DRM is a technological method of enforcement of a legal right (the right to restrict copying). Non-competes are just legal agreements, not any physical or technological mechanism.
Unless you're completely against copyright (which I'm sure many but not most of you are), you think that content owners should have their content legally protected, it's the enforcement of that protection through flawed, restricted and/or proprietary formats that we all pretty much agree sucks.
Non-competes might be bad just like copyright might be bad, I don't see what DRM has to do with it.
Clearly it's part of the game. But the question is, do we want it to be? When the winner is decided by who has the ability to attract exclusives (usually lots of money and/or a grip on the market), where is the incentive to provide a better quality product? Furthermore, if one format is clearly better, but doesn't have the popular movies available, how can it compete?
I'm not saying we need to ban exclusive deals, just that I'd rather have features or price distinguish competing products.
No, the complaint isn't that Microsoft is supporting one format over another or even both at the same time. The problem is that they are allegedly encouraging "exclusives" on one format or another, i.e. you want a particular movie, you can only buy the HD-DVD version. This means consumers have less choice, not more.
Slashdot Mirror
But really, any approach is fair game
DRM is a technological method of enforcement of a legal right (the right to restrict copying). Non-competes are just legal agreements, not any physical or technological mechanism.
Unless you're completely against copyright (which I'm sure many but not most of you are), you think that content owners should have their content legally protected, it's the enforcement of that protection through flawed, restricted and/or proprietary formats that we all pretty much agree sucks.
Non-competes might be bad just like copyright might be bad, I don't see what DRM has to do with it.
Clearly it's part of the game. But the question is, do we want it to be? When the winner is decided by who has the ability to attract exclusives (usually lots of money and/or a grip on the market), where is the incentive to provide a better quality product? Furthermore, if one format is clearly better, but doesn't have the popular movies available, how can it compete?
I'm not saying we need to ban exclusive deals, just that I'd rather have features or price distinguish competing products.
No, the complaint isn't that Microsoft is supporting one format over another or even both at the same time. The problem is that they are allegedly encouraging "exclusives" on one format or another, i.e. you want a particular movie, you can only buy the HD-DVD version. This means consumers have less choice, not more.