Wal-Mart's movie download plan: pay and pay again

Wal-Mart's plan for legal movie downloads: buy a DVD, then pay some
more to "legally" download it to your iPod:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/technology/29bitt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Let's see if I understand this right: you pay for a DVD, and *then* you
pay a fee of $1.97 or something to download that DVD to your iPod.
This effectively means that you're accepting the line that ripping a
DVD that you purchased, to play on your own iPod, is illegal.
Evidently the Sony-Betamax decision doesn't cover copying movies to an
iPod.

Gosh darn those awful Internet movie pirates!

 

Why does it have to mean that? Maybe it means that you don't have a
computer, or don't want to bother ripping your own DVDs, or just think
it's more convenient to get the movie on your iPod *right now*, or any
number of things.

This is not evidence of that. It's evidence that Walmart thinks they
can make money selling this service.

You sound like Chicken Little.

RichC

 

Once upon a time, if you wanted to watch something, here's what you
did. First, you looked in the TV Guide or your newspaper's TV listings
and found out when it was on. Then you made plans to be home when it
was on and be sitting in front of the TV set when the program started.
At the appointed time, you pressed a button on your TV set and the
screen slowly lit up and you turned the channel dial to the correct
channel and then you sat down and watched it. When it was over, you
could choose between watching the next program that was on or turning
the TV off to go do something else. If you liked what you saw and felt
a desire to see it again, you would have to wait until the TV station
which showed it decided to rerun it, hopefully within six months to a
year.

Life was so much simpler then (and TV was so much more enjoyable).

 

Yes it is evidence of that. On Nov. 27 a judge ruled just that: Consumers
have no rights other than playing on the device the media was licensed for.
You cannot copy to iPod without paying. Simple.

 

PS

It is EXPLICITLY stated that ripping a DVD by anyone other than an educator
for teaching or a library for archive purposes is ILLEGAL.

This was confirmed in the most recent ruling I mentioned.

 

No, the downloads are still security-coded up the keister, and, in fact,
you have to pay $3.97 if you want "both" the PC and the "portable device".

(Which still hasn't been positively identified as iPod, ie. MP4, yet,
and could be another one of those dopey .WMV "Plays For Sure" wannabes.
Somehow, with Wal-Mart, I have some suspicious guesses.)

And as to whether Wal-Mart's commercial rips have been cleared with the
studio, or whether they got a little too personally hubris'ed about "We
can sell ANY kind of DVD, we know how!" without looking at the fine
print, may be tested in courts soon.

If they are, however, it should be an interesting "middleman" to the
fact that none of the other studios wanted to play with Steve Jobs and
his iTunes Store because of his flat-prices (which's why they all jumped
over to Amazon for that download thing...SUC-KERS!!), and iPod users may
finally be able to store other licensed .M4V movies besides
Disney/Miramax ones.

(As to the "future of DVD's", however, as we ritually get in articles
like these...sorry, analysts, that's ALL they'll do.)

Derek Janssen (remember "High School Musical"!)

 

You ain't real bright. That's what DVD collections are for!

Then there's VOD.

AND DVR!

You appear as a horse with blinders on.

 

And then you try to buy more UMD movies and Memory Sticks in 2006.

Derek Janssen (umm...can't help you there!)

 

As a wise man once said, "They can make it illegal to take a shit on
Sunday, that doesn't mean there's a cop in your crapper."

/Roy

 

Nope. Why buy a UMD form factor flic when it can only be played in a
few devices?

I said I make files from MY DVD library. If I want to watch a flic
in WS on the bus without actually having the disc, I can. I have a
mem stick that have photos and MP3s and such on it, and I have a stick
just for movies, 'cause I rip 'em to that file size to maximize the
resolution of the crunch down.

The downloaded previews of Spiderman 3 and such are cool and at
really high resolution for such a small display (to me).

 

If there was that retarded bastard would eat shit!

In Paramus, MJ one could not buy a skillet or broom on Sunday.

They even stopped the whores from buying panty hose!

Little mini bible belt up there.

 

ALANIS MORISSETTE can't distinguish irony from misfortune
either!

And in case you think there's a difference between irony and
sarcasm, look up satire!

Any way, somebody missed the point, JoeBloe. Or were you being
ironically satirical in a sarcastic way?

 

That people charge you to paint your house is not evidence that it is
illegal for you to paint your own house. It may be illegal, or it may
not be illegal, but the existence of painters doesn't prove anything.
That Walmart is charging for an iPod-loading service is not evidence
that ripping is illegal. Ripping may be illegal, but WalMart's service
isn't evidence that it is.

It's logic, see?

RichC

 

A house, however, has a piece of paper, called a Deed, that says it's
Yours, until you sell it. You can fix it, rebuild it, or paint it lil'
pink for you and me.

A DVD, similarly, also comes with a statement, on the front of it while
you're waiting for the darn menu to load--That one says it ISN'T yours,
it technically belongs to the studio, but they were gracious enough to
loan one copy to watch in your own home, or else Interpol is going to
send Detective Zenigata after you.
....It's nice when these issues are spelled out.

Personally, I have my suspicions about whether Wal-mart has been doing
any housepainting of their own, seeing as if they had licensed from the
studio, the studios would be charging a heck of a lot MORE rent than
$1.97 (qv. Amazon's Unbox).
And Wal-mart does have a history of getting a little too psychologicaly
caught up in their own DVD-sales saturation.

Derek Janssen
ejanss

 

Derek Janssen wrote:

[stuff]

All you people are proving is that you can't read for content.

I never said anything about whether ripping DVDs is legal or not.

I only said that Walmart's service is not evidence of ripping being
illegal, or of anything but their desire to make a profit offering a
service.

One might make a case that it's evidence that DVD ripping is difficult
and complicated enough that people who shop at Walmart will pay to have
somebody else do it. The legality of it is not even an issue in this
context. There's nothing implicit or explicit in the offer that says
"it's illegal for you to do it yourself, so let us do it for you." The
offer is simply "Let us do it for you."

RichC

 

Rich Clark tossed the following at the wall, and it stuck:

The OP posted $2 per disc, I know that there is no way that I could rip and
then burn a DVD fast enough at $2 per that I could make any money using a
normal computer with a good burner, or rip and upload to an iPod.

Obviously they must have invested in some more specialized equipment so that
this is feasible to do at this cost, and turn a profit, even if the
operator is only paid minimum Wally World wages.

It would need to be done in less than 5 minutes to have a hope of being
profitable.

--
Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring
light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to
deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for reporting
that Electric Company hired a light bulb-assassin to break the bulb in the
first place.

Froz...

 

....Uh, THAT would be illegal. Which's why I'm holding out suspicions
about the current service.
What WM is planning is probably something through the website--But even
though there's security all over, and a charge for each single device up
to two (Apple gives you a five-device license for one download), $2 is
just a *little* too darn cheap to be true. :/

DO they plan to just "rip the disk the minute it comes in the store", as
we're all fantasizing they are, or have they contracted deals with the
studio that require you to purchase the disk first, with codes, 'n such?
Studios are just a little too tight-fisted for the plan as it is now
(and in primitive fear and awe of the Downloading Volcano God Whose Name
Is Destruction)...And even Apple's service requires buying the entire
file for $10, since no "rental plan" was technically possible.

Derek Janssen

 

Why does everyone assume they're ripping anything? More likely is they'd
get the files in the proper format from the studios day and date with the
DVDs. So they'd just make a quick copy.

 

Anyone who "watches" a film on an iPod should be charged ten times that,
just on general aesthetic principles.

I can't wait til one of those assholes informs me that they "watched" "2001"
on their iPod and "didn't think it was the great film everyone said it was".

 

Maybe. But then, last year I flew to southern Argentina and back to
Philadelphia, a 24-hour trip including airport waits etc, and I was
really glad I'd ripped a bunch of Simpsons season discs and a couple of
Pixar features to my iPod.

Not every DVD is a movie.

RichC