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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.
Aw. That's adorable.
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?
The pirate bay.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
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.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I've actually had USB drives survive the washer-and-dryer bit. Not that I'd recommend it, but it's not necessarily fatal.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
With apologies to Ray Parker, Jr.:
If there's D-R-M, on your movie now,
Who ya gonna call?
The Pirate Bay!
If the U-S-B, key just died,
Who ya gonna call?
The Pirate Bay!
dooodooodit doo dit do dit doo dit doooo dit doooo dit dooo dooo dit dododo
I ain't afraid of no cops.
dooodooodit doo dit do dit doo dit doooo dit doooo dit dooo dooo dit dododo
I ain't afraid of no cops.
My blog
Apparently if it asks you if you're a god, you say YES!
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
Considering the DRM, how is it better than a regular DVD?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
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.
> With apologies to Ray Parker, Jr.:
who in turn apologizes and makes a substantial payment to Huey Lewis for shamelessly ripping his tune off.
And this is why Windows is fine for nerds and hobbyists, but not ready for the mainstream desktop.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I can sell you a can of high tech USB scratch remover. For only $19.99, this spray will remove scratches, improve picture quality and cure your herpes, but wait, now for a limited time offer you can get TWO cans for only $39.99...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
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?!
OMG PNY!!!
...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!
This is insanity. I can download a copy of that stupid movie without Dumb Restrictions on Media from TPB, or I can just watch the tape I already paid for over ten years ago. Now, I'd buy the key with the movie pre-loaded, but to pay good money for crippleware when I can get a perfectly useable copy for free is just brain-dead stupid.
DRM doesn't affact copyright infringers whatsoever. It only inconvieniences paying customers. The only rational explanation for the MAFIAA's insanity is drugs - cocaine. It must be all the coke they're snorting/smoking/shooting that makes them behave like a bunch of thieving, distrusting, irrational crack whores.
I just started reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother (HTML version linked; there are other formats here), and its preface has something to say about the insanity that is DRM (I've abbreviated it a bit):
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Being able to do it doesn't make it legal, but the "Fair Use" clauses in copyright say he's allowed to make a copy for personal use, ripping it without the DRM is fine, he should give the reason "DRM means I can't watch it with the video player I currently have installed." if asked, although technically he doesn't even need to say WHY he did it, just that it was only for his use.
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
The want they hardware keys back!
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
DRM, in this case, is a choice between DRM'd content and no content at all. I'd rather have DRM'd content than none.
I, on the other hand, would rather do with none than with DRM.
I made that choice when the DVDs supplanted videotape and didn't buy DVD movies - or buy or rent any movies at all - until after CSS was cracked and the movie industry gave up on their attempts to stuff that genie back into the bottle. No blu-ray players for me, either. Stopped buying CDs, too, when they started experimenting with the early computer-speaker-blowing "copy protection" that corrupted the data and depended on the error correction on players to recover the music (and thus corrupted it when you got real errors from a dirty disk) and never really got back into purchasing new music after that.
Never actually MADE a backup copy. And never downloaded a "pirated" song or movie, either. I just don't buy encumbered stuff.
Instead I found other ways to amuse myself. (For instance: The amazing number and variety of animals outside the place on the high desert put on a continuous show that's quite entertaining - especially when I flush the well and create a puddle that draws them in from miles around. And there's lots of amusement on the net that is not "pirated" copyrighted content.)
Interestingly, I don't really miss the corporate "content". Either the quality took a nosedive around that time or the product stopped matching my (quite broad) tastes. (Though from what I hear of some local bands it's more the former than the latter.)
We all make our choices.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
VBR lame-encoded MP3s, with not a speck of DRM! Effective by design!!! And if you drink Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and other Pepsi products (although paradoxically not Mountain Dew, dammit) you can get FREE tunes. I've had iTunes for years and never bought anything. However, I've bought from Amazon.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.