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Weekly News Roundup (2 June 2013)

Sunday, June 2nd, 2013

Welcome to another edition of the WNR. I was hoping for a less gaming oriented issue this week, but fate decided that the Xbox One DRM fiasco would still continue to make headlines. And not the good kind. Serves Microsoft right for messing with DRM though.

Let’s get started …

The official sounding Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, which is really just another pro-copyright group, has issued a new report with many very controversial findings and recommendations.

One recommendations calls on software vendors to implement the same type of techniques that Internet scammers have been known to use, including hijacking computers and locking documents. Under this recommendation, Microsoft, for example, would be within their right to lock and make unusable all documents created by the pirated version of Microsoft Word until users “contact law enforcement to get the password needed to unlock the account”.

The IP Commission’s recommendation could see software vendors copy scamware techniques

I don’t really need to explain why this is such a bad idea, but were this to happen, Internet scammers would simply love it. It would lend their scams much more authority if there were actual legitimate versions of the same scams being run by the world’s largest software companies.

The report also adds in a fair bit of fear-mongering with its anti-China and “American IP above everything else” rhetoric. Even the UN’s World Health Organization gets targeted for putting disease outbreak containment ahead of IP protection (for not checking if the drugs they’re administering to suffering patients, to prevent a deadly global pandemic, has been approved IP wise first), and the report even asks the U.S. government to cut all funding to the WHO until they get their priorities right

Read the full report here if you can stomach it.

The battle of the next-gen consoles has turned into a battle of next-gen DRM, as rumors floated around this week that Sony may very well introduce their own version of used-game DRM for the PS4.

Host of the popular “Bonus Round” podcast Geoff Keighley cited sources close to the PS4 development that Sony will introduce their own DRM to control the use of second hand games.

Is the PS4 getting used game DRM as well?

Back in February, just after the PS4 launched, Eurogamer spoke to Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida on this very issue. But despite Yoshida coming out with a firm statement that “used games can play on PS4” [sic], when it came to the question of resale, Yoshida was far more hesitant. Despite consulting with a Sony PR rep that was present during the interview, Yoshida was only able to refer back to the statement that used games will not be blocked on the PS4. The thing is, used games aren’t blocked on the Xbox One either. Lost in translation, or carefully chosen words by Yoshida?

Either way, we’ll find out when E3 rolls around next month. Sony will want to keep quiet and let Microsoft brew in their self-created mess until then.

If I had to bet, and based on statements Sony have made so far, the PS4 will not have the same kind of online authentication that the Xbox One will have, although the option would be left open to game publishers. Without using online authentication, Sony would find it hard to restrict the sale of used games, but their silence on the issue is still fairly disturbing.

And PS4 fans are similarly disturbed too, and they’ve taken to Twitter to warn Sony not to mess with the PS4’s DRM, using the hashtags #PS4NoDRM and #PS4USEDGAMES. Reassuringly, a few Sony executives did take to Twitter to make light of the issue and poke fun at Microsoft’s expense. One post said “we are going to have ‘DRM’ on PlayStation Vita”, only to later reveal that DRM stood for the game Death Ray Manta. Another executive thanked fans for being so passionate about the issue, and reassured them that Sony are listening.

Microsoft also acknowledged the anti-DRM sentiment, with Xbox’s Major Nelson, aka Larry Hyrb, also saying that Microsoft is listening (and I presume responding) to the backlash.

Microsoft goes into damage limitation mode over their DRM fiasco

And I have to say that it is heartwarming to see people react to yet another attempt at eroding our rights as consumers. It may do no good in the end as we end up with no choice, especially if publishers (who are all very much for used-game DRM) have their say, but at least it’s not tacit acceptance. It’s also probably time that copyright and consumer law be changed to better delineate what we as consumers can and cannot do when it comes to digital goods.

With that said, the #PS4NoDRM hashtag is a bit of a misnomer, because what fans are asking for, the status quo, already has DRM deeply embedded. The PS4’s chance of being DRM free is about as good as the console being actually free. At best, we can expect the same DRM that the PS3 uses, which is disc based authentication.

And being forced in 2013 to still rely on disc based authentication is still very frustrating, even if it’s better than what the Xbox One appears to be promising. Microsoft has it right about not using discs for authentication, because it will seem more and more outdated as time goes by, but how it went about implementing this great idea (based on the information we have so far) has been poor, to say the least.

Because if you compare say the hugely popular Steam platform, and what Microsoft is doing, it’s fundamentally not that different. Both sell games on discs, but the disc only carries the data, and the authentication process is done online. Both ties game purchases to one account, but does not limit how many machines you can access the account, and the games, on. Steam is actually much worse since there’s no avenue at all for resale or even refunds.

But the differences, where they exist, are painful. Whereas Steam allows offline play, the Xbox One will force re-authentication every 24 hours. Whereas Steam works on PCs with large and upgradable storage, the Xbox One is limited to 512GB and so far no details on how one can upgrade the capacity. And although there is no resale on Steam, resale of PC games has never been a big thing, unlike for console games. If Microsoft does make a good system for game trading and resale, then that’s a plus compared to Steam, or any digital licensing system including iTunes, in this regard.

But the biggest difference, and why people have embraced Steam while ignoring the very same problems people are complaining about the Xbox One, is the price. Steam games are usually much cheaper!

In my mind, the only way Microsoft can salvage this whole disaster is by announcing that Xbox One games will be cheaper, significantly cheaper, than Xbox 360 (and PS4) games. After all, the extra earnings that comes from regulating second hand game sales ought to provide some benefits to the consumer as well. With the right price, people will be able to see past the restricted nature of digital “ownership”, just like they are able to do so with the likes of iTunes and Steam.

And oh, don’t forget to vote in our poll about which of the next-gen consoles you prefer, based on what you’ve heard so far.

That’s it for the week. See you next week, and have a nice one before then.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (2 June 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (26 May 2013)

Sunday, May 26th, 2013

You’d think that with their swarms of PR people, Nintendo and Microsoft (and previously, Sony) could have managed this week better (and Sony previously with their so called PS4 launch). Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be an air of desperation surrounding the major players in the gaming industry. Everyone’s in a rush to launch something, anything, or they’ve become overprotective of their assets. Perhaps signs of an industry struggling with the quickly changing landscape?

As you’ve guessed, this edition of the WNR is fairly gaming oriented for obvious (and not so obvious) reasons. Let’s get started …

Dick f***in’ move. That’s how someone on Twitter described Nintendo’s copyright craziness this week, when the troubled gaming company decided it would be a great PR move to start claiming copyright on any Let’s Play gameplay videos featuring games owned by the company.

Let’s Play (LP) videos are very popular with the gaming crowd, and creators of these videos have so far received the support of gaming companies, or at the very least, no resistance. But Nintendo’s copyright move will now force ads to be displayed on any LP videos featuring footage of Nintendo games, and also gives the company the power to block videos it deems unacceptable.

Nintendo’s copyright claims on Let’s Play videos seems very self-damaging

It’s unlikely that the Japanese company will do the latter, unless it wants to face the wrath of the Internet, but doing the former also disadvantages LP creators by taking away the small amount of revenue that allows new videos to be continually created. For Nintendo, the revenue earned from these videos will be of little consequence, especially if the Wii U’s losing run continues.

So while Nintendo is justified in submitting a copyright claim, doing so seems to bring no benefits, and a lot of long term pain for a company that is desperate to get the word out on its new console. LP videos are great promotional tools, and Nintendo should be doing everything they can do ensure people continue to create videos for their games, but this move does the opposite of this.

From being oversensitive about copyright to being not sensitive enough. Or at least that’s what the RIAA is accusing Google of, as it wants the search engine giant to do more to stop infringing links showing up in search results, despite 20 million links already being removed so far.

Despite Google’s best efforts in making the DMCA takedown process as streamlined as possible, often at the expense of accuracy and due process, the RIAA says that Google should do more to make the process even simpler. Apparently, for every link removed via a takedown notice, many more will spring up in its place. It’s something that the RIAA has only now realised, although they could have asked me, or any of the other millions of people who knew this was always going happen, before their costly exercise in futility.

If beating a dead horse is not bringing results, there’s only one solution: beat it harder! Which is why the RIAA plans to use the currently ongoing Congressional review of the DMCA to lobby for changes to the DMCA takedown process. Under the RIAA’s fantasy version of the DMCA, they would only need to identify the content that is being infringed (eg. Mirrors by Justin Timberlake), the site that is doing the infringing (eg. downloadmp3sfree4all.com), and then it would be up to Google to patrol and investigate all links on the site and remove links automatically. So instead of submitting a takedown request, getting the link removed, and then for the same site to put up the same link on a different URL, and the whole process repeating itself, the RIAA would make Google do most of the hard work. And taking this a step further, the RIAA may not even have to tell Google which site is doing the infringing, after all, Google knows more about individual websites than the RIAA ever will. Hell, Google probably already knows which songs are being searched for, and who owns the rights to it, so why not just have Google become the RIAA’s copyright police?

Yes, it’s time consuming for rightsholders to identify infringing content and request action, but it’s hard for a very good reason: to prevent abuses of the process and prevent false positives. Only the rightsholder can tell whether something belongs to them or not, and not taking shortcuts prevents stupid and damaging things from happening. If anything, too many shortcuts are already being taken by rightsholders.

And even if you can invent a better, automated takedown system, don’t bet against innovative webmasters finding a way to automate the process of creating new links. It will still be an exercise in futility, just with higher volume of links being involved. At some point, one has to accept that preventing infringing content from appearing on the web, and preventing people from getting to them, is futile. The best and only solution is to do something to make people less interested in wanting to get them, by providing legal alternatives that render piracy pointless.

The big gaming news of the week was of course Microsoft’s unveil of the Xbox One console. I won’t bore you with the full details, which you can read here, but it’s probably worth taking a bit of time to talk about the less sexy, and the far more controversial aspects of the console: the “always-on” DRM and digital licenses.

The Xbox One’s simplistic black rectangular box design has some jokingly comparing it to a VCR

Before we get to that, as a summary of the information so far, it appears that Sony’s console will be the more powerful console yet again, on paper. The Xbox One’s slower memory is offset by the inclusion of ESRAM, but the cost of this more complex architecture means that the Xbox One has to make do with a slower GPU. Sony gambled on the availability of cheaper GDDR5 memory, and they won, allowing more bucks to be spent on beefing up the GPU. Whether this will actually translate to better looking games on the PS4 is debatable. It will be up to how easy Sony will make it for developers to take advantage of the PS4’s hardware superiority, and whether developers will bother doing so. But based on the PS3 vs Xbox 360 examples, don’t expect night and day differences, if any (if anything, it’s probably easier to build for the slower system, which automatically ensures it will work fine on the faster system, as opposed to building for the faster system and having to downscale to the slower one – lowest common denominator).

The Xbox One’s HDMI pass-through is also interesting, even if it seems like a bit of an outdated way to do things. Apparently, you’ll be able to plug in your set top box to the Xbox One and it will overlay some kind of interface for it, with the IR blaster and HDMI-CEC working in conjunction to give you the impression that your Xbox One console is controlling your STB. An interesting concept if Kinect can be integrated to allow you to gesture/voice control non Kinect devices. It’s a transparent attempt by Microsoft to make the Xbox One the hub of your home entertainment, but those with receivers, or here in Australia where most TV viewing is done without a set top box, won’t find the function too useful. And for some reason, the whole pass-through thing reminds me of the RF modulator on the NES.

And now back to the less sexy.

First up, always-on DRM isn’t a requirement for the console, well not strictly speaking anyway. You don’t need a constant Internet connection to play offline games, or rather, the decision could be left up to the game publisher. This is because Microsoft will allow developers to tap into the power of their Azure cloud platform, and this could, for example, offload certain parts of the game’s processing to the cloud. This could then force games, even offline ones, to be only playable with an Internet connection, much like how EA/Maxis justified the “always-on” DRM for SimCity.

But the key point is that this will be completely optional, and whether this type of cloud gaming is even possible given the current state of the integration is questionable. Microsoft was keen to point out that even they don’t really have a clear idea how Azure can and will be used by game developers at this time. Let’s put this down to one to worry about in the future.

As for the actual DRM for games, there’s a whole lot of confusion about how it will work, because it will be different to what it is right now. Instead of licenses being attached to discs like currently, licenses will be digital in nature. Let me explain.

While games will come on Blu-ray discs, the disc themselves serve only as a delivery platform for the game content – the actual activation of the game will be done via your Xbox Live account, and game purchases will be tied to your Live account. So discs will no longer be used for authentication purposes, and once you install and activate your game, you can chuck the discs away (you can re-download the game any time from Microsoft). Think Steam games that come on discs, and you’re basically there.

So what happens when you want to take your game to your friend’s house? Right now, you just bring the disc and play. But with the Xbox One, you’ll have to bring the disc (to install the game, unless your friend has a super fast Internet connection that can download it really quickly), and log into your Xbox Live account to play the game (since the game is tied to your Xbox Live account). Again, think Steam and how you would play the game on a new computer – you’ll have to log into your Steam account first. If your friend wants to play the game using his or her account, then they’ll have to re-buy the game.

Offline play without online authentication, just like Steam, should also be possible. But it may be only for a limited time, with a re-connection/re-authentication required every 24 hours or something.

But what about trading and selling your old games? Steam won’t allow you to do it, but Microsoft do plan to implement some kind of system to allow digital games to be sold and traded, a system where they also take a cut of the transaction no doubt.

So Microsoft is definitely taking a different approach to game authentication. Sony has only said that they will not block used games, which is open to interpretation (since technically, the Xbox One doesn’t “block” used games either). From what we know so far, this puts a tick in the win column for the PS4 for those, like me, that hates DRM. But you know game publishers will just love Microsoft’s new system, especially if they get a cut of game sales/trades too. Whether that love translates into more exclusive content and features remains to be seen, but that’s probably Microsoft’s endgame.

Gaming doesn’t seem to be Microsoft’s focus with the Xbox One launch, to the dismay of gamers

Looking at the three “next-gen” consoles and the launches, I have to say that all three have been fairly disappointing. My opinion is still that the Wii U is too little, too late (is it really that much better than the Xbox 360 or the PS3? It’s different, but that doesn’t mean better. I’m not even sure you can call it “next-gen”). Sony’s “PS4 launch without a PS4” was a joke really, and Microsoft’s Xbox One launch where they had all the answers except to the questions that people were actually most concerned about, makes both launches look amateur and rushed.

Why couldn’t Sony have shown us what the PS4 looked like at their launch? Why couldn’t Microsoft have waited until they’ve got all their DRM/used game trading/resell ducks lined up in a row before their launch, as opposed to the more and more cryptic answers to these fairly simple question? What couldn’t Nintendo produce a console that isn’t using a GPU based on a 4-year old design?

It’s a good thing though that E3 is only a couple of weeks away, but if Sony can’t reveal what a PS4 looks like by then, or if Microsoft can’t show us how game trading and resale actually works, then it’s just stupid and counterproductive.

But before then, tell us what you think of the three “next-gen” consoles in this poll, based on the information available so far.

An update to a story we covered here a couple of weeks ago. Despite heavy piracy and its unique DRM, the game Game Dev Tycoon has been successful enough for its developers for them to turn professional. Looks like their DRM stunt paid off, and to me, this actually proves that piracy can be leveraged to take advantage of its promotional qualities.

That’s pretty much it for this week’s gaming dominated issue. I will now log onto Netflix and impatiently wait until the (Pacific Time) clock strikes midnight to get my Arrested Development fix. 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 (26 May 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (19 May 2013)

Sunday, May 19th, 2013

Welcome to another edition of the WNR. I think I’m getting a little bit too excited about the new season of Arrested Development, coming exclusively to Netflix this time next week. I’ve got my unauthorised Netflix subscription up and running ready for the final countdown, preparing myself with a pre-launch binge watching of the previous season that I hope won’t turn out to be a huge mistake, and when May 26 rolls around, I’ll be ready to say “annyong” to all 15 glorious episodes of the new season.

Before I can do that, I’ll have to get through this week’s WNR.

Copyright So it’s “Hollyweb” here we come. The W3C this week formally approved the use of the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) to the HTML5 standard, which opens the door for DRM to be officially infected into HTML5 videos. EME won’t actually handle the DRM itself, but it’s a standardized framework that allows third-party DRM support.

The W3C says this is actually good for the open web because since DRM isn’t going away, the alternative would be an increasingly closed off web reliant upon proprietary systems to DRM’d video delivery (so basically what’s happening now). Even without EMEs, someone will find someway to squeeze DRM into HTML5, but the framework won’t be standardized or open or managed by the W3C. Or worse, DRM’d videos like Netflix would simply move off the open web, and be confined to the “walled gardens” of apps.

It’s Hollyweb, here we come, as HTML5 given the DRM go-ahead

Opponents of the move would point out that Flash and Silverlight, the two main proprietary systems used for DRM’d video delivery right now, are dying a slow death and a DRM-free HTML5 video standard would have forced a rethink on the whole DRM thing, for better or worse. But perhaps the W3C does have a point, in that the current climate would never allow DRM-free copyrighted videos to be distributed by Netflix, Hulu and others. If Flash and Silverlight officially dies or no longer works, and if DRM isn’t a viable option in HTML5, then just like the W3C predicts, we will lose the ability to use Netflix and Hulu and others via the web.

As expected, a lot of anger is being directed at the W3C, and the proponents of EME, Netflix, Google, Microsoft among others. But it’s important to remember that given a choice, none of these groups actually want DRM. Only Big Content is obsessed with DRM, and as long as they’re in the powerful position of being gatekeepers for the content we want, we will always have DRM. Let’s not forget who the enemy is.

And the enemy this week has been busy promoting its vision for Hollyweb, and how if you ignore the problems of DRM, unskippable ads, the arbitrary and fleeting nature of what is and isn’t available, and the sometimes high cost of it all, then there’s no way anyone should ever want to pirate. The MPAA this week launched a new website WheretoWatch.org to promote all the legal alternatives to piracy, providing a summary for most of the online based video services available today. It’s a slight change in tactics for the MPAA in their CRusade Against Piracy (CRAP™), designed to counter the argument that legal alternatives aren’t present.

Except that’s not the argument at all. The argument is that the legal alternatives, while definitely present, aren’t nearly good enough.

The problems? Content, for one. Netflix is probably the best, and certainly the most popular of the legal alternatives, but can you really honestly say that it has all the content that a typical web pirate would be looking for? I would actually say it’s the opposite, in that what Netflix has is all the stuff that pirates aren’t looking for. This isn’t a bad thing though, because due to the way BitTorrent transfers work, the “nobody wants to download” stuff are usually the ones that are quite hard to pirate as there just aren’t enough seeders normally. And sure, Hulu Plus has a lot of recent content, but that brings us to the second issue: ads.

Plenty of options, but none that will satisfy people like piracy will, even if you don’t consider the pricing discrepancy

Now, advertising is needed, that’s not a question. But when you have to sit through four 30-second unskippable commercial breaks for every 20 odd minutes of content, and when the ads are pretty much just the same set, then it gets boring rather quickly. And this is despite having paid a monthly subscription fee for content you could have recorded on TiVo for free.

And that’s only when the service you want allows you to pay for it in a standalone manner. Try and get HBO Go without a cable HBO subscription, and see how far you get.

For the content that you really want, cost then becomes the biggest obstacle. For example, the HD version of Life of Pi on the Australian iTunes costs $29.99, but you could have purchased the limited edition Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy edition last week for less than $27. Where is the sense in this, and is it Apple’s fault, or the fault of 20th Century Fox, the distributor of the film? The regional price gouging is not new, and even government sponsored investigations into this issue seems to have had no effect on this greedy practice.

But the biggest problem with WheretoWatch.org is the fact that it is almost completely useless for someone, like me, who isn’t in the United States. Almost all of the services listed are US only, and only a couple out of the rest are actually available in Australia (and usually with reduced content). The fact that the MPAA went to all this trouble and still managed to forget anyone who isn’t in the US is precisely the reason why piracy rates outside of the US are much much higher. The MPAA being a US based organisation can be used to excuse the US-centric nature of WheretoWatch.org, but this misses the point that the MPAA are also representatives of the owners and gatekeepers of the content that those of us outside of the US want to watch. I’m sure we would all pirate less in Australia is we had HBO, or Hulu, or Netflix, without having to go down the geo-unblocking route.

The problem with legal access will be a key point in a new proposed reform of France’s copyright laws. With HADOPI three-strikes proving to be entirely ineffective in stopping piracy and hugely unpopular, a new report titled Culture-Acte 2 aims to re-balance copyright law to address the shortcomings of HADOPI. While “three-strikes” will be kept under the recommendations, the report also calls for making films and TV shows to be available on on-demand services far quicker than the current 36-month average. There’s also suggestion of a smartphone/tablet tax of 1%, to help fund the reforms.

In my mind, the current piracy problems are almost entirely due a supply and demand issue. Demand is high, but supply is limited and restricted, all of it intentionally in order to squeeze more out of a particular market. This would normally work to keep prices and revenue high, but once piracy becomes an alternative supplier, one that’s super cheap as well, then the artificial supply limitations and restrictions only end up driving more “customers” to piracy. And due to DRM, lack of interoperability and other issues, the legal product is often inferior to the illegal version, compounding the issue further. There’s also a deep lack of understanding into the preferred method of consumption, with the “all-you-can-eat” nature of the web naturally encouraging consumers to want the same with their video consumption needs, but with the option usually unavailable for the content that people actually want, the new release content.

I’m not sure if the government can or should legislate how the demand should be met by supply, but punishing consumers for wanting something better doesn’t seem like the solution to me.

——

A new study has found that the game industry’s own reported piracy figures may be magnitudes higher than the real piracy rate. Shocking! What a total surprise!! [INSERT SARCASM SMILEY].

The new study by professors at the Aalborg University and the Copenhagen Business School found that while piracy rates were still quite high, 12.6 unique downloaders in a 3 month period, it wasn’t nearly as high as the 10 million downloads per month that the industry has been touting.

The discrepancy is easy to understand though. The industry figures are often released by groups, like the ESA, whose main mission is to publicize the severity of the piracy problem. This kind of self-interest promotes biased conclusions, intentionally or otherwise. This new study aims present the most objective figures so far independent of any industry interests.

It was also interesting to note that the top piracy countries were the likes of Romania, Croatia, Greece, Portugal and Hungary – looking at the availability and price of legal alternatives in these countries may yield further clues as to why so many people choose to pirate games in these countries. Hey, maybe all these countries need is their own version of WheretoPlay.org [ANOTHER SARCASM SMILEY]

The April NDP report is out, reporting on US video game sales for the month. As has been the trend recently, the report doesn’t make good reading.

The Xbox 360 was the most popular console yet again, but having only sold 130,000 units (45% down compared to a year ago), it was hard for Microsoft to celebrate this fact. Even with only 130,000 units sold, it still represented 42% of current generation home based console sales, meaning the Wii, Wii U and the PS3 added up to maybe less than 180,000 units. No matter how you split this (I’d say 35,000, 45,000 and 100,000 respectively), it doesn’t look good for any involved.

The Wii U is dying a slow death. Will new Zelda and Mario games help?

The Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 figures are forgivable, but the Wii U’s slow decline into obscurity is disheartening. EA, the biggest game publisher in the world, said this week that they did not have a single Wii U game in development, and one EA engineers even called the console “crap” and said that it was less powerful than the Xbox 360. It’s definitely not looking good for Nintendo at the moment.

Anyway, we’ll find out more about the Xbox 720/Durango/Infinity this week. Being the last of the “next-gen” consoles to launch, all eyes are on Microsoft to see if they can up the ante on what’s on offer from Nintendo (shouldn’t be too hard) and Sony (much harder).

On that note, we come to the end of this WNR. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, Movies, News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (19 May 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (28 April 2013)

Sunday, April 28th, 2013

As part of a new project I’m working on for our Australian readers, I’ve been testing out the various US based video streaming services. Man, you guys are really really spoiled in terms of content and price. Take Netflix for example – if it had been launched here first in Australia, the price would never have been $7.99 per month. More like $79 per month, probably with less content and more restrictions as well. And it’s not just content and price, it’s also quality. To put it into perspective, Netflix Super HD’s maximum quality is probably better than anything we see in broadcast here in Australia, and that includes the $100+ per month HD cable I’m paying for.

I just hope I have enough bandwidth. I thought 300GB per month would be more than enough when I switched a month ago, but having used 15GB per day for 3 out of the last 5 days, I’m not so sure now.

Despite the Netflix (and Hulu Plus) bingeing, I did manage to get some work done (plus the bingeing was part of work, um, yes), so here’s the WNR.

Microsoft, maybe. But Google, the BBC and Netflix as bad guys? Most people won’t think that. But when it comes to adding DRM to HTML5, all of them are indeed on the wrong side of the issue.

The reason these companies all want to ditch Flash or even Microsoft’s own Silverlight is that with HTML5 and native support by modern browsers, it makes writing video applications for PCs (and tablets and smartphones) that much easier. Instead of maintaining a dozen different apps for different platforms, you can build a HTML5 based one and customize that for each platform.

It’s still not too late to stop DRM being added to HTML5

But in order for the switch to HTML5 to happen, DRM must happen too. To be fair, the requirement for DRM doesn’t come from these tech companies, but from the media companies that supply them with content. So once again, the story becomes “Hollywood wants DRM”, which isn’t really isn’t news is it?

Still, adding DRM to HTML5, the first HTML standard to have it if Netflix and co get their wish, is bad news. Not only does it mean an expanded proliferation of DRM, it also endangers the free nature of the web itself.

But since everyone loves Netflix, and hates Silverlight and Flash, it’s gonna be hard to get people worked up about WWW DRM. This petition is probably the closest we’ll get to an Internet protest.

I don’t really get it though. Netflix’s $7.99 per month makes pirating anything that’s already on Netflix quite pointless. And releasers usually takes the paths of least resistance, which for movies would be via DVD/Blu-ray rips, and HDTV recordings for TV shows. The only time people will bother ripping a Netflix stream would be for exclusive shows like House of Cards (and only when another source isn’t available). But then again, for $7.99 per month, the only people who end up pirating would be those that you really can’t squeeze any money out of, so where’s the loss in profit?

——

If a government mandated filtering solution isn’t going to happen, and I hope it won’t, then the next best thing for Big Content may be a commercial solution. Up steps McAfee, as a new patent application filed by the company aims to add an anti-piracy filter to the company’s existing SiteAdvisor service.

SiteAdvisor is right now mainly used to blocks access to search engine result links for malicious or adult content, but this new patent seeks to expand the tool’s functionality to include copyright infringing content. So even if Google doesn’t filter out links to sites like The Pirate Bay, SiteAdvisor will step in and do it for them, although the system administrator will have to option to still allow visits to these sites (after the user is forced to read a warning message).

And if the companies behind the major security software tools can all be convinced to implement something like this, patent permitting, it would be like Christmas come early for the likes of the MPAA and RIAA. It won’t stop what I would like to call “persistent pirates” (they would have turned off SiteAdvisor or the equivalent feature in their security software from day one I suspect), but for the “casual pirates” that Hollywood and the music industry insists are prevalent, those that are unaware of their “seriousness” of their activities or lack the technical know-how to bypass these kind of filters, it might just be enough.

Watching Game of Thrones can be harder than actually winning the Game of Thrones

But I think most pirates know exactly what they’re doing, and why. Just like Australians who download Game of Thrones know the exact rationale behind their actions. Which is why it was fairly undiplomatic for US ambassador to Australia Jeffery Bleich to post a long-ish rant on Facebook calling Aussies that download GoT no good thieves, making Ambassador Jeffery just as popular as King Joffery in the process.

Once again the tired, and plainly wrong, analogy of theft was used, admittedly a very clumsy one involving stealing a book from your neighbour’s home that I’ve not seen before. Apparently, downloading a *copy* of a Game of Thrones episode is just the same as breaking in to your neighbour’s home and stealing a book. This analogy would only be true if Australians were actually going into other people’s homes and stealing hard-drives full of pirated GoT episodes, which ironically would actually make people think twice about piracy for fear of an unwanted home invasion. Or if Aussies broke into HBO headquarters and stole the original and only copy of GoT episodes.

The correct analogy of course is one that involves your neighbour taking the time and effort to photocopy all of his books and then leaving copies on the street for anyone to take. By taking a copy, you’ve committed copyright infringement. If the right (or wrong) people took copies, it may lead to lost sales and hurt the rights owners. It may even hurt them so much as to bankrupt them. But it’s not exactly home invasion and burglary, is it?

And what if one of the people who picked up a photocopied copy, a person that never intended to buy the book in the first place, love it so much that he went to the bookstore immediately and purchased a copy? Doesn’t this count as a gained sale? Hasn’t the publishers, only in this one isolated incident to be fair, benefited from piracy?

As for the rationale behind taking and not buying, what if the bookstore was located really far away, like in another country? Or that for no particularly good reason, you had to wait months in order to buy the book locally compared to other countries, and that when it does arrive, it’s only available in an expensive, leather-bound, big print edition that weighs a ton, instead of an edition that you might actually want? That photocopied copy might then start to look like the much better deal, even without considering the pricing differences.

But no, it’s much simpler to just trot out the tired out analogies about stealing, shoplifting, and burglary apparently, and the equally tired and frankly dishonest lines about job losses and billions being lost every year.

——

The Pirate Bay has moved home again this week. That’s twice (or three times, if you count the temporary move back to the .se domain) in two weeks. This time it’s Iceland that becomes The Pirate Bay’s new port, with the new .is domain name. Unlike the Greenland domain name authority’s self-censorship of The Pirate Bay, the Iceland equivalent says that a court would have to decide on the fate of the new .is domain name before they would be willing to take any action. And quite rightly so, because it’s not the place for a domain authority to be judge, jury and executioner.

I said last week that I wanted to wait another week to comment on the March NPD results, to see if more hardware numbers roll in. They haven’t, unfortunately. So analysis turns to a game of educated guessing. Thanks a lot, NPD!

But if I had to guess, I’d have to say that the Wii U probably didn’t sell very well in March. If you asked me to tell you why the Wii U is struggling, then I’d probably have to say that it was down to several factors.

Wii U sales remain sluggish because it isn’t a huge improvement on the 360/PS3, nor is it cheaper or a better media device

One, the Wii U’s hardware, while an improvement on the Wii, is barely an improvement on the more than half-a-decade old PS3 and Xbox 360. If Nintendo wanted to go after the hardcore gamers, the Wii U isn’t going to do it.

Two, casual gaming has moved on from the days of the Wii. Now, it’s all smartphones and tablets and really really cheap games. The Wii U has a tablet, but can it really do things, in a standalone fashion, that the iPad cannot? Plus, Wii U games are still expensive.

Three, the cost. With the PS3 and Xbox 360 getting to the end of their release cycles, the Wii U is just too expensive by comparison. It’s just not good value, as it doesn’t play Blu-ray like the PS3, and its media streaming capabilities aren’t better than the Xbox 360’s. The lack of game titles surely can’t help, even with the presence of first-party exclusives.

So while more first-party games will help the Wii U, but by holiday 2013, the much more impressive PS4 and Xbox 720 will be out and I suspect the the Wii U will look even more outdated by then. Which is a shame, because had the Wii U been here just a year earlier, it might have been a completely different story.

Speaking of stories, I must get back to mine on Netflix. So many things to watch, so little time. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (28 April 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (21 April 2013)

Sunday, April 21st, 2013

Plenty to go through in this downer of a week, so let’s not waste any time …

Is it still going on? Apparently, yes. Viacom is still suing Google’s YouTube for copyright infringement, despite a 2010 court ruling throwing out the case via a summary judgement in favor of Google/YouTube. That decision was appealed, partially successfully, and the case was directed back to the lower courts. But once again, Judge Louis Stanton has ruled in favor of Google, arguing that YouTube was under the protection of the DMCA’s Safe Harbor provision. And guess what? Viacom is going to appeal this decision too.

It’s all getting quite boring now, to be honest. The two companies are actually working side by side these days, so only Viacom knows what the point of the lawsuit is at the moment. That Viacom is still not letting go is probably more face saving than an actual sense of feeling wronged, and whatever YouTube has done in the past, what it does now (in terms of what users do with the service, and what YouTube does for content holders) is so far removed from what went on before, it’s practically like suing a different website.

Just move on Viacom. Everybody’s bored already, including the judges, and probably your shareholders as well. Concentrate on actually making content that people want to pay for, instead of blaming everyone else for your woes.

Speaking of things that people actually want to pay for, Netflix’s plan to fight off its old and new subscription-VOD competitors appears to be working, as its original programming has helped the company to gain new subscribers. But it’s Netflix’s old business, the DVD (and Blu-ray) rental one, that is now becoming a risk for the company, an analyst has warned.

Netflix’s growth is dependent on revenue from its disc based business, but with that shrinking, Netflix may be at risk says analyst

While Netflix has over 29 million streaming subscribers, 64% of the company’s 2013 revenue is still expected to come from disc based subscribers. In other words, disc rentals are funding Netflix’s streaming expansion plans, and with disc revenue expected to continue to fall, it could endanger Netflix’s plan to expand to more locations around the world, as well as fund new original programs.

If anything, it seems Netflix’s current problem stem from the fact that it’s too good for its price of $7.99 per month. Compare to say HBO, who can get away with $15 per month for only a few hit shows, Netflix, now with original programming, offers much more (and an essential babysitting tool for any parent or guardian). The increasing cost of securing rights to shows and movies, and increasing competition from the likes of Amazon and Redbox, all means that Netflix is still over-reliant on its declining disc based business to keep the company profitable and in expansion mode.

Subscription VOD is currently stuck with the low cost model first pioneered by Netflix, but I suspect going forward, there will need to be tweaks to the pricing model. Perhaps we’ll see an introduction to a “premium” subscription tier that includes more fresh and original content than the “basic” $7.99 package, and that may be needed to offset the billions Netflix currently spends on licensing and production.

And who wouldn’t pay another $5 or even $10 per month if it meant they could watch new seasons of shows like House of Cards and Arrested Development?

——

It didn’t incite as much hatred as SOPA, but CISPA may be just as bad, and unfortunately, the US House of Reps passed it with an overwhelming majority on Thursday. The CISPA cybersecurity bill will enable private business to share all your most private information with any government agency that requests it, and allows warrant-less database searches. Emails, photos and even passwords could all be shared with government agencies against your will, and there’s nothing you can do about it – CISPA ensure this.

Typically, supporters of this overreaching bill says that it’s targeting terrorists not ordinary citizens, and Rep. McCaul of Texas drove home this point even more clearly by actually using the terrible events in Boston as justification for CISPA.

But unlike SOPA, there isn’t the united front against CISPA that can work together to kill it off before it becomes law. For one, the likes of Apple, Google and Yahoo are cautiously supporting CISPA, despite opposition from the likes of the EFF and the ACLU. At least this time, the White House seems to be on our side, with President Obama threatening to veto the bill in its current form, and the Senate, having already turned away a previous version of CISPA once before, may have something to say about it too.

Sony says they’re not going to make the same mistakes they made with their PS3 launch, and will launch the PS4 at a good price.

Could a cheaper Xbox 360 keep the console alive when the Xbox 720 and PS4 (also to be cheaper at launch) arrives?

The PS3 was launched at a price that was a lot higher than that of rival consoles at the time (in Australia, the launch price of the 60GB console was close to the $USD 900 mark). This was despite Sony still losing money on each console sold. The reason for the high price was the included Blu-ray drive, and Sony argued that since Blu-ray players were quite expensive at the time, the PS3 actually represented good value for those also looking for a Blu-ray player.

This move paid off by ensuring Blu-ray won the highly tedious HD wars, but the victory came at the cost of lost market share to the likes of Nintendo and Microsoft. It also ensured Sony lost a ton of money for the first few years of the PS3.

But with Blu-ray players worth almost nothing these days (saw one today advertised for $USD 40), there aren’t any reasons why the PS4’s price point should be any higher than that of its rivals.

Although it could still be a lot higher than that of the Xbox 360, as Microsoft may be releasing a $99 version of the console to be launched along with the Xbox 720. It may be a response to the Xbox 720’s lack of backwards compatibility, but it could also be a move on Microsoft’s part to add new customers for the console. It might target those that want it as a cheap media streamer, with the added bonus of heaps of games of all types, from the casual/family to the hardcore. The only thing better than it would be a $99 PS3 (hint, hint)!

The cheap Xbox 360 and the cheaper (on debut) PS4 should help lift video game sales, but for now, things are still stuck in the doldrums. The March 2013 NPD US video game sales data has been released, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was top of the consoles with 261,000 units solds, but still down nearly 30% compared to a year ago. I actually want to wait a bit to see if any more data emerges for the Wii U in particular before commenting further on March’s NPD results, so let’s talk about it next week.

And that’s it for this edition of the WNR. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, DVD, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), Movies, News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (21 April 2013)

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Weekly News Roundup (2 June 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (26 May 2013)

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Weekly News Roundup (28 April 2013)

Weekly News Roundup (21 April 2013)

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