Apple Movie Rentals - BAD IDEA!

[chevy]

And frankly the revolution will be when we'll be able to rip DVDs that way we rip CD. No to act as a pirate, but to use my Mac as a juke box. I rip my own CDs and I buy from iTMS. So why not do the same for movies and series when the price of the hard disk will be low enough ?

[symphonix]

I'm not quite sure I see your point, G5 guy. If you're saying people will be able to copy movies from iTunes movie rentals, well maybe they will, but then they can already do that from any other source. In fact copying from other sources such as original DVDs is easier, quicker and results in higher quality copies than any screen recording software.

People simply won't copy the movies from iTunes because it would be extremely slow, cumbersome and potentially insecure - after all, Apple places watermark information into the video files identifying which user downloaded the file.

Believe me, it is something that they have put a lot of thought into and wouldn't have been able to get it off the ground unless they could convince the movie studios involved that it was more secure against piracy than other distribution methods.

[ApeintheShell]

Shut up iMac G5 Guy. Who cares if you can do this?
It does not mean iTunes Movie Rentals is a bad idea. They have iTunes DRM music and lo and behold they have apparently sold close to 4 billion songs.
Next time contribute something with substance instead of telling us the usual complaints. I doubt the iTunes store will loose money because a couple guys are pirating rental movies because they are too cheap to afford $3-$4 movies.

[Captain Code]

How about you rephrase your response to be less of an ahole.

[michaelsanford]

chevy, I rip my DVDs to my hard disk using Handbrake so that I don't have to carry them with me while traveling, which I do very regularly with my iBook. And, with Front Row, it is a jukebox! (Allbeit a slow, poorly-designed one, better to use Finder and VLC).

Also, regarding unlocking a DVD... A mechanism to lock DVDs doesn't exist, to the best of my knowledge, at least I've certainly never encountered one. If one were so inclined, I don't see any (technical!) barrier to ripping DVDs from Blockbuster willy-nilly. Naturally, such a practise would be a violation of copyright laws, and so not recommended.

[ApeintheShell]

Sorry I am in a bad mood.
Short version: don't pirate iTunes movies using third party software.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Hey, I got no problem with ApeintheShell's response -- the original poster posed a very "pointed" question, and ApeintheShell's answer was just as pointed. No harm, no foul.

And, as ApeintheShell pointed out, "screen recording" is nothing new. Screen recording a DRM'ed movie won't get you the same quality as the original recording -- just as burning iTMS tracks to a CD and re-importing or using Audacity to record the streams won't get you the same quality as the original DRM'ed MP4.

We've always been able to circumvent DRM on videos and audio files... nothing new here. It's just that the "legal" ways to circumvent DRM always produce lower-quality copies of the original material instead of producing a bit-for-bit copy of the original material, which is what Apple is trying to protect against.

[michaelsanford]

ElDiablo, that made me think of a recent experience I had trying to find foreign (Greek and Arabic) music videos from here. I just couldn't find actual DVDs or CDs. What I did find on google were videos on YouTube, taken by putting a camera up to a TV...