Introducing the Perishable DVD

[Julio Franco]

In the promotion by Atlantic Records, retailers in the southern United States will offer a free sample DVD to buyers of a CD by Nappy Roots, a hip-hop group. Once the packaging is opened, the disc will work for only eight hours before being made unreadable by a dye sandwiched between the DVD's layers that interacts with air, leaving it opaque.

The limited-use technology was developed by a New York company, Flexplay. With a maximum life span of 60 hours, such optical media has been a solution in search of a problem. Originally envisioned as a way to protect software, the technology was then offered to movie studios and other users concerned about piracy. This year, such discs were given to the press at the MTV Video Music Awards Latin America in Miami and to promote the James Bond movie "Die Another Day."

You can read the rest at the NYTimes website (registration needed, though).

 

[Unregistered]

Uhhhh, what is to stop someone from simply using their PC to rip the DVD to their hard drive and/or burn a new copy, throwing away the useless original? Ok, I guess the average joe wouldn't know how or be able to do that, but still...

 

[Rick]

WHY would someone make a perishable DVD?

DVDs are usually for movies.. Correct? Then the only possible application of perishable DVDs would be for "trial purposes".. Correct?

Then what good does this do? People are going to be less inclined to buy a DVD that they have already seen, I would imagine. On top of everything, the perishable DVDs are more expensive to produce, no doubt.

This doesn't stop piracy and this will most likely hurt sales.. It seems pointless.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Maybe we will have perishable DVD+RWs in the future :giddy:

Write as many times as you can in 60 hours :giddy:

 

[RustyZip]

I can see it now....

In 5 years time Microsoft will be bringing out a perishable Windows XP version

 

[Arris]

If you don't activate it in the first 30 days it perishes and you have to buy a new one.

 

[Phantasm66]

Primarily its intended that the perishable DVD be used for video rentals. You therefore rent a DVD which you do not have to return, as when the DVD rental period expires, the DVD is then useless.

 

[Vehementi]

8 hours to rip it to your hard drive and put it in your fileserve in IRC, and your favorite P2P app. Then rip it to another DVD.

What's the point? They're only touching the people who don't have PC's.

Now, the copy-protected perishable DVD is another thing. But, like the DVD, that idea will perish after about a day of the world's hackers taking apart the copy-protection and hacking together their own little app to nullify it.

Next!

 

[Vehementi]

Oh yeah, and not to mention this is a TERRIBLE wasting of DVD's. They'll all go to the trash, and then on to a landfill, to spend 10 million years rotting.

 

[StormBringer]

The only purpose for this would be rentals that never have to be returned because they would only last the length of the rental time. Otherwise there is no use for it and it other than to join our huge collections of AOL CDs.

 

[conradguerrero]

I used to erase and reuse the aol floppy disks I got in the mail.
Life was so much simplier then.:stickout:

 

[Rick]

It's not very enviromentally friendly either.

 

[Phantasm66]

Maybe they need to create biodegradable ones