Mail on Sunday angers Mac users with DVD giveaway

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 14 Jan 2008 at 10:14

The Mail on Sunday has infuriated Mac owners with the newspaper's latest DVD giveaway.

This week's edition came with a highly-publicised free copy of The Jazz Singer. But once customers ripped open the polythene bag they found the movie was distributed on a new disc format called the EcoDisc, which is unsuitable for the Mac's slot-loading disc drives.

The EcoDisc is half as thick and much more flexible than an ordinary DVD, which potentially prevents slot-loading drives from ejecting the discs properly. The disc wallet has printed warnings, advising Apple users to avoid placing the discs in their machines.

The discs have earned a predictably frosty reception from Mac owners. "What is really bad about this whole situation is that it IS a full-sized disc (and very bendy at that) and should work on anything that plays DVD discs," declares the blogger at Drake.org.uk.

And despite the claims that the EcoDisc is 100% recyclable, the Mac owners claim the disc is merely creating unnecessary waste. "What's going to be happening with this free DVD? Unless the Mail on Sunday is willing to replace it - for free - then the disc is going in the bin. A huge waste of environmental resources in producing it, and likewise for recycling it," the Drake.org.uk blogger continues.

"All the free discs we've got from the newspapers are still in our DVD collection and are occasionally used - so if this Eco Disc wasn't so useless, it would have been used."

A spokesperson for the Mail on Sunday says readers can always play the disc in an alternative DVD drive. "The EcoDisc is more environmentally friendly," she claims. "Considering we'll produce 60m discs this year, it seems only reasonable that we try and do something more friendly for the world."

"EcoDisc has same playability as a standard DVD and works in all known DVD players
and PC's and Apple Macs with conventional tray drives.

Ray Wheeler, managing director of ODS, says the problems would only afflict a small proportion of readers. "Statistics show that only a tiny 1% of Mail On Sunday readers own an Apple Mac
and we know slot drives account for only a small percentage of overall Macs," he says.