My point is this.

DRM is touted as needed because of piracy and DRM doesn't affect piracy one bit. DRM only punishes the consumer that plays by the rules. The only problem is that most consumers don't understand the implications of some of the proposed draconian DRM schemes which was my point from the beginning.

He works for a company developing DRM.

This is the problem from the consumer standpoint.

I'll use myself as an example. I purchased a shiny new PC with blu-ray/hd-dvd drive. I spent additional money to purchase an HDCP compliant video card. Also purchased brand new shiny Receiver, also HDCP compliant. Bought HDCP compliant projector. I get it all hooked up and lo and behold, Vista will not let me play any disc. It says I am not allowed to. Hmmm interesting I think to myself....let me play this AVI I just recorded off my digital camera...imagine my surprise when it would not let me play that either. Now....mister DRM man....is that how its supposed to work? I am screwed because microsoft blames Nvidia and Denon, Denon wants nothing to do with me and insists that its a software problem from microsoft. So now I have to go buy software, which if it were up to you, would be completely illegal and not available just so I can watch a movie on my bigscreen.

The companies involved could care less about me and now I am screwed because I don't have enough money to take them to court. DRM? Bah! eff that. DRM makes me want to steal it on principle because its not there to make my life better, it just complicates it.

I can't count the number of times I have had to dink around with the setup just to get it to work when some new form comes around. Mind you I am just trying to watch the damn thing. I shouldn't have to jump through 21 flaming hoops of death just so I can watch legally acquired content in my home theater.

I know I am feeding a troll here who isn't interested in understanding the other side because he thinks the other side are a bunch of punks who want to steal shit, but the reality is those punks don't care about DRM at all because it ISN'T AN ISSUE FOR THEM. You aren't going to stop them ever. Until you can control what my eyes and ears deliver to my brain, you will not be able to stop piracy.

Prohibition doesn't work. What you have to do is lower the price point and increase accessibility until its just easier to buy it through appropriate channels than it is to risk malware and virii on the internet's dark underbelly.

Also I think mister Becksteads weak ass sauce one liner replies are pathetic. He wants people to be adults but can't even invest more than 30 seconds writing a reply...oh and the blogs are also VERY weak sauce....full of links to online poker and get rich quick schemes.

I got news for ya, if the wheel was patented when it was invented, civilization would have died before it started.

And so is your model.

Lets take a step back and ask, what is an idea?. Is it the paper its printed on? the CD its pressed onto? no. Its information pure and simple.

Back in the old days, the information was bound by the media it was distributed on, and duplicating said media or information from said media was not only difficult and time consuming, it resulted in a product which was inferior to the original.

Supply was limited to the number of physical objects produced, duplication was cost prohibitive, thus the status quo of the supply and demand curve was maintained through limited supply.

Fast forward to the digital age and now supply is infinite, which means production costs eventually reach "zero" (now I know this isn't completely true, but stay with me) once the initial production costs are recouped.

The consumer says "sure I don't mind hooking you up with a copy of that song, or that book, or that movie because its not like loaning out a book, cd, or dvd that might get damaged or lost, and I lose nothing." We were raised (well some of us were raised)to believe that sharing is a good thing, the only downside to sharing is that we have less of that which is shared....oh wait...no we don't in this case.

Joe Executive ,because lets be honest...its not the artists, actors, directors, writers who are driving this, its corporations and associations designed to control the markets in which they operate. Personally I think it would be interesting to see some RICO probes into hollywood and motown. I think people might be shocked at what turns up, however that's an entirely different discussion. He thinks here I have this thing which costs x amount to create, but ongoing production costs are comparatively nothing which means once you reach the break even on creation costs, you rake in the profits from continued sales. They then think, there's no way to enforce licensing restrictions that limit resale on physical media, but hey digital is something different, if I can come up with a system that I control who can and can't access the file, then I can make them pay me if they want to sell the content like they would a used CD. Then it gets really scary because they start talking about use tax and ways to make consumers pay for every consumption much in the way you pay every time you goto a concert or movie theater....I don't think I have to explain why this a terrible thing for the consumer.

Don't get me wrong. I am not deluded enough to think that I deserve everything for free just because the cost involved in ripping a dvd is negligible. But I also don't think that a company should be able to control what I can and can't do with legally acquired content. As far as broadcast TV goes....I already pay for it both through my cable company and through purchasing things which are advertised on the shows I watch. It seems as though folks forget that just because I can pick something up with an antenna without paying a monthly fee, doesn't mean its free nor is my recording of that content stealing. I think that tv series on disc is a fad and will disappear once on demand services start carrying more vintage content.

So just for the record....your world isn't what it used to be either.

Infact it couldn't be more ON topic.

The biggest problem is that people don't understand what DRM actually means and how it can impact them.

Things like this shed light on the pitfalls of DRM.

I am not a proponent of piracy, however I have had more than my fair share of DRM related issues in my home theater and as a result I vehemently oppose DRM schemes.

Snafus like this really opens the eyes of the public and hopefully informs a few of them while we still have a chance to understand the problem and vote with our dollars(or euros).

Laws change from time to time and if people had to pass a semi regular class in order to maintain their licenses it would not only be a refresher for the stuff they should be doing anyways, but also an effective avenue to ensure that people are up to date on the current laws which apply to driving.
Course, that doesn't mean it will stop the accidents.

Since the advent of tabbed browsing does anyone really have 'A' homepage?

Actually no.

You are incorrect.
The referendum puts the Civil Union law that was enacted by the state legislature to public vote on repealing the law.
The petition was to put the Civil Union laws on the ballot and let the people choose.
Granted the sponsor of the referendum is opposed to civil unions but the thing you have to remember is the petition was not to repeal the law, it was to put it up to the voters.
Reading it the way you wrote it implies that voting for the referendum would repeal the law and that is not the case.

If I have to choose between balloon boy hoaxes or swine flu as the "look at the monkey" diversion story to keep us off the ACTA scent or health care.......I'll turn the TV off..

I fell into the second category because well...I can't stand seeing my friends and family charged ridiculous rates by the shysters running tech shops but you are SORELY mistaken if you think that the malware scene is no harder than it was 10 years ago.

Ten years ago we did not have root kits and drive by banner infections or bot nets or many of the other major problems we have today.
(okay so they may have existed, but they were not the major forces they are today nor were they as insidious)

I recently did battle with a root kit and ultimately it won.
Its the first time I have had to nuke a system because I couldn't clean it.
In fifteen years of doing desktop support both professionally and on the side I have never had to do that, nor have I ever suggested someone buy a mac instead.

So while I agree that suggesting someone buy a mac or switch to Linux is a bit of a cop out, I vehemently disagree that the landscape is no different than it was ten years ago.

I believe the word you were looking for was Priai.

Multi-touch is fantastic for a handheld mobile computing device, smart phone, etc.

I don't think touch screens, multitouch interfaces, or anything else will supplant the keyboard and mouse on a workstation.

Touchtyping accurately and quickly is extremely difficult on a virtual keyboard with no tactile feedback.

Not saying it can't be done, just saying I don't know anyone that would want to do that all day at work.

that said, multitouch is the killer app for things like the multifunction kitchen computer, or information kiosk, kids computers, mobile devices, smart phones, tablets, etc.
Maybe even gaming but the bottom line is our fingers are big old meat sticks.
Try editing a photo with a touchscreen.
There's a reason we have things like pencils, pens and paintbrushes, the resolution of a finger is very low.

there will always be a new way of interacting with computers but I think that until we get implants and can think our commands, the keyboard and mouse will stay the defacto standard way of interacting with our workstations.
Both because of the entrenched nature of the technology as well as physiological reasons.

I have already paid for it to be produced because my tax dollars funded the work.

Since digital replication is essentially free, there are no ongoing production costs for a digital edition beyond the initial work and annual updates (which one would assume are covered by additional public funding)

Sure you can argue that bandwidth costs money, and disk space costs money, but the reality is that the cost per unit is so low, it would cost more in transaction fees than the actual cost resulting in a net loss on the transaction.

I am more than happy to cover the printing costs on a hard copy provided they are the actual printing costs and not some inflated figure that the publisher wants to charge

Say what you want about e-readers, eventually they will supplant books in mainstream society. I am not saying that it's going to happen in this or the next generation but perhaps in three generations we may see people who will prefer an electronic book to the "real thing".

Just like there are folks who like to dress up in victorian era clothing, there will always be people who prefer "real books" to an e-book.

Bottom line, we are with ebooks very close to where we were with MP3's a decade ago.

They (MP3's) did not really gain popularity until the devices to play them became readily available and affordable.

Until we can make the jump to digital textbooks, regardless of where the money comes from, I don't think changing the licensing is going to make enough of the difference to shift the paradigm to more affordable/available textbooks.

Besides, it doesn't matter if you read the material or did the coursework. If you don't pay for the privilege of going to school, you don't get a degree and it doesn't change the statistics one bit.