A BLOKE claims that Sony is back to its old tricks and has installed a new DRM system on its DVDs which do not work in some machines.
He called Sony who admitted that the problem was being caused by its new copy protection making these discs unplayable in some players including our own. Sony says that it does not not intend to change the copy protection.
They told him he would have to have a firmware update to his player. Unfortunately this has not been released yet. In fact they do not know when it will be released.
Obviously he is a bit miffed about spending $350 on a Sony DVD player three months ago which cannot play Sony movies. The player is still being flogged and makes no mention of this fact.
I get flamed when I say that I actually support the IDEA of DRM. My main complaint is that it sucks.
It seems to me that without some sort of DRM the authors of works will not get paid for their work. Do we – as a society — really want this?
I have lived in countries where there are no copyright laws (or not enforced) and the creative community is teeny. The whole culture is poorer for it.
hmm.. i highly doubt that without some sort of DRM the authors of works will not get paid for their said “works”.
plain and simple..
if it’s good. it’ll make money. without drm thanx
DRM? Just say NO!
#31. thing is, the vast majority of music sold (CDs) is un-DRMed. music sales are sliding, and no doubt some of that is due to piracy, but there is no sign that music as an artistic (or commercial) format is going to disappear.
my issue with DRM is practical, not ideological. it makes hassles for the people who have the DRMed media (ie the people who paid for it), while not doing anything to those who obtained it illegally (stripped of DRM on BitTorrent). not to mention that it puts the media companies in an arms race (vs millions of bright teenagers) that it cannot possibly win.
Why does this surprise anyone? This is rootkit Sony for crying out loud. If nothing else history should be your guide with Sony. If you still choose to buy anything Sony then you should be fully prepared for it to not work, you to be out money and Sony to have the law on its side. With these unfortunate facts it would be in the best interest of your money to forgo any purchases from the Sony Corporation. I avoid any and all Sony products if at all possible. In addition to CD’s, DVD, PSP, PS2 or 3 (I had a hard time with my son on some of these items) I also avoid batteries, phones, CD or floppy drives in fact anything Sony can or does make even re-branded for another manufacturer I steadfastly avoid purchasing. I avoid Sony because of bad business practices, unlike Enron’s and WorldCom poor business practices you have been warned with Sony time and time again so continuing to do business with Sony means your willing to accept the practices like them or not.
I haven’t bought anything Sony since they revealed their attitude toward their customers with the root kit fiasco. When a company is rotten at the core like that, spending money on them makes no sense. As SN pointed out (#13), Sony’s interests no longer align with those of its customers. Or erstwhile customers, like me.
#29 – Lauren – Thanks for the tip. Denon and Meridian. I need a new player and appreciate the info. You too, BubbaRay.
36 – Doug – I’ve seen a good argument that killing off the music communities centered around P2P in a time of homogenous corporate radio is what really sank CD sales. And now they (and their owned senators, like Diane Feinstein grrr) are killing off internet radio, the last remaining open non-fee music community. If that argument is right, CD sales will now slip even further. I haven’t bought an RIAA-member CD for a long time now and I’m not about to start, but if Folk Alley and a few other radio stations fail the way Sisyphus Tracks recently did, I will certainly miss them.
SN – sorry I came to this thread so late. Grouching aside, it’s quite interesting.
Just riffing here…
would people complain about DRM if the company GAVE AWAY the hardware — and a basic package of content — and then payed for it with advertising?
One thing I resent about DRM is that it violates my belief that I own the music and should be able to copy to my various players.
But if the hardware and content were FREE, then I wouldn’t resent so much being forced to listen to commercials or not making copies.
I imagine that a some sort broadband audio/video player would be pretty cheap to manufacture in mass quantities.