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Weekly News Roundup (8 December 2013)

Sunday, December 8th, 2013

Another short one this week. I hope you’ll be understanding, what with the holidays so close, it just doesn’t feel right to do a lot of work. I suspect this feeling will last well into the new year.

On with the WNR.

So another one down the drain. As you will probably have heard by now, Hotfile is dead. Which makes this the MPAA’s second big anti-piracy victory in as many months, after the closure of isoHunt back in October. And this one didn’t even need a trial.

Hotfile is no more, as MPAA scores another major victory

Hotfile and their lawyers decided that the best course of action was to settle the case a week before the trial was set to start, with the file host agreeing to pay $80 million in damages. Under the deal, the site itself could still operate if they implemented a copyright filtering system. Failing that, the would have to close down. I guess those responsible for Hotfile found the latter to be easier than the former, and Hotfile has been closed permanently.

So that’s one less place where pirated downloads can be gotten, which leaves only several hundred other places that offer the exact same feature and downloads. Another pointless victory in the war against piracy.

Speaking of pointless, DRM. But far from being pointless, it appears DRM did have a use for music sales – it made sure there were less of them!

A new working paper has gone through the figures, done the maths and found that the removal of DRM actually helped to increase digital music sales by 10%. While popular music sales weren’t affected much, “long tail” sales of less well known albums increased by about 30%. The researcher who wrote the report, Laurina Zhang, theorizes that by removing DRM and making it easier to share music, this helped lesser known works to be discovered. This also explains why the top sellers, which are already heavily publicized, didn’t benefit as much from DRM removal.

If I interpret this correctly, then it means that while the removal of DRM was the catalyst, it was sharing (and mostly unauthorized sharing I might add) that actually helped to boost sales. Hmm, something to think about.

And for all the problems with Spotify’s revenue model, perhaps it too has a hand in helping music sales (and other related revenue). Now that would make an interesting study, to see what effect Spotify has on music sales.

While we wait the conclusion of the epic South Park PS4 vs Xbox One trilogy, the first trickle of Black Friday video game sales data has come out, and it appears that the more expensive Xbox One is winning, at least at Walmart and Target. According to data released by analytics firm InfoScout, the best selling non-portable console at two of the largest retail chains in the U.S. was the most expensive one, the Xbox One. It accounted for 31% of all sales, just ahead of Microsoft’s other console, the Xbox 360, which came in at 30%.

Xbox One wins Black Friday, at least at Walmart and Target

The PS4 and PS3 both came in at 15% each, half as many as their Xbox equivalents. The Xbox 360 was always going to beat the PS3, but the lower PS4 numbers may be due to stock issues.

As for the Wiis, the lesser said the better, at least according to the InfoScout data. The Wii, previously the king of Black Fridays, only managed to be 1% of all sales, while the Wii U wasn’t much better at 6%.

Of course, with both Microsoft and Sony’s consoles being new probably meant that the Black Friday data was slightly unfair to the Wii U. The overall holiday sales will be much more even, and the next holiday’s data would be even more conclusive, given that Nintendo’s big games (your Marios, with or without Karts, Donkey Kongs and Zeldas) would have all been released by then.

And that was pretty much it for the week, I know, not much. And the situation probably won’t improve in the next couple of weeks as others join me in taking their feet off the gas pedal, and dream of sleep-ins, holidays and new toys to place with.

See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (8 December 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (24 November 2013)

Sunday, November 24th, 2013

So a big week in which we have the aftermath of the PS4 launch, and the Xbox One launch later during the week. I don’t know if I will ever understand the desire to line-up for launch day releases. Sounds like a lot of time and effort that could be better used. Like wasting hours trying to decide what to watch on Netflix (see last week’s WNR).

Here comes the news.

Paranoid much? Reading the MPAA’s updated guidelines for theater owners, in regards to preventing cam-recordings, you really do get a glimpse of the paranoid world in which the MPAA operates (and the paranoia extends beyond just piracy – if you have time, check out the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which I believe is on Netflix at the moment). People with walking canes; people with long coats; people who put their phones in the cup holder; people that go to cinemas; people what work at cinemas; and their friends, are all potential movie pirates. All suspicious activity, even if it’s just someone sitting in a weird way, should be looked and reported to law enforcement for further action.

The MPAA’s paranoia shines through in their anti-camcording guidelines

And that’s just for regular screenings. For pre-screenings, the MPAA recommends mandatory bag searches, the use of night vision equipment and procedures that even airport security might find a tad harsh. I’m sure in a lab somewhere, the MPAA is researching the viability of camera sniffing dogs and the use of full body scanners, to be recommended for next year’s guideline update.

What strikes me most about the guidelines is how the MPAA is completely willing to ignore the fact that someone who is completely satisfied by an awful, partially blocked, muffled recording of say a hit film like Gravity will probably never ever spend a single cent on the film, at the theater or otherwise. The biggest loss of revenue, and certainly not in the billions or whatever the MPAA claims, might be from those who are unconvinced by the film and are using the CAM copy to decide whether it’s worth spending their hard-earned. Good films will suffer less from this kind of “trial”, and the box office records that are being broken year on year seems to support this notion. Only the bad films will suffer. It just happens to be that bad films are the MPAA’s bread and butter, unfortunately.

And publishing paranoid anti-piracy guidelines is certainly a lot easier than trying to create better movies, and so that’s what the MPAA will do.

Also easy to do, for the MPAA (and RIAA) is to use the threat of copyright fines to inject an element of fear into the piracy debate. Easy, but but perhaps not so effective. We’ve all seen those FBI and Homeland Security notices at the beginning of DVD and Blu-rays, but piracy is still happening with no signs of slowing down. Other than the two high profile RIAA cases which saw high statutory damages making headlines, statutory damages hasn’t really done much to deter pirates. Instead, it has encouraged predatory lawsuits targeting unsuspecting individuals, threatening them with high copyright fines (based on statutory damages), all to extract thousands of dollars in “pre-trial settlement” fees for lawsuit that were never going to court.

Which is why the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force urged for a “recalibration” of copyright statutory damages in a Green Paper published earlier in the year, which also asked for comments on any proposed changes. The MPAA and RIAA’s responses have just been made public, and as expected, both groups were against any changes to the status quo.

The MPAA argues that statutory damages is working perfectly fine to deter pirates, which doesn’t explain why the MPAA have continued to argue for tougher copyright laws, citing existing laws as being not enough of a deterrent. The RIAA goes as far as to defend the obscene judgments made in the Thomas-Rasset and Tenenbaum cases (of $1.92 million for 24 songs, and $675,000 for 30 songs, initially), saying both were “entirely appropriate, based on the facts of each case.”

I think high statutory damages is actually counterproductive to even the misguided aims of the MPAA/RIAA. For example, had Thomas-Rasset being fined just $19,200, it would have had the same effect deterrent wise (because $19,200, for 24 songs, is still quite a lot of money especially for the teenagers and college students that are the main demographics behind downloads), and it would not have attracted the same level of outrage and disgust that forced the RIAA to abandon their “sue the individual” tactics.

But a smaller statutory damages maximum would then wreck havoc to the MPAA/RIAA’s “annual losses to piracy” calculations, making it much harder to claim that billions of dollars are being lost. For them though, this may be more important, since it’s these heady figures that scare politicians, and judges and juries, into believing that major wrongs have been committed and drastic action is needed, whether it’s SOPA or six figure judgments against college students.

PS4 off to a solid start, sales wise

Amazing sales numbers for the PS4, and the most surprising part was that it wasn’t unexpected at all! Over a million units sold in the first 24 hours in North America, thanks to super strong pre-order numbers, means that the PS4 is the most popular console launch in history, probably. Plaudits must go to Sony for recognising everything that went wrong with the PS3 launch, and doing it (mostly) right this time round. This includes pricing mainly, but also being on the right side of consumer rights, for once.

With such a huge launch, there was always a chance that something would go wrong. And something did, in relation to the “Blue light of death” problem that gamers have so creatively (sarcasm alert) named. A troubleshooting guide has been made available, but worst case scenario, you’ll have to exchange the console for a new one. Sony says only a small number of consoles is affected, perhaps less than 0.4%.

Over at Redmond, Microsoft’s Xbox One launch experience was actually incredibly similar. Again, over a million units were reported to be sold in the first 24 hours, with the caveat that the Xbox One was released in more markets than the PS4 (which was only available in North America). Being more expensive, and with a semi-botched pre-launch, the Xbox One was never going to sell as many units as the PS4, but a million on the first day is impressive (the Xbox 360 managed just over 300,000, in North America, in the first week).

The Xbox One not doing too badly on release either

And just like the PS4 launch, there are reports of hardware issues, the most common being the disc drive grinding issue. Microsoft has promised to do advanced returns, which means Microsoft will send out a replacement console immediately without waiting for the defective console to arrive, which means affected gamers will only have to wait a matter of days as opposed to weeks to have a working console.

All to be expected for a launch of these magnitudes, which is one more reason why you shouldn’t join the launch day madness if you’re like me and don’t like the hassle.

Speaking of hassles, let me stop hassling you with news, rants and stuff for this week, for we have reached the end of another issue of the WNR. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (24 November 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (17 November 2013)

Sunday, November 17th, 2013

A slightly longer one for you this week. Last week’s short one was kind of my fault, but this week’s longer one has little to do with me, and more to do with, um, things actually happening.

Let’s get started.

You’ve got to get them young! The RIAA and MPAA obviously agree, because they’re backing a plan to start teaching their pro-copyright propaganda to kids still trying to master the tricky art of finger painting.

A new curriculum that teaches kids the awesomeness of copyright, and the evilness of piracy, has been proposed by the Center for Copyright Information (which is backed by Big Content, as well as America’s top ISPs). The lesson plans, which start at the kindergarten level and all the way through elementary school, teaches the importance of “protecting copyright”, and covers such fun topics as “Copyright Matters” and “It’s Great to Create”.

Immediately after the plans were made public, everyone with a bit of common sense came out and suggested that this probably wasn’t the best idea. Or even a very good one. The EFF worries about some of the bias that may be present in the lesson plans, such as equating downloading TV shows to copying off someone else’s homework. Teachers, via the California Teachers Association, worry about fitting in corporate sponsored messages into a curriculum that barely has enough room for the basics, like English (so you can read the lawsuit that the RIAA may file against you) and maths (so you can work out how many millions you owe the MPAA for downloading Spongebob episodes).

My biggest concern is that the MPAA/RIAA’s curriculum may be just too confusing for elementary school kids. I mean how do you explain to kids why artists, the “creators” that the curriculum so lauds, get such a small percentage of earnings compared to the middlemen that make up the members of the MPAA/RIAA. Especially in such a technologically advanced age where creators can sell directly to consumers? It just doesn’t make any sense!

Netflix and YouTube dominate US prime time downloading

It seems every time the MPAA comes up with some new ridiculous way to fight piracy, we also have, at the same time, a story that shows you how to beat piracy by simply providing people with a better product. For this week, and for a while now, that better product is Netflix. Nearly 32% of downloads during peak usage times in North America now belongs single-handedly to Netflix, and when combined with YouTube, they account for more than half of all download traffic.

Now I know people have their gripes with the service. And I do too. Not enough new content; too many missing classics; streaming quality/speed issues – to name a few. Yes, we have original content now (and some really good stuff too), and there’s the occasional blockbuster that makes its way on there after a lengthy delay (Skyfall, just last week, for example), but having almost destroyed the brick & mortar video renting business with its disc-by-mail service, Netflix streaming has managed to destroy whatever was left of that business. Instead of going to a video store and renting some old crap, you can watch the same old crap, and more older and crapper stuff, in the comfort of your own home without having to spend any extra money.

It’s great for me, the procrastinator, because instead of spending an hour at the local Blockbuster and being unable to decide what to rent, I can now spend an even longer time clicking through Netflix’s library, still unable to decide. But I can do it all now while sitting down and and stuffing my face full of trans fat, so it’s a lot better than going to Blockbuster (the only exception being their excellent caramel popcorn).

Hoping that it goes the way of Blockbuster, but unfortunately not happening quickly enough, is gaming DRM. And the CEO of anti-DRM developer CD Projekt Red, the people behind the DRM free game store GOG.com and The Witcher series, explains why this is the case.

Apparently, the gaming industry knows full well that DRM does work, but still persists with it because it is seen as doing something. Anything. And they need to be seen doing something in front of bosses, investors and shareholders, most of whom don’t have a clue (or chooses not to have one). But that’s okay, the only loser in the whole thing are gamers and paying customers. You know, the unimportant people. It’s this kind of deluded, and lazy thinking that has mired the industry in an unending war against pirates, one that they’re losing pretty badly and where the collateral damage extends to anyone who tries to play the game.

Just to reiterate, DRM doesn’t do what it is supposed to do (stop piracy), but instead, it actually hurts paying customers and make them want to buy your games less. And “well, what else are we supposed to do” is not an acceptable answer when faced with the question of piracy. And there are plenty of things you can do to make the legal experience much better than the illegal one – just look at GOG.com or Steam, for example.

The new Netflix UI for TV connected devices looks good and works well

Just a quick follow-up to last week’s story about the Xbox One not supporting Blu-ray 3D at launch – the PS4 won’t play 3D films either, as it turns out. Both Microsoft and Sony are coming out with the “not at launch” caveat, which probably means that support will be added at a later time. Perhaps free, but perhaps at a small cost. Not too many tears will be shed from me for the loss of 3D, even if it’s kind of crappy to lose features when going from the current gen to the next gen.

Another quick digital video related update, this time for Netflix, who has rolled out a major UI change for all of its TV connected devices. I’ve been using it for the last couple of days, and it’s very usable, and I like the more detailed descriptions about why certain streams have been recommended for me or why I should watch them. With that said, I would still like the option of being able to select language/subtitles before the film starts (right now, you have to do it when the film is playing). And showing a screenshot of the current scene for resuming titles would be helpful. I’ve also noticed there are some issues with saving the last played spot, especially if I turn off my PS3 too quickly.

The Wii U is still stuck in the sales doldrums, but instead of being pleased with the contrasting fortunes of their PS3 and PS4 consoles, Sony says it’s actually in their interest for the Wii U to start selling well. Sony Worldwide Studios Prez Shuhei Yoshida expressed these sentiments in a recent interview with IGN, in which he also suggested part of the problem with the Wii U was the inconsistent messaging that Nintendo was trying to send out.

In particular, Yoshida found Nintendo’s “core gamers” strategy a bit odd, as in his opinion, the Wii U should have been marketed like the original Wii, as a “safe” family friendly console. But you can see why Nintendo had to change strategies with the Wii U. While the Wii can be considered a success, its later years were marked by a steady decline in sales, thanks to the ever competitive “casual gamers” market, and the lack of A-list third party releases on the platform. You can’t blame Nintendo for wanting to get a piece of the Call of Duty pie, and this cannot be possible if they stayed true to their family-only strategy.

Sony wants the Wii U to sell well, and says Nintendo should concentrate on their family-friendly strength instead of going after “core gamers”

What they failed to do, in my opinion, was to understand how “core gamers” think. “Slightly better than last-gen” is not good enough to sate the appetites of core gamers hungry for next-gen graphics. It was also hard for Nintendo to shake their “video gaming for kids” image to appeal to core gamers. In the end, Nintendo wanted a console that combined mobile/tablet gaming with their core gaming strength (their first party titles, and the family friend reputation), and marry that with zombies and grenades. Perhaps it was just asking too much from a single console, and you end up with a machine that’s neither this nor that. And it didn’t help that Nintendo failed to demonstrate the full potential of their touchscreen GamePad, either for casual gaming or for the hardcore audience.

And all of this brings us to October’s NPD results, for US video game sales. The Wii U, unsurprisingly, was the poorest selling home based console out of the current crop, with the Xbox 360 regaining top spot after the PS3 ended its 32-month winning streak last week (thanks to GTA V). The Xbox 360 sold 166,000 units, but we don’t have figures for the PS3 and Wii U (other than the PS3 outselling the Wii U). The Wii U has only managed to sell 300,000 units in the last quarter, worldwide, and that’s actually a much better result than the previous quarter, in which only 160,000 units were sold.

With the PS4 now released, and the Xbox One coming next week, we’ll start seeing those number (or something vague about them) this time next month, which is kind of exciting. A new console generation and all that.

And on that note, we come to the end of this WNR. See you in a week’s time.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (17 November 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (3 November 2013)

Sunday, November 3rd, 2013

Welcome to another edition of the WNR. Can’t believe it’s November already, still haven’t even gotten used to writing 2013 on dates yet. A final reminder for our Australian readers of my other site Streambly’s Chromecast competition – entry closes 6th of November.

Let’s go!

Let the whack-a-mole games begin. And may the odds be ever against the MPAA’s favor. Or something like that. A week after the original isoHunt was downed, a site claiming to be the new isoHunt has been launched, and another group called ArchiveTeam has also revealed that they managed to save 240 GB worth of isoHunt data before it was taken down.

Cynics may decry the opportunistic launch of isoHunt.to, which other than a similar design to the original isoHunt, has very little in common with the original (and is definitely not associated with anyone who used to work on the site). The even more cynical have said that this new site may even be a trap, a honeypot, to catch unsuspecting uploaders and downloaders.

I don’t know who is correct, but it does show how pointless lawsuits and shutdowns are, when it’s so easy to just start a new torrent site. Instead of one isoHunt to deal with, the MPAA may find themselves dealing with hundreds of clones, all started by people that now know it’s smarter to remain anonymous – a Balkanization of torrent sites that will lead to an un-winnable game of whack-a-mole for rights holders.

The MPAA’s legal and political maneuvering might make sense in the corporate world in which they exist, the truth is that on the Internet, it’s the individual that has the power. Individuals can start a new torrent site and remain anonymous (or out of the reach of the law). Individuals can also seek other ways to upload and download copyrighted content. And even the MPAA and their members’ vast resources will not be enough to go after and take down everyone.

Fresh from a positive set of third quarter earnings results, Netflix wasted no time in lining up their next line of attack: cinemas. Netflix’s content guy Ted Sarandos used his keynote address at the Film Independent Forum to attack theater owners for stifling innovation, something that he says could eventually kill movies as we know it.

Netflix aiming to disrupt the cinema business by launching original movies that will be available at a theater near you, and via Netflix, at the same time

Pressure from theater owners put paid to plans by studios to try simultaneous VOD releases for movies that are still on their theatrical run, as a way to fight against film piracy. Sarandos says you cannot prevent people from getting movies the way they want it (legally), and not have serious consequences, including the death of theaters and movies.

Netflix already have plans for the release of an original movie on 2014, to be made available on Netflix on the same day as its theatrical release, and Sarandos wants Hollywood’s biggest movies to join in the experiment.

Theater owners are not convinced. To be precise, they’re incensed that Netflix would even suggest it, and says that Netflix are the ones that will kill movies (after having already killed DVDs, according to them).

Sarandos’s plans are good for consumers, by giving them more choice, and obviously good for Netflix. It’s not so good for cinema owners, but it probably won’t kill them either, as the cinematic experience cannot really be replicated. If the market has to respond to what users want, then less business for theater owners, and more for online services may just be the new reality. Someone wins, and someone else will inevitably lose.

But before Netflix start thinking about competing with a movie’s theatrical run, how about just making sure the big movies are all available on Netflix within a reasonable timeframe of their Blu-ray/DVD debut? It’s far too random at the moment.

——

Mozilla happy Cisco decided to pay up and make H.264 royalty free

Just when Mozilla was ready the throw in the towel in their brave but ultimately futile war against proprietary video codecs, specifically H.264, networking giant Cisco comes out of nowhere to provide a third option. Cisco has announced they will absorb licensing costs for their open source implementation of H.264, allowing open source developers like Mozilla to bake in native H.264 support without endangering their own licensing terms.

So while H.264 remains encumbered with royalty fees, Cisco will pay all these fees for anyone using their open source implementation. And thus ends the incredibly tedious HTML5 codec wars, in which HTML5’s default choice of video codecs became a serious point of contention, with the industry preferring H.264, and the open source community unwilling to accept the closed off and commercial nature of the codec. Cisco’s intervention now makes everyone happy.

And if you need to know why Cisco, a company you usually associate with the Internet’s backbone, would intervene is a debate about online video, then all you need to do is to read Cisco’s white paper on network usage forecasts. It’s their predictions that the growth in bandwidth consumption will be largely driven by video applications, and more bandwidth means more Cisco equipment everywhere. So it’s easy to see why the company is willing to spend a small part of their vast fortunes to smooth out any speedbumps for the future of online video transmission.

A sprinkling of gaming stories this week. We start with the Wii being discontinued in Europe and Japan. It’s been a good run for the Wii. Probably the first console since the original Nintendo Entertainment System to be so successful at capturing the attention of so called non gamers, and one that in all likelihood will outsell the original PlayStation console when it is finally discontinued in the US. I somehow ended up with two of these things, a white one and a black one, neither of which I’ve played with for the better part of two years. But I might just do that next week, dust off the old Wii Sports (still probably the best game on the console) and give Wii tennis a whack or two.

Out with the old, and in with the new, we have a couple of PS4 related stories too. With Sony still supporting the PS3 for a little while longer, the possibility of cross-platform multiplayer between the PS3 and PS4 version of the same game may be possible, according to Sony.

No audio CD support, no MP3 playback, and no DLNA client support – the PS4’s media capabilities are much worse than the PS3’s

Other interesting facts revealed in the reveal-all FAQ document include the fact that the PS4 will be quieter in general than the already pretty quiet PS3, with a stepless speed fan system to eliminate the “jet engine” effect. The PS4 will also be featuring a faster and better browser than the PS3, which in all honesty, isn’t a hard thing to do.

Slightly more interesting for me is the revelation that Netflix will be one of the launch apps available on the PS4, and just like on the PS3, you don’t need a PS Plus subscription in order to use it.

Not so nice is the fact that the PS4 won’t support audio CDs (I guess that’s not a huge problem), nor MP3s (that is a huge problem). It seems the only music that Sony wants you to listen to on the PS4 will have to come via their Music Unlimited subscription service. Alright, I’ll just use PS3 Media Server or TVersity to stream stuff to the PS4 via DLNA, you might be thinking. Unfortunately, the PS4 does not support DLNA either, which is strange considering this is one of most useful non gaming features of the PS3.

With Microsoft focusing on media integration, the PS4 can ill afford to start removing features that were standard on the PS3. They’ve gotten a lot of goodwill over their DRM stance, but not having DLNA support seems crazy considering almost every other Sony device has it.

But if this upcoming generation of console gaming has taught us anything already, is that making a fuss actually brings results. There is already enough of a public backlash for Sony’s President of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, to suggest that these missing media features (specifically, MP3 playback and DLNA support) will be up for “future consideration” by the PS4 dev team, so let’s keep it up!

Alrighty then, that’s that for the week. See you in seven.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (3 November 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (27 October 2013)

Sunday, October 27th, 2013

If there’s one theme running through this week’s WNR, it’s that I’m doing my best to stretch the definition of “interesting” and “news”, trying to find something, anything, to write about. A non statement from Vince Gilligan, a dry report to the government and an earnings report (yes, a freaking earnings report), and a story about an upcoming Blu-ray player being region locked like most other Blu-ray players, makes up the bulk of this week’s news shenanigans.

Let’s get on with it for f-sakes.

The demise of isoHunt, confirmed this week when the website shut down for good, was one of the things that the MPAA was gloating about in its submission the Office of the USTR (US Trade Representatives) detailing Hollywood’s view on “notorious pirates”.

There’s nothing particularly interesting about the MPAA’s latest annual update (a story I might otherwise have skipped, if not for the lack of anything else interesting to write about), other than the removal of isoHunt, but a lot of the regulars this time now appear to have new domain names too (The Pirate Bay, moving to .sx, and KickassTorrents movie to .to). A visible response to the increasing use of domain seizures as part of a new global anti-piracy strategy. Despite the domain name changes, these sites are still popular, still “notorious” according to the MPAA, so nothing much has really changed. That’s because these sites are so popular, that people are willing to accommodate and adapt to new domain name, in a way they wouldn’t for most other websites. These sites have become brands (ironically, thanks to free promotion from the likes of the MPAA’s notorious pirates list), and once this happens, the actual domain name matters less.

—–

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan has waded into the piracy debate by acknowledging that piracy has helped the show become as popular it is, but at the same time also warned that it is taking money out of the pockets of people working on the show. There is a growing trend even among industry types to acknowledge that, at the very least, it is simply a reflection and measure of the popularity of something. But very few are keen to admit to the positive effects of piracy.

Does piracy take money out of the pocket of the people behind Breaking Bad? You can help put it back by buying this awesome Blu-ray box set

It may be that Breaking Bad is pirated a lot because it is popular, but according to Gilligan, BB is popular, in a small part, because it is pirated a lot. Gilligan attributes this to “brand awareness”.

Gilligan also says that had all those pirated downloads been legal, it would have meant more money for the people who worked on the show, including himself. Maybe this is true in a perfect world where a chemistry teacher with cancer doesn’t have to become a drug lord to pay for his medical expenses and to provide for his family, but piracy does not always equal lost sale. It’s like saying if all the people who had already purchased the BB Blu-ray boxset went out and bought another copy, or two, or twenty-seven, then that would also mean more money to the wonderful people behind BB (and they would deserve it). To use another analogy, only because I’m severely sleep deprived at the moment, if I set up a street stall giving away free coffee to morning commuters, I can’t then go back and say that, had I not given it away for free, all of those people who had grabbed a cup would have paid for it. On the other hand, some will have, because coffee is something they want (and need). Just how many would pay, and how many still won’t, is at the heart of the debate.

This debate is pointless though, as we all know it’s impossible to get rid of piracy. Instead, the question should be “how do we make piracy irrelevant”, and there are ways to do this.

Netflix is doing alright for it self. The company has just announced that it has now more than 40 million subscribers, adding nearly 11 million new members in the last year. The international market for Netflix has become more important in the past year, with nearly a quarter of all subscribers now belonging to international markets.

Unfortunately, these international markets are still not yet profitable, despite more than a $100 million increase in revenue. Overall profit remains low at $32 million from a high revenue figure of more than $1.1 billion, but content acquisition costs are unlikely to drop any time soon.

Also likely to increase will be expenses for original content, with Netflix set to double their investment in 2014 (although still only 10% of their total content expenditure). The cost may be high, but Netflix seems to be getting good value from their investment, with Emmy awards to offer proof of the success of the strategy, and increased membership numbers too.

The company’s recent link-up with UK cable TV operator Virgin Media was also noted in the letter to shareholders. Netflix and cable TV operators are rivals normally (with Netflix winning quite handsomely at the moment), but this link-up could be a sign of the future. If you can’t beat them, join them, may be something cable operators (many of which also provide Internet services) will have to accept in the future.

PS4 DualShock 4 controller can be used on the PS3 (sort of)

Straddling the barrier between HD and gaming news is this quickie about the PS4’s Blu-ray player being region locked. Just like the PS3’s Blu-ray player, and every other Blu-ray player Sony has made. Slow news week or what? Next week’s breaking news: Xbox One Blu-ray player also region locked.

In other earth shattering news, the PS4’s DualShock 4 controller can be used with the PS3, but not all games. Granted, this one is slightly more interesting than the news above, and in the absence of PS3 backwards compatibility, at least something is sort of backwards (or is that forwards) compatible with the PS4. But you can’t play GTA V with the DS4 for some reason.

I think that’s all I have the energy for today. From lack of sleep and boredom, mostly. Will pray to the News Gods for something, anything, more interesting next week. Until then …

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (27 October 2013)

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