Digital Home Thoughts: DVDs vs. Consumers in All-Out War

"Having grown tired of one war, we're on the eve of another, complete with alliances, secret codes, and laser beams. No, not Iran -- it's the fight over the next generation of DVD devices. The real battle isn't between Sony (SNE) and Microsoft (MSFT) and their chosen formats, it's between the manufacturers and us -- the consumers, the ones who ultimately pay for it all. And the battle is over Digital Rights Management (DRM), because in addition to increased storage, these new disks are packed full of copy-protection functions, some of which impair our ability to use the content we pay for, the way we like and are legally entitled to."

A great opinion piece by David H. Holtzman on the way the war against consumers is shaping up - and it looks like we're in for a long, drawn out war unless someone manages to give a reality check to the movie studios pushing for all this DRM protection. I'm a big consumer of mass-media: I buy a lot of CDs, and a lot of DVDs. All the DRM pain I've gone through has slowed down my purchasing of CDs, and if next-gen DVDs are even worse, I may never ramp up my purchases of those. If the iTunes model has taught us anything, it's that people will buy content if it's priced reasonably and there are reasonable restrictions on how it can be used.