Blu-ray “Managed Copies”: December 4th. Players that actually support this crap: 0.

Remember high school and all of the various fads and gimmicks that flowed like water out of dam? Ya, it was that evident. Such a comparison can be made with the latest digital rip off titled (politically correct title that is) “Blu-ray Managed Copies”. Essentially it is another way movie studios and labels somehow get away with controlling how we use our purchased content. The way this service works is when copying a Blue-ray disc, the player sends out a signal to the “mother ship” via the internet. That mother ship/server will then relay back to your player the specifics to make the copy and authorize it. Sounds like a legitimate solution that should appease both sides right? Wrong. Epic failure in fact.

You see, only new Blu-ray players support this (read: pretty much every player before….now…won’t work with managed copies.) Outstanding, so now we have to buy all new hardware to copy a disc we already own. See how they suck us in and steal more and more money from us? Also of importance is an internet connection. I can see it now. Grandma want to copy her “I Love Lucy” Blu-rays but can’t because her grandson got her a Blu-ray player yet she doesn’t know what computer model “the internet” is? Well, sorry grams, without an internet connection you’re SOL. Oh ya, the real kicker is a treat — these copies of already purchased discs aren’t going to come free. That’s right, you’re going to double and triple pay (triple because you had to buy a brand new blu-ray player) for the same damn disc because some old shmuck in a suit thousands of miles away has paid off enough government bodies to do their bidding. Of course, none of this would be a problem if it wasn’t for the worst clause ever written by man kind — the “anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA”. It is that very clause that big content owners love for it gives them the right to screw every customer to the fullest extent.

It’s times like these that make me wish HD-DVD were still around. Back-up copies were a free provision that had been integrated in the format from the beginning. Blu-ray merely tacked it on to look good in the public spotlight. Sadly it is we consumers who are going to yet again be punished. Hey whatever floats those media execs’ boats yachts I guess. I know where my dollar will go — not to some damn exec charging me two and three times to copy my Blu-ray to my phone. Nope. It will go to the “Donate Button” on my favorite torrent sites. The harder you people (I think we all know who I’m talking about) push against consumers’ rights the harder we’re going to push back.

Ars Technica

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