BBC have a story on
copy protection in windows vista according to Peter Gutmann, of the University of Auckland, Vista’s Content Protection specification is “the longest suicide note in history”.

The sheer obnoxiousness of Vista’s content protection may end up being the biggest incentive to piracy yet created,” he wrote.

Four are complaining that the disc didn’t work on their DVD player

One is advising readers to use DVD Shrink to convert it. (This was the first review on the page when I looked today)

One is of the show itself.

And yet I had no difficulty ripping it. So Macrovision’s ingenious copy protection fails to protect copying, but does protect enjoyment and playback.

My thoughts on DRM are well documented. It adds nothing positive to the experience of consumers and, if you want to break it, it’s often incredibly easy to break it. It’s just a means of shoring up an ancient business model. If the UK copyright laws are reformed to allow the right to private copying, as is suggested – so as to decriminalise ripping CDs for your MP3 player – surely it’s going to have to be the same for DVDs, what with the proliferation of video-capable media devices (iPods, PSPs, our Maplin media boxes and so on). These technological ‘safeguards’ would then be in direct opposition to a legal right – what then?

What should happen is DRM should get outlawed, completely. Force media companies to change their ways rather than have them force legislation through to protect their precious Intellectual Property through a series of increasingly anti-consumer, draconian measures. I swear, if they could encrypt stuff based on a retina scan, they’d be all over it and strong-arming the industry to make DVD players with eye sockets.

Twats.