Xbox SNAFUed, and More DRM Issues!

It's Monday all over again, and my God, I never knew I'd be so fearful of schools reopening. Note to self: leaving at 630 am seems to be safest bet for getting out of Subang before the monster jam starts.

Yesterday, I came across a little piece of office equipment that I'd REALLY like to get my mitts on, and it only costs USD 6! Anyone feel like giving the Ox a staple-less stapler (Link)? Like the site says, do we call it a stapless? Or an unstapler?

In related news, Monolith (my Xbox) is now in the shop for servicing, due to what I suspect to be a disc-drive lens issue. I've not played a game in several days, which in my opinion may serve as a catalyst for the sudden interest in Das Experiment. My TV area feels somewhat empty now, and I can only hope that 1) it'll be ready soon, and 2) it won't cost me a bomb. I miss watching my CSI: NY episodes, not to mention playing Ghost Recon 2 (if you're any self respecting gamer, you want that game, and yes the PS2 version sucks because it's done by a different developer).

Which leads back to one of my favouritest (is there such a word) topics in the tech world, ever:

DRM.

I've been posting on this before, but an exchange between BoingBoing's (Link) Cory Doctorow and Wired Magazine's (Link) Chris Anderson has me checking out the RSS feeds quite intently, with the result that Cory has responded to several comments on the issue here (Link). A particular part of the whole article sums up my feelings rather nicely:

"Take the example of the Media Center PC. There is one show -- the Sopranos -- that is currently being cablecast with a flag switched on that prevents you from burning a DVD of the shows you record.

If you're not a Sopranos fan, that's not a big deal -- maybe you're a classic movie buff building a collection of Cagney films off of TNT. $2,000 for a Media Center PC seems like a good buy for you right now.

But how are you to know whether TNT will switch on that same flag? Are you a party to those negotiations? Is there anyone who considers your interests who's in the room where that's being decided? Is there even anyone in that that room who can tell you how it's going, so that before you buy the box, you can read up on the current negotiations and make an informed decision?"

The very fact that the studios can force hardware manufacturers to limit the capabilities of their products reeks of something very smelly to me. Would you in good faith buy a product like a PVR or DVD recorder knowing full well after three months your recorded files may just delete themselves off your hard drive? Of course, one may argue that there's always Ah Nam, Ah Hong, or whatever your friendly pirate DVD vendor's name is; but staying legit is a way of us showing appreciation to the men and women behind the entertainment. As he writes in the first article:

"If you want to watch all the Sopranos or Six Feet Unders in a row at the end of the season, you'll have to do it on Pay Per View. You'll have to buy what you used to get for free: the right to record a show and watch it for as long as you'd like. You get less, you pay more. And the studios can change the rules of the game after you've bought the box and brought it home: the only way you can protect your investment is if you can somehow ensure that no studio executive decides to revoke one of the features you paid for back when the box was on the show-room floor. Remember, these are the same studio execs who are duking it out for the right to limit how long a pause button can work for."

Of course, there will always be the somewhat-optimists who believe that in the end it will all pan out and we'll all reach some sort of a media harmony.

Uh huh. I'll believe it when I see it.

The moment I read these articles I was reminded of a similar controversy when I was growing up - about how VHS was a threat to the TV and movie industry, and suddenly it struck me just how this whole digital era shebang has all the studios and content providers in a tizzy. It's an interesting start to the new year, and we can expect the discussion to get even more heated as time goes by.

In the meantime, if any of you are planning any big tech purchases this year (especially that Windows Media Center Edition PC), you may want to brush up before anything.

Over and out, guys!