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January 27, 2004
DVD Encryption
I guess that pretty much everyone who has a internet connection now knows about the end of the DeCSS lawsuites. I am in two minds about the whole DVD encryption thing.
The first perspective is that the movie industry has a perfect right to market a product and charge whatever they believe their product is worth. I equally have the right to not buy the product if a disagree about the price. This is called a free-market system. If enough people don't buy the product the price will come down until some kind of equilibrium is reached between buyer and seller. This mechanism is easily upset by theft of the product and then reproduction and distribution either physically (technically called a 'knock-off') or over the net as a data stream. There is no way to justify this type of behaviour which will ultimately push the prices upwards (which increases customer dissatisfaction). The fact that a movie is expensive does not justify theft. The fact that lots of movies are complete and absolute unmitigated crap does not justify theft. The fact that the technology to copy DVDs is readily available does not justify theft. ALl of this suggests that the movie industry should be able to protect their product in some way (although as it turned out the DVD encryption system can be cracked by a script kiddie blindfolded).
Having said all that, how can I possibly raise an alternate point of view? Well easily as it turns out by pointing out that the encryption system was not used merely to protect the product but instead to segment the market. If you live in Region 1 then you probably don't care because all DVDs that are produced are normally available for Region 1 (or in some cases non-region which is just as good). Unfortunately I have the disadvantage of living in Region 4 (along with a bunch of places that have absolutely nothing in common with Australia - including language). What that means is that many quality DVDs are simply unavailable (market is too small is the normal excuse) for me unless I either get a multi-region player or decode the DVD. Note that I am happy to purchase the DVD (in fact about 30% of my DVDs are Region 1, 5% Region 2 and the rest are Region 4) so I have a legitimate right to view the contents but the encryption system is trying to prevent it. In New Zealand, the government had the guts to make it illegal to encrypt DVD which simply meant that all the players sold in New Zealand can read any region. For obvious reasons, the same deal has spread to Australia but the availability of multi-region DVD players has apparently been raised in the free-trade discussions.
Where does that get me? Well I support the right of the producer to protect their movie rights BUT more important is my right as a purchaser of a 'right-to-use' to be able to view the content. Given that position, I feel strongly that the DeCSS code should be made publicly available.
Out of interest a similar argument can be made about software piracy and my wife and I had a long discussion about this about six months ago. My employer was insisting that I use Microslosh Orriface instead of one of the clones (I used to use ThinkFree Office / StarOffice and OpenOffice). Should I actually fork out the incredible amount of money that Microslosh was extorting for their crappy software or should I just use a cracked copy off the net. Now you all know how I feel about dealing with the computer devil incarnate but at the same time there is the matter of personal honesty. How can I teach my children not to steal when I was in effect stealing?
This question came to mind again when I was thinking about joining United Society of Unusually Responsible People where the theme is about personal responsibility. In a day and era when so many are using "excuses" for their behaviour there needs to be some who take a stand and say 'I am responsible for what I do'.
So what did I do about the Orriface question? Well first I tried to negotiate with my boss but no, it was fixed in stone. So I went and forked out $AU 1,000 (at the time that was close to $US 500) for a product that was readily available in the US for less than $US 200. Hmmmmm. Maybe I need to rethink that sort of decision and do the DVD thing?
Posted by Ozguru at January 27, 2004 01:01 PM
