dvdFab as an object lesson

[sholmes202]

After all the fuss and feathers about DVD Decrypter being pulled by the PTB it took less than a week for another tool to fill the void. dvdFab wasted no time at all in making it onto many of our computers. This brings home, yet again, the fact that copy protection and all the money that companies spend in fighting our right to fair use is wasted. As long as something can be read ( a book, a cd, a DVD etc.), it can and will be copied. I think that content distributers are barking up the wrong tree in their continuing quest for the Holy Grail of Copy protection. It does not exist. instead content providers SHOULD be spending their time and money on better customer service, FAIR prices, and more imaginative ways to distribute their content in the first place. I have no doubt that dvdFab will bite the dust at some poing, just as i have no doubt that something will take IT'S place shortly thereafter.

Holmes

[mats.hogberg]

True. That's why I never get overly excited over the demise of a an old tool (even if the circumstances in this case actually made my blood boil) or the birth of a new "copy protection" scheme.

/Mats

[Rich86]

It seems like in this case, this is mostly about a particular company (Macrovision) who makes its living by peddling copy protection tools, trying to create or guarantee a market for its products by removing other tools available for folks to exercise their fair rights usage of recorded materials.
It is really up to the movie and music industry to decide if they want to spend their money developing and putting out more customer friendly products to encourage a healthy, prosperous and growing home entertainment industry, or continue to give their money to folks like Macrovison who simply annoy customers in their apparently futile quest, most likely to no real purpose anyway. Personally, I think all the numbers they throw around about what money the industry loses via home copying of cd's and dvd's are grossly inflated. If all that copying stopped tomorrow - would all those people actually run out and buy those cd's and dvd's? I doubt it. I expect the major impact would be a negative one to the media manufacturers, with no corresponding positive one to the movie and music industry.
But, either way, it's no skin off my nose. I actually buy less now than ever because I've lost faith that the final dvd and cd products out there will function properly with all the copy protecton experimentation and poor manufacturer quality control going on now. It's just as well. I was buying too many cd's and dvd's anyway.

[sholmes202]

I remember when MacroVision was being widely used on Video Tapes and it would cause a light and dark "flickering" on many televisions. Not long after, many VHS companies stipped using copy protection altogether. They found the bang was not worth the buck. Interestingly I find that I buy just as much as I ever did. I merely back up my DVDS so I don't have to replace them at full price when they are damaged. I handle my discs very carefully but I have had to replace 50 out of the nearly store bought DVDS that I own. Since I started backing up this has not been an issue for me.

Holmes