🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:26:02 GMT, Zaghadka <zagh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>I did a little digging, and found what is considered a legitimate and 
>>respected piracy study...
>>http://www.bsa.org/globalstudy/
>>
>>The actual study report (in PDF) is here:
>>http://www.bsa.org/globalstudy/upload/2005%20Piracy%20Study%20-%20Official%20Version.pdf
>>
>>I paid close attention to how they calculate piracy rates (it's explained 
>>towards the end of the document), and you are right...  It appears to be 
>>pretty much all guesswork and assumptions based on previous surveys, 
>>astrology charts, and which knuckle hurts the most when they whack their 
>>hands with a ruler.
>>
>>I mean, seriously...  If they had definitive proof to substantiate each 
>>instance of piracy, they'd be hauling people to jail, not writing a report 
>>on how bad it is.
>>
>Most of the commonly "accepted" figures about piracy have been lovingly
>provided to the industry by the folks who sell DRM and copy control schemes. 
>
>Companies like Macrovision. 
>
>The figures have long since been debunked (to my satisfaction, at least), but
>they were circulating for so many years, and before anyone in the general
>public had even heard that "piracy was destroying the industry," that they've
>come to be the accepted as *Gospel* at all the major distributors and amongst
>people inside the publishing/distribution industry.
>
>Sony decided to do their stuff in-house, of course. They're the other big
>player in the DRM scene.
>
>But it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It could very easily be that the source of
>the industry slump is Macrovision's own products, with a healthy dose of crappy
>content and communications/home publication advances added in.
>
>But Macrovision was pouring poison in their ears for a decade before anyone
>even realized what was happening. It's going to take a while for the truth to
>be accepted, and the poison pill to be purged.


Ironically, the product Macrovision is best known for is perhaps the
least offensive copy protection mechanism ever made.  I mean, look at
a macrovision-protected video tape.  Its effects are (except in a few
unfortunate boundary cases innvolving sub-optimal hardware setups)
completely invisible to the legitimate user.  He doesn't have to call
macrovision and "activate" his tape, he doesn't need to key in a
serial number.  He just pops the tape in and watches it.  It's
completely invisible *unless he tries to make a copy*, and evewn then,
it doesn't crash his vcr, it doesn't send a notice to the MPAA to have
him hunted down and shot, it just results in a crummy copy.  It
doesn't bar the legitimate use of the tape, as DRM tends to, won't
prevent him from fast forwarding through the commercials, won't
monitor his viewing and recording habits, won't set fire to the
recording head on his vcr.  It does what it's there for and otherwise
leaves the user the hell alone.

Obviouslyt, if Macrovision could have worked out a way to
cost-effectively *do* all those things they would have, but I think
the modern DRM industry could learn a thing or two from this.  Copy
protection on PC software is constantly pissing me off, and I'm
constantly finding the need to circumvent it *not to make bootleg
copies, but just to let me legitimately use the software the way I
want*.  

I've never once been borhted by the macrovision on a video tape.