Twit wrote:Yeah, fucking AFACT. If Optus and Telstra are smart they would chuck some money into a legal fund to help iiNet fight it, because you know they'll be next if this sets a precedent. Unfortunately I don't think Telstra is at all smart. Maybe the EFF could help 'em out. I love the way AFACT goes about it, targeting a mid range ISP - big enough to make waves but small enough to be drained by fighting a long drawn out legal battle. Cunts.
The internet allows us to talk about all television and film as soon as it's released anywhere in the world. What that means by extension is that it's all spoiled for anyone who's in a territory that gets is six months later.
We could buy it, though, couldn't we? Oh, wait, we can't, because we can only play region 4 DVDs, which locks us out of paying.
Oh, but we could buy them through iTunes or similar, couldn't we? Oh, wait, content isn't available to every country at once, and when it is we're locked into watching it on a PC or through Apple TV.
File-sharing isn't popular because it's free, it's popular because it's simply
the best option available. The choice is staggering, and most content is available immediately it airs in one country.
The industry could replicate this availability very easily, and with better quality of product and service. It could charge a monthly subscription for a set number of hours of content. It could make loads and loads of money out of such a system because of its natural superiority, and because it squarely meets consumer demand.
But the industry knows best. Its answer is to do the following:
1. Region-code hard content so consumers are forced to wait an arbitrary amount of time for it
2. Withhold downloadable content so consumers are forced to wait an arbitrary amount of time for it
3. Slap DRM all over everything so it doesn't work in most situations
4. Expect consumers to fall in line
In amongst all this suing I'm surprised someone with significant clout hasn't stood up and demanded the industry do its utmost to respond to the 21st century, instead of following the clinically insane and fatalistic path of trying to force the entire planet to comply with its archaic demands.
Fucking idiots.