Cory posts on a new Sony patent filing for an invention that would make a game cartidge software unplayable on any machine but the one which first read it:
Sony has filed for a patent for a technology to tether a video-game to a console so that you can’t sell it, loan it out, play it on a new console after your existing one is stolen or damaged, etc. Some speculate that this is intended for use with the PS3, but wherever it’s deployed, it’s very consistent with Sony’s ongoing contempt for its customers. Once you’ve installed rootkits onto everyone’s PCs, what’s a little unfair trade practices aimed at killing the aftermarket?
There seems to be no end to efforts to apply the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions to prevent or restrict routine, well-entrenched customer behaviour. Whether the result is anti-competitive or anti-consumer doesn’t seem to matter …
Metafilter considers “all the other possible ways of preventing the reuse, resale, portability, sharing, or carrying over of anything purchased beyond use on the first platform, in the first room, under the first reading light, and any other such nefarious attempt to steal more than one glimpse of anything after paying once for it”, and suggests:
fingerprint recognition on smart-paper book covers. You buy it, it’s registered to your fingerprints, and if anyone else picks it up, it erases itself. — Next, visual distortion of 3-D screen imagery to match your particular eyesight, so you can only view the screen _without_ wearing your eyeglasses (anti-optical-correction algorithms tied to your prescription). Anyone else viewing the 3-D movie just gets a headache. — There are plenty of good ideas for making people miserable that could be applied …