OT Couple things that might be of interest...

>I think it uses chemicals. They're gonna make it so once you open it and oxygen
>hits the surface of the DVD it won't work after 2 days. So as long as its still in the
>package it will be okay.

Hmm, if that's the case, I wonder if spraying the entire DVD as soon as you open it, with a clear sealer would stop it from degrading?

>I don't like the idea of it though it sounds like a garbage nightmare.

Me either. It would be fine if they were free, but I don't like the idea of paying money for something of limited use. A local bargain store sells older software for $4.99 each and just the other day I bought three games. I was looking at the boxes last night and I noticed that one of them was marked (in small print) "Special Edition* Contain three levels from the full game!" Later today it's going back to the store. If I wanted the demo, I would have downloaded it!

>As for restrictions with other types of connections, well they're already here. We
>also have satellite services that we offer to our more rural customers. Your
>speed drops with the more downloads you make. Say you make a download of

I don't have broadband because I can't afford $50 a month, but if I did and an ISP pulled this crap, I'd cancel my service double-quick. In fact, if they advertised unlimited usage, I think I might even go so far as to report them for false advertising. If I'm going to pay for highspeed access, I'm going to want it for downloading and maybe the occasional upload.

>100megs. Your bandwidth will then go down from 500k to around 450k, and it
>drops progressivly from there.

Can you please provide more information on this? Is this per download, per day or what? In other words, does the speed reset after a certain point, like when the download finishes, or does it just drop down and stay there no matter what the user does? Is this only for downloads from web sites, or does this just go by the entire amount of data transferred? Will it still kick in if the user is watching streaming videos?

Lastly, is this policy clearly made known to your users?

>As for P2P services, I recently recieved an email here in the tech support office
>from Waner Bros. One of our customers had traded Matrix Reloaded online.
>Warner Bros caught their I.P. and wanted us to cancel their service.

And did you? I could be mistaken, but I don't think they have any legal grounds to ask you to do that. From what I've heard about the DMCA (which I think is a very bad law that should be repealed), they can only ask you for the user's information and then it's up to them to take action.

>what the heck is high bandwidth for if we can't use it to download and trade files?

I agree!

>why don't they fix the radio so people can't tape from it?

I hate to tell you this, but there are actually some groups working on things like this. I have no idea if they'll ever succeed, or get hardware makers to go along with it (without buying new laws I mean), but the idea is to put a digital 'watermark' into all videos and music and then to make every device capable of recording look for that watermark and refuse to record if it finds it. So if someone tried to bootleg a movie from the theater by using a camcorder, it would see the watermark in the film and shut off.

>it is fair to tell them "New Technology bad! don't use!"?

They've done it before, that's why you can't buy digital tape recorders here in the US (I mean consumer models). The record companies were afraid that people would use them to make digitally perfect copies of CD's.

>should i just drop 'em, bend over, and let the RIAA show me what the boys like to
>do to pass the time in jail?

Must you inject sex into every post??? :)

>maybe they should come a'knockin' on our doors and see who all taped Cher's
>farewell concert. because surely enough, next time they pop it into their VCR and
>enjoy the music, Cher won't be getting paid for it.

I could be wrong, but I think even that might be technically illegal since the recording of TV broadcasts is intended only for time-shifting of shows.

Of course they know that people do it, and nobody really cares. I tape some TV shows to keep and I've even copied them for people that missed the airings and wanted to get caught up before the next episode. This is illegal to do, but nobody is getting hurt by it, so going after people who do this isn't a big priority. Of course if the various media groups get their way, there will be provisions in the digital TV standards that will prevent you from doing this, or even loaning your tape to a neighbor to watch. They haven't had too much luck getting their lackey's in congress to pass such laws yet, so they've been meeting in secret (well, semi-secret) with the companies who make TV's, VCR's etc, and trying to pressure them into including 'digital rights management' AKA copy protection, into the standards. Jack Valenti and the MPAA are leading this idiotic operation :<