A Chip on DVDs Could Prevent Theft

Dieppe writes "A simple chip added to a DVD disk could prevent retail theft. According to the AP article at MSNBC, the chip would be activated at the register to make a previously dark area of the DVD clear, and therefore readable. Could this help to stem the tide of the approximate $400 million dollars in losses from brick and mortar stores? Game console DVDs could also be protected this way too. Could this help to bring the prices down on DVD games and movies?"

Comments

Re:Sorta cool

[networkBoy]

Mine did.
When I contacted Disney about a replacement disk at cost (not retail) I was told "tough shit". When I pointed out that had they not used rip-guard and other countermeasures to me making a backup, and as such I expected them to make a good faith effort to replace my damaged disk, they said "tough shit, buy a new one". When I pointed out that the disk was over a year old and out of production, they said "tough shit, try e-bay". So I did and I found a really inexpensive (Chinese "overrun") authentic disk.
See if I buy Disney media anything ever again, it's off to TPB and netflix + anydvd + dvd decrypter.

Back onto the topic at hand, TFA mentions that this tech is applicable to other products as well, I wonder how soon till the regularly missed activation gets consumers pissed about coming back, and gets the customer service reps numb to the issue, such that freshly pilfered merchandise can be activated at the customer service desk rather than the register?

One of my mates worked at Office Depot. Someone stole a display computer, walked it over to the service desk, made up some bogus issue with the ($2000) PC, balked at the estimate, and carried "their" PC out the door, with the staff holding the door for them!
Same thing will happen with this tech.
-nB

Re:"A Chip on DVDs Could Prevent Theft"

[packeteer]

This whole idea is a misunderstanding of basic economics. The price of anything is based on the maximum price the seller can sell it for while maximizing the number of items sold. Basically, the cost of producing goods has nothing to do with what they are sold for. You first determine the most money you can make by selling an item, then you decide if the profit margin is thick enough for you. If you determine that people wont pay enough to make up the cost of the item you don't sell it. If you find out they will pay what it costs and then some you will almost certainly sell it.

It's that simple. Theft and fraud do not bring the price of goods up. When shopping carts are stolen from the supermarket it does not raise the cost of food. If they could have possibly raised the price before they would have already done it. Theft cuts into profits but it absolutely does not raise the price for the consumer.