Can't Record This
from the fighting-back-with-technology dept
Rafe Needleman's latest column talks about some technology solutions to movie piracy - which certainly make more sense than the legal solutions Hollywood has been pushing so far. Of course the problem with technology solutions is that they tend to piss off users by not letting them do what they want. However, when done in a reasonable way, they're not so bad. For example, the main one he talks about is a system that (supposedly) makes it impossible to record a movie in a theater using a video camera. In the same way that a CRT monitor on film shows lines scrolling along the screen, this system makes the movie unwatchable if it's been filmed. Of course, I'm sure that after Hollywood spends tons of money to upgrade their theaters to use this technology, someone will quickly figure out a way around it, and Hollywood will have thrown away all that money they could have used on making good movies that people would actually pay to go see. The obsession with piracy over actually focusing on making a good product is probably costing the industry more than the piracy itself.
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Piracy throws techies out of jobs
If Hollywood stops spending millions of dollars to make detailed computer graphics battle scenes, and instead makes witty battle scenes based on cheap miniatures, it may in fact be funnier; but techies will lose jobs as a result.
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