Forbes blogger David Ewalt thinks so. In a recent blog post, he called the studios’ efforts to protect their content “useless and annoying” at best.
I simply don’t think David is right. First, just like in the Viacom vs Google suit, copyright holders have a right to protect their content. Second, despite losing money to the pirates, their efforts really aren’t that annoying, especially when you consider the scope of the problem. So you have to watch a promo for the MPAA’s anti-piracy efforts along with the other stupid trailers that you don’t really want to watch either. So what?
Finding solutions that get around that annoyance – among others – is a quick search away. Like with most hot-button issues, people like to gripe, but aren’t going to put much effort behind it. There’s too many DVD copying suites out there for anyone to be all that disgruntled about it. Companies like Slysoft are quite clear about what their software can do.
That said, he did find this hysterical article on DVD-sniffing dogs. So thanks, David!