WTF is... UltraViolet

$2 or $5 to copy to the system

charging for material I already own, pretty neat trick. I think as this is largely in the distributors interest this service should be free.

What is c, e, and pi in your world?

"Secondly, if a studio decides to offer, say, 4K by 2K copies, it can do so easily. If it likes, it could provide existing customers with access to those higher resolution files simply by updating their licences."

And they will use RFC-1337, "IP over invisible unicorn ponies" to deliver it.

No, wait, they will NOT offer you this upgrade - you will have to buy a new disk, a new player, and a new level of service in Ultraviolet to get an upgrade like this.

And since Sony is involved, it will eventually be discovered that the service has installed a rootkit on your Windows computer (because That Which Is Not Windows shall not have Ultraviolet) and has disabled your Blu-ray writer and permanently enabled your webcam ("the better to monitor you, my sweetie"). Also, one day you will be given the choice to either "upgrade" your software, which will no longer work on Thursdays (because pirates copy things on Thursdays), or lose any ability to use the service.

That's why I disregard Ultraviolet, or the "digital" copies that are nothing but a waste of media. If I care to spend my money on a movie, I get a Blu-ray/DVD pack (and if there are other formats in the pack, so be it). I use the Blu-ray on my HD TV, and the DVD gets introduced to Mr. Handbrake.

Remind me?

This *will* work with Linux, right?

It's a trap!

Seriously, there's only one way this is going to end: you are going to be charged again for stuff you already bought. And again, and again..... the content industry has always hated the fact that once you bought a CD or a DVD you could listen to / watch it over and over, without them being able to charge you again for each time, and this is the *real* problem that the UV system has been designed to solve. They are rent-seeking bastards, and will not stop until they have a direct tap into all of our bank accounts.

For full details, see: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/5/15/

Time limits.

I heard you only have the licence to stream for 12 months from purchase...

Also, I don't trust those idiots as far as I could throw them. I never managed to get my Digital Copy of Senna to work, their system was totally non-functional from the outset.

DRM = no freedom

We already have laws that cover theft, including illegal copying of media, and a legal framework that gives us the freedom to observe or break those laws. Within this context, I have the freedom to exercise responsibility and the respect the work that has gone into the creation of that media. I think the vast majority respect the work that has gone into the creation of movies and are happy to pay for it.

But in so many cases, technology is being developed to take away that freedom. Whether you wish to compensate creatives for their work or not is irrelevant - you must pay for what you view because it is not possible to do otherwise. This is what you do to a criminal, to someone who has betrayed the responsibility society has given them. Violent people are put in prison; bankrupts are denied many privileges; and so on.

And this is how DRM treats all of us - every customer is put in a cage like a criminal. And that lack of freedom ends up hurting as much as a cage; in some respect, it will restrict the privileges afforded to a free, honest citizen. It might be as simply as not being able to view the item you purchased, but it also restricts transferring your purchases to others (through private sale or gifting). DRM should be seen for what it is - an attack on human rights. Companies that pursue these technologies should be named, shamed, and boycotted.

It will fail.

The main reason is elucidated by the article:

>> "There are two advantages here."

Great! Not one, but two. I'm excited!

>> "First, content owners need only hold a couple of copies of each title, one in SD, the second in HD."

Uh.. Sounds fine for them. Alright, what do I get?

>> "Secondly, if a studio decides to offer, say, 4K by 2K copies, it can do so easily."

Hum... That's for *them*, too. Surely, there's something good for me, since it's designed to improve my experience, and make it more convenient than pirating, right?

>> "But, yes, all this involves DRM, to prevent folk giving content away to all and sundry."

DOH! I should have known. That and the focus on a "rental" model are really the reasons why this endeavor will surely fail.

I'll stick to ripping my own DVDs into my computer, and playing them on my Apple TV.

-dZ.

We're all doomed.

So. More and more colossal quantities of data, fuelled by yet more enormously eco-catastrophic power sources, are to be stuffed into the maxed-out, decelerating interweb just to facilitate serried ranks of content owners who would rather wreck the planet than miss a dime of revenue, and legions of obese couch potatoes who can't be arsed taking the missus to the movies.

Great.

You lost me at

"permanently available to you on the internet."

The Internet isn't permanently available to me. I'm not very excited about a rental-in-disguise system that cuts out every time there's a problem with my phone line.

As another poster said: this is all about making life good for the studios; there's nothing here of any real worth to the consumer at all.

DivX, Part Deux

Back when DVD was just starting to gain a foothold in the market, Circuit City introduced an alternative format, known as "DivX", which was basically DVD with extra DRM, and a phone-home-to-rent-content marketing plan. The studios, of course, loved the idea, as it gave them additional control over who could view their content, and when. Customers could be forced to buy the same movies again and again to watch them.

DivX failed miserably in the marketplace, because consumers want to buy a movie once, and be able to watch it forever, whenever they feel like it. DivX was too much of a "bait and switch" -- you could buy the movie now, and be unable to view it later.

UltraViolet is the same thing, once again. Buy the movie now, and we'll "let" you watch it for a while. In a few years, if you want to watch it again, you'll end up having to re-buy it.

Hopefully, consumers will reject this just as soundly as they rejected DivX.

(Side note: There is a mostly-unrelated video codec, also called "DivX", that uses MPEG-4 compression. The "mostly" is because it was named as an ironic reference to the failed DivX rental DVD format, but is otherwise completely unrelated to it.)

I prefer Fairplay's DRM for now

DRM is a fact of life. It is on every Movie you purchase today, the only question is who's DRM is most consumer friendly. FairPlay's, 5 Registered computers and an unlimited number of iOS devices that connect to those computers and 10 direct download devices (a max of 5 of which can be computers) is still the most open system (albeit, a bit more confusing today than it once was).

I don't see Apple joining with UV but I could see the threat of UV causing Apple to license FairPlay to some TV manufactures, which would be nice (although at $99 the AppleTV is an inexpensive way to extend your iTunes world.

The sooner physical media goes away the better as far as I'm concerned.

In a nutshell....

It's digital "book burning", but instead of books you burn the keys to access encrypted files.

Can't they just release the content DRM free? It's going to be on Piratebay anyhow, you can't prevent that from happening, particularly not by enforcing DRM.

Why on Earth would I want to waste my internet bandwidth to watch a movie?

In order to enjoy streaming movies I'd have to spend considerably more money for a faster internet connection and I'm too cheap to do that. A 256K internet connection is also good for preventing teenagers from watching porn - they don't have the patience to wait for it to finish downloading.

Where's the grumpy old man icon?

"the report of my death was an exaggeration'

So this is bad how?

BitTorrent is one example of a simple but effective data sharing application.

UltraViolet is another example and by the sounds of it has a bloody good SD to HD ripping service built-in at your local convenience store.

Think about that for a moment. For, well forever, we've had to buy the latest format WITH another license to consume that product. From 8-track, to vinyl, through cassette to CD and finally MP3, and every time, we've paid again for the license. This time though, you can upgrade your movie to a higher definition format for something like close to what it actually costs! (although £3.15 is still a bit too much IMO)

Besides, you think for one moment, that those who wish (hard enough) to get content for free from UltraViolet will be unable to do so? At the very least a screen scraper will do the trick. If it can go into your eyeballs, it can go into a camcorder.

I've got news for you buddy.

Sure they will try to rip people off with 'upgrades' and 'value-added promotions', it's in a businesses best interests to do so

And it's human nature to get something for nothing when the chance comes along.

'want DVD? fi poun dvd'

Hopefully this is the entertainment industry finally hauling its lazy backside up and giving people what they want. Irrespective of the fact that it's human nature to get things cheap/for free whenever and wherever possible. It's been going on for years and it ain't ever gonna stop my friend and there's fuck all you or they or anyone else can do about it.

However, if you give people what they want and make it convenient for them to get it, there's a good chance more of them will do it and more often. It's not exactly rocket surgery now is it?

@cornz1 On the whole I agree, but I think it would be fair to pay a token fee for upgrading to a new format physically. The point is, that's never been an option.

Even upgrading virtually, Walmart or whoever have to maintain equipment for doing so, training staff and dealing with uploads, failed rips etc, so a token payment there too is reasonable.

On the whole, I think it's a win and thus expect to get the thorough down-voting I deserve because of my opinion :D

not gonna happen

simply put, this is bought and paid for content.

the dude can bequeath it to whomever he chooses.

that typically doesn't involve walmart.

if they made the mistake of providing it in a transferable format, that really is their look out and no-one elses.

http://nch01.fortunecity.com/images/6313_cd_collection_mod_sm_20.3.10.jpg

One edge of this sword is significantly sharper than the other--the edge pointed at the consumer

"Crucially, though, UV makes it possible to add higher resolutions or simply better copies - there's an audio drop-out in the current version, say - of existing files, easily and without troubling the customer."

...which also means they can seamlessly edit the movie and not notify the consumer. Unlikely to happen to anything but soundtrack replacements (music licenses, for example), but still, ultimately pretty not-nice.

I liked the idea of UV at the start, because I thought there would be a permanent repository of digital movies online. Now that I'm hearing more about things like "available online for a limited time," it's sounding less shiny. I could get paying minor increments to upgrade to a higher-resolution version of the video, but beyond that, Ultraviolet needs to work like a cloud-based locker to be something worth investing in, not a year-long rental service.

I don't mind DRM-enforced limits on when and how I can view content. I don't think that's intrinsically evil. The only problem is fair pricing. They're free to offer me a badly limited access to content, but I'll only be willing to pay a badly limited amount of money for it.

If they want the same amount of money I'd give for a DVD, then they'd better give me the same value I get from a DVD - including offline viewing, permanency, widespread compatibility, and the ability to lend and resell. If they require internet access, and/or the license expires after 10 years, and/or it won't work on Linux or old computers, and/or I can't lend it to friends, and/or I can't resell it - then I might still buy it, but only if the price is reduced accordingly. And I also expect pricing of digital copies to reflect that fact that it doesn't have to cover manufacture and shipping of the physical media and the costs of a physical shop.

If they want to charge 16.99€ for the right to stream a movie to UV-enabled devices for the next 5 years - screw them, I'm not buying.

The problem for me and I assume lots of others who don't live in a large town/city is the whole streaming part.

My internet is crap from about 16:30 to 23:30 Monday to Friday.

Unless I want to only watch these services in the small hours of the morning, which is not conducive to working the next day, all of these services are utterly useless.

Unless there's a pre-download service and the ability to defer watching or ability to watch again a few weeks later, I'll stick with the other alternatives (like my DVD+HD recorder).