Hollywood's DRM Agenda Moving Forward

risingphoenix writes "The New York Times has a story about the progress Hollywood has made putting Digtal Rights Management in the marketplace. The story focuses on what technology is currently in place; what the next moves, technically and legally, are for the industry and how consumers are being affected by Hollywoods power grab."

Re:Write Amy Harmon (author of story)

[Jamz]

DVD's are already protected by a digital wrapper that prevents them from being copied

AFAIK, CSS stops you decrypting the contents... you can still copy an encrypted file to your heart's content.

If people are going to write technology stories, it would help their credability to get the facts/terminology right!

Re:Too mutch

[jackrabbit123]

They don't link to the NYT registration page. If you aren't registered then the NYT site forwards you to the "Login" page. Once you do that, it takes you to the article.

Re:Alternatives?

[da5idnetlimit.com]

"outlaw the horseless carriage" : happened 8)

"They had found a 1902 Quebec law, actually an amendment to much older horse-thief law, which stated that if any neighborhood in which there were horses complained that their horses were being disturbed by horseless carriages, the residents had the right to ban horseless carriages from their neighborhood. The penalty for a violator, because a comma had been dropped in the printing of the law, was 20 years without appeal, the same as for a horse-thief. " (http://www.root-1.co.il/cookies2.htm)

"Outlaw the printing press" Happened...

"Mr. Gutenberg: I intend to print copies of the Bible and so spread the word of God.

Sir Royale: Why is this a judicial matter?

Mr. Gutenberg: The Scribes Guild, the Educators Guild, the Religious Guild, and the Civil Service Guild seek to outlaw the use of my printing press and have filed petitions to that end.

Sir Royale: What do you believe will be the effects of your invention on scribes who are employed to hand copy manuscripts?

Mr. Gutenberg: There will always be a market for hand-made manuscripts. A machine-made manuscript can not compete with a beautiful illuminated manuscript created by a talented scribe."
(The Gutenberg Deposition : http://www.coe.ilstu.edu/rpriegle/wwwdocs/gutenber .htm )

Now, back to something I read only yesterday :
"First they Ignore you, then they Laugh at you, then they Fight you, then you Win" Ghandi... Once again, GhandiCon 3 Level attained, the victory is nigh.

Re:plural acronyms

[quikgrit]

So said gilroy:

I happen to agree with your point on this particular style issue, but I want to offer up this thought: The New York Times has a well-known Style Guide and, while I have no idea what it says about pluralizing acronyms, I am sure it says something. The writer and his/her editor are surely going to go by that, not a Web-based self-appointed guardian of grammar. Just because a lot of people contribute to a discussion, doesn't mean the discussion is authoritative (slashdot, anyone?).

My fellow Slashfriend, I am more than familiar with the concept of a Style Guide, having been employed at multiple professional publications.
While I must agree with you that I also have no idea what the NYT Style Guide happens to say in this instance, I *can* say that as an owner of Strunk & White's _Elements of Style_, the _Chicago Manual of Style_, and having written many times under Chicago, MLA, and APA guidelines, that I *seriously* doubt that the NYTSG differs on this issue from pretty much every Style Guide out there.

I agree with you that the NYTSG says something regarding this. I happen to think it probably agrees with every other style guide I've ever seen. This does not mean that the author or her editor followed it.



Much more importantly, one of the great strengths of the English language is its similarity to Perl: There's More Than One Way to Do It. Thankfully, we have no great temple of English usage, where Zen oracles tell we little people what the correct form is.

Indeed, I suppose that there is more than one way to do it. [upenn.edu]

Considering the reach and clout of the New York Times, I think it's fair to say that their Style Guide can be taken as an authority ... certainly at least as much as an Internet mailing list can.

Agreed. I just doubt seriously that she followed her Style Guide.

cheers!

Will they ever learn from their history

[pben]

You have to wonder about an industry that for the first thirty years of its existence destroyed the masters after exhibition for the silver that they contained. It was only when television came that the library had any value but it took them ten years before it dawn on them the TV was a gold mine not a threat.

Before Enron existed the phrase was Hollywood accounting. One of the favorate subplots in Shakesphere in Love is the greedy money lender plotting to screw the actors out of their pay. The entertainment industry has always screwed the producers of the product. Now the middle men are plotting to screw their customers.

Re:Write Amy Harmon (author of story)

[Alsee]

You cannot duplicate all the contents on the DVD, i.e. the disk key, with your DVD-R.

Actually you can if you have a DVD-R(A). These drives cost about $3800, or $2500 on E-Bay. DVD-R(A) disks are usually $10-$20 each, but I found them for $6, or even $1.30 on E-Bay. These prices are dropping, but still high because of the low volume of sales.

Once again it is merely a case of the copyright indutry managing to foist crippled products on us. Standard DVD-R disks would be perfectly capable of recording the disk-key block except for the fact that these disks come with that area pre-burned.

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