Taiwan Joining Chinese Royalty-free Video Disk Effort 314
BeardStreet writes "In an attempt to stop the flow of royalties to the various DVD licensing bodies (e.g. DVD6C, MPEG-LA, etc.), 19 Taiwanese companies have come up with a royalty-free DVD format called EVD which is compatible with a similar effort going on in China, called AVD. Capacity is about 1 GB higher. Their goal is to avoid having to shell out US $15 to $20 per-player royalties. EVD/AVD players will still be able to play traditional DVD disks but will not have the official DVD logo on them, thus avoiding the licensing fees. It's a political issue as well, in that China needs to balance the flow of royalty money going out of their country, especially with DVD players falling rapidly in price."
It's about time. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's about time. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's about time. (Score:5, Insightful)
If CSS is simply trade-secret, and not patented, then all these newcommers have to do is use DECSS in their players (and possibly include a copy of the source code with every player!!! :-)
Re:It's about time. (Score:2)
New Economic Heavyweight Flexing some Muscle (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, not so much in those words, but I do like the principle of the thing. Chinese, particularly rural don't have a lot of cash to swing and eliminating Itellectual Property tax is the next logical step, as pretty much everything else has been shaved to mass produce electronics. (It's still a big deal to the PRC to keep up/improve the standard of living for their base of support (i.e. the majority of chinese who don't wear western suits and talk on cell phones). I was pretty stunned to see 5" B/W TV sets in the grocery store for $12.99 (yeah, that cheap!)
I imagine the powers that be (Hollywood lobbyists, lawyers, etc.) will push something forbidding any of these open technologies from reaching US shores (because it doesn't kowtow to their wishes, of course.)
Re:New Economic Heavyweight Flexing some Muscle (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't suppose it has occured to you that China (Hong Kong included) has a thriving film and entertainment industry if its own and people there would like to watch their own country's films and see no point in having to pay a technology tax if they can develop their own standard. China *is* a big market and growing rapidly (~6.5% in Q1 2002)
Re:It's about time. (Score:4, Interesting)
Open standard? Who said anything about an open standard? The article mentions that the companies involved are trying to secure patents for things related to their new standard. I suspect the "royalty-free" phrase that's being thrown about applies only to the 19 companies that're working on producing the standard. To draw a computer analogy, this isn't like the BSD software developers vs. Microsoft or the GPL software developers vs. Microsoft, but more like Oracle vs. Microsoft.
Re:It's about time. (Score:2, Informative)
However, just as many fuel saving engines may have been quietly put away in dusty little closets in the back of some big-manufacturer's back room,
Ooh! Ooh! Urban Legend [snopes2.com]! Urban Legend!
Well good for them (Score:5, Interesting)
Way to go! - This belongs in the same ranks at the (Ogg) Vorbis Project [vorbis.com].
Re:Well good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well good for them (Score:5, Interesting)
You are purporting to believe in a value, yet I doubt you believe in the value, just this particular case.
BTW, since these video disc players are not DVD licensed, do they have the right to use DVD keys to decrypt existing DVDs? These keys, I imagine, are licensed along with the patent and royalty agreements. This will work great in non-DMCA countries, the USA, however, will likely stop them at customs after some mild lobbying from various patent owners and trade groups. It's very likely that these are destined for the huge chinese market, but they are probably hoping to skirt around the law and get these into the US as well.
-Adam
Re:Well good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference that the move from MSFT centralises power and control in the hands of a corporation, while the move in Asia hands rights and restriction-free capabilities out to a whide variety of groups.
Centralisation and disemmination of power are very different things.
Re:Well good for them (Score:2)
So the powerbase is still in corporate hands. Note that is is not apparently an open-source effort - it is a CORPORATE effort.
Say it with me - CORPORATE.
Sarcasm aside, good for them. It probably won't make it over here, but it would be a good thing if it did. We could separate video DVD's from data DVD's and finally get Hollywood off the consumer's back. It would also be a good consumer-level format.
Re:Well good for them (Score:4, Interesting)
-Paul Komarek
Re:Well good for them (Score:2)
For one company to create standards will always
be bad. For a bunch of companies to collude and
create standards that come with strings attached
or royalty payments due or any other barrier to
entry, that too is bad. So bad in fact that it
should be illegal.
Region free? (Score:4, Interesting)
Can the studios detect these players and make sure their disks won't play on them? They did that super-new region coding thing a while back didn't they?
Re:Region free? (Score:2)
The problem is that the play prevention mechanisms lie with the dvd players and not the dvds themselves. The dvd is encrypted but there's nothing to stop it from being decrypted by, say a region 0 player or decss.
Re:Region free? (Score:2)
Re:Region free? (Score:2)
wouldn't it be funny if that hardware was illegal in the US, but legal everywhere else? so much for land of the free...
Re:Region free? (Score:2)
Re:Region free? (Score:2, Funny)
Probably.
But all you will need to make it work is a black marker.....
The video disc is active (Score:2)
Not possible to detect as the video disc is passive.
No. Each title in the DVD format contains a menu program. This menu program can call the libdvd function GetPlayerManufacturer() (I'm making up a name) and die if the player manufacturer is known to be easily moddable.
Even with a passive system, the RCE discs have some valid content for all regions. An error message for the "wrong" regions is placed first on the disc before the content for the "correct" regions.
Re:The video disc is active (Score:2)
What do you mean 'contains a menu program' ? The program has to run on some hardware (i.e. the dvd player). All these companies have to do is hack the dvd program so that it ignores the 'die' command, and then there will be no problem playing discs. Likewise, they can send back any region code they want until the contents are viewable.
Turing killed that idea in 1936 (Score:2)
What do you mean 'contains a menu program' ?
The menus on a DVD title are written in a nearly Turing-complete programming language. ("Nearly" meaning memory is bounded.)
All these companies have to do is hack the dvd program so that it ignores the 'die' command
Impossible. Detecting an inlined version of the 'die' command reliably on a Turing-complete system will solve the halting problem [wikipedia.com], which Turing proved undecidable way back in 1936.
Likewise, they can send back any region code they want until the contents are viewable.
This still doesn't solve the problem of not being able to import the player into countries that have passed DMCA, EUCD, or other laws prohibiting such circumvention.
Re:Turing killed that idea in 1936 (Score:3, Insightful)
That's okay. Detecting whether a DVD menu program is trying to die, the vast majority of the time, only involves special cases about which the halting theorem is silent. For instance, if the program halts by exuting the HALT machine instruction, you simply search for that instruction and replace it with your own code. If you don't trust the program not to modify its own code, you can run it in an emulator that constantly checks whether it is about to execute a HALT instruction. Consider that this is roughly what any modern CPU does in order to enforce memory protection.
Detecting infinite loops is a bit harder, and while you can search for trivial LOOP: GOTO LOOP constructs, you really need to run the program in emulation to get anywhere. You can, for instance, take a snapshot of the code and virtual machine state from time to time; if both ever return to the exact same state, you must be in an infinite loop (assuming you don't have interrupt-driven code to worry about -- if you do, expand the code under analysis to include the interrupt handlers, and repeat).
Moral of the story: not allowing the menu to die doesn't require knowing whether the menu program will ever halt, only whether it is about to. And that, far from being a theoretical impossibility, is a fundamental technique of virtual machine design.
Will they really avoid license fees? (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, if the royalties are for a trademark license, they may be able to escape by not using the DVD logo.
Re:Will they really avoid license fees? (Score:2)
I could be wrong. I usually am.
Re:Will they really avoid license fees? (Score:3, Insightful)
CSS is a (former?) trade secret as you noted.
What about the other parts like UDF, IFO, etc.? Many patents could be lurking in there.
Balance the royalty flow? (Score:2)
You mean *true* piracy (vs. the MPAA accusations against coders) does not curb the flow of royalties enough already? Wow, these Commies are pretty crafty!
Only in China (Score:4, Insightful)
This format would only be used in China. Makes sense, since there's no way they could sell these players in the US or Europe because it would infringe patents. Even if it doesn't display the logo it still decodes CSS, MPEG, AC3, all of which are patented.
They'll still get exported, from stores like Lik Sang.. but who knows, customs will probably seize them at the border.
Patent # for CSS please? (Score:2)
Re:Only in China (Score:5, Funny)
Quick! The MPAA needs to lobby Congress to make it illegal for China to do this!
Can't play standard DVD media (Score:4, Informative)
The royalties aren't for the use of the DVD trademark (well, the bulk of them, anyway). They're for the use of patents.
Now if they're really clever, they might be able to implement alternative techniques that, while producing the same results, don't use the means that the patents cover. Considering the number of DVD patents involved, this seems unlikely. (Sure, you could avoid the Macrovision and region-coding patents easily enough--don't include those "features.")
Not so fast... (Score:2)
Yea, they can owe all you and I wish for them to, but payments would not exactly fit into their "royalty avoidance" scheme.
Re:Can't play standard DVD media (Score:3, Offtopic)
What patents? CSS? Not patented, a trade secret. MPEG? Playback isn't patented, encoding is. Dolby Digital Sound is patented, but they don't have to implement the DDS parts to play DVDs.
Re:Can't play standard DVD media (Score:2)
The big question is, will the studios take it to court as a circumvention device? I hpe so, because they would lose.
Re:Couldn't they release a firmware on the net? (Score:2, Insightful)
This sounds bad (Score:3, Interesting)
If I were the guys who own DVD (Phillips and friends), I would demand that the fee is paid in the store, when someone buys the player.
This doesn't sound like a step towards a better movie format for everyone, this sounds like VHS/Betamax all over again.
I could be wrong though;) We'll just have to see what happens.
Re:This sounds bad (Score:2)
This hill hurt (Score:4, Insightful)
If EVD is open and unlicensed then it will do one of two things, if not both: A) Expose the region coding for distribution control, or B) isolate the US (and possibly Canada) from getting any of these devices by legislating them illegal.
While we USians may not like the isolation, those who have the gold make the rules. This kind of open format will only help to spread the distribution of films made in other parts of the world, eventually hurting the DVDCCA and MPAA.
There's nothing like having inferior entertainment channels forced upon us by law and greed when we could all share and share alike the distribution method (like PAL and GSM).
Hope this works (Score:2)
Excellent - a trade war is just what we need... (Score:5, Funny)
You know, if they keep this shit up, they might just distract the MPAA from the Internet long enough for me to finish building my archive
Re:Excellent - a trade war is just what we need... (Score:4, Funny)
- AVD+RW
- AVD-R
- AVD-RAM
- EVD+RW
- EVD-RAM
- EVD-R
- EVD+AVD+RAM
- Etc...
Wonderful!
Will this be legal? (Score:2)
not replacement (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:not replacement (Score:2)
SVCD is already a decent replacement for VCD. The quality is much better (2/3 D1 VBR MPEG-2 vs. CIF CBR MPEG-1), and you can make 'em yourself with any CD burner. I rip video from my TiVo and convert it to SVCD all the time (info here [dyndns.org]). Player support isn't widespread, but many of the less-expensive DVD players support it (it's the expensive players from bigger companies that are least likely to support SVCD...hell, there are still DVD players on the market that won't even play CDDA burned to CD-R or CD-RW).
Re:not replacement (Score:2)
True...if it'll deliver DVD quality, EVD would be a nice upgrade from SVCD as well as VCD. (SVCD was developed as an alternative to DVD that sacrificed some quality for lower cost and fewer encumbrances.)
The trick will be burning your own. DVD burners have only recently gotten even somewhat affordable, and determining what burner will produce discs that work with your players is a bit of a crapshoot. If EVD uses (or can use) the same physical media as DVD, burning your own becomes subject to these limitations. If it's a completely new medium (and the article makes it sound like it will be), you can forget about making your own EVDs for a while.
(As an aside, some DVD players can play video formatted to the DVD-Video spec that's burned on CD-R or CD-RW. You get only a few minutes' storage, but it's in full DVD quality. It's known informally as "mini-DVD.")
Too many formats? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually we can use more capacity (Score:4, Informative)
Beyond that, DVD quality is way below that of HDTV (not that there's much of that yet). So, we really could use more space - a LOT more (FMDs and FMCs sounded promising). And a much more flexible format (allowing simple outside scripting and track replacement/overlays as well as modern compression algorithms and file formats like MPEG-4) with smarter options (like a real UTF-8 text track coupled to an on-disk vector-type font library, and full-color compressed RGB-alpha sprite/video overlay tracks). But even a 10% or so increase in capacity could make a big difference in much of the world.
subtitle details (Score:2)
The rest of this post I believe is informative, but this snippet is incorrect.
4 colors, yes. The author often wants clear but there's nothing magic about black and neither are required.
DVD subtitles can appear on any part of the screen. Like you said, they are achieved through a bitmapped image. This image can be sized up to the full NTSC or PAL resolution.
Re:subtitle details (Score:2)
I didn't know they could appear anywhere on the screen. I've never seen them outside the bottom strip, myself, even when translating signs. I suppose that just means they don't usually bother.
subtitles will = region encoding soon (Score:2)
By ensuring only one language per DVD you'll see fewer people from the US buying Japanese and HK DVDs. You'll also see people in France no longer hopping to the UK or ordering from US online stores. Ironic since many French versions of HK and Japanese DVDs are better quality (more features/languages and better print quality) than those in the US or HK.
The MPAA members will be able to return to controlling releases among different countries and can then ensure better adherence to their price structures.
The reason this won't happen in the US is the variety of languages spoken in the US and the fact that the US market is currently the one with the most DVD titles available.
Re:Actually we can use more capacity (Score:2)
Data on a disk is of course no different from data on a drive (Apple's DVD player software can play DVDs stored on the drive, for one).
What a difference geography makes (Score:5, Insightful)
Several industry sources confirmed that emerging EVD or AVD players will be capable of playing back both EVD/AVD disks and DVD disks.
But other industry sources in Japan acknowledged that if players bear no official DVD logo, it would be difficult for the 6C or 3C groups to go after them.
It's sad that some companies in Asia are going to get away with making their own DVD players for the sole purpose of cheating the DVD patent holders while some poor European kid who writes DeCSS so that he can play his legally purchased DVDs on Linux gets crucified to the fullest extent of the law.
GMD
Re:What a difference geography makes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What a difference money makes (Score:5, Insightful)
Emphasis mine.
Re:What a difference money makes (Score:2, Insightful)
Edit mine.
Good grief, cut the crap. The reality is that these companies MAY get away with it, whereas I couldn't get a DVD player for Linux for love or money legally for a long long time.
Really, though, this is capitalism at its best, IMHO. It can be done cheaper, and in a way consumers actually want - it WILL be done.
Re:What a difference money makes (Score:2)
Is it really that sad that some mildly rich companies in Asia are going to get away with making their own DVD players for the sole purpose of avoiding the filthy rich DVD patent holders?
Heck no! This is a great thing to see! The more countries that fight our backwards software patents, the better. You do realize that's what we're talking about, right? Software. Not optical drive mechanics or other such technology. We're talking about MPEG-2, which is locked up with so many software (ie. mathematical) patents it's disgusting.
These same bad patents could also cause problems in the future for open source software--or at least its use in the US.
Kinda ironic when it's the communists fighting for a free market solution, eh? Crazy world we live in..
not so good? (Score:2, Interesting)
All of the innovation that we have seen, from the triumph of the Wright brothers, to the soaring skyscrapers that make this country beautiful, has been due to the drive of a few precious individuals. Their motivation? Money.
Take away the royalties that protect them and urge them to develop new things, and we're back in the Dark Ages. Like it or not, intellectual property rights is the hot-button issue that sculpts the political landscape.
Where would we be without it?
Re:not so good? (Score:2)
Re:not so good? (Score:2)
false. Many of the great inventions were created from the joy of creation, rather then money.
Money is made by people who hire creative thinkers, then patent there ideas.
Without IP, I gues people could only make money with the intial concept, as opposed to wrining ot every last penny from there customers.
Truth be told, I'm not against reasonable IP protection. I am against people using it as a means to stiffle innovation, control markets, and arrest children for building there own device to lay a legally purchased DVD.
If it comes down to letting corprations have complete control, or no IP, I'll choose no IP.
Re:not so good? (Score:2)
As for skyscrapers, they're ugly. Also, there is no IP involved in them, save simple copyright. You can't copy someone elses building word for word and beam for beam, but you better bet you can drive down to the local municipal office and see every inch of the building down to the spacing of rivets and copy every innovative idea.
And the skyscrapers weren't about money; They were a dick-size war among a few wealthy individuals and corporations.
Re:not so good? (Score:2, Insightful)
`proven' wrong? Haven't read too many economics textbooks, have you? Never mind actual work in the field...
Of course, you give the game away when you quote Chomsky, who is a holocaust-denier, a general anti-American bigot, and a blithering ideologue whose fantastic claims (7 million dead in Afghanistan? Really? Even the anti-war left only claims a few thousand...) have caused him to lose credibility even on the left. Even his work on linguistics (as opposed to abstract syntax) is generally considered way off base in the field.
For more on Mr. Chomsky, see here [frontpagemag.com] or here [frontpagemag.com]. For more on his absurd claims about Afghanistan, see here [frontpagemag.com].
Now, to refer to your original claim, why do you think America leads the world in invention, while the old Soviet Union couldn't even keep up with manufacturing stolen technology, never mind inventing new technologies?
Re:Slanderous about Chomsky (Score:2)
Re:not so good? (Score:2)
That sob story is dismissed quite easily by simply understanding the history of this great nation we call the USA.
Patents create monopolies plain and simple. That's what they're all about. In the past century, the US allowed monopolies to grow to the extent that the entire economy collapsed in what is known as the Great Depression.
Because of the lessons learned during the 1930's, tight controls were put on patents and for the great period of growth that followed World War II, these limitations on patent rights allowed such wonders as the GUI to become freely available for use by the entire public of the United States.
However, partly because of the over-dependence upon a bloated and inefficient auto industry which was, in turn, dependent on cheap oil that evaporated for political reasons, the nation's economy saw serious troubles in the 1970s.
So, in the 80's. these very cynical people called the GOP came up with this idea to change the patent laws back to how they were before the Depression --rewind the tape. Play it again Sam. AFter all, they represented the people who would get rich off of this arrangement --the already wealthy. Just like the last depression.
They created something called the CAFC and stacked it with judges who essentially had a mission to beef up patent laws which they have done quite dutifully.
And, we're seeing the first big corporate failures from gross mismanagement coming down the pipes already. Looks like the GOP got their rewind.
So, before you go crying about the poor inventors, perhaps you should consider what really made America great, a harmonious pluralism based on a sense of shared community and not this winner-take-all, fuck thy neighbor bullshit.
Public specification (Score:2)
If EVD/AVD are really to make a difference, than simply being a 'home grown' technology and licensing body for these companies, then we need to see the specification made public for no fee, without any license fee requirements. This would help reduce the cost of the media and mean that anyone anywhere would be capable of making a player, without needing prior permission. One other thing that needs to be done is ensure that at this stage EVD/AVD already covers a specification for rewritable discs, otherwise we are likely to run into the same mess as DVDs did.
Oh, the irony (Score:2)
The whole point of the new standard is to make an open standard that doesn't charge royalties, and he is calling it a proprietary standard?
steveha
Even so... (Score:3, Interesting)
The MPAA will see to it that customs holds these at the border, and the parties hoping to receive the shipment will be tossed in the slammer.
Basically, these will be considered controlled substances like drugs and whoever's trying to get ahold of one will be treated as a narcotics dealer/user.
Maybe not. (Score:5, Interesting)
If they try to do this the logical counter move is to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization [wto.org] stating the case that the Regional Settings is a deliberate and unlawful inpediment to free trade. The risk of this being declared illegal combined with suits for Punitive damages subsequently filed in the US courts is high.
MPAA will give in long before that as the down side grossly outweighs the alternative.
NB: Write your representative in the country you are in and complain about Regional Settings. Its amazing it has survived so long.
Re:Maybe not. (Score:2)
You? I don't know you, but if you aren't a US Senator or CEO of a Fortune 500 company your complaint will be ignored and/or tossed in the trash before it's read.
The US? Why wouldn't they back up one of their major industries?
China and Taiwan? They are on thin ground in the WTO as it is. They know the risk of the US throwing its weight around is more dangerous than some lost profits to licensing fees.
So I just don't see a complaint being filed let alone having any effect on the issue.
Re:Even so... (Score:3, Funny)
I disagree.
Whoever's trying to get ahold of these will be considered terrorists. Get with the times.
Narrow Reading of Patents Rejected (Score:2)
DVD is an illegal trust (Score:2, Interesting)
Anything that plays the DVD format will still be considered as infringing on the DVD patents.
Once again, we here in the freedom loving west will be protected from having to decide if we want cheaper and better technology. After all it is much better when a group of companies work together and decide to impose a standard on the world and then charge us extra for the privilege.
Why don't people go after these companies for Anti-trust violations? When standards are used by an exclusive group of companies to impose market control at the expense of consumers, it is illegal under US law. Companies are supposed to compete with eachother, otherwise it isn't a free market.
Re:DVD is an illegal trust (Score:2)
Re:DVD is an illegal trust (Score:2)
So they will still make money, as much money? hard to say.
Re:DVD is an illegal trust (Score:2)
not all movies (Score:4, Funny)
Elizabeth
The Last Emperor
The Madness of King George
Get it? Royalty-free? Get it?
What about CSS? (Score:3, Interesting)
CSS Used to be a Trade Secret, Not Anymore :-) (Score:3, Informative)
Then some rather intelligent youths in Europe figured out how to break the profoundly weak algorithm used to encrypt DVDs and restrict their playback (but not bit-for-bit copies, as most DVD-Rs were capable of doing back then, before the deCSS case and their wholesale redesign).
CSS isn't a secret anymore, indeed there are T-Shirts, songs, and 7 line perl scripts that can algorithmicly crack the code without any keys whatsoever.
The Taiwainese or Chinese can use any of this widely and publicly available information to make DVD playback devices capable of decrypting and playing DVDs and, I suspect, under the rules of the WTO, there is absolutely nothing the Copyright and Media Cartels can do about it.
It's not a secret, however... (Score:2)
Re:It's not a secret, however... (Score:2)
Not if their products are, as advertised, solely for sale in the greater China area. Any grey market products offered for sale in the United States aren't officially sanctioned by the manufacturerers, and therefor the only people at risk are the grey market importers. The Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers can make and sell these devices all over the rest of the world with impunity.
Re:CSS Used to be a Trade Secret, Not Anymore :-) (Score:2)
Re:CSS Used to be a Trade Secret, Not Anymore :-) (Score:2)
Now that key is repealed, and fortunately for people wanting to watch DVDs on Linux, the algorithm is also cracked. Every time you put a DVD in your open-source player, the player cracks the key. That's why there's often a pause before the disc starts playing.
-Billy
What was that SciFi book? (Score:2)
Maybe this is the beginning?
It's Distraction by Bruce Sterling (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the year 2044, and America has gone to hell. A disenfranchised U.S. Air Force base has turned to highway robbery in order to pay the bills. Vast chunks of the population live nomadic lives fueled by cheap transportation and even cheaper computer power. Warfare has shifted from the battlefield to the global networks, and China holds the information edge over all comers. Global warming is raising sea level, which in turn is drowning coastal cities. And the U.S. government has become nearly meaningless. This is the world that Oscar Valparaiso would have been born into, if he'd actually been born instead of being grown in vitro by black market baby dealers. Oscar's bizarre genetic history (even he's not sure how much of him is actually human) hasn't prevented him from running one of the most successful senatorial races in history, getting his man elected by a whopping majority. But Oscar has put himself out of a job, since he'd only be a liability to his boss in Washington due to his problematic background. Instead, Oscar finds himself shuffled off to the Collaboratory, a Big Science pork barrel project that's run half by corruption and half by scientific breakthroughs. At first it seems to be a lose-lose proposition for Oscar, but soon he has his "krewe" whipped into shape and ready to take control of events. Now if only he can straighten out his love life and solve a worldwide crisis that no one else knows exists
I love it (Score:3, Funny)
what about EVD-RW? (Score:2)
excuse me (Score:2, Interesting)
Politics, heh. (Score:2)
Which is not very supprizing, but pretty silly given the fact that they speak the same language and the PRCs format is royalty free (or is it just royalty free for companies inside china?)
But can they get away with this legally in the US? (Score:2, Interesting)
Quite possibly they are trying to create a seperate standard for Europe or just the far east?
Re:But can they get away with this legally in the (Score:2)
America and Europe are huge markets, combined possibly larger than the Asian market. Or do you think a farmer in rural China will pay as much for a DVD player as some geek in the U.S. will?
China, a Future Source of Ilicit Tech? (Score:2, Interesting)
Though of course it all depends on how the Chinese government would view it. However I suspect that if a company has the right Communist party connections, it can manufacture for export whatever the hell it likes, especially as the current piracy situation there suggests the Chinese government coulndn't give a flying f*** about the RIAA or MPAA. They're more interested in stamping on political dissent and Falung Gung.
At the very least, the situation might resemble the current one with DVD player region coding. The makers would pay lip service to hardware copyright enforcement, but quietly make it known that it can be disabled with a jumper in order to boost sales of their hard drives which would otherwise have little to recommend them over ones made by the big, mainstream manufactures.
Wow, so many splinter formats (3 now) (Score:2)
DVD+RW (and DVD+R)
AVD
EVD
Maybe I should come up with one as it seems to be all the rage.
Actually, the funny part of this are some of the same people who support DVD+RW (a non-DVD format) are now saying that the Asians should not be allowed to come up with their own competing technology as it will confuse the market!
-David
that's nice, but.... (Score:2, Insightful)
when are corporations going to do ANYTHING good for humanity at their own expense?
when is our government going to be run for by and of the people instead of said corporations?
my guess the answer to all of these is NEVER. because somebody somewhere would "loose" money that they had never MADE yet.
rhy
The Fast Forward Feature (Score:2)
I will buy any damn player that will play a DVD and allow me to fast forward through the damn Disney previews that they force you to watch.
They need a "Just play the f***ing movie" button on their remote controls.
Why Asian countries want to sidestep royalties.... (Score:2, Informative)
Believe me, many Chinese are hardcore bargain-hunters (Ive observed this in Hong Kong) and usually do not purchase something without getting the lowest possible price.
As a result, Chinese usually spend their money on neccessities such as food, health care products, etc...they also would like other commodities sold in the Western world, but cannot afford them. One of these much-wanted commodities is entertainment such as DVDs, software etc...Anyway, they usually buy pirated products because the legal ones typically cost 5 times more.
The Chinese and Taiwanese governments really don't care about royalty payments demanded from companies in foreign countries...simply because they want to save money. As a result, Taiwan and China rank among the largest pirated software and home video markets in the world, just below Brazil.
Software and entertainment companies should really take a look at how much the average person makes in the country they release theire products in...
Re:Why Asian countries want to sidestep royalties. (Score:2)
If you want to blame them for making life worse for people in many ways, and making some people poorer, sure. But considering large parts of Chinas population had been living at the brink of starvation under colonial rule until the emperor was overthrown, and things hardly got better during the civil war, things were hardly in great shape before they took over either.
Also, trying to present this as something thats unique to China, as opposed to common to poor people everywhere is pretty interesting. Of course poor people will try to avoid spending money on anything but neccessities - everyone generally see avoiding starvation as more critical in their life than the latest Hollywood blockbuster.
Taiwan and China: The Odd Couple (Score:2)
Now there's a pair i didn't expect to see playing together...
Nothing brings mortal enemies together like a chance to make some bucks at the expense of the evil capitalist American dogs...
GMD
Re:The only problem (Score:2)
Re:Thank god for market power (Score:3)