Space Shifting DVDs to Cost Extra? 361
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."
This reminds me.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This reminds me.... (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe I'll pay (Score:2, Informative)
Re:DVDs are encrypted (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....
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:Might explain "Deauthorize Media" option (Score:2, Informative)
Authorizing DVD's
When parental controls are enabled, the computer administrator must authorize a DVD before it can be played.
to remove authorization, insert the DVD and choose Features > Deauthorize Media. Then either quit DVD Player or insert another disk to complete deauthorization.
So yeah, its all about Parental Controls sadly
Re:No way... (Score:2, Informative)
- comes with no DRM so I can use super-cinchy programs like iTunes to rip into any format I damn well choose, now or in the future. Period.
I do not want the DVD creators to decide what formats they'll put onto a disc. (iPod format on a Sony/Columbia disc? PSP format on a Disney/Pixar disc? Ha! And what about future formats, like whatever the hell the gPhone2008 will play?) Besides, if you let them supply 'pre-ripped' tracks, guess what--they'll still come with ads, thou-shalt-not-steal warnings, etc. burned into the file. No thanks, I'll do it myself.
iTunes has worked for every CD I've tried that wasn't physically damaged. If DVDs had no DRM, just like CDs don't, you wouldn't need a gazillion* rippers (let alone ten) to do the job.
Historical note: CDs did originally come with DRM... kind of. Once upon a time, a CD, at 650 MB, was comparable to, if not larger than, the average hard drive. (In 1995, my dad's 486 had a CD-ROM drive and two 540 MB HDs. The rather-high-end Macs at work that year had maybe 2 GB drives.) Also, operating systems and common programs couldn't extract CD tracks--they showed up as 4k '.cda' files in Explorer or Finder--and music rippers didn't really exist yet. So it was kind of a 'natural' DRM. (And that was 1995--over 10 years after CDs came out.)
Expensive programs like SoundEdit could losslessly import CD tracks to WAV or AIFF, and later on (1997? '98 for sure) Toast could rip CD audio as well. Then in 1998-1999 MP3s became big, and rippers were kind of a grey thing, then they became less than grey, and iomega released RecordIt! which made MP2s so you could copy CDs to Zip disks but nobody cared, then iTunes came out, and the rest is history. But for quite a while there, CDs were pretty much uncopyable, except by analog methods.
In the meantime: HandBrake FTW. It handles over 95% of what I throw at it, and has lots and lots of good options. Shots out to the local library for having 24 and The Simpsons on DVD. Hell, it would be technically illegal for me to rip them even if I did buy them, so why bother to buy? (Though I did buy Season 5 of 24 because it was on sale for $20 and the library didn't have it. Once I was done watching it--and I ripped them anyway, so I could watch the episodes one after the other on my media center Mac, without having to wade through crappy menus, disc changes, etc.--I donated the DVDs to the library. The circle of life continues.)
* and I thought I was the only one who used that word.
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.
Re:can anyone say ringtones? (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 ringtone that Apple can't delete or expire. You are out of touch with reality. If you want free content, make it yourself, and then copy it onto your phone yourself. Nobody is forcing you to use commercial music and slick consumer products.
Apple's iTunes Ringtones and Complex World of Copyright Law [roughlydrafted.com]
Re:Might explain "Deauthorize Media" option (Score:5, Informative)
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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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Re:iTunes video compromise? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No way... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No way... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No way... (Score:3, Informative)
The thing I've never gotten is why no DVD producers have already adopted this practice. They're all about value-add with piles of special features and such; why not stick an iTunes compatible file on the DVD and throw the iPod logo on there?
You know, if one reads the actual article [nytimes.com] where the TFA got its facts from wrong...
You'll notice that this "premium DVD" talk actually is based on the Die Hard 4 DVD [wikipedia.org], which "is also the first ever to include an electronic copy of the film which can be played on a computer and that also be imported into several models portable of video players" and "costs $3 or $4 more than an ordinary DVD." And has nothing to do with Steve Jobs whatsoever.