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Hard Drives Shipping with Star Trek
crimeandpunishment writes "Paramount Pictures is trying to live long and prosper by selling Seagate Technology hard drives with the latest Star Trek movie on board ... along with 20 other films. The 500GB hard drive will sell for a special promotional price of $100. It's the latest way for Hollywood to combat falling DVD sales due to piracy."
An empty 500 GB Seagate hard drive usually sells for $140.
No, it doesn't. 1TB external drives sell for $70 in Newegg's bargain basement.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yce9qhx
And that's retail. For being 500MB, these sound suspiciously like drives Seagate had sitting in a crate somewhere gathering dust, because they certainly are old tech.
pre-loaded with a digital lock that requires a code that can be purchased online for $10 to $15 each. Even watching "Star Trek" requires registration.
So you *don't* get to watch the movies for $100. The real cost is $300 minimum in a drive that is spectacularly overpriced to start with. How many ways can you say "ripoff?"
DRM
It doesn't go into detail, but I'd bet you can't move those movies off the drive. Also, since these are DRM encumbered, they are a rental. If I want to rent movies, I will use netflix.
The special sale comes as Hollywood is struggling with falling DVD sales in the face of piracy and is looking for new ways to sell movies from its library.
Bullshit. Hollywood is *not* going begging. They're making more money than ever.
This is going to fail and they are going to blame it yet again on privacy when the failure has nothing to do with it but everything to do with trying to screw the customer as much as possible.
This is an insult to my intelligence as a consumer.
I have no sympathy for the studios. The sooner they go bankrupt the better.
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BMO
What the hell are you talking about? The movies are DRM'ed and locked until you register with Seagate and pay for the privilege of watching them (except Star Trek - that one's free - after you register). RTFA.