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Space Shifting DVDs to Cost Extra?
Depending on who you listen to Steve Jobs has supposedly been pitching the idea of selling "premium" DVDs that would include an extra fee for the privilege of transferring your legally-purchased DVD to a different device. "The courts have held that "space-shifting" your CDs to a portable music device is a fair use. So you can legally import your CD collection to your iPod, or any other device, without paying a penny. But Steve Jobs apparently wants to charge you $4 for the privilege of doing the same with your DVDs."
Really, the summary implies Steve Jobs wants to exploit the consumer by convincing other companies to offer content-transferrable DVDs at a higher price. It fails to note that while one currently has the *right* to transfer content, they do not have the right (under the DMCA) to the necessary reverse-engineering involved in that transfer.
So - while I agree it'd cast Steve in a very negative light if consumers were already legally able to transfer their DVDs (note "legally able" as opposed to "legally allowed") this is not the case. Steve Jobs is petitioning studios to increase consumers legal ability to transfer their DVD contents.
Do people imagine that Steve is going to get a cut of that extra price just for pitching the idea? Or that the idea - charging for non or less DRM'd DVDs is going to set DMCA revisionists back 100 years? As a maker of media players, it's in Steve's interest to do away with DMCA restrictions on DVDs, as it only makes iPods look better to consumers as the realm of movies available for them increases. I can't see how Steve's interests and my consumer interests don't align on this one.
I'm thinking he means the old media cds/dvds he has.... or maybe you are just clueless - again.