“41% of money budgeted for movies and video was spent on DVD movie purchases; 11% on TV programs on DVD; and 29% on DVD rentals, including via Netflix.”

In addition, 18% is spent on movie tickets, but only 0.5% is spent on Web-based services.

also, only 6% surveyed used free p2p networks and 0.5% used “legal” downloads/purchases.

It may be your job, but thank you for responding. The term malware may be inaccurate and a bit of an overstatement, but Rekrul’s experiences/comments spell out very clearly why we dislike, distrust, and won’t use RealNetworks apps. To be fair, the features that are designed to be “helpful” to casual users in many apps (Vista to name a biggy) are in many cases the same things that drive experienced users crazy. But it does go further than that. The “phone home” features that collect data that I consider to be private fall squarely in malware territory. Same goes for file association hijacks, services that keep “coming back” etc…

Lacy, you state, “I’ve seen the malware claim a million times.”.

Doesn’t that tell you something all by itself?

As to RealDVD. Go for it!!

Now:

“the studios say they stand to lose, “key revenue from the sale of DVDs, estimated by Adams Media Research at $15 billion in the U.S. this year, if consumers stop buying DVDs and instead copy rental discs from outlets like Netflix and Blockbuster,” says the Associated Press.”

THEN:

‘I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.’

Ain’t hypocrisy fascinating?
They got bitch-slapped by the Betamax decision, so now we were all “permitted” to own VCR’s. They didn’t try to ban DVD players — because they knew it wouldn’t work since people had been “allowed” to posess home playback equipment AND create a viable “movie rental” business in the process.

But they DID score a big “win” with the region-coding nonsense.

Anybody remember “home taping is killing the music industry”? They’ve been doing this shit so long nobody even cares anymore. Even if they DO manage to get RealDVD stopped, somebody’ll just put out another one.

Remember the big protest over DeCSS? People made t-shirts with the algorythm on ‘em. Remember “Grey Tuesday”? Sony wanted Dangermouse’s Jay-Z/Beatles mashup album taken down: instead you had HUNDREDS of websites hosting the thing in multiple jurisdictions.

Despite the ignorant/downright disingenuous claims of the Cartels’ apologists, this stuff is NOT a “regrettable but temporary moral aberration”. Rather, it’s a permanent — and unstoppable — REPRISAL against corporate megaliths who attempted to do “more than the market would bear”.

Any comment “Sam?” I trust you have something stupid to say on the subject.