The only reason P2P is so popular is because there is no legal alternative.
The old obsolete distribution methods (movie theaters, shiny discs) are being trampled by digital distribution.
There is no legal digital distribution that is priced accordingly (itunes is the closest we have, and for music I'd say it's a great start), but instead the pricing is made 'not to compete with the shiny discs'.
So, since media companies are not willing to adapt their business models, P2P is overrunning them. The 'free' bit is not the main reason. The 'get it now, get it without walking to a store or waiting for snailmail shipping' is.
There is a huge untapped market who is willing to pay for legal download option that is priced sanely (again, iTunes is close, and its unsurprisingly gaining popularity), with sane restrictions on usage. Yet companies price their offerings out of the market (no, it doesn't have to be free, but it has to take into account that there is no physical shiny disc or a box), release downloadable versions very late, add silly geographical restrictions, DRM and just outright refuse to release portions of their huge libraries they consider 'uninteresting' or 'unprofitable'.
Whoever is the first to put out a huge downloadable library of music, video, movies, TV-shows, games - with no DRM to speak of, with no geographical restrictions on customers, at sane prices, will become so rich it will be silly (*assuming* the business model doesn't involve in funneling 95% of that money to the 'rightsholders', in which case its the rightholders getting rich, not the service)
Free market ensures that if some fat exec having a hissy fit says 'I'm not playing with you anymore', someone else will be happy to provide the same service (probably at lower cost).
If P2P kills huge record monopolies, and instead we have numerous small companies who make money from selling CDs and un-DRMed downloads *regardless* of P2P, that's free market pwning artificial monopolies right there.
It might very well be that current huge and bloated 'content creation industry' will be 'damaged' by P2P, but it's luridicious to claim that everyone would stop making music, movies and TV just because of P2P's 'effect' on making money with the content.
I'm still convinced that if the 'content business' would just bite the bullet, restructure to lower expectations (their current legal offerings are grossly overpriced) and instead put down unDRMed DL service with all the content in the world, at uber download speeds, they'd make gigabucks *regardless* of the fact that people would copy the stuff. Why bother with P2P sites and untrustworthy files if you can get a 'legal' proper version, perfect quality, no strings, use as you like within the framework of current law, at a reasonable price?
I know if my choices were 'DL from uberfast official site, 10Mbit/sec, perfect quality, 3-5$ for the full contents of a DVD, ready to be burned to disc if I so choose' and 'grab dvdrip with no extras off P2P at crappy speed and no guarantee of quality', I'd pay a few bucks for no hassle.
Fat execs are unable to grasp the effect of internet and plentiful bandwidth. Their 'product' is PURE DATA, so *gasp*, internet will make distribution of said data much more efficient than their stupid 'manufacture shiny discs' business model.
Current record exces sound like scribes whining when someone invented the printing press, and started mass-producing books that earlier had to be scribed by hand (and were extremely expensive and rare). Today's internet makes reproducing of entertainment so much more efficient and cheaper, so those CD presses belong to the museum, and as costs go down, so must the prices. CD presses had so huge upfront investment required that the companies could create an efficient monopoly. Anyone can trump up a website, and while today the bandwidth is still not free, I expect the price of it to go down so rapidly that in a few years bandwidth costs of sending 10 GB movie file over the internet is fractions of a cent.
In which case you can no longer charge 20$ for a copy of a movie.
Movie theaters are in a deep doodoo as well. They will have to improve presentation quality and service - to make it more like a 'special thing' that movies used to be back at the start of the last century. Improving home theaters are pwning crap theaters, and their offering of 10$ movie showing + overpriced soda is no longer attractive to the customer. ADAPT OR DIE, just like every other business has to.
Hey, it was pretty cheap and had OK features for a Series60 phone - if you ignored the games. Lots of good symbian apps made it pretty useful phone for the price - at least in countries where you don't pay for your phone by agreeing into ripoff contracts and instead actually pay the whole price of the phone (and have substantially cheaper calls as a benefit).
Now today it's getting obsolete fast, and this announcement basically spells it out - there won't be a new-but-compatible respin of N-Gage, and instead they are aiming for 2007ish to release a completely new game/phone thing, hopefully learning from today's mistakes. Probably with completely new brand and look - which is not a bad idea either.
Considering the numerous job openings at nokia for 'senior programmers' with 'experience in real time 3D graphics programming & symbian', I don't think they have quite given up yet - it's just that the next attempt will take a while to materialize. If they hope to take on PSP (or even Nintendo DS), they need to work on their idea a bit...
My prediction: gaming/video/music/3D-accelerated uberphone at an attractive price point + bunch of good titles at launch, first to be unveiled at E3 in 2007, and in shops autumn 2007. Won't beat PSP in performance, but should be closer to what the new web pad is (*that* screen would be nice for gaming) than the current N-Gage.
I know bulk computer/video accessories can have 500% markup.
But in the case of XBox360 accessories, I assume MS takes lions share of the nutcase markups there - they have to, to cover the losses they make with each Xbox 360 unit itself.
So if that random video cable that is 25$ in Best Buy costs 2$ for BB, that comparable branded XBox cable probably costs BB 15$ (and sells for 25$). MS pockets 13$, retailer pockets 10$.
Sales of downloadable games and content addons via X-Box Live
When the additional product/service offerings don't have those pesky manufacturing, packing, shipping and retail markups, they tend to be much more profitable. Yes, running Live and making all that extra stuff to be sold online costs money, but that stuff is Most Definitely not done at loss, or anywhere near at loss.
I can confirm this from first hand experience. Retail margins are in the 3-5% range, and don't improve much over time. There *is* a reason why best buy salesdroids have been trained to sell you accessories and games to go with that console. Those do have more normal markups (at least 15%, probably 25-35% especially on ripoff-priced cables and accessories). So anyone walking out of the store with just the console is a bad deal for the retailer, and rabid salesdroids will do their damnest to prevent that.
Same goes actually for things like low end laptops - their margins can also be as low as 5%, and the real deal is the extras - carry cases, mouses, external hard disks, headphones, additional software, blank CDs, extended warranties... whatever the salesdroid can manage to pile up on top of the actual computer sale.
The good salesdroids are the ones who can jedi mind trick you into spending few hundred bucks on top of the item you wanted, and that way drag up the total profit to the retailer from that 3-5% range to 20-30% (or more). Best ones can actually predict what your real needs are based on few probing questions, and actually make you want all that stuff he's peddling to bump up the profit margin.
Master salesdroids have mad l33t jedi mind trick skillz. Poor ones come off as rabid dogs who refuse to let go even when you spell out in gory detail why you don't want anything else.:)
Opening xbox not only voids your warranty, but also probably makes things worse. The cooling has special ducts directing the airflow, and if you pluck those out, it'll overheat even easier.
I'm sure that if this Texas lawsuit (among others) get anywhere near issuing few billion in fines to Sony, DRM peddling snake oil companies will be treated like carriers of infectous deadly disease (which is not far from the truth) by record executives for a LONG time.
Sony shot themeselves and the whole indistry at their foot with a 100 megaton nuke here.
I'm quite sure that due to this case, any DRM based on mucking up your computer's ability to play/rip standard audio CDs will face a quick extinction. And since there are no other methods due to technological limitations of audio CDs, hopefully DRM for will go by the way of dinosaurs.
"Because of alleged violations of the Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act of 2005, the Attorney General is seeking civil penalties of $100,000 for each violation of the law, attorneys' fees and investigative costs."
Too bad this probably only relates to the crimes done in Texas.
100k$ per installed CD, 2M+ CD's sold... that would be a *serious* chunk of change even for a megacorp like Sony.
Even if this is limited to texas, it could still be tens of thousands of CDs, 100k$/CD...
Unless it's dirt cheap (as in '10 cents' or something similarily irrelevant), nobody will pay for something that goes poof after 24 hours.
Most of the stuff up on current P2P networks are not worth the effort to download, and they cost 0c and never expire. What makes NBC Universal think their *P2P* (as in 'you'll be sharing your bandwidth') offering has any chance whatsoever if their offering has 'costs money' and 'yours for only 24 hours' added to the deal, if even the current stuff on P2P is rarely worth the effort to download?
Most likely this craptastic 'offering' will have; Less than DVD res No DVD extras Old titles - at best, at the same time as blockbuster gets it Eons to download as nobody is on their P2P crapnetwork Requires Internet Explorer, WMP10 and activeX to use
And will cost same or more than your average Blockbuster rental (the one you can off the DVD if you want to watch it again).
This won't fly. Only way people will be interested in download options is if they are substantially easier and better than the current standard (in this case, netflix and blockbuster).
Actually, WHQL certification is pretty good indication that the driver isn't totally crappy. Then again its true that a lack of certification doesn't automatically mean it sucks - it just means that the HW vendor didn't want to pay for the testing & MS stamp of approval.
So, since the certification costs money for the hardware vendors, and doesn't really tell you anything new, if their internal QA is competent, many vendors skip it - unless their OEM sales tell them they have to do it, so that dell/hp/ibm/whatever will accept the component/pheriperal for their systems.
Either they rush this in and hope it saves their bacon, or the game is a goner very soon.
They are bleeding cash. Not enough players to cover expenses. They already shitcanned the japanese servers.
SWG is nice proof that you can no longer put out any crap with 'MMO' stuck on top of it, and rake in the cash. You actually have to *gasp* put out a *fun game*. Blizzard understood this, and now they are basically printing money with WoW.
Now don't get me wrong, WoW has it's flaws, namely the high end game being exclusive big guild raid crap, but millions seem to have plenty of fun even with those flaws, because they don't have to fight 785032704734607 unfixed bugs and idiotic things left over from rushed development while playing.
In theory, if this was implemented, would it be OK for the manufacturer to 'deny' your rights under First Sale by implementing a DRM bit that would prevent you from using that right to resell the product?
I'm no laywer, but to me it's unclear. Yes, you have every right to sell that shiny disc, but nobody would buy it, because it wouldn't work on their systems.
Bit like selling a boxed copy of Half Life 2 that has been activated on Steam and tied to an account. You can sell those CDs/DVD, but why would anyone buy them without the steam account information?
What if, in the future, that activation is tied to specific license key of an operating system, or something comparably braindead?...:)
Common sense says 'yup, no way Sony will be stupid enough to do this'.
Then you ponder... 'filing a patent costs money. They already drove straight off the cliff with this braindead DRM implementation...'
And then you start to wonder. Could they *really* be this braindead? But if they have no intention to use this ever, why file a patent? It *is* an old patent, the original japanese one is several years old, but if there is no intention to exploit it, why file it here in US?
Funnily, Japan has no concept of 'First Sale', so there this would, I assume, be perfectly OK. In the US I dunno what would happen. I would be exciting to watch - in a way it's exciting to watch a train wreck in slow-motion:)
(Sony is patenting a method for games console discs to be tied to the console unit they're first ran on. No second hand game sales or loaning of games...)
Problem: There is absolutely no way to prevent a computer from ripping audio CD tracks without interfering the abilities/programs of the computer.
ABSOLUTELY NO WAY.
None.
Red Book audio tracks have certain format. Said format supports no copy protections/DRM/whatever crap.
This format is easily readable by gazillions of CD ripping programs. Unless you create a new format that does not play on normal audio CD players (not gonna happen), there is absolutely no way to prevent this.
So, essentially, if you disable windows autorun, you are immune to all 'copyprotections' and 'DRM' on CD:s. Some 'add errors to audio' things might need a specialized program, but they are going out of fashion as those CDs do not play in great number of audio CD players.
DVD audio is protected, but the masses are not biting. I wonder why...
Sony etc. cannot possibly 'win' this battle, unless they can legislate a protection for their practice of hosing people's computers. DMCA pretty much does that, but this time their nice 'DRM' went few miles too far and ran into few other things that are in the law books, and now Sony is going to get so throughoutly PWNED by this (I *pray* this class action laywer wont settle, I want Sony to be convicted), that they'll hopefully remember it in the future when devising braindead schemes to 'protect' CDs that are, by definition, impossible to 'protect' from copying (another word for 'playing')
Will run on any browser, phone, mobile device, set top box.. and will do everything office, itunes, windows etc does... and magically solves music piracy on the sidelines by magically knowing what's legal and what's not.
Same old story... Noname company comes out of nowhere, claims their product will cure cancer, end hunger and guarantee world peace all in one go. I call 'bullshit', until presented with real proof of the claims laid out.
Assuming the closed box works reliably as advertised without any crap like forced ads and artifically throttled DL speeds, and the quality is exactly same as DVD, I'd bite. Where can I buy one?
Even if the box is sufficiently secured that you cannot rip the stuff out of it without heavy modifications, I'd still bite. That sounds like a real killer app.
"Basically what you can obtain today (ab)using bittorrent".
Not taking any stance on legality or morality or any of that. Fact is that lots of people are currently offering what lots of people want. For free. With the caveat that it's not legal. People make cost/benefit/risk analysis and decide that the teeny risk of getting caught by the **AA is not a big deal. Yes, the copyright holders are trying to make this riskier, but honestly - unless they haul tens of thousands of people to courts, it's a losing battle.
The fact remains, as long as nobody is offering a competiting legal option that offers the same quality and ease of use with just as few strings attached, there is NO HOPE WHATSOEVER that the paid option would become popular.
- Choice 1: High quality, new releases, no DRM strings, pretty easy to find what you want (+free, illegal) - Choice 2: Lesser quality, releases made available who knows when, braindead DRM restricting common fair uses, limited selection based on rightsholders whim (+pay money, legal)
The last bits - money/legality is NOT whats gonna make or break choice 2 from the plate. The other stuff decides if anyone is interested. The day someone rolls out a service that gives high quality, new releases (at least on par with DVD launch somewhere in the world), no DRM and wide selection, that someone will make a killing for the movie studios (and probably bunch of money themselves as well).
Any current halfhearted attempts at video download services are completely and utterly TRASHED by the free/illegal option. ONLY pay-to-download video services that offer what the purchasers want (just the quicktime/avi/divx/whatever, no strings, reasonable price/quality ratio) are, unsurprisingly, services offering p0rn... I mean what *other* stuff you can pay-for-DL at or above DVD resolutions without DRM crap except p0rn?:)
The ONE AND ONLY REASON iTunes became popular is because the 'DRM' is a non-DRM. You pay, you download, you burn CD, it's yours - plain and normal CD.
Give me 'You pay, you download, you burn DVD, it's yours to watch', and don't overcharge - instant hit. Doesn't matter if its 9GB to leech. People have broadband connections that are currently 95% unused. Some ISPs might groan, but people will happily leech away even if it takes couple of days to get the whole thing. Add crappier resolution versions for those who don't want to wait - give the choice to the customer (without charging extra).
Slashdot Mirror
The only reason P2P is so popular is because there is no legal alternative.
The old obsolete distribution methods (movie theaters, shiny discs) are being trampled by digital distribution.
There is no legal digital distribution that is priced accordingly (itunes is the closest we have, and for music I'd say it's a great start), but instead the pricing is made 'not to compete with the shiny discs'.
So, since media companies are not willing to adapt their business models, P2P is overrunning them. The 'free' bit is not the main reason. The 'get it now, get it without walking to a store or waiting for snailmail shipping' is.
There is a huge untapped market who is willing to pay for legal download option that is priced sanely (again, iTunes is close, and its unsurprisingly gaining popularity), with sane restrictions on usage. Yet companies price their offerings out of the market (no, it doesn't have to be free, but it has to take into account that there is no physical shiny disc or a box), release downloadable versions very late, add silly geographical restrictions, DRM and just outright refuse to release portions of their huge libraries they consider 'uninteresting' or 'unprofitable'.
Whoever is the first to put out a huge downloadable library of music, video, movies, TV-shows, games - with no DRM to speak of, with no geographical restrictions on customers, at sane prices, will become so rich it will be silly (*assuming* the business model doesn't involve in funneling 95% of that money to the 'rightsholders', in which case its the rightholders getting rich, not the service)
Well, that would mean the first PS3 games that are any good are at least 2 years away.
Only recently (past 1-2 years) PS2 devs have begun to really exploit the aging hardware. And due to teeny RAM of PS2, it really takes skill.
I hope they do.
Free market ensures that if some fat exec having a hissy fit says 'I'm not playing with you anymore', someone else will be happy to provide the same service (probably at lower cost).
If P2P kills huge record monopolies, and instead we have numerous small companies who make money from selling CDs and un-DRMed downloads *regardless* of P2P, that's free market pwning artificial monopolies right there.
It might very well be that current huge and bloated 'content creation industry' will be 'damaged' by P2P, but it's luridicious to claim that everyone would stop making music, movies and TV just because of P2P's 'effect' on making money with the content.
I'm still convinced that if the 'content business' would just bite the bullet, restructure to lower expectations (their current legal offerings are grossly overpriced) and instead put down unDRMed DL service with all the content in the world, at uber download speeds, they'd make gigabucks *regardless* of the fact that people would copy the stuff. Why bother with P2P sites and untrustworthy files if you can get a 'legal' proper version, perfect quality, no strings, use as you like within the framework of current law, at a reasonable price?
I know if my choices were 'DL from uberfast official site, 10Mbit/sec, perfect quality, 3-5$ for the full contents of a DVD, ready to be burned to disc if I so choose' and 'grab dvdrip with no extras off P2P at crappy speed and no guarantee of quality', I'd pay a few bucks for no hassle.
Fat execs are unable to grasp the effect of internet and plentiful bandwidth. Their 'product' is PURE DATA, so *gasp*, internet will make distribution of said data much more efficient than their stupid 'manufacture shiny discs' business model.
Current record exces sound like scribes whining when someone invented the printing press, and started mass-producing books that earlier had to be scribed by hand (and were extremely expensive and rare). Today's internet makes reproducing of entertainment so much more efficient and cheaper, so those CD presses belong to the museum, and as costs go down, so must the prices. CD presses had so huge upfront investment required that the companies could create an efficient monopoly. Anyone can trump up a website, and while today the bandwidth is still not free, I expect the price of it to go down so rapidly that in a few years bandwidth costs of sending 10 GB movie file over the internet is fractions of a cent.
In which case you can no longer charge 20$ for a copy of a movie.
Movie theaters are in a deep doodoo as well. They will have to improve presentation quality and service - to make it more like a 'special thing' that movies used to be back at the start of the last century. Improving home theaters are pwning crap theaters, and their offering of 10$ movie showing + overpriced soda is no longer attractive to the customer. ADAPT OR DIE, just like every other business has to.
It's available in Europe. I think it's so popular over here, that they are not bothering to ship any over to US just yet...
Hey, it was pretty cheap and had OK features for a Series60 phone - if you ignored the games. Lots of good symbian apps made it pretty useful phone for the price - at least in countries where you don't pay for your phone by agreeing into ripoff contracts and instead actually pay the whole price of the phone (and have substantially cheaper calls as a benefit).
Now today it's getting obsolete fast, and this announcement basically spells it out - there won't be a new-but-compatible respin of N-Gage, and instead they are aiming for 2007ish to release a completely new game/phone thing, hopefully learning from today's mistakes. Probably with completely new brand and look - which is not a bad idea either.
Considering the numerous job openings at nokia for 'senior programmers' with 'experience in real time 3D graphics programming & symbian', I don't think they have quite given up yet - it's just that the next attempt will take a while to materialize. If they hope to take on PSP (or even Nintendo DS), they need to work on their idea a bit...
My prediction: gaming/video/music/3D-accelerated uberphone at an attractive price point + bunch of good titles at launch, first to be unveiled at E3 in 2007, and in shops autumn 2007. Won't beat PSP in performance, but should be closer to what the new web pad is (*that* screen would be nice for gaming) than the current N-Gage.
I was thinking of Xbox360 accessories.
I know bulk computer/video accessories can have 500% markup.
But in the case of XBox360 accessories, I assume MS takes lions share of the nutcase markups there - they have to, to cover the losses they make with each Xbox 360 unit itself.
So if that random video cable that is 25$ in Best Buy costs 2$ for BB, that comparable branded XBox cable probably costs BB 15$ (and sells for 25$). MS pockets 13$, retailer pockets 10$.
I've got a couple of words for you;
.. and a few more;
X-Box Live Subscription Fees
Sales of downloadable games and content addons via X-Box Live
When the additional product/service offerings don't have those pesky manufacturing, packing, shipping and retail markups, they tend to be much more profitable. Yes, running Live and making all that extra stuff to be sold online costs money, but that stuff is Most Definitely not done at loss, or anywhere near at loss.
I can confirm this from first hand experience. Retail margins are in the 3-5% range, and don't improve much over time. There *is* a reason why best buy salesdroids have been trained to sell you accessories and games to go with that console. Those do have more normal markups (at least 15%, probably 25-35% especially on ripoff-priced cables and accessories). So anyone walking out of the store with just the console is a bad deal for the retailer, and rabid salesdroids will do their damnest to prevent that.
:)
Same goes actually for things like low end laptops - their margins can also be as low as 5%, and the real deal is the extras - carry cases, mouses, external hard disks, headphones, additional software, blank CDs, extended warranties... whatever the salesdroid can manage to pile up on top of the actual computer sale.
The good salesdroids are the ones who can jedi mind trick you into spending few hundred bucks on top of the item you wanted, and that way drag up the total profit to the retailer from that 3-5% range to 20-30% (or more). Best ones can actually predict what your real needs are based on few probing questions, and actually make you want all that stuff he's peddling to bump up the profit margin.
Master salesdroids have mad l33t jedi mind trick skillz. Poor ones come off as rabid dogs who refuse to let go even when you spell out in gory detail why you don't want anything else.
Opening xbox not only voids your warranty, but also probably makes things worse. The cooling has special ducts directing the airflow, and if you pluck those out, it'll overheat even easier.
Once Texas is thru with them, they might be having an acute case of lack of cash.
Sony BGM (*not* whole Sony) is actually not THAT big of a company. Few billion in fines would probably keel it over like a dead fish.
I'm sure that if this Texas lawsuit (among others) get anywhere near issuing few billion in fines to Sony, DRM peddling snake oil companies will be treated like carriers of infectous deadly disease (which is not far from the truth) by record executives for a LONG time.
Sony shot themeselves and the whole indistry at their foot with a 100 megaton nuke here.
I'm quite sure that due to this case, any DRM based on mucking up your computer's ability to play/rip standard audio CDs will face a quick extinction. And since there are no other methods due to technological limitations of audio CDs, hopefully DRM for will go by the way of dinosaurs.
Negative.
LGPL is not as strict as GPL - you can link to LGPL library even from a closed source software.
BUT if you copypaste code off LGPL library and statically link it into your binary, you must release your modifications.
F4I did not. LGPL ceased to apply at that point, and from there onwards its a bog standard copyright infringement case.
Mmmm...
:)
"Because of alleged violations of the Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act of 2005, the Attorney General is seeking civil penalties of $100,000 for each violation of the law, attorneys' fees and investigative costs."
Too bad this probably only relates to the crimes done in Texas.
100k$ per installed CD, 2M+ CD's sold... that would be a *serious* chunk of change even for a megacorp like Sony.
Even if this is limited to texas, it could still be tens of thousands of CDs, 100k$/CD...
Ouch?
Had they dropped the N version price even a few euros below the 'normal' OEM, it would've been a surefire hit. Nobody wants to pay for medial player.
But since there was no price difference, this thing was DOA. Everyone knew it the moment it was announced.
Unless it's dirt cheap (as in '10 cents' or something similarily irrelevant), nobody will pay for something that goes poof after 24 hours.
Most of the stuff up on current P2P networks are not worth the effort to download, and they cost 0c and never expire. What makes NBC Universal think their *P2P* (as in 'you'll be sharing your bandwidth') offering has any chance whatsoever if their offering has 'costs money' and 'yours for only 24 hours' added to the deal, if even the current stuff on P2P is rarely worth the effort to download?
Most likely this craptastic 'offering' will have;
Less than DVD res
No DVD extras
Old titles - at best, at the same time as blockbuster gets it
Eons to download as nobody is on their P2P crapnetwork
Requires Internet Explorer, WMP10 and activeX to use
And will cost same or more than your average Blockbuster rental (the one you can off the DVD if you want to watch it again).
This won't fly. Only way people will be interested in download options is if they are substantially easier and better than the current standard (in this case, netflix and blockbuster).
Does your itunes listen to any (unfirewalled) ports?
If not, this requires user intervention for sure.
Actually, WHQL certification is pretty good indication that the driver isn't totally crappy. Then again its true that a lack of certification doesn't automatically mean it sucks - it just means that the HW vendor didn't want to pay for the testing & MS stamp of approval.
So, since the certification costs money for the hardware vendors, and doesn't really tell you anything new, if their internal QA is competent, many vendors skip it - unless their OEM sales tell them they have to do it, so that dell/hp/ibm/whatever will accept the component/pheriperal for their systems.
Easy to answer that one;
Either they rush this in and hope it saves their bacon, or the game is a goner very soon.
They are bleeding cash. Not enough players to cover expenses. They already shitcanned the japanese servers.
SWG is nice proof that you can no longer put out any crap with 'MMO' stuck on top of it, and rake in the cash. You actually have to *gasp* put out a *fun game*. Blizzard understood this, and now they are basically printing money with WoW.
Now don't get me wrong, WoW has it's flaws, namely the high end game being exclusive big guild raid crap, but millions seem to have plenty of fun even with those flaws, because they don't have to fight 785032704734607 unfixed bugs and idiotic things left over from rushed development while playing.
That's the question, I suppose.
... :)
In theory, if this was implemented, would it be OK for the manufacturer to 'deny' your rights under First Sale by implementing a DRM bit that would prevent you from using that right to resell the product?
I'm no laywer, but to me it's unclear. Yes, you have every right to sell that shiny disc, but nobody would buy it, because it wouldn't work on their systems.
Bit like selling a boxed copy of Half Life 2 that has been activated on Steam and tied to an account. You can sell those CDs/DVD, but why would anyone buy them without the steam account information?
What if, in the future, that activation is tied to specific license key of an operating system, or something comparably braindead?
Common sense says 'yup, no way Sony will be stupid enough to do this'.
:)
Then you ponder... 'filing a patent costs money. They already drove straight off the cliff with this braindead DRM implementation...'
And then you start to wonder. Could they *really* be this braindead? But if they have no intention to use this ever, why file a patent? It *is* an old patent, the original japanese one is several years old, but if there is no intention to exploit it, why file it here in US?
Funnily, Japan has no concept of 'First Sale', so there this would, I assume, be perfectly OK. In the US I dunno what would happen. I would be exciting to watch - in a way it's exciting to watch a train wreck in slow-motion
If you want to see how the 'logic' of Sony works, see this patent;
T O2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=1&p=1 &f=G&l=50&d=ptxt&S1=(Kutaragi.INZZ.+AND+Sony.ASNM. )&OS=in/Kutaragi+AND+an/Sony&RS=(IN/Kutaragi+AND+A N/Sony
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
For short version, see this story;
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000420067137/
(Sony is patenting a method for games console discs to be tied to the console unit they're first ran on. No second hand game sales or loaning of games...)
Problem: There is absolutely no way to prevent a computer from ripping audio CD tracks without interfering the abilities/programs of the computer.
ABSOLUTELY NO WAY.
None.
Red Book audio tracks have certain format. Said format supports no copy protections/DRM/whatever crap.
This format is easily readable by gazillions of CD ripping programs. Unless you create a new format that does not play on normal audio CD players (not gonna happen), there is absolutely no way to prevent this.
So, essentially, if you disable windows autorun, you are immune to all 'copyprotections' and 'DRM' on CD:s. Some 'add errors to audio' things might need a specialized program, but they are going out of fashion as those CDs do not play in great number of audio CD players.
DVD audio is protected, but the masses are not biting. I wonder why...
Sony etc. cannot possibly 'win' this battle, unless they can legislate a protection for their practice of hosing people's computers. DMCA pretty much does that, but this time their nice 'DRM' went few miles too far and ran into few other things that are in the law books, and now Sony is going to get so throughoutly PWNED by this (I *pray* this class action laywer wont settle, I want Sony to be convicted), that they'll hopefully remember it in the future when devising braindead schemes to 'protect' CDs that are, by definition, impossible to 'protect' from copying (another word for 'playing')
'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof'
Will run on any browser, phone, mobile device, set top box.. and will do everything office, itunes, windows etc does... and magically solves music piracy on the sidelines by magically knowing what's legal and what's not.
Same old story... Noname company comes out of nowhere, claims their product will cure cancer, end hunger and guarantee world peace all in one go. I call 'bullshit', until presented with real proof of the claims laid out.
Assuming the closed box works reliably as advertised without any crap like forced ads and artifically throttled DL speeds, and the quality is exactly same as DVD, I'd bite. Where can I buy one?
Even if the box is sufficiently secured that you cannot rip the stuff out of it without heavy modifications, I'd still bite. That sounds like a real killer app.
I mis-stated what I meant
/risk analysis and decide that the teeny risk of getting caught by the **AA is not a big deal. Yes, the copyright holders are trying to make this riskier, but honestly - unless they haul tens of thousands of people to courts, it's a losing battle.
:)
Replace my sentence with
"Basically what you can obtain today (ab)using bittorrent".
Not taking any stance on legality or morality or any of that. Fact is that lots of people are currently offering what lots of people want. For free. With the caveat that it's not legal. People make cost/benefit
The fact remains, as long as nobody is offering a competiting legal option that offers the same quality and ease of use with just as few strings attached, there is NO HOPE WHATSOEVER that the paid option would become popular.
- Choice 1: High quality, new releases, no DRM strings, pretty easy to find what you want (+free, illegal)
- Choice 2: Lesser quality, releases made available who knows when, braindead DRM restricting common fair uses, limited selection based on rightsholders whim (+pay money, legal)
The last bits - money/legality is NOT whats gonna make or break choice 2 from the plate. The other stuff decides if anyone is interested. The day someone rolls out a service that gives high quality, new releases (at least on par with DVD launch somewhere in the world), no DRM and wide selection, that someone will make a killing for the movie studios (and probably bunch of money themselves as well).
Any current halfhearted attempts at video download services are completely and utterly TRASHED by the free/illegal option. ONLY pay-to-download video services that offer what the purchasers want (just the quicktime/avi/divx/whatever, no strings, reasonable price/quality ratio) are, unsurprisingly, services offering p0rn... I mean what *other* stuff you can pay-for-DL at or above DVD resolutions without DRM crap except p0rn?
The ONE AND ONLY REASON iTunes became popular is because the 'DRM' is a non-DRM. You pay, you download, you burn CD, it's yours - plain and normal CD.
Give me 'You pay, you download, you burn DVD, it's yours to watch', and don't overcharge - instant hit. Doesn't matter if its 9GB to leech. People have broadband connections that are currently 95% unused. Some ISPs might groan, but people will happily leech away even if it takes couple of days to get the whole thing. Add crappier resolution versions for those who don't want to wait - give the choice to the customer (without charging extra).