Sunday, December 2, 2007

Thinking about technology

this is a test post, but I wanted to add that I gained a bit of
insight just a minute ago.
It concerns how Tim Lee of Techdirt.com has a really great insight
into the tech world. He analyzes the current state of cat and mouse
with the AACS standard and the people who make software that
circumvents its "protections".
I've had to deal with this myself: I have three Sony components in my
house, and they simply won't work together through HDMI cables. It's a set that any dork would buy at Fry's, and yet, it doesn't work correctly hooked up in any manner that a consumer would try to do so.
Anyway, his post looks at the DRM that these Satans have thrust upon
us -- and the industry that has sprung up to protect us and free us from
their evil. Like CCS was destroyed, so has AACS been. Apple's DRM on
iTunes is easily circumvented, as well as Microsoft's. Also, I don't
think there is a person with even a passing interest in the news who
doesn't know about the iPhone tug-of-war.
What his statements boil down to is this: the "Industry" through its incompetence, ignorance, and disdain for the consumer, has created an entire new industry that closely parallels the
technological advances made by the "Industry" itself. Simply, if the
RIAA, MPAA, and their lackeys had not created DRM, there would be
fewer people looking for, and finding, easy ways to pirate their DVDs.
The proof is in the pudding. I know Baby Boomers who would have been
happy to Netflix their movies while picking up their favorites at Wal-
Mart. But once a media scandal erupted, clarifying the ease of
bypassing the FBI warning, the previews, the splash of the 14
different production companies involved and the more and more
ubiquitous warnings that exercising our stinking rights is "theft",
they decided that spending 30 minutes to rip a movie borrowed from a
friend or taking it off the internet is easier, cheaper, and a better
value than being forced to watch and listen to shit they didn't pay for.
The "Industry" did this to themselves by being stodgy old farts with
no vision an no willingness to change. As I've always said. . .
"Tradition breeds ignorance".

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Faking Normality. Don't achieve normality, fake it.