 |
With the arrival in the past year of the compact disc
recordable (CD-R) drive and imminent appearance of DVD recordables, though, the scene has
changed entirely. Whereas prior to these technologies, the use of content was enforced by
the medium itself, now it is possible to make a perfect copy of a CD for the cost of the
CD-R unit (currently about $300) and a blank CD-R disc (about $2). The problem is not just
one of basic software piracy, which has been around since the beginning of commercial
software; now it is the possibility to make perfect copies of huge multimedia packages. The emergence of DVD, also in the past year, makes an interesting case study in these problems. The release of the standard was delayed for months because of (still-ongoing) wrangling over copy protection measures. The first use of DVD, much like the CD, is consumer multimedia; right now there are about 700 full-length movies on DVD discs. The movies are represented digitally using MPEG2 video compression and usually ship with extra content, such as widescreen editions, alternate languages, commentaries, and interactive menus. A double-sided, dual-layer DVD can hold about 17 gigabytes of data (30 times more than a CD). Right now DVDs are in the grace period when there is no means to record a DVD, but that will soon end with the appearance of DVD recordable units in the next few years. How content makers will contend with the immenent appearance of these recording units--as well as the current threat of piracy to analog media such as VHS--is the basis for our look at the problem of controlling content in a time of cheap, fast, massive optical storage. |