Star Wars, meet DRM

The first intergalactic war will be started by spoilers





















Cue intergalactic war.


6 Responses to “The first intergalactic war will be started by spoilers”

  1. Sorry but DRM and Region Coding are not the same thing. Region Coding, long seen in video games before the advent of DVD, was a means to protect the local distributor of products that were often released months earlier in Japan before the other region localizations were ready. For a small company the problem was not having the capital to commit to localization before the game was a proven product in its native version. Likewise, these smaller companies often had to partner with companies local tot he region to provide distribution and frequently play a part in the localization process.

    It’s kind of absurd to see someone whining about region coding of DVDs. The 90s called and they want their complaints back.

    It’s also amusing that Doctorow has used that title. Long ago he was obnoxious in defending sites like Scribd that were blatantly hosting copyrighted material against the wishes of the owners. I guess he became a bit more concerned about his income after he’d gotten a taste of a higher priced lifestyle.

    A better analysis in fictional form can be found in Peter Hamilton’s ‘Misspent Youth.’ Not his best work but it has an interesting subplot about the repercussions of the invention of a cheap data storage technology that puts petabytes in your pocket.

  2. Yeah, I came here to mention that you can get a region-free DVD player for cheap, or unlock many (but not all) DVD players with special unlock codes. However, because you bought this DVD in South Africa, there is some possibility that it is also in the PAL system, instead of the NTSC system that is used in the US. I understand that some DVD players and some TVs can handle either PAL or NTSC but never tried it myself. I agree that the whole region locking thing is a major paint though.

    • Deji Olukotun

      Thanks for reading the article. You’re right–there are plenty of ways to unlock a DVD now. But the problem is that the DMCA made it illegal to reverse engineer those locks and share a solution publicly. This software is available because the entertainment companies stopped enforcing DRM rather than because it is legal per se. Every company has the option of filing suit or not–not all of them do. And the government won’t necessarily prosecute unless the company urges that charges be brought. On a personal level, I could hack it, but I can’t share it. No one is reassured by a lack of enforcement. It means it could be used on any given day.

  3. Derek Gallagher

    @Deji Bryce Olukotun you can region unlock any dvd player. Just Google the unlock code for the make and model of your dvd player. The instructions will tell you the combination of buttons you need to press that brings up a menu allowing you to watch region locked dvd’s