iPod can play non-DRM movies just fine.
only the movies sold thru iTunes Stores
are DRMed because of hollywood.
If you encode a movie yourself. There is no
restriction.
So One of your paragraphs need revising.
You are of course right. But for the vast majority of folks, ripping their own videos is beyond the technology they are comfortable with. So there is a real opportunity to do what Apple did with music five years ago: create a balance of DRM and use that everyone can accept. And it isn't just an academic exercise -- this is a business worth billions for company that finds that balance.
Thanks for the comment, and I hope to hear more from you.
Carl
Not only are most users not comfortable enough to rip their own movies, it is also against the law (at least here in the US). So unless Walmart sells unencrypted movies (what is the chance of that?), they won't play on an iPod.
Other than Disney where Iger likely agrees with most of Jobs' vision of how to get the consumer's dollars for home entertainment, the movie studios really just don't understand how easy it always will be to break DRM/encryption, whether on digital downloads, regular DVDs, or HD/Blu-ray DVDs. And because of those blinders, they keep trying to price their goods above what most people are willing to pay, thus foregoing the incremental revenue, with many turning to piracy.
I say this because two more articles appeared today. Morgan Freeman's Clickstar is opening for business this weekend (NY Times article), and he's charging $20 and up per download to Windows OS Viiv-capable PCs. And the studios (except Disney) are rumored to be negotiating to get Apple to put a limit on the number of players for a download. I interpret that to mean a limit on the currently unlimited number of iPods. Downloads are currently limited to 5 computers.
And like their clueless music label counterparts, no doubt pretty soon, the studios will be asking for a portion of the iPod revenue. If (big If) the Zune hangs around, I wonder if Microsoft will offer the Universal Music deal to those studios for movies when the Zune Marketplace opens for video.
A couple of points, first, ripping a DVD you own is not illegal as long as the resultant copy is for your own personal use, for the same reason you can rip music CDs. I can see Apple some day adding this feature to iTunes. We already have it with handbrake.
Secondly, iTunes already has a peer-to-peer sharing of content built in, albeit limited.
AFAIK, ripping DVDs is not yet settled law. The DVD itself contains language that it's not allowed; DMCA would back up that claim. Yet long-standing fair use provisions would argue that as long as you OWN it, it's okay to rip for personal use. The fact that Handbrake and MactheRipper haven't been sued could imply that the fair use provision is being recognized.
It is clear that ripping a DVD borrowed from the library or rented from Netflix (or Blockbuster, etc) is illegal. And I suspect that a good portion of the DVD ripping happening today comes from those two categories of sources.
Those movie studios better not plan on charging me much if they expect me to use my bandwidth to do their distribution.
Commenting by HaloScan
