From a technical standpoint, it makes sense to encode MPEG4 (or better) to any given disc media. DSPs can be designed/programmed to handle almost any compression algorithm in real-time.
From the the marketing/financial standpoint, it makes sense to foist a new format into the market to force all of us to buy new copies of the content. Those with money to blow will buy it.
This considered, I personally doubt this will go much beyond Panasonic's market statement to affect the industry. Unless of course the industry has some ideas they are are not telling us about....
IIRC, there has been a generic ELicense unwrapper around for some time. In my experience, less useful titles are less likely to be pirated, but some cracker groups will crack anything to push it out the door to add another notch their belt. A determined hacker/cracker can crack just about anything given enough time and skill.
That said, I wrote my own license management system a while back, embedding it deep into the security subsystem code of my back-end application. I thought it was pretty cool, but I never expected it to survive the concerted effort of a group of top-notch hackers. I relied on the fact that my target customers (law offices) were not likely to have the expertise needed to bypass or crack the system easily. If the product was more mainstream, I might have considered beefing it up a little.
From an enterprise IT standpoint, managing decentralized "license control" services on a large group of workstations rapidly turns into a real PITA. I have several different "copy protection" systems infesting my network and I have to compensate for their eccentricities whenever I tweak the network security.
If you know your (potential) customers, you can make an informed decision as to how much and how complex your copy protection needs to be. If you are a *good* coder, try your hand at writing one that meets *your* customer's needs. Consider offering a network version that gets it's licenses from a (well behaved) server-side component.
Besides, this whole thread is just a joke anyway - I'm as suprised as anyone that it's got this much attention. No offense intended toward the followers of the Church of the FSM.
There are a lot a people in positions of power with no real understanding of how the real world actually works. Some actually ask the hard questions, few actually do anything about it.
Nuff said.
I don't see how this is truely a new problem. Feature creep has plagued the software development industry for decades. Considering that everyone wants thier new toaster to properly toast bread, bagels and muffins, the next logical step is of course: how can you bake cookies with it?
It's the marketing zombies that keep trying to one-up each other adding features and screwing up us programmers. There must be a limit placed on the madness. Get the thing working NOW, then worry about what you *can* do with it later.
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From a technical standpoint, it makes sense to encode MPEG4 (or better) to any given disc media. DSPs can be designed/programmed to handle almost any compression algorithm in real-time. From the the marketing/financial standpoint, it makes sense to foist a new format into the market to force all of us to buy new copies of the content. Those with money to blow will buy it. This considered, I personally doubt this will go much beyond Panasonic's market statement to affect the industry. Unless of course the industry has some ideas they are are not telling us about....
IIRC, there has been a generic ELicense unwrapper around for some time. In my experience, less useful titles are less likely to be pirated, but some cracker groups will crack anything to push it out the door to add another notch their belt. A determined hacker/cracker can crack just about anything given enough time and skill.
That said, I wrote my own license management system a while back, embedding it deep into the security subsystem code of my back-end application. I thought it was pretty cool, but I never expected it to survive the concerted effort of a group of top-notch hackers. I relied on the fact that my target customers (law offices) were not likely to have the expertise needed to bypass or crack the system easily. If the product was more mainstream, I might have considered beefing it up a little.
From an enterprise IT standpoint, managing decentralized "license control" services on a large group of workstations rapidly turns into a real PITA. I have several different "copy protection" systems infesting my network and I have to compensate for their eccentricities whenever I tweak the network security.
If you know your (potential) customers, you can make an informed decision as to how much and how complex your copy protection needs to be. If you are a *good* coder, try your hand at writing one that meets *your* customer's needs. Consider offering a network version that gets it's licenses from a (well behaved) server-side component.
Besides, this whole thread is just a joke anyway - I'm as suprised as anyone that it's got this much attention. No offense intended toward the followers of the Church of the FSM.
So, how many pirates are we talking here?
Do they have enough ships, peg-legs and parrots to go around?
Will his holy spaghettiness freeze off our nards on this one?
Well, if they are allegedly pirating software, how much do we *really* know.
They could very well operate a huge fleet of spanish-style galeons just over the horizon from San Diego.
Any theories on how is this going to affect global warming?
There are a lot a people in positions of power with no real understanding of how the real world actually works. Some actually ask the hard questions, few actually do anything about it. Nuff said.
I don't see how this is truely a new problem. Feature creep has plagued the software development industry for decades. Considering that everyone wants thier new toaster to properly toast bread, bagels and muffins, the next logical step is of course: how can you bake cookies with it?
It's the marketing zombies that keep trying to one-up each other adding features and screwing up us programmers. There must be a limit placed on the madness. Get the thing working NOW, then worry about what you *can* do with it later.