H/PC Elder Posts: | 1,712 |
Location: | New Mexico, US | Status: | |
| http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000143050582/#c337688
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So what will happen when you try to play premium content on your incompatible monitor? If you’re “lucky”, the content will go through a resolution constrictor. The purpose of this constrictor is to down-sample high-resolution content to below a certain number of pixels. The newly down-sampled content is then blown back up to match the resolution of your monitor. This is much like when you shrink a JPEG and then zoom into it. Much of the clarity is lost. The result is a picture far fuzzier than it need be.
That’s LUCKY?
It sure is — when the alternative is a black screen. If OPM determines that your monitor falls below the security restrictions (i.e. isn’t DVI or HDMI w/HDCP), you could be greeted with a “polite message explaining that [your monitor] doesn’t meet security requirements.”
Here's my post there ...
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19. Posted Jul 14, 2005, 9:02 PM ET by Snappy!
ok, let's hope the linux camp don't let us down on this one. Me thinks M$$$ is shooting itself in its foot ... again!
Are they next going to ask everyone to replace our eyeballs with DRM enabled CCDs such that if we dun pay a fee, we will go blind? *shiver*
WindowsXP is going to be like Win98 ... good enough to do what we want and no one is going to bother to upgrade ... that is until the content folks wake up their idea!
This is so silly ... piracy (or stealing ) is a morality issue. Why are companies trying to nib the problem at the end of the line? Its never going to solve the problem.   |
H/PC Sensei Posts: | 1,330 |
Location: | North of England | Status: | |
| Good grief.
No, really, good grief.
One day, the penny will drop: as soon as you put something into the digital realm, you need to rely on effective laws to protect copyright.
Technical "innovations" aimed at stopping piracy end up annoying the vast majority of users, and inspiring the minority to circumvent them. The unprotected content will also be available one way or another in a different market.
Look at WinXP... Activation is annoying for anyone who changes their PC components, so what's easiest? Re-activate it, or find a way around it? I'm not suggesting for a moment that people take that approach, but if you're a licensed user of WinXP, why should you have to persuade MS that you really are you if you happen to change your PC, or the processor, or...
This OPM is designed to force people to buy hardware, which is why hardware manufacturers love MS: whilst decrying their abuse of a monopolistic position, they will at the same time be rubbing their hands, thinking, "longhorn will give us another shot in the arm as people upgrade". Just look at the graphics card requirements. And now, look at the monitor requirements.
So this is another step to force people to "trusted computing" platform. I do currently trust my computer: it does what I tell it to do, largely. With this new technology, it no longer will. It's a sham, a farce, an attempt to preserve an abuse perpetuated by copyright holders and I really do not like it.
I suspect that the public/mass sheep will lap it up in the same way that they lap up their ipods, and pay to download tunes from itunes that they already own legally on CD... *sigh*.
Recently, there was news of a proposal in the UK to extend copyright to 100 years after an artist's death. I wrote to my MP, who wrote to the MP in question, and answered that "nothing is decided", but "we'll do what's best for all stakeholders and government". Well, if the stakeholders are the record companies (not the content consumers), and they're "lobbying the government" - now there's a euphemism - then what do you think the result will be? 100 year copyright, and still no doctrine of fair use enshrined in UK law.
However, playing Devil's advocate, if MS didn't take steps to protect digital content, could they conceivably be sued under the DCMA? Recently, the Wayback machine at archive.org has been sued by a company who lost a lawsuit as a result of the defendant's lawyers pulling an archived public statement made on a website out of the archive. Of course, this is the archive's fault, so they're up against it. Lawyers must be lurking, just waiting for a chance to invoke the DCMA against MS. That example given would be the world's most stupid lawsuit, if it wasn't for the French bus company suing a group of cleaners who car-pooled... Check groklaw for more.
I could spout for hours on this subject. The stupidity and naivity of those forcing us down this route is immense. Stick with Windows 2000 , XP, Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, whatever... enjoy the experience, and stick two fingers at the trusted computing movement that's trying to get in via the back door. |
