In Stores Soon: Perishable DVDs 683
Makarand writes "Technology that renders optical media useless after a short lifespan will soon find its way into stores
in the form of perishable DVDs. Retailers in the Southern United States will soon start giving a sample DVD to buyers of a CD (by Nappy Roots, a hip-hop group). This promotional DVD from Atlantic Records will work for only 8 hours. This promotion is aimed at finding if music fans would be interested in buying a package with both audio and video instead of just plain audio. A special dye sandwiched between the layers of the DVD will interact with air making it opaque and unreadable later. If this media catches on you may not have to return your DVD rentals in the future." We noted this 2.5 years ago.
So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:2)
So you're the guy they are going after!!!! (Score:3, Funny)
I've told her of the evils of the RIAA and she doesn't care. However, she does try to purchase them used first (thrifty and hot!).
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:5, Interesting)
It all does depend so the question is will they give you a choice?
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sorry, but gunk has been found to be illegal under the DMCA, we no longer sell it. I'd give you a recipie for gunk, but that's illegal too.
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Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt you'd need to go to that trouble. It's more likely that the disc reacts only with some particular component of the atmosphere (it's most likely that it would react with oxygen, since oxygen likes to react with stuff). Put your computer and the disc in a big box, flush it with nitrogen or carbon dioxide (dry ice would be easiest to handle...drop in a chunk and wait for it to sublimate), open the disc in the oxygen-free environment, and go to town. Since carbon dioxide is heavier than air, you wouldn't even need to close the box...just seal the cracks with tape so it doesn't leak out. You might want to put a cover on it once the disc is loaded up, though, so that air currents in the room don't find their way into the box and contaminate it.
(Hmm...does this mean dry ice will be outlawed by the DMCA as a "circumvention device?")
Re:So copy it the first time you watch. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm realated to a Mr Joe Average. He bought a consumer DVD recorder for his television, and returned it to the store angrily when he realized he couldn't copy the DVDs he rented onto blank media.
Joe average may not know about how the technology works, but he's also not willing to pay for something that removes functionality that he's previously had with video tapes.
Similarly, my mother only listens to CDs on her headphones that are pluged into the CD-ROM drive of her computer at work. Guess who isn't going to be buying any copy protected CDs.
The copy protection battle will be won by Joe Average.
Chemistry for fun and profit. (Score:5, Interesting)
Put the wrapped DVD in the aquarium. Take two rubber gloves and some saran-wrap to effectively seal the top of the aquarium (make sure to use enough that putting on the gloves won't break the seal).
Tip the aquarium on its side, and peel away a small hole in one top and the opposite bottom corner.
Light a votive candle and place it in front of the lower hole.
Add helium, via the PVC tube that almost certainly came with the aquarium (if not, pay the $0.15/foot for a few feet), to the upper hole. Add it slowly, and when the candle goes out, keep adding for a few more seconds.
Voila! You now have a home-made, inert-gas, anhydrous glove box! Put your hands in the gloves, unwrap the DVD, and apply the clear nail polish to the edge. Oops, you *did* remember to put the nail polish in the aquarium before sealing it, right?
Have to say it. (Score:5, Funny)
Talk about vaporware.
This might not work in the summer (Score:2)
Will the heat of summer cause the dye to turn the disc opaque before you even try to play it once?
I have to... (Score:2)
Why not (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why not (Score:3, Interesting)
divx (Score:4, Interesting)
the consumer would "rent" the "dvd" and then they would have a certain window of time in which they could watch it
Re:divx (Score:4, Informative)
Re:divx (Score:3, Informative)
no! don't do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no! don't do it (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that after the media had been in the stores for a little bit, the blockbuster guys would get used to regularly re-issuing DVDs, or giving people refunds. Otherwise they'd quickly gather a class action lawsuit.
The material that the DVDs are made on needs to be biodegradeable, though. Perhaps a cardboard disc?
-Sara
Blockbuster won't use these (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:no! don't do it (Score:3, Informative)
We largely switched to DVD's (about 98%) when we got a player. There was one HUGE problem: Universal Studios. They don't caption their DVD's, they put on subtitles. Now, your vision is probably okay, but my wife's wasn't. She needed the high contrast offered by captioning. Hell, I have 20/40 corrected with a normal field. Put in Jurassic Park and look at the scenes in the desert in the beginning. Yellow letters on tan sand does not show up well.
Anyway, I feel your pain. Or did. Now my wife is Braille reading books, and we are going to learn hand signing. (And looking into another Cochlear implant.)
Re:no! don't do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no! don't do it (Score:5, Insightful)
"Perishable" in this context most likely means the data. Not that the whole thing is biodegradable. From an environmental POV this is probably a very bad thing, since it means more stuff thrown away.
This has been done already! (Score:2, Informative)
This is great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet another way to contribute to the environment. Let's just dump more trash rather than get off our lazy asses to take the DVD back to the shop... Jesus...
Re:This is great! (Score:3, Insightful)
What would be great for the rental market is a disc on which the data fades after a period of time, but the disc itself is fine, and reusable. You could then take your disc back to the store and get a new time-limited movie imprinted onto it. This would massively reduce the physical resources consumed by the industry.
Re:This is great! (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you for your comments. We have been sharing your frustration as the new reports have failed to report this product will be a recyclable. Just a drop the disc in the bucket next to the butter container and milk bottle. It also eliminates the car pollution of returning the movie to the store. avg. 10 miles and 1/3 gallon of gas.
We appreciate your concern.
SpectraDisc
I still think it's a stupid idea, but it's moved from monumentally stupid to moderately stupid.
Re:This is great! (Score:4, Informative)
Here in NYC we can't recycle glass any more. Stupid mayor. Now they want to institute a "pay as you throw" garbage tax, which I think is actually a good idea, but only if they reinstate full recycling.
So anyway, how will these things be recyclable? They're part plastic and part metal, right? They really need to educate people & city recycling programs about how and where to put these if they're truly going to be responsible about their products.
Regardless, surely having no physical matter at all is the best solution! Ah, but then we have to worry about how dirty the computer chip manufacturing process is. Trying to be responsible is so damn frustrating sometimes! Maybe I should just give in and pollute to my heart's content!
Re:This is great! (Score:3, Interesting)
A DVD is 120mm in diameter and 1.2mm thick. That puts its volume at 1.2 * 60^2 * pi, or 13572 mm^3. That means that a DVD's volume is about 1/74000 of a cubic meter.
Assume that every American buys 10 disposable DVDs per year. That's 3 billion of these things that wind up in the landfill, for a total of around 41000 cubic meters.
Switching to American measurements, these would fit into a one-acre, 30 foot deep hole. There are plenty of places in the Nevada Desert where you could dig such a thing.
Or, think of it another way: If you threw away disks like this every time you rented a movie, by what percentage would it increase *your* personal trash output? For me it would be well under 1%.
On the other hand, assume that each DVD rental results in one extra mile of driving to return it. (Yes, I know you could walk, but the places I usually rent from are 4 and 9 miles away.) That results in an extra 3 billion miles of driving, or at least 100 million gallons of gasoline burned. Given that 1 gallon of gasoline results in 20 pounds of pollution (mostly CO2 and H2O), that's 1 million tons of pollution.
So: One acre hole in Nevada, or 1 million tons of pollution. Your choice.
Re:This is great! (Score:5, Insightful)
How are you going to move all of these discs to that hole? Magic? I'd say some fuel might be expended in the effort... how much does pollution is produced by all the garbage trucks in the US for a year? What's, say, 0.5% of that?
Or throw it in the recycle bin. (Score:2)
Re:Or throw it in the recycle bin. (Score:5, Informative)
When I asked about CD when I was turning in some batteries I was told to toss them in the bin where non-recyclable items are put.
Re:This is great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is great! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This is great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of us walk to the shop.
Re:This is great! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This is great! (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, you can try to argue that the sheer weight of the DVD will cause teh vehicle to use extra fuel I guess...
Re:This is great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Seal it - and use it forever (Score:3, Insightful)
Low tech solution to a high tech problem.
Re:Congratulations! (Score:2, Interesting)
You'd be surprised. When the first phonecards came out in the UK, (back before the dawn of time/widespread use of mobiles) it was discovered that if you coated the back of them with clear nail polish, then they wouldn't decrease in value...
I think I must have made about a hundred hours of phone calls until BT wised up...
In the future... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait... we already do.
Re:In the future... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't Fujitsu already sell these?
hm.. (Score:3, Funny)
seems like plenty of time to rip the content
Oh they think they're so clever then.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Geek reads "You have 8 hours to rip this data to your RAID 5 dedicated music storage facility".
hehe.
Recycling? (Score:2)
8 hours? (Score:4, Redundant)
Re:8 hours? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:8 hours? (Score:2)
Re:8 hours? (Score:2)
I hope you meant an ogg. :-) Of course, the video bits of ogg aren't there yet. Give it a year or so.
Re:8 hours? (Score:5, Funny)
Buy and immediately rip! (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Buy and immediately rip! (Score:2)
So just make sure... (Score:2)
Summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
You buy something that breaks after a few hours, its then just plain trash.
So apart from being bad from an environmental, consumer and most other perspectives this is a good thing because it helps push up the pollution rates even further.
I'm curious (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think that will the failure of DivX (the Circuit City one), they they would realize that when someone buys something, they expect to keep it...
Even for Video rentals, I wonder if we're SUCH a disposable society that creating this much waste is worth it.
Re:I'm curious (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember when CD where promoted as a "lifetime" buy, never downgrading it's quality. Hehe.
Re:I for one would like to see (Score:5, Funny)
It is. She should have returned the videos. What a whiner.
More Trash (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More Trash (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, I really don't think Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are going to warm up to the idea...
Just what we need (Score:2, Insightful)
The whole disposable philosophy that consumers embrace shows how short-sighted and self-centered most people are.
I for one am concerned about my children and their children and will never use one of these if at all possible. Then again I don't own a car (I jog or bike ot take the bus when I have to) and use recycled materials whenever possible.
Easy (Score:2)
Am I missing something? If I know that a disc will go blank, I'm going to just copy it to something that won't destroy itself (at least in the next few years).
Yes, let's start adding DVD's to the landfills... (Score:2, Insightful)
The ironic thing is that a lot of the people who are producing these are in Hollywoold.
Decomposing dollar bills (Score:5, Funny)
seal it (Score:5, Interesting)
if the air can't reach the dye in between, I guess the cd stays readable, no ?
a just a thought.
rkoot
I'm not as think as you drunk I am
Re:seal it (Score:4, Informative)
Eight hour life? How about shelf life? (Score:2, Interesting)
Perishable media - patent, and vacuum drives! (Score:3, Interesting)
6,161,106, was granted to Motorola, in 2000. While this depends on a magnetic method, it is interesting to know that the current referred method depends on interaction with air. How long before "mods" are made to have a drive enclosed in vacuum???
Yet Another Circumvention Technique (Score:4, Insightful)
What is to stop me from making a copy that is less unstable, for that matter (the article actual touches upon this at the end) once the price of blanks come down? A right, I might add (and we all know) that is codified in the Fair Use clause of Copyright law.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this isn't happening anytime soon.
Could make sense for the video rental biz.. (Score:2)
This sounds like it should work in standard DVD players, and require no phone-home function. The "disposable rental" could work here.
The issue for the video rental business is that it needs to be priced *lower* than a standard DVD rental. Since most people would view the inconvenience of a time-restricted view as greater than the benefit of saving themselves the return trip to the rental store, there must be a cost-saving component for the consumer to accept this. This means that the cost of production and stocking of these one-time useage disks must be substantially less than the cost of re-stocking of returned rental DVDs.
Now that I think about it, maybe the perfect application of this would be the rental-by-mail business: only one-way shipping charges! This doesn't seem to be a market with very large room for growth, however.
Fortunately... (Score:5, Funny)
Your mission... (Score:3, Funny)
Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to assasinate general kERROR READING DRIVE E. (A)bort (R)etry (I)gnore
Again I post my same little thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stand back for a minute and look at the big picture. Take a breath, take a minute, and think about it. They encrypt their content and then store it on self destructing disks. HA! It's so pathetic it's funny. If there was ever an example of the dead horse (Rosen?) getting another whack (DMCA?) this is IT. They lost.
Imagine the munks, years ago, using disapearing ink in their scrolls so you didn't have time to read it long enough to place letters on a plate at a printing press! Same shit. Different day. "DISTRIBUTION" is dead. If any 5 year old can publish themselves WORLD WIDE 24/7, then the business of distrobution (of "information") is dead. Ever see a little kid make a homepage on AOL? They do... it ain't XHTML but it's there for the world to see 24/7. Tell me again why I need YOU to publish my info for ungodly sums of money? Tell me again why I should listen to one artist for one hour at a time on obsolete media?
Great (Score:2)
Yay for Environmetal Pollution! (Score:2)
Re:Yay for Environmetal Pollution! (Score:4, Insightful)
hmmm (Score:2)
"We noted this 2.5 years ago." (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe this can be hacked (Score:2, Insightful)
Mission Impossible (Score:2)
Air or light? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm, two years ago it was a light-sensitive coating that opacified after multiple playbacks.
Who Speaks for The Trees? Er... Polycarbonates? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's add AOL to that pile...
DivX should have been the end of this short-sightedness. Remember that one? Same concept, even worse implementation.
This is actually a trend I've been seeing in large, bloated, over-valued, scared companies. Make the same mistakes and bad business/product decisions over and over and over. Ultimately, make the consumer pay for all your dumb mistakes. Then hunt the consumer down for not playing by your rules.
So how's this for a Fight Club-esque social-hack: find a means of cracking the airtight seal on in-store copies undetected. Of course, then boxcutters and knives will be outlawed in public places... oh wait... already are...
viva le revolucion!,
or something,
Levendis47
Disposable Rentals - NOT! (Score:2, Insightful)
not exactly 2.5 years ago, re-read slashdot ! (Score:3, Offtopic)
It was actually less than a year ago [slashdot.org] (Feb 8th 2002)...
Great... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where are the kudos for addressing a supposed itch that so many of the P2Pers out there use to justify the existence of unfettered file "sharing" ?
How long... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like a disaster waiting to happen. No to mention that it will drive MORE people to rip this video in order to be able to rewatch it - exactly what the RIAA and MPAA do NOT want.
Blockbuster (Score:4, Insightful)
Lemme think..... (Score:3, Interesting)
The earlier use of this mentioned in the article used some weird dye that was on the surface of the disc. After the laser hit it, it started a slow process of becoming opaque, and in a few days it was unreadable. Some college students discovered that a product called "soap" mixed with a catalyst "water" removed the dye and made the CD readable again.
This uses a dye in the middle of the disc, between layers. If air can get in, why can't another solvent? Wouldn't the same technique be true of these discs as well as the previous attempt?
While the future of non-returnable DVDs is dead in my mind, I'm glad to see that the RIAA is finally looking into "value added", giving me a reason to buy the CD instead of download it.
Bad Precedent -- dont accept it (Score:5, Insightful)
Would be applicable in the software market too, forced upgrades since your original cant be used after the next release is out. ( using estimated time of next releases )
Or in the case of E-books, ' sorry that document is no longer acceptable speech, that isn't available for lease any longer'
One Simple Question (Score:4, Insightful)
If the process was reversable, I could see its usefulness. But, just rendering them useless sucks the big one.
We already can't find anything useful to do with the millions of AOL CDs floating about.
Tit for tat (Score:5, Funny)
Marking direction (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, the distribution methods look somethin like this, from most desirable (and most profitable) to least:
Pay-per-Use - Require consumer to pay for each experience (i.e.: theater movies, pay-per-view, arcade games)
Subscription - if pay-per-use isn't possible, require the user to pay a recurring subscription fee for access to the material (i.e.: cable)
Media Ownership - if subscription isn't possible, sell the media in a permanent form to the consumer.
Media ownership is of course the most desired for the consumer. It allows them to experience themusic/movie/etc whenever they want, trade or sell it to friends, etc. Of course it's the least profitable for the industry.
The problem media companies are facing is that, as technology matures, it's allowing consumers to use the media in any way they want. For example, using a Tivo to turn subscription-distributed media into owned permemant media.
What we're seeing now is the entertainment industry scrambling to use laws that were originally enacted to protect companies from each other, and bend them to try and keep consumers from using the media for which it wasn't originally intended.
Here's a hypothetical situation: In 15 years medical science progresses to the point where they fix eyesight with little nano machines. In the process they also give people the ability to record what they watch and play it back (kind of like a Tivo built-in to your head). Thus turning everything you experience into the potential for permenant media. What do you think the entertainment industry will do then? Legislate congress to make all medical nano devices capible of recording motion images be part of a digital rights management royalty payment system, and likely called something along the lines of the Digital Medical Device Copyright Act. That's if the entertainment industry is still alive in the same for it is today, which I doubt.
Flexplay Enviornmental Impact Report (Score:4, Informative)
A quick search of Google turned up the following:
http://enduse.lbl.gov/Info/VideoImpacts.pdf
Flexplay approached a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs to perform an environmental assessment of the disposable DVD technology.
This report is truly amusing. The scientist acknowledges that he was not given enough time to perform a standard Life Cycle Assessment on disposable DVDs, so instead he calculated the amount of pollution that would be prevented if disposable DVDs were depoloyed as a video rental option. He theorizes that if 10% of all consumers renting DVDs did not have to make a return trip to the video store the envirnmental impact of increased junk being sent to a land fill would be offset by a decrease in pollution.
What a hoot. I guess Flexplay didn't bother to explain their marketing strategy. It appears that these disks are being deployed as promotional items which are handed out for free and are never intended to be returned.
Flexplay is also persuing the Hotel market. Just how much pollution would be prevented if a guest didn't have to walk down to the lobby to return their rental?
If this is the best defense that Flexplay can come up with then we must believe that the potential evironmental impact will be pretty bad.
Are we really willing to trash our planet in the battle against piracy? Hollywood's answer seems to be a resounding YES.
Returns? (Score:5, Insightful)
Irony alert? (Score:2)
What is so darn evil about having to register to read an article at the NY Times? It's not like you can't just register as Bill Gates or something there.
Better yet, register as that Spam Queen from the other article.
Re:Nothing new here (Score:5, Funny)