Power to The Consumer? Or Sony?

With all of the recent drubbings of Sony in both the blogworld and big media, one would think that it was only Sony that was ignorant. I'm here to tell you that that is not the case.

It's the problem of "Who has the power?" When the commercial world came up with the standards for current digital video discs (DVDs), they gave the people who make the discs the power to control certain features during playback. For example, have you noticed that you cannot skip over the "FBI warning" at the beginning of a DVD? You can typically fast-forward through it (although I have at least one DVD that won't allow that, either). There are also DVDs that put previews (commercials for other DVDs) at the beginning of the DVD. You can't skip over those, either. Nor can you go directly to the menu to play the DVD. You know, the DVD that you actually paid money to watch? No, they gave the people who make DVDs the power and they took that power and ran with it. Don't like it? Too bad. They have the power and you are not getting it back. Do you remember that, when you had a VHS tape, you could pop in the tape, probably fast-forward through a minute of dire FBI warnings (of which my thought has always been, "Who would want to copy this?") or other junk, then get to the movie.

Not any more.

Now, in order to watch a DVD, you VILL vatch de commercials und you VILL vatch de FBI varning! UND YOU VILL LIKE IT!

Back to Sony. You remember, the same people who thought that Betamax was the wave of the future? Who didn't give up til the bitter end? The same people who still cling to the notion that they can sell their stuff, which is not much better quality than anyone else, for a much steeper price? Yeah, that's the one. They decided that they were going to one-up the pirates. By not screwing the pirates, but rather by screwing their paying customers. Why? Because they had the power. They sat down and said, "Okay, if we make it so that people cannot play the CDs in their computers without first loading our software, how can we use that to our advantage?" I imagine that, at some point, someone at Sony said, "Er, um, guys, this might be a bad idea. Aren't we just screwing our paying customers while not doing anything to the pirates?"

Okay, okay. I said that they are not screwing the pirates. And they're not. They might be slightly slowing down the pirates. Why? Because if the pirates want to rip off the CD, all they have to do is load the CD into a normal CD player (such as Sony manufactures), direct the audio from the CD player into a computer, and simply record the music from there. While it will reduce the sound quality by a bit, the music was crap to begin with, so who would notice? Remember that this is exactly how the pirates copy movies. They literally take a videocamera into the movie theater and record it while they are watching it. What's to stop them from doing the exact same thing with a CD? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

But why did Sony consider it necessary to do this? Because, right now, people have "the power". They can rip CDs, make them into small, easily transferred files, then use one of a few "file-stealing", er, *file-sharing* programs to share with friends. And there is no degradation in sound quality. None. Doesn't matter if you are the first person in line to get a shared file or the 100th. The bits, and sound quality, are the same. The internet drastically changed the equation. So, lots of people are (ab)using their power. They can steal music or movies for just pennies, as opposed to having to pay many dollars to purchase it legally.

What did Sony do? They tried to swing the power pendulum back. Then they abused the living hell out of the power they had for the short while they had it.

Both sides in this fight are as stupid as the other.