Hello readers! I know we've been showing some favoritism to the HDTV questioners over the course of the many HDTV Q&As; that have been running lately, but that doesn't mean we don't like general gear questions either! Send in your questions and comments as always, and we'll redouble our efforts to publishing them for all to see! They will be answered by one of these two people, since one of these people is me (the better looking one).



Regarding the Consumer Frustration and Content Piracy editorial:

Fantastic article! My friends and I have been harping about the same thing for some time. One question...when you wrote:

"Even more shocking than this admission, which is quite unlike anything we've heard from the RIAA, Hunt took it a step further, stating "The consumer, if he or she has already purchased licensed material, should certainly be able to transfer that content to any other new or old device."

Would that mean if I had the content on, say, videotape or vinyl record, that if I "illegally" downloaded the same content from the net, I WOULDN'T be really doing anything illegal? Is that what Hunt is implying? If so, that would be fantastic! Right now I have videotape and DVD copies of the same film, much like I have a vinyl record and CD of the same music. I will be damned if I have to pay for the same content on different media.

Steve

Hey Steve,

I wouldn't stretch Brad Hunt's comment that far. What he means to say is that if you buy a movie from the iTunes store or somewhere else you should be able to play it on all the digital devices that you own. The MPAA would be very unhappy with you if you downloaded digital copies of content you own on other formats. Having to pay for the same content in different form factors does indeed suck, but not as much as having to pay for the same content for each individual device you'd like to watch it on.

Fair Use advocates would argue that it should be legal to rip the DVDs you own to digital format and use that for portable devices, but since the MPAA managed to get Congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the mere act of stripping digital copy protection is illegal, so ripping your DVDs to digital for your iPod or whatnot is against the law. This is exactly one of the consumer frustration issues we're talking about when it comes down to why piracy grows.

-Gerry

Thanks for that great article. I just was thinking about this earlier today! I was actually thinking about ripping a movie off a DVD (the de-encoding of a DVD is illegal) I own because, I thought to myself, "I already paid for this once. Why should I have to pay again just so the blasted thing will work on my Ipod?!" Glad the MPAA is starting to get the message. As for DRM, don't even get me started.

Here's to hoping that the IP owners will get the message

Nathan

Hey Nathan,

I totally agree. It's a very frustrating situation for people that want to embrace the digital lifestyle but not get repeatedly ripped off by having to buy the same content again and again just to use it on different digital devices.

-Gerry