|
Priority Interrupt
Archive
|
|
 |
Priority
Interrupt
by Steve Ciarcia
Getting
Ripped
|
Ever
wonder why technology advances the way it does, or doesn’t?
I started thinking about this yesterday when I stopped
by a local electronics/appliance store (not connected,
but I was looking at electric stoves). While I was there
I wandered over to the TV department and noticed that
virtually every set was high-definition this or HD-ready
that. There were at least four display technologies and
a dozen brands. High definition is here, folks, at least
as far as your ability to see it, finding something to
watch on it is another matter.
Since
I already have two HDTVs, I wasn’t in the market for another
set. Instead, I asked if they had any high-definition DVD
players or high-definition recorders. It seemed like a reasonable
question because it’s an obviously untapped market with
all the displays they must be selling. To make a long story
short, the answer was "nope!" There was a digital
VCR (non-HD) but nothing else anyone knew about.
Wait
a second. I bought a 5-megapixel camera last week for half
the cost of the 1-megapixel camera I bought four years ago
and half the cost of the 4-megapixel camera I bought last
year. What do you mean no HD DVD players? Given the technology
I see crammed into every computer and video game these days,
making a high-definition DVD player should be a no-brainer.
Well,
it should have been obvious to me, but the no-brainer part
is that the industry is holding off producing one because
of digital piracy. Sony, Panasonic, and the like aren’t
going to sink a billion dollars into designing and marketing
a high-definition DVD player/recorder if none of the movie
or music manufacturers will license media to play on it.
The closest I could find to an HD video player is from JVC.
Dubbed D-VHS, the system uses special high-definition VHS
tapes, but it’s still an old-clunker VCR in my book. The
only reason that there are any pre-recorded movies available
at all for D-VHS, is that JVC has apparently convinced the
media giants that the decryption algorithm is locked in
the machine electronics. Because it’s not available on a
computer, it can’t be pirated—this week, at least.
Digital
piracy, the unrestricted swapping of copyrighted movies
and music, has the media giants ripped (pun intended). Perhaps
because of a perception that anything on the Internet is
free, there is an entire world of users who do just that.
Every day, millions of ordinary people download billions
of files: music albums, movies, cable TV shows, video games,
etc. Just download and install a peer-to-peer file-sharing
program and join the crowd. Everyone has heard of Napster.
It is gone now but others have replaced it with a vengeance.
The
problem is smart people, not technology. Smart people design
the encryption schemes—like Sony’s expensive CD-copy-control
technology. Similarly, it took a smart person to figure
out that you could defeat the anti-copy data by simply running
a black marker around the perimeter of the CD. There are
no HD DVD players for the same reason. The fear is that
shortly after the first DVD is inserted into a computer
drive, someone will crack the protection scheme and tell
the world. That happened with the original DVD encryption,
and it’s naive to think it wouldn’t happen again.
There is a plethora of solutions being offered. Microsoft
has jumped into the game with both feet and will be offering
high-definition DVDs. Initially, they will be encrypted
and only play on PCs with a special version of Windows Media
Player. Ultimately, Microsoft’s objective is for all PCs
to include special "copyright-material security chips,"
viewed by many as simply a new means for corporate and government
spying. In the meantime, the Recording Industry Association
of America (RIAA) intends to create a full-employment program
for the legal profession—basically, they plan to sue everybody
they can. The RIAA is preparing to file hundreds of lawsuits
(with damage claims as high as $150K per song) against the
people who are offering music to others. If you keep a large
catalog of music as part of one of these peer-to-peer organizations,
you may find yourself a target.
Personally,
I’d like to see some high-definition DVD players hit the
shelves before the two sets I have become obsolete. I can’t
define the correct path leading to an answer for all this,
but somehow I think that finding a legal and profitable
way to give people what they want is the only correct solution.
Undoubtedly, much of the piracy is driven by cost. Even
if a legal sledgehammer stops the piracy, it doesn’t automatically
convert all these people to buying customers if the only
way to get the one song they want is to buy a $17 CD. There
is a message when a service like Apple iTunes—with no subscription
fees, $0.99 per song cost, and 30-second free previews—sells
five million songs in the first two months of operation.
Maybe someone has to set it to music for the RIAA.
steve.ciarcia@circuitcellar.com
Published:
September 2003
|
