Quite a bit to get through, and with the steel ingots and leather strips not making themselves into armor and requiring my urgent attention, let’s get started!

The fallout from the Mega story last week continues, as file hosting websites scramble this week to “clean up” their services, or simply to shut up shop.

This is probably what federal prosecutors, and the content holders urging them to take action, had been hoping for. With thousands of illegal download links now put out of commission, some permanently, it does seem like a major victory in the war against web piracy. Although whether this actually leads to any revenue increases, the whole point behind stopping piracy, time will tell.

For the music industry, this is the second major breakthrough against web piracy in just over a year, along with October 2010’s closure of LimeWire. But it appears that despite what the NPD calculated to be a 46% decline in the number of downloaders shortly after the LimeWire closure, and with less songs downloaded per individual when comparing to the same period a year ago, music revenue for 2011 hasn’t actually increased much at all. In fact, it remains 3% down compared to 2010, when LimeWire (up until October at least) was fully operational. The rate of decline has slowed, but you would think that with such a dramatic decline in piracy rates (nearly half of the people downloading pirated music were using LimeWire to do it just before it was closed down), and the RIAA’s warning of billions upon billions of damage caused by piracy, that it would have at least helped the industry get back into growth. So it will be interesting to see, now that piracy through file hosting services has decreased, what effect it actually has on revenue.

Apparently, only $23 out of every $1000 made on music sales actually goes to the musician, on average (source)

This is of course assuming the main aim behind the targeting of Megaupload was in fact to do with piracy, as it was noted this week that Megaupload was already making plans to take on the music industry head on, in plans that could cause the major labels more damage than piracy ever could. The plan involves a new website called Megabox, which allowed unsigned artists to completely bypass music publishers, and market directly to music fans, with 90% of the revenue going back towards the artist. Even free (ie. pirated) downloads would generate money for the artists, as Megaupload promised to share the very income, earned from downloads, that got them into trouble last week. And if Megabox works, then it would have been a big blow to the majors, and would have seriously questioned their relevance in the age of the Internet, when “naturally” generated hype is more valuable than any kind of promotion that labels could come up with. And with technology enabling artists to sell directly, without having to invest a lot in infrastructure (or they can leave it to tech companies to handle that side of things), artists no longer have to see a majority share of their revenue going to record labels. If there’s one thing the labels fear more than web piracy, it’s this, and while it might require one to be wearing a “tin-foil-hat” to think that this was the only reason behind the Mega take-down, it’s probably a nice little bonus the record industry got out of the whole thing. But while the likes of the RIAA can stop Megabox, they can’t stop innovation and progress, not forever, and a major shift in the way content is packaged, sold and distributed is on its way, if it isn’t here already.

While the Mega stories were very much dominating the headlines, the temporary demise of SOPA was still on people’s minds. One of those minds was EMI’s VP of Urban Promotions, Craig Davis. In a Q&A session with the Reddit horde, Davis expressed largely personal views that seemed to differ quite a bit from the general line of thinking coming out of the music industry these days, in that legislation is the only way forward to deal with the web piracy problem. Perhaps highlighting the internal divisions within the music industry on how to handle the web piracy problem (something we don’t usually get to see, with the RIAA’s loudspeakers drowning out all other opinions), Davis personally opposes SOPA, and says that piracy is more of a service issue, than a pricing one, mirroring what Valve’s Gabe Newell said a few months ago. In fact, Davis specifically mentions Newell as having the right idea when it comes to fighting web piracy. By focusing too much on the pricing issues behind piracy, major content holders often come to the conclusion that there is no real way to “compete” with pirated downloads, as they could not offer their content for free (although I would argue that piracy itself carries a cost, in terms of legal risk, technical and safety issues, and a moral cost, and so for legal content to compete, it does not have to be free, it only needs to be seen as good value). But by concentrating on service, innovation, basically by making legal options more attractive in more ways than just on price, then “legit” could compete with “free”. And perhaps Newell’s Steam could offer guidance to the music, and movie industries as to how to best leverage the positive aspects of the Internet, and how to compete with piracy – Steam’s legendary sales, it’s active community of gamers, and value added features, all help it not only compete effectively with pirated downloads, but also traditional retailers.

But innovation always carries a risk, a risk that, historically, the music and movie industries havn’t been willing to accept. Whenever something new hits the block, whether it’s home audio taping, or VCRs, these industries have resisted change and has tried to sue their way out of the problem. Eventually though, they did accept that change was inevitable, embraced innovation, and has come out better for it. But what’s different this time though is the incredible power lobbyists now hold over elected officials and the systemic corruption in D.C., and this now offers entrenched major content holders another “solution” – to legislate their way out of trouble. Most in D.C. have  gotten so used to using money to buy policies, that they no longer sees anything wrong with it. Which is probably why former US Senator, and current MPAA head, Chris Dodd was so transparent in his attack against political opponents of SOPA, literally threatening to stop writing checks for them come election time. That he simply didn’t see any problem with the head of a lobby group threatening to stop paying politicians if a favourable law wasn’t passed, shows just how “comfortable” the Washington crowd has gotten with the way things are done over there (or it may just be because Dodd is stupid). But while Dodd may not have felt that there was anything wrong with his statement, others did, and using the same tactic that has already worked against SOPA, people are signing a new petition on the White House’s “We the People” petition website to ask for a full investigation of Dodd for bribery. With 25,000 signatures required within 30 days for the White House to officially issue a statement on the petition, 30,000 signatures were promptly recorded in just a week (that’s the Internet for ya). The fact that the White House will now have to issue on statement of Dodd’s alleged improprieties, regardless of what the statement actually says, should be hugely embarrassing for the MPAA Chairman. Or it could be much much more serious.

Anno 2070 looks great, but just pray that you don't need to change your GPU, or the game's DRM could lock you out

With so many big issues being discussed, trust Ubisoft to still somehow steal the headlines via yet another incident with one of their controversial DRM choices. When review site Guru3D went about using Ubi’s Anno 2070 in a hardware benchmark test, they found that the 3 PC activation limit also applied when the GPU was changed, and so having barely started their test, they had used up all of their activations. Having calculated that they would need 7 copies, or 21 activations, to finish their testing, Guru3D contacted Ubisoft about this potential “bug” with their DRM, but Guru3D were promptly told that not only was this normal and intentional, Ubisoft wouldn’t be providing the 7 copies needed to finish their testing. So Guru3D did what any self respecting website would have done – they published the entire detail of their ordeal for the Net public to judge, and the expected public backlash eventually forced Ubisoft to back down and allow for GPU changes. Ubisoft came out with the usual statement saying that very few people were affected by this particular problem with their DRM, which is probably true considering the game only came out in November, and I don’t think many would have changed their GPUs twice during this period. But the problem with DRM is that it’s forever, so were Ubisoft really expecting PC gamers, of all people, to not frequently change their GPU or other parts of their hardware? Or maybe they just didn’t think their games were that good for people to be still playing it for more than a couple of month. For now though, while GPU changes are exempt from requiring new activations, other hardware are still being included, and so don’t be surprised if this problem pops up again at a later date.

And on that note, we move to gaming. For some reason, all the Xbox 720 rumours decided to out themselves this week.

Of course, there cannot be an Xbox rumour without mentioning Blu-ray, and the next Xbox (which I hope will be more imaginatively named than “Xbox 720″) will apparently have a Blu-ray drive. Whether it plays Blu-ray movies or not, remains to be seen though, since the Wii U will have a “Blu-ray like” drive, that won’t play movies.

Just one of the many Xbox 720 mock-ups floating around the net

On the GPU front, a Radeon 6000 series chip might be used. This actually feels too “new” of a chip for a console that’s supposed to be released next year, since the Wii U is only using a Radeon 4000 series. The reason why console manufacturers use older chips, other than the maturity of the product line, is due to the time it takes to engineer an existing off the shelve solution for a game console, the cost involved in using the state-of-the-art GPU, and the fact that optimizations mean console GPUs don’t need to be as powerful as their PC counterparts.

The most controversial rumour involves Kotaku’s reveal that the next Xbox could ban the playing of second hand games. Publishers have long complained that second hand games are cannibalising sales, as gamers can “share” the same copy and game stores profit from each transaction – only one payment from these transactions is made to publishers, right at the start. Publishers have come up with various ways to solve this problem, for example, a voucher system (but that don’t really works for limiting the multiplayer component of games). So if Microsoft really wanted to please publishers, and get them to release more exclusives for the platform, then having a system that ensures second hand games won’t work will do the job. Although I think this will backfire and hurt sales, and the platform, in the long run.

Nothing much more happening this week, at least no in the real non-Skyrim world, so we come to the end of another WNR. See you next week.

As NPD no longer releases full hardware sales figures, this feature is reliant on the game companies, namely Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, to release their set of figures and based on “statement math” (that is, arithmetically calculate missing figures based on statements made). For December 2011, these are the statements made by the gaming companies:

• Nintendo did not reveal any figures for December 2011
• Microsoft revealed “more than” 1.7 million Xbox 360 hardware units sold, with 46% of the home based console market share (source)
• Sony did not reveal any figures for December 2011

With only the above information, it becomes impossible to work out the estimated numbers for both the Wii and the PS3. Luckily, analyst Michael Pachter again came to the rescue, via Twitter, stating the Wii sales were in fact 55% down from the same month a year ago. With this piece of crucial information, we are then able to deduce the Wii numbers, and from this and the 46% market share figure quoted by Microsoft, we are then able to estimate the PS3 numbers too.

And so the figures for US sales in December 2011 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (December 2010 figures also shown, including percentage change):

• Xbox 360: 1,700,000 (Total: 30.9 million; December 2010: 1,860,000 – down 8.6%)
• Wii: 1,060,000 (Total: 37.7 million; December 2010: 2,360,000 – down 55%)
• PS3: 936,000 (Total: 18.9 million; December 2010: 1,210,000 – down 22.6%)

NPD December 2011 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of December 2011)

My prediction from last month was:

Same hardware ordering, and a software chart that looks very similar to this month’s, so there’s nothing much to add to that really.

While the software chart has a lot of titles that were there in November, the hardware ordering actually changed, with the PS3 dropping back down to third place, after finishing above the Wii last month.

Overall, looking at the figures above, and the “sea of red”, December 2011 has been nothing short of a disastrous month for video game sales, especially compared to last December. As mentioned earlier, a huge percentage of sales occur in December, but this last particular December did not even out do the previous month, when historically, this has almost always been the case. In fact, for hardware sales, the raw numbers were at its lowest since 2005.

Microsoft was probably the “winner”, if you can call it that (more like the smallest loser), with only an 8.6% drop in console sales, and level in sales with November. The NPD pointed to the strength of the Xbox 360 throughout the year, saying that the Xbox 360 platform accounted for nearly 40% of annual physical retail sales, across all categories. Still, if you count November and December together as one period, then 2011 has been good to the Xbox 360, with 3.4 million consoles sold, compared to 3.23 million a year ago. Microsoft probably had hoped the Kinect Star Wars game and console bundle would have made it in time, helping to push the console, and Kinect, to the next level, but the delay to the game means that there were no real A-list Kinect titles for this holiday period (unless you count Kinect Sports 2, and Dance Central 2, as A-list titles).

Despite finishing as the third most popular console, the PS3 was probably in second place overall, when you look at the year-to-year decrease figure, as well as performances across both November and December. Nearly 1.84 million PS3 consoles were sold during November and December, compared to 1.74 million consoles in 2011. So the good news is that, things are not that bad, while the bad news is that, the Xbox 360 appears to be pulling further ahead in the United States, where during the same period, it had almost twice as many sales (and more console sales during the holiday period, means more game sales for the rest of next year, and also means a strengthening multiplayer community, the growth of which relies on people using the same console as their friends).

So the real loser is, once again, Nintendo. The Wii, previously the unstoppable juggernaut during December sales, is no more, and is relegated to a distant second place behind the Xbox 360. For November and December, 1.92 million Wiis were sold, compared to 3.63 million in 2010 – in fact, more Wiis were sold in December of 2010 alone, than November an December of 2011 combined! A 55% year-on-year drop shows that the Wii is no longer the “must-have” video game gift, with some of the sales going to the Xbox 360 (not many, looking at the figures above), and possibly lots of sales going to things like tablets and smartphones, the new home of casual gaming.

And that’s probably the best way to look at things for the video game industry as a whole, for the most recent holiday period. The industry has benefited from the Wii becoming a must-have gift item for the last several holiday periods. Kinect has contributed to the same phenomenon, but it just hasn’t been the same. And with so many other gadgets to distract the holiday shopper, and also the economy, the decline can almost been seen as a return to normal, after a couple of years of extraordinary performance led by the Wii. Maybe the Wii U will bring back the same thing next year, but expectations must be readjusted.

As for software sales, it was also down compared to December 2010. MW3 led the chart again, with Skyrim dropping to third after the resurgence of Just Dance 3. Interestingly, looking at total sales for 2011, the ordering of the top 3 was exactly the same as the December top 3, showing that Call of Duty, and perhaps surprisingly, Just Dance, were the top 2 franchises for 2011. Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS was the only new entry into the top 10 in December. Here’s the full software sales chart for December (new releases for December 2011 in bold):

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PC)
2. Just Dance 3 (Ubisoft, Wii, Xbox 360)
3. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
4. Mario Kart 7 (Nintendo, 3DS)
5. Battlefield 3 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
6. Madden NFL 12 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP)
7. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (Ubisoft, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
8. NBA 2K12 (Take-Two Interactive, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, PC)
9. Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo, 3DS)
10. Batman: Arkham City (Warner Bros, Xbox 360, PS3)

Predicting January is always difficult, as the post holiday lull will be here, and there would usually be stock issues (although with the low sales this year, maybe this won’t be an issue). I suspect, other than huge drops in console sales figures for all consoles, the PS3 will probably regain 2nd place, with the Xbox 360 still the top selling console. A subdued month as well for software sale.

See you next month.

I guess it would be customary, at the end of the year, to review the just ended orbit around the sun and summarise the major events. But that would require actually remembering what happened, all year, when I can barely even remember writing last week’s WNR. It should also be a time to look forward to the brand new, still in shrink wraps, year, and make some bold predictions about 2012. But that would require insight and imagination, both of which are in short supply in this 36C (97F) heat.

With the award season upon us soon, I guess I can format this WNR “a look back” in similar fashion, but without spectacular musical numbers, or comedic writing. So basically an award show without any of the interesting bits. Or any actual awards. Sounds like a great idea!

There has been many deserving winners of the prestigious Loser of the Year award, from Sony’s PSN SNAFU, to recent events involving GoDaddy being pwned by Reddit, but there can only be one winner, and of course, it’s Righthaven. The group that helped to redefine the term Copyright Troll has had a horrible year, not only losing court cases, but eventually their shirt (and domain name), as the company is now on the verge of bankruptcy. Will they still be around to compete for next year’s award. Doubtful.

SOPA: winner of our Villain of the Year award

Competition for the always popular Villain of the Year award has been fierce this year, as individuals and companies fight to be total d*cks (hint: not “docks” or “ducks”), in the field of copyright, gaming and beyond. But this year’s award winner is neither an individual, nor a company (and it’s not a duck either). It is, of course, SOPA. The always controversial Stop Online Piracy Act stormed to a clear lead in the voting for the award, at the very last minute I might add. SOPA has managed to unite all against it, be it the conservative Heritage Foundation, Republican as well as Democrats, and even the sworn blood enemies, Reddit and 4chan, and that’s quite an achievement.

The Best Blu-ray of the Year award goes to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, mainly because it was split into two parts and both parts still managed to not only get released in the same year, but both also topped the sales charts. Star Wars just misses out due to a point deduction for George Lucas being a total d*ck (hint: not a duck, named Howard or otherwise).

Skyrim wins our Game of the Year award, for wasting time that could have been used to cure diseases and save the planet

The Best Game of the Year should probably go to the best seller, which would be Modern Warfare 3, but that wouldn’t be fair to the game that everyone is talking about. The amazing world of Skyrim has drawn in thousands of gamers, most of whom have spent hours upon hours arrowing people, and assorted creatures, in the knee, and as a result, the game would have been responsible for breaking up thousands upon thousands of relationships if only gamers actually had real life relationships.

And finally, the Hero of the Year award goes to, in a lame effort to appease my readers, You! For helping to fight SOPA and to punish companies for not agreeing that SOPA is the worst thing to happen to the Internet since Rickrolling, for not buying into the Ultraviolet hype that, I have to admit, I was sucked into when I first heard the phrase “your movie library in the cloud”, for putting up with Sony’s PSN outage and that $600 invoice for adult toys that hackers charged to your credit card account when your details were stolen from PSN, for fighting the likes of Rigthhaven and the US Copyright Group and actually winning, and most courageously of all, for keeping on reading the WNR, rant after rant. You’re a deserving winner!

And as you can probably guess by now, it wasn’t exactly a very newsworthy week. The only real notable piece of news was the GoDaddy anti-SOPA boycott, which Digital Digest was proud to join in, having moved 22 domains out from GoDaddy. It would be easy to feel sorry for GoDaddy right now, as there’s almost nothing they can do or say to repair the damage caused by their ill advised support for SOPA in the first place – even their statement of “we oppose SOPA” was attacked by people claiming the company was opposing SOPA for the wrong reasons (not because SOPA is bad, but because GoDaddy was losing money because of supporting SOPA). Namecheap, hosting the Move Your Domain Day event by offering discounted, below cost domain transfers out of GoDaddy, also managed to raise $64,180 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, $2 for every domain transfer – not bad work for a day, considering how much of a pain moving a domain (especially an active, website hosting one) is.

And that was it for the week really, so I probably shouldn’t babble on any further, especially on a day most of you will be nursing hangovers of varying degrees. So there’s nothing left to do except wish you a great new year, a prosperous one, a safe one, and one that’s heaps better than the awful, awful, 2011. See you next week.

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).

As NPD no longer releases full hardware sales figures, this feature is reliant on the game companies, namely Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, to release their set of figures and based on “statement math” (that is, arithmetically calculate missing figures based on statements made). For November 2011, these are the statements made by the gaming companies:

• Nintendo reveals the Wii sold 860,000 units, with “more than 795,000″ 3DS consoles, and “more than 350,000″ units of DS (via PR email)
• Microsoft revealed 1.7 million Xbox 360 hardware units sold, with 49% of the home based console market share (source)
• Sony said that the PS3 hardware saw a “70% increase” in sales (via Patrick Seybold, Sr. Direcrtor of Corporate Communications at SCEA)

Luckily, all the statement maths added up this month, since from Microsoft and Nintendo’s statements, we can deduce the PS3 numbers to be around 900,000, and that falls into line with Sony’s “70% increase” statement (increase compared to the same time last year).

And so the figures for US sales in November 2011 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (November 2010 figures also shown, including percentage change):

• Xbox 360: 1,700,000 (Total: 30.9 million; November 2010: 1,370,000 – up 24%)
• PS3: 900,000 (Total: 18.9 million; November 2010: 530,000 – up 70%)
• Wii: 860,000 (Total: 37.7 million; November 2010: 1,270,000 – down 32%)

NPD November 2011 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of November 2011)

My prediction from last month was:

It’s the holiday period proper, sales will be way up, and Modern Warfare 3 will help in this regard as it breaks all records. The Xbox 360, the preferred platform of MW3 and also with a new Halo game being released, will be the clear winner yet again, but it will be interesting to see if the Wii can have one last good holiday period, and there’s a new Zelda game too, so that always helps. The PS3 does have Uncharted 3 though. If I have to guess, I would say the PS3 will beat the Wii. The top games will be the ones I’ve already mentioned, plus Skyrim.

I think the above paragraph actually sums up November quite well.

The Xbox 360 was easily the clear winner, but the margin of victory was larger than most has expected. Most expected the Xbox 360 to be the best selling console, but with only moderate growth compared to the same month last year, the first holiday period for Kinect and the new “slim” Xbox 360. But Microsoft surprised everyone with a series of key price cuts, bundles, and sales, and just like how the Wii’s second holiday period was even better than the first thanks to its status as a “must-have” family gift, perhaps the Kinect is doing the same for Microsoft this time round. In any case, a 24% increase in sales compared to last November is nothing to be scoffed at, especially when last November was an amazing 67% up compared to the previous November. Here in Australia, Microsoft has also been super aggressive in discounting the Xbox 360, to prices that are practically half that of just a few months ago, and the Kinect bundle also seeing huge discounts at selected retailers. If this is the same strategy employed in other countries as well, then the Xbox 360 should have a great holiday period, and not just in the US (perhaps this is Microsoft’s response to PS3 sales that have nearly or already caught up to the 360 global sales numbers).

The PS3 also had a great November, although nowhere near as good as the Xbox 360, with the 360 almost selling twice as many units. The 70% increase compared to last November looks spectacular, but one has to take into account that last November, the PS3 sold fewer units than in 2009 (25% down actually). Compared to 2009, PS3 sales are up around 26%, so at the very least, last year’s trend has been reversed with the key price cut that came in the middle of the year. Sony also promoted the fact that PS3 software sales are up 30%, and that, more so than hardware numbers, is what Sony really likes to see (although hardware numbers obviously do help to raise the software numbers, and that’s more of a case now than the first few years of the PS3, when many used it as a cheap way to get a Blu-ray player).

It looks like 2010 was the last great holiday period for the Wii. While sales are not bad this year, they’re nowhere near the million+ figures from yesteryear. And this will be the last holiday period for the Wii as Nintendo’s lead console anyway, with the Wii U set to play a key role this time next year. Still, to label the Wii as a “loser” or “dead” is doing the console a disservice, since it still nearly outsell the PS3, and nobody it calling it a “dead” console.

On to software. As expected, MW3 completely dominated the sales charts, with incredibly, 9 million units of the game selling on all platforms, with over a billion dollars in sales. Battlefield 3 fell to 3rd place as a result, but it’s still the best selling Battlefield game in the series. Skyrim, the game many are already calling game of the year, managed to get second place and that’s probably quite impressive for a game in this genre, and certainly in the Elder Scrolls series, where it’s only taken a month for the latest installment to sell without half a million of the last installment’s lifetime sales number. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Saints Row: The Third contributed to the strong software line-up for November, making it the best November on record, despite recent trend suggesting that wouldn’t have been the case. For platform exclusives, Uncharted 3 did extremely well to get up to 7th place with 700,000 units sold, ahead of the new Zelda game at 600,000. Super Mario Land 3D and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary didn’t make the combined platforms top 10, but would have easily made the top 10 separated by SKU. Here’s the full software sales chart for November (new releases for November 2011 in bold):

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PC)
2. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
3. Battlefield 3 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
4. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (Ubisoft, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
5. Just Dance 3 (Ubisoft, Wii, Xbox 360)
6. Madden NFL 12 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP)
7. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Sony, PS3)
8. Saints Row: The Third (THQ, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
9. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Nintendo, Wii)
10. Batman: Arkham City (Warner Bros, Xbox 360, PS3)

My prediction for December? Same hardware ordering, and a software chart that looks very similar to this month’s, so there’s nothing much to add to that really.

Except for the obligatory, “see you next month”!

There can’t be a copyright section without discussing SOPA, and while the Internet public once again showed how awesome they are on American Censorship Day, what with the 80,000+ phone calls made to Congress, the fight is still very much on.

And that’s the message Mozilla has been reminding people of this week, as they’re hoping for another day of action next Tuesday, and want people to commit to calling their Senators to oppose the senate version of SOPA, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Like SOPA, PIPA aims to do the same things, by making tax payers responsible for protecting the outdated business model of the music and entertainment industries, and sacrificing the stability and safety of the Internet to do it. I don’t like to discourage people from taking part, but I think we all know down in our hearts that these attempts will be futile, as Washington politicians are driven by their pursuit of corporate campaign donations, and have long since stopped fulfilling their duties to the people who actually put them in office (by voting, not buy paying for campaign ads). But it’s the only option we have, and it’s one we must exercise.

Rep Lamar Smith (R-TX) compares download a movie from the Internet to child pornography

What I find most disturbing about SOPA/PIPA, or maybe just predictable, is not that the RIAA/MPAA are pushing for it, but the others supporters. The involvement of the US Chamber of Commerce, in particular, because their M.O. has been to be the public face for corporations to behind. In this case, I think Big Pharma are involved, and they’re more interested in the counterfeiting part of SOPA. Counterfeit drugs should be stopped, as they’re either dangerous, or they do violate the earning rights of pharmaceutical companies, or both. But what Big Pharma may really be trying to achieve with SOPA is to block cheap, but perfectly legal (at least in other countries), alternative drugs. In the end, it always boil down to money. To greed. The fact that is SOPA/PIPA is passed, and the US government will be able to seize domain names of websites that are “dedicated” to selling cheap drugs for those who can’t afford it, and to force search engines to filter out results to these websites, is probably why Big Pharma are involved, why Pfizer was one of only 6 groups asked to testify at the SOPA hearings. We can also see Big Pharm’s involvement via their political lap dogs, and one of the co-sponsors of the bill, Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas has perhaps revealed too much this week in a written rebuttal of criticism of his beloved SOPA bill. Completely dismissing concerns about censorship and freedom of speech (it’s not a core issue for our supposed democratically elected politicians these days), what interested me the most was how Smith chided Google for actively promoting “rogue foreign pharmacies that sold counterfeit and illegal drugs to U.S. patients”, and Smith has a history of introducing or supporting bills that would benefit Big Pharma.

Smith, like many other clueless politicians before him, also once again linked web piracy to child pornography. “Like online piracy, child pornography is a billion-dollar business operated online. It is also illegal. That’s why law enforcement officials are authorized to block access to child-porn sites,” Smith wrote in support of introducing new laws to block online piracy. I find this statement quite incredible really. Does Lamar Smith of Texas think that the only reason law enforcement take action against child-porn sites is because it’s a “billion-dollar business”? I think there are other issues involved, which Smith appears to not care about at all, such as the actual welfare of the exploited children perhaps? And any time a politicians tries to link web piracy to child porn, it doesn’t elevate the seriousness of web piracy, it only serves to devalue the serious of child exploitation. So unless Rep. Smith really thinks that child porn is no more serious than college students downloading the latest Harold & Kumar movie, he should retract his statement, or face being accused of downplaying the seriousness of a truly heinous crime.

But while the moral opposition to SOPA/PIPA is well justified, and the technical opposition that has mainly focussed on the dangers of messing with DNS is also quite valid, one aspect overlooked is that, like most plans to stop piracy, SOPA/PIPA may just not work, particularly the highly controversial search engine filtering part! TechDirt dug up some stats that showed websites that will be prime targets for SOPA/PIPA, like The Pirate Bay, only rely on search engines for a small part of their overall traffic. So even if Google introduced a block to remove all results from all suspected piracy websites, the majority of web pirates would not be affected. And blocking the large sites on Google will just encourage many more smaller sites to take their place, to fill up the holes in the search rankings for terms that carry lots of traffic. And stopping thousands and thousands of smaller websites is going to be a lot harder than stopping a single The Pirate Bay (and we know rights holders don’t want to do the work, so they’re not going to track down each domain name and fill in the right forms to get Google to remove them), and this fragmentation will actually make web piracy easier. And this is actually the preferred scenario – the likely scenario is that malware sites will probably move in, and all those piracy newbs that don’t know the domain name of the The Pirate Bay or don’t know that you can type it directly into your browser, will get redirected to malware sites and billions will be lost as a result (see, I can make up monetary loss figures too).

And the DNS/IP filtering, as I’ve explained before, can be easily bypassed as well by people who don’t mind putting in the extra work, and I’m never surprised at things people are willing to do for free stuff (I mean, just figuring out how to use BitTorrent, including port redirections and stuff, is much harder than switching to a non filtered DNS). And the group responsible for “defeating” Google’s anti-piracy auto-suggest filter is back, as MAFIAA Fire releases a new add-on for Firefox called The Pirate Bay Dancing, which aims to circumvent blocking and filtering by randomly using one of thousands of proxy servers. It promises to work with any blocked site, even ones that are banned for political reasons, in countries that the US is now trying to emulate.

And it is all about the money. RIAA and MPAA money, and money from corporations in general, have corrupted the American political system, but the same money corrupts the copyright system too, it seems. This follows a breaking scandal in the Netherlands where, ironically, an anti-piracy firm stole the music it used in those anti-piracy ads you find at the start of DVDs, and it follows the plight of the poor artist trying to recoup what he’s owed, only to come face to face with the corrupt copyright business. The composer, Melchior Rietveldt, was given a “deal” in which he would have to give 33% of his royalties to the boss of a royalty collection agency, or face the possibility of not getting any money back. So you have anti-piracy firms performing commercial piracy, and you have copyright licensing firms doing backdoor deals and pocketing the real artist’s money for themselves.

Skipping ahead to gaming, but still within the topic of copyright, we have Sony revealing details about the memory card for its upcoming PlayStation Vita portable console, and once again, it’s exactly what you would expect from a company like Sony.

Sony will force gamers to buy new proprietary memory cards for the PS Vita, at $120 for 32GB

The PlayStation Vita’s memory cards will be yet again another Sony proprietary format, and if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s a new proprietary format that only works with the Vita – even Sony’s own proprietary MemoryStick format was apparently not good enough. Sony says this has been for performance reasons, and that may be partly true, but everyone knows that security is the real concern here (if performance was such a big problem, then why not dictate that only class 10 high speed SD cards can be used, and perhaps even run a speed test on cards before they’re allowed to be used on the Vita). By making the Vita memory card a proprietary format stuffed with DRM, and removing compatibility for the card to be used as a mass storage device (so that the card can only be accessed via Sony’s proprietary software), Sony hopes that hackers can’t use the memory card as a platform to launch a hack into the system, to avoid what did happen with the PSP.

But Sony’s actions may have the opposite effect, as hackers will see this new system that appears to be harder to hack, and see it as a challenge. But if there’s a way to use something, there’s a way to hack it to do something else, and I don’t think this will change regardless of how difficult you make it for legitimate gamers, now forced to pay a premium for Sony’s memory cards ($120 for 32GB).

Following up last week’s story about game retailers such as Steam and Good Old Games urging publishers to compete with pirates on service, not just on price, I have my own personal story this week with just how difficult paying customers have it compared to pirates. I purchased the game Sins of a Solar Empire a while back, it’s a game that doesn’t have DRM and I thought I would show my support (but mainly because it was on sale – pricing is still very important, more on that later). I had played the game a while back, but that was on XP, and now that I wanted to get the game running on Windows 7. While the game is DRM free, the full purchase process involves buying from Stardock’s Impulse platform, which has recently been sold to GameStop, registering within Impulse to download the game – Impulse was not required when I originally installed the game in XP, as it was only needed for updates. The Impulse platform is an app like Steam, that allows you to purchase, download and organize your game collection. Unfortunately, the serial code for the game I had would not register on Impulse, and searching the web, this appears to be a common problem. The only solution is to email Impulse tech support, and that’s what I did. But the problem is that it left me with a game that I purchased, that I wanted to play right now, and I’m unable to as a paying customer. So instead, I did what many would have done in my position – I downloaded a pirated version of the game, from a file hosting/sharing website without having to commit any illegal “uploads”, so I could play it right away. It took Impulse tech support 3 days to answer my query, which was to provide a new serial that would register.

Crappy games, like Duke Nukem Forever, is still popular with game buyers because it's been heavily discounted

And pricing, I have to say, plays a big part in game purchases. And I’m not talking about must-have games, but rather, the games that you might think you’re interested in, but not so much that you would want to pay full prices for. Right now, piracy seems to be the most popular way to get these types of games, but for me, the various Steam sales have become the better alternative. I’ve bought a lot of games just because they’re cheap, and for $5, you can’t really go wrong. It’s this type of thinking and impulse buy that could drive the PC gaming market, and also prevent piracy (or monetize piracy, as downloaders “legalize” their pirated copies by buying a legit one on the cheap). I understand that you can’t release new games at this low price point, but for games that have received less than positive reviews, the price drop should happen much more quickly than it does right now (to be fair, some publishers have already started embracing this principle – badly received games are often now purchased up despite the bad reviews if the price is right – that’s money the publisher otherwise wouldn’t have had, or wouldn’t even deserve for publishing a bad game).

Alright, enough ranting for this week – gotta save something for next week. See you then.

Steam's Autumn Sale is on, and if you're like me, then credit card (or PayPal account) will take a pounding as a result - and to make things worse, Steam's holiday sale is just around the corner!

Hope you’ve had a nice week, perhaps even a night Black Friday deals week. If you’re like me, then your wallet has taken a pounding, despite the Blu-ray and game deals being not all that great so far. The Amazon US/UK Black Friday Blu-ray sales, especially the spotlight/lightning sale items, have been generally disappoint though, not that it has stopped me buying a dozen or two Blu-ray’s, mostly from the BF general sales categories. Steam’s Autumn Sale is a bit more interesting, still has one more day to run, but the titles I really want haven’t really come up yet (snatched up Portal 2 and Orcs Must Die so far). Speaking of Steam and bargains, would you like some free Steam games? If so, and if you have luck with competitions and stuff, then you should try Steam Gifts, which is now open to sign-ups (no more invitations). The way it works is that you periodically get “points” which you can use to enter competitions for games gifted by other users, and if you’re lucky, then you can get lots of free games (I’m not so lucky, 0 win out of 33 entries so far). Most competitions have a couple of hundred to a few thousand entries, so it’s not easy, but it’s probably easier than most other competitions, plus it’s all free. Just realised that it’s actually counter-productive for me to tell you about Steam Gifts, since more people will make it harder for me to win – so, if you can, forget what I just wrote, and whatever you do, *don’t* sign up. Thanks.

Continuing on from last week’s anti-SOPA stories, remember when Nancy Pelosi tweeted in support of opposition to SOPA. It seems an important endorsement of a growing movement, and as a progressive politician, it seems like the right thing to support.

Unfortunately though, it seems Pelosi is yet another politician in the pockets of the movie industry, as the “backflip”, or what Washington politicians call a “clarification” came soon after the tweet, declaring Pelosi’s continued support for the film industry’s fight against web piracy, blah blah blah. And people wonder why Congress only has a 9% approval rating, or why if it suits some lobbying agenda, that even tomato paste on pizzas can be declared a vegetable, made more ridiculous by the fact that tomatoes are a fruit.

But one politician sticking to true convictions is Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. He as the only senator to stand up PROTECT IP when it pass through the Senate’s own judiciary committee, and he did it by placing a hold on the bill, delaying the vote until 60 other senators get together to vote the hold down. PROTECT IP, if you don’t know, is SOPA’s uglier older brother, and both try to do the same thing – make the government responsible for the copyright enforcement of the movie and music industry, at tax payer expense, by destroying due process and possibly the entire Internet.

Senator Ron Wyden is fighting the good fight to preserve the Internet and your freedoms

Unfortunately, Senator Wyden concedes that the 60 votes needed may not be far away, and he is now going to use a more common tactic to delay the voting – a filibuster! Not only that, he’s asking those opposed to PROTECT IP (and SOPA) to submit their names to stopcensorship.org, and Senator Wyden will read out people’s names during the filibuster. It’s a nice touch, and I hope there are enough names submitted for Senator Wyden to have enough to read during his filibuster. If only all politicians were like Senator Wyden, and actually stood up for the public’s interest, as opposed to that of corporations, the US and the world would not be in the state it is.

For those that think there’s too much hyperbole when it comes to the threats attached to SOPA and PROTECT IP, that these aren’t really that dangerous and “normal” people won’t get affected by it, then if you want examples what governments that are too copyright-friendly can get up to, then here’s a story from Denmark. Like what SOPA and PROTECT IP will allow the US government to do, Denmark banned The Pirate Bay, and now, a blogger who simply posted instructions on bypassing the block has had his home searched, and could face up to 5 years in prison. You see, in order to allow for the enforcement of website bans, the government has also had to ban tools and techniques that bypass the ban, something that’s in SOPA as well. But many of tools that bypass website blocks are industry standard tools, and the techniques are fairly straight forward and are used for other things as well (such as trying to stay anonymous online), and  just as the EFF warned the other week, something that’s not thought out like SOPA could make a whole host of perfectly legal, and extremely useful tools and techniques for engineers and Internet businesses, illegal.

And so 19-year old law student Halfdan Timm found himself facing arrest by police at his school if he did not cooperate with a search of his flat, and police ransacked through everything, including his roommate’s room, and even through his dirty laundry. All of this was based on a “hunch” by the film industry’s anti-piracy agency in the country, and this could very well happen to more people in the US if SOPA or PROTECT IP passes.

Ironically, while "the pirate bay" related terms are removed from the suggestion list, the actual domain name is still the top linked recommendation due to its number one position on the search ranks

And while Google was doing its best to put some at least some kind of resistance to SOPA at the Congressional hearings, they’re again walking the tight rope between giving the film/music industry what it wants, and ensuring their own interests (and that of web searchers) are not compromised. So this week, Google added more “piracy related” keywords to its auto-suggest/complete blacklist, now including the term “the pirate bay”, “isohunt”, “fileserve” and basically all the major file-sharing websites. When a keyword is black listed, it will no longer come up as a suggested or auto-completed keyword in Google search, but the search result is not affected. But as I said when Google first introduced this “do no evil” feature back at the start of the year, it won’t really appease the rights holders, because what they’ve wanted from the start was for Google to actually filter the results (and SOPA/PROTECT IP will give them that). Google’s policy of appeasement was never going to work, and I think they should just stick to their guns and don’t accept blame for what people are searching for.

With SOPA/PROTECT IP, and the government intervening in copyright cases, the future of mass copyright lawsuits will become even more uncertain. Most of damage to their cause is being done by Righthaven these days, with their scattergun approach and their ability to pick the absolute worse people to sue (plus the whole suing people for newspaper articles repostings, is just not as “sexy” as suing big bad pirates for downloading illegal movies). Probably their worst target so far has been Democratic Underground, a progressive political forum where they simply love to be in this kind of fight, and choosing people *not* willing to put up a fight is exactly what mass copyright, pre-trial settlement fee extracting lawsuits are all about. Anyway, this week, Stephens Media, the backers of Righthaven and also their only major client left, conceded that Democratic Underground had fair use rights to use a five-sentence reposting of a Las- Vegas Review-Journal article. The admittance to fair use rights is actually kind of a biggie, since the other cases Righthaven lost have been mostly on procedural issues (the question whether Righthaven even had the right to sue on behalf of Stephens Media). A five-sentence posting, to me, is definitely fair use, as if it isn’t then even just posting a link with a headline for an article may become the target of a lawsuit in the future, and that’s just counter-productive for all involved. If anything, a 5-sentence excerpt is really free advertising for the newspaper, as people, if interested in the story, will click on the accompanying link to read more, while those not too interested will get the gist of the article without wasting the bandwidth of the newspaper website – a win win, really. So I have no idea why Righthaven even sued in the first place, it was a loser from the get go.

And with Righthaven dying a slow death, the Australian version of mass copyright lawsuits seems to have hit a snag before it has even started, with the VP of Movie Rights Group leaving the company, and the website for the firm going down. It’s definitely been quiet the last couple of weeks, ever since the first stories surfaced of MRG’s attempt to sue thousands. We’ve only really heard from ISPs about what they intend to do, but nothing much from MRG. And since Australian law is different from US law, perhaps MRG has hit some hurdles in their attempt to get customer data, or to approach them with settlement offers based on the threat of statutory and punitive damages. Nobody will shed any tears if MRG does disappear into the wilderness.

Technically still a copyright story, but I wanted to give a bit more variety to this WNR, so into the gaming section it goes.

Ubisoft may withdraw from the PC market, says senior company employees, due to piracy. Or not. The confusion comes from Ubisoft creative director Stanislas Mettra, and his rather angry rant at “bitching” PC gamers, although he later retracted his statements saying that as English wasn’t his first language, he probably meant something else when using the term “bitching”. But I’m sure he wasn’t trying to say that all PC gamers were female dogs, although that would explain why nobody is paying for anything (dogs don’t have pockets to put their wallets in, you see). But Ubisoft producer Sébastien Arnoult didn’t retract his statement that “95% of our consumers” are pirates (and consume as in play the game, as opposed “consumer” in the normal sense of the word), and saying that is the reason why Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will not be getting a PC version.

Ubisoft may stop making PC games because of piracy

Ubisoft’s own “bitching” about piracy is really getting stupid now, and it looks like they’re more than willing to shoot themselves in the foot once more by ditching the PC market. But to be fair, their stupid DRM probably already drove away their last remaining loyal PC gamers, so they really have nothing much left to lose.

But it’s ironic that two game retailers, Steam and Good Old Gaming, both came out to attack Ubisoft’s stance, and both are companies that have been very successful selling PC games even when everyone else was saying that the market is completely dead due to piracy. Steam’s Gabe Newell says that piracy is more of a service issue than a pricing issue, and that’s definitely true. He again points to markets like Russia which had been abandoned by companies like Ubisoft due to high piracy rates, but by abandoning the market and not producing a regional version of the game (with the right language), it left gamers with only a single choice – piracy. By providing faster regionalisation and better services, Russian is now Steam’s second largest market in Europe. Trevor Longino from Good Old Gaming agrees, because he sees piracy as an easier way to get and play games than the current loopholes that publishers want paying customers to jump through, via creating multiple accounts, and offline and online validation.

But I think pricing is definitely also an issue. Steam themselves have pointed to higher total revenue when games are priced significantly lower. With digital distribution, there’s no actual cost increase associated with selling more copies, the only extra cost comes from tech support and perhaps support for online features. Publishers don’t pay much attention to tech support anyway, so it’s not as if more gamers would strain their (lack of) service too much. And online features can have their own marketplaces, where gamers can buy additional items, and so more gamers equals more revenue normally. And this is why free-to-play seems to be a new business model, and even Ubisoft is getting in on the act with Ghost Recon Online.

But I think there’s a good balance between free-to-play, and “pre-paid” games that also have purchasable optional online content, and done in a better way than DLCs that add nothing to the game experience, which sadly is the case far too often these days.

My finger hurts, so it tells me it’s probably time to stop typing. See you next week.

As NPD no longer releases full hardware sales figures, this feature is reliant on the game companies, namely Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, to release their set of figures and based on “statement math” (that is, arithmetically calculate missing figures based on statements made). For October 2011, these are the statements made by the gaming companies:

• Nintendo reveals the Wii sold nearly 250,000 units, more than 250,000 3DS consoles, and nearly 180,000 DS (via PR email)
• Microsoft revealed 393,000 Xbox 360 hardware units sold, with 44% of the home based console market share (source)
• Sony did not reveal any hardware figures

With only a rough estimate for the Wii numbers, it’s hard to come up with an exact figure for the PS3, but assuming Nintendo’s “nearly 250,000″ is much closer than 250,000 than 240,000, then combined with the Microsoft released data (if 393,000 is 44%, then 100% is  893,182, and taking out the Wii and 360 numbers from this), we get roughly 250,000 units for PS3 sales.

And so the figures for US sales in October 2011 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (October 2010 figures also shown, including percentage change):

• Xbox 360: 393,000 (Total: 29.2 million; October 2010: 325,000 – up 21%)
• PS3: 250,000 (Total: 18 million; October 2010: 250,000 – no change)
• Wii: 250,000 (Total: 36.8 million; October 2010: 232,000 – up 8%)

NPD October 2011 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of October 2011)

My prediction from last month was:

I think the hardware situation will remain largely the same. Games wise, Batman: Arkham City and Battlefield 3 go head to head, with Forza 4 on the Xbox 360 possible making the top 10 as well as a platform exclusive.

Fairly close to the reality, I suppose, although the strength in which Battlefield 3 sold probably surprised everyone, despite the hype suggesting it was always going to do well. And the only other “surprise” is the PS3 numbers, and how close it came to actually selling fewer units than the Wii (and it may have done so too, since our “statement maths” above isn’t too accurate based on roundings and precision errors).

Starting with the healthiest number, the Xbox 360 had another amazing month, as not only did it managed to easily beat the other two consoles, it also managed year-on-year growth compared to October 2010 – no mean feat considering we had the “Slim”, price cut and Kinect to give sales a bump, and nothing like that this year. But 21% growth is nothing to be scoffed at, and it’s clear that, at least in the US, the Xbox 360 is the dominant console of this generation, despite Wii still having quite a large lead at the moment (but if you look at the number of active players, the number of hit games, the online multiplayer scene, the multimedia hub features – the Wii is not in the same league as the Xbox 360). Global Xbox 360 sales, while still leading the PS3 probably at this point, may give up its lead sometime soon, but if you have to pick a clear winner for this generation, then based on the growth of the platform and the long term effects on the next generation and beyond, the Xbox 360 is a clear winner.

The PS3 is by no means a loser, and if Sony keep to their word of a 10-year product life for the console (and Microsoft follow Nintendo’s lead and release a new console before then), then the PS3 might still end up being the best selling console of this generation, at least in global sales. But compared to the last generation, in which the PS2 outsold the Xbox by more than a 6-to-1 margin (and outsold Nintendo’s GameCube by even more), then you can’t but feel that while PS3 may eventually “win”, the victory is somewhat hollow when you consider the decline from the totally dominating position the PlayStation platform was in the last gen. Of course, this kind of dominance would never really be long lasting (just ask Sega, or Nintendo before the Wii), but the company’s lack of focus on online gaming, too much focus on Blu-ray and the subsequent delay to the release of the console, the relative developer unfriendly platform (which was always going to be to Microsoft, a software company’s, advantage), the lack of attention to family/social gaming (the Wii sucks, but here’s Move, our version of it), and various setbacks including the recent PSN hack, were all mistakes that could have been prevented or at least mitigated. So coming into the holiday period, with sales flat compared to the same month last year, and battling the Wii to be a distant second place, it’s not where Sony wanted to be (they had hoped most PS2 owners would have upgraded to a PS3 by now, but instead, the Xbox 360 and the Wii stepped in to fill the “hardcore” and “family fun” void).

The Wii, for what it was, and what it has achieved, is also a huge success. Sure, most Wii consoles are now gathering dust somewhere (guilty as charged), but for a slightly enhanced version of the GameCube with a new innovative control system, it has done amazingly well. But much of it has been at the expense of losing all hardcore gamers to the other platforms, a situation Nintendo wants to address with the graphically powerful Wii U (because hardcore gamers keep playing, and keep buying games, not so much casual gamers who get distracted easily as soon as a new tablet or smartphone hits the market). If the Wii was about getting Nintendo back in the game, and a game where they were close to “going the way of Sega” in the last gen (the Xbox sold more units than the GameCube, despite it being a clunky first effort by a company that has never done console gaming, compared to the pro that is Nintendo).

Don’t know why this analysis has turned into a “look back at” type of deal, considering this generation still has a long way to go, but it just felt appropriate for some reason, as this may be the last holiday period where these 3 consoles compete in.

Let’s move on to game sales. Battlefield 3 broke all records (before MW3 will do the same this/next month), which is no surprise. BF3 fever affected me personally as well, having played and be completely pwned in the beta, I was out for more punishment and so bought a copy of the PC version. In fact, I was so caught up in the fever, I actually bought two copies (long story)! With 10 million copies shipped (as in to retailer, with 5 million of these actually “sold”), it’s a success. Batman: Arkham City, in any other month, would have been the clear winner, oh well. Again highlighting the dominance of the Xbox 360 in the US, two platform exclusive titles, the newly released Forza 4 and last month’s Gears of War 3, were in the top 10, a difficult proposition for single platform releases, as they were up against all platforms combined sales figures for the multi-platform games. Also interesting is that Just Dance 3 managed a top 10 entry, despite not being available on the PS3 until December. Ubisoft hasn’t said why the PS3 version is delayed, but I’m sure Microsoft will notch it up as a victory for Kinect over the Move. Here’s the full software sales chart for October (new releases for October 2011 in bold):

1. Battlefield 3 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
2. Batman: Arkham City (Warner Bros, Xbox 360, PS3)
3. NBA 2K12 (Take-Two Interactive, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, PC)
4. Rage (Bethesda, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
5. Just Dance 3 (Ubisoft, Wii, Xbox 360)
6. Dark Souls (Namco, PS3, Xbox 360)
7. Madden NFL 12 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP)
8. Forza Motorsport 4 (Microsoft, Xbox 360)
9. Gears of War 3 (Microsoft, Xbox 360)
10. FIFA 12 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, 3DS)

Time to make my usual prediction. It’s the holiday period proper, sales will be way up, and Modern Warfare 3 will help in this regard as it breaks all records. The Xbox 360, the preferred platform of MW3 and also with a new Halo game being released, will be the clear winner yet again, but it will be interesting to see if the Wii can have one last good holiday period, and there’s a new Zelda game too, so that always helps. The PS3 does have Uncharted 3 though. If I have to guess, I would say the PS3 will beat the Wii. The top games will be the ones I’ve already mentioned, plus Skyrim.

See you next month.

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.

We start with copyright news as we usually do, and we start with a quite unusual story, one that I still don’t really know what to make of.

PC gaming piracy is a big problem, I think everyone can at least acknowledge this fact (whether ever more intrusive DRM is the solution to the problem, I think, is where the debate is at the moment), but if the goal of anti-piracy is to increase revenue, and intrusive DRM doesn’t seem to be producing, why not try something else?

A sample result from the Vigilant Defender questionnaire, which shows that DRM not only does not really help encourage pirates to buy games, it may even drive them to pirate in the first place

Except, I probably wouldn’t try what startup anti-piracy firm, Vigilant Defender, has tried – to actually help the spread of pirated content. Yes, you heard right, the first step in Vigilant Defender’s experiment is to actually help seed a leaked beta version of the hit game, Deus Ex Human Revolution. The second step is slightly tricky, as the version of the beta they seeded was slightly modified to drop out of the game after the first few levels, and direct users to an online questionnaire, in which they were asked questions about why they decided to pirate the game. While data collection is essential to solving the piracy problem, especially given the industry’s often biased “research” on the matter, the key question asked of gamers was “what would you be willing to pay for this game”. Not only will the answer to this particular question prove useful in finding out just why people pirate, and what price point can influence the same people to go legit, Vigilant took this one step further and proceeded to offer downloaders the opportunity to buy the full game at a price determined by average answer to this particular question. And amazingly, 8% of all those who downloaded the modified leaked beta actually went on to buy the game, at the user voted average price of $24.99 (half of the retail price) and that’s actually quite a high rate of return for games, especially when the target demographic is often described by the industry as “criminals” and “freeloaders”.

In my opinion, what Vigilant Defender tried to do was very clever, even if they went about it perhaps in too much of a roundabout way. What they’re actually advocating is a system where users vote for the price they want to play, and where pirated versions of games actually become demos of sorts. The gaming industry may not want to believe it, but a lot of gamers do use pirated games as an extended demo, and many, I’m not saying all (or even anything close to a majority), to end up buying the full version if they like the game. Game publishers, on the other than, would rather prefer people buy games they don’t like by making sure they can’t test it fully before they buy it, and perhaps that’s how it used to work before Internet piracy became ubiquitous, this kind of business model no longer works. But on the other hand, by offering downloaders cheaper version of games, it’s perhaps encouraging downloads, and this kind of distribution model would be a hard sell for game publishers. But there’s definitely something here, and perhaps a little bit of tweaking could bring us a new distribution model that takes advantage of P2P networks such as BitTorrent to not only distribute the games, but to promote them. Imagine if games came with a thin layer of unobtrusive DRM that simply nagged users to buy the game from time to time, a DRM so not annoying that release groups don’t even bother to have it (so it remains in the pirated versions floating around the net). Users would then be given an offer to “upgrade” their pirated version to the full legit version for a discounted price, but the caveat is that their save games/profiles would no longer be compatible with the full version unless they pay the full price, or some kind of incentive that still makes buying games at full price an attractive proposition. And if you want pirates to help you sell games, then let them join some kind of commission based affiliate program, where for each downloader that “upgrades”, the seeder would get a small commission for their “help”.

The even easier alternative is to lower game prices and improve services for legitimate customers, so that piracy becomes more trouble than its worth.

For Vigilant Defender though, they have a slight problem on their hands at the moment since this Deux Ex experiment was not actually approved by the publishers of the game, Square Enix, which could land the anti-piracy company in a bit of bother with anti-piracy laws.

Bad news for Australians lately on the copyright front. Only a couple of weeks ago, we got our first taste of mass copyright lawsuits, and this week, our government signalled changes to our existing copyright law which would make it even easier for mass copyright lawsuits to happen. Namely, the Attorney-General wants to make it easier for rights holders (or agents of them) to match IP addresses to real identifies, by “streamlining” the legal process. In other words, due process has to go out the window to make Hollywood and the RIAA happy. Even the idea of a ‘graduated response’ system was mentioned, at a conference sponsored by the copyright lobby, of course. Still, there were some other proposed changes that were positive, such as extending “safe harbour” to protect more types of Internet businesses, rather than just ISPs – search engines like Google and Bing will benefit the most with this proposed change. But as long as politicians still continue to believe that a single IP address is evidence enough of a “crime”, and that the “crime” itself is costing the creative industries insane amounts of money and jobs, then politicians will always be on the side of the copyright lobby, made more likely by the uneven spreading around of lobbying cash from both sides of the issue.

In HD/3D news, this week could prove an important one for advocates of managed copy, who want legal alternatives to “ripping”. UltraViolet has been talked about quite a lot, and this week, we finally get our first taste of this “in the cloud” based managed copy system. Unfortunately, the taste is not quite palatable.

UltraViolet from Warner Bros. is being distributed via Flixster, and it isn't a very convenient user experience

Warner Bros. released Horrible Bosses and Green Lantern with UltraViolet digital copy included, but the way Warner has decided to deploy UltraViolet is the biggest problem at the moment. The current WB process requires users to enter in a 12-digit redemption code online, which in itself is annoying, and then users will have to sign up to Flixster, and then install the Flixster app on the device they wish to view the UltraViolet copy. And it’s all wrapped up in various layers of DRM, as you would expect.

And as WB owns Flixster, and to add to the problem, when other studios release their version of UltraViolet, they will use their own distribution network. So right now, if you asked me on which devices an UltraViolet digital copy works on, I can’t tell you, because it will depend on each studio, and this is absolutely the wrong way to go about it. For UltraViolet to be viable, I think it really has to either tie in with iTunes, NetFlix, Amazon or one of the existing players in video distribution, or all the studios have to come together and come up with a single distribution method, with all of the major devices supported (the iDevices, Android system, game consoles and Blu-ray players, at least). And then, streamline the process so it’s as simple as scanning a QR code, or just a matter of inserting the UltraViolet Blu-ray or DVD into a UV compatible player – none of this 12 digit code nonsense, or having to figure out each studio’s UltraViolet system and having to have an account for each.

A two parter Sony related story, the first part goes here in the HD section I suppose. Sony has had to issue a massive recall/repair for 1.6 million LCD TVs they produced since 2008, apparently due to a fire risk in a faulty component. It’s not exactly what the company needs at the moment, but the “good” news so far is that there haven’t been any reports of actual injuries, and that the damage so far has been restricted to the TV set itself.

Less costly for Sony, financial wise, but perhaps more costly in terms of image is the news that a further 93,000 Sony online network accounts have been “hacked”, in the latest security breach.

Fortunately for Sony, the breach which led to hackers gaining access to 93,000 accounts on the Sony Entertainment Network (SEN), PlayStation Network (PSN) and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) networks appears to have originated elsewhere. According to Sony, hackers managed to source the email/password combinations for an unspecified (non Sony) online service, and proceeded to use the same login combination to try their luck on the PSN, and managed to get access to the 93,000 accounts. Sony have disabled 33,000 SOE accounts, while have forced password changes for the rest. Sony says that credit card info was not accessed during this attack, but personal information may have been.

While Sony is right that the data breach occurred elsewhere, the security issue here still lies with Sony, because allowing hackers to launch this type of massive attack can easily be prevented. Simply limiting failed login attempts from any individual IP address or range, which is standard practice, could have prevented the 93,000 accounts from being accessed. And some kind of “CAPTCHA” system, or human verification, would have prevented the hacker’s bot based login attempts. Both of these are common techniques used to prevent dictionary based attacks. And once again, it took Sony days to spot the unusual activity on their networks, when it really should be a matter of hours if not minutes.

Life to date Xbox 360 sales in the US (in green) is catching up to Wii sales (in blue), but the PS3 (red) languishes in third place

But while Sony’s security problems have been highlighted recently, it doesn’t seem to have seriously affected the fortunes of the PS3, as price, as always, seems to be the main driving factor behind sales. So Sony’s $50 price cut to the PS3 in the middle of August has seen PS3 sales rise, although as the September 2011 NPD US video games sales analysis shows, the rise was not big enough to really endanger the Xbox 360’s position as the best selling console in the US. The gap has closed, however, between the PS3 and the Xbox 360, while the gap between the Wii and every other console seems to be widening. If the gap remains as big as it was during September, the Xbox 360 is set to overtake the Wii as the best selling home based console of this generation (in the US) within 39 month – but it will be well after the Wii U is introduced, so that’s what Nintendo are holding on to at the moment.

Alright, that’s enough for this week I think. Hopefully more of a newsworthy week this next one, and I have a feeling it will. Have a good one.