New Sony DVDs Not Working In Some Players 651
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony — specifically Stranger Than Fiction, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness — have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players. This doesn't appear to be covered by the major media yet, but this link to a discussion over at Amazon gives a flavor of the problems people are experiencing. A blogger called Sony and was told the problem is with the new copy protection scheme, and they do not intend to fix it. Sony says it's up to the manufacturers to update their hardware."
Gee. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Funny)
Bravo (Score:4, Funny)
If I had mod points, then if I had a sense of humor, ... oh, nevermind.
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gee. (Score:4, Insightful)
I found it necessary to decrypt a rental DVD to play a it on my computer. It kept complaining about enabled YV out.
Bypassing copy protection should never be the only way to access protected content....
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm slightly surprised that the incredible disaster of CD DRM hasn't actually resulted in Sony learning anything.
If anyone from Sony is reading, this is what happens when a customer buys a disc with DRM that renders it unplayable. Joe Sixpack simply returns the disc. A N Other Slashdoteer rips the disc and then returns it. Joe Sixpack then uses BitTorrent to download the rip made by A N Other Slashdoteer. Mr Slashdoteer thinks twice about buying another disc, as does Joe Sixpack.
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gee. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
*TNX
Time to buy some DVD's... (Score:3)
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Informative)
—Tickletaint [slashdot.org] (forced to post logged-out due to modbombing)
Consumer Math (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's also say that the average pirate is looking to change their ways, and is now out of college and making enough money to support paying for movies. Their incentive to do so is threat of legal persecution and, more significantly, a moral imperitive to support artists that they care about. Now, suddenly, on the other side of the equation is this looming doubt over whether the thing will work at all. If the scales had tipped one way earlier, this might just be enough to tip them the other way.
So in other words, Sony has succeeded in alienating a section of their customer base, prevented another section from becoming legal customers, and all the while (judging by the wide availability of pirated copies of the movies mentioned) had zero effect on the piracy of their movies.
Brilliant. Is it time to put Sony to bed with SCO yet?
Re:Consumer Math (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Consumer Math (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Consumer Math (Score:5, Insightful)
So, they fix the problem themselves by downloading it. Now, what do you think that customer is going to do the next time they want a movie?
WTG Sony, you've just educated another customer in the benefits of piracy...
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Funny)
Just out of spite I went ahead and ran DVD Shrink on the rip. I'll probably burn a few copies and leave them various places on my way to work tomorrow.
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Insightful)
(2) Swap at store, still no joy. Try to return, get hit with restocking fee - take DVD home irate.
(3) Call Sony to complain, get told to update player.
(4) Call player manufacturer to complain, get told "sorry, we've no idea, your player is out of warranty, go away". Now you're broiling angry.
(5) Discover software that rips the CD, despite whatever security measure on it, and burns it to a DVD-R.
(6) Realize you can do the same thing with DVD-R images on the net, and start downloading.
Congratulations, Sony, for having turned a customer over to the Dark Side with your wonderful customer relations program!
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Insightful)
-having to get dressed according to weather
-burn some expensive fossil fuels and put wear on an expensive car
-wasting a half hour in city traffic getting cut all the time -- both ways
-hunting for parking spots
-walk around a store full of unhelpful minimum-wage/comission employees looking for what you want (hopefully you won't impulse buy anything you don't need in the process)
-standing in line for a half hour to pay for it
-find out it doesn't play on your computer either (unless you shell out money for something like AnyDVD)
And possibly things like buying a new DVD player (more $) only to find out (if it even works at all) that there's unskippable previews and such crap (FBI warnings) on the disc too.
Whereas using P2P I can download the thing in mere minutes. No DRM, no protection that prevents playing, no rootkits, no unskippable previews, no FBI warnings -- none of the usual crap. No need to waste time ripping/re-encoding it in mpeg4 to put it on my video server either.
I would rather pay for a un-DRM'ed mpeg4 rip direct download then buy the DVD, but studios won't let us, much less for decent prices. Pirating is easy, fast (~30 seconds to start the transfer then downloads overnight), convenient and often provides you with a better product (at least an un-crippled one) -- and much cheaper too. As a bonus, you're not being treated like a thief by the pirated copy (oh the irony). So people pirate instead.
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Funny)
Sony CRAP, for short
Re:Gee. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gee. (Score:4, Informative)
Restocking only comes into play if you change your mind.
Re:Gee. (Score:4, Informative)
Do a charge back. Being charged for a product which fraudulently claims to be compatible with an industry standard (DVD) is fraud. Expecting you to pay fees associated with that fraud is fraud. The credit card issuer will more than likely understand that and issue the chargeback. If the store needs money to cover their restocking fee, they need to contact the manufacturer for producing a defective product. The problem exists between the retail outlet and the manufacturer and not between the retail outlet and the customer.
Best of all, performing a chargeback is a great way for the retail stores to feel the pressure and pass it on to the manufacturer. Surprisingly, merchant associations have fairly heavy clout when they pull in the same direction. Try to make it work for you instead of against you.
Re:Gee. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Insightful)
Making Grandma update the firmware on a DVD player just to make it take two minutes longer for a pirate to copy a DVD is stupid.
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gee. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Insightful)
When one branch of that multinational corporation is making discs specifically designed to play in another branch's hardware, then no, I don't think that's a little bit naive whatsoever. I don't expect the computer division to hit up the TV stand division about every little thing, but it seems like "we're making a new type of DVD, so let's call up the guys who make the DVD players and make sure nothing broke" is a thought that should have occured to someone.
That's the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm wrong, but like some "CDs" in the past that incorporated some copy protection and couldn't carry the CD logo/seal any longer on the cover, wouldn't the same thing apply here? Can Sony legimitately still call this thing a DVD anymore without being sued for fraud?
Re:That's the problem (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps the DVD-Video logo, but it's still a DVD. You can get software on DVDs. You can't play them in your video player, but they are still DVDs.
Actually, it's the same thing with CDs. CDs with copy protection are still CDs; they just can't carry the CDDA (CD Digital Audio) logo.
Re:That's the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's the problem (Score:5, Informative)
And that's what they want you to think. And it's understandable if people don't know all the guidelines that go into those logos. However, the bottom line is that if you buy a DVD and it doesn't play in your player, you should return it and demand your money back. Let the stores deal with the manufacturers.
Re:That's the problem (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps the DVD-Video logo, but it's still a DVD. You can get software on DVDs. You can't play them in your video player, but they are still DVDs.
Actually, it's the same thing with CDs. CDs with copy protection are still CDs; they just can't carry the CDDA (CD Digital Audio) logo.
Not according to the Red Book standard [wikipedia.org].
There are a couple avenues of consumer remedy for buying one of these non-standard discs. First, warranties. When you purchase a CD or something purporting to be a CD, then its failure is a breach of general warranty for fitness. Second, if "CD" is a trademark, then selling a CD-like device as-if it were a CD can violate the trademark, and the trademark holder can pursue a remedy against the misrepresenter. Finally, there are statutory consumer protection acts which entitled consumers to remedies for violations of standards in product quality.
You're right to say that, colloquially, a CD with copy protection is still a CD. It serves the same purpose, looks the same, and often functions in the exact same way as a "true" CD. However, a CD-like disc with copy protection is legally distinct from a CD as "Compact Disc" in terms of the warranty for fitness, trademark holder rights, and consumer protection laws.
YMMV.
Re:That's the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
What's troublesome here is that Sony and Phillips that established the red book standard. Now if Sony holds that trademark, along with Phillips, it might be a bit tricky for Sony to sue themselves.
That's why the market should be deathly afraid of a Blue-Ray DVD victory. It'll mean that Sony will control the standard and move it around as it suits Sony. Amongst other reasons that is. It might certainly be [slightly] more superior than HD-DVD, although who's eyes can tell?
Re:That's the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
"Some?" A pseudorandom sample of CDs inspected at some local big-name stores that sell CDs have produced no CD audio logos that I could find. These newfangled "FBI warnings" seem to have taken their place.
Re:That's the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO this should be dealt with the other way around. Instead of preventing companies from labeling these discs as DVD/CD/whatever, they should be forced to tag the boxes with "CONTAINS DRM", "Content is remotely managed by $CompanyName", "Contains rootkit by Sony", etc. This is a matter of consumer rights, not just distributors' rights. The consumer should be made aware of how the device is meant to work and hopefully a standard set of consumer warnings and advisories should foster the much needed discussion on the fairness of these distributors' tools.
Sony's PR department is better than yours (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gee. (Score:5, Insightful)
Class action lawsuit anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Class action lawsuit anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bait and Switch (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bait and Switch (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bait and Switch (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bait and Switch (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bait and Switch (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bait and Switch (Score:4, Interesting)
While many aspects may have been indistinguishable between Bush and Gore/Kerry, there are still many which are. While it's not clear that 9/11 wouldn't have happened with Gore in office, it's entirely possible. The current administration steadfastly and deliberately ignored the Middle East until 9/11. (Their #1 priority was getting out of the ABM treaty so they could begin testing and deploying the stuff.) Then there's the Clean Air Act, Katrina, not to mention Iraq. (And I haven't even mentioned Peak Oil or greenhouse.)
No matter how Libertarian or Progressive you want to think you are, you simply can't say that there is no distinction whatsoever between Democrats and Republicans.
Are political nihilists also bad programmers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone remember this [acm.org] article about bugs and programming?
Committing the "black or white fallacy" is destructive everywhere, both in politics and programming. Saying that there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans because they're both politicians is good for one thing:
letting smug, lazy cynics feel somehow that by not doing anything, they're intellectually superior.
All that makes you is a part of the problem.
Re:Class action lawsuit anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not quite, I know all about this one. (Score:4, Insightful)
Copy Protection on audio CDs was always a less than satisfactory method anyhow - relying on part Orange Book multi session TOCs with looping or non-existent sessions or degraded EFM, interleave or error correction (of course Red Book players would ignore such things and data players would kill the audio or disc). What has killed audio copy protection is market forces, some labels have already dropped it and others look to be doing the same.
Conventional CD audio player (Red Book) are largely removed from the market, nowadays all CD player also play MP3 - in other words they are data CD players (Orange Book) in order to read the ISO9660 or UDF format and hence read the MP3 files. When this shift happened - we started dropping classic audio systems from the CD players we made in about 2002, and the market took a few years to follow - the industry suddenly found that a *very* large percentage of the hardware could not play their discs so the copy protection was dropped. That and the fact it was massively unpopular.
I remember sitting in lectures from the IPFI when they clearly stated that the CD patents from Philips would expire some day and people did not give a damn about the logo or not. The IPFI certainly did not, and as long as Philips got the license money neither did they. Certainly CD copy protection never made the job of building CE audio equipment any harder - we ignored it largely.
Now we have the same again, as Sony has changed the format of the DVD system slightly for *enhanced* copy protection - there is a slight difference as they also have patents on DVD as well as Philips and others. There are only a few things that can happen here
1. The people who make DVD systems will alter their FW and that takes a while to reach the market - but (trust me on this) the teams involved in most firms have had sample discs with encoding on for quite some time.
2. Market forces will force Sony into a humiliating reverse *if* sufficient publicity and bad press can be generated. What is takes is a very large number of bad tempered people and some media backing. I would be confident that Sony has tested this new system on a wide variety of player to get a feel for the market first.
3. The number of players that refuse to play them will be small enough that the MPAA/Sony/Others will be able to railroad in this change over a year or so (after all some people will assume that their player is fucked and just get another cheap one) - but as the hackers of this world have a formidable reputation for cracking these things in a week or so the status will largely return to normal in due course.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Class action lawsuit anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Just thinking about it, if they're selling them using the DVD label identifying it as a dvd, doesn't it legally have to be playable in dvd compatible players?
This will depend very much on the local laws. In Australia a DVD that fails to play in a significant number of DVD players meets the statutory definition of unmerchantability, which requires goods to be suitable for every purpose for which they are normally bought (unlike other places where they have to be suitable for just one of the purposes for which they are normally bought). This will give the consumer the right to a refund, but won't lead to any penalty. There is also an argument that applying the label "DVD" to the product (or even selling it in a manner that makes it seem like it is a DVD) is misleading conduct for which anybody could apply to the Federal Court to get an injunction to prevent the product from being sold in that way.
Works For Me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Works For Me (Score:5, Interesting)
Reading the comments at Amazon and the blog, it sounds like it's just certain NEW models of players that aren't working. So instead of saying "It's our new copy protection and we won't fix it, but you can update your machine,' they should have said, "There's a bug in these models of players and they need a PATCH, which we are working on."
I guess they need to tell the truth (hah hah hah) but it seems unlikely that it could be the players and not the disks.
However, I guess if it's a relatively SMALL set of disks that have problems on these players....
I don't know. I still vote that there's nothing changed about the DISKs, and it's just a flaw with the devices.
Re:Works For Me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Works For Me (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm Not Mistaken... How hard was that? huh?
BRB/TYT/LOL/etc. were useful at a time when we had to "pay" for being online by the hour (or the minute for some) and had 10 private chat windows open, 5 IRC channels, etc.
Did typing IINM save you anything? A couple of keystrokes? Is it that widely used?
No, it doesn't make you look/sound smarter, because there are a LOT of acronyms that are just plain dumb.
Sorry for going off, I didn't mean to shoot directly at you, just the whole acronym thing is driving me up a wall.
Re:Works For Me (Score:4, Informative)
http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38
Re:Works For Me (Score:4, Funny)
They swapped it for a second brand new model. The second brand new model came with a 3 year warranty, and we're not up to the 2 years, 6 months mark yet.
I forgot to mention the real sweet part. The cost of the new player is always lower than the old player, but the way Philips do the replacements is this: they tell the store to do the old player as a defective return and refund the purchase price, then sell you the new player (Presumably Philips reimburses the store for the full cost of doing so). Each time the DVD player breaks down within the warranty period, Philips actually pays me to get a new DVD player.
Dammit... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dammit... (Score:5, Funny)
once... (Score:4, Funny)
thanks, sony, for transporting me to the real world.
Again? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you buy from Sony and don't expect this to happen, who's fault is it really?
Re:Again? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Again? (Score:5, Informative)
In the case of Casino Royale... (Score:3, Funny)
they've solved the piracy problem (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, that's the copy protection feature. Hollywood finally figured out that if you can view it, you can copy it. If they simply make the content unplayable, nobody can pirate the movie!
Alternatives (Score:5, Informative)
2 options: Ripit4me (in conjunction with dvddecrypter) or dvdfab decrypter....
*ahem*verified on Stranger Than Fiction*ahem*
Re:Alternatives (Score:4, Insightful)
What it HAS done, is forced the legitimate customer to turn to the 'black market' to get access to the material that they payed for.
"I bought this movie, and I can't play it, but it doesn't matter because I was able to grab a rip off the Internet that same day and burn a new one."
Happened to me (Score:5, Insightful)
So I ripped it and returned it.
Re:Happened to me (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how it works in the US and elsewhere in the world but in the UK we have consumer protection legislation which says if a product is not 'fit for purpose' then we have a legal right to a full refund.
Occasionally a shop assistant will call over the manager and the manager will try to get 'cute'. In this situation you would be amazed how effective it is to kick up a little (and slightly noisy) fuss. Most managers are not too happy to see such things in their shops, it tends to put the browsing customers off. I dislike this behaviour when the customer is in the wrong, such as demanding a refund for a product that is an incorrect size or they just don't like (there is no legal provision for this, some shops offer a courtesy exchange, an offer to be accepted with gratitude), however, I don't like being screwed out of my rights and am happy to protest loudly when required and entitled.
Should I be unfortunate enough to purchase one of these DVDs... pray you are not managing the shop when I come to return it
Re:Happened to me (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, we used to have that in the U.S. We also used to have fair use rights.
Re:Happened to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Retailers can't "not carry" Sony pictures, because people will notice the gaping holes in the collection and buy them elsewhere--the general public might be annoyed with Sony, but they're not going to stop buying their products. The retailer has to carry them, or they will suffer reduced sales elsewhere (because most people will shop where they have a full selection). The manufacturer won't eat their own products that work exactly as designed unless the PR gets really bad (like the CD rootkit) or they're forced to recall them by a regulatory body.
Stores could get pissed off enough not to carry Sony products, but it's rare for a retailer not to have to accept getting reamed. The store's anger is not often greater than the consumer desire to purchase them. If they can't break even, they'll have to sit back and take it (even Target).
In any case, you're still just advocating passing the buck. The retailers have zero to do with Sony's poor product choices--and as long as people continue to buy them in large numbers, they'll still be on shelves. The only way to get Sony to act is to avoid buying them in the first place, which means that retailers won't have to order new stock and Sony won't be making money from anyone.
Re:Happened to me (Score:4, Insightful)
From who's point of view? Certainly not a consumer who gets it home and finds that it doesn't play. It is absolutely defective as far as he is concerned, and under basic requirements of servicability for the intended use under consumer protection laws it fails miserably.
The seller of such merchandise had better be ready to deal with issues of this sort, it is part of being in business.
The sad thing is - (Score:5, Insightful)
It is things like this that make me cautious about buying media from Sony these days. I have no problem with buying DVDs however one of the reasons I buy a DVD is that I know it will work perfectly in any DVD I wish to buy (unlike XviD rips from BitTorrent or Usenet) however apparently this isn't true anymore so DVD is now no better than a rip downloaded from the internet.
It is a shame that the companies are worsening their products with these copy protection systems to help fight piracy when all they end up doing is ruining it for the people who want to buy DVDs.
One thing that I have wondered about for a while is how many DVD rips online originate from retail DVDs? I would have thought the majority (if not all) came from pre-release copies as the DVD rips are normally several weeks (if not months) ahead of a retail DVD release.
Prevents casual "rent and burn" (Score:5, Insightful)
This copy protection prevents most people from renting/borrowing a DVD and making a copy of it. Until people download the latest software for cracking it. This is mostly targetting non-technical people who were given DVD Shrink by a friend.
There will be copies of the DVD available on the Internet, because someone will crack the protection. All it takes is one copy on the Internet to ensure that anyone on a peer to peer network can get a copy.
Sony is risking alienating a large number of people to stop a small number of pirates. Not just a small number of pirates, but the non-technical pirates. They are also annoying Walmart, Blockbuster, BestBuy and any other retailer who sells their DVDs. Who are the consumers going to complain to? The retailers.
Oddly, this could cost them money even if you ignore retail backlash. Companies which rent DVDs to the consumer, purchase DVDs based on rental demand. If someone rents and burns a DVD, the movie company is pissed, but it still increases rental demand. Higher rental demand, increases sales of the DVDs to the companies who rent them. If someone finds they can't rent and burn, they probably will just download the image from BitTorrent rather than buy the DVD. Not to mention the people who can't play the Sony DVDs, they'll want a free version which actually works.
Sony has the right to put any copy protection scheme they want on their DVDs, as long as it maintains compatibility. If you sell someone a product which is designed not to work properly on their DVD player, you better tell them first. Even if the consumer was willing to get firmware updates, do you think the manufacturers want to start sending out discs and supporting consumers through the update?
Re:Prevents casual "rent and burn" (Score:5, Informative)
There you go, now stop buying those darn DVD's and complaining that someone will crack the copy protection anyway. We KNOW, before it's even in stores you can get full DVD rips (yes, you can even get the full 4,7G download's if you look hard enough). And if I buy a DVD that doesn't play in my machine, without going through stuff like MacTheRipper or so (Johnny English for example) I return it to wherever I bought it and say it won't play (I take my PowerBook with me) and demand a refund.
Just boicott Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, Sony Electronics tries to deliver great products, and Sony Pictures strongarm the electronics division into delivering defective products.
Just stop buying Sony altogether (Movies and electronics) until they become a customer focussed company again.
In the end the blame goes to the stupid Sony customers that allows Sony to sell them this defective crap, and then comes back for more.
Sony electronics actually rather quite sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
The Sony laptops are light and attractive, but almost universally have mechanical problems (hinges and latches break). The MP3 players are a disaster. A relative bought one, and it wouldn't play MP3s -- he had to convert music into Sony's proprietary atrak format before it worked. He returned it and bought an iRiver. The headphones give reasonable (but not exceptional) audio quality for the price, but generally break after about 3 months of use. Cameras have nice imagers, mechanically filmy (but not horrible), but as with most Sony, try to force you into a proprietary, incompatible, overpriced technology stack with MemoryStick. PS3 was an unqualified disaster. Home audio equipment is okay, but suboptimal on the price/performance curve (e.g. Kenwood generally has better-sounding, better-quality equipment for the same price in my price range).
I also really, really, really hate the attempted "synergy." If you want the PS3, you need to pay for Blu-ray. Everything you buy will use MemoryStick, and where possible, use proprietary cables, plugs, and formats to try to lock you in to buy other Sony products, and not work well with non-Sony products.
Sony arrogance to a new low (Score:5, Interesting)
Fair enough, we do not intend to support your arrogance. Welcome to our blacklist.
Easy (Score:4, Interesting)
ARCCOS (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ARCCOS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ARCCOS (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is not so much the DRM (bad as it is) but that in their neverending quest to prevent copyright infringement (pardon me, "theft of their intellectual property") they've begun to deny legitimate purchasers of their product the ability to actually use that for which they plunked down good money. Oh, I'm sure Sony figured out well in advance that some number of purchasers would get screwed, but decided that the risk was acceptable. I guarantee it won't be acceptable to me, if I ever mistakenly happen to buy a Sony Pictures DVD.
This has got to run afoul of more than a few laws, and it sure as hell isn't a good way to run a business.
Re:ARCCOS (Score:4, Informative)
This isn't quite true, at least for certain definitions of "ripped." I know someone (not me of course) who initially had troubles dd'ing a Greys Anatomy DVD (damaged by ARccOS) but had no problems ripping the tracks individually using mplayer (i.e. mplayer dvd://1 -dumpstream -dumpfile 1.mpg). I'm sure mencoder would have worked fine too, for transcoding.
Re:ARCCOS, use dd_rescue (Score:4, Interesting)
What's so bad about that? (Score:5, Funny)
Why, oh why? (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope Sony Entertainment chokes and dies on their new DVDs.
Return Every One of Them (Score:3, Insightful)
Fancy a laugh (Score:5, Funny)
The best comment from the blog entry (Score:5, Interesting)
left hand: make decent hardware...Profit!
right hand: break hardware made by left hand...don't tell left hand about it....Profit?
Nice way to blow it (Score:4, Interesting)
I grabbed a torrent of Casino Royale a few days ago because it came up in conversation with some friends, and really liked it, liked it enough for me to buy it the next time I was near a video store - I wanted the better picture quality, and the extra features, and to free up the space on my drive. Now that I know it's copyright protected to the point of being unplayable? Sorry Sony; you just lost my twenty bucks. Sucks to be you.
Triv
Re:Who owns the DVD format? (Score:4, Informative)
"No single company "owns" DVD. The official specification was developed by a consortium of ten companies: Hitachi, JVC, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Philips, Pioneer, Sony, Thomson, Time Warner, and Toshiba. Representatives from many other companies also contributed in various working groups. In May 1997, the DVD Consortium was replaced by the DVD Forum , which is open to all companies, and as of February 2000 had over 220 members. Time Warner originally trademarked the DVD logo, and has since assigned it to the DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation (DVD FLLC)."
Looks like there isn't any kind of single company that can really rule on this and say, those aren't officially formatted DVDs... The fact that Sony was a main developer in the consortium would also probably make it that much harder to revoke any kind of "DVD" stamp from these disks...
Re:Stranger than Fiction (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder, honestly, what the legal status of your download is. You paid for a copy of the movie, you now have a copy of the movie, but an unauthorized format was used when the authorized format failed.
Re:Stranger than Fiction (Score:5, Funny)
You've got a girlfriend?
Stranger than fiction, indeed!
Re:Xine (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you report the dvd's as defective? It should be plan that if they do not play in a stand alone dvd when all other dvds to that they are defective. When you rent/buy these disk and they do not work simply return them as defective. Once walmart gets a stack of these fucker a mile high they will smack down sony nice and good.
As evil as walmart is sometimes being the 10,000 pound gorilla does have it's uses.
Re:Xine (Score:5, Insightful)
Even more powerful (Score:4, Insightful)
Pissed off share holders, particularly those who might have personally encountered the DVD problem, are a very nasty bunch to deal with. They cause heads to roll when voting for new board members etc.
Re:I have to solution! (Score:4, Insightful)