Disney sez: No Bluetooth for you
posted March 28th 2005 2:41PM
Turns out that it's not just the carriers that are down on Bluetooth (Sprint and Verizon have this nasty habit of
demanding that Bluetooth be crippled on some of their handsets) — apparently Walt Disney is doing a pretty good job of
it themselves with their complete unwillingness to let their wireless partners use Bluetooth to transfer Disney-themed
mobile content (like ringtones and wallpaper) directly to handsets until some sort of secure DRM system is in place
(feel free to insert your own snotty comment about no one wanting Disney crap anyway). They're worried about consumers
illegally sharing ringtones, but they needn't fret much longer—the very Orwellian-named
Open Mobile Alliance is already planning to introduce a
new standard for locking down mobile content later this year.
[Via GigaOm]
I once had a mickey watch that played "It's a small world" - I wouldn't mind that ring tone! :)
So? It's not like this will affect anyone that has any kind of Disney content on their computers anyways, which would likely be the people using Bluetooth to move the content to their phones, since just about all of the carriers require using their wireless internet connectivity to download the wallpaper/screen saver/ringtone content to the phone.
If it's on your computer, it's most likely not going to have any mobile DRM on it anyway...
Yep, that's every comment that will be posted.
My tmobile T610 wont send ringtones that I downloaded from Tmo's site to another phone because they are protected. (I can freely send all the .mid files I loaded on myself to other phones)
It's no excuse, but at least Sprint's phones are fully open to over-the-air transfers of ringers, wallpapers, photos, anything.
http://sprintusers.com/focus
Unlike Verizon which IIRC only allows their own approved content.
Done and done!
C'mon. It's Disney. They are the biggest target of getting ripped off with duplicated content, don't blame them for their insecurity.
As to Verizon, what is their problem?
aren't a lot of the big disney tunes going to become public domain fairly soon anyway? also...how do you put DRM on midi file? it'd probably double the file size or something! it's an effing midi!
chazerim!
--adam
I never wanted anything disney on my phone anyway (not that my phone could handle it).
Hm.. the battle against the corporations and technology begins. It is understandable that Disney wants to protect its Disney content, protect the money.
But it's really a nuisance that protecting means disabling bluetooth! I hope this will stop so we, mobile users can use our features to the fullest.
There's one thing we can and must do: don't buy it.