The Observer blog is happy to concede that piracy, especially piracy on a professional scale, is a kind of theft.
We are less convinced that doe-eyed teenagers who make compilation CDs for girls they have hopeless crushes on are on the slippery slope to armed robbery and the cold-blooded execution of entertainment industry executives and their families.
So we're pretty sceptical about the announcement by Macrovision, a Delaware-based software corporation, that its shiny new DVD anti-piracy system RipGuard will put a stop to most home DVD copying.
According to The Register, RipGuard prevents PC users from filching DVD content 97 per cent of the time, which means it will deter 'casual' copiers.
Those wicked casual copiers! That'll learn 'em!
Meanwhile, who do we think is going to be exploiting the 3 per cent window through which DVDs will still be open to replication, geeks like you and me or hardcore criminal gangs who can churn out cheapo copies by the million? Actually, the answer is probably both.
There is a problem with all Digital Rights Management systems: If you want people to be able to access the content easily - in this case watching the DVD at home - you pretty much have to leave a gate open somewhere. That means that some clever clogs is always going to be able to get in to make a copy.
That shouldn't bother Macrovision. If they're lucky, the Motion Picture Association of America will buy into their technology in the vain hope of stopping the evil army of home tapers. That will fill Macrovision coffers for a few years until their product becomes completely obsolete and even my granny is burning her own DVDs again, by which time they'll have come up with next generation RipGuard II.
It looks very much as if the film industry is galloping gamely down the path beaten for them by the music industry, which wasted stacks of money, time and good will trying to stop people from using new technology at home instead of finding new ways to sell people things to use on their new technology at home. (See for example this piece from the BBC: Studios set to sue net movie swappers.)
Large-scale pirates are bad people and deserve to be busted. But let's please drop the whole 'home taping kills music' approach. It didn't. It doesn't. It won't kill movies either. Although it might kill a few profits before the studios get their act together.
Sound of door slamming as Observer blog races out to sell its Disney shares ....
Sound of global economy not melting down.
