: "We didn't know it would do that! Guess you'll have to buy another one now. We're just trying to keep prices low for your benefit."
In fact, it will become federal LAW that you MUST prostitute yourself
I recognize an attempt at a joke, but...
Not gonna happen. The United States had a little tiff about involuntary servitude back in 1865, resulting in a couple amendments to its constitution, one of which allows "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" on United States soil.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The cusotmer is always right even in these DRM TIMES!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
AOL's immense free cd campaign has already conditioned we Americans to blindly disregard an obvious immense numerical waste of computer discs. Most people wont think twice about dumping these divx-redux things...
The "yelling" about DRM is because it will give the companies a new excuse for using it. After all, a disposable DVD wouldn't do them much good if the customer just made a "backup" of it during the 48 hours. Hence it will give them more reason than before to continue their attempts at shoving DRM down our throats*.
*Collective our. I don't watch DVDs, videos, movies, or TV, so don't bother with any ad hominem attacks about "claiming the right to steal." I oppose the usage of DRM because it sets a dangerous precedent in eroding fair-use and because it is likely to result in legislation requiring it.
talented artists are less likely to produce creative works
<sarcasm>Everybody knows the sad, sad story of how the Grateful Dead had to quit playing and get day jobs after all the evil concert tapers eliminated their ability to make a profit.</sarcasm>
yet another disposable product
make you return the case covers. This would solve the problems of profits for the movie rental late fees, kinda discourage piracy, and solve a little of the environmental problems that would arise from this stupid as idea.
The public is granting the right to control a creative work for some period of time. This gives the creator a chance to make some money, gives the public the chance to enjoy the work, and gives the public complete control of the work when copyright expires. That seems like a good basis for a fair system.
You've missed his point. We didn't force the creators of those works to create them; they create of their own accord. They usually create something with the expectation of getting something in return, and our current system makes sure they get it. The only reason for our current system is so that more people will create stuff, because there's an incentive to do so.
If we get rid of copyright law, then we're not stealing anything from anybody. Basically, if you don't see any profit to be made by making music or movies, go into some other business, make your living some other way. Some people will still try to satisfy the public's need for such things, so we'll still get some satisfaction of goal #1 (stuff being created) and full satisfaction of goal #2 (we can use that stuff as we see fit). Total lack of copyright is bad for the public because this "baseline" satisfaction of goal #1 is much lower than what we currently enjoy, etc., etc. But total lack of copyright isn't stealing from the artists, because without copyright law there are no promises that they'll get anything for their work anyway. So, if they do it, they do it, and if nobody pays them for it, there's nothing to complain about, because nobody promised to pay.
Captain Kangaroo makes a good point, in that there's nothing inherently "correct" about our current copyright system, right down to its very existence. The point of copyright is to serve the public good by slightly curbing satisfaction of goal #2 while greatly increasing satisfaction of goal #1. The fact that the artists get paid for their work is essentially a means to an end, not an end in itself, as it is commonly construed.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
I'm not a Marxist, but his criticisms of the system of his day were quite cogent.
As I understand it, Marx himself wasn't a Marxist.
His ideas got twisted and manipulated into what is known as Marxism, to the point that he disagreed with the people who claimed to be espousing his own views.
Just food for thought. I agree with your post.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
http://www.byrum.org/aol/101disks.htm
;-)
I can live with that, it's the fanatical persecution of those that want to tinker with it even when that tinkering isn't profit motivated.
This would be the same as any other consumable product, watch it an pitch it. I would prefer a disk that disovled to biodegradable sludge as I have enough AOL frisbees to litterally make indestructable housing for the homeless or to pave roads.
BTW, does anyone have a device to press these disks into a fribee shape? Using a heat gun and pliers is tedious. (TIC)
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
But a copy of the content on the DVD won't expire. *WINK* *WINK*
- Danny
Like I said before regarding the previous posting of this story on slashdot:
"... it is criminal to come up with an "new" idea that profits proportionally to the amount garbage generated."
Can it be possible that these "inventors" avoid getting the ridiculous amount of junk mail Cd's that the rest of us get through magazines and post?
Surely making them at least reusable would go a little small step to "their" justification in enforcing content control.
--- espresso yourself ---
If this ever comes to pass, I predict it will die a horrible, flaming death like Divx...and probably a lot sooner.
Says it all.
Bingo!
Even at 30 miles per gallon, a two-mile trip to return a video to a nearby rental store is going to use more petrochemicals and (probably) produce more polution than the production and discarding of the DVD itself.
What's weird is (for instance) people driving 15 miles each way to recycle 50 pounds of glass bottles. Hell, even a Toyota Prius isn't going to make that sort of thing cost-effective.
There are a lot of reasons to dislike this idea. Environmentalism isn't one of them.
This technology would work nicely for NetFlix...they'll save a bundle on return shipping. Here's hoping they pass on the savings.
I dont think it matters how far it is, i think this just makes your life easier. If they start selling these EZ-D's at all stores like Wal-Mart or any Grocery store, you can just get it there and forget about RETURNING IT. Also, if you are going on a trip somewhere and want to rent a movie you dont have to worry about coming home in time to return it. How much better can you get than that?
Yeah, like they really need this technology to save floundering DVD sales from those nasty pirates. According to this article the DVD Entertainment Group recently reported Q1 sales for 2003 are up 93% over last year. Here's the opening paragraph:
The DVD Entertainment Group reported another record quarter for DVD last month, with the industry shipping 231.7 million DVD titles to retail in the first three months of 2003 -- a 93 percent increase over shipments in the first quarter of last year.
So I ask you, when an industry is experiencing record sales growth, what better time to start really pissing off the customers who are buying all those DVDs?
not that i'm lazy, but there are occasions when i do not return my dvds on time, so the idea of a self-destructing movie will save me $ in the long run. divx failed to help me save $ and now instead of wasting 20 bucks on lates fees i can buy a movie for 5 dollars and recycle it.
what a great idea to increase the waste polution
i have tried netflix, and i think this is gonna be a much better idea. You dont have to be SUBSCRIBED and try to get a certain amount of movies a month to get your moneys worth. Just buy it for under 5 bux and thats it, no stings attached. I think it'll be great...def cant wait for this to come out. I hear there are some new releases coming out on this format this summer. Should be interesting.
I'm suprised Micro$haft hasn't marketed disposable computers yet.
True for VHS tapes. Not true for DVDs.
The studios and rental outfits made a deal with tape. Tapes were sold at high prices to rental stores and the stores kicked money back to the studios on each rental.
DVDs cost the stores the same (or less) as you pay at BestBuy.
Therefore, for Blockbuster, the margins on DVDs are immensely greater than on tape. That is why Bloackbuster will shift to DVDs as fast as it can.
Dave Barnes 5 breweries within 6 blocks of my house
This will be a good thing if:
1. cheaper than renting
2. cheaper than pay-per-view
3. offer movies you want to rent (rather than buy) - so selection size and type
4. availability - offered in a number of outlets
5. recyclable (AND IT IS!)
Hey, no late fees and they are said to work in any DVD-player or game console. I will try it!