Sue Me, I Dare You
from the good-idea,-but... dept
A new company has launched, with a business idea that's just hankering for a lawsuit from the MPAA, or even Apple. TVMyPod is selling video iPods with preloaded content -- when somebody orders an iPod, they can also buy DVDs, which the company then loads onto the iPod before sending both the device and the original DVDs to the customer. There are plenty of services that will rip your CDs or other music into a digital format, so it's not surprising to see a similar service for video as well, since ripping DVDs can be time-consuming and difficult for the average user. Given the entertainment industry's dislike of fair use, and Apple's apparent objection to selling iPods that contain content, the clock's ticking on the first lawsuit. It's an old story, really -- a new business idea comes up, showing once again that people have an appetite to buy entertainment content in a format they find more convenient than what the movie studios or record labels currently provide. Chances are the companies will react in the same, way, too -- with lawyers, rather than any innovation of their own.
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I don't see the problem..
How is this different then dell pre-loading microsoft office?
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Re: I don't see the problem..
And, yes, while you would think that there shouldn't be anything wrong with selling and loading the content onto an iPod, we've already seen that the industry doesn't see things that way. To them, when you buy a DVD, you're buying a DVD -- not the right to transfer that content anywhere else.
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Re: I don't see the problem..
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Re: I don't see the problem..
The issue is that they want to control which player is used to play the content with.
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Re: I don't see the problem..
Its also about lawyers, and having them in abundance and at your beck and call. Sony sued Conectix over the Playstation emulator that allowed the use of Playstation games on PCs. By the time the case was settled, Connectix had to pull the product or face bankruptcy. Sony didn't win, but a competing product was still eliminated. Lawsuits are cheaper than innovating and competing fairly in the marketplace.
They don't have to win -- they just have to hold out the longest.
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