Last year Microsoft filed a patent application, published yesterday, that explains a method by which embedded advertising can’t be skipped. From the application abstract: “Enforcing rendering advertisements and other predetermined media content in connection with playback of downloaded selected media content. Playback of selected media content is made conditional on acquisition of a playback token that is generated in response to playback of the predetermined content.”
Other applications of the patent include using it to create DRM content or to insert ads dynamically at playback of already downloaded content:
The playback token may be implemented as a digital rights management (DRM) license acquired in response to playback of the predetermined content. Another aspect involves a content insertion engine for inserting ads or other predetermined content into the playback of downloaded content.
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BFD.
Someone will create an open source codec for the LINUX crowd that plays the videos without disabling skipping the ads.
Someone else will recompile the open source codec to run in Windows after a few months.
Everyone who invested in this form of advertizement will see their investment go up in smoke.
And we will all point and larf, larf, larf at them.
Haha, this. I bet you anything there’s going to be a ton of hate about this because it’s Microsoft.
Of course. “Oh God, MS is evil! How could they do this?!?!”
Never mind the fact that MS probably had nothing to do with it other than developing it. I mean, nobody ridicules Macromedia/Adobe for those annoying Flash ads, but “It’s Microsoft! Quick! Hate!”, so it’ll happen here…
Unsuprisingly, this is exactly what is going on in here. You are all idiots.
That post was supposed to have name tags in it, but the lack of a preview feature means they got stripped out. That was a conversation between my roommate and I on this subject last night.
By the way, Apple invented a music player that you can’t put certain forms of music on without installing their propitary player, but nobody cares about that. Oh, and don’t forget Adobe’s PDF advertising, big deal, nobody cares.
I really miss the earlier days of Consumerist where commenters had to a) have a brain and b) get invited.
xkeeper -
Sigh. Yup. All poor lil’ MS did was fund it. Research it. Develop it. Test it. Patent it. Soon-to-release-it. Leverage their monopoly to force consumers to use it. Sue the pants off of anyone bypassing it. Blanket the net with takedown notices of any sites that point to ways to avoid it. Profit off of it.
Yup. Poor lil’ Microsoft. How did they get the blame for it?
I agree with your lament over commentators that type without using any brain cells, but probably not in the sense that you meant it.
So, since they are forcing this on us, we will be able to get the content for free, right? I mean, why should we pay for something that is being paid for by advertisers?
I wont be happy until they can beam the commercials directly to my brain every morning when i wake up it’s a small price to pay for a free market economy and justice for all, amen.
It’s nice that Microsoft is taking an initiative to submit patent requests on advertising ideas. It makes it much easier for me to know which company does not deserve my money, ever.
I suggest a series of letters writen to the CEO’s of any company that advertises in this manner explaining that they will never see another dollar from your wallet.
I can see a web site listing the shows and the advertisers buying time on those shows, along with a way to automate sending emails to the advertisers…