HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! It looks like DRM not only punishes us average law abiding citizens but affects political leaders too.
In case you missed the news, when Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his first visit to the White House he presented President Obama with an ornamental pen holder made from the wood of the sister ship that provided the wood for the Oval Office desk and a first-edition set of a seven-volume biography about Winston Churchill. A pretty cool and thoughtful gift.
President Obama gave PM Brown a 25 disk set of classic American movies. The kind you see in the clearance bin at Best Buy. The English people were pretty upset and thought it was a snub by the White House. Personally I think Obama is a terrible gift giver.
However, the story gets much better. Apparently, the White House bought Region 1 DVDs and not Region 2 DVDs. All DVDs are encoded with a DRM scheme to allow them to only be played on DVD players from the region in which they are bought. So PM Brown is forced to either throw the presidential gift of DVDs into the trash OR become a law-breaking pirate if it wants to watch them.
When will the world wake up and realize that DRM is stupid and only handcuffs the good guys?
2 comments:
LOL and HOORAY for Obama. Do we REALLY need heads of state to be exchanging ultra-expensive gifts? I say, go Obama for giving a gift that is 1) all American and b)not an over-the-top expenditure!
ps....wouldn't they just have to buy a correct-region dvd player to be able to play the gift dvds? Or is there some techno-aspect that I'm missing?
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