Nature of the Black Market

Someone has claimed that he has broken the AACS encryption on high definition discs. Regardless of the validity of this crack and its degree of success, a fully functional crack is not a question of if but when. There is great anticipation out there for this to happen and it is beyond the cracker community. General consumers are waiting for it too. The problem with AACS is with the content it is trying to protect. What is burnt onto these discs are not meant to last, they are supposed to be fashionable, i.e. disposable. A movie is meant to be watch once, twice at the most. Consumers are supposed to buy a new disc every time they want to watch a movie. That is why there were attempts to make one-play discs before. This way the major companies think they can keep the buyers coming. The problem is that disposable items are supposed to be cheap. Who want to pay US$30 for a disposable DVD? People buy them but how many think they paid a fair price? These greatly overpriced disc are what created the piracy market. If they were priced at $5, say, would people go through the trouble to download them on P2P or Usenet? Would they search out street venders to buy pirated disc of uncertain quality? Technies focuses their anger on the AACS’s problems with hardware—it would not let them play the discs on some expensive equipments. The bigger problem with general consumers is the disparity between price and the disc’s disposable nature. As long as this disparity continues, there will be a black market and the inevitable crack will make this market possible. And all of these have nothing to do with intellectual property right but the severely overpriced nature of the products.