Greetings!

An interesting concept - DVDs where the polycarbonate degrades over time until the disk is unreadable. First time I have seen this one...

Yeah, interesting 'solution' for teasers...but if the industry ever tries to sell consumers $30 discs that mysteriously stop working after a while, there will be some rather large lawsuits mysteriously appearing shortly afterwards. The reality is that this technology will probably help drive DVD ripping motivation. The irony of it all cracks me up.

I agree that it is an interesting solution for teasers, possibly no return rentals. From a consumer perspective, no one would buy a disk that would be useless after a few days (DIVX?). And, if it was pushed on the public, people would just rip the content within the visible time.

I am thinking more from the novelty perspective, and the "how is it done" reverse engineering. The polycarbonate must be either light or moisture sensitive, becoming opaque after a certain amound of exposure time. A coating? Could it be polished off? That kind of thing.

The polycarbonate must be either light or moisture sensitive, becoming opaque after a certain amound of exposure time.

They could get the same effect by just shipping the DVDs in leather slipcases instead of card or plastic ones. I've got a "special edition" CD single of, what else, Tainted Love that came like that, and the destruction wrought on the metal layer (not the polycarbonate) by, I presume, tanning chemicals in the leather has to be seen to be believed. There are macroscopic, like 1-2mm, holes in the metal, even though the plastic is untouched and smooth. Where the metal isn't absent it's tarnished nearly black.

This disc came in jolly handy when testing Rio Central's resilience in the face of unreadable CDs...

Peter

Oooh. Very cyberpunk.

Remember when William Gibson released that limited edition something that intentionally degraded over time?

no one would buy a disk that would be useless after a few days (DIVX?).

And couldn't the DIVX disks be played again if you payed another fee with this technology you couldn't even do that.

Many people would argue that one of the reasons that DivX failed is not because of the ridiculous ... licensing? ... of it, but, rather, the fact that, when DivX came out, right at the beginning of DVD marketing, DVDs mostly interested people who were already big into home theater, and DivX releases almost never, if not absolutely never, had any sort of extras on them, and 95% of them were pan-and-scan. Most of the people who are now renting DVDs and not purchasing any of them, which is to say, the people DivX wanted to market to, hadn't even heard of DVDs until after DivX had already failed. Which is funny, considering that Blockbuster, who has now, at least in my area, drastically reduced the number of VHS movies that they carry, owned a large percentage stake in DivX.

Yes, interesting, but apparently this is just an interim step. After some personal discussions with sources that I am not at liberty to identify, I can offer the following.

Starting in 2004, a consortium of CD/DVD manufacturers headed by BMG in cooperation with large retailers will integrate date-keyed EAS (electronic article surveillance -- anti-theft) tags into the body of the CD rather than attaching them to (or hiding them inside) the packaging. This EAS tag apparently will be integrated with TOC and track-start bit strings on some sort of steganographic basis.

In 2005 or 2006, this same consortium has contracted with ESA to launch 28-36 low cost, polar-orbiting satellites codenamed "LOSS-P" (Low orbit satellite surveillance program) that will generate medium-power 8Mhz sweeping signals and build coordinate/alarm records that are triggered by EAS-enabled CDs that exceed certain date parameters (generally thought to be 6-12 months).

In 2007 or 2008, RIAA is expected to fund another ESA launch of a mix of polar and geostationary satellites currently code-named "RIP-STOP" (apparently based on a commercial spin-off of the Livermore Labs defunct "Have Red" program) that will generate key-specific, high-power 8Mhz EMP to short out embedded EAS traces and disable out-of-date CDs.

So," Rip 'em if you got 'em".

Okay, this is completely overboard. It's not about money anymore, obviously, if they're willing to go this far. It's about control.

I don't think he was serious.

Rob

Well, yeah, I hope not.

I don't think he was serious.

I thought it was a bad joke, too, until my contact showed me this.

Oh [censored], we're all doomed.