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Space Shifting DVDs to Cost Extra?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Dec 05, 2007 01:04 PM
from the digital-restrictions-monkeybusiness dept.
from the digital-restrictions-monkeybusiness dept.
Depending on who you listen to Steve Jobs has supposedly been pitching the idea of selling "premium" DVDs that would include an extra fee for the privilege of transferring your legally-purchased DVD to a different device. "The courts have held that "space-shifting" your CDs to a portable music device is a fair use. So you can legally import your CD collection to your iPod, or any other device, without paying a penny. But Steve Jobs apparently wants to charge you $4 for the privilege of doing the same with your DVDs."
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No way... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No way... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:No way... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Apple is able to pull in a few extra fees for developing and licensing the technology then good for them I suppose. They are in the business of selling hardware remember. I'm sure they would sell more hardware if there was an easy and legal way to transfer content from original media, but there is not and Apple is dealing with it in a way they are good at.
Parent
Re:No way... (Score:5, Insightful)
I worry about this as a precedent. If we keep going down this route, eventually media purchases will be tied to a single device, using digital hardware IDs. I could see a day when you buy a movie, and only have "rights" to play it on one specific DVD player. You would have to provide the hardware ID of that DVD player at the time of purchase. It's no secret that content providers want you to repurchase the same movie a dozen times. One for home use, one for in your car, one for your portable player, one for your PSP, etc. DMCA makes this consumer nightmare possible.
Parent
Re:No way... (Score:4, Funny)
And the concept is old news - it's really just an extension of this program:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/itunes_to_sell_your_home_videos [theonion.com]
Parent
Re:But, you're missing something... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is (apparently) offering to help. They would expect payment - natch.
Now with DVDs and Handbrake it is slightly different; i wouldn't pay $3 to $4 to save me the work of turning a DVD into h.264 format, but some people would. I would probably willingly pay some lesser amount. What people need to realize is that even though it is your right, it is still work.
Parent
Re:But, you're missing something... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:But, you're missing something... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:But, you're missing something... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is (apparently) offering to help. They would expect payment - natch.
Generally I agree with you, although it's slightly more complicated than that because of the DMCA.
To use your 2nd amendment analogy (my thoughts on that subject being an entirely different story, but I'll go with it for the purposes of illustration), it would be like saying you have the right to bear arms, but then saying it's illegal to actually open the box that the weapon comes in because the copyright is owned by the box maker and they don't want you opening it. So then Apple comes in and says they have a legal box-opener that's sanctioned by the box maker, and only they can sell it to you.
That would be pretty ridiculous, right? You can buy the weapon, you can legally use it, but you have to buy the means to open the package separately from some third party? That's what's going on here.
I do agree completely that those offering a service should be compensated for it. I just bought an "MVI" DVD, for example, that includes the band in question's full audio CD, plus pre-ripped mp3's of the entire CD (and yes, real mp3's, on a Warner Music disc), plus 5 bonus tracks, plus about seven videos, plus extra junk like wallpaper, buddy icons, etc. I paid $2 extra over the standard audio CD for all that and I was happy to do it. I probably would have paid $2 extra just for the officially-ripped mp3's by themselves (only because I figure they've gotta have some better quality system to do it with than my LAME... although I'm probably wrong). Point being, it's an extra thing that I don't have to do, and I'm pretty tech savvy - I could do it myself pretty easily - but a lot of people couldn't, they don't even know how to import a CD in iTunes. So for them, they're paying for something that they wouldn't otherwise have at all.
But to pay for the right to do something that you otherwise should have anyway is the problem here.
Parent
Re:No way... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that the issue is if Mr. Jobs wants to make money of Consumers the question is how.
The thing is, I don't think that Apple is going to make much money off of this. They traditionally don't make much on content.
I have to wonder if this isn't a way to advertise "ripping" your movies as a feature of their hardware. Remember that the original slogan for the iPod was something like "Rip, Mix, Burn" but they had to stop that lest they be accused of encouraging infringement. This way, it's all DMCA friendly.
Parent
Re:No way... (Score:5, Insightful)
And Steve Jobs is on the Disney board of directors.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Steve Jobs was CEO of Pixar... Pixar was bought by Disney.
CEOs of other companies being on the board of directors is actually pretty common. Up until a few months ago I worked at JP Morgan Chase. The CEO of Comcast was on the board of directors (probably still is).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If Steve Jobs promotes these DVDs that allow you to copy the movie, and it only costs $4 to avoid a very in-depth discussion of your rights as a consumer in regards to intellectual property, there may be quite a few people who adopt to this format.
Now suppose, and this probably isn't too likely, the public begins to purchase these slightly-more expensive DVDs. Would we see price cuts in the original format as well as this new format
Re:No way... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, I have around 50-100 DVDs (not sure exactly how many, some are seasons of TV shows in boxed sets with multiple disks). Assuming around 7GB per DVD, that's 350-700GB. Even reencoding as H.264, that's a few more generations of iPod before I have enough space. More to the point, you don't need to buy too many DVDs a year to make your current storage device obsolete.
If iTunes let you rip DVDs in the same zero-click way it lets you rip CDs, I would probably have ripped a lot of my disks already, and would be a lot more interested in an iPod with video out (especially one that had support for 5.1 sound out via an external splitter). For $4, I'm not interested though. I suspect the aim of this is to get the functionality shipping in iTunes and then lose a class action lawsuit objecting to them charging.
Parent
Re:No way... (Score:5, Interesting)
- One iPod and PSP version video of the movie along with one version in a standard codec.
- One iPod and PSP version video of each episode (if it's something like a Futurama season DVD) along with one version in a standard codec.
- Flac/Wav/lossless version of the songs, if it's a concert DVD.
- No DRM on the ripped stuff.
I am sick of installing 10 gazillion CD/DVD rippers and encoders just so I can watch my DVDs on my PSP and my DSM-320. 4$ for me would be no big deal to pay for that service.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In a Low Def format, they'd look great on mobile devices, and be about as go
Re:No way... (Score:4, Informative)
All iPods [apple.com] have the same [apple.com] specs [apple.com] for the video they play... Presumably the iPod version of the video from the DVD would conform to the same standards as videos from the iTunes store. Your questions about various iPods and the AppleTV apply just as much to the iTunes video store as they would to these hypothetical DVDs, so I wouldn't think that your questions really pose a problem for this concept. Of course, the AppleTV is supposed to be HD-capable, so that could represent a good question here, but Apple doesn't give you a way to get HD content for it, other than some sample podcasts, at least that's all I've heard about it.
Personally, I think it's dumb that they would sell this for a 20% price increase to "let" you have a "legal" way to get videos to your iPod. I use HandBrake all the time (which the author of TFA incorrectly identifies as violating the DMCA... it doesn't violate it because it doesn't have any way on its own to handle CSS decryption... you need an external program/driver/library for that), and in a decent world, it would be perfectly easy for anyone to use it to put their movies on their portable players. But these companies step in and act like they're freaking awesome, because they've given us a legal way to do this.
If someone wants to pay $4 to make it easier to copy their DVDs, and they think the hassle is worth the price, then good for them. But I would hate to see people paying that extortion money because the content providers are pretending that it's the only way to get it legally.
Parent
Steve Jobs or the MPAA (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily iTunes is not the only tool in town.
Re:Steve Jobs or the MPAA (Score:5, Interesting)
Even that sucks though, limiting the file to just an Apple format and charging far more for the file than it is reasonably worth it. And at that point, either the file is locked to one device or it renders the DRM on the disc completely useless. In either case it doesn't seem to benefit consumers much, if at all.
Shouldn't the courts acknowledge that DRM isn't a protection measure if most people can break it easily. I mean at that point, what's the real difference between DRM and exotic file format?
Parent
For that price... (Score:5, Interesting)
I tell you, I *might* be persuaded to pay that price if it was some sort of continuous license w/unlimited downloads. For example, if I could take a DVD from my current collection, get it so if I lose the file I can always re-download from Apple, and if they release an HD version I get it for free, then that might be worth $4. Otherwise, screw you, I'll rip the DVD myself.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I tell you, I *might* be persuaded to pay that price if it was some sort of continuous license w/unlimited downloads. For example, if I could take a DVD from my current collection, get it so if I lose the file I can always re-download from Apple, and if they release an HD version I get it for free, then that might be worth $4. Otherwise, screw you, I'll rip the DVD myself.
I'm speculating here, but I suspect what he's actually pitching will turn out to be something like packaging a code with the DVD that you can punch into iTunes to essentially "purchase" a copy of the movie on iTunes for no cost. It gets around the whole issue of space shifting because you're technically providing the service of downloading the movie off iTunes in another format, not just flipping an "it's ok to rip this" bit in the DRM. It's still slightly slimy, but somewhat less so than the summary makes
DVDs are encrypted (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess if you don't like it, you shouldn't blame Jobs who's trying to exploit a commercial opportunity, but rather contact your lawmaker and explain in layman's terms why this is messed up.
Re:DVDs are encrypted (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly Steve ONLY makes money off you if you CAN rip your DVD to an iPod. So I suspect what he's saying is hey MPAA, if we pay you a small extra fee will you let us turn off your encryption so my customers can put your movies on my iPods?
Parent
Re:DVDs are encrypted (Score:5, Insightful)
The way I read it, what he's saying is "hey MPAA, if our mutual customers pay you a small extra fee will you re-encrypt your movies in an iPod-compatible format so our mutual customers can put the movies on their iPods, but not on other devices which may not be compatible (and which are not sold by Apple.)
The ideal situation for the consumer would be no DRM and no DMCA... too bad consumers (aka "we the people") don't have any influence in Washington or we wouldn't be in this situation.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Doesn't always work. Try it with Pirates of the Caribbean 2...won't work. Sony did something weird like putting in bad sectors on purpose that blow up bit for bit copying....
Might explain "Deauthorize Media" option (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Might explain "Deauthorize Media" option (Score:5, Informative)
------
Authorizing DVDs
When parental controls are enabled, the computer administrator must authorize a DVD before it can be played.
To authorize DVDs (if you are the administrator):
Select how you want to authorize the DVD:
To allow the movie to be played this time only, and then to require an administrator name and password every subsequent time, click Play Once.
To allow the movie to be played this time and every subsequent time without requiring an administrator name and password, click Always Allow.
Type the administrator name and password.
To remove authorization, insert the DVD and choose Features > Deauthorize Media. Then either quit DVD Player or insert another disk to complete deauthorization.
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Parent
But how much to watch on an AppleTV? (Score:4, Insightful)
They really need to make up their mind. Either they're selling us a license to their content (in which case the media should be irrelevant) OR they should be charging us for a physical product, in which case we can do whatever we want with that product including turning it into something we can use in ways they didn't expect.
If I buy some boards and a nails from Home Depot, they don't get a piece of the action if I try to sell the cabinet I made.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What does the AppleTV do that a tivo, xbox media center, or mythtv box couldn't do years ago?
Let's do it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Charge me the extra $3-4 and leave off ALL DRM. That includes that macrovision crap and all of it. Don't require special software or hardware. Just don't put the DRM in place.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not intending that as a jibe - guess it'd be quite nice to have a service/app that'd provide an optional 1-click "send to my MP3 player" or what have you for people who aren't inclined to transcode their own or download an iPod-ised version from TPB... but I think the DVD publishers are missing a trick by not including an already converted MP4 file on the DVD itself. It'd be low quality and therefore useless to most pe
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They're striating the market. They want to raise prices on content, but they don't want to look like they're raising prices on content. This way, the DRM crap will become a discount version--a reduced set of rights for a lower cost. The "premium" DVD will now act essentially as a VHS tape or a DVD without encryption or an audio CD.
The format changes and the license changes over time. The problem with equitable use arguments is that it presumes all media purchases ar
IMHO (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This reminds me.... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Um.... (Score:3, Funny)
MythDVD
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one way for for a positive outcome. However, look at what (if this article is to be believed) Jobs is asking. He is asking for $4 (it's not clear if the money goes to him or the studio or both) for the ability to do something that we should be able to do for free. The reason
A Non-Starter (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you Want to Pay? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you could pay someone to figure it all for you (Buy purchasing commercial software that has a nice GUI)
Or you could watch DvDs on your TV and not your iPod.
Which of these things is worth less than the $4 it takes to Steve Jobs every time? For most people I'm thinking option 3 will be the only one. A smaller group might opt for the commercial software that does the same thing. Very few people will make the effort to get it all set up with open source tools or to wait the length of time it takes to reencode all the mpeg files. I think that most people (who don't read slashdot) will be happy to pay Steve Jobs the $4. I think Steve knows that, too.
"supposedly", "apparently" (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this might be a radical departure for Slashdot editors, but have you ever considered only linking to articles that have, I don't know, actual facts? Instead of rumor and innuendo to drive Apple bashing for Page Hits.
Also, did you hear that rumor about ScuttleMonkey? Supposedly he likes to have sex with washing machines. Apparently it's something he does quite a lot...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's "Apparent", as in "obvious". Something that is apparently true is obviously true (though possibly untrue, if appearances deceive). On the other hand, if you merely suppose something to be true, then you are much more likely to be wrong, in that you don't have evidence, you just have a supposition.
More to the point -- dude this is Slashdot. I
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yesterday?
This is not how purchasing media should work (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, buddy! (Score:3, Funny)
Apple miscalculation (Score:3, Insightful)
There's just very little reason to buy video from Apple at this time. DVD players are overwhelmingly cheap, and DVDs are cheap and easy to buy OR RENT. Netflix, Blockbuster, Wal Mart, Target etc etc are all too happy to put DVDs in your hands. They are making loads of money on them, as are the studios, the only people not cashing in are the writers (see: WGA strike).
The primitive state of broadband means downloads are not pressuring the industry, there is piracy but it's just not like it was for music in the Napster days. At that time you could literally get virtually any song on your hard drive within a few minutes. For video, you need to figure out BitTorrent, then wait wait wait for the download. Or you need to set up iTunes and then wait wait wait for the download.
THEN you have to get your TV hooked up to your computer, and then tolerate visibly worse quality. This was not the case with MP3s, they sounded just as good as CDs to most people, despite the specs, and people already had headphones to plug in to their computers, or a miniplug to hook up to the stereo cost $5 at Radio Shack.
Amid this backdrop, Apple is trying to make a market for video downloads. But the effort is futile until broadband speeds get up closer to FTTP (fiber) levels. Even then, the studios probably won't hand Apple a new market to dominate like they did last time. Wired recently quoted one studio head who said he gave in to Jobs on iTunes because Jobs pointed out that Mac's 5 percent market share mitigated the risk -- if the studio's worst nightmares came true, the impact would still be minor. No one is going to be fooled this time around into thinking Jobs just wants to make an innocent little side service for Mac users. You can bet a Google or Netflix is going to get licensing parity (which did not happen with iTunes).
Won't be an issue (Score:3, Insightful)
I would say all this has led to people wanting quantities of music and not quality music. In past when everyone paid for music you listened hard to who you were going to spend your money on. Record companies had to try their best to put out good music so get your money. Now a days people just want to say "I have 10,000 downloads of stuff". How much of that do you actually listen to versus just occupies space on a hard drive and is all that really stuff worth listening to??? I only bring this up because the war between the downloaders and RIAA has many bad side effects and a boatload of crap music is one of those side effects.
Why Should We Have to "Buy" Back Our Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, it may be the case that through DRM they have made it difficult to exercise my rights without paying them (i.e. I have to break the DRM to enable my rights), but that brings up another problem with DRM and specifically the DMCA. It is unlawful (technically) to break the DRM (aka access protection mechanism) even if I break it for the purpose of re-enabling my rights to time or format shift or for fair use. As the law is currently written it is unlawful to break the DRM no matter what the intent and that is wrong. The DMCA needs to be changed so that safe harbors for breaking the access protection mechanism are created when the consumer is re-enabling RIGHTS that the creator or owner has seized improperly via DRM (aka the access protection mechanism).
Am I missing something? Where does Jobs say this? (Score:5, Informative)
The following paragraph continues, "More interestingly perhaps, the studios are hoping to create "premium" versions of DVDs that include a copy of the movie that can easily be put on an iPod (and presumably a laptop with iTunes or an Apple TV). Fox has tried this already, with a version of "Die Hard 4 that includes a digital copy. Mr. Greenfield writes that this version costs $3 or $4 more than an ordinary DVD."
This paragraph doesn't refer to Jobs at all, but rather to a DVD that Fox released.
I'm missing the connection between Apple and Fox that Tim Lee's seeing. Can someone explain where this is hiding?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Oh right, Verizon and Sprint and AT&T are selling them for $3 or more, and then delete them after a few months and make you pay again!
Apple charges users $1 to convert their purchased tracks into a custom made ri