Slashdot Mirror
SVP : More Video Anti-Copying Technology
rkroetch writes "NDS, STMicroelectronics and Thomson have announced they will develop a new anti-piracy technology called SVP (Secure Video Processor). This will require a special SVP processor in the box to play the encrypted video signal. All those licensing fees for our DVD-ROMs for nothing?"
Yet another waste of resources that could of gone in to making the technology better.
It's was never designed to do that...
Yet another waste of resources that could of gone in to making the technology better
Don't forget the roughly equal amount of effort that will go into cracking it.
Erm, how about: Okay, how about: "I don't buy from people who try to squeeze out every last bit of comsumer surplus..."
Hehe, sorry about that, but I'm sure none of us mind minimizing the producers surplus. Refresher:
- Producers Surplus - The area above the supply curve, but below the price
[RANT]What makes the whole discussion stupid IMHO is that we're all this anti-'piracy' crap is by definition not talking about internal market features. Attacking 'fair use' on the other hand is, if anything, going to lower the demand curve- we are talking about reducing the marginal utility of the widgets here.
If you were not willing to purchase the product at the 'market clearing price,' then the producers are not losing revenue.
People downloading free copies of various titles does not directly affect the relevant portion of the demand curve**! Nor does it cause translation along the demand curve! Think of it as 2-tier price discrimination, where a subset of the people who exist to the left/below the market get it at marginal cost :) Crap, that means some consumer surplus. I highly doubt there is a significant cross-elasticity of demand between .torrent's and movie tickets/DVD sales.
Bootlegging is an entirely seperate discussion. IANAL, but isn't there already a body of legislation that addresses that?
** The market externalities involved can in fact shift the demand curve. The marketing exposure can be priceless (bandwagon effects, knowing the product exists, being familiar with a product/brand, etc.), however it also has the [perhaps all too oft] effect of lowering the percieved utility of a product to it's actual value... If you know how much that InternetPrivateDick software [or the-other-12 tracks-on-the-cd, CuteNFuzzy-Jedi-Episode-2 1/2, etc...] suck, you're less likely to pay as much for it ;)
Naturally, anything that causes consumers to act more rationally or with more complete information might make Economics more workable, much to the distress of all those other social sciences... And likely most politicians...
And I won't even mention the fact that most restrictions that insulate producers from the market are bad for both society AND the producers, nor that these markets are already far from perfectly competative... Ok, I guess I did mention them...
[/RANT]I always thought the "reason/excuse" for piracy is simply the discontent of a large number of people with the cost of the BS that the media producers insist on shoving down our throats. To make matters worse, the erosion of fair-use rights caused by increased efforts to combat piracy serves only to devalue the product even further. These companies should really be working to make the general population *want* to give up their money by giving them something at a fair price rather than trying to resort to mob tactics by attempting to eradicate the "competition".
For a lot of people, piracy is only a supplement to a healthy media budget. Some simply cannot afford to purchase all that they are interested in, and if prices don't drop, piracy seems the way to go. And no, copyrigt infringement is not stealing. No one is losing anything but a potential sale, and if "random pirate" doesn't have the money to buy that movie/game/whatever, there really isn't any harm done.
I had a similar problem with the Macrovision and an old TV. Ironically, pirated DVD's work just fine.
So... the copy protection prevents me from playing legitimate movies, forcing me to make a pirated copy if I want to watch the film.
What we really need is a ten day waiting period and a background check before you can buy a congressman.