DVDFile

An issue provoking unjustified calls for a boycott

Before I begin, I’ll remind you that for some time I wrote column after column decrying draconian copy protection.  I was particularly concerned with: image constraint; the mechanisms that would be put in place should it ever be necessary to disable either a title or a player model; and, to a lesser extent, Mandatory Managed Copy (MMC).  I suggested that the abandonment of early adopters would put the introduction of the new HD disc formats in jeopardy.  And I encouraged you to contact the studios to express your concerns.  Perhaps the studios responded to online discussions and editorializing about the issues.  Perhaps they responded to your mail-bombing them to raise issues.  Regardless, we now have HD discs being released without image constraint (at least for now) and the promise of MMC.  However, others are calling for a more severe consumer effort to express displeasure at Digital Rights Management (DRM): the boycott of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

Science fiction author Cory Doctorow is an outspoken opponent of DRM.  As a successful author, he’s facile and can be somewhat persuasive.  However, in an age when perfect digital copies are technically possible and when film studios derive the largest percentage of income from the sale of intellectual property on optical disc, accepting his arguments may kill the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg.

Despite clear and longstanding laws that define copyrights, he’s reported to believe that film studios do not have the right to protect their multi-million dollar investments by trying to stop online sharing of movies.  In that context, Doctorow has said, “That's kind of like saying the Catholic church invests three generations of labor into the construction of a cathedral, how will religion continue after this Protestant Reformation of yours, right? Well, I don't think the important thing is cathedrals.”  I’m not exactly sure what point he’s trying to make, but I have the impression that he’s saying that a completely free marketplace should be allowed to function undeterred and that we should not worship the edifices created by the studios.

He further claims, “Maybe downloading hurts films, although as far as we can tell it doesn't, as far as we can tell films that are downloaded sell better, do better in the box and so on unless they're bad movies. The Hulk movie tanked after widespread downloads before opening weekend because people thought it looked like rubbish, not because people have downloaded it.”

I find his reasoning to be quite specious.  I have yet to find any credible study that demonstrates that downloading enhances box office receipts or DVD sales.  A disappointing movie is exposed long before it comes to your local Cineplex.  Simply read or watch film critics.  Or read the online buzz after a film opens.  The quality of a bad film will quickly be revealed.  No download is required.

He highlights the DRM issue by comparing CDs and DVDs, “If you bought a thousand dollars worth of DVDs 10 years ago, all you can do with them 10 years later is watch them, because there's DRM on DVDs and it's against the law to figure out new things that you can do to add value to a DVD. Now if you bought a thousand dollars worth of CDs 10 years ago, 10 years later you can rip them, turn them into MP3 CDs, MP3s, you can back them up, you can put them on your own music server, you can load them onto your iPod - the whole iPod and portable music player market exists because CDs didn't have DRM on them - you can make them into karaoke and mash-ups and ringtones and all the rest of it. It's a dividend you've made on your investment . . . if you buy DVDs, if you - God help you - buy Blu-rays and HD DVDs . . . you're screwed, that dividend will never be paid to you . . . “

Again, I find the reasoning to be flawed.  Film on optical disc has one and only one purpose.  Such discs allow consumers to enjoy movies at home in the comfort of their living rooms or dedicated home theaters.  It’s a convenience: set your own viewing time, don’t deal with rude theater patrons, don’t pay exorbitant refreshment stand prices, watch the film again at any time, enjoy informative supplements.  The fundamental purpose of DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc is to convey motion pictures to the home.  The content is not intended to be freely shared.  Film is not freeware.  And in recognition of whole home media servers, Managed Copy will be offered without making the content readily available for illegal distribution.  And please don’t tell me that viewing HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc content with 1920x1080 pixel resolution on a 2.5-inch Video iPod with 320x240 pixel screen resolution has merit.

This brings us to his suggestion that consumers boycott HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, which he claims are “battling to see who will get the best licensing terms from Hollywood by battling to see who will offer the worst product.” He adds, “And you can tell your friends and neighbors why it matters, because it's hard to communicate this to people. But ultimately you wouldn't buy a car with the bonnet welded shut but every time we buy DRM-crippled media we get media and we get medium players that are welded shut.  I might not ever intend on improving my player myself but I don't want to get locked into a player that no one's allowed to improve except the manufacturer.”

As a home theater enthusiast, my sole concern is that any optical disc and its player perform the task for which it was intended: a transparent and glitch-free means of enjoying film at home.  It makes not the slightest bit of difference if the player contains titanium-clad unbreakable copy protection mechanisms as long as the discs play properly when inserted into the player’s drive.  DVD became the single most successful consumer electronics product because of its improved quality, improved durability, enhanced features, and lower cost compared to VHS.  It performed its design task admirably.  So will the HD disc formats.

Doctorow expands his thoughts with some sociological philosophy, suggesting that only monopolists like DRM, “Anarchists hate it, capitalists hate it, socialists hate it, greens hate it, educators hate it, religious people hate it, they all hate it.  The Christian right hates DRM because it means you can't distribute DVD players that skip the dirty parts, Marxists hate DRM because it gives stronger holds on huge multinational corporations. Everyone hates it. When Marxists and the Christian right and pornographers and anti-porn activists all agree that DRM is bad news, then you know that this is a cause that we're going to win out on in the end.”

I certainly agree that anarchists hate it (virtually by definition).  I doubt that capitalists hate it; DRM protects corporate intellectual property.  I doubt that greens hate it; creating non-biodegradable optical disc copies can’t be good for the environment.  I doubt that pornographers hate it; DRM protects their works from illegal copying as well.  I have not stumbled upon references that would demonstrate that socialists and educators hate DRM, but I would certainly agree that the Christian right hates the inability to edit and censor film.  And quite frankly, they should not be permitted to change any filmmaker’s intent or vision.  Is it justifiable to paint a brassiere over the naked breasts of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus?  I think not.  But what Doctorow doesn’t address is whether or not the presence of DRM will adversely affect the consumer using the discs as they were intended to be used.  If the film on disc plays in a satisfying manner, we’re done.

And when does the issue of popularity become a higher priority than justifiable law?  I dare say that traffic patrols and moving violations aren’t very popular, but they are a necessary control mechanism in our civilized society to prevent excesses on the road from taking lives.

Doctorow suggests that because peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing is “the fastest adopted technology in the history of the world, far faster than anything ever,” the abuses that threaten film profitability may be justified.  He continues, "So you had 52 million American Napster users who lost the use of Napster when the courts shut it down in 2001 - only 50 million Americans voted for George W. Bush that year. There were more users of Napster than it would take to elect a president, but when they shut down Napster it was like when you turn on the lights in the kitchen and the roaches scurry under the appliances - no one said wait a second, 80 per cent of the music every recorded wasn't available until Napster, that's a kind of slow motion burning of the library of human creativity, we just erected the largest library in the history of the world, we did it for free, what the hell are you doing burning it down."

Equating file-sharing services to a vast store of intellectual property, the largest library in the history of the world, is also specious.  Thanks to DVD (and ultimately, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc), films are being restored by the studios and preserved digitally in pristine form.  The optical disc market has spawned the resurrection and preservation of films that would have been lost to society forever.  Do anything that would threaten the return on investment of such restorations and preservations and we truly shall lose significant portions of our culture.  By the way, those films in digital form are being stored on onsite and offsite media.  A vast library of films is now a distributed institution.  The existence of a P2P service that historically looked the other way as copyrights were routinely violated, stored vast amounts of cultural information, and became exceptionally popular is irrelevant to preserving our cultural heritage.

To his credit, Doctorow states that file sharing did not have an effective mechanism for compensating artists [and film studios], but suggests that such shortfalls can be corrected.  He firmly believes that an inexpensive and readily available means to offer the maximum amount of material to the maximum number of people is the ideal.  I cannot disagree.  There will be efforts made to provide other delivery mechanisms beyond optical disc, like pay per view, on demand, and others.  I previously wrote that I suspect Microsoft put itself into the HD disc format battle to cause consumer confusion until its Internet-based film distribution system can be brought online.  So such mechanisms are coming.

I suggest that we allow the market to decide which mechanism will succeed and which will fail.  An analysis of the consumer electronics market suggests that people like to hold their films in their hands, that physical media is the preferred delivery vector.  Let the marketplace sort out the winners and the losers.  Let’s not support any misguided and arbitrary boycott.