Intel Insider DRM Risks Monopoly Investigations 217
Blacklaw writes "Intel's Sandy Bridge line of processors is impressing the tech community with its power, but a sneaky little feature designed to appease Hollywood has some concerned about Intel's intentions: Intel Insider. If a major video streaming service, such as Lovefilm or the US-based Hulu, were to implement Intel Insider technology on their movie streams — as a way of convincing Hollywood to release films sooner and in high definition without worrying about piracy — it would mean that only those who use Intel's very latest Sandy Bridge CPUs would be able to stream movies. Not only would those using older Intel chips that don't support the technology be cut off from the service, but those on systems featuring CPUs from rival manufacturers such as AMD and low-power specialist VIA would also be excluded."
In a blog post about this new feature, Intel denies that it is DRM.
Just buy 'em already (Score:5, Interesting)
Ars [arstechnica.com] had a nice writeup of this yesterday, referencing a 2006 post [arstechnica.com] of theirs. The basic gist is/was that DRM simply CANNOT be a good sell for tech companies, and given that Intel and the other consumer electronics companies are so massive when compared to production costs, why don't they just buy one? Intel could piss on its shoes and come out with the budget for a dozen major films, which they could then release DRM free, to the joy of all of their customers. Hollywood is big, but there are only six major production houses and a number of smaller ones... all of which are worth far less than the major tech companies. Want more movies on iTunes, Apple? You've got the cash, so BUY a production house.
I didn't mean to editorialize, but I think I started to convince myself by the end there.
Re:DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-12/mf_morris [wired.com]
I can give you story after story about major executives who all said digital media will fail, and how consumers don't want digital media, or how it is impossible to do right.
I can give you story after story about executives who insisted consumers will never legally pay for digital media.
I can show you stories of executives saying Hulu was doomed for failure, and NBC only allowed the project to end the debate that putting full episodes of TV on the web was a valid business model.
Hollywood, video game executives and the music industry demand DRM beacause they don't know better. Even worse, they spend money on DRM. It costs them money to "protect their investment", which in turn costs them that much more in tech support and customer nightmares.
If they knew better, they wouldn't do it.
Re:Astounding Hypocrisy (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if it's not DRM, then it shouldn't be illegal to circumvent it.
Re:Umm.... what? (Score:4, Interesting)
You message insinuates that the actions of producing a computer chip with some technology is clearly and inexcusably morally wrong.
In this case, that insinuation is considered by many to be correct.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html [cam.ac.uk]
Once a hugely-powerful system like this is fully-implemented, "stupid DRM tricks" are actually the least worrisome aspect. What government can accomplish in the way of control of everyone's information & digital communications is far more worrisome.
Strat