Bah. I'm not sure they'll be able to follow through with that.
First of all, it's stupid business-wise. People are not going to want to have to hook their DVD players up to the Internet just to be able to play movies. Furthermore, it completely excludes people who have no access to the Internet.
It's also really bad for their image. People don't like to be told they're untrustworthy. Personally, I'd refuse to buy from any company that tried to market such a product.
Secondly, it's standing on very shaky legal ground. They are essentially taking the law into their own hands, and the only way (that I know of) that they can legally get away with that is if the consumer agrees to a contract granting permission for the company to disable the device in the case where the terms of the contract are broken (such as through tampering with the device).
Terms of Agreement such as these cannot be hidden inside the box so that a hapless consumer buys the product and then finds himself obligated to follow an unexpected set of rules before he is permitted to use what he has bought. The courts have not, to my knowledge, ever upheld such gotcha' contracts. No, the terms of the contract have to be clearly displayed on the exterior of the box so that they can be reviewed prior to any purchase. They usually state that you are agreeing to the terms by opening the box and using the product. Even so, shrink-wrap licenses such as these have had only limited success in court.
On a different note, ignoring contracts, it also prevents all sorts of legal tinkering, which is unacceptable. It also forces you to go only to accredited repair shops, which is, I think, illegal (or should be).
Finally, it's not going to be a significant deterrant of piracy. It might stop the small-fry, but it's not going to stop any of the ones who are doing significant damage (as far as piracy goes). It won't take long at all before dozens of people find ways to circumvent these protections (they view it as a challenge) and post them on the Internet (it earns them respect). Anyone who's at all serious about piracy would have no difficulty bypassing these protections.
It's illegal to bypass these protections due to the DMCA, but it's almost impossible to enforce on a person-by-person basis (and the DMCA is greviously flawed anyway). Someone who's engaged in rampant piracy couldn't care less.
I think it's a very bad move on the part of these Blu-ray companies. It undermines the demand for their product and probably won't be effective anyway.
There's a webpage out there somewhere that describes
human stupidity. It says there are four categories of behavior: Intelligent, Helpless, Bandit, and Stupid. An Intelligent person acts to benefit both himself and others. A Helpless person acts to benefit others to the detriment of himself. A Bandit benefits himself to the detriment of others. But the Stupid one is a detriment to himself and others alike.
I think this one falls somewhere between Bandit and Stupid.
-- Vilkacis
WTF 
