If the evil empire or the RIAA/BPI or the devil with whom they are in league wishes to stamp on people, the quickest, not to mention cheapest way of getting redress is to use the market and encourage mass abstension from purchases of their products.
A form of words like:
"I will no longer purchase materials wholly or partly produced by RIAA members, and will ensure that others have sufficient information to make their own choice..."
might be useful. An internet blacklist of RIAA material would have a wonderful calming effect on copyright hotheads. After all, even a monopolist faces some kind of demand constraint. Something like:
"We are your customers. And you know those people you want to f**k with? That's not us."
might do wonders to concentrate minds on the real issue.
Re:Educational?
on
Open Source TV
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
But at least we'll be able to afford control towers and doomsday machines to get them back.
The suits may have some inbuilt resistance to the concept of like giving stuff away, but if it becomes successful, I can forsee an entire menswear department of suits queuing at the GPL counter.
The money counts first and foremost, not some high minded principle like copyright. The Prinicple just means "an easier way to make money"
OK, first of all this reply is coming from Broadband Britain, a fictional island between the Irish Republic and the European mainland, so it may strike fellow subjects of Her Maj and all who sail in her as a little sci fi. Sorry. The idea of doing this makes sense, as for relatively little outlay, Warner can add a new revenue stream to its business. Given the fixed cost of making movies, any channel that helps boost revenues is a good thing. Secondly, I think copy protection is a red herring. Even without DRM there are ways to version the market so that there is a higher price and value version. In this case, stuffing a DVD full of extra value content is a good way of doing it, especially if you use things like posters, sleeve notes or other "hard" devices. Even without versioning a physical product, the studio can compete on convenience of service. I wouldn't buy dodgy ripped copies on Holloway Road if I could get the same content at a price that satisfied my valuation and with greater convenience.
Finally, it's going to be a bigger problem for Blockbuster than for file rippers. This is the first time that a major studio has put its catalogue directly into competition with a rental chain. People with higher valuations will probably still buy the DaViD (Harry potter is a perfect example here, anyone who has ever babysat will know that children are rarely satisfied with one viewing of anything that they like, so parents will probably, on balance prefer to buy them the disc). Where this competes is with people who can only really be bothered to watch something once.
Sony, of course, are in the interesting position of potentially making a profit from "copyright" sales and from devices that enable users to do things that rights holders don't like.
Last year they made profits on music film and games and losses on technology.
However the market size for the latter is at least an Order of Magnitude bigger. Sony can't be unaware that DRM technologies are likely to stifle the growth of these devices (and could lead to lower revenues on sales of film and music in the bargain).
How they try to resolve the problem, economically and organisationally, is going to be interesting to watch.
Slashdot Mirror
If the evil empire or the RIAA/BPI or the devil with whom they are in league wishes to stamp on people, the quickest, not to mention cheapest way of getting redress is to use the market and encourage mass abstension from purchases of their products. A form of words like: "I will no longer purchase materials wholly or partly produced by RIAA members, and will ensure that others have sufficient information to make their own choice..." might be useful. An internet blacklist of RIAA material would have a wonderful calming effect on copyright hotheads. After all, even a monopolist faces some kind of demand constraint. Something like: "We are your customers. And you know those people you want to f**k with? That's not us." might do wonders to concentrate minds on the real issue.
But at least we'll be able to afford control towers and doomsday machines to get them back.
The suits may have some inbuilt resistance to the concept of like giving stuff away, but if it becomes successful, I can forsee an entire menswear department of suits queuing at the GPL counter. The money counts first and foremost, not some high minded principle like copyright. The Prinicple just means "an easier way to make money"
OK, first of all this reply is coming from Broadband Britain, a fictional island between the Irish Republic and the European mainland, so it may strike fellow subjects of Her Maj and all who sail in her as a little sci fi. Sorry.
The idea of doing this makes sense, as for relatively little outlay, Warner can add a new revenue stream to its business. Given the fixed cost of making movies, any channel that helps boost revenues is a good thing.
Secondly, I think copy protection is a red herring. Even without DRM there are ways to version the market so that there is a higher price and value version. In this case, stuffing a DVD full of extra value content is a good way of doing it, especially if you use things like posters, sleeve notes or other "hard" devices. Even without
versioning a physical product, the studio can compete on convenience of service. I wouldn't buy dodgy ripped copies on Holloway Road if I could get the same content at a price that satisfied my valuation and with greater convenience.
Finally, it's going to be a bigger problem for Blockbuster than for file rippers. This is the first time that a major studio has put its catalogue directly into competition with a rental chain. People with higher valuations will probably still buy the DaViD (Harry potter is a perfect example here, anyone who has ever babysat will know that children are rarely satisfied with one viewing of anything that they like, so parents will probably, on balance prefer to buy them the disc). Where this competes is with people who can only really be bothered to watch something once.
Sony, of course, are in the interesting position of potentially making a profit from "copyright" sales and from devices that enable users to do things that rights holders don't like.
Last year they made profits on music film and games and losses on technology.
However the market size for the latter is at least an Order of Magnitude bigger. Sony can't be unaware that DRM technologies are likely to stifle the growth of these devices (and could lead to lower revenues on sales of film and music in the bargain).
How they try to resolve the problem, economically and organisationally, is going to be interesting to watch.