"Why you should boycott Blu-ray and HD-DVD" - bluraysucks.com

[corfy]

Sorry I haven't jumped in until now. I have been physically out of it over the last couple of days (been fighting a particularly nasty cold).

I just want to throw my two cents in. Yes, most of the articles written about this subject are from 2005-2006. Of course, Blu-Ray was just released in 2006, so it isn't that old of a format.

And while the cost has gone down, and the level of quality of Blu-ray may have gone up now that the format has been out for a bit, some of the other arguments are still fairly valid.

And to partially counter one of JP's arguments, ICT (Image Constraint Token) has been not been used yet. The major Hollywood studios have agreed to not implement ICT until at least 2010, to give early adopters of Blu-Ray and HDDVD time to upgrade their players. Otherwise, their players won't support ICT, and any disc with ICT won't play with full quality on their players. (1)

But the fact remains that Blu-Ray does use a lot of DRM (digital rights management) which is there to make sure that there are no un-authorized viewings of the content. Of course, an exec in Hollywood is makiing the decision about what is authorized and what isn't.

The argument in favor is this practice cuts down unauthorized copying of their movies, preventing piracy. The other side of the argument, though, is you aren't even legally allowed to make backup copies of the movies you spent so much money on to buy to begin with, let alone transfer copies to other devices. Yes, some movies come with a copy that can be transferred to iPods, but so far, that seems to be the exception, not the rule. (2) It also makes it difficult to legally play Blu-Ray on some so-called "non approved" systems, which can include many Linux systems.

Yes, the software to crack these digital restrictions is out there, but this software is technically illegal in many countries, including the U.S.A. Consequently, unless you have a player that has been pre-approved by Sony, (i.e. one in which pays Sony for the right to play), the disc either won't play, or won't play at full quality, even if you have the hardware to play it.

BTW, this kind of thing isn't new. DVDs use the Content Scrambling System (CSS) to protect DVDs. (3) This turned out to be particularly weak, and was quickly cracked, and is widely available on the internet. Nevertheless, theunauthorized software to do this is still illegal in the U.S. (4)

Of course, the legal issues differ from one country to another. And since this is a multi-national forum, readers from other countries may want to check out the legality in their own countries.

And if you are thinking this kind of thing only applies to movies... think again. Use iTunes? You better make sure that the music you download works on your MP3 player. Of course, this isn't an issue with iPods, but not all MP3 players are capable of reading the Fairplay DRM scheme used by iTunes. (5) Most other download services employ a similar DRM scheme.

While it is legal to remove DRM from music files, it is not legal to distribute that music to others who do not own the files. But for users who have legally purchased music downloads, DRM can become a nuisance. It may prevent them from getting full use of their music.

taken from http://musicdownloadreview.net/what-is-drm.html

If you are interested in DRM, you might want to check out the pages at howstuffworks.com:
Introduction to How Digital Rights Management Works
DRM Framework
DRM Reality
DRM Controversy

I'm not sure I agree per se with the idea that Blu-ray should be boycotted. There are too many other things out there that are worse than Blu-Ray. However, that doesn't mean that people getting Blu-ray shouldn't be aware of what they are getting.

[legolasfan411]

^You pretty much got all the points I was going to mention^

Also I wanted to note on the HDMI and DVI hookup. The reason the industry wants to switch to these is not because they think your "tv isn't good enough," its because they are easier to use, and provide a better picture.

Not to mention the copyright protection. It sounds like the article was written by someone who copies dvd's all the time and can't do it with the new ones. Of course companies are going to increase copyright protection and raise prices of blank discs. Looks what happened with Music Cd's and what is now happening to DVD's. All brand new dvd's now come out at 14.99 or 12.99, as opposed to 6 months ago when they came out at 19.99 or 17.99. With the growing amount of 1 day rental boxes and cheaper and easier ways to copy people are renting movies, making a copy , and bringing them back the next day. The difference between Blu-ray and Dvd is drastic, its just going to take a few years to get it into full swing with the community.