DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

Welcome to this side of 2011, and the first WNR of the new decade. It is a new decade right? Because there was no year zero and all that nonsense. As expected, not a whole lot of news this week, but still actually more than I expected. Which is good, as otherwise, I would have had to do one of those awful “2010 year in review” pieces, and I hate doing those (mainly because I can barely remember what I wrote last week, let alone the whole year). So let’s not waste any time (one of my new year resolutions).

Starting with a new year in copyright news, unfortunately it’s still the same old crap of government using *our* tax money to defend the business interests of an industry still relying on a old, decaying business model.

Piracy will cost New York a lot of money ... a lot in tax payer handouts to the MPAA

This time, it’s the city of New York, which is launching a new tax payer funded anti-piracy campaign. Not only is the campaign funny, in a stupid way, it is also severely misleading, and made worse by the fact that the city is struggling to balance its budget as it is, without spending a huge chunk of it helping out movie studios which has just had a record year in terms of profits. The MPAA used their usual scare campaign with made up figures such as “40% of camcorded pirated films come from New York”, a statement they made a couple of years ago (and then only days after claiming that “70%” of the same films come from Canada). This campaign uses the same scary figures, such as suggesting that if you pirate films, you’re putting 900,000 jobs in NYC in jeopardy. Not buying a movie that I wasn’t going to buy anyway, apparently, equals job losses. Nothing to do with austerity, cutting the city’s budget, and putting people out of a job just when the economy needs people to buy things (but that’s a debate for another blog, me thinks).

In any case, the fact that the MPAA can squeeze money out of a city that barely has the funds to even clean up the snowed in streets, shows just how powerful and successful their lobbying efforts, and that of their sister group, the RIAA, have been recently – both groups spent more than two millions dollars on lobbying combined in the last quarter alone. But lobbying can go both ways, and it appears that the under attack Rapidshare, which was recently listed by the RIAA/MPAA as a “notorious” website for piracy, is using some of its earnings to good effect, by lobbying the US government themselves so they can be treated fairly. The cyber locker company feels that they already have a takedown policy in place, a feature that the RIAA/MPAA could easily use to bring down pirated content, and so it makes them not so different to websites like YouTube, which relies on user uploaded content, and also suffers from users uploading copyrighted content. But we all know that while the RIAA/MPAA talks big about the consequences of piracy (twenty billion jobs lost every year!), but they aren’t really prepared to the hard work of actually stopping piracy online. Because going through the millions of uploads every day on RapidShare, most of them being legal, would take a lot of work indeed. Even suing is risky in that you could lose. And so it’s easier to just lobby the US government, which seems incapable of taking any other position other than the one the RIAA/MPAA wants them to take. And again, this all assumes that Internet downloads are seriously hurting both industries, and not their outdated business model (and it’s even debatable whether either industry are hurting at all, what with record profits and everything).

More news on mass litigation. Time Warner Cable has been accused of being a haven for pirates, after the company was sticking with an earlier agreement to only provide 10 IP to subscriber matches per month, making mass litigation against TWC customers almost impossible (if 5,000 people are sued,  it would take 41.7 years to get all of their info from TWC). But why does TWC have to do the hard work for law firms whose only interest is to make money, and having others do most of the work for them? In the newspaper mass lawsuits, Righthaven has defended the fact that they were suing non-profits for copyright infringement. Moral objections aside (yes, taking money away from charities and non-profits to make lawyers rich), Righthaven argues that just because people or organisations are not making money off re-posting newspaper articles, it doesn’t mean they can’t be sued for it. And they’ve also attacked the “fair use” defence, which some defendants have used. The argument is that because the newspaper provides sharing links and email sharing features, it means the newspaper is actively encouraging sharing, and so this makes copying the articles alright. I’m actually in somewhat of an agreement with Righthaven on this issue (shock, horror), since there’s a big difference between linking to an article and copying its contents (even if you do link to the original article). But there is also a big difference between a partial copying of the article, with link back to the original, and a full copy, but this is one distinction that Righthaven is not making when it is choosing its targets. In any case, I think it would be a mistake to use this fair use defence, as I don’t think it will stand up in court. Instead, one should concentrate on the actual damages being caused to the newspapers in question, and perhaps even highlight the positives of copying (making the article well known, improving the authoritativeness of the source, and if a link to the original was provided, extra “foot traffic” to the newspaper’s website). The reality is that newspapers aren’t losing a lot of money from people copying their articles – they’re losing a lot of money because they can’t solely rely on online advertising revenue to pay for costs, not if they make their news free. Which is why iPad and tablet subscriptions seems to be the next big thing, and my advice to them is that to concentrate less on suing potential customers, and actually try to give them attractive products they’re willing to pay for. Don’t abuse your online reputation for a quick buck, a short term decision that could cost you big in the long run.

Unfortunately, copyright gone mad is not a phenomenon that’s only limited to the US – it’s happening in Europe as well. The latest has Germany declaring war on kindergartens for daring to teach children songs, without paying royalty to the music labels. They want kindergartens to pay up every time they copy the lyrics of songs or the songs themselves, in their effort to educate the next generation. So far, they’re not actually preventing children from singing songs without paying royalty, but you know it’s only a matter of time before they do it. Pretty soon, even humming a song in public will be considered a public performance with royalty attached. Although this sounds far fetched and ridiculously, it isn’t that far from the truth when even ringtones have already been claimed by copyright groups as a public performance.

The other big news of the week was that the Windows 7 Phone DRM has already been broken. But that’s the nature of DRM isn’t it? If it can be used/played, then being copied isn’t so different that it can’t be eventually performed, even with ridiculous DRM in place. The only real way to stop copying is to stop the content being used in *any* way at all via DRM, something Sony is obviously working towards (see last week’s news about the DRM on the Salt DVD).

Not much in HD/3D news, so despite promising not to do a year in review type of thing, I might just have to do it. But I’ll keep it short in the interest of writer and reader.

Blu-ray movies are starting to be priced cheaper than their DVD counterparts

So Blu-ray ended the year on a high, with records broken, although not really a huge advance on last year, despite aggressive pricing (can’t remember the number of times I’ve come across where the more fully featured Blu-ray version is cheaper than the DVD version, and sometimes the Blu-ray+DVD combo version is cheaper too). In my mind, the aggressive pricing indicates that studios are now prepared to let Blu-ray become a mainstream format, as opposed to a premium format that sells side by side with cheaper DVDs. This is good for consumers I think, since we’ll be able to get more (resolution, content) for less, something that may not be true if Blu-ray remained a premium product. 3D Blu-ray, on the other hand, seems to be fizzling out due to greedy studios and 3D TV manufacturers. For me, having the Avatar 3D Blu-ray on general release will help the 3D Blu-ray format take off, and make Fox a lot of money in the process, but making it a Panasonic exclusive gives 3D critics something legitimate to complain about. When 3D is already a hyped up, content scarce and gimmicky feature, the last thing it needs is content exclusivity. The whole point of 3D Blu-ray was to have a common format that allows for cross-brand compatibility, but exclusivity kills this in the most artificial way possible.

In gaming, two pieces of DRM related news, and surprisingly, it’s all good (for the consumer, that is). It makes for a good end for 2010, and bodes well for 2011, I suppose.

The first piece of “good” news is that Ubisoft may have finally realised that making buyers of your games jump through hoops to play your games, may not be the best financial strategy, especially when it doesn’t stop piracy, and the pirated versions offer a better experience than the legitimate version. Through recent patches, Ubisoft has removed the requirement for an always-on Internet connection for the games Assassin’s Creed 2, and Splinter Cell: Conviction. Hopefully, it will be expanded to cover all their games. The DRM now only authenticates at every game start up, and does not come on during actual gaming.

In fact, while taking advantage of the Steam Holiday Sales (which is still going on as I type, with the big final day of sales coming tomorrow/in a few hours time depending on where you are), I noticed a lot of people avoiding UbiDRM games, even when they were offered for peanuts. Hopefully, Ubisoft has noticed this trend and that’s why they’ve reversed their previous stance.

Speaking of Steam’s sales, it’s confirmed to me the benefits of digital copies, particularly during sales. I’ve taken part in sales of physical goods, games in particular, in the last month, and there are so many more problems associated with that old model compared to the digital only model. First of all, stock is limited, meaning if you don’t rush in, you’ll miss out. And then, delivery is an issue, especially during the holidays, and especially during the adverse weather conditions experienced around the world right now. But with Steam, they can sell unlimited copies of a game at a low price without having to worry about stock levels, and delivery is instant. Although because Steam’s servers has been pounded by people downloading the dozens of games they’ve all purchased, downloads are not very quick at the moment, if it starts at all. That’s a problem, and hopefully Steam will bring more mirrors and CDNs online, to avoid the same congestion next year (they really need to work with ISPs to come up with some kind of local mirroring system).

A stupid error on Sony's part means that the PS3 is now hacked

The second piece of good news, at least for those that are cursing Sony for removing “Other OS” from the PS3, is that due to a serious security flaw in the PS3 authentication system, hackers were able to obtain the PS3’s private cryptography key, which for lay persons like myself, it means that the PS3 has been cracked, big time. The private key allows any application to be signed and accepted by the PS3 as a legitimate piece of code, meaning anything can now be run on the PS3, whether it’s pirated games, or a custom version of Linux used to turn the PS3 into a more fully featured media center. The irony is that Sony removed “Other OS” to pre-empt piracy, and if was this single act that spurred the hacking community’s best and brightest to completely destroy the PS3’s DRM system, and thus open the system up to unrestricted piracy. The PS3 – it really does do everything now.

While this will now open up the PS3 to pirated games, and turning it from one of the most secure game platforms to the least secure in a single stroke (or in this case, a single variable that should have been randomized, and not made a constant), it will also allow the continued development of custom HTPC solutions for the vastly powerful PS3 hardware, turning it into one of those must have pieces of kit, but only if you use custom software (like the original Xbox, and the subsequent XBMC development). And that, in the long run, probably helps the PS3 more than it hurts it. Maybe.

As for a roundup of 2010 for gaming? It’s quite simple really. Wii dying, PS3 hacked to pieces, Xbox 360 Slim FTW, and Kinect is actually pretty good.

And that’s that for the first ever issue of the WNR for 2011. The thought of having to bring out another 51 issues of WNR for this year alone makes me weep slightly inside, but a little ranting every week is good for the soul. Or something.

Welcome to the penultimate (I told you I would find a way to use this word) WNR for 2010. It’s nearly the end of the year, and as expected, news is a bit light at the moment. But news there is, and cover it we shall. I’m sure you’re as busy as me around this time of the year, so let’s not waste any time on silly introductions that attempts to be witty even though the author doesn’t actually know what witty means. Is it the same as being ironical?

Let’s start with copyright news, Warner Bros commissioned a report into online piracy a couple of months ago, and the results are in, and are somewhat surprising.

Foreign dubs and subtitled version of latest movies and TV shows are top downloads on torrent networks

Apparently, pirates do occasionally buy stuff too. And this means that when studios are fighting pirates, they are essentially fighting their own potential customers. None of this should be too surprising to readers of this feature, but I’m sure it was a surprise to Warner Bros. And they have vowed to find out just why pirates sometimes pirate stuff, and sometimes decide to buy stuff, and if they can ever work out the formula for this, then it could really help to reduce piracy. I’m sure Warner has just commissioned another report to get to the bottom of this, but here’s a (free) hint for Warner: cheap and good = sales; expensive and bad = piracy. The other interesting findings include that while pirate downloaders are usually men, it is woman that download TVs shows more often than men. And another interesting finding was that foreign subtitled/dubbed version of TV and movie downloads often become the most popular downloads only a few days after the original English release, suggesting that there may be some kind of market that is being under-served at the moment. For many foreign viewers, this is perhaps the only way, legal or otherwise, to watch the latest movies or TV shows in particular, since the alternative could be waiting months for the official version to be released. So to add to the earlier hints: worldwide simultaneous release = good; staggered release in attempt to squeeze as much money out of each market = piracy (might also add exclusivity deals to this – more on this in the 3D/HD  section). So basically, the conclusion seems to be that, no, studios aren’t doing everything they can to stop piracy because they are not really matching the market’s needs, in terms of release schedules, or pricing, or a lot of other things under their control. So instead of blaming torrent sites, and trying to sue users, maybe they should go fix their own mistakes first.

OnSmash.com - Shut down by the government on orders from the RIAA, but was it the right decision?

A follow-up to the story on the US Homeland Security, ICE operation that closed down 80+ websites in late November. We know now, via a story in the New York Times, that at least one of the websites closed, OnSmash.com, should not have been closed, or at the very least, should have left the decision up to that of a judge and jury. OnSmash.com provided hip-hop music and videos, publishing stuff that is often leaked to them directly from labels and artists such as Kayne West. These leaks might constitute copyright infringement in the strictest sense, but there’s a good reason why the leaks came from official sources such as the copyright owners themselves and artists. All for promotional reasons, a great way to reach the fan-base in this day and age. And now this way has been closed, without explanation and without any sort of paperwork that can be obtained by the defendant for probably weeks and months. To say that those in the industry were surprised would not be a lie, but it probably also wasn’t a surprise that major studios represented by the RIAA did not like the way things were working. And straight from the RIAA’s lips to Homeland Security’s ears, bypassing due process as much as possible in the, um, process. A little copyright infringement is sometimes a good thing. Sometimes a great thing. Remember Susan Boyle’s audition video? You know, the one that now has 55 million views. Was that video from an official source, or was it pirated? Would it have served the copyright owners of Britain’s Got Talent to have had this video removed, or did it serve them better to keep it up? The RIAA would have probably sued for unauthorised use of ‘I Dreamed A Dream’, or got their ICE buddies to knock down a few doors.

Dutch anti-piracy agency BREIN wants to get in on the website closure business too, and they’ve had 29 websites shut down, with visitors redirected to the BREIN website. And they can keep doing this because the minute those 29 websites were shut down, hundreds probably sprang up in their place. Hurray for perpetual war.

Meanwhile, more bad news for law firms seeking to profit from mass lawsuits, as another judge has declared that little things like jurisdiction does matter, even in embarrassing porn lawsuits. So it means that copyright trolls will now have to work a little bit harder, to determine just where the people they’re suing are actually located, before threatening people with massive amounts of damages and public humiliation if they don’t pay up by the close of biz tomorrow, capiche? But these little things to add up, in terms of cost, and if the EFF can keep up their small victories, eventually, it will all add up to a major victory when it no longer becomes profitable to pursue these kinds of lawsuits (and more on how you can support the EFF financially, and also get some great games for peanuts, later on).

In HD/3D news, bad news for Avatar fans that don’t have Panasonic 3D TVs – no Avatar for you until 2012, maybe.

Be prepared to pay higher and higher prices for Avatar 3D Blu-ray, as the exclusivity deal with Panasonic may last until 2012

A Panasonic UK spokesperson has confirmed that Panasonic’s exclusive Avatar 3D Blu-ray deal actually lasts until 2012. So until then, it’s paying $200 (if you’re lucky on eBay) for a copy, or those willing to risk it can get it from less then legal sources. I don’t condone piracy, but really, if these are the choices, then what would most people do? I just hope Fox is getting enough money from Panasonic for this deal, because by the time 2012 comes, how many people would have found another less than legal way of obtaining the 3D version of this film already, and how much would that cost the studio in terms of lost sales (assuming the 3D hype is still around by that time). My opinion, which is absolutely opposite of the actual legal position, is that if I can’t buy it, then I’m free to try and obtain it in any way I wish.

And these kind of exclusivity deals destroys almost all the progress made by unifying the 3D Blu-ray standard, because it’s back to the bad old days of buying hardware based on the movies that are available for the platform.

But I think something will give before 2012, because I just can’t see companies like Samsung standing idly by, or Fox having the patience to wait it out until 2012 when the demand for it is there, and not when they see the 3D BDRip torrent of the movie doing great “business” on the net.

The H.264 vs WebM vs Ogg Theora vs HTML5 vs Flash war just got even more confusing, with Microsoft helping competitor Firefox by producing a H.264 add-on for the open source browser, allowing Windows 7 Firefox users to experience HTML5 H.264 videos. Of course, Microsoft never helps anyone without gaining something themselves, and as staunch supporters of H.264, this is not a surprising move. So to summarise, Firefox and Opera don’t want HTML5 to adopt H.264 because it’s incompatible with their open source licenses, while Apple, Microsoft love H.264 because they hold patents to it (and it is an industry standard that’s widely supported already). Google remains on the fence and has been playing everyone off everyone else  – even though they’re the ones that came up with WebM/VP8, Chrome also natively supports H.264, so the only one that stands to gain regardless of the result is, once again, Google. Meanwhile, Adobe sits in a dark corner cursing everyone, while stabbing pins into a Steve Jobs voodoo doll. And that’s what you missed last time on Glee.

And in gaming, The Humble Indie Bundle is back. The deal is simple – five highly rated indie games that normally retail for $85 can be had for the princely sum of … anything you want.

That’s right, you decide what you want to pay for the bundle of five DRM-free games, and you can even direct part of the payment to one of Child’s Play charity, the EFF or the people who are running this campaign. So if you’ve been porn or Far Cry mass-sued, and want to give something back to the EFF, or if you hate DRM and want your voice heard, or you want to support a very worthy charity, or just because you actually want to buy the five excellent games included, this is your chance! The top amount paid so far stands at $3141.59 at the time of writing, but the average is $7.66. The million dollar barrier has already been broken as well.

A Kinect update. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter says that he has access to NPD figures that show the Kinect Xbox 360 console bundle outsold the Move PS3 console bundle by more than a 5 to 1 ratio in November. That’s not surprising considering the half a billion dollars that Microsoft threw in to promote Kinect, and the subsequent hype the motion sensor device has since generated. And I’m not just talking about Oprah or Ellen Kinect appearances/give-aways, but also with independent developers “hacking” and the various impressive demo videos. The same kind of hype is just not being generated for Move. And with free DLC downloads already appearing for two of Kinect’s most popular games, thanks to commercial sponsorship, and software updates that promises to make Kinect even more accurate (like finger tracking), the momentum is definitely with Kinect at the moment, even if Microsoft says no to Kinect sex games. The only thing holding it back is supply issues (just checking now, it’s out of stock on both Amazon.com and Wal-mart.com, while the PS Move is in stock on both, albeit in very short supply on Amazon).

And that’s pretty much it for news this week. Short and sweet. Or at least just short. See you next week.