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Information Technology

Disney to Begin Renting 'Self-Destructing' DVDs

By TS | Julio, TechSpot.com
Published: May 16, 2003, 5:42 PM EST
"This disc will self-destruct in 48 hours". You might remember this story we covered months ago about perishable DVDs, Disney seems to be the first company to announce commercial use of self-destructible discs when the pilot movie "rental" program launches this August.

Developed by Flexplay Technologies, the discs start off red, but when they are taken out of the package, exposure to oxygen turns the coating black and makes it impenetrable by a DVD laser.

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User Comments (14)

Post a comment
acidosmosis
on May 16, 2003
6:03 PM
3 words: stupid, pointless, and fruitless.

---agissi---
on May 16, 2003
8:44 PM
Yea really...Surely there will be ways around this...mods, fruity supported lazers,etc. Im not sure I really understand it though. Is it so you can steal the DVD from a store or what?

Rick
on May 16, 2003
8:51 PM
One of the best tale-tale signs of a throw-away society is when you start throwing away everything! :)

It's a waste of materials, bad for the enviornment and will likely make Disney millions as it crushes the 2nd hand DVD industry....

luigi2000
on May 16, 2003
10:59 PM
Calling this moronic is insulting to morons.

shnig
on May 17, 2003
7:13 AM
Wont it just be possible to cover this in cling film or something so oxagen cant get to disc surface?

Phantasm66
on May 17, 2003
7:25 AM
Maybe I am stoned and missing something, but it seems to me that if you still have a finite amount of time to use the disk whilst its still readble, then you still have time to rip it... Surely?

I think this may turn out to be potentially worse for piracy, not better. It will cause of flood of short time, limited life disks that will instantly be ripped and then thrown away.

If people can get hold of short life DVDs for less money, rip them and then share the rips on broadband, then I think this will lead to MORE movie rips on the likes of Kazaa, not less.

I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, so don't flame me for saying anything dumb please.

Phantasm66
on May 17, 2003
7:28 AM
Originally posted by Rick
One of the best tale-tale signs of a throw-away society is when you start throwing away everything! :)

It's a waste of materials, bad for the enviornment and will likely make Disney millions as it crushes the 2nd hand DVD industry....


An EXCELLENT point, Mr Rick.

So much concern over the profits of Disney and people like that, where's the concern over the environment???

cat this_stupid_idea > /dev/null

Mictlantecuhtli
on May 17, 2003
8:29 AM
Angry customers could make small holes to packages so that they'd be unreadable when sold already :giddy:

young&wild
on May 17, 2003
10:26 AM
What a joke! A waste of money and natural resources.

timmoore
on May 17, 2003
2:20 PM
This is pathetic, I won't be buying any DVDs from Disney anymore (not like I ever did ;)), not because of the "self destructing" crap, but simply because I don't support the way they think they can do whatever they want. Eventually this will lead to even larger environmentally unfriendly methods of stopping piracy, and they will all be cracked as they have been in the past, so it's all pointless in the end, they should just think of a method that will be more long term - like Microsoft's Palladium, I don't like it, but it's better than this!

Rick
on May 18, 2003
1:23 AM
I don't think this is to curb piracy - It is probably meant to stop stealing and/or 2nd hand DVDs.

If anything, pirated copies will be the ONLY permanent copies available. :)

Darth Shiv
on May 18, 2003
3:27 AM
Hooray for efficiency.... now they expect video stores to stockpile copies of each DVD to rent out???

Unregistered
on May 18, 2003
10:38 PM
What about the people who rent the movie but dont get a chance to watch it until the last minute but open it up on the way home to look inside at the papers and all. I know this sounds crazy but my family does not have time to always watch the movies rightaway. With this chances are we dont get to see it al all.

Rick
on May 19, 2003
12:24 AM
The graudual degradation of the DVDs will also not be uniform on every DVD player. I'm expecting this type of media to work worse, or not at all, in many DVD players. Especially when it is nearing its "death".

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