A Third Alternative For Hollywood
from the um...-is-this-a-joke? dept
With all the debate going on about piracy of digital entertainment, it may seem to some people, that the opinions on this matter have divided into two diametrically opposed camps. One side says that copying is Bad - and we need laws and technology to make sure that no one ever copies anything. The other side says that copying is Good and laws and technology hurt our fair use rights and (possibly) our ability to grow the technology industry. This is a very simplistic view. However, if you buy into it, then you might want to read about a "middle of the road" idea being proposed. I honestly couldn't tell whether or not the guy was joking when I read this. His idea is that Hollywood should come out with their own "protected" televisions, and offer some programs on that "closed" system, and some on the regular "open" system. Everyone would need to buy two TVs. One that worked with each system. He feels that this way we could see which system really worked better. This has to be a joke, right? It's a Solomon type proposal. Cut the baby in half - and see who believes their own rhetoric more. The fact is that there aren't just two camps on this matter. There's a whole spectrum of ideas - and different things are playing out on the market already. The exact example of what he describes is what's happening in the music industry - where the labels have come out with their own file trading system which very few people are using.
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TwoTVs? Naah... two receivers.
The Universal Remote (if truly universal) would displace all the flippin' other remotes and be a key to acceptance. My wife would kill for one good remote which actually replaced everything. If built on a PalmOS foundation (but with a stronger IR xmtr), it could be as cheap as a m125.
The card reader would read e-cash cards, bought over the counter at Apu's Quickie Mart, 7-11, or J-Mart. Insert the card, the card's IC is toasted and you get 24 hrs of "H"-channels (Hollywood channels). Some pay-for-view programs could go through the card 2x or 4x as fast as normal.
Since the only outputs are analog, copies of "H"-channels would of necessity be degraded, and therefore not marketable in the way that digital copies are.
Of course, if opened, the "H"-box would fry itself to protect whatever encryption is used.
Seems workable to me.
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No, I have an idea !
And if I tried to tamper with it, my head would explode.
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