The US video game sales figures for November was also released during the week, and you can read the full analysis here.

Before we talk more about video games, let’s go through the week’s copyright news first. Once again, we see why money and politics shouldn’t really mix, as news that two Congressional staffers largely responsible for drafting SOPA/PIPA have now “managed” to get better jobs at the MPAA and the National Music Publishers’ Association, two copyright lobbying organisations.

While laws prevent these two from coming back and lobbying their former employees (as if that’s even needed), there are the usual Washington loopholes that still allow the two to have influence on Capitol Hill. The MPAA and the NMPA will argue that this is how it’s supposed to work, that the organisations have managed to secure the service of two very capable, and knowledgeable, people who are already familiar with the issues at hand. Everyone else will be made uncomfortable at yet another incident that highlights the incestuous relationship between lobbyists and politicians. While only the MPAA/NMPA and the two new employees will know what the real deal was, the reality is that the two helped to draft bills that (intentionally, or just incidentally) gave their future employers exactly what they wanted, convinced their old bosses to go along with it, and got new, higher paying jobs as a reward. Whether this was just the unintentional consequence of their actions, or something more troubling that involved more coordination between the involved parties, I don’t want to comment, but sometimes just the appearance of something like this is unacceptable for a truly democratic society, or at least it should be.

A mock up of what Wikipedia's anti-SOPA protest could look like, with sections or even entire pages blanked to show the dangers of Internet censorship

With breaking (well, by the WNR’s  standards anyway) news that further discussion of SOPA will have to wait until after the Congressional break, the anti-SOPA movement main gain an important ally before then, with Wikipedia threatening a day of action to protest the controversial copyright bill. The founder of Wikipedia, the man whose photo you see every couple of months on every Wikipedia page, Jimmy Wales, has suggested that Wikipedia might blank all of its pages, for a short period, to demonstrate against SOPA, something the Italian version of the encyclopaedia has already attempted to great success over a local issue. Right now, it’s all just discussions, because, as Wales rightly points out, doing something like this could have a huge impact on the web. I mean, would somebody please think of the children … who have to write school reports, and what the hell would they do without Wikipedia (and the copy/paste function)? Use another online encyclopaedia, or heavens forbid, go to the library?

And for the anti-SOPA brigade (for all the work I’ve put into the cause, I must be a lance corporal by now, which ironically is also my rank in BF3 – I’m really really not good at the game), Christmas has come early thanks to Universal Music Group’s Scrooge-tastic act that helped to prove why content holders cannot be trusted with the power to censor the Internet. The story begins with the YouTube upload of Megaupload’s cheesy promotional video, starring some of today’s biggest stars, such as Kim Kardashian, P. Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown, and sung by Macy Gray. Using an original song, and with written agreements signed for all the stars, what Megaupload didn’t expect was for Universal Music Group (UMG) to abuse YouTube’s anti-piracy tool, to file an infringement report against the music video and have it censored. But that’s exactly what UMG did, although they now deny they did it for copyright reasons, hinting at some unknown agreement between two private companies (possibly relating to recordings of live performances), YouTube and Universal. Not that this makes it any better, of course, as the end result is that a perfectly legal video that presented views that UMG did not approve of (or rather, they don’t approve of Megaupload, period), and UMG had it taken down, which is the very definition of censorship. And because of an agreement between two other private companies (something SOPA would allow, as content holders can make agreements with financial providers to “kill” websites outside of the legal justice system), the tools/rules designed to handle copyright disputes was “abused” to censor free speech, however cheesy it was. What a wonderful demonstration of what a post-SOPA Internet world could be like.

Megaupload's Mega Song was blocked on YouTube by UMG - innocent mistake, or censorship masquerading as a copyright take-down?

Megaupload was quick to file a lawsuit against UMG, and YouTube eventually did reinstate the video with the explanation that, yes, UMG did abuse its tool: “Our partners do not have the right to take down videos from YouTube unless they own the rights to them or they are live performances controlled through exclusive agreements with their artists, which is why we reinstated it.”

But the Streisand Effect ensures just the YouTube version, which was blocked for quite a while, now has over half a million views, and made #Megaupload a trending tag for a while on Twitter. Nice one UMG. And who knew controversy is such a great way to promote a music video, perhaps it’s something UMG can leverage to its own benefit the next time.

Speaking of promoting videos, very funny comedian Louis CK has done something that traditional media won’t be laughing at – he’s bypassing the normal distribution channels, and releasing his own video for $5, and without DRM. And it’s proven to be somewhat of a success, with CK taking in over $200,000 (profit after cost) in just 4 days. According to CK himself, that’s less than what he would have gotten from a traditional distributor, but he’s happy because more people have managed to get a legal version of his video, and nobody had to endure horrible DRM or annoying marketing (register here, register there, give us all your personal info, and then get spammed in your inbox forever). Some have argued that this is a bad development for media distribution, since by taking out the middle men, that’s fewer people being employed. And that argument has some merit, and I’ve long argued that the whole wholesale/distribution/retail chain will suffer, if it isn’t suffering already, due to the digital revolution. But there are strategies to adapt, but those too slow, too paranoid or too stubborn to change, that is the companies that insist on charging digital downloads at the same price as retail boxed version, and those that insist on DRM, will not survive this revolution. And the more they try to hold on to the dying model, the more artists will release themselves from the clutches of traditional media and do it their own way – the truth is that nobody wants to do it alone, unless they have to, and through DRM, bad pricing, and incessant marketing and all the things they’ve done to alienate consumers, traditional media are forcing artists to go it alone.

For now, Louis CK’s video is still selling, despite widespread piracy (not that DRM would have lessened it or anything), and Louis urges everyone to keep buying, as so he “can have shitloads of money”.

And buying, as opposed to torrenting, might also help you avoid public embarrassment, as a new website has been launched to try and embarrass torrenters by listing their IP address and the stuff they’ve downloaded, even the videos of the naughty kind. While downloading from a public tracker does have this risk, those with dynamic IPs may not care too much, still, I don’t think I can support any service that publishes data like this. It would be like if a website, say Google, decided to public its web logs, of which IP address searched for what and when, and that has huge privacy implications. Just because this website is seeking to expose illegal behaviour, doesn’t mean it isn’t a privacy violation.

With that said, it was funny that the website would be used to put anti-piracy groups under pressure, as opposed to the people who actually pirate. This is because the website allows you to search for any IP address, including say the IP address of movie studios, or anti-piracy lobbyists, or even the anti-piracy domain seizing Department of Homeland Security. It certainly was interesting to see staff at NBC-Universal downloading the excellent Game of Thrones, perhaps proving that network TV does know a good series when they see one, even if they don’t actually know (or dare) to reproduce it for their own networks. How about someone at Fox downloading Super 8, produced by another studio? Or the RIAA downloading the latest Kanye West album?

Of course, the right argument is that you cannot really hold the RIAA responsible just because one of their IP addresses was used to illegally download something. It could be by an employee, an ex-employee, a visitor who managed to get access to a network connection, or as some have already claimed, be an unlikely case of IP spoofing. And as long as the RIAA has an appropriate anti-piracy policy, and enforces it, then they shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of individuals. But since the RIAA don’t think any of this applies to, say Google or ISPs, and that they need to pass tough legislation to punish these organisations, I can only conclude that, yes, the RIAA is guilty of copyright infringement, possibly on a massive scale, and they should be punished accordingly.

Not much happening in 3D/HD, so let’s skip to gaming. The NPD sales figures for November presented no big surprises in the Xbox 360 outselling everything else, and I think it’s safe to say that it is currently the dominant console in the US, for this generation.

To be fair (or unfair), the PS3 is really the only loser in this generation, in the US or elsewhere, despite PS3 sales doing pretty well worldwide. I say this not to incite fanboy-on-fanboy violence, although that would be an effective way to cull their numbers, but simply because neither Nintendo nor Microsoft could have predicted their respective successes in this generation, which has come largely at the expense of the PlayStation brand. The fact that the PS3 will likely never outsell the PS2 is disappointing given the huge advantage the brand had over the offerings by Nintendo and Microsoft in the last generation, plus the advantage of also being a Blu-ray player (the DVD player in the PS2 being partially responsible for the unit’s success).

It was also interesting to see Modern Warfare 3 break all sales records, despite a struggling economy, wide spread piracy and everything. I’ve only secured my (PC) version recently, and only because it was below retail pricing, so pricing is important as ever. One issue that’s becoming more and more important is regional pricing, especially on Steam for non US buyers. Here in Australia, we get ripped off due to publishers (not Steam) setting higher prices than compared to say the US or the UK. This has led to others using VPNs to buy games from overseas (with the high risk of getting their Steam account banned), or buying from Russian based CD-key sites. It’s a lot of trouble for people to have to go through just so they can hand money to game publishers, and it’s easy to see why some might see piracy as a legitimate source for games, until prices drop to more reasonable levels. The globalised price competition is one of the downsides of a globalised marketplace for sellers, but they benefit from being able to access more markets and more customers than ever, and digital distribution strips away almost all of the manufacturing cost from things, so it should all even out in the end. But only if reasonable pricing policies are put in place, one that is fair to countries like Australia, and can also compete against piracy ($80 vs free is not competition, but $30 to make the guilt go away, plus access online services without fear of having an illegitimate key, might be).

I think that’s enough for this week. See you next week (maybe).

Let’s start with the copyright news, we start with the music industry lobby’s full attack on opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

The controversial SOPA, if passed, will give the music industry, amongst others, to avoid pesky things such as actual evidence when it comes to forcing the likes of PayPal or Mastercard from cutting off service to websites that the industry sees as a threat, as long as they can come up with some sort of explanation that the site is primarily involved in piracy. In fact, they don’t even have to do that. As long as the website is merely suspected of potentially wanting to hide their infringement activities, then SOPA will allow the rightsholders to intervene, even if at that point, it’s not even clear, let alone established by a court of law, that any infringement has even occurred. So potentially, all the industry have to say is that “I don’t like the look of that website”, and they can deal a potential death blow to that website. So no wonder opposition is coming in from all directions.

Remember how PayPal and others screwed Wikileaks? The RIAA wants the same, but for every website, not just Wikileaks.

But RIAA says that all of this nothing more by hyperbole, and that the music industry needs these changes to survive. Survive from mass piracy, or survive the move from CD albums sales towards digital tracks, they don’t say of course, but SOPA could very well be used to destroy innovation by an industry that’s obviously not looking towards the future. Imagine a new start-up that offers a brand new service that hurts the existing business model of the music industry, the RIAA can use SOPA to fire off an infringement notice to say the financial providers of the start-up website. Trying to avoid trouble, the financial providers cease support for the website, and the website dies a quick death. Sure, the owners of the website can sue the financial providers, but that would require money, which at that point, the start-up probably doesn’t have much of. This may very be an extreme, but no law should give so much power to one side, against the other, and to replace civil court matters with agreements and dealings behind closed doors by private corporations. And with the economy the way it is, the country can ill afford to allow old business interests to kill off new innovations, that are really at the forefront of job creation.

And the RIAA have been busy not only defending “their” SOPA bill, but also attacking the old DMCA, which if you can remember, was their work as well. Apparently, the “safe harbor” provision that was added to protect online businesses is working too well and actually offering protection to online businesses, which the RIAA says was not the intention behind the provision at all. They blame it all on judicial branch of the government, the branch that’s the hardest to corrupt via lobbyist money, for interpreting “safe habor” wrongly. In particular, they want ISPs and websites to be the judge, jury and executioner and to take proactive action against infringing content, what they call “red flags”, which is a very vague notion of “you’ll know (it’s piracy) when you see it”. Except these types of actions will open up ISPs and web businesses to potential lawsuits for removing the wrong content, and it’s difficult to judge what is right and what is wrong when you don’t even know what content belongs to whom, without the rights holders getting involved. The RIAA says this shouldn’t be a problem, and it isn’t, for them! It seems web piracy is the gravest problem facing the music industry, and at the same time, it’s a problem that the industry shouldn’t have to do anything about – because the government, tax payers, web businesses should be doing all the work, taking all the risks, while the rights holders  receives all the theoretical and perceived benefits.

Google says a lot of DMCA complaints are invalid, and most are being used to attack competitors

But then maybe it’s a good thing, because whenever the rights holders are given carte blanche rights to remove infringing content on the Internet, they tend to abuse those rights. Google revealed a few years ago that a third of all DMCA complains filed with the company were invalid, and the latest example is Warner Bros. abusing Hotfile’s infringing file removal tool. Despite being sued for promoting piracy, Hotfile actually had one of the stronger anti-piracy tools for rights holders, allowing them to basically delete any hosted files they want without any real limitations. Unfortunately, WB, when given access to the tool, abused it by deleting content that didn’t belong to them and even open source software, and this is not just Hotfile’s allegation – WB this week admitted to pretty much all of it as part of legal proceedings between the company. Once again highlighting why automated, technical solutions to piracy filtering doesn’t work, WB admitted that their piracy filters removed content that only shared a partial name to the content they were trying to remove. And doing a simple file name check implies WB definitely didn’t download the files and check whether it actually contained infringing content or not. WB also admitted to deleting a popular, open source downloading tool that they obviously had no rights to, and they justified it because the tool helped to speed up downloads, and of course, all downloads equals piracy in the eyes of Warner. And WB admitted to all of this “collateral damage”, and it seems they’re not too fussed about it either, as they’re still asking the judge to throw out Hotfile’s lawsuit against the studio for the allegation that the studio abused the DMCA, which Warner appears to have just confirmed.

Over to Europe and two ISP, and The Pirate Bay, related cases that could have implications everywhere else. With UK courts giving the okay for ISPs to start blocking websites for anti-piracy reasons, the BPI, UK’s branch of the RIAA, wasted no time in asking the same ISP, BT, to start blocking The Pirate Bay. Calling The Pirate Bay a “huge scam” (I would argue against that, since a website that has the word “pirate” in its title and domain name is not trying to fool anyone as to what the website is about), the BPI fearmongering engine went into overdrive. If you visit The Pirate Bay, apparently, your computer will get infected with viruses, trojans and herpes, your identity will be stolen, and you may even see “inappropriate content”. The BPI wasn’t clear what “inappropriate” meant, but since BPI specifically asked BT to use their child porn filter to filter out The Pirate Bay, the implicit suggestion is probably pretty clear. And of course, given the economy today, the talking point of “they toor ur jobs” was bought up, against suggesting that piracy destroys jobs, while creating none (and yet, the industry says ISPs, web businesses and individuals are making too much money off piracy).

The other story was in Dutch-land, where BREIN is at it again, this time asking two ISPs to also block The Pirate Bay. But the ISP, having already won a preliminary court case against this very matter, say that the proposed blocking method, by IP address and DNS, won’t work and may actually kill their network.

How DNS Works

But before we get into the details, a little background info may be needed here. The way the web works, each server has one or more IP addresses assigned to it, and the server software can present the right website for you based on the IP address (sometimes, a single IP address can host several websites, and the server software can tell which site to serve up via the domain name you used to get to the IP address). Domain names are matched to IP addresses via Domain Name System  (DNS), which is basically thousands upon thousands of servers world wide that stores a constantly updated database of domain name to IP address translations (as well as mail server information, and all sorts of stuff). When the website owner starts a new website or changes the IP addresses, he/she changes his primary DNS server’s information, and that change is propagated to every other server on the Internet to ensure all data is synced. If data is not synced, and this does happen, then you may see different websites depending on which DNS server you connected to.

So back to the BREIN case. They want both an IP address/range ban, and also a DNS filter put into place so that if subscribers of these ISPs type in The Pirate Bay domain name, the DNS server would not return the right results. The first one is problematic because, to avoid filters, TPB could change IP addresses every couple of days, and this means the ISPs have to constantly track the IP addresses. And because IP addresses can be recycled/re-assigned, they may end up blocking the wrong website if they’re not quick enough with their detection, thus opening themselves up to lawsuits. The DNS filter method, which is also the one being proposed in the US by Protect IP and one that has come under much attack by anyone who knows how the Internet works, breaks the Domain Name System by destroying the sync between DNS servers, and slow down or stop the propagation of DNS changes, which will cripple the entire Internet. Net neutrality, which the FCC fought for and lost, would become law under PROTECT IP, as each ISP will now be able to tell you which websites you can and cannot visit, and may even redirect one domain name to another website (for example, thepiratebay.org ends up going to mpaa.org). But for the two Dutch ISPs, Ziggo and Xs4all, the immediate problem with both IP and DNS filtering is the effect on their own networks, with the constant changes requiring network reboots that can bring down the entire network. But BREIN doesn’t really care, and I’m just going to copy/paste what I wrote earlier, “because the government, tax payers, web businesses should be doing all the work, taking all the risks, while the rights holders receives all the theoretical and perceived benefits.”

Game publishers, especially PC game publishers, like to complain a lot about piracy, but it always seemed odd to me that they never actually listen to the people that may know a thing or two about what makes consumers buy games – the retailers! Steam, in particularly, has been talking a lot about DRM and pricing (maybe less talk, and more action on security would have helped … I kid). And this week, it’s Good Old Game’s turn to diss DRM. Nothing we haven’t heard already though, DRM only affects legitimate paying customers, it doesn’t stop piracy … all the usual things you’ve read on here. But it seems publishers have it in their head that they need to make it as hard as possible for the pirates by using DRM, which kind of makes sense, but “hard” is a relative thing and it’s mostly quite easy for the piracy groups to crack DRM. The other ways is to tie in non-intrusive DRM with value-added services, such as in-game browsing, chatting, cloud saves, and achievements, which is what Steam has done with success. A lot of success it seems, as GOG also revealed that even for games published by their own company, Steam sells many more copies than on the official GOG service, 5 times as many and 20 times more than all the other digital distributors combined. But even with their power, publishers still hold a lot of power over Steam, particularly in terms of pricing (and regional pricing), so the next time you complain about something being too expensive on Steam or the overseas version of the store carrying cheaper prices, the publishers are to blame, not Steam, which has time and time again presented evidence that cheap games => more revenue.

Skipping HD/3D, and moving quickly onto gaming, mainly because the next story is also about Steam, and it’s not a good one for the company. Steam was hacked over the last week, at first it was only the forum, but it seems the hackers have got into the main Steam database as well and accessed, possibly not downloaded, the database including user details, hashed/salted passwords and even encrypted credit card numbers.

Obviously, getting hacked isn’t good, but with Steam relying on a third party forum software (vBulletin), it was always going to be a risk. But the emerging details seems to show that the database was at least somewhat secured, with both hashed/salted passwords and encrypted credit card numbers. The former simply means that the password, unlike with the PSN database, was not stored as plain text and stored as a hash, a supposedly unique representation of the password, but unlike encryption, it’s one way and (theoretically) cannot be reversed. A salt was also used to make the hashing much harder to reverse back to plain text, if at all possible. And the CC number encryption, assuming it was strong enough, should prevent hackers getting any meaningful data, which is probably why they didn’t bother to download the database.

The much-maligned Steam Guard may have limited the damage hackers could have done to Steam

And if you use Steam’s Steam Guard service (I know, the one everyone hates), your account should be even more secure as the hackers would need access to your email account to access your Steam account. Not that it isn’t possible, because if you used the same password for both Steam and your Steam associated email account, then that’s how a hacker might get in, in the small chance that they could reverse the password hash (quite easy if you’re using a dictionary word, I’m told). So if you value your Steam account, and we currently have a poll asking you how many games you have on Steam, then it might be wise to change your password, remove any stored credit card numbers on the Steam system (just enter it every time instead of saving it, if you’re like me and likes to shop online, you’ve got it memorized anyway), and maybe have a bit more respect for Steam Guard. Just a bit more, mind.

And, we’re already over the word limit, but I would just like to offer a preview of the October US video game sales analysis. The Xbox 360 won again, Wii sold nearly 150,000 units less than the 360, and Sony refused to divulge any data again, but from statement maths, the PS3 either just narrowly beat the Wii, or was actually slightly behind, not great going into the holiday period. Battlefield 3 killed everything other game like a level 43 camper against a team of rushing noobs, with a record 10 million copies shipped on all formats (but Modern Warfare 3 might have something about this next month). The full analysis will be upped in the next day or so.

Alright, that’s enough words from me. See you next week.

If this picture of a motherboard turns you on, then my computer buying guide is for you

Are you planning to buy a new PC soon? And are you willing to spend more money on a PC than what’s considered sane today? Then read the latest edition of my If I Were To Buy A New Computer Today feature, dubbed the Sandy Bridge edition, as this is the CPU that’s all the rage these days. You may laugh and point at any guide that recommends paying more than $1800 for a new PC, in these days of tablets and netbooks and whatnot, but hey, some of us still play PC games. And do CPU intensive things such as video conversion. I have to say, the most exciting thing about Sandy Bridge for me, apart from the lower starting price points for such a new part, is the SSD caching feature introduced by the new Z68 chipset. Regular reader(s) will be aware that I’ve been bigging up SSDs since 2009, but the stupid things refuse to drop down in price enough to prove that I was right. But with SSD caching, where you use a much smaller (and hence, cheaper) SSD drive as a cache for your TB sized cheap HDDs, can give you some of the benefits of SSDs without most of the negatives (low capacity, high price, etc…). For this alone, Sandy Bridge is worth upgrading too, even with the added hardware DRM (or not).

News wise, it’s not been a huge week, hence why I felt the need to pad the week with the computer buying feature. So let’s get started.

Let’s start with the copyright news, which surprisingly, isn’t too forthcoming this week. In fact, there is only one story in the “copyright gone insane” category this week, which, you have to say, is an improvement.

Unfortunately, this one is right up there in the insane rankings, as the US senate debate plans to jail people up to 5 years for sharing YouTube videos. This isn’t as far fetched as you might think, because this is one of those “road to hell is paved with …” things, and if you break down the issues, all of them seem to make sense. First of all, you have the disharmony between civil and criminal copyright laws, in which there are civil penalties for performances, but no criminal penalties. So let’s “harmonize” the two sections of the copyright act. Fine. How about classifying video streaming as a kind of performance? Well, it appears the courts have been doing this for a while now, so I guess it’s fine too. And what about the differences between hosting a video, linking to it and embedding it on your website? Well, ICE has seized several domain names recently for websites that only linked or embedded content, uploaded to websites such as Megavideo, and ICE got the seizure orders by going through the court (albeit in a very one sided argument), so I guess that’s not a huge problem either. So to sum up, video streaming is a performance, and hosting, linking and embedding is really the same thing, when the court is concerned these days. And an unauthorized performance should carry criminal sanctions of up to 5 years in jail, much like like every other kind of copyright abuse. Add them all up: new senate bill that could lead to 5 years in jail for embedding YouTube clips. Now, if Senators are more educated when it comes to technology, particularly the issue of Internet content distribution, and/or if they’re not being “pressured” by lobbyist, then maybe, you would have a bill that doesn’t threaten to send half of the entire US population to jail (who hasn’t embedded a video, and who hasn’t done it with a video that used copyrighted clips, even if only for a small part of the video or soundtrack). For example, you could ensure that criminal sanctions would only apply in the case of massive infringement, such as linking/embedding thousands of videos, and for profit. Instead, we have a bill that describes a digital “performance” as 10 viewings in any 180 day period. Maybe in the real world, if I had a show and 10 people turned up, that may count as a performance. In the digital world, 10 views is hardly viral stuff, especially if it took 180 days to get this many views. But what can you do? Well, you can go after the people that upload the infringing content and only those people, but that would be too hard, so let’s just arrest everybody.

The removal of yongzh's emulator apps from the official Android Market by Google may not be what it looks like

There are two more copyright related stories, but they’re not as crazy, and so as a rule, are not as interesting. First up, we have Google possibly going after emulator apps on the Android Market, with apps from two developers being removed in the past month alone. Emulators have been proven time and time again to be legal in courts all over the world, so Google going after them, especially proclaiming Android as the “open” platform, seems to be a bit hypocritical. On the other hand, we don’t know why the removed apps were removed, while others are still happily being offered, so perhaps there are other reasons for the removal. Certainly, with some of the removed apps by developer Yong Zhang, there are licensing issues at play (open source related stuff), so who knows. If by this time next month, more emulators have been removed, then perhaps it signifies a trend. Right now, it just means you’ll have to get these apps from one of the billions of other Android markets.

The other Android related story has a bit more substance to it. This involves the newly released YouTube video rental service on the mobile platform, and how you can’t use it on rooted phones. It’s definitely a DRM related thing, and I’m sure the content holders providing content for the service will have asked for  these draconian restrictions. But it’s the typical backwards thinking that plagues the digital entertainment industry, where they’re so afraid of their precious streams being stolen, that they end up barring people from being able to pay for content, legally. Wouldn’t it be better to ensure more people had access to your legal service, as opposed to less? And it’s not as if ripping movies from DRM protected YouTube video streams is the most popular or easiest way to illegally obtain or share movies online, so they could have no DRM, and nobody would probably even bother, when they can just rip a DVD or Blu-ray. It’s like HDCP protection in HDMI, which was initially such a big deal and caused untold compatibility problems and silliness, because content owners were afraid people would record/rip digital content straight from the cable, if it went unprotected. Then HDCP got cracked, as expected, and do we see a huge surge in HDMI-rips? No. Do you know why I know? Because I just made up the term “HDMI-rips”. In fact, if you search for “HDMI rips” on Google or Bing, all you end up with are articles about HDMI cable rip offs, which is a discussion for another day.

Also, if I somehow manage to get the YouTube rental app running on my rooted phone, does that stream them become unauthorized, and jail time?

In HD and 3D news, following last week’s story about the 3D cinema craze coming to an end, box office results for the US Memorial Day Weekend seems to suggest that it really is happening.

The long weekend capped off a set of very disappointing results, but only for 3D showings. In fact, the best performing movie wasn’t even available in 3D, and perhaps it was only successful because of the lack of the 3D distraction. Certainly the theory mooted last week was that for every extra dollar that 3D presentations earn, there’s more money being lost through increased 3D production costs, marketing costs, and lost sales at the popcorn stand. But it’s the usual Hollywood thing, 3D for 3D’s sake, whereas they’d better off having movies like Avatar that’s been written, directed and shot for 3D, even if it means only a couple of such movies every once in a while. But no, everything has to be in 3D, and the hype dies out because of all the lame 3D movies.

And finally in gaming, after a nausea inducing session of Wipeout HD on my 3DTV yesterday, I can confirm the PSN is back and the “Welcome Back” goodies are now available to download as well (I still haven’t made my decision on which other free game I will download).

PSN is back online, and the welcome back pack is available to download

Those that want to download the free games need to be patient though, because the claim and download process for me was riddled with error messages, that retrying time and time again seem so to fix. Some will and are still complaining about the free games being offered, and how old most of them are, but as someone who didn’t really used the PSN that much in the past before, I’m not complaining too much.

So just as things seems to be getting back to normal for Sony, guess what? They get hacked again. It’s not the PSN again, so no need to ring your nearest game store and ask what kind of console exchange offer they have on at the moment, but it’s certainly not what Sony wanted so close to the PSN hack. SonyPictures.com was hacked by the same group that recently hacked PBS, with account details accessed and taken, as well as other stuff. According to the hacking group, LulzSec, they had access up to one million Sony Pictures account passwords, all of which were stored as plain text in the database. Read any “noob guide to user databases” on the Interweb, and the first lesson is always about not storing passwords as plain text, so how Sony could have got it so wrong, I have no idea. I guess because no financial information was being stored, Sony thought nobody would bother to hack the database, and the rest is history. It really paints a picture of a company that doesn’t seem to have any security policy at all, or at least it’s not enforced, and really, would you trust such a company with your financial details? And this is not a rhetorical question either, because you can answer this very question in a new poll I just put up.

Also, the hackers detailed how they got into the Sony system, and it wasn’t some kind of super hack that can only be pulled off by a hacker that would make Neo from the Matrix look like a script kiddie, or a sophisticated social engineering “my voice is my password” style operation involving a blind guy that has great hearing. No, it was just your plain old SQL injection, which for the uninitiated, means injecting SQL commands via poorly written web scripts that don’t check for inputs. To be fair, it is the most common type of web programming security SNAFU, but you would have thought that after the PSN hack, Sony would have performed an extensive security audit on all their web assets, knowing now that they’re a major target for hackers (but they always were, even if they didn’t want to believe it). Sony has since confirmed the attack, and have contacted the FBI.

Alright, that’s it for the week. Thanks for reading, linking, tweeting, facebooking or whatever it is that you young folk do these days. Have a good one.

It's now all about Sandy Bridge, Intel's second generation Core processors

It’s been nearly a year since my last “If I were to buy a new computer …” feature, and whereas the last one was about 3D Blu-ray, this one is all about Sandy Bridge, Intel’s second generation Core processor. The original Sandy Bridge launch was scuppered due to a manufacturing fault, and it’s only now that these new Intel CPUs are being launched proper. While normally, it’s never a good time to buy a new computer just after a new CPU/socket launch, due to the premium pricing, Sandy Bridge changes the equation because, for once, Intel is launching a new range of CPUs that not only undercuts AMD’s offerings, but also its own CPUs, making the SB CPUs the best in terms of price/performance, despite the “newness” of the part.

Just like the last edition of this feature, I will provide three different builds, one a general purpose machine, another a Mini ITX build for home theater use, and what I called the “Lottery Winner’s Special” the last time, basically a system if money (as well as power consumption/noise) is not an issue.

Let’s get started.

General Purpose System / Lottery Winner’s Special

Our general purpose system is slightly higher spec’d than your average PC, because with this PC, we want to pretty much do everything on it. This includes playing the latest games, playing and burning Blu-ray discs, video editing and conversion, and also a system that is somewhat future proof.

So let’s look at what I think are the key features that you need to be looking for:

* CPU: We’re choosing to go with a Sandy Bridge CPU. But which one? The sweet spot at the moment, in terms of pricing and performance, appears to the Core i5-2500K. The ‘K’ indicates an unlocked CPU, which allows for overclocking. The ‘K’ version is only slightly more expensive than the standard version. For our Lottery Winner Special (LWS) system, we’re going with a top of the range i7-2600K, which despite being super fast, does not carry the usual super premium.

* Motherboard: Since Sandy Bridge uses a new socket type, we’ll also need a new motherboard. And the best ones to go with SB utilize the Z68 chipset, which has only recently been released, but it allows you to get the best out of SB thanks to the support of hybrid graphics, SSD caching and overclocking of ‘K’ branded CPUs. As for brand and model, we’re going with the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, which has received good reviews recently.

* RAM: Our last general purpose system had 4GB of RAM. This time, we’re going with 8GB. It won’t give you any performance gains, not much anyway, but with the low price of RAM these days, the real question is “why not?” For our LWS syetem, we’re going to cram in 16GB of RAM just because we can.

* GPU: The ATI Radeon range has dominated the GPU market for quite a while now, and the last couple editions of this feature have all relied on this particular range of GPUs. However, with the release of Nvidia’s Fermi, the momentum has shifted somewhat back towards Nvidia. So this time, we’re going an Nvidia GTX-570. For our LWS, we’re opting for the fastest single card GPU solution available, which is currently the Radeon HD 6990, a dual-GPU solution. Then we’re going to put two of these in CrossFire config, for a total of 4 physical GPUs and 8GB of video RAM. Awesome.

* SSD: Thanks to the Z68’s SSD caching feature, adding an SSD will increase disk performance dramatically. Unlike having a dedicated SSD boot drive, which means an expensive investment in a large SSD drive, caching allows us to use a smaller, cheaper SSD drive, and still benefit from the speed boost offered by SSDs, with transparent background caching. Think of it like a stepping stone between your large, but slow HDD, and your small but super fast RAM. For our LWS system, we’re still going with a large SSD as our boot drive for maximum performance.

Sample Configuration:

Intel Core i5-2500K
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO
Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 (2×4GB)
Intel 320 Series 40GB SATA II SSD
2 x Wester Digital Caviar Black 2TB HDD
Nvidia GTX-570 (3D Option: Add GeForce 3D Vision Kit)
Asus VW246H 24″ Monitor (3D Option: Asus VG236HE 23″ 3D Ready Monitor)
12x Blu-ray burner drive
Case and (at least 750W) power supply of your choice
Price Range: Around $1800 (Add $300 for 3D Option) - based on Newegg.com pricing

So yeah, this system is $400 more expensive than our last general purposes system, but you’re paying for the latest CPU and chispet, which in the past, would have carried a lot more than a $400 premium (plus we’ve also included a SSD caching drive, along with double the RAM, an upgrade to a Blu-ray burner drive and up to 4TB of storage).

Just for the fun of it, here’s specs for a monster system where price isn’t an issue. What I call the “Lottery Winner Special”. The total price of such a system, despite being upgraded with the latest second generation Core processor, plus a bigger SSD, more RAM, a huge 30″ monitor, and the aforementioned dual monter graphics cards, ends up being about $1000 less than last year’s LWS system. The savings mainly come from the top of the range Intel CPU no longer costing upwards of $1000.

Sample LWS Configuration:

Intel Core i7-2600K
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO
Corsair Dominator DDR3 (4×4GB)
Crucial M4 SATA III 512GB SSD
2 x 2TB WD RE-4 HDDs
2 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 6990 4GB
Dell 30″ Ultrasharp IPS LCD Monitor
12x Blu-ray burner drive
Case and huge power supply (1200W?) for your choice
Price Range: Around $5000 – based on Newegg.com pricing

Home Theater System

For the home theater system, we’ll need a Mini ITX form factor machine that’s capable of playing and burning Blu-ray, and that’s pretty much it. With such basic demands, we could have really just stuck with the specs of last year’s system, but let’s see what we can do with a Sandy Bridge CPU.

* CPU: We’re going with an i3-2120, as it’s overkill to go with anything faster for an HTPC system.

* Motherboard: I would like to stick with the Z68 chipset, but since it’s pretty new, the Mini ITX motherboard we need is actually not yet available. The alternative would be to go for a H67 Mini ITX motherboard, and these are more plentiful. Get one with built-in Wi-Fi for extra convenience.

Sample Configuration:

Intel Core i3-2120
ZOTAC H67ITX-C-E (Mini-ITX, SATA III, USB 3.0, Wi-Fi)
Cosair 4GB DDR3
WD Caviar Green 1.5TB HDD
12x Blu-ray burner drive
Dual HDTV tuner card of your choice (low profile)
Case of your choice (Mini-ITX or HTPC case)
Price Range: Around $700 – based on Newegg.com pricing

So basically, you’re looking at an HTPC that’s similar in pricing to last year’s, but with the latest Intel CPU. The built-in Intel HD 2000 may not be much, but it’s good enough for Blu-ray and even 3D Blu-ray, and a bit of occasional gaming (at low res/quality).

And so this concludes another edition of “If I were to buy a new computer today”. Hopefully, I will have another edition of this feature ready for you when AMD’s Bulldozer CPUs are out. So until then …

Let’s start with copyright news. The French have enjoyed their three-strikes system for some time now, although I’ve yet to actually hear any good news about a reduction in piracy or rise in consumer purchasing or anything like that, which is the whole point of the exercise, non?

This screenshot shows the contents of TMG's "hacked" server

Anyway, one of the private firms the government pays to spy on its own citizens, to gather IP addresses for warning notifications and all that, has had a security breach this week. Trident Media Guard had one of its test servers “hacked” into, with data and tools stolen. From what I gather, it’s not much a case of hacking, as a case of very very lax security, which allowed anyone to browse the contents of the server. A lot of stuff turned up, which ironically made its way to P2P networks in short order, and it includes things like IP addresses that the company uses to track users, plus tools to create fake peers (again, for data collection). Basically stuff that hackers can take a look at and find a way to block TMG from being able to conduct their activities successfully. But the bigger issue is that whether a company tasked with handling sensitive data should be held to higher standards when it comes to security, because while no personal data has been leaked so far, it could very well have if TMG maintains their other servers in the same manner.

But by far the biggest story of the week was a response to last week’s big story, which was the proposed PROTECT IP act, which will give the government power to shut down any website it deems “unacceptable”, including messing with the domain name system (DNS) at the very core of the Internet, as well as forcing search engines to adopt censorship. And as expected, a search engine company, the biggest in fact, has come out fighting against the proposed act. Google’s Chairman, Eric Schmidt, says the company will fight PROTECT IP even if it becomes law. While Schmidt was primary talking about the government messing with DNS, I’m sure Google is even more concerned about the forced search engine result filtering. But messing with DNS is extremely dangerous, because the DNS system is probably the most important Internet protocol, as it maps domain names to the IP address of the servers that hosts the website. The current system is like a huge peer-to-peer network, where an authority server shares information with the rest of the world, and data propagates to every other DNS server. But if the US starts messing with the DNS records in the US, and then Europe does the same, and every other country, then this could very well break down the very thing that is essential for visiting websites. Prominent engineers and Internet pioneer have already warned the US against this, but the RIAA/MPAA lobbying was just too great (and they could care less if the Internet breaks, and it’s probably something they’ll welcome).

And make no mistake, the push behind PROTECT IP is all RIAA and MPAA. This is why, following Google’s statements, both the RIAA and MPAA came out attacking Google, one accusing the search giant of benefiting from criminal activities, and the other saying Google is acting as if they’re above the law. Last week, I ranted about the aim of copyright, which is to protect the public’s right to have access to information, as well as to promote creativity. What the RIAA and MPAA want almost the exact opposite of what copyright is all about, and so if anyone is acting as if they’re “above the law”, it’s the movie studios and record labels. And even if they’re right about copyright and the need to censor certain websites, then why should the tax payer, search engines like Google, ISPs, pay for this? And all for something that will probably be easy to bypass anyway. The RIAA and MPAA thinks they’re entitled to their business model and large profits forever, and want everyone else to pay to ensure they keep their entitlements.

One of the lovely packaged bricks being sent to Nintendo HQ to protest the 3DS's DRM

Moving on now to gaming. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is launching a protest against the DRM regime of Nintendo’s new 3DS, which actually allows Nintendo to brick anyone’s 3DS console if it detects that it has been modified in any way. So instead of waiting for Nintendo to brick their consoles, they decided that Nintendo should be the one that’s “bricked” first. The FSF has started an  innovative protest, with people donating money to the recognized non-profit organisation, and for every $10 donated, they will send a brick to Nintendo’s CEO (presumably via mail, not via a projection through a window). For those that want better bang, or bricks, for their buck, they can donate $250, the cost of a 3Ds, and have 30 bricks delivered to Nintendo HQ. The campaign was set to end once 200 bricks had been delivered, but due to popular demand, it’s still going on at the moment, and if you want Nintendo to get the message that we are buying the hardware, not just merely licensing it (and so we should be able to do whatever we want with it), go here and donate.

Not much in HD or 3D news, but I’ll try to jam in something almost unrelated here just to take up some space. It’s not to unrelated, as Netflix does do HD, and I’m sure they’ll offer 3D sometime soon as well.

The good news is that Netflix is finally coming to Android. The slightly bad news is that it won’t be available on all phones, and Netflix are individually testing each and every phone to ensure compatibility. This is necessary because of the lack of a standardized streaming platform for Android phones, something Google really needs to look at. But I’m also pretty sure this has something, or maybe everything, to do with DRM, something the Netflix has hinted before when asked why it’s taking so long for the Android app the arrive. To try and do anything innovative on the Internet these days when it comes to entertainment, companies have to jump through hoops to meet the paranoid demands of entertainment companies, the rights holders, and in this case, Netflix has to get DRM nice and tight before the movie studios would allow Netflix to deliver content on Android phones. I guess the studios are worried that somehow people will crack the app, and capture the video stream and distribute the SD YouTube quality footage online. Yeah, I’m sure that’s likely, considering how hard it is for people to rip DVDs and Blu-ray’s. Almost as likely as people ripping movies via HDMI, now that HDCP has been cracked. Luddites. Interestingly, he original Luddite movement was borne out of fear of the Industrial revolution, with Luddites destroying machines and anything that represented progress. Sound like anyone to you? The only difference is that the RIAA and MPAA have the government on their side, which the original Luddites did not.

And finally in gaming, yep, the PSN is back baby. Well sort of. Some of the functions are still not, um, functioning, but at least gaming is back.

Of course, it’s another week, and another set of security breaches being discovered at Sony and their affiliates. The most annoying of all was that a rather stupid flaw was found in the very system that was supposed to bring security back to the PSN – the password reset function. With Sony forcing everyone to update their firmware and then change their PSN password before they’re allowed back on, you would think that Sony would at the very least ensure this process was secure. But alas, that was too much wishful thinking. The flawed password reset system would allow anyone who had your birth date, and PSN email address (which at this point, is about everyone), to reset your password, and hence gain access to your account on the “new and secure” PSN. And so while Sony went about fixing the flaw, the password reset system was down, and so people like me, who had not reset their password yet, were left without PSN for another couple of days. A lot of people would have been able to reset their passwords on the console it self, but many, who like me, that didn’t create the account on my current console had to use the web version (my original died and was replaced by Sony, more on that below), which was down. There were also other stories about Sony owned ISPs also revealing user information, but I suppose these kind of stories will be plentiful as Sony conduct a full security audit of all their systems.

Zombie killing fun in Dead Nation - one of the free games available in selected regions as part of the PSN "Welcome Back" package

Sony also detailed the goodies people will get once the PSN store, one of those non-functioning functions, comes back. People will be able to download two games from a list of five, including inFAMOUS, Wipeout HD + Fury, and Little Big Planet. Different regions will get slightly different sets of free games, and there are also PSP games that PSP gamers can download. I think I’ll get Wipeout HD + Fury for my 3D TV, and so far undecided between inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet, or Dead Nation (I just can’t resist Zombie games).

One slight problem, that doesn’t affect me, is that at least in the EU and here in Australia (and NZ), only those that had PSN accounts before the network went down on the 20th of April are eligible for the freebies. Which kind of sucks, because I would have thought that the people who got new PS3s after the 20th would be even more deserving of a “we’re sorry” gift, as the last thing you want after forking out a lot of money for a PS3 is for half the functions to not even work for weeks. I mean how much could it actually cost Sony to allow all PSN users, up to say today, to be eligible for the welcome back package? This is exactly why people hate Sony.

Thinking about the earlier 3DS protest thing, one lesson I hope Sony learns from this incident is that people *buy* their console, not license them, so you can’t just take away features without repercussions. And if we’re really just licensing the hardware, then the hardware should be a lot cheaper, and we should receive refunds for outages (just like anything you can license, if you can’t actually use the licensed service of feature, then you should get your money back). Without these checks and balances, what’s to stop Sony from removing a core feature, like say AVI/DivX playback or DLNA support to stop pirated files from being played on the console? I mean, if they are allowed to remove “OtherOS” for “financial reason”, then they can use the same argument to remove other features as well. Of course, it’s not in Sony’s interest to remove either of these features, but that’s now, who knows what will happen in the future.

For Xbox 360 owners, you should now be getting the “Spring” update notice, or will get it soon. There’s misleading information around that this update will brick certain Xbox 360’s, which is not true (at least not yet). What had happened was that a previous update, and not the Spring update, had caused some Xbox 360’s to fail, and Microsoft has already promised to replace all failed 360’s due to that other firmware update  (mostly older Xbox 360 60GB Pro’s) with brand new consoles. You see, that’s the right thing to do. The PS3 is actually more notorious for firmware induced bricking (or at least a drive that no longer reads any discs – something that I’ve experienced personally – luckily, my PS3 was still in warranty at that time, as otherwise I would have had to pay $AUD 250 for the repair), and the only response from Sony was to respond to the various class action lawsuits launched against the company for this alleged fault. This is also exactly why people hate Sony.

Alright, that’s it for this week. See you next week (if the world hasn’t ended by then).

Not only that, I managed to get the April 2011 NPD US video game analysis up yesterday. That’s right, the feature is back, big time. Well, not big time, since I suspect it will go missing again next month as Sony tries to hide the PS3 sales figures. It’s actually quite funny, because if you read the April 18th edition of the WNR, I made a joke about the possible reason why Sony did not want to release PS3 sales figures for March, where it goes “This can only mean one thing, and that is that PS3 sales for March was negative – more people returned PS3s in March than people who actually purchased one #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement“. Not only did I write that *during* the PSN intrusion, which nobody, not even Sony, were aware of at that time, what I wrote is actually coming true, with lots of stories of people returning their PS3s. I had nothing to do with the hack, I swear! I barely even know how to use Internet banking!

And so before the FBI breaks down my door, here’s this week’s WNR, which doesn’t feature as many news stories, because there probably hasn’t been any really interesting news stories (and considering the fact that I’m not the only one writing the news these days, I’m much more certain this is the case, as opposed to everybody suddenly getting a case of the lazies).

So staring with copyright news, and while there are only three real news stories covered this week, the second one is a real doozy. What exactly is a doozy? I have no idea. But the second story is a real one.

LimeWire settles again, this time with rights holders, for $105m. It's a much better result for LimeWire than the billions and trillions the RIAA had wanted

The first story is LimeWire’s settlement of one of their remaining lawsuits, or is this the last one, I don’t know, there are so many! LimeWire has settled with copyright holders, after settling with publishers back in March (for an undisclosed amount). Copyright holders hold the copyright on the song, while publishers hold the copyright on a recording of the song. Of course, with the way the studio system works, the same label is sometimes both the copyright holder and the publisher, so basically even with two possibly nine figure settlements, the actual artists that created the songs will probably get nothing, or if they do get something. You know, this is where I think copyright laws have gone completely out of control. If you ask an average Joe on the street,  ”Hey Joe, who do you think copyright laws are really meant to help?”, that person will probably say “My name is not Joe”. And then he or she will say that copyright laws, with the way they’re being used, are obvious created to help rights holders make money, and prevent nasty pirates from sharing their works without permission. But you know what Joe, you’re absolutely wrong.

The aim of copyright has always been to promote freedom of expression, the spread of culture and to promote creativity. It is not solely, as the RIAA stated when commenting on the LimeWire settlement, to help “rewards creators”, and even if that were the case, the creators are not the RIAA or the four major labels it represents. Copyright is very much a balancing game. If you don’t have copyright protection, then original works will be disseminated in a much freer fashion, and so ticks the first two of the three criteria I mentioned above. But the problem is that, and I hate to agree with the RIAA here, if the original creators are not properly rewarded for their efforts monetarily, then there is less incentive to create, especially in today’s money obsessed society. I mean, yes, some artists do art not for money, and you might even say that these are the real artists. But even real artists need to eat. And as a society, we value art and creativity, and so it’s only natural that there is a financial aspect to it.

But if you take copyright the way it is currently being used, or rather, abused by the rights holders, then you have things like DRM, DMCA take-downs, mass lawsuits, and all with the aim to lock in the profits, and not usually on behalf of the artists themselves either. It’s not a very expensive process to publish your own Blu-ray movie, due to licensing, the need to purchase DRM keys, and so how does this foster creativity for the public good. And with the major studios and labels controlling the scene, unless you’re a major artists that can negotiate your own terms, others have to put up with giving the studios and labels a large chunk of the money earned on their works, and so the current system doesn’t really “reward creators” either. Fortunately, the Internet and computing technology in general has helped to level the playing field a little bit, allowing consumers to do more with their purchased content, allowing independent artists and publishers to distribute their work without having to rely on the majors’ connections. And it’s true, piracy do hurt the independents as well, but with piracy, comes publicity, and if your work is good, really good, than you can make fans of pirates, and fans will provide financial reward, either through live performances, or a iTunes purchase to show their support for the artists (even if they’re already downloaded his or her songs). If anything, piracy means creative works are being judged on their merits more than ever now, and only the really good works will benefit financially. And isn’t that a good thing, to promote good work over bad? And it’s almost these points, the level of playing field, the greater access to the market by independents, and having to actually produce good work, that is most worrying the entertainment industry, not the money *directly* lost through piracy. They don’t want to lose their monopoly, so that artists can distribute and promote their own songs without the need for the labels and studios, and end up keeping all of their money (which is why the RIAA ordered Homeland Security to close down blogs that artists were using to leak songs and promote their music). They’re afraid that one day, artists will wake up and realise that “We have the Internet now. We don’t need you any more”, and so they’re trying protect their position by law, using copyright and piracy as an excuse. What the major studios and label want is against the public interest, against what copyright stands for, and they are the real abusers of copyright laws.

If PROTECT IP is passed, the DoJ can use tax payer money to help movie studios and music labels sue websites

And they want to abuse it more, and create more laws that makes it easier to abuse copyright, which brings us to our second story. The PROTECT IP act, currently being considered in the US congress, will tip the copyright scale even more in favour of the multi-billion dollar corporations that are calling themselves “creators” these days. The details are scary, to say the least. If the bill is passed, it will authorize even more domain seizures by Homeland Security and ICE. The Department of Justice will now be authorized, to use tax payer funds, to file civil lawsuits on behalf of rights holders, to save the billion dollar corporations even more money, time, and effort, and even if the domain name or website is not hosted in the US, the Attorney General can step in and force US based search engines to remove results for the website (“site:thepiratebay.org” -> no results found), ISPs to stop providing access to the website and even financial companies to stop providing services to those websites, all on the say so of the rights holders. If the recent domain name seizures as part of Operation In Our Sites are anything to judge by, the “defendants” will have almost no way to defend themselves until their businesses have been ruined, and even after that, it will be extremely difficult. In other words, a judge is now required to make a judgement on a one sided story, presented by the full might of the US government and billion dollar corporations, and represented on the other side by nobody, and this is what due process has become. So if the RIAA spots another website that is threatening its control over artists, all they have to do is to make a phone call to the politicians that are already in their pockets via lobbying money to get exert pressure on the DoJ and the AG to act, and then that website will exist no more. That’s what due process will become, if PROTECT IP is passed (and given the lobbying cash being thrown around to both sides of politics, as expected, there’s already a lot of support for the bill).

And sometimes they don’t even have to make that phone call, because PROTECT IP will grant corporations governmental powers (hey, if they’re already people, or so the US Supreme Court says, and people run the government, why not let corporations have the powers of government as well?). Corporations can force financial service providers to cut services for websites they don’t like, much like how the government “convinced” the likes of Amazon, PayPal and Mastercard to cut service to Wikileaks. They don’t yet have the powers to force search engines to remove search results or the force ISPs to cut service to websites they don’t like, but give it time.

So if you don’t like the way PROTECT IP overreaches, now is the time to contact your congressman and senator. It probably won’t do much good, because most of them can’t understand the technical ramifications of what they’re voting for, or what they’ve already been paid to vote for, but it’s your only weapon against this monstrosity of a bill, and it is still supposedly the best weapon in a supposedly democratic society.

Google Music will anger music labels because it helps consumers too much

Another great weapon is innovation. The Internet is so innovative and allows so much innovation, the TPTB are incredibly afraid of it. And Google now follows Amazon’s lead and taking music to the cloud, much to the chagrin of the music industry. I dislike the way Google is trying to take on everything and everybody, often forgetting their core responsibilities, but putting my opinions aside, innovation is always welcomed. The service is currently in beta, and only open via invitation in the US, but like Amazon’s service, you get GBs of space online to store all your music, and the music will then be accessible everywhere there is an Internet connection, and also on Android devices of course. The music industry don’t like it because it means they can’t make people re-buy the same music half a dozen times, one for each device, so they’ve used the excuse that the service will be used to host pirated songs by individuals. So? If people have already stolen your songs, then how they play those songs should be the least of your concern, I would think. On the other hand, if the music industry had embraced the Internet instead of being afraid of it, they could have launched their own similar service, charged people for it, and kept a lid on copyright issues through policing. And make a bundle out of it as well. At least the movie industry are looking at UltraViolet, which would do something similar with movies, but even better because you don’t even have to download anything if you don’t want to (stream it right after you buy it), which is kind of a necessity with GB sized movies really. But the RIAA will sue Amazon and Google, and probably Apple too, and anyone daring to give consumers more freedom as to what they can do with the purchased content.

Not much happening in HD news, and I’m already over my word count with only three stories covered, so I’ll skip this section for the week.

But there’s still gaming, and of course, there’s still the PSN thing. The story out now is that the PSN is slowly coming back online, and so we’ll start to find out just what kind of compensation Sony will be providing for the more than three weeks of downtime.

It will most likely be a free PSN game or two (and I really hope they don’t make it so people have to input their credit card numbers to get the free games, because that would be kind of perverse), free identity theft protection for a year (it’s never a good thing when a company has to do something like this), and a free trial of PlayStation Plus. Sony, during the week, sent letters to game publishers which provided a bit more information on how the hack went down, including the interesting fact that they company didn’t even know they were being hacked until the servers went down from too much hacking (or data transfer, probably), and that hackers managed to hide their tracks by deleting logs, which probably didn’t have real time log monitoring and offsite log retention, which could have allowed Sony to detect the problem earlier, and to have clues as to what the hackers had done.

Of course, for some, nothing can make up for the lost in trust, from comments right here on Digital Digest, to comments I’ve read in other public and private forums, this latest incident appears to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back (except it’s more like a bale of straw, given the magnitude of this f***-up). The same comments have people saying they’re trading in their PS3s for Xbox’s, and there are news reports floating around with retailers also reporting the same thing, but you know, for every person that does the trade in, there are probably tens and hundreds that are not keeping their PS3, but every little bit hurts Sony, especially since they’re locked in a bitter battle with the Xbox 360 for global dominance, even if they’ve appeared to already have lost the battle in the US (the PS3 is now comfortably third in total sales in the US).

If Sony wants to get back into the game, if you excuse pun, then they have to admit that it isn’t just this single incident that has made people reconsider Sony, as a brand. It’s the DRM rookit, the alienation of the hacking community that was once your greatest supporter, thanks to OtherOS. If is the same community that you should have embraced instead of sued, after they discovered your flawed security system, to help you make your system more secure, and perhaps bring OtherOS back as a open source project that will require no financial commitment from Sony (if that was what they were really worried about). And it’s also the arrogance, in their advertising campaigns and slogans. “It only does everything?” Yeah, it did do everything, except a lot of the things you wanted it to do, and it was just unfortunate that it did a lot of things for hackers too. The whole Sony Knows Best attitude has to go, they have to become a much humbler company that truly puts customers first. To go back to the Sony that fought bitterly for our rights in the Universal vs Betamax case, the same Sony that revolutionized portable music via the Walkman, the same company that ended the Nintendo/Sega hegemony with the PlayStation. Do all of that, and they can stop becoming one of the most hated companies in the world. If you make Microsoft look like the good guys, and if you lose to a console that used to have a 1-in-3 fault record, then you’re doing something really really wrong.

Speaking of the devil, the Xbox 360 may be getting a dashboard update next week, which only seems to add PayPal support. But with Netflix Kinect support, Hulu Plus (with Kinect), and Avatar Kinect all coming recently, perhaps the good old “Spring Update” isn’t as an important occasion as it used to be. Either that, or Microsoft are too busy reinforcing their online security to bother with adding more features. I suspect many web companies that hold a lot of credit card info have done the same in the last few weeks, and so I guess that’s the silver lining out of the PSN fiasco (the silver lining is for other companies though, not for Sony).

Alright, already too much ranting this week. Got to save up something for next week, so until then, have a good one!

… let’s start with copyright news. One news that did escape my attention from last week was the White House’s attempt to make unauthorized video streaming a felony. Actually, I did see the news, and dismissed it as typical posturing. And it was just a white paper anyway, and you can buy tons of white paper at Staples for less than the price of a sandwich.

TorrentFreak is under fire of music industry expert Moses Avalon, who says the website could be shut down under new US laws

That is until this week, when I stumbled upon an online spat between music industry expert Moses Avalon and BitTorrent/anti-piracy news website, TorrentFreak. You’ll have to read my news article, as well as Avalon’s blog and TorrentFreak’s response, to get the full picture, but to sum up, Avalon surmised, from the White House white paper, that pretty soon, P2P usage would be made a felony as well. From what I’ve read, and to be honest, I only skimmed as I usually do when I come across an opinion I don’t agree with, it seems Avalon is saying that P2P, the technology itself, would be illegal if the White House’s IP Czar had her way. I believe the only connection between the white paper, and P2P use in general, is that because P2P has an upload component, it *could* make BitTorrent transfers somewhat akin to streaming. However, and I think it’s fairly clear, that there is a huge difference between illegal use of a technology, and making that technology illegal. I don’t for one second think that technology like BitTorrent will be made illegal, because it would also make perfectly legal services, like Skype, Spotify, or even applications used by the US military today, illegal. BitTorrent is perfectly legal, under any law. What some people use it for though …

And as for why Avalon thinks TorrentFreak should be put on the banned website list, I have no idea. TF is a news and information website, much like what Digital Digest is pretending to be, and sure, it has a bias, but I think one would be hard pressed to find one website (especially a niche one) that doesn’t have a bit of a bias, including Avalon’s own website. Avalon refers to “P2P lifestyle”, for which he thinks TF promotes, and that this is the area in which the new proposed laws could see TF get banned, as TF “encourages” unsuspecting youth to lead a life of crime by downloading the latest Bieber hit. “P2P lifestyle” reminds me of the term “gangsta lifestyle”. There seems to be a lot of music these days that might be what one might believe to be promoting the “gangsta lifestyle”, something Avalon should surely know about working around the music industry (Nate Dogg R.I.P – Regulate In Peace!). Is Avalon saying that the government should ban music that could be seen as corrupting today’s youth (and yesterday’s youth too, considering gangsta rap’s long history)? If song lyrics which call for the assassination of police officers or the physical assault or even murder of other people are not illegal, then I’m pretty sure TF should be safe.

The first of many instalments that LimeWire has to pay to record labels, if they had their way in terms of damages payable

LimeWire’s troubles in the courts continues, as the music labels suing the defunct music file sharing network wants a potential $75 trillion dollars in damages, more money than the global music industry has ever made since recorded history began, and greater than the entire world’s combined GDP for a year. The judge presiding over the case has called it “absurd”, although to be fair to the record companies, they didn’t really ask for $75 trillion. It was just that the calculations they used to determine the billions in damages that do actually want is so flawed that, multiplying the amount they want per download, rather than per unique work, it does work out to be in the trillions, or at least several hundred billion. This again brings up the question of just how much money the industry is actually losing to piracy. I will cover this in more detail in a news article next week (I’m like that squirrel in that well known fable – I’m saving stuff for the “news winter”,  by saving some real news for next week when there might not be any real news), but it appears that since LimeWire’s shutdown, music piracy has decreased dramatically (and yes, I’m taking a huge personal risk by linking to notorious “P2P lifestyle” website, TorrentFreak – I’m calling my lawyer as I type), as expected. In fact, nearly half of Americans that pirated music have stopped doing so in the last quarter of 2010, largely thanks to the shut down of LimeWire (according to respected research group, NPD). So surely, this should lead to increased revenues, what with 12 million less music pirates in the US now? All we need now is the figure for increased revenue, divide that by the 12 million who stopped downloading, and then we can work out the real cost of piracy, per person. Of course, if revenue actually went down in the last quarter of 2010, then that could be a bit of a problem for the RIAA PR machine.

So if there was no significant revenue increase, or heaven forbid, that there was an actual decrease in revenue, then what does it mean? Another music industry and piracy expert, from the University of Queensland Australia, thinks that the solution to the piracy problem is for the music industry to compete with piracy. Reducing price and making content more available, and as easy to access as pirated downloads, say professor Stuart Cunningham, is the key. I’m not a university professor, as I barely have a bachelor’s degree, but I think this is what I’ve been saying for some time now and it’s good to hear someone who has read books and stuff to agree with me. To be honest, the piracy problem is so bad these days (I’m in total agreement with the entertainment industry on this point), that anything, *anything*, is worth a try. Even if it means having to let go of a century old business model. Cunningham also criticized the industry’s tendencies to over-exaggerate the financial toll of piracy (and this was before the “LimeWire $75 trillion” news story came out) – it’s good politics, but it doesn’t really solve any problems, and sometimes I think the industry doesn’t really want to solve the piracy problem, it only wants to be subsidized (via tax payer handouts and whatnot) for it. Or get some judge to give them $75 trillion.

In other unreported news (unreported on Digital Digest, that is), the Australian arm of the MPAA, the AFACT, is going all the way to the highest court in Australia (there I go, linking to TF again … I’ve just become a repeat offender!) to appeal two decisions so far that have seen it on the losing side of the legal battle with Australian ISP, iiNet, over the issue ISP issued infringement warnings.

Not much happening in the world of 3D, HD and Blu-ray. Is it me or is the 3D hype dying? The only news of note was one where Samsung I think producing an external 3D Blu-ray drive for the PC. Except that all Blu-ray drives are capable of playing 3D Blu-ray movies, and so really, the “3D Blu-ray” marketing here may be just in the software included, which is not even made by Samsung (it’s Cyberlink’s). The only hardware change I can figure may be the connection interface, maybe USB 3.0 instead of 2.0, but 2.0 should be more than enough for 3D Blu-ray’s requirement of 60 Mbps, considering 2.0 is rated for up to 480 Mbps (although real world performance is only a fraction of this, but 200 Mbps is still easily achievable). Any drive rated 2x or above for Blu-ray read speed should suffice for 3D Blu-ray. I guess the 3D hype isn’t dying yet when companies are still using it to promote products that aren’t really any different to its non 3D predecessor, at least in hardware.

And finally, in gaming news, more PS3 jailbreak news this week as well known Android hacker Koushik Dutta turns down a Sony job offer to protest the company’s ill treatment of fellow hacker, George Hotz.

Sony’s R&D recruiter emailed Dutta with a Software Engineering job offer, but Dutta politely declined saying that he “could not in good conscience work at Sony”. It’s good to see someone with principles.

Android hacker Koushik Dutta says no to Sony's job offer, to protest geohot's treatment

Sony, on the other hand, were busy trying to discredit geohot for taking a long planned vacation this week by accusing the hacker of trying to delay proceedings. Hotz is actually in South America, which sounds iffy, but he has clarified that the trip was long planned, and paid for using his own money, not that which has been donated to his fighting fund. He also assured Sony that he’s in contact with his lawyers.

One hack that may or may not make Sony mad is one demonstrated by Kinect hacker Shantanu Goel, when he demo’d running Kinect on the PS3, and using Microsoft’s controller-less motion gaming system to play Killzone 3. It’s all pre-alpha stuff, so things don’t work as well as expected, but it’s still interesting to see in action (YouTube video of the hack in action here). Why did I say it would make Sony mad? Well, what doesn’t, these days.

Best of all, the hack is open source, so anyone with Kinect and a PS3 can try it out for themselves.

Alright, that’s enough writing for this week. Have a good one!

Also, just a reminder that the draw for the Digital Digest Facebook/Twitter competition took place this week, and you can see if you’ve won here. I’ve tried contacting the winners via Facebook/Twitter, but not everyone has gotten back to me, so hopefully you’ll read this message and collect your $20 Amazon gift card.

Lots to go through, so let’s get started.

In copyright news, LimeWire is in the news again, this time for settling one of the two lawsuits it is facing. No details have emerged regarding the settlement agreement, other than both sides will pay for their own legal costs.

But the way music copyright works, LimeWire is still facing about a billion dollar worth of damages from the other lawsuit. With music copyright, copyright is split between copyright owners of the song in question, and the publisher, which owns particular recordings of songs. The settlement this week is with the publishers, but some of the very same companies as part of the settlement are still suing LimeWire as copyright owners. LimeWire is still fighting that other lawsuit though, and they’ve even gone as far as subpoenaing mega-corps such as Apple and Google to see how distribution deals are normally set up. And the conclusion they’ve drawn from the internal emails they’ve looked at is that piracy possibly even helps sales, and that the closure of LimeWire actually had a huge negative effect on legal music sales. And this will all have an effect on the possible amount of damages that LimeWire needs to pay.

Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton once said that he's the type of guy that "doesn't see anything good having come from the internet. Period."

Other than this piece of news, it was actually pretty quiet on the copyright front this week. Just before I started writing this edition of the WNR, I came across this editorial in The Observer, on the websites of the British newspaper. The premise of the article is very simple – that movie studios have only themselves to blame for not embracing the Internet, and allowing online piracy to fill the gap left between the traditional, outdated business model, and the consumer’s demand for something new. The entertainment industry spent the last decade basically trying to use the courts and lobby governments to intervene on their behalf, instead of actually working with the technology. And when they did work with technology, it was to invent DRM whose only function was to annoy legitimate consumers, and actually create a legitimate excuse, at least for some, to obtain content illegally. When people can obtain the same or higher quality content for free, and more easily than legal purchases, this creates the illusion that what they’re doing is perfectly justified, even when they know that it’s illegal. What the industry needs to do is to not give people any excuses, at least not good ones, to not buy legal content. And this starts with making content easier to access, to grant users access to more content, faster, and all at a price point that is reasonable. The Observer article hints at the fact that it may already be too late to act, that a whole generation has grown up disrespecting any type of legal purchase, making fun of those that do the right thing. However, I’m more optimistic, because the success of iTunes and Apps suggest that, people in this new under-25 generation do still spend money, even if their expectations are very much raised in terms of value and ease of use. It’s now up to the industry to rise up and meet those expectations, or the doomed scenario that The Observer article predicts, one where a perfect storm of “excessive budgets, dwindling finance and diminishing returns” will catch up to the industry.

You still can't re-download your past purchases on iTunes, thanks to the music industry's imposed limitations

If you want an example of the industry not embracing the Internet, then Apple’s iTunes is a good example. While the music industry was pre-occupied on cramming as much DRM into music as possible, even putting root-kits on CDs, Apple was quietly building a new business model to suit the Internet age. Sure, Apple also did experiment with DRM, with no success as predicted, but they also made sure that even if you had to deal with Apple’s draconian DRM scheme, you would at least get something back, which would be cheaper music (cheaper than buying a whole album just for a song anyway), ease of use, and hardware devices that made it all work. And Apple, a computer company, now profits from a music, where the music industry could have perfectly easily retained this revenue for themselves, if they just had the foresight to embrace the Internet, instead of fearing it. And this week, another example of the industry’s fear was on show, as news broke of Apple trying to re-negotiate re-download rights for iTunes music with the major labels. That’s right, once you buy a song on iTunes, you cannot re-download the song without paying for it again. This is not Apple’s doing, this is a roadblock put up by the industry, who greedily wants to be paid on a per download basis, as opposed to a per purchase basis. While this is a simple inconvenience to iTunes users, it just goes to show the mentality of the industry who sees the Internet as the worst thing ever (as one Sony executive put it), trying to make it harder for Apple to sell music *legally*.

I can sort of see why the entertainment industry is reluctant to offer re-download rights, and to also put out reasonable prices. They way they see it, if someone is spending $50 on 30 music tracks at $1 each and one DVD movie at $20 every month, then by lowering the price of tracks to 10 cents, and movies to $5, then they will see their income drop from $50 to $8. But the way I see it, if you do truly build a great and easy to use system, people will still spend $50, they’ll just buy more things. In fact, I can see people even spending more than $50, if every buying decision becomes a non-decision and the perceived greater value in their purchases will probably mean more purchases over time. And there will also be more people paying for content than before, because nobody but the really hardcore downloaders will find it necessary to go through the trouble of pirating a 10 cent track. Then there’s the indirect result of “teaching” a generation about copyright, not by trying to punish those that don’t do the right thing, but by creating reasons for them to do the right thing.

In HD and 3D news, nothing much again this week. The only thing remotely related to HD was the news that you will soon be able to rent movies on Facebook, using Facebook credits.

I guess after my rant above about the entertainment industry not embracing the Internet, this is one example of the opposite. I still don’t know if this will be a success, but at least they’re trying. The problem is that it costs 30 Facebook credits, or around $3, to rent a movie that you can only really watch online, via a Flash based movie player not too dissimilar to YouTube. That sounds a bit steep for $3 to me. And the same argument I made above rings true here as well, as instead of trying to sell/rent a few overpriced movies to a small minority of Facebook users, wouldn’t it be better to sell/rent a lot of reasonably priced movies to more Facebook users – the long tail approach, where the money is made on a huge number of small transactions, as opposed to a few large ones.

And in gaming news, some better news for Sony this week as their European PS3 import ban has been lifted, and LG, which initiated the ban in court, might even be fined for perhaps taking things a bit too far.

It’s all just as I suspected, a petty patent dispute (one which, to be fair, was started by Sony), with no real consequences once both sides settle down and settle the matter, in or outside of court. But even Sony admit this one could have been costly, since supply was definitely starting to get constrained had the ban not been lifted in time.

And a new firmware is available for the PS3 as well, with 3.60 released this week to give PlayStation Plus subscribers access to 150MB of online storage to store their save games in the cloud. The firmware also addressed security issues, as I suspect every firmware release from this point will, and hackers have reported that it is somewhat effective, for now at least.

Sony encourages people to upgrade their PS3's HDDs, but refuses to fix the firmware bug that renders some PS3s with upgraded HDDs useless

While the update is good for PlayStation Plus subscribers, it’s not so good for those that had their consoles bricked due to the botched 3.56 firmware. What happened was that 3.56’s security fix to fight hackers, fought against those that had legally upgraded their PS3’s HDDs (something Sony encourages people to do, even providing instructions in the manual on how to do it). The update rendered the system unusable, and even the later 3.56 Hotfix didn’t fix the problem, although it did allow those that still had the original unmodified HDD to get the system up and running again (and once that happened, users could then upgrade their HDD again without problems – in other words, users needed install the 3.56 Hotfix by using their original unmodified PS3 HDD, and then afterwards upgrade their HDD). Everybody thought that 3.60 would then fix this major bug, and allow borked systems to work again, but unfortunately, this was not the case. Apart from paying for an expensive repair by Sony tech support, there’s no other way to restore functionality, but some have had success begging Sony to fix their PS3s for free, if they were only out of the warranty period by a few months. I urge people to talk to their local consumer rights group, to inform themselves of their statutory warranty rights, and demand Sony repair their PS3s for free, for a problem that Sony and Sony alone were responsible for in the first place.

Microsoft, on the other hand, are basking in the rays of good news, with Kinect officially entering the Guinness Book of Records as the “fastest-selling consumer electronics device”, with 8 million units sold/shipped in the first 60 days according to Guinness’ own independent research. So far, 10 million units have been shipped to retailers as of the end of February, that’s almost one for every five Xbox 360’s. Still, as I mentioned earlier, Kinect will succeed or fail based on the software offerings, and so far, what’s on offer has been pretty average.

And so that’s another WNR done and dusted. Before I go, I would just like to say that my condolences goes out to the people of Japan. Google has set up a page with resources on the crisis in Japan, for those seeking information or ways to help.

In copyright news, let’s start with more bad news for isoHunt. Not only did they get sued again last week, now, even a potential ally in Google has come out blasting the BitTorrent search engine.

Now, on first glance, you might expect Google to back isoHunt, considering both are search engines. And since Google is fighting its own copyright battle against Viacom, surely this puts them on the same side as isoHunt. But that’s not really the case. Viacom’s strategy in their appeal of the YouTube verdict is to say that it’s no longer enough for websites to be DMCA compliant, that is to remove infringing content when requested. Instead, Viacom says that there is something called “red flag” infringement, which means that if it’s somewhat obvious that infringement is occurring, then Google/YouTube should take action even without any specific DMCA complaints. The problem for Google in regards to the isoHunt appeal is that the MPAA might just win the case against isoHunt on the basis of “red flag” infringement, and it would set a precedent that would disadvantage Google. So what’s Google’s legal strategy? It’s to paint isoHunt not as a search engine, but just a really really bad copyright infringer. It’s arguing that there’s no need for the MPAA to even use “red flag” infringement, because isoHunt is plainly guilty of actively and deliberately supporting piracy, something that Google/YouTube cannot be accused of. Yes, it really hurts isoHunt’s defence that they’re just a search engine, like Google, but this is Google in self-protection mode.

The so called "red flag" infringement ruling could spell an end to online innovation

Regardless, “red flag” infringement is actually quite a dangerous precedent to set, so I do support Google’s efforts in trying to fight against it, even if it means that isoHunt will be sacrificed as a result. The problem with “red flag” infringement is that it potentially could kill innovation on the Internet, because let’s admit it, a lot of even today’s most popular and mainstream web services had to tolerate or even support “red flag” infringement, to get their business up and running. Would YouTube exist today if people weren’t allowed to upload copyrighted content back when it first started out? Would Google, the search engine, have become the most popular search engine if it blocked all piracy related search results when it was first launched? Would any of the free file hosting websites even exist, allowing us to share large (legal) files that otherwise would be too big for email? “Red flag” infringement is basically the content owner’s way of stopping all innovation, even if there is a remote chance that infringement could occur at some unspecified time in the present or future, and that’s dangerous. And it also puts the onus on identifying infringing activity on the side of the website publishers, as opposed to the content owners, which doesn’t even make sense, since how would I know what content belonged to whom and whether it’s really authorized or not (case in point, Viacom’s own employees uploading copyrighted clips under fake accounts, to create fake hype and promote their shows)?

And so we move on to the next set of news, which is also about appeals. This time, it’s the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft’s (AFACT) appeal of a verdict from a year ago which found Internet Service Provider, iiNet, not guilty of authorizing copyright infringement committed by its subscribers, even though iiNet failed to act on infringement notices sent by the AFACT. The result of the appeal was announced this week, and it’s victory again for iiNet, even if it’s mostly symbolic at this point. While iiNet won the appeal, several decision has been overturned in favour of the AFACT, and it probably paves the way for AFACT stepping up its campaign to make ISPs the copyright police. iiNet’s victory apparently was more due to technical reasons, the precise design of the copyright infringement notices which the court found inadequate, and really, the decision probably gives the AFACT a very clear set of guidelines on just how to send infringement notices to ISPs. Basically, a symbolic victory for iiNet, but probably a more substantial win for the AFACT in the long run.

What frustrates me most about these types of trials, and about ISP warnings and/or three-strikes system, is that, in the end, it will be so so easy for users to bypass monitoring and escape being caught, or even cautioned. This is because anti-piracy monitoring today is basically just based on monitoring BitTorrent networks, which is only one way to obtain pirated content. Encryption, VPNs, or even just direct Internet downloads via digital lockers, can all escape the watching eyes of the piracy police, and so with millions of dollars being spent on lawsuits, and even more millions per year for monitoring and policing, the result will, as always, just push people towards using new piracy tools that will make online piracy harder and harder to track and stop. Remember in the good old days when websites simply hosted the pirated files, and how easy that was to stop compared to stopping torrents? Civil liberties are being sacrificed to give corporations a *false* sense of security, and that’s a really really bad reason to force us to give up our rights (is there even such a thing as a “good reason”?)

Again, not much happening for HD/3D news, and I’m not even going to mention the stupid “Inception to be converted to 3D” news, because if there’s one thing worse than the 3D hype, then it’s “taking a 2D movie and converting it to fake 3D so we can squeeze more money out of the fans” phenomenon. Note to studios: not everything has to be in 3D!

XviD 1.3.0 has been released this week

While not exactly HD news, exactly, but a new version of Xvid has been released, version 1.3.0, and it’s the first new version in quite a while. MPEG-4 ASP based codecs may no longer be as sexy or “cool” as the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 ones, but there’s still a place for the good old Xvid codec  for medium quality video files.

And the absence of real news means that I will have to plug my weekly US Blu-ray (and DVD) sales analysis feature, the latest analysis found here. It’s a place where Blu-ray fans can go to bask in the glory of “their” format’s sales successes, and where die hard HD DVD fans like myself can go and find any signs that show Blu-ray’s weakening stance, no matter how statistically insignificant (“OMG, Blu-ray sales fell 20% compared to last week – it’s doooomed!!”).

And as part of compiling the stats, I also regularly update a series of related graphs, that are never actually posted anywhere (other than on our on-and-off “Blu-ray: The State of Play” feature). So instead, I’ll post some of the graphs here right now, for your enjoyment.

Every week, there are stats to show how Blu-ray revenue as a percentage of combined disc (Blu-ray + DVD) revenue, and here’s the stats plotted that compare the most recent weeks (in red) to the same week a year ago (blue):

Blu-ray Sales Percentage: Currents vs a Year Ago (as of 2011-02-12)

The graph below shows the same stat as above, except plotted in a linear time fashion, with a trend line showing Blu-ray’s growth.

Blu-ray Market Share Trend: As of 2011-02-12

And finally, this graph shows the Blu-ray growth rate (so if Blu-ray’s market share was 5% a year ago, and now it’s 10%, the the growth rate is 100%, or doubled), again with a trend line.

Blu-ray growth rate trend: As of 2011-02-12

And finally in gaming, which these days, should probably be renamed to the “PS3 Jailbreak” section instead. Last week ended with Sony banning a bunch of users from PSN for using hacked firmware, and now the hackers have fought back by hacking PSN to un-ban themselves, as well as make it possible to ban anyone they want.

Note to Sony: don’t try to out-hack hackers.

geohot's takes the battle with Sony to rap form

Then we had the news of Sony attempting to bring out a new PS3 SKU that would be hack proof (famous last words). geohot and others have already said that the only way for Sony to really combat the PS3 hack is to release a new hardware, and it seems Sony has taken their advice. At the same time, Sony is beefing up their own legal team as they seek to sue their way out of this mess (what could possibly go wrong?). Sony have also got the German police to raid the home of PS3 Linux hacker graf_chokolo, which will please the Linux/hacking community. You can read more on these stories here.

For those that think I’ve been too hard on Sony, perhaps you’re right. Personal history with the company aside, the main reason I and a lot of people detest Sony is solely based on their recent actions, best described in this Make article/rant. I started Digital Digest talking about how to play DVDs in Windows, back when commercial solutions were few and far in between, and with Pentium 4’s still an expensive early-adopter thing, you just needed to hack your way to  play DVDs on PCs smoothly, from tweaking drivers to using custom decoders and more. And from then on, it’s always been about using products and software beyond the purposes intended by manufacturers and publishers. Sony’s hatred towards anyone that wants to do things outside of Sony’s own limited imagination, and their arrogance of forcing people to use Sony products in Sony’s own prescribed manner (and it’s not just end users, it’s also developers too, having to adapt themselves to Sony’s way of doing things, as opposed to the other way around – a philosophy that Microsoft, for example, do not share, which is why the Xbox 360 is a much more developer friendly platform). And it’s also the arrogance in their response, which is almost always an overreaction (eg. CD root-kit fiasco), because it’s as if they believe that using, developing for or even selling a Sony product is a privilege, and so if you make Sony angry, expect retribution. Point out a flaw in their security design? Sony will get you. Make their products do more than advertised? Sony will get you. Sell products to help Sony users in a way Sony doesn’t like? Sony will double get you (as geohot wisely raps in his video, “I shed a tear everytime I think of Lik Sang”).

Speaking of Microsoft as a “good guy” when it comes to consumer right seems quite wrong to me, but compared to Sony, there are a lot of “good guys”. But Microsoft’s response to the Kinect hacks (not the first response, which was similar to Sony’s, but the subsequent responses by openly welcoming the hacks) is to be commended, and really, it’s the best business decision as well (Sony’s actions have often hurt themselves more than anyone else, to be fair). And now Microsoft is following up by releasing an official PC developer kit for Kinect, available for free to non commercial users and researchers. Of course, opening up the development of an console accessory is different to the reaction of seeing your product hacked into oblivion, but still, it’s hard to imagine Sony reacting to the hack in the same manner (as the Make article mentioned, the Aibo hacking incident kind of shows what a typical Sony response might have been).

Also, Kinect will work with Windows Phone sometime in the future (not this year though), which given the recent Nokia announcement regarding moving to the Windows Phone platform, can only be a good thing for Kinect. Still, Kinect needs some better, more varied games, because frankly, I’m a bit tired (in both sense of the word) from playing Kinect Sports soccer and winning 4-3 all the time (I’m not that good at goalkeeping, which for me, consists of flapping my arms wildly).

Alright, enough ranting for this week. Have a good one.

The promised Facebook/Twitter competition should be launched in the next day or two. There’s nothing you actually need to do, if you’re already liked our Facebook page and/or followed us on Twitter, you’ll automatically be entered into the draw to win some Amazon gift certificates (those that signed up before early will receive a better chance to win). Full details to be posted when I make it up. Before then, we have this week’s news to go through, so let’s get started.

In copyright news, the big headline of the week, at least according to the MPAA, was that almost a quarter of the world’s web traffic was piracy related.

To be honest, I had expected a lot more than that, considering that out of the big files you can download, Linux ISOs aside, I can’t really think of a lot of legal content that’s 8GB or 12GB in size, whereas many pirated games are. Without iTunes HD movie downloads, and Steam, the quoted 23.8% of global traffic being pirated related, could have been a lot higher. The study was commissioned by NBC Universal, but it was the MPAA that screamed the loudest at the findings. Except, as usual, they missed some really important points in the report. One interesting note was that the US actually had a lower piracy rate than the rest of the world, which is strange because most of the pirated  stuff comes from the US (movies, TV shows, games), and what with the poor economy and relatively cheap Internet, you just expected the US to be the lead in terms of piracy. Another interesting result was that only 2.9% of downloads on the BitTorrent networks that the study monitored were for music, with films and TV accounting for nearly half of the downloads (and 35.8% being pornography).

Music torrent downloads only count for a very small percentage of downloads, according to the Envisional report (graph credits: Envisional report)

The theory is that the US has greater access to legal content, and so there’s less reason for many to get content via illegal sources. This is definitely true with TV shows, since Hulu and the other streaming networks, which block access from outside the US, means that there’s almost no reason to download torrents of the latest episodes. The low number of music downloads could be because that torrents have never been the best way to download music, not when LimeWire was around anyway. But it could also be because music availability is greater in the US, and that music, unlike movies and especially TV shows, don’t suffer from the same sort of delay releases and release windows, that actively prevents people from purchasing in order to maximize profits for publishers from different channels. In this day and age, having to wait a whole week before you have access to the latest episode of say The Office or even months before you can buy Boardwalk Empire on DVD/Blu-ray, just doesn’t work. When your friends or co-workers are downloading/streaming illegally and then discussing the latest episodes, you almost have to download/stream it yourself. And porn? Well, nobody wants to have to pay for porn, or to have something less than innocent show up on their credit card statement, so that’s another reason why it’s so popular.

So the fact that “it’s free”, while I do agree has a lot to do with why pirated content is so attractive, but there are clearly other factors in play that should not be ignored, if one is really intent on reducing online piracy. Unfortunately, groups like the MPAA and RIAA’s goal is to eventually get legislation that guarantees their revenue stream, and online piracy just happens to be a convenient excuse at the moment. It’s an easy argument to convince ignorant politicians, unaware of just what the Internet is all about. With all the studies being done, none has even tried to find out the real financial cost of piracy, not the billions upon billions imagined by the MPAA/RIAA. Not in the US anyway. But a Japanese government backed think-tank has looked at the problem, and has found some interesting answers. In regards to Anime and online streaming and P2P downloads via the popular (in Japan) Winny software tool, the study found that these kinds of piracy not only did not hurt DVD sales, it actually helped. YouTube uploads of Anime episodes actually helped to generate more sales, while P2P downloads did not hurt sales at all, only rentals. The promotional effects of YouTube uploads, even of full episodes, has been known for a while now, and you’d be hard pressed to find one publisher that doesn’t utilize YouTube for promotional purposes. And as for P2P downloads, with DVDs so cheap and online piracy so easily accessible for so long, people who still buy DVDs will always buy DVDs (or Blu-rays), in my opinions, because if free and easy hasn’t convinced you do break the law, nothing will (and for people who like to collect things, like me, buying and downloading are two totally separate things).

Reasonable demands, or blackmail?

And the findings of these reports don’t really contradict a study by Warner Bros. back in December, where the conclusion there seem to be that a lot of people downloading pirated TV shows and movies are downloading the foreign dubbed version, which would otherwise not be available via legal means. And that by not fulfilling the needs of the market, that legitimate consumers are being pushed into pursuing content via other means, including illegal means. Which brings us to this week’s most interesting copyright related news story – the Don’t Make Me Steal manifesto. What is it? Well, it’s basically a list of demands, that if met, the people who signed the manifesto would all promise not to download pirated movie of TV content. It sounds a bit like a threat, which is why it’s controversial (and I don’t think the “Don’t Make Me Steal” title is a good one, because in the end, nobody “makes” you steal, it’s still a choice, even if it is sometimes the most sensible one).  But these are not really unreasonable demands. They’re not demanding everything be free, and actually, a lot of demands match up perfectly to what the recent studies have concluded, that a lot of people are being under-served. Removing release windows, reasonable pricing (buying DVD/Blu-rays should not cost more than a movie ticket, and rentals should not cost more than a third of the same ticket), greater access to dubs and subtitles, no DRM, and a lot of others things I suspect that the movie/TV industry will eventually figure out on their own and implement. So if this manifesto can change the debate from one of “how should we punish those that pirate stuff” to “how do we encourage people not to pirating stuff”, then it has served its purpose. It shows there are plenty of things movie and TV studios can do to reduce piracy, and they should at least give these suggestions some serious thought before trying to shift the blame and responsibility to everyone else.

All of this comes as the number of individuals sued by mass piracy lawsuits reached 100,000 in the US alone. Both piracy and anti-piracy, in my opinion, has gotten out of control, and the only real solution is to examine the real causes behind piracy. Or it will end up becoming a futile fight, where the process becomes a daily grind of trying to put out millions of fires with no positive effect towards actually solving the problem, something that was addressed well by the TV show The Wire (in relation to the war on drugs, but the idea is the same). How many websites do you have to get Homeland Security to shut down before the war on piracy can be won? How many civil rights do we have to sacrifice in order for the entertainment industry to keep their dying business model? How many people must be sued for illegal downloads before people stop downloading? And how long would all of these actions take before the problem is solve. Years? Decades? Never?

And not wanting to enjoy schadenfreude, Intel’s problems with Sandy Bridge seems like karma biting back for putting in hardware DRM into the new chip, and then for not even admitting it was DRM, even though it clearly was. The actual problem appears not to be that serious, it’s a flaw on the motherboard chipset that Sandy Bridge CPUs rely on, and it has to do with the SATA2 controller part which will fail over time for a small percentage of chips. Disabling the rogue transistor, or simply use the provided SATA3 ports instead, would be a simple workaround, at least until Intel can provide details on how they plan to fix the problem. Still, had Intel spent more time testing Cougar Point, instead of getting all giddy at the prospect of adding hardware DRM, maybe they could have avoided the potential billion dollar problem.

Onto HD/3D news, not a whole lot happening really in the world of Blu-ray or 3D. But for general HD, and I know I’m stretching a bit here, then the news that Microsoft plans to solve Google’s H.264 problem may be somewhat interesting.

Google dropping HTML5 H.264 support for Chrome may be an attempt to hurt Apple

Google dropped support for H.264 as part of its HTML5 implementation, and this means that HTML5 videos that use H.264 would not actually work on Google’s Chrome browser, which is a shame. Google quotes wanting to support “open software” as the reason, despite the fact that they’re the biggest supporters of the closed Adobe Flash software, being the only browser to bundle Flash with the default download. But Microsoft has been actively trying to get people to use H.264 for HTML5, no doubt because they own lots of patents on the format, and so they’ve released a Chrome extension that brings back H.264 support, for those with Windows 7 anyway (which has H.264 decoding built natively into the OS). They did the same thing for Firefox a couple of months ago, so this move wasn’t unexpected. And Google can hardly complain, considering their stance towards Flash.

You may ask what is Google’s motive behind dropping H.264, if it wasn’t for the sake of “openness”? Some would say it’s because they want people to use their own WebM format, for which Google owns the patents on (but has decided, for now, not to charge royalty). Maybe. But Google’s real target, in my opinion, is Apple. Apple loves H.264, they also only support HTML5 (not Flash) on their iDevices, and being a fairly closed system in which Apple has control over everything, it’s unlikely WebM support will be implemented without Apple’s permission for these devices and Safari in general. So Google’s move alienates Apple, while their own Android platform still manages to support H.264, Flash and WebM, with hardware acceleration too even. To me, this is a calculated move against Apple, forcing Apple to either accept WebM and implement hardware support for it, or to live with an YouTube app that runs poorly on iDevices. And Google’s alliance with Flash, and Apple’s anti-Flash stance, just further confirms what I and many others think.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that WebM will be adopted, not even by YouTube. In fact, this move most likely benefits Adobe and Flash, since it then becomes the only way to tie everything together, and get everything working, especially since Adobe has already announced they will add WebM support to Flash. And H.264 will be here to stay, as long as Flash is here to stay, and as long as Blu-ray and iTunes still exists.

Another week, and the cat and mouse game between Sony and PS3 hackers continue. Sony brought out the 3.56 firmware to counter the hacked 3.55 firmware, but the process of hacking 3.56 has already begun and it’s a matter of when, not if, it will get hacked (because once the master key and the method it can be obtained became public, it’s really game over for that security platform).

The unfortunate message that PS3 owners with upgraded HDDs are experiencing

And as expected, Sony’s war against hackers has caused its first piece of collateral damage, with PS3 owners that have upgraded their hard-drives being the first set of victim. Sony active encourages people to upgrade the PS3’s hard-drive, and even provides instructions on how to do it online (and it doesn’t void warranty either). They did this to counter the over-priced Xbox 360 hard-drive add-ons. But people who installed 3.56 found that their upgraded HDDs would no longer work, with a “The data is corrupted” error, even after reformatting. Apparently, Sony re-released 3.56 just now and it might have fixed the problem, but you need the original HDD to first upgrade to the new 3.56 (Sony didn’t call it 3.57 because they didn’t want to admit to their mistake? It’s not the first time either …), and then upgrade your HDD. Those without the original HDD (which has to still retains the original formatting) are still stuck with a bricked console, unfortunately. 3.57 will hopefully be here next week, but who knows.

So once again the advice is don’t upgrade your PS3’s firmware until at least a week after release. Yes, it’s a week that you may not be able to play online (or even certain games offline, which prevents play without an active PSN connection, which of course requires the latest firmware). I think if Sony is intent on releasing firmware updates so frequently, the least they should offer is a window in which both old and new firmware versions can be used, although I suppose there are huge technical issues related to supporting two firmware versions at the same time on PSN.

So that’s it for another week. Hope you’ve enjoyed this issue of the WNR. Have a good one and see you at the same time next week.