Ars Technica ha posteado un interesante artículo sobre DRM, creado a partir de una frase publicada en Wired Magazine: 2005 might be the last good year to get gizmos that aren’t locked down (2005 puede ser el último año para comprar dispositivos electrónicos que no están bloqueados). El artículo gira entorno a las nuevas leyes que se quieren aprobar en Estados Unidos que darían carta blanca a las empresas discográficas y cinematográficas para controlar lo que escuchas y/o ves, donde lo ves, cuando lo ves, como lo ves y cuantas veces tienes que pagar por lo mismo.
Clearly, Sony has come a long way since defending fair use rights all the way to the Supreme Court in 1979. One might expect Sony and its peers to leaf through the history books and learn from changes past. The VCR was hardly the death of the movie industry. Rather, it became a new and impressive revenue source, and the same thing happened with cassette tapes. The occasional sale that was lost to people taping movies off of broadcast TV was more than offset by the burgeoning rental industry, and the recording function just widened the reach of prerecorded tapes as the machine turned out to have multiple uses.
You wouldn’t think it odd to pay twice for Batman Begins today, would you? Ten bucks at the theater, and another sixteen or so for the DVD. That’s the spirit! Then let’s charge for it a couple more times: PSP maybe, and the enhanced HD DVD version, not to mention the streamed online delivery sometime in the murky future. Then there’s first-run syndication through Showtime and HBO, and a couple of years later, the second run through CBS or Fox. None of these income streams would keep flowing if we could just pay for the content once and use it in whatever manner we choose to.
The moral of the story is that if you’re sick and tired of this garbage, heading out to buy more products won’t send a message, and it won’t necessarily solve any problems for you. Your best bet is to vote with your wallet, and speak to your representatives.
Vía: Ars Technica.
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