Copy Protection

S

Sy

Time-Traveller
Well I've just about reached my limit. From now on if a DVD says it's copy protected on the back then **** it, they ain't having my money. Why am I so pissed off about copy protection? Well because when I buy a DVD legally I expect it to ******* play!

The last few DVD's I've bought that have the copy protection logo on it **** up in 2 of my DVD players in some shape or form. The only way I can watch them is through my PC and what's the fun in that? I have a decent TV set up and have to watch them on my ****** PC screen? No thanks! So what happens when I put the disks in my DVD players is that they either whir and buzz trying to read past all the **** they put on or struggle through the disk with pixels ******** all over the screen every now and then. I'm expected to pay for this?

Out of the last 5 DVD's I've bought 3 of them don't work properly and guess what the ones that don't work are the copy protected ones. I just bought Wall-E today for my brothers christmas present and low and behold it doesn't work too well and I paid £17 for that from HMV. I got it to work finally but you know what I had to do? COPY THE ******* DVD! That's right I had to copy the DVD to get rid of the copy protection ******** and make the disk readable.

Their efforts to stop illegal copies only make me want to abandon buying copy protected things legally at all. Well done to the geniuses who decided it was a great idea because you know how long it took me to find a program to bypass the copy protection? About 2 minutes and I'm no computer wizard. What they've done is create a good way to waste everyone's time and money.

Well to hell with that ****. Rant over.

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I still find the region-blocking of the DVD format to be idiotic and unecessary, and I believe the blu-ray format is going down the same road too.

That's a minor annoyance (since my DVD player is multi-region) but if you want the full force of a veritable tidal wave of boiling vitriol from me, look no further than the abhorrant concept of the UK TV licence.
 
TV licence is definitely the worst. I'd rant about that myself but there are no words for the situation that adequately convey my disgust.

I boycotted CDs for a long time (when Japan was embracing copy controlled CDs, now thankfully abandoned) and really hope I don't have to go there again with video in future. Fortunately I haven't run into any that won't play for that reason but Bandai's recent R1 foul ups have left a similar impression. I had to rip and rewrite several discs a while ago which wouldn't play. There was a witch hunt on on AoD trying to work out if those issues were caused by a mistake copy protecting - if they were they need to stop doing it, and fast. I'm already wary of them after wasting an afternoon fixing the last batch and in this economic climate they really shouldn't be pissing off their existing customers who just want to legally watch their purchases.

R
 
I've got to admit that I don't fully understand the TV license deal. I've been told that because I own a TV even though I don't actually use it to watch TV and just to play DVD's and games I have to pay for a TV license. Apparently because that TV I own has the capability of receiving TV broadcasts in real time. Is that about right? Although they try to be clear by making out it's a worse offense than murder to not pay your TV license they are pretty vague on things like that and I don't want to risk it.

TV is a real turd anyway. I can barely watch anything on TV at the best of times anyway because of the adverts becoming more constant and also the wonderful thing they do in TURNING UP THE VOLUME when the adverts come on. Lovely. Besides you can watch a lot of stuff legally online if you look around and if you can't find it online then the DVD sets are probably less hassle UNLESS THEY'RE COPY PROTECTED!

As for that Wall-E DVD I'm marching it right back to HMV tomorrow. No way am I paying £17 for a POS that doesn't work properly. The cardboard case is **** too but now I'm just being picky.
 
Martin said:
I believe the blu-ray format is going down the same road too.
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You know, I would have said the opposite. I use this site whenever I want to check if a BD is region-locked, and looking at that list, the greens out-scale the reds by a respectable margin. There also doesn't seem to be any methodology to their region-locking practices. It's all very particular.
 
Sy said:
I've got to admit that I don't fully understand the TV license deal.
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If you only use it for DVDs/games you don't need a licence. We have no aerial on ours and tuned all the channels out but they still give us grief occasionally despite admitting we're within our rights. I wrote them a letter which explicitly explained our stance (we hate TV) and all I got was a threat of a future visit (which has yet to happen after 5 years) to make sure I wasn't secretly watching Eastenders or something.

A lot of people I know who also watch no TV still have licences because they think think that they legally have to thanks to the threatening tone of the TV enforcement ads. It's absolutely disgusting.

R
 
I'm happy to pay my TV Licence because the BBC is the only channel which provides me with unbiased news (we don't want to end up like the US with one left-wing and one right-wing news channel) and entertainment which is actually entertaining. I don't agree with the strong arm tactics used to make sure people pay however.

I've never had a single problem with copy protected DVD's in either player I have owned. My first was a Bush and my current one is a Toshiba (both region unlocked by remote). You're right though Sy, it seems like a massive waste of time when anyone with internet access can bypass it in a matter of minutes.

Blu-ray... it seems to be going well with the lack of region coding so far (I'm still more annoyed that the Japanese releases aren't containing English subs. Look at those Lupin releases! :cry:) but the fact that the ability is there worries me. Criterion, who release a lot of good classics are locking their blu-ray releases in the US, which is fine as long as someone else releases them here, but I know there will come a time when there's a Region A only release I want badly. One thing I think is dodgy is that unlike DVD, there don't seem to be any regulations about displaying the region code on the box. Warner's releases are all region free, but unlike Sony (who put a "Regions ABC" on the back) they don't bother to tell you.
 
ayase said:
Blu-ray... it seems to be going well with the lack of region coding so far (I'm still more annoyed that the Japanese releases aren't containing English subs. Look at those Lupin releases! :cry:) but the fact that the ability is there worries me. Criterion, who release a lot of good classics are locking their blu-ray releases in the US, which is fine as long as someone else releases them here, but I know there will come a time when there's a Region A only release I want badly. One thing I think is dodgy is that unlike DVD, there don't seem to be any regulations about displaying the region code on the box. Warner's releases are all region free, but unlike Sony (who put a "Regions ABC" on the back) they don't bother to tell you.
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I wholly agree about the box information. I only have a Region A player because the moment the regions were announced (Japan and US in one, us in another) I realised it made more sense for me. But sometimes I'm out on the high street and looking at UK boxes and I simply cannot tell whether I can play them without going online and finding a review. Not putting the information there is stupid and just encourages me to buy from overseas if I'm not sure. I hope that when Beez's plans for worldwide releases are underway they're transparent about the region codings (if any) so that I can support them.

The Japanese sub thing is weird. They rarely contain Japanese subs either, even for things that would greatly benefit from them such as music video discs. I try to support Japanese releases that bother putting a sub track on there when possible in the vain hope that a company will see the light one day and make it the norm.

R
 
Rui said:
I hope that when Beez's plans for worldwide releases are underway they're transparent about the region codings (if any) so that I can support them.
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Well the Freedom box says nothing. It's been confirmed as region free, but the fact someone has to buy it, try it in two different region players and post their findings on the internet so that the rest of the world can know is bizzare.
 
Sure, let's block all those pirates by causing suffering to our PAYING CUSTOMERS. I'm pretty sure everybody is a pirate at heart an simply don't know it yet. After a couple CD's, DVD's that won't play, I'm pretty sure consumers will be bothered.

This is simply unacceptable! they should protect their property? Sure! But the moment you bought the DVD / CD you've got the right to use it, but they are preventing you from it. Unbelievable. Can't believe no american have thought on suing those guys yet.
 
chaos said:
This is simply unacceptable! they should protect their property? Sure! But the moment you bought the DVD / CD you've got the right to use it, but they are preventing you from it. Unbelievable. Can't believe no american have thought on suing those guys yet.
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We all know how that verdict would go though... "The court rules in favor [sic] of Big Business. As per the usual procedure. We would like to thank the defendants for their time and their breifcases full of cash."

And in this situation Wall-E's copy protection has actually turned Sy into a pirate. Way to guy guys, ever heard of this thing called irony? It's a good job we need more pirates anyway to combat global warming.
 
No, I'm not quite a pirate yet. The DVD was annoying anyway. On a lot of DVD's now there's a few adverts that you have to skip before the menu starts but Disney in their divine knowledge decided that they've got to put about 10 adverts in there for movies out on DVD or coming soon. That wouldn't be a problem skipping them usually but since the player was having so many problems reading the disk it took an age and a half to get to the main menu.

When I took it back the guy said he's never had anybody return a copy because the copy protection was stopping DVD's playing correctly but I find that hard to believe. Maybe they just think the disks are corrupt and take them back because of that. Given all the problems I've had on several DVD players (One being a Sony!).

I refuse to believe that I'm the only one effected by this and I know it's the copy protection because I couldn't get 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' to play at all until I copied the disk so it doesn't have copy protection (I still own the legal copy too though). The point is I shouldn't ever have to do that no matter what players I have and the cause is the copy protecting crap they put on the disks that make them appear corrupted to the players.

Well I'm still pissed off at the world, standing in lines that fill up the shops and the busy Christmas rushes have been driving me so crazy I could fill a book with complaints. It's nearly Christmas though so I'm gonna get back into the spirit and go buy the turkey. Merry Christmas.
 
The DVD copyright situation is reminiscent of the DRM being added to PC games lately, causing many people to pirate simply because they don't want damaging programs like SecuROM on their computers or being told how many times they're allowed to install a game they legally own.

The music industry resolved these copy protection issues a while ago, but it seems the film and game industries still have a way to go.
 
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