Cory Docterow at red hat summit thingy

Cory Doctorow was talking at the red hat summit about Digital rights management. He talked about the evolution of the DRM system and then the problems he feels that are involved with that system. As a group we basically agree with the points in Doctorow's presentation and his ideals on what is wrong with the system.

The first main point we agree with is that there should not be prohibitions on the use of open source code. Once a user buys the software, song, or device, he or she should be able to use it anywhere or with any thing they want. It should not be up to the companies what applications are compatible. For example, Open Office is free to download, why should it be up to microsoft to determine whether it is compatible with their computers. is this just because they want everyone to use Microsoft Office?

They RIAA and other corporations use DRM to disable the distribution of their products in ways the do not want happeneing. such as free downloads from Kazaa, Lime Wire, or anyother thing of that nature. Big Champagne, as Cory Doctorow said, claims that the average time from Itunes to a free version of the download on one of theese sources is about three mintues. This is insane, if that is the average time, why have restrictions at all. It would be much more efficient if every industry did what TOR science fiction books did. This is to make books avaliable for free distribution, this process has HELPED authors make money by making awareness of the book more widespread. Doctorow himself has been a benefactor of this process.

One further point that we agree with Doctorw on is that renewable contracts that we sign when pressing the "I Agree" button is not good, in fact, some would say borderline illegal. I dare you to show me another area of busniess that is allowed to change a written contract AFTER it has been agreed to by both parties.

Our last point we have to comment on is region coding. This process was done away with and then brought back recently, just because of the greedieness of companies to try and squeeze more money out of their coustomers. Region coding is the restriction placed on dvds and other digital media which restricts the area where it is allowed to be played. For example, if you are on vacation in another part of the world, and buy a dvd, dont expect to be able to play it back home, especially if across country lines. This is unfair and un needed.


Corey Laub
Tim Goodloe
Patrick Tait
Eric Olsen

A different kind of remix

There used to be this wonderful show on television called Mystery Science Theater 3000 which I'm sure many out there have seen.  For those not familiar with the show, it featured movies that weren't that well known (usually old science fiction movies, and always terrible in quality) being mercilessly riffed by a man and two robots, whose silhouettes were superimposed on the screen.  In order to do this though and not be sued for copyright violations, the creators had to pay for the rights to air the films.  While the show enjoyed a good run of nine season's the cost eventually outweighed the worth in advertising for the Sci-fi channel, which aired it at the time it was dropped.  However, it lives on in a much different form.

  Initially, Mike Nelson, the host of MST3K, wanted continue the show in the form of a direct to DVD format, but didn't for fear of being, "sued out of existence".  However, there is no law against making a recording of the appropriate disparaging remarks and creating a media player that would automatically sinc the appropriate dvd (once it has been inserted into a computer's dvd drive of course) with said recording.  This is exactly what he did and MST3K lives on today in the form of Rifftrax.  It should be noted that another advantage of this format has enabled Nelson to riff more high profile movies, which would almost certainly require truly astronomical royalties to sell on dvd with commentary.  

Link: http://www.rifftrax.com/

Netflix Imposes $1 Per Month Blu-ray Surcharge For HD Lovers

Because of the raise in price of necessities in today's economy, such as gas, consumers have been less likely to go out and purchase the new expensive items, such as Blu-ray players.  Blu-ray sales were predicted to rise during the first quarter of this year, but failed to do so, and even dropped 40 % from January to February.  As of recently, Blu-ray DVD's are only 8 % of disk sales.  When Blu-ray first came out, Netflix decided to pick this HD DVD rival and make it available to its customers.

The main problem with Blu-ray DVD's is that they are more expensive than other DVD's.  Because of this, and the fact that people have not been renting them frequently, Netflix will start charging its users an additional $1 a month to have the Blu-ray DVD's in their queues.  Unless the customers remove Blu-ray access from their account, they will be charged.

The fact that Netflix will now be using a dollar surcharge for their customers may show that the original plan of having Blu-ray available is not working.  While it is a nice option for those who have been fortunate enough to go out and purchase a Blu-ray player, or a Playstation 3 (which can play Blu-ray), the availability has not been enough to draw in more customers.  Netflix CEO said that only a small fraction rent Blu-ray, and the return is minimal.

This appears to be another stumbling block for Blu-ray, which has already lost the battle of dominant high definition dvd, to HD DVD's.  The overall price of the player and the DVD's themselves, seem to be too much of a problem to gain more customers.

RealNetwork's RealDvD software blocked by court order

Link: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/judges-top-secr.html

RealNetworks is a company that sold software that allowed people to copy their DVD's onto other DVD-r's or onto the computer. The software of course peeked the attention of the MPAA who of course sued RealNetworks saying that they are violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The case is still being held in court and the decision of RealNetworks' innosence has yet to be made, but the judge residing over the case (that same judge that first heard the Napster case) has ordered RealNetwork to stop selling RealDVD software. Which has taken a big impact on RealNetwork.

The MPAA claims that RealNetworks was granted a liscense to descramble DVD code in order to make a DVD player, but RealNetworks just used the descrambling code to make DVD copying software which would be a violation. RealNetworks denies that they are in any such violation and that their software is legal.

Because of the judge's action to stop the sale of RealNetwork's software, the case will probably not go in RealNetworks' favor.

Unfortunately this is the first time I've heard of this software so I haven't gotten a chance to use it and probably never will. It sounds like RealDVD would be very usefull in backing up DVD's onto a computer.

Out of Options, DISH finally pays TiVo $104 Million Judgement

Echostar, the parent of DISH Network has announced that it plans to pay the $104 million to tivo that it owed as a result of a legal dispute.  Tivo won a patent infringement lawsuit against Echostar in 2006, in which the court ruled that the DISH network infringed on Tivo's technology when this company created their DVR. The main discussion was about the patent for a "multimedia time warping system".

After DISH lost the decision, they made a number of appeals, however TiVo won all of them. Even after losing the appeals, DISH continued to say that their software didn't infringe on TiVo's.  DISH even took it to the supreme court, but was denied a certiorari, which is a decision to review the lower courts decision.  Because of this, DISH will now pay the $104 million to TiVo, which was the original amount that the jury ordered after the 2006 decision, plus interest.

DISH has made a workaround on their DVR's which they believe is enough so as they don't violate Tivo's patent.  The decision that was made however, does not effect this new workaround, and there is still an ongoing case on whether the new workaround violates this patent.  DISH must be confident in this new workaround because if they again lose this case, it could have horrible effects for the company, especially after just losing $104 million.  DISH may be forced into licensing agreements with TiVo if they want to keep their DVR's functioning.

Review -- " Muxtape reborn as showcase for bands—kind of like MySpace"

For direct link to main article, click entry title.

Sometimes, I feel bad for the RIAA. Granted, the moment is fleeting at most, but those guys can have it pretty bad. Their intentions are good (I guess), but there are just way too many strings that come with their business for me to feel very sympathetic. Trying to even figure out what all the rules are (1st week of FSEM) is migraine-inducing.
Remember when Muxtape was taken offline by the RIAA back in mid-August? Remember when OpenTape (almost a descendant of Muxtape) debuted a week later? The copyright war is an uphill battle for those fighting for their property rights.
Anyway, Muxtape's back up again! Well, sort of. It's been totally revamped in order to keep the RIAA from being cranky. It was originally launched to bring back the "mixtape" from the 80s: Essentially, Muxtape users upload playlists containing their favorite mp3s, and listen to each other's streaming playlists. Since the songs were streaming, they could not be downloaded from the site. However, Muxtape linked users to music stores (e.g.: Amazon) where they could buy mp3s they enjoyed (Kind of the same idea as iTunes iMixes). Now, instead of serving as a place that people can upload and share their favorite music (in their favorite order), Muxtape will be a website where bands can display new EPS, old songs, concert tickets, upcoming events, etc. Read the title of the article -- it is very much like MySpace's Digital Music Service, and/or PureVolume.
So why did the first Muxtape get shut down if its concept is basically the same as the iTunes Store's iMixes? The RIAA says Muxtape never procured the official paperwork/permission to stream the mp3s and playlists, which means the the copyrights of the musicians and record labels were being violated. In the end, the RIAA wrote to Amazon concerning the matter, and Ouellete was booted out of his account even though, at the time, he was working with Amazon in processing a compromise in order to satisfy copyrights. Additionally, Muxtape was never an obscure site; the RIAA found out about it a week after the site was launched, and Ouellette soon started hearing from different record labels and the RIAA itself. Since Oullette could not afford to defend himself in what could've been a potential lawsuit, he had to drop his side of the case entirely and walk away from the entire situation without doing anything.
"Poor Oullette," you're thinking. Not really. I guess it sucks about what happened to him in the end, but he really should've done his research before making the website. The general picture I'm getting is that he was very unorganized regarding the numerous legalities he should've taken care of before launching Muxtape on the web. According to Wikipedia, the contract between Oullette and his funder (Jakob Lodwick, Oullete's ex-Boss, if you care) was pulled up on a napkin. Not really legitimate. I can't really side with Oullette here.
Then again, I can't really side with RIAA, either. Here's why: because no one was ever against Muxtape. Not the users, not the artists, not the labels, no one. Muxtape founder Justin Ouellete explicitly states that he would have removed any music from the website if musicians or record labels had asked him to. Well, apparently "not a single one [artists and/or labels" asked him to. Here's a quote from Ouellette:
"On the contrary, every artist I heard from was a fan of the site and excited about its possibilities. I got calls from the marketing departments of big labels whose corporate parents were supposed to be outraged, wanting to know how they could get their latest acts on the home page. [...] Smaller labels wanted to feature their content in other creative ways. It seemed obvious Muxtape had value for listeners and artists alike." I don't think I could be anymore explicit than that, so..
My conclusion: you can have your great ideas and put them into practice, but as long as the RIAA is referee (I'm sorry, too), you have to play by their rules.

Individual Pirates Sued by Activision

If you didn't know, Activision is an American video game developer and publisher.  The company was created in the late seventies.  As of 2007, it had been marked as one of the world's most successful third party video game developers.  However, in January of 2008, the company merged with Vivendi games.  This emergence created the Activision Blizzard company, owned by Vivendi.  That's a little bit about the company which is unusually suing and targeting more and more individual pirates.  

 

Activision Blizzard has been quietly suing individual citizens for what they claimed to be, 'file sharing', however, later cases revealed it was actual hard copies of games they were dealing with.  Out of six cases dealt with, almost all settled by a $100,000 settlement.  Hardly none of the defendants had any kind of representation.  In most cases, the defendant's "papers were filed, they agreed to pay, and it was all over".  But the funny thing was, afterward, the defendants later exposed how they were "scared" into costly settlements by experienced attorneys who have dealt with similar cases before having to do with infringements and the game they were accused of pirating, Call of Duty 3 never actually held true evidence that it was infringed upon.  

 

When the defendants were finally charged with these misdemeanors, their settlements were partly based upon the material infringed, home equity value, and the number of cars they owned.  The total amount of settlements from the game brought in at least $300,000, more revenue than the game was producing on its own.  Skeptical?  The consistency of settlement and their basis are questionable.  Settlements ranging from $100,000 and $1,000 only bring attention to the motives behind the companies efforts to counter piracy.