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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?"
Would you rather use an optical drive's power-sucking moving parts
Having done some QA on usb hardware in the past, I can tell you the USB ports on a box that has things plugged/unplugged a lot will get really loose and not work so well after a while.
This can be countered with a hub, but it would seem kind of a burden to carry around extra bulk with a laptop when, even without an optical device, you would likely prefer ripping and playing back from the boot device.
Well apparently it works on Linux as well (As long as it has the right KERNAL)
Dang, I'm running the Linux kernel, not the KERNAL. Oh well, I didn't want a DRM-encumbered copy of Ghostbusters anyway.