Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham44
Quoth mentions DVD's, VHS etc DRM was never really an issue with them as hardly anyone would have tried to copy them, because you didn't need to, you bought them and you could use them wherever you wanted and lend them or pass them on to whoever you wanted. There was really no advantage to trying to get around the copyright on them as you wouldn't really be gaining anything of significance but you would be breaking the law.
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I don't know where he got his facts from, but it is definitely not the case when it comes to DVDs, which were widely copied and still are.
VHS was even copied a lot, but it was a poorer copy unlike the perfect DVD copy, and each time you copied a VHS tape copy, it just degraded worse, so rarely worth it unless you were almost desperate. That said, the price of a movie on VHS tape was often very expensive, so there was the incentive right there, especially with hired or borrowed tapes. Many folk though, would copy straight from the free-to-air TV broadcasts of a movie etc, and then edit out the advert breaks.
Toward the end of VHS life, they did add a level of DRM in the form of a signal on the tape (Macrovision) which prevented the copy being played properly.
Many if not most DVD's have DRM, though that was easy enough to get around, with lots of programs able to do so.
Blu-rays have always been harder to copy, and remain so ... at least with free programs, though not impossible.
As you mention later, it has become more about control though, though that is certainly tied to copyright. We are moving to a situation, where they don't want us to own any media. They want to control when and where we watch it ... to a large degree anyway.