I was really looking forward to this feature on the new high-def formats, but I hadn't heard anything about it in a while. I read a little, and it looks like it has been mandatory on all HD DVD titles, but not on Blu-ray Disc. Neither format supports it in any capacity yet, but at least HD DVD is ready when the feature is finally in a consumer product. I was looking forward to having all of my movies backed up on a hard drive, so I could stream them to wherever I want in the house, and I could just pick the movie off of a menu rather than walk two feet to my media shelf. Okay, so movies on a hard drive aren't quite as convenient as music on a hard drive, as you're less likely to jukebox movies, but still, it just looks cooler, right? Isn't that worth some excitement?

But yeah, I'm putting off getting Windows Vista until Managed Copy is implemented. One article I found said it should be ready by this holiday season. Here's hoping. I was planning on building my new computer after the new year.

The annoying thing is that they can charge you for making a backup if they want. If that's the way it ends up being, what a joke. This whole not really owning the content that you buy thing is ridiculous.

All right, so it seems like Managed Copy is almost certainly dead (slightly old news, but it didn't seem like anyone was talking about it, so I'm bringing it up):

Engadget HD - Managed Copy to be sorely absent from finalized AACS specifications?

Am I the only one who was looking forward to it?

Sad really.
I'm sure one aspect is that they would prefer to have additional sales when you need to replace a damaged copy but in my opinion, technologies are starting to change so fast, I question if BluRay will be the dominant force by the time I need to replace any copies.

I'd be doing everything I could to sell tons of copies of movies while the format is alive.

Then again, CDS and DVDs stayed the course a long time and are still dominant. There just seem to be so many more new emerging technologies on the horizon though.

Perhaps a feature supporting "managed copies" eases the ability for people to invent ways to create less legit copies. However, as long as people create protection schemes that have to still allow playback in a consumer player, there will be people who can crack the system.