What boggles my mind is how no one here ever realizes that/. (aka, the geek community) is a very very small percentage of the general population that buys CDs, DVDs, or any other product that uses some form of annoying copy protection.
Didn't anyone see Fight Club? If the total cost of the out-of-court settlements is less than the total cost of a recall, they don't do a recall. Unless the Major Car Company (re: RIAA) is losing money with Macrovision protection CDs, they won't ever stop using it.
The analogy is simple. Macrovision is implemented on CDs, so now the majority 90+% of average CD consumers can't rip their CDs. So the only money the RIAA is losing is on the 1% of sales that the geeks used to buy. The geeks, we have our way around it, and we're happily ripping all our favourite music, but the general public is clueless as to how to do it. They just see that big red "X" pop-up in Windoze when they can't rip their CD anymore.
Until there's a nice little program that the AVERAGE (or below average) person can download through their AOL dial-up account (re: that's why Napster got so popular...it was luser-friendly), or that comes pre-installed on the Gateway system that Grandma buys, Macrovision, or any other copy protection will save the RIAA money and therefore be deemed "effective".
No copy protection scheme will ever be 100% effective, but as long as the RIAA keeps making money, it's "effective" to them. Just like the "Major Car Company" in Fight Club.
Folks, remember that the world is a lot bigger than/.
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What boggles my mind is how no one here ever realizes that /. (aka, the geek community) is a very very small percentage of the general population that buys CDs, DVDs, or any other product that uses some form of annoying copy protection.
/.
Didn't anyone see Fight Club? If the total cost of the out-of-court settlements is less than the total cost of a recall, they don't do a recall. Unless the Major Car Company (re: RIAA) is losing money with Macrovision protection CDs, they won't ever stop using it.
The analogy is simple. Macrovision is implemented on CDs, so now the majority 90+% of average CD consumers can't rip their CDs. So the only money the RIAA is losing is on the 1% of sales that the geeks used to buy. The geeks, we have our way around it, and we're happily ripping all our favourite music, but the general public is clueless as to how to do it. They just see that big red "X" pop-up in Windoze when they can't rip their CD anymore.
Until there's a nice little program that the AVERAGE (or below average) person can download through their AOL dial-up account (re: that's why Napster got so popular...it was luser-friendly), or that comes pre-installed on the Gateway system that Grandma buys, Macrovision, or any other copy protection will save the RIAA money and therefore be deemed "effective".
No copy protection scheme will ever be 100% effective, but as long as the RIAA keeps making money, it's "effective" to them. Just like the "Major Car Company" in Fight Club.
Folks, remember that the world is a lot bigger than