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Weekly News Roundup (28 November 2010)

Sunday, November 28th, 2010

Another week, another WNR. I know it’s easy to get cynical about the Black Friday sales in the US (particularly if, you’re like me, not actually located in the US), just like it may be easy to get caught up in the hype, but if you’re do your research, there are potentially a lot of bargains to pick up without leaving the comfort of your home. Since Blu-ray is a major topic of this website, I’ve posted some of the best Amazon Black Friday Blu-ray deals on this page. Most of the discounts are still available, and there will be more on Monday as well, so it’s a good time to stock up on some Blu-ray movies. The prices are so good that they’re almost HD DVD level! I’ve purchase a dozen of so movies myself as part of this sale, as there are some really good bargains around for the movies that I had planned to buy anyway (and that’s the the trap, is that you end up buying things you didn’t really want or need just because they were cheap). More on this in the HD/Blu-ray section of this WNR, including one confession about how I compromised my principles a bit!

I continue to play through Fallout New Vegas, encountering another quite annoying glitch during the week. This one involved the companion Veronica, and how she become frozen in one spot after a certain mission. And this leads me to recommend one most excellent resource for Fallout games, The Value. It is a Wikia for all the Fallout games, and it gives precious advice on how to overcome glitches. And this is also why I prefer playing Fallout on the PC, because you get access to the console, and this allows you to fix the most stubborn glitches. In any case, I solve the Veronica glitch after reading a tip on The Vault. The glitches in this game almost ruin the game, but it’s actually quite satisfying when you do find a solution or workaround, and it has become part of the Fallout/Bethesda experience really.

Not a huge amount of news by any standard, but still enough to do some ranting, possibly between the 1800 and 2400 word mark, by my best guestimate. So let’s get started.

In copyright news, news broke not too long ago that The Pirate Bay founders have lost their appeal in the Swedish courts. This means that, following the original verdict, the founders now face a hefty fine and prison time of up to 10 month.

Prison time for Pirate Bay founders confirmed, at least until further action in the courts

Only three of the original four defendants were part of this trial, the other missed out due to illness, but will be certain to face the exact same result. Despite jail time being handed out, the likes of the MPAA are still not satisfied at the result, claiming that the $6.5 million dollars of damages isn’t anywhere near the $17 million they had wanted. Talk about being greedy! The case will now most likely go to the highest court in Sweden, even if the prosecutors seem to think this case won’t go that far. I can’t be bothered to dig up the previous edition of the WNR where I said that this case won’t be decided until it is examined by the highest court in the country, and I think I also mentioned that I don’t hold much hope that any appeal would yield satisfactory results for the TPB. The cards were stacked against them from the start.

The copyright news this week doesn’t really get much better unfortunately, but there was at least one bright spot when there was at least a sign of common sense on Capitol Hill this week, when US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) torpedoed efforts to enact the controversial Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) into law. He has placed a hold on it and it won’t be heard before the senate until next year. Unfortunately, I can only see this as a temporary delay, because with so much support for this ridiculous act, it will be made into law and we’ll all have to suffer the consequences. Most support it because they don’t know any better, or have received enough incentive to support it without asking serious questions. And most know there’s no political points being earned by going against the entertainment industry in the US. And that’s partly our fault too, for not pressuring out representatives in government in doing the right thing. But the thing is, unless you’re someone who reads this or similar blogs and websites regularly, you won’t really be aware of the issues, or understand (or care) about them, and it then boils down to an issue of whether people should or shouldn’t “steal” (a dumbed down talking point that the entertainment industry has been pushing), and most people wouldn’t support stealing. Except we know that copying and stealing are two different things entirely, and that even if it is possible to stop piracy (it isn’t), there are certain things that are far more sacred than protecting the dying business model of the entertainment industry. Things like our right to privacy. And freedom of speech. And due process, which systems like ‘Three Strikes’ attempt to short-circuit by assuming guilt and denying people their right of appeal (or to even address the matter in a court of law, like they’re entitled to). And this goes back to what I said a couple of WNRs ago, that we must do more to protect our rights and treat this more than just a matter of being able to “downloading movies and games and stuff”, something that the copyright lobby and their supporters has tried to reduce the arguments to. This is about protecting our democratic rights, which politicians these days are too eager to sacrifice in the name of “protecting” us (whether it’s terrorism, or the perceived and possibly imaginary threat to the economy, due to piracy).

Seized domains now display only this seizure notice from the DoJ, IPRC, and Homeland Security

And so we move on to the news this week that Homeland Security closed down another 80 websites suspected of providing pirated content. The only positive is that due process was followed, that warrants were obtained via the court, but it doesn’t really matter if the process itself is flawed. My biggest problem with this is that I have no idea if any of the websites/domains seized were really illegal, and who determined their status. I don’t trust most judges’ level of technical understanding to pass judgement on technical issues such as this, and perhaps when faced with such overwhelming force (Justice Department, Homeland Security, ICE), and some scaremongering about the consequences of piracy (billions of jobs will be lost!), most will just go along with whatever is in the warrant request. And if one of the 80 websites was truly innocent, what’s the process of appeal, and what kind of compensation would be due if the website was deemed by a court of law as not guilty, compensation for the financial and emotional damages caused by the temporary closure of the website. I mean, this is not like going after drug dealers or counterfeit drugs, there are a lot of complicated issues involved in determining whether a website is guilty or not of copyright infringement, issues that must be addressed in court before any punitive actions can be handed out. And what if the domain really did host illegal stuff, but it was uploaded unknowingly by third parties, or as part of a user-generated section on the website – is if fair that the entire domain is taken offline? It would be like shutting down blogger.com because somebody created an account on there to share pirated MP3s. This scenario could be avoided via a DMCA takedown notice, but these seizures bypass the very laws that were created to avoid situations like this. And this is why COICA is so controversial, in that it gives the US government even greater power to do all of this and more, and on a much larger scale as well, potentially killing off tens of thousands of websites in one fell swoop, and many by “collateral damage”. And this is why anyone who knows and cares about the Internet ought to be against COICA, and many prominent companies and individuals have already spoken out, but all will be silenced by the constant chattering of lobbyists into the ears of those that can decide the fate of COICA. Senator Wyden excepted.

And so the next step would be to even make talking about piracy illegal, which is what the RIAA attempted to do this week, and caused some collateral damage of their own in the process. PCMag.com posted an article after LimeWire was shut down, examining the possible alternatives that are still left. This is a valid discussion, because it points to the fact that even though it took years and millions of dollars to bring down LimeWire, the next LimeWire could pop up in a matter of weeks or could already exist, and thus making the whole process an expensive, and pointless, exercise. And for this, the RIAA and its cohorts sent a letter to PCMag.com’s CEO, attacking the website for daring to suggest alternatives and supporting and encouraging piracy in the process. It then attacked PCMag for simply referring to another article, published by TorrentFreak, regarding LimeWire being resurrected. The problem is that PCMag didn’t write that article, it was PC World, by facts and accuracy does not matter when one is acting the bully like the RIAA and Co. are. PCMag are standing firm by their journalistic principles, and refuse to be silenced and used as a scapegoat in the RIAA’s attempt to blame someone, anyone, for the piracy problem. Anyone except for themselves for sticking with a dying business model, even when alternatives and opportunities were presented, opportunities that were eventually taken by the likes of Apple with iTunes. The only bit of innovation the RIAA and its members have come up with recently has been new ways to sue and intimidate those perceived to be their enemies (the Internet and anyone who uses the Internet), and of course the whole failed DRM experiment.

The Witcher 2, to be released next year, will be DRM free

And DRM has been in the news this week too, but in regards to the use of it in the gaming industry. Gamasutra, one of the most respected gaming industry website on the Internet, has had one of its bloggers write an interesting article examining the failure of DRM, and how illegal copying can be prevented. The conclusion seems to be one that I’ve come to as well, in that the solution is to add value to the gaming experience, not to take it away via horrible DRM. Value adding explains the success of Steam, and even though it does use DRM, it is pretty weak stuff, and in fact probably better than buying off the shelve due to the lack of need of a DVD check. The best DRM should prevent casual copying, but should otherwise be invisible to the end user, and if it forces gamers to connect to an online service for authentication, free value added services should be given as compensation (achievements, community, social features …). But even the best, or worst (as in draconian), DRM will not prevent copying by those that really want to copy it, and groups with the skill to hack away, as Ubisoft’s DRM experiment showed recently, and so really, there’s no point to DRM at all. And this is a point shared by at least some game developers, including the developer of The Witcher series, and operators of the classic, DRM-free, gaming website GOG.com. In fact, their CEO and co-founder, Marcin Iwiński, goes on to say that DRM treats customers like criminals. Iwiński believes there’s no need to debate whether their upcoming game, The Witcher 2, should use DRM or not, simply because he believes DRM doesn’t work. And this is why The Witcher 2 will be released DRM-free. Iwiński also criticized the way DRM adds restrictions that the pirated versions are free from, calling it “totally stupid”. He also attacks online based protection, saying that it isn’t fair to people who want to play games when they’re away from a reliable Internet connection. And it’s hard to argue against any of these points really. The industry, when it relies on DRM, is basically trying to sell something that’s not as good as the pirated version even when you don’t consider the price, and then getting mad when it’s not selling well. I mean this is an industry that isn’t even bothering to print manuals any more, and yet it expects us to jump through hoops just to play a badly bugged game that it rushed through testing. But luckily, there are still the smarter companies that are doing more innovative things to stop piracy, things like bundling physical collector’s items that can’t be pirated, building immersive online experiences and communities, being innovative with pricing, and either not using DRM or at least not overdoing it. And then you have companies like Ubisoft.

High Definition

Moving on from the ranting to happier grounds, as mentioned before, I did take part in the Black Friday sales on Amazon, trying to take advantage of the historically favourable AUD/USD exchange rates (not as favourable to be honest this week).

Yes I know I said I won't buy it out of protest, but they were really really cheap!

And yes, I did completely compromise my principles on an issue I’ve ranted about a lot right here. That’s right, I purchased the theatrical Blu-ray version of The Lord of the Rings movies, despite bitching about it for weeks back when it was first released. My rant then was about how the trilogy boxset should have included the extended edition, as opposed to the theatrical edition, and should have at least featured some new extra features and put them on Blu-ray at least even if they weren’t HD (the extra features are actually on DVDs, and probably could have fitted onto a single dual layer Blu-ray, but that would have made the boxset look famished). Also, the first movie had a sub-standard transfer, although some of it was unavoidable it seems (a fact that wasn’t available at the time of my original rant). In my defence, I didn’t buy the box set, but only the individual movies separately for $7.99 each. And at that price, some of these shortcomings, can be forgiven (certainly better than paying $65 for the boxset anyway). So “I won’t be buying it” really meant “I won’t be buying it unless it’s heavily discounted and I must join in the hype of Black Friday or I will feel left out”.

Well, at least I didn’t pay $400 for a copy of Avatar on 3D Blu-ray.

Kinect is in the news again this week, and funnily, it had almost nothing to do with gaming. The news broke last week that only a week after the release of Kinect, it had been hacked, and Microsoft couldn’t have been pleased at the development.

It's always nice to see technology used in a way to benefit humanity as a whole

Then it turn out that they didn’t really care either way, because the “hack” wasn’t really a hack at all, at least according to Microsoft’s definition of what a hack is. What happened was that somebody wrote open source drivers for Kinect so that it can be used on the PC, and because Microsoft intentionally (or they claim now) left the USB thingy open, Microsoft claims they were always hoping something like this would happen. I’m not sure about that, but Microsoft do have a history of mixing Xbox 360 and PC compatibility (the wired Xbox 360 gamepad works perfectly on the PC, and even the wireless one can be made to work via a dongle). And “unofficial” drivers aren’t new, the Sony Sixaxis controller has a PC driver, and even the Wii-mote has one too.

Anyway, what was more interesting was how people decided to use the open source drivers and write their own PC based Kinect applications. And if you follow the link above, you’ll see videos of object recognition, a Minority Report style web browsing experience using a simple Javascript add-on. And even a man boob tracker (not a typo). It just goes to show that Kinect has serious potential, but only if the right software is there for it. But that’s always the hard part, and the reason why the Wii is struggling now is because, apart from Nintendo, nobody really knows how to makes good games for it.

And I was way off. I’m already over the 2700 word mark, and so my guestimate wasn’t really close at all. But if you remove the Black Friday and Fallout related waffle, then it just about gets in there. So I probably should stop typing now, wish you all a great week, and type something along the lines of “see you next week”.

See you next week.

Posted in 3D, Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (28 November 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (17 October 2010)

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

Let’s start this relatively quiet week with some bad news. It is very likely I will have to cease updating a long running feature here. Sorry to stop all of you from leaping for joy at the demise of the WNR, I’m sorry to say that’s not what I’m posting about. Instead, it’s the NPD US video game sales analysis, in its 38th monthly edition already, but it looks like 39th may very well never arrive. You see, NPD is no longer releasing hardware and software unit sales numbers, and this makes writing an analysis very difficult. Luckily, there may be some data leaks by manufacturers, publishers and other analysts with access to the NPD numbers, and when that happens, an analysis may still be posted. So far for this first month, there does seem to be some leaks, so the 39th NPD analysis may very well be posted early next week.

Anyway, let’s start going over the news in this, as previously mentioned, relatively quiet week.

In copyright news, the Irish High Court has dealt a blow to the music industry’s attempts to shift responsibility of online piracy unto ISPs.

The court ruled that provider UPC was not responsible for what users do on its network, as Ireland had not yet implemented the EU directive on copyright. The next step for the music industry is to cry to the government and get them to help stop the nasty ISPs from hurting their billion dollar profits, and I’m sure they’ll find a sympathetic ear. As I’ve mentioned a billion times before, I don’t get the argument of the record and movie industries. If ISP should be made responsible for subscriber downloads, then why not the phone company, as most downloads are still done via good old phone lines and exchanges. What about the companies that maintain the routers and switches for the Internet – illegal traffic has to pass through their hardware eventually, so why not make them responsible too? So it’s only the websites that host torrent files (which don’t directly link to pirated content), the users who upload and download, and ISPs that the music/movie industries hold responsible (maybe Google and other search engines as well), but everybody else gets a free pass? Will hard-drive makers get sued too because they keep on making bigger hard-drives that are used to store pirated files? Where does the buck stop?

This is a question they can never answer, because the industry is passing on responsibility of fighting piracy to others, even though they are the only ones to benefit from any action taken. Governments can be lobbied take some of the responsibility, but other private companies are not just going to sit by idly and let the music/movie industries get away with it. And if the government, via new laws, make ISPs responsible, then what they are effectively doing is subsidizing the very profitable music and movie industries by taking money out of the Internet industry, just because one industry has a better lobbying organisation than the other. But I believe the saviour of the music/movie industry, if they need saving at all, will lie in the Internet domain, and so there’s more reason for them all to work together, giving users more innovative solutions, as opposed to working against each other while fighting the futile fight against piracy, while consumers are the ones hurt by all of this (either the lack of innovation, or financial and legal consequences, even for those that don’t pirate music and movies). But that’s just me.

Media Copyright Group is being sued by US Copyright Group for Trademark Infringement

And speaking of companies not working together for the common good, more evidence this week that copyright law firms don’t really respect copyright, as they steal (or allege others of stealing) from each other. The US Copyright Group is suing the Media Copyright Group for stealing their name, even though they have different names. This is after the USCG was caught earlier in the year stealing another copyright law firm’s website design, and even earlier when UK copyright law firm ACS:Law accused of another UK copyright law firm of stealing their mailing templates. But I’m not surprised that these firms are suing for each other, or that some of them don’t respect copyright. Because first of all, and just like the Scorpion and the Frog fable, it’s in their nature to sue anyone and anything. And second of all, they don’t respect copyright because their work means that they don’t need to respect copyright, because it’s all about the money. In fact, these law firms would have no business if piracy was stopped tomorrow, so it’s actually in their interest for piracy to continue. Is it going too far to even suggest that these firms are making money off piracy? Well, all I know is that when home users download a torrent, and subsequently upload portions of it while they’re downloading, they’re not making a profit from the operations, other than saving the money of purchasing the content. Some torrent website may make some money through advertising, but overall, online piracy is one “industry” that’s not really about making a profit – unlike the industries that has sprouted up to combat it.

But if money is to be made from piracy or anti-piracy, then Google wants a piece of it too. Instead of giving in to movie studio demands to take responsibility for sites in its vast index (by this principle, Google may very well be responsible for all the world’s ills at the moment thanks to all the websites it indexes. Except for News Corp sites. So that’s one less evil Google is responsible for, I guess), it has suggested, shock horror, that studios may need to pay a little bit of money to reduce piracy and improve the studio’s bottom line. I’m sure the studios are outraged at the suggestion that they would have to pay for actions that benefit only themselves. Crying to Congress about it may be their only hope!

An update on The Pirate Bay appeals case, it has now concluded and a decision is expected on November 26th. I have deliberately avoided covering this trial because I suspect there is only one outcome, and that the original verdict will be upheld. Or maybe I was just too lazy to keep track of it, I don’t know.

High Definition

Not much happening in HD/3D land, except that Iron Man 2’s stats came out, and while it was impressive, it did not really outsell the likes of Avatar.

Iron Man 2 sold more copies on Blu-ray than on DVD, well sort of

What the Blu-ray version did manage to do was to get more than 50% of the market share, not the first time this has happened, but the first time for such a high profile release during the first week of release. In other words, when Iron Man 2 became available at retail outlets, most people purchased the Blu-ray or Blu-ray/DVD combo version, as opposed to the DVD only version. While this may suggest that Blu-ray has now replaced DVDs as the dominant format, there are a couple of caveats to this stat. First of all, overall Blu-ray market share is still only around 10% to 15% (it was up to 18% for Iron Man 2 week), mainly because not all titles are release yet on Blu-ray, but largely because people are being very selective when buying Blu-ray editions, as opposed to DVD editions. It’s all about the expected picture/audio quality I suppose.

Another important thing to note is that with the current pricing, it’s very bad value to buy any of the DVD-only editions, especially if one plans to upgrade to Blu-ray any time in the next couple of years. The reason for this is that the Blu-ray single disc version of Iron Man 2 was only priced a single dollar more than the equivalent DVD-only edition. The Blu-ray/DVD combo was even better value, at only $2 more than the 2-disc DVD edition. Now, even if I didn’t have a Blu-ray player, if the pricing differential was so insubstantial, I would never buy the DVD only editions. For $2 more, I can future proof my movie collection right now, and although I miss out temporarily on the extra features on the second DVD if I didn’t have a Blu-ray player, in return, I get two copies of the same movie, as opposed to just one. At the end of the day, even if I didn’t have a Blu-ray player, I still get to enjoy the movie on DVD and I will know that when I get a Blu-ray player, I won’t have to re-buy the movie. Of course, I think what has happened is that people were buying the single disc DVD version, as opposed to the combo version, which works out to be around $8 in savings. Still, when the two disc DVD edition costs more than the cheapest Blu-ray version ($5 more), if this doesn’t convince people to go and get a Blu-ray player, then I don’t know what will. The consumers that aren’t convinced will be difficult to convert into the Blu-ray cult, I think.

But Inception will be released in December, and I think that’s will be the title to beat for 2010.

Sony has announced its range of Google TV supporting TVs and Blu-ray players. It’s basically the tried and failed Internet TV platform, but now with a Google twist to make everything just a bit easier to use. Add the eventual support for the Android marketplace, and it can even become a surprisingly capable gaming platform for simple casual games. This convergence thing, that people, including me, were talking about years and years before, seems to be happening right in front of our eyes. Is a Sony TV with Google TV really just a TV, or a computer that can access the Internet, or a PVR that can record TV shows, or a games console? It only does everything, I suppose … oops, wrong company’s slogan.

And finally in gaming, as mentioned above, the lack of NPD stats make the NPD stats analysis feature a bit more difficult to write. But I have some experience in writing much about nothing, so maybe I’ll manage.

But for September’s figures, I think I will still be able to come up with an analysis because of some of the leaked numbers, which suggests the Xbox 360 won the month easily again, while both the Wii and PS3 were actually down compared to a year ago, 45 and 37 percent respectively. The PS3 numbers might surprise a few people, since it has seen huge year-on-year growth recently, but as I mentioned in the last few NPD posts, we’re finally comparing apples with apples, or rather, slims with slims (whereas before, we were comparing the low priced slims with the high priced fats) – and as I have been trying to explain, the recent PS3 sales figures aren’t that impressive at all when you take this into account, and September’s figure prove this point.

Halo Reach has become one of only three games to sell over 3 million copies in the first release month

The other interesting fact was that Halo Reach sold more than 3.3 million copies, only the third title ever to sell more than 3 million copies in the first month (in the US) – the other two are Modern Warfare 2, and the previous major Halo game, Halo 3. No specific figures were available for the Move, but the accessories sector grew compared to last year, the only one to do so, and this means the Move bundle probably sold well, but not well enough to have dragged the PS3 console sales any higher.

Anyway, I better stop writing before this turns into a fully fledged NPD analysis.

In other gaming news, Sony has a new way to combat the use of the PS Jailbreak device – new games, such as the new Medal of Honor, will come with firmware updates that disable the device, and if you want to play these games, you are forced to install the firmware. A typically heavy handed action by Sony, but it will probably work. Until someone pirates a hacked version of MoH that won’t require the new firmware, that is.

And that’s it for this week. Not a lot of news as I mentioned, but hopefully enough to tide you over until next week. So until then …

Posted in 3D, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (17 October 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (10 October 2010)

Sunday, October 10th, 2010

Welcome to the 10/10/10 edition of the WNR. I’m always weary when writing dates, since different regions use different ordering and it’s easy to confuse the day, month and year completely (which is why I always use the full name for the Month, and the year in four digits – as per the title of this post), so it’s good that, for one day of this year, I can throw caution to the wind and write the date anyway I want without any consequences. And to think, we only have two more years left of this, before we have to wait another another 89 years (think about it).

From my intro, you may have concluded that this was yet another quiet news week, hence the need to write gibberish. But there’s actually a few things to go through, not much, but a few. So the gibberish was merely coincidental, and regular readers would surely have gotten used to the gibberish by now. So let’s get started.

Starting with copyright news, we’ll start with what was very late news last week, in that the controversial ACTA has reached a basic agreement, and there has been more analysis since then about the new draft (final draft?) of this agreement.

TorrentFreak reckons that the new ACTA draft now tries shoves much less crap down our throats than what is was earlier, so I guess that’s good news. Ah, I remember like it was yesterday when I first heard of the ACTA, about how custom officials were going to search through my iPod looking for pirated songs, that ISPs were going to be forced to monitor all of our Internet usage just in case we do something the RIAA/MPAA don’t want us to do, and that the island of Manhattan was going to be closed and fenced off like a giant prison, with all the caught copyright infringers sent there to fend for themselves (this last part may not be true). It seems that the current version of the ACTA is very much a watered down version compared to previous drafts, and I guess that’s one positive of global politics, is that things rarely get done when so many countries are involved. Hurray for petty political bickering.

French Three-Strikes is up and running, with the first users receiving notification this week

But even without a global treaty forcing countries to take copyright control seriously by building giant island prisons, some countries are taking action anyway. France is a pioneer in this field. The country that gave us the French Revolution, has now been sold to the highest corporate bidder, in this case, the joint bid from the music and movie industries, and France’s Three-Strikes revolution has started. In case you’ve been living in a cave, or have had your Internet disconnected because you pirated one episode too many of Desperate Housewives (in which case, you would already know all about Three-Strikes, so skip the next half a sentence or so), the Three-Strikes systems give copyright infringers three chances to clean up their act before their Internet is disconnected. The first of the strikes has been sent out by HADOPI, and so the experiment begins. Will piracy stop? Or will people simply start using sources of pirated content that HADOPI can’t monitor? And if the piracy rate drops, will the music and movie (and software) industry make more money? Only time will tell, but I suspect the only real effect will be the increasing amounts of anger experienced by the Internet public.

Which explains why Operation Payback, 4chan/Anonymous’s global Internet attacks on those perceived to be on the wrong side of the great copyright crusade. I haven’t even kept track of all the organisations that Operation Payback has targeted, I think their most recent target was in Spain, but as they “group” has proclaimed, the attacks will continue until they’re less angry, and things like Three-Strikes won’t really help in this respect.

Getting caught in the cross-hairs in all of this is fair use. There are many reasons why copyright should be respected, and there are also many situations where protecting the public interest is more important than protecting “potential” profits for copyright holders. The Library of Congress’ National Recording Preservation Board has made a passionate plea for changes to the copyright law so cultural preservation, particularly for audio recordings, isn’t being hampered by copyright holders too protective over their content. Due to the various laws and amendments made to the copyright act, giving copyright holders ever increasing power and time to hold on to their content, many recordings made early last century are in danger of failing to be preserved because copyright holders aren’t releasing content that clearly has no commercial value any more. Some recorded vaudeville performance, for example, are destined to be lost forever as greedy copyright holders refuse to release recordings to the public domain, despite there being no market for such content since the 1930’s. It’s easy to forget that copyright laws were invented to protect the public interest, as much as the rightsholders, which is why copyright do expires, so content can fall into public domain and be preserved forever. DRM, another invention of copyright holders, may be even more harmful than any laws that exist. It’s very much unlikely any DRM protected content can be decoded in some distant future. We don’t even have to imagine that far to see how dangerous DRM can be, people who purchased content from one of the many failed online music stores that used DRM will know exactly how hard it is to recover their purchases, even after just a couple of years. Luckily, most DRM measures are fairly ineffective, and so easily breakable, but that won’t always be the case.

Hollywood may be making less money on bad movies than ever before, due to the Internet and online piracy

So with the copyright crusade taking many victims, what exactly are the rightsholders trying to achieve? This week, we had MPAA execs come out and explain their reasoning for fighting piracy. Apparently, even the MPAA is aware that piracy cannot be eliminated, saying that “Piracy has always been and will always be with us”. You see, the MPAA’s aim is only to reduce it so much so that they “can make enough revenue in a legitimate market to recoup expenses and continue to make new movies”. You see, behind the record profits, movie studios appear to be struggling to bring out movies, because it’s hard to even recoup expenses at times. The proof is right here if we look hard enough, I mean there hasn’t been a Saw movie since 2009, and who is to say six Saw films is really enough? Of course, movies like Inception are the “Exceptions”, it’s a real struggle for a lot of movies to make back the money that went into making them. You see the reason is that, simply, most of the movies that Hollywood produces are, how do I put it, crap! In the past, when people couldn’t just download crappy movies, they actually had to pay for a ticket before walking out in disgust twenty minutes in, and this meant a lot more movies were able to “recoup expenses” and so allow studios to “continue to make new movies”. And before people knew how to rip DVDs (that whole six month before people discovered you could break DVD’s ineffectual CSS copy protection by simply breathing in its general direction), they may get tempted by the cover and buy the crappy movies, whereas now they can simply download it and delete it twenty minutes through in disgust, and hence provide no income at all to struggling studios, who are now forced to having to actually make good movies that people will want to pay to see, like The Dark Knight, Avatar and Inception. But Chris Nolan is only one guy, and who know when James Cameron will make another movie. So it’s no surprise really that Uwe Boll’s Far Cry was one for the first movies to get into the sue-for-settlement game, is it?

There must have been something in the water last week, because yet another victim of the piracy trade also came out to suggest that, maybe, piracy isn’t the only reason for lost profits. Nintendo’s CEO refused to blame piracy for lost Wii, DS sales, believing that good games will still sell regardless of piracy. Interesting. So people pay for good stuff, and pirate the not so good stuff? Who would have thunk it! The reality is that people who can’t afford to buy will probably pirate, in which case no profit has been lost a result. There’s only probably a very small minority that will always pirate, even if they can afford to pay. And so I think most of the revenue losses come from the fact that people are not buying things that are not worth the money being paid, and with so much good stuff out there competing for our hard earned dollar (even if it is worth less and less every day, if you’re earning the US kind), buyers are a lot more picky. And piracy, rightly or wrongly, allows many to “sample” goods without having to feel cheated by paying for the full sticker price, and in most cases, the goods are as they suspected, not worth the money being asked for it. But producers will argue that without people buying the poor quality junk, then these purchases can’t subsidize the cost of producing good quality stuff, and that’s true. So some kind of balance has to be reached where perhaps producers can make the junk cheap enough to tempt us to go against our better judgement, while keeping the good stuff cheap enough so that not too many people fall into the “can’t afford it, so must pirate it” category.

And an update on everyone’s favourite newspaper copyright lawyers, Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle is ready to settle her Righthaven lawsuit which alleged that she posted some newspaper’s articles without permission somewhere. It’s a shame, I was hoping for a real legal battle, but I guess in the middle of an election campaign, that was never likely to happen.

High Definition

In 3D/HD news, Iron Man 2 was released a short while ago and the figures suggest that it will be one of the best selling titles on Blu-ray ever, which is exactly what the format needed after a sluggish few weeks recently – the stats will be posted on Tuesday at the usual place.

Toshiba's 20" Glasses-Free 3D TV is expensive at $3000

For 3D lovers, there was some exciting news this week as Toshiba released its first glasses-free 3D TVs. If you’ve read my earlier blog post/FAQ about 3D, you shouldn’t be too surprised about glasses-free 3D TVs, but as I mentioned before, there are a lot of drawbacks to this technology currently. For example, the Toshiba 3D TVs only allow 3D effects from nine fixed viewing positions – if none of these positions matches your sitting positions, then you can forget about the 3D effect. Now, new versions of the same technology is enabling greater number of viewing angles, I think I read somewhere one even offers 64 viewing positions, but for me, it’s not so much finding a sweet spot, as staying there for the whole duration of the movie (and making sure you don’t move your head too much). Of course for some, that may still be a better compromise than wearing dorky glasses.

Another problem, which the Toshiba releases make clear, is the cost of the technology. 3D effects rely on each eye seeing something different to trick our brains into thinking we’re looking at something in 3D. Glasses work by quickly shuttering the LCD so that we’re only seeing out of one eye at any one time (it’s synced to the TV so that each eye is seeing that they’re supposed to be seeing – all of this is done very quickly so we don’t notice that we’re really only seeing out of one eye), but the image we see out of each eye will be the full resolution of the TV. However, with these glasses-free TVs, it relies on barriers that block out different pixels on the TV depending on the angle of your vision (with each eye seeing something different, because of the different viewing angles). This blocking of pixels means that each eye is not seeing the full resolution of the TV, and so in order to created an HD image, more pixels are needed than what is normally required. For the larger Toshiba 20″ 3D TV, four times the number of pixels of a 1080p TV was needed to create only a 720p picture (essentially, the panel is a 2160p one, if my maths is correct), and this is why this small TV costs nearly $3000. Not only is the panel expensive to produce, the processor needed to manage this many pixels also needs to be powerful (Toshiba uses their Cell technology, the same processors that power the PS3).

But you see the problem now though. If it ever becomes cheap enough to produce 2160p TVs to make these 720p glasses-free 3D TVs affordable, then people will start to want 2160p 3D (or at the very least, 1080p 3D), which would already be possible then with 3D glasses. This, plus the viewing angle problem, means that there’s still a lot of development needed for this technology. Although the smaller 12″ model would definitely make a very cool digital photo frame.

And half way lodged between movies and gaming, PS3’s Netflix will go disc free this month, with the PS3 Netflix app soon to be available meaning users of Netflix no longer has to insert the what must now be very worn Blu-ray disc into their PS3s to access Netflix’s streaming service (as CrunchGear noted, it’s extremely ironic that an online streaming service still required a disc to work).

And for those with money to burn in this economy, you can now pay Best Buy to upgrade your PS3’s firmware. For $30, Best Buy’s Geek Squad will press left on the PS3 controller until the “Settings” icon is highlighted, go down to “System Updates” option and press “X” for you. I know the US dollar worth less than the paper its printed on these days, but $30 is still $30. Yes, a firmware update is a bit more complicated than just pressing a bunch of buttons (but not much though), since you do need the PS3 to be connected online first, but I suppose people that want PS3s will probably know how to do that already. In any case, those buying PS3s as gifts for others may not know what the deal is, and so may pay for this just to have peace of mind, and I think that’s probably the demographic Best Guy is going for. It is funny though reading through the list of “benefits” you get for your $30 – I mean, you’d be crazy to not want the “system runs smoother” functionality. Joking aside though, if PS3 firmware updates are breaking the Blu-ray drive as some have claimed (or launched a class action lawsuit for), then maybe paying $30 isn’t such a bad idea if Best Buy covers the cost of whatever happens due to a bad update (ie. the $150 Sony charges to fix the PS3 if something did go wrong).

Alright then, that’s it for this week. I have it on good authority that, yes, there will be new events occurring next week in which an article will be written and published to inform the general public, and thus creating something called “news”. And I shall do my best not to skip over the really important ones due to sheer incompetence and/or laziness. Have a good one.

Posted in 3D, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (10 October 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (3 October 2010)

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

There’s a surprising amount of news to get through, most of them coming in the last few days, while previous week’s news stories continue to provide the goods, which just goes to show that it’s rather foolish to be overconfident in dealing with the Internet masses, because a train doesn’t run you over when it’s late, and coffee doesn’t turn into acid over time (see Andrew Crossley remarks regarding Operation Payback, if you don’t get the reference).

We’ll start with the repercussions of Operation Payback, which should occupy a fair bit of the copyright section this week (and promises to occupy more of it in the following weeks, until Anonymous’ anger subsides, if it subsides).

The leaked ACS:Law emails are still providing a wealth of information on how one of the most notorious copyright settlement firms operate. There was at first the details about just how much money have been made so far, and how much money is expected to be earned as more and more people fall foul of the settlement notices. As I noted last week, the entire business is motivated by money, which isn’t necessary wrong, except there’s very little emphasis on stopping piracy, apart from the side effects of these types of lawsuits. You get the feeling that if it was possible to somehow encourage piracy, so this little business can continue for a while longer, then some of the less reputable law firms may just do this. After all, if it’s all about the money, then it will all end when people stop pirating stuff.

And as if to further proof the point I made above (or maybe the more likely explanation is that I made the point above so I can segue nicely into a new paragraph … but I’m not that clever!), not only do certain law firms care little for actually stopping piracy, they themselves are engaging in it for their own commercial gain, which is way worse than people who can’t afford to buy movies downloading pirated copies. Again, uncovered from ACS:Law’s email archives, is a little incident involving another law firm, Tilly, Bailey and Irvine, which sought help from ACS:Law in regards to starting their own copyright settlement business. But instead of taking mailing templates and creating their own unique ones based on the ones provided, Tilly, Bailey and Irvine decided it would be easier to just use the templates without license. Geeze, it’s easy to get caught in this piracy things isn’t it? ACS:Law’s Andrew Crossley, which has overnight become one of the most famous, or is that infamous, people in the Internet world, wasn’t happy at TBI’s actions, and I guess it was pretty silly for TBI to commit acts of copyright infringement against a copyright law firm.

What was more interesting though was that TBI ceased their copyright settlement operations after discovering the negative side of all that money – the bad publicity. This is nothing news, as the father of copyright settlement law firms in the UK, Davenport Lyons, also quit from the game for the same reasons. TBI mentioned that the extra resources needed to deal with the bad publicity took them by surprise a bit, even though it really shouldn’t. This could point to a way to fight off the copyright settlement vultures, because while not all care about bad publicity, some do and public pressure can be effective. Most of these law firms practice traditional law as well, and if their copyright settlement stuff is hurting their other business, then that may make them think twice.

Cornered! is the latest movie the USCG is suing downloaders for

Which may be why the law firm Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver created the US Copyright Group, as to separate their copyright settlement stuff from the rest of their work. It’s not really working though, not if you consider the bomb threat they received this week, which luckily turned out to be a false alarm. With the economy the way it is, people don’t need a mass mailing telling them to pay up hundreds and thousands of dollars for a movie that costs less than ten, and it’s understandable some people may just go too far. Also, the irony of their association with the movie The Hurt Locker, could point to just a prank. But this isn’t stopping the USCG, as they filed more Doe lawsuits this week, for two more movies. Low Orbit Ion Cannons and bomb threats can’t stop the USCG, although some judges can, and this week, the USCG had to deal with a small setback in one of their ‘Hurt Locker’ lawsuits. The reason is not important, it was a jurisdiction problem, but it does show that the court is not always on the USCG’s side, and that the growing public anger may in fact make judges examine the USCG’s case (or lack of one) a bit more carefully in the future.

Back to Operation Payback for a moment, it is still very much going on, with many more firms and organisations being targeted, including one here in Australia (the AFACT). The effectiveness of the LOIC as a DDoS tool is debatable, since it’s apparently easy block, but the successful attacks so far have been from sympathizing groups and individuals, it appears. The ACS:Law email leak is still so far the crowning achievement of the operation, although it very much happened by accident. If we can put aside the debate about the legality of such protest actions, the message is clear though. People don’t like the way they’ve been treated in this copyright crusade. and they’re speaking out. They no longer want to be just labelled a “criminal” and treated, by governments and groups like the MPAA/RIAA, as if their concerns are not legitimate. And even criminals have rights, rights that our governments have been too eager to give away to protect the interests of the rich and powerful entertainment lobby. There are real reasons why piracy is rampant, and it may not even have anything to do with pirated goods being cheap or free. If we believe the copyright holder’s argument that they are losing money to piracy, then it means that people who can afford to pay are not, and are deciding to choose something that’s illegal and dangerous instead. But then if the reality is that the people downloading are the ones that can’t afford to pay, then what is actually lost by the copyright holders? And if it’s because pirated content is easier to get hold of then paid for content, then who is to blame for this? Pirates for making things too easy, or copyright holders who makes things too hard for consumers? If there is to be a debate on copyright, these are the issues that need to be examined. And maybe, just maybe, a solution can be found.

Progressive political forum Democractic Underground has been hit with a Righthaven lawsuit

And now back to the lawsuits. The newspaper copyright trolling continues with Righthaven hitting a fairly large target this time. Left wing political forum Democratic Underground has been hit by such a lawsuit, when supposedly one of their users posted an article from one of the newspapers that Righthaven represents. But if Righthaven was expecting a prompt payment of the settlement fee, then they may need to think again when suing an Internet, political savvy opponent, which has since brought the EFF to help out with their defence and counter-suit. Democratic Underground, as a forum, should have protection under the DMCA’s safe harbor provision because they do have strict rules in regards to copyright, but I suspect they will go beyond this technical defence and question the very nature of these types of lawsuits when it comes to preventing freedom of speech, which is exactly what a political forum provides. But the DMCA is actually an issue, because normally, the newspaper in question can request an article to be removed by filling a simple DMCA notice, but obviously, there’s no profit in that. With the rate ads are paying (ie. not much), one can argue that newspapers are not losing much at all when people copy their articles verbatim (but usually with a link to the original article), but the positive effects of having their work publicized and if the link to the original article has been posted, the positive effects in terms of search engines, which bring in more people to their website, should all be considered. Which is why before Righthaven, newspapers often requested full articles to be removed, but were happy with excerpts and definitely happy with links to the original article. But the settlement fees earned means that it’s much more profitable to sue, than to reason. In any case, I expect Democratic Underground to put up one hell of a fight, with assistance from the EFF, and if I was Righthaven, I would regret very much regret picking such a target instead of some poor blogger.

The EFF has had a minor victory this week too, forcing the proposed Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act to be delayed in the Senate, after they organized 87 prominent Internet engineers and pioneers to write an open letter attacking the act. Apparently, what the government is proposing, in order to help out their music and movie studio buddies, may actually break the entire Internet. Which is just exactly what you would expect from them really, and I mean both sides of politics, and like puppy dogs, they’re all competing with each other to earn the attention of their masters. If there was some place where they could fire a nuke at, to stop online piracy, they would have done it already, it’s what I’m getting at. So while the US Senate was busy doing what it does best, which is to do nothing, the controversial ACTA treaty reached a significant milestone with a basic agreement being reached, which may force the Senate’s hands (not that they need any forcing).

And The Pirate Bay appeals trial started this week too, after delays over accusation of bias. Well, when before you even start the trial, the judges have already had accusations of bias aimed at them, and none of them recused themselves, then that’s not really a good start, and I don’t expect any positive result. But on the other hand, any negative result probably won’t affect TPB’s operations anyway, so what’s the point really.

And from the same people that wanted phone ring-tones to be considered a form of public performance, the ASCAP which represents composers and publishers, has tried to get a court to say that a download is also a public performance, despite downloads not making any noise apart from the “ding” when it completes (depending on your browser/settings). The court denied their “ring-tone” arguments, and they denied their download arguments too. If I was a member of the ASCAP, I would be embarrassed at their actions, going out and making an ass of themselves in court. The ASSCAP perhaps? If they get their way, pretty much, even humming a tune would be a public performance, and eventually, even thinking about a song may be mean having to pay royalties.

High Definition

Moving onto 3D/HD news. The news this week was that Blu-ray penetration has reached 17%. There has been some pretty poor stats recently for Blu-ray sales in the US at least, but I’m not surprised at this figure at all.

Blu-ray Growth Rate (up to September 19, 2010)

Blu-ray's growth rate has slowed recently due to lack of hit releases

But whether this 17% can be turned into 80/90%, or whatever DVDs have, that’s another question. Without top new releases, Blu-ray hasn’t been growing as fast as previously, but with the best titles coming thick and fast in the next few month, that could change. I’m still mostly confused as to the intentions of studios when it comes to Blu-ray. Do they want it to completely replace DVDs, and then suffer the same problem as DVDs in terms of ever dropping revenues (until Purple-Ray or whatever next comes out), or are they positioning Blu-ray as a complementing format to DVDs, one that is sold at a premium to slow down the decline of movie prices? With current pricing, it seems studios want Blu-ray to completely replace DVDs (for example, the Iron Man Blu-ray+DVD combo can be had for less than the two disc DVD set at some places, or only a couple of dollars more elsewhere), because the premium is shrinking to the point where it doesn’t exist for many titles. On the other hand, not all titles are being released on Blu-ray, so it seems studios are not that keen on Blu-ray totally replacing DVDs.

3D Blu-ray will probably up the pricing a bit, or at least that’s what studios hope will happen. But in time, it too will drop in price to the point where 3D editions will be included with the standard 2D release. So it seems to me that getting people to pay more for the same stuff isn’t a long term solution, but perhaps getting people to buy more for less per item may be the way to go.

Or you can just charge $30 per movie and hope someone is stupid enough to pay for it. That’s Hollywood’s new plan, after they got the FCC to agree to break analogue outputs, so they can release movies faster to the home, before it’s available on Blu-ray/DVD. It’s basically another release window, this time delivered without a disc, but most likely heavily DRM infested. And it appears to be for a single viewing only. I talked about solutions to the piracy problem further up in this WNR, but if this is the solution (analogue DRM + stupidly high pricing + more DRM), then they really need to stop coming up with them. You can see how they think this might work too – $30 is less than what a family pays to watch the movie at the cinemas, but more than what they would pay for the Blu-ray/DVD. Or they can just download it for free, without the DRM too. You see where the problem is?

And finally in gaming, Nintendo thinks it may have found the solution to the piracy problem on the DS – the upcoming 3DS will have new anti-piracy updates that happen automatically in the background, any time the DS is connected online.

While I believe the innovations offered by the 3DS, that is the glass free 3D screen, will be enough to ensure it sells extremely well when it is released early next year, I don’t really think the anti-piracy features will really stop piracy. I’m sure some hacker somewhere is already salivating at the prospect of disabling the 3DS’s automatic updates, and open up the portable console to mass piracy like that experienced by the DS.

Smartphones like the iPhone is becoming a threat to portable game consoles like the Nintendo DS

But even despite the piracy, the DS sells quite a few games, and it’s a good earner for Nintendo. It’s just not as a good earner as the piracy stats suggests. But I think Nintendo’s biggest problem isn’t flash carts, but smart phones. While DS games are mostly still longer, phone games are becoming more sophisticated, and sometimes, people only want to play a short game. And certainly, the price is more appealing. And the range of games, especially on the iPhone, makes the DS range of games look pitiful by comparison, and all the big game studios have already signed up to produce games for the iPhone (and soon to Android I think), not to mention the many indie game producers. So what Nintendo needs is to open up an apps space for the DS, one that allows indie producers to have a go as well, so homebrew doesn’t have to be confined to illegal flash carts. An online marketplace with cheap games will help keep things fresh, and I think Nintendo will be surprised how much more people spend when they’re only paying a buck or two for games – most likely more sales than if games were prices at ten times this price. Micro-transactions are the future.

That’s all I’m going to write this week. I suspect next week will be quite boring as the Internet media rehash most of the interesting stories from this week over and over again. Look at me, I’m already making excuses …

Posted in 3D, Copyright, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (3 October 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (26 September 2010)

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

We’re nearly in the final quarter of the year. 2010 seems to have gone by quickly, hasn’t it? I’ve actually avoided trying to use the “time has gone by quickly hasn’t it” line for most of this year, but since we’re nearly in the final stretch, and I’ve run out of things to say for this intro, so I thought, why not?

Despite my lack of material for the intro, there’s actually quite a bit of news this week, so let’s get started.

We’ll start with what was a very busy week for copyright related news. It seems genuine war has broken out, in cyberspace at least, with 4chan/Anonymous’ cyber attacks continuing against targets of opportunity in Operation Payback.

The Low Orbit Ion Cannon strikes again. And again. And again.

Since the initial attacks on AiPlex (the company that was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back, when they admitted to attacking BitTorrent websites with DDoS attacks) and the MPAA, has since expanded to the RIAA and UK law firm ACS:Law (infamous for being one of the first law firms to take advantage of “suing for pre-trial settlement”). It’s unknown how long Operation Payback will last, and how many other targets are part of the attack (you would think the server admins of the US Copyright Group’s website should be very much on edge at the moment). Now there is the legal issue to consider, in that these DDoS attacks may be breaking laws all over the place. But then as one commentator pointed out, many kinds of protests break laws, but when people are pushed so far, then there will always be some kind of reactions. And besides, AiPlex started it first, many will feel. The fact is that corporations, governments and law firms have colluded with each other to take away our rights and to target all of us and label us all criminals, and so the reactions was always coming. And it appears that the attack isn’t only coming from 4chan’s Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), but that others with access to their own botnets are joining in the attack, and actually contributing more to the attacks than the easily blockable LOIC attacks.

But one unexpected result from Operation Payback came from when ACS:Law relocated their website to a new server to get out from under the attack. The website admins that made the move may have inadvertently left the backup files, used to make the move, on a publicly accessible part of the server, and it wasn’t long before it was downloaded, and distributed, ironically, on the BitTorrent network (first uploaded to The Pirate Bay). Amongst the passwords, source code, were ACS:Law’s email archives, a goldmine of behind of the scenes information on a law firm’s relentless quest to sue downloaders and recoup large amounts of money (and also some personal emails). It has been an absolute disaster for ACS:Law. I haven’t personally gone through all the emails, but this is about the worst thing that could happen for ACS:Law, as all of their dirty little secrets are revealed to the world. From the bragging about just how much money has been made (“May go for a Lambo or Ferrari”, as posted by owner Andrew Crossley when boasting about improved finances), to emails that try to convince copyright holders to sign up by promising big piles of cash at the end of the pre-trial settlement rainbow, to how it is decided when to drop a claim (against 70 year old pensioners) or whether to proceed to the next step (based on “action points”, that chart the progress of a claim). Many websites are still going through the mountain of information and I’m sure more will be uncovered. Website TorrentFreak’s conclusion is that all of the emails seems to be talking about money, none actually about stopping or reducing piracy, and that’s exactly why people take offence at the actions of law firms like ACS:Law and USCG, because for them, this is all about the money. Being a law firm though, I wonder what actions ACS:Law will take to get these very sensitive emails taken down, but so many people have downloaded it now, it will be impossible to stop the spread of information.

I'm still not entirely convinced XXX Copyrights isn't some kind of spoof website

A lot of ACS:Law’s actions were against people downloading pirated porn, like one email which alleged that a married man had downloaded pirated gay porn, which caused untold distress to family members no doubt. The reason these law firms go after these kinds of downloads is because they’re so embarrassing, that nobody wants to fight them, especially in court, although thanks to legal advice freely available online, many are putting up more of a fight than before. In any case, suing for porn still remains more lucrative than suing for mainstream music or movie downloads. And a new firm in the US been created that target only pirated porn. The company, name XXX Copyrights, has already filed 7 lawsuits with more than 5000 individuals probably being named (so far, just John Does). The only thing that surprises me about this development is that it took so long for someone to do exactly this. With the US being such a litigious society, I am actually quite disappointed that this “brilliant” idea originated in Europe. Hang your heads in shame, Ambulance Chasers of America.

But with porn lawsuits proving to be a good earner, Righthaven’s pursuit of penniless bloggers seems all a bit pointless. And it’s proving more difficult than going after music and movie downloaders too, because the bloggers that copy newspaper articles are not doing so for profit or personal gain, and it seems the courts are a little bit more reluctant to provide summary judgements. There’s also the issue, as argued by blogger Jan Klerks, that newspapers encourage its online readers to share and link to the original article, and so there may be an implied license being granted to bloggers who seek to repost the article, but complete with a link back to the original article. Judge Navarro, presiding over the case, seems to agree that at the very least, these are valid arguments that should be examined in a full trial, and Righthaven’s task of extracting pre-trial settlement fees has just gotten a bit harder because of the Judge’s decision.

We’ll come back to the US in a minute, but let’s first cross the Atlantic and to France, Europe, where citizens will soon start to receive the very first strike of their three-strikes. The government agency responsible for handling three-strikes, Hadopi, will soon start sending out the first warning letters, if it hasn’t done so already. We know this because it has already requested subscriber information from several ISPs, and many have already replied. And once the letters go out, and this whole three-strikes business becomes more real to a lot of people, perhaps there will be some kind of change in people’s attitudes towards movie piracy. Or at least that’s what the government hopes will happen. I’m sure it has originally wanted just the threat of three-strikes to be enough to strike enough fear into people to drop the piracy rate, but the rate actually went up after the introduction of the law, as people moved off BitTorrent and onto other sources of pirated content that Hadopi may have difficulty tracking. And I suspect this latest development will just push more people into services that Hadopi can’t get to, and that’s a bad development for those serious about protecting copyright online.

Governments may use the ACTA to shut down websites like Wikileaks

But back to the Americas, this time to Mexico, where a group fighting the controversial ACTA treaty has had a meeting with the Mexican government to talk about the treaty negotiations, a meeting which was attended by the MPAA as well. What was strange though was one question the MPAA put forward, in which they asked whether the ACTA would allow “damaging” websites like Wikileaks to be shut down. It was a strange question, but one can only imagine the MPAA asked it because it has plans to shut down quite a few “damaging” websites, including no doubt The Pirate Bay. If the ACTA actually allows government to silence critical voices like Wikileaks, then I really fear for the future of democracy and free speech, and perhaps again highlights how biased copyright laws have become, that government can use it as an excuse to silence dissent.

But even without the ACTA, the government are doing plenty to help out the MPAA. The new proposed “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act”, introduced in a bi-partisan manner in the US senate, gives law enforcement even more power to combat online piracy. The specifics of the act isn’t important, but it’s just the idea that combating online copyright has now become the responsibility of the Justice Department (aren’t they already quite busy with, like, real crimes and stuff?), as opposed to being the responsibility of copyright holders, turning what is normally a civil matter into a criminal one. It’s basically using tax payer funds to protect the business interests of billion dollar corporations, while disguising the effort as “protecting American jobs”. Every industry provides jobs, even the online piracy industry, so why should music labels and Hollywood get special protection? And before you blame any political party, both of them are quite vocal in their support of these corporations, so we, as the people, as pretty much voiceless. Which is why the Low Orbit Ion Cannon has to do what it has to do …

And more victory for YouTube as it won a case in Spain which mirrors the Viacom judgement handed to them earlier in the year. So copyright holders will have to work a bit harder and actually go after the people who uploaded unauthorised clips, as opposed to the nice, big target of YouTube/Google. Nobody say anti-piracy was easy.

High Definition

Let’s move onto 3D/HD news. The big news for the week was that the PS3 3D Blu-ray firmware has been released, and suddenly, many many more people now have a Blu-ray player capable of playing 3D movies, if and when they are ever released en mass.

So how does the PS3 perform as a 3D Blu-ray player? It does pretty well, but there are some limitations. The biggest one is that you won’t be able to play a 3D Blu-ray movie and also output Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD-MA audio in bitstream mode. The reason is that because the PS3’s HDMI port is not version 1.4, it has to do some software trickery to enabled the output of frame packed 3D content, and this trickery basically means bitstreaming is out. Of course, those with PS3 Fats, like me, don’t have bitstreaming anyway, so nothing lost there. But apparently, the silver lining in this means 3D can work through HDMI 1.3 equipment, such as HDMI splitters and receivers, but I can’t confirm or deny whether this is the case or not.

The other limitation is that when you press the “triangle” button to bring up the PS3 playback options, 3D is disabled/flattened. Standalone 3D Blu-ray players don’t suffer from this, and their overlay menus are sometimes in 3D as well. It’s kind of annoying, but just how many times do people bring up the playback options during playback is debatable.

Otherwise, 3D Blu-ray output is as good as any standalone 3D Blu-ray player, and response times as as quick as ever on the PS3, and I never believed those stories which said the PS3’s powerful cell processor couldn’t handle 3D Blu-ray (and yet the low powered standalones could?).

The PS3 3.50 firmware disables support for unlicensed, third party controllers

But 3.50 is apparently more than just about 3D Blu-ray, but not in a good way. The firmware update disables the majority of third party, unauthorized controllers and USB devices, and apparently introduces a few issues with playing back non 3D Blu-ray titles such as Sunshine.

Not much happening in gaming this week, so I’ll skip it. Although I will mention Sony’s attack on Microsoft for having only one genre of exclusive games, most likely a dig at yet another hit on the Xbox 360, Halo Reach, being yet another shooter. But I think Microsoft will probably be the first to agree with Sony’s assessment, since they’re trying to expand their range of experiences with games like Alan Wake, and of course, the whole Kinect platform. Meanwhile, Sony is spending a lot of efforts promoting the Move as a great way to play, you guessed it, shooters.

In any case, Halo Reach will ensure Microsoft wins September again as the most popular console (in the US at least), taking a lot of thunder away from the launch of Move. And this is before Kinect is even close to release, in early November. Although some of the claims being made by Microsoft (and its employees), such as comparing Kinect to the iPad or pulling a random large number out of the air when talking about potential sales, are a bit over the top, if not downright strange.

Anyhoo, that’s the week. Have a good one, and watch out of the LOIC.

Posted in 3D, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (26 September 2010)

DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

Archive for the ‘3D’ Category

Weekly News Roundup (28 November 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (17 October 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (10 October 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (3 October 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (26 September 2010)

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