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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

What does this actually mean on a technical level? How can anyone disable features on my TV?

Or does it just mean that at some point in the future I'll be able to buy a TV which is capable of streaming movies at the cost of having its video outputs disabled for the duration? If that's the case I can hardly see myself getting too worked up about it.

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TVs have been capable of streaming movies since they were invented. The proposal is to retain that feature and add a defect, not to add a new feature.

Stories like this are why the term "anti-feature" was invented. Here, we see a useful feature being removed from consumers for no technical reason-- what else can you call that other than anti-feature?

It means pretty much exactly what you say, only its the set top box that's doing the streaming, and the video outputs are only disabled for movies that are still in theaters.

I also find it hard to get overly worked up about it - it seems like a reasonable inconvenience to put up with for the ability to watch newly released features at home.

Digital usually looks better anyway.

I expect you won't be able to watch "newly released features" at home in the near term (up to 5 years from now), even when Tee Vees with the anti-feature are the norm. You'll just get the new inconvenience, and probably on old crap you wouldn't have recorded anyway.

In this case, Cory Doctorow and the other freedom paranoids are correct.

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