Originally posted by: BoberFett
Originally posted by: Rainsford
They don't have to give it away for free, my point about innovation was that the "pirates" have an advanced distribution system and a very flexible and free format for the various types of media. The commercial solutions, on the other hand, are hard to use, incompatible with each other, extremely restrictive and pointlessly expensive. Figuring out a way to get the good parts of the "pirate" system while still making money seems pretty easy. For example, offer Bit Torrent downloads in open formats of TV shows WITH commercials. At that point, it's just too much trouble to strip out the commercials for the benefits you get.
Indeed, just look at the recent debacle of MLB and their DRM protected content.
MLB to fans: Screw you.
MLB changes their DRM format, rendering all previously purchased content unusable. Their reaction to their paying customers? Piss off.
I want to see Hollywood, Disney, all the major music studios, all the current entertainment conglomerates, crash and burn in glorious fireball of bankruptcy. We don't need them.
The MLB thing was exactly what I was talking about. There is NOTHING good about DRM from a consumer standpoint, and often it's implemented in such a way as to make the product pretty useless for a lot of things. The idea that I should pay for broken crap is pretty silly, the idea that it should be illegal for me to try and fix what I legally purchased is beyond stupid.
Right now, I could go out to any of a dozen places and get the latest episode of every TV show out there, in extremely high quality, download them in minutes and watch them on my TV in my living room. And when I fly home to visit my family for Thanksgiving, I could take the shows with me on my laptop to watch on the airplane. I could do all of this with off the shelf, open source, interoperable products that will work 10 years from now on any number of current and future devices. There is not a single commercial system, for any amount of money, that gives this to me. Hell, I'd pay for it...but such a product simply doesn't exist.