A Modest Construct

Charlie Demerjian of the The Inquirer talks about Intel’s Q1 2006 Media Center offering and, well…. why it makes the Baby Jesus cry.

So, that is what it is, how does it sell you up the river? The first part is DRM. Any DRM on a machine is simply a sign of failure. It signifies that the providers cannot, or will not provide you with a good product at a fair price. People are inherently averse to getting screwed, in the way that Intel is doing mind you, and if you try to screw people, they will avoid you. If you offer them something they actually want, they tend to readily open their wallets. This crushing DRM that is being foisted upon you is the surest sign that you don’t want this product, and you will be paying too much for it. Don’t like that? Bought legislators are hard at work making sure you will go to jail if you try to exercise your rights on the issue.

Here’s how it works. The record companies, and to a far lesser degree the movie studios, are rapacious greedy bastards that have a failing business model. No, really, look at the numbers, they are on a treadmill where they need bigger and bigger hits to support the 90 plus per cent of projects that don’t make dollar one. Each time, they spend more and more money making the latest plastic knuckle dragger seem cool enough so you will part with your money.

It is getting harder and harder to do, mainly because quality is declining so rapidly. So, rather than go for quality and content you want to buy, they are trying to make it so you have to buy, and crying to legislators that you are evil if you don’t consume how they want, when they want, in the ways that they want. Pay per play has these cretins drooling.

Add in the fact that they completely missed the boat for digital media, obstructed its growth at every possible turn, and sued their prime consumers when they didn’t flock to sup-par offerings at super-par pricing, and you have a recipe for failure. This is exactly what the record companies are doing, failing, and it is richly deserved. Some adapted early, Go-Kart being a prime example, are doing the right thing for the right reasons. The vast majority are not.

In their failing, they are passing laws left and right that make you a criminal for doing things that you were entitled to do up until it did not make several large corporations enough money. Don’t like it? How many Congressmen do you own?

Their excuse it that they won’t enter a market without what they deem as adequate protection. Silly me, it seems that they define adequate protection as charging more for a download than a physical product that has actual costs to produce, ship, stock and sell. It is a flat out sham, and strangely, people are stupid enough to believe it, and buy the fact that the poor record companies will lose their shirts if they so much as dip a toe in the water without DRM. They can’t come in without you giving up your fair use rights.

I must say that I’m not used to such lengthy editorializing on the part of The Inquirer, but I agree with what they’re saying.

Of course, Linux is already hard to use in a media box because most distributions don’t come with out-of-the-box codec support. But, it’s still possible.

My only hope is that AMD doesn’t do the same dumb thing in order to ingratiate themselves with OEMs and other vendors. I’m perfectly happy with AMD catering to the “free as in freedom” crowd, especially since AMD’s products are technically superior to any of Intel’s current offerings.

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