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Ghostbusters Is First Film Released On USB Key
arcticstoat writes "Are you the USB keymaster? You could be soon if you pick up PNY's new 2GB USB flashdrive, which comes pre-loaded with Ghostbusters. A spokesperson for PNY explained that it comes with a form of DRM that prevents you from copying the movie. 'They have DRM protection,' explained the spokesperson, 'so customers can download the movie onto their laptop or PC if they wish, but they have to have the USB drive plugged in to watch the movie, as the DRM is locked in the USB drive.' The music industry has been playing around with USB flash drives for a few years now, but it hasn't been a massive success yet; will USB movies fare any better?"
no that is a terrible idea, the last thing I want is a ton of USB drives laying around while I try to find any form of media.
Waiting to hear news that the movie's been unlocked in 3... 2... 1...
Can't rip it, can't archive it, can't move it to my HDD without the dongle. And if the flash drive gets damaged, who you gonna call?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You probably can't even get Ghostbusters down at your local "Three DVDs for $20" guy on the corner; his stock is all newer. Everybody who wants this movie already has it. I can't even imagine who they expect to sell it to, except as a novelty.
Presumably they're keeping an eye on how long it will take for the DRM to be broken. People will break it for the challenge and because they hate DRM, but it's like stealing cockroaches from my kitchen: you're welcome to it.
Can't put it on a portable media player, either. What's the point of digital media you can't take on the go?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I imagine it would be easy to sell in places like airports. Need a flash drive for a few extra GB on the plane? Why not one that already has a bit of entertainment on it? From TFA I don't beleive it's meant to be just a movie conveyance.
Blue Ray won't "win" the format wars until they sell more than standard def DVDs
No sig for the moment.
The industry is looking to set a record on longest lived DRM scheme. Everyone has this already, so no one will need to crack it, and a presentation will go to a CEO somewhere about this new scheme that has not been broken in over a week.
Nope. Blu-ray hasn't won anything. HD DVD lost.
Blu-ray has yet to get any traction, and in all honesty, with only higher quality video and marginally better audio to have over DVD, I seriously doubt it ever will. It's going to remain a niche videophile technology for the foreseeable future, until HD downloads become commonplace and available under reasonable pricing terms.
It might survive as a data storage technology though. The multilayer BD disk thing may not be suitable for pressed media, but it should work pretty well as a rewritable storage thing. 200Gb removable disks. Yum.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Can I play it with the video player of my choosing or do I have to install yet another video player? I don't really want to have 10 different video players on my system. I don't want to have to maintain/update every one of them. I don't want each of them thinking they need to change file associations.
You can erase it and store actual information on it?
How long before the DRM is cracked? I'll be generous and give it a month, tops.
Wasted space? What about wasted money? £29.99 for a 2gig pendrive with a film or £4.50 for one without.
Buy the DVD and rip it and still save yourself over £20.
I dunno. USB keys have a far superior form factor, and the installed players need only have a USB port and whatever processing is needed to actually view the movie.
You could have media players smaller than a Nintendo Wii, far better future compatibility (both the players and the disks are likely to be backwards compatible in a way that either could work with the other for quite some time)
The media is far less susceptible to scratching, impact, and even heat and chemicals: I've put USB sticks through the washer AND drier and what came out has worked perfectly for over five years.
It's also more portable. You can grab a handful of films and stick 'em in your back pocket before visiting friends (so they're also likely to be lost easily.. a big win for Hollywood!)
The only drawbacks are capacity at the moment (it's not anywhere near as cheap as optical disk. Although I wonder how expensive 30GB mask roms would be for a print run the size of a typical hollywood film (if anyone was making mask rom of anywhere near that size, that is)) and DRM: a usb stick can have active crypto circuitry, which really changes the game quite significantly.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Was written by the same whack job who created Scientology. Go figure.
http://www.whyaretheydead.net/
...required me to keep possession of a USB-key-sized physical object in order to maintain access to it, then I calculate that I would need to keep about two thousand pounds of USB keys, which would be enough to fill approximately twenty desk drawers.
I guess it's not impossible on the face of it.
I could store them in shallow drawers, vertically, alphabetical order, with little P-touch labels on the end of each one.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Porn, this kind of DRM would actually be great for Porn. Nobody else can watch unless they have your USB drive. Other than that it seems pretty lame.
As I can't fathom cocaine users, I asked a crack whore why she thought the coke shooters running the movie studios would do this.
"Sure, I'll tell you, but it'll cost you twenty dollars".
"Twenty dollars??? Sorry, babe, I'll buy you a double cheeseburger at McDonalds, how's that?"
"OK, that'll do. See, they want this to FAIL and fail hard. They're doing this to prove that the concept is unworkable."
"Ok, I'll take you to McDonalds now."
"Man, I ain't goin' nowhere, I'm tweakin', dude. Just go get the burger, it's for my dog anyway, I'm not hungry. OK?"
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
It's not about the particular film or about the DRM or even about the PNY. It's about a means for distribution. I saw an advertisement about a year ago for a company in Ireland that was working with IBM on a similar technology that allowed for fast USB sticks to have a movie downloaded from a Kiosk to a flash drive. You buy a memory stick (not sure if it was a proprietary one) and their set top box. You pick out your movie on the kiosk, insert the USB stick and it downloads while you wait. They were trying for a thirty second transfer time but I think it was taking more like three minutes which can be an eternity with the kids in tow. Regardless think of the possibilities. They could put them anywhere and you would never have to go back to return the movie. And they could create an internet Kiosk across your home connection. Why do you think Comcast is going to throttle their bandwidth... too much video.