"Reports of my Death have been greatly exaggerated.... "
Said the Television Industry to the Media,
Over the last few years media pundits have have been predicting the downfall if not death of traditional television.
Due to both the advent of the Internet and DVD, high definition and the ability to take your media almost anywhere you go. Yes portable media is nice, handy and a nice way to kill time while waiting for doctor,ect, It will never replace the experience of sitting in your favorite lounge chair watching a High Definition Movie with 7.1 surround and eating your favorite snack, and when its over turning out the lights and going straight to bed, without driving a hour to get home.
In spite of all of the types of media there are, and ways in which one can listen to, or watch the main hub to organize and centrally locate the source seems to be some kind of media server, which uses your tv as a display screen to both navigate your media, and play it.
our old friend, Microsoft has a media server,which from what I have seen in on-line demo clips show it looking pretty good, But they didn't say exactly what was under the pretty interface, Of course it didn't crash during the demo. The idea of ripping all your movies onto a couple of huge hard drives and watching them form one box on any tv in the house is both nice, and scary at the same time.
However, with the move to a all digital format in February of next year and the popularity of content from many other sources It no wonder the death dredge for tv has been sounded.
I think it a lot premature to call the television industry dead. As long as there is mass marketing there will be mass media of some sort. Television will evolve and programing will change and the interface will change, however the lure of sitting mindlessly watch a show all evening is still strong. Hopefully the content will improve. Anyone who has followed my blog for anytime know I have little use for 99% of the new content of tv today.
What the networks are starting to understand is that the days of a captive audience are over. They have been , for the last 20 plus years when VCR and cable came along, as soon as consumers had more choices and the ability to tape something and watch when they wanted, they weren't as tied to schedules and being there when a show was on. and of course they had more shows to tape..
The tie-in between the web and the tv is getting tighter every month. Both Playstation3 and XBox360 are positioning themselves to become a media hub in the living room. Not just a box to play games on. Thats not even counting the dedicated media servers and other ways to get content to the tv.
The media content providers are saying that revenue are down. Viacom just released 2nd quarter statements, basically saying that ad revenue was stalled had only grew worldwide by 2% and US Ad sales only 1%. Which means they're not selling the ads like they had been and they fewer people are seeing the ads they do sell. Link to story;
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/07/how-american-yo.html
You can read it and draw your own conclusions, Essentially the MTV generation is moving away from just sitting in front to their black box for hours at a time. They want their media with them, wherever they go, Be it MP3s notebook, or a device that plays everything from music to full motion video on a small portable screen.
The Television and Movie industry have to accept that they're not the only game in town anymore. With new computer coming out that are designed to be used as both a tv and a computer, playing content from other sources is even easier and more of a option for many folks.
The choices of content to stream on you computer, and hopefully eventually stream directly to you tv and sound system have grown considerably over the last year or so, The start with Google Video and now Youtube have opened the door for many types of streaming media to be available and the growth of broadband have allowed more people to take advantage of their faster connection by doing things they never dreamed of, Such as streaming classic tv shows on their laptops while sitting in a MacDonald's, or Starbucks or even the Library. The point is they have more options.
The top of the tv streaming heap is Hulu.com. launched back in March it is already racking up huge number of streams and users. 83 million in June, and it keeps going up. Why all the hulua over Hulu.com? For several reasons: One picture quality is excellent, while its not as good as watching natively on you tv, its the best I've seen online. However their compressing the feed , it opens and plays with very little shudder or lag most of the time. Compared to YouTube, its night and day. The other big thing is their selection. While they have a large number of newer programs, they have a even larger number of old classic tv, Which is great way to introduce a young person to shows you watched as a kid and still miss. While there are commercials during the shows they well spaced out and VERY sort, ie 15-30 seconds and right back to the program your watching.
Another contender for tv viewing time is DVDs. With the drop in price for a standard definition DVD player to well under a $100. most everyone has some kind of player, that not even mentioning all the Sony PS2 out there that play dvds and are used as stand alone players, and rarely play games. Of course the Movie studio have been crying pirertcy and that they're losing money for years.
With all of theses and more options available to the consumer is it a wonder that the Tv-land is shaking in its boots. There are surveys that say as much as 20% watch tv on the internet, and it will probably grow, The networks need to work to provide a wider platform to allow viewers to watch whenever they want. One may catch a show as its broadcast one week, and the next week be busy and not able to see the show, being able to go to the web and watch the show you missed and keep up is something that networks need to work on. On the web side commercials need to be kept to a mimmium or they'll drive viewers to other sources for the programing they want, and not watch the "Official" streaming version. Also the ability to download shows and watch later is also something that networks need to work on, But then there you get into the Dirty word...DRM...
Once you start actually downloading material, your opening the door to DRM issues and how dose the network control its material once its downloaded.
To compete and hold its own with the new medias coming out almost daily, the networks need to rethink their stragies, the old captive audience has long ago unlocked he door and flew away. Web content should add to the viewing experience, with such things ans interview with actors, producers ect, and behind the scene looks at how the show is made, maybe even web only offering to ad to the knowledge of the background stories of the show. this would keep viewers on the"official" site and probably make them more interested in watching the show on tv more often. By embracing the new media and helping the audience enjoy their favorite shows how and where they want to, they will in the long run build up the viewer ship they and their advertisers crave. Television has to continue to evolve with the demands of the audiences, or the television industry as a whole will wind up in the same shape as the recording industry has in the last few years. Trying to control their material and protect their precious copyright will strengthen the consumers view of the tv industry as Big Brother, and put them in the same light and breath of disdain of the RIAA. And No one wants to be thought of on their level.
Here are some Links to check out:
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/07/hulu-is-kicking.html
http://www.betanews.com/article/Surveys_Many_people_are_now_watching_TV_online/1217453732#c1785095
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/07/30/online_tv#cooliris
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/chicago-tribune/TSIIHOURCUEE25DGC
Showing posts with label RIAA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RIAA. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
A Ride in My Way Way Back Machine... & Back Again
Its been a busy couple of weeks around here, between spring and spring stuff needing to be done and my wife's work I discovered that my pacemaker of 14 years finely died. Its not something that just suddenly happened. It had probably been slowly dying over the last several months probably, any rate it finely quit completely. Of course it then needed to be changed.
I have a very usual heart condition that I was born with, called transportation of the great vassals, which in in simple terms means that the blood wasn't flowing through my heart the way it dose in everyone Else's heart. In in 1961 there was very little that could be done. They went in and opened up the hole that was supposed to close when I was born, didn't thus allowing blood to back flow into the body and give me oxygenated blood, When I was about 6 weeks old or so they went in and made it bigger and sent me home. There wasn't anything more that they could do so they sent me home. I was what was called back then a blue-baby, due to the lack of oxygenated blood in my system. Several years later a surgery called the Mustard Procedure was developed and I was the first in the us to have it and survive. Fast forward many years which the many folks didn't know exactly what to do with me, and I did many things which I was never supposed to to do: .Like graduating high school with a regular diploma. I have since married and have four kids the oldest of which is now 20. There are still limitations on what I can do and how much I can do especially as I get older.
I am very glad to say that everything went better then expected I was in and out the same day. and so far have had no problems.
I have said all of this as a way of say that technology has imported itself into out lives in so many ways that we don't even realize it anymore. from the watch that we wear, that tell us not not only the time, date month, timer, countdown timer, I've seen some with calculators and even heartbeat monitors and have mp3 players and thumb drives all on your wrist, the countless little toys you can put in your pocket,
While I was busy with my pacemaker and other spring projects I kept a eye on all things tech..I followed the proposed merger of Microsoft and Yahoo. while I not a fan of either I really wasn't thrilled with the idea of Microsoft and Yahoo joining at the hip, so to speak, I for one,and glad it went south. I also see that Echostar lost the suit with Tivio and while the final results aren't in yet the principle is set and it doesn't bode well for the future of in general and other recording devices in general.
The discussion of DRM is a hot button, that most folks don't know enough or care about enough to know about. I have tried recently to start discussions with folks about this type of subject and they look at me like I've lost my mind or an talking about a scientific principle they never heard of before. The only time I get any response is when I'm "preaching to the choir" so to speak. Regular folks don't understand whats at stake, and by the time they figure out what DRM is its have their media all locked down and they wouldn't know what to do to get around the locks or even care to.
I have also been reading about the resurgence of LP, remember them?, the big flat round disc you played music on, years ago..? True audiophile say they sound better in many ways then a CD, I can't tell personally, they all sound good. Whats interesting is the number of turntables being issued that have usb capabilities, allowing you to easily convert you collection of oldies to mp3 or whatever your favorite format is and play it on your Portable MP3 player. So its safe to say that the LP isn't dead yet. With new ways to make the music that on them playable in many more places and formats. This is whole niche market that the record companies can't get their hooks into, the LPs were bought and paid for years ago and any royalties have been payed years ago they're a dead issue as far a the labels are concerned, However, the number or artist releasing new material in both a digital format and also offering a LP version is increasing . I just saw that Amazon has come up with a way to offer out of print albums back on the market by doing a print to order type of model, something which has been done for books for several years.
Some other items that caught my attention was the proposed Microsoft/ Yahoo merger, which fizzled out as I had hoped it would. I have no love for either MS or Yahoo and the idea of them merging was rather unsettling. Ms has too much power on the desktop, and has it hands full trying to keep Vista alive and keep anyone who can from either staying with XP or completely jumping ship to either Linux or Mac. Not to mention it other projects,ie, Xbox/360 and the 2nd generation Zune. Yahoo has its own set of problems such as loosing the search competition from Google. While the the Yahoo mail dose offer many of the same productivity features Google dose, just not with Google's interface and style and simplicity.
Face it, Saying you a Gmail address just sounds better then @Yahoo.com
This month marks the 10 year of the passing Frank Sinatra. Long lauded as one of this Century's greatest crooners and performers. While his presence was felt through most of his life, it seems to be coming back, again. I have always appreciated his music, there are certain songs of his that I love. I've seen many of the movie,and understand why he has the following he did and still dose. Many of his movies and much of his music is being reissued on dvd/cd in anniverisesary collections . All of this is well and good, and should be done. It should be remember that off stage he had a life and left 3 kids who have to live with his legacy and being children of a icon. The next question is, is there someone today preforming that people will release 10th anniversary collection of his 50+ year old work, 10 years after their death? To my mind, the answer is no.
Granted the entrainment business has always been a commercialized business, object being to make money, however, in the last 30+ years the business has been putting the dollar above making and promoting artist expression and making movies that push people to think. a classic example is. "In The Heat of The Night" when the White Plantation owner slapped Virgil Tibbs and Tibbs slapped him right back , and the Sheriff sat there and watched and didn't say a word. recently I heard a story that Nelson Mandel saw that movie while he was in exiled in South America, and he noticed there was a cut, but it wasn't until years later when we found out what was in that cut,; it was that scene,. In recent years there has been more in the way of indie film making and distributing, Because big movie houses don't want to back anything that's different, and now with the Internet and other distributing means a writer producer can bypass the MPIAA, and if he's lucky have them come knocking on his door.
Well, I hope that you have found my ideas worth waiting for and interstring reading if you like to comment please feel free to,,
I
I have a very usual heart condition that I was born with, called transportation of the great vassals, which in in simple terms means that the blood wasn't flowing through my heart the way it dose in everyone Else's heart. In in 1961 there was very little that could be done. They went in and opened up the hole that was supposed to close when I was born, didn't thus allowing blood to back flow into the body and give me oxygenated blood, When I was about 6 weeks old or so they went in and made it bigger and sent me home. There wasn't anything more that they could do so they sent me home. I was what was called back then a blue-baby, due to the lack of oxygenated blood in my system. Several years later a surgery called the Mustard Procedure was developed and I was the first in the us to have it and survive. Fast forward many years which the many folks didn't know exactly what to do with me, and I did many things which I was never supposed to to do: .Like graduating high school with a regular diploma. I have since married and have four kids the oldest of which is now 20. There are still limitations on what I can do and how much I can do especially as I get older.
I am very glad to say that everything went better then expected I was in and out the same day. and so far have had no problems.
I have said all of this as a way of say that technology has imported itself into out lives in so many ways that we don't even realize it anymore. from the watch that we wear, that tell us not not only the time, date month, timer, countdown timer, I've seen some with calculators and even heartbeat monitors and have mp3 players and thumb drives all on your wrist, the countless little toys you can put in your pocket,
While I was busy with my pacemaker and other spring projects I kept a eye on all things tech..I followed the proposed merger of Microsoft and Yahoo. while I not a fan of either I really wasn't thrilled with the idea of Microsoft and Yahoo joining at the hip, so to speak, I for one,and glad it went south. I also see that Echostar lost the suit with Tivio and while the final results aren't in yet the principle is set and it doesn't bode well for the future of in general and other recording devices in general.
The discussion of DRM is a hot button, that most folks don't know enough or care about enough to know about. I have tried recently to start discussions with folks about this type of subject and they look at me like I've lost my mind or an talking about a scientific principle they never heard of before. The only time I get any response is when I'm "preaching to the choir" so to speak. Regular folks don't understand whats at stake, and by the time they figure out what DRM is its have their media all locked down and they wouldn't know what to do to get around the locks or even care to.
I have also been reading about the resurgence of LP, remember them?, the big flat round disc you played music on, years ago..? True audiophile say they sound better in many ways then a CD, I can't tell personally, they all sound good. Whats interesting is the number of turntables being issued that have usb capabilities, allowing you to easily convert you collection of oldies to mp3 or whatever your favorite format is and play it on your Portable MP3 player. So its safe to say that the LP isn't dead yet. With new ways to make the music that on them playable in many more places and formats. This is whole niche market that the record companies can't get their hooks into, the LPs were bought and paid for years ago and any royalties have been payed years ago they're a dead issue as far a the labels are concerned, However, the number or artist releasing new material in both a digital format and also offering a LP version is increasing . I just saw that Amazon has come up with a way to offer out of print albums back on the market by doing a print to order type of model, something which has been done for books for several years.
Some other items that caught my attention was the proposed Microsoft/ Yahoo merger, which fizzled out as I had hoped it would. I have no love for either MS or Yahoo and the idea of them merging was rather unsettling. Ms has too much power on the desktop, and has it hands full trying to keep Vista alive and keep anyone who can from either staying with XP or completely jumping ship to either Linux or Mac. Not to mention it other projects,ie, Xbox/360 and the 2nd generation Zune. Yahoo has its own set of problems such as loosing the search competition from Google. While the the Yahoo mail dose offer many of the same productivity features Google dose, just not with Google's interface and style and simplicity.
Face it, Saying you a Gmail address just sounds better then @Yahoo.com
This month marks the 10 year of the passing Frank Sinatra. Long lauded as one of this Century's greatest crooners and performers. While his presence was felt through most of his life, it seems to be coming back, again. I have always appreciated his music, there are certain songs of his that I love. I've seen many of the movie,and understand why he has the following he did and still dose. Many of his movies and much of his music is being reissued on dvd/cd in anniverisesary collections . All of this is well and good, and should be done. It should be remember that off stage he had a life and left 3 kids who have to live with his legacy and being children of a icon. The next question is, is there someone today preforming that people will release 10th anniversary collection of his 50+ year old work, 10 years after their death? To my mind, the answer is no.
Granted the entrainment business has always been a commercialized business, object being to make money, however, in the last 30+ years the business has been putting the dollar above making and promoting artist expression and making movies that push people to think. a classic example is. "In The Heat of The Night" when the White Plantation owner slapped Virgil Tibbs and Tibbs slapped him right back , and the Sheriff sat there and watched and didn't say a word. recently I heard a story that Nelson Mandel saw that movie while he was in exiled in South America, and he noticed there was a cut, but it wasn't until years later when we found out what was in that cut,; it was that scene,. In recent years there has been more in the way of indie film making and distributing, Because big movie houses don't want to back anything that's different, and now with the Internet and other distributing means a writer producer can bypass the MPIAA, and if he's lucky have them come knocking on his door.
Well, I hope that you have found my ideas worth waiting for and interstring reading if you like to comment please feel free to,,
I
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
More on DRM and Other Issues of Importance
Image this; You sit down with your family in front of your brand new 50+" High definition tv with 7.1 Surround; sound and all the trimmings to watch a Blu-ray movie you borrowed from a friend. You played the movie in your brand new Blu-ray HD DVD player the hooked up to the Internet via your wireless connection which for your wi-fi network for the computers. This give you extra features not on the player itself,,, or so you thought.
A week latter you receive a summons to the Piracy Court in your area, Apparently the movie your borrowed from your friend was a copy and not the original, and the DVD player realized this and played it anyways and then "phoned Home"
The above scenario is make believe right now.However,the hardware is available now to do exactly that or something very similar to it. Once a device is put a network theres no end to what can be done even in the background, if the program is in the rom chip it can run in the background and the owner never know its even there until its too late. By then everything that they've done with that device is no longer their own personal business, it now part of a giant profile either a general profile or a specific profile based directly on them by name, or other qualifying data.
There are other issues here beside just devices spying on us.The ramifications of this are frighting.
Other issues that have come up in the last few years include music, and of course HD and the DRM in General. The music industry has pretty much given up on drming their mp3s. Theres has been a huge backlash against the perceived enemy's, in the form of the RIAA, and the MPAA and other media distribution bodies, . Over the last several years there has been a huge drop in CD sales, this is blamed in large part on music sales though on-line retailers such as I-Tunes ect. along with everyones old scapegoat piracy . yes there is piracy however I don't believe its the only reason the sales have gone down. Maybe most of the music isn't all that great in the first place and people don't want it. All that aside, two artist tried something very different last year, they got shed of their contract with the big studios and independently publish their cd. the big twist is was they didn't price their cd,
RadioHead released their album "IN Rainbows" was released Oct 10, on their site and anyone could down the entire album and pay what they wanted for the album. They also had the option of pre-ordering it and also a special box set with a vinyl version and other items. Although they wouldn't release exact figures, all indications are that they did very well, and the best part is they got all the money not most of it going to middlemen. Here are couple of link to story's about the Radiohead ablum;
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Oct02/0,4670,OntheNet,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
Earlier this year Nine Inch Nails followed Radiohead by releasing their album free and offering better quality versions for fees. They said that so far they have earned 1.6 million on their free album. See Link;
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23390248-5014239,00.html
While theses two example prove that people will pay even if they don't have to most artist are not in a position to do something like that. But it dose prove the concept of people paying the artist directly without the middle man, AKA the record companies. When people know the artist is getting all the money they're more willing to pay more.
There are other venues that also lend themselves to artist self-producing their works, such as publishing. Do a quick Google search and you will find thousands of places that will publish your book. Some are places that will publish your book for a price, while other are real publishing houses that actively look for talent and will publish your book. The biggest boom is the idea of on-demand publishing, there are many places where they only actually print and bind a copy of the book after it has been sold, the idea being theres no no huge inventory of books sitting around wasting paper and taking up space, they only print exactly what they need.
Which bring us to a another new concept that has been getting widespread attention, Creative Commons licenses.
http://creativecommons.org/
The idea of Creative Commons Licenses is that you can decide what kinds of rights that you want give your work.
Here are several ways in which you can copy write your material,
1. Others can copy my personal videos, edit if they like or even distribute them on their own sites but should not sell the videos.
2. Others can copy photos from my Flickr Gallery, use them on blogs but they are not allowed to edit or manipulate the photos.
3. Other are allowed to take my images and even manipulate them using Photoshop but they should license their new creations under identical terms.
4. Others can take my music albums and distribute them on their own sites but they should neither modify the contents nor make any money out of my music.
This lets you have a say in what ways your work can be used. The Creative Commons Licenses can be used with anything from music to art, to books published online. This is a idea which is catching on all over the world, One look at the Creative Commons website shows that they developed it to work in many languages and countries.
There are a myriad of other issues to be dealt with over the next several years. Among them; the idea of Net Neutrality, the idea of keeping the Internet a even level playing Field for everyone regardless of how get on line or what speeds they're going be 56k or a T1 line, One the we everyone is equal, President Bush as access to the exact sites and information as I have or anyone Else on at the time, I could be shopping at the same on line store as Bill Gates and never even know it, and we're both equal as far as the web is concerned.Except that Bill Gates can spend WAY more then me..
Theres also the recent auctioning off of spectrum by the FCC. One round of Auctions has ended. The 700MHz bandwidth is the bandwidth that analog tv uses to broadcast you tv signal from your local broadcasters to you. With the coming transition to digital in February 2009, that bandwidth is now freed up for other uses. The FCC has had a auction to licences the bandwidth to various providers, who can then use it to either add or upgrade their services to the consumer.Among the winners were big players likeVerizon, and AT&T won most of the licences and blocks .
Here are two links;
This is the FCC site with the Auction Summary;
http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=73
Here is another story on the results,;
http://mobilitytoday.com/news/008421/verizon_att_wireless_spectrum
For more reading do a search on 700MHZ auction Results. The eventually outcome of this and the future auctions for other bandwidths will not be known for quite some time, However, consumers should be aware and keep informed of whats happening in the wireless space as well as in cyberspace.
Its very important for consumers to not take what their fed by the mass advertising and other media outlets at face value . They need to question and do research and find out exactly what going on behind the sences and try to understand how it will affect their rights asa consumer and as a citizen. To to this end I offer the following links to places and peaple who are trying to protect our freedoms as we know them now;
Public Knowledge.org
http://www.publicknowledge.org/
Below are a listing of all the links at the bottom of the Public Knowledge.org front page. Please take your time and go through them, I think you'll find some interesting reading.
.
A week latter you receive a summons to the Piracy Court in your area, Apparently the movie your borrowed from your friend was a copy and not the original, and the DVD player realized this and played it anyways and then "phoned Home"
The above scenario is make believe right now.However,the hardware is available now to do exactly that or something very similar to it. Once a device is put a network theres no end to what can be done even in the background, if the program is in the rom chip it can run in the background and the owner never know its even there until its too late. By then everything that they've done with that device is no longer their own personal business, it now part of a giant profile either a general profile or a specific profile based directly on them by name, or other qualifying data.
There are other issues here beside just devices spying on us.The ramifications of this are frighting.
Other issues that have come up in the last few years include music, and of course HD and the DRM in General. The music industry has pretty much given up on drming their mp3s. Theres has been a huge backlash against the perceived enemy's, in the form of the RIAA, and the MPAA and other media distribution bodies, . Over the last several years there has been a huge drop in CD sales, this is blamed in large part on music sales though on-line retailers such as I-Tunes ect. along with everyones old scapegoat piracy . yes there is piracy however I don't believe its the only reason the sales have gone down. Maybe most of the music isn't all that great in the first place and people don't want it. All that aside, two artist tried something very different last year, they got shed of their contract with the big studios and independently publish their cd. the big twist is was they didn't price their cd,
RadioHead released their album "IN Rainbows" was released Oct 10, on their site and anyone could down the entire album and pay what they wanted for the album. They also had the option of pre-ordering it and also a special box set with a vinyl version and other items. Although they wouldn't release exact figures, all indications are that they did very well, and the best part is they got all the money not most of it going to middlemen. Here are couple of link to story's about the Radiohead ablum;
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Oct02/0,4670,OntheNet,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
Earlier this year Nine Inch Nails followed Radiohead by releasing their album free and offering better quality versions for fees. They said that so far they have earned 1.6 million on their free album. See Link;
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23390248-5014239,00.html
While theses two example prove that people will pay even if they don't have to most artist are not in a position to do something like that. But it dose prove the concept of people paying the artist directly without the middle man, AKA the record companies. When people know the artist is getting all the money they're more willing to pay more.
There are other venues that also lend themselves to artist self-producing their works, such as publishing. Do a quick Google search and you will find thousands of places that will publish your book. Some are places that will publish your book for a price, while other are real publishing houses that actively look for talent and will publish your book. The biggest boom is the idea of on-demand publishing, there are many places where they only actually print and bind a copy of the book after it has been sold, the idea being theres no no huge inventory of books sitting around wasting paper and taking up space, they only print exactly what they need.
Which bring us to a another new concept that has been getting widespread attention, Creative Commons licenses.
http://creativecommons.org/
The idea of Creative Commons Licenses is that you can decide what kinds of rights that you want give your work.
Here are several ways in which you can copy write your material,
1. Others can copy my personal videos, edit if they like or even distribute them on their own sites but should not sell the videos.
2. Others can copy photos from my Flickr Gallery, use them on blogs but they are not allowed to edit or manipulate the photos.
3. Other are allowed to take my images and even manipulate them using Photoshop but they should license their new creations under identical terms.
4. Others can take my music albums and distribute them on their own sites but they should neither modify the contents nor make any money out of my music.
This lets you have a say in what ways your work can be used. The Creative Commons Licenses can be used with anything from music to art, to books published online. This is a idea which is catching on all over the world, One look at the Creative Commons website shows that they developed it to work in many languages and countries.
There are a myriad of other issues to be dealt with over the next several years. Among them; the idea of Net Neutrality, the idea of keeping the Internet a even level playing Field for everyone regardless of how get on line or what speeds they're going be 56k or a T1 line, One the we everyone is equal, President Bush as access to the exact sites and information as I have or anyone Else on at the time, I could be shopping at the same on line store as Bill Gates and never even know it, and we're both equal as far as the web is concerned.Except that Bill Gates can spend WAY more then me..
Theres also the recent auctioning off of spectrum by the FCC. One round of Auctions has ended. The 700MHz bandwidth is the bandwidth that analog tv uses to broadcast you tv signal from your local broadcasters to you. With the coming transition to digital in February 2009, that bandwidth is now freed up for other uses. The FCC has had a auction to licences the bandwidth to various providers, who can then use it to either add or upgrade their services to the consumer.Among the winners were big players likeVerizon, and AT&T won most of the licences and blocks .
Here are two links;
This is the FCC site with the Auction Summary;
http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=73
Here is another story on the results,;
http://mobilitytoday.com/news/008421/verizon_att_wireless_spectrum
For more reading do a search on 700MHZ auction Results. The eventually outcome of this and the future auctions for other bandwidths will not be known for quite some time, However, consumers should be aware and keep informed of whats happening in the wireless space as well as in cyberspace.
Its very important for consumers to not take what their fed by the mass advertising and other media outlets at face value . They need to question and do research and find out exactly what going on behind the sences and try to understand how it will affect their rights asa consumer and as a citizen. To to this end I offer the following links to places and peaple who are trying to protect our freedoms as we know them now;
Public Knowledge.org
http://www.publicknowledge.org/
Below are a listing of all the links at the bottom of the Public Knowledge.org front page. Please take your time and go through them, I think you'll find some interesting reading.
Organizations
- Alliance for Taxpayer Access
- Center for Democracy & Technology
- Center for Digital Democracy
- Creative Commons
- Digital Freedom Campaign
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Fair Use Network
- Free Press
- Free Software Foundation
- FreeCulture.org
- Future of Music Coalition
- Internet Archive
- IPac
- Knowledge Ecology International
- Media Access Project
- National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture
- Save the Internet
- Software Freedom Law Center
.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Today's Media and The Future..
Early Adapters, pay through the nose... That said.....all the formats we have now, Mp3. wave, Apple's AAC, ect, Dvd, HD, & Blu-ray will eventually be superseded by whatever new technology is developed over the next years, However, as the film/movie preservationists have pointed out many times, as we move forward much is lost,, I am thinking both of lost films themselves and the the people who actually were there, and, almost as importantly , the equipment to play edit and do anything with the old media. This premise can be extended to many other things such as old computer hardware, there are millions of computer reels of data siting that no one can access because the machines to play the magnetic memory data tapes are not around any more. Soon there will be millions of VHS tapes laying all over the world with no vcrs to play them on, like the fate of 78rpm records, eventually cd and optical disc will suffer a similar fate... Although it will probably take longer.. All this is not counting what is eventually done with DRM and what effect it has on the hardware. All this is is to say, there is something ,to be said, for the printed page. One can still read a 100+ year old book and one may be able to read the same material digitally 1 year or even a week later after it was digitalized..
DRM is Digital Rights management, What it Essentially boils down to is the copyrights holder, be it the studio, author or production co, whoever, controlling what we can do with the content, whether we can record a show/movie to a pvr, or record something to a dvd burner like I have the big deal in all of this is that its digital, which means every copy is as good as the original, and theres no degradation over the copies like we had on the old analog tapes, What they don't want is perfect digital copies getting out in the world uncontrolled so they can't make any money off them The music industry tried DRM in their MP3s they sold and soon found it was a losing battle, People were still decoding the mp3 or most of them just ripped the music off their legal cds and put them up on file swapping sites anyways. So finely they are giving in and stripping all DRM off the MP3s they sell, Heres a link that will give you a general idea of what were talking about with the music. http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/01/amazon-adds-son.html As for movies Broadcasters can put in flags that tell receivers what they can and can't do with certain material, most of this is getting into the HD realm, Essentially, dumbing down and crippling sat and cable receivers, and making content harder to enjoy. However, the Saga is not dead, for proof, I refer you to the following link, http://wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/01/sony_music
The new battle cry will be watermarking so copyright holders can track a piece of material back to the original buyer and hold them responsible for letting the material getting into the wild.. Of course, privacy experts are having their say about the idea. The whole DRM/privacy issue will continue to boil over for many years to come, and probably will never be completly settled one way or the other, There will alway be a contingent of the population the change the status quo and fight for the rights of the average person, in this case, the right of the average person to play his own media as he see fits on what he sees fit.
DRM is Digital Rights management, What it Essentially boils down to is the copyrights holder, be it the studio, author or production co, whoever, controlling what we can do with the content, whether we can record a show/movie to a pvr, or record something to a dvd burner like I have the big deal in all of this is that its digital, which means every copy is as good as the original, and theres no degradation over the copies like we had on the old analog tapes, What they don't want is perfect digital copies getting out in the world uncontrolled so they can't make any money off them The music industry tried DRM in their MP3s they sold and soon found it was a losing battle, People were still decoding the mp3 or most of them just ripped the music off their legal cds and put them up on file swapping sites anyways. So finely they are giving in and stripping all DRM off the MP3s they sell, Heres a link that will give you a general idea of what were talking about with the music. http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/01/amazon-adds-son.html As for movies Broadcasters can put in flags that tell receivers what they can and can't do with certain material, most of this is getting into the HD realm, Essentially, dumbing down and crippling sat and cable receivers, and making content harder to enjoy. However, the Saga is not dead, for proof, I refer you to the following link, http://wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/01/sony_music
The new battle cry will be watermarking so copyright holders can track a piece of material back to the original buyer and hold them responsible for letting the material getting into the wild.. Of course, privacy experts are having their say about the idea. The whole DRM/privacy issue will continue to boil over for many years to come, and probably will never be completly settled one way or the other, There will alway be a contingent of the population the change the status quo and fight for the rights of the average person, in this case, the right of the average person to play his own media as he see fits on what he sees fit.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Open Letter to The RIAA
Until a few years ago I had never heard of the RIAA.
Now it seems they've become the BIg Brother of the music world.
And they're looking for a fight. I venture to say that most folks had never heard of the RIAA until the started suing everyone for doing something they've been doing doing for many years. Actually they didn't know it at the time. When I bought a record, (LP) You remember them? I would play it the first time and make a copy onto whatever tape machine I had at the time, cassette or 8 track and put the record away and save the record. If someone wanted a copy I'd either make a copy from the record or the tape, whichever was easiest at the time, that not counting all the mixed tapes with songs from different artist on it. Of courses we were using good 'ole RCA jacks and swapping cables back and forth.we were using the technology we've had for the last 60+ years, of course Until about 20 years or so, we had never heard of digital anything. Now everything is digital theses days.
There is a term in the entrainment industry called "fair use". I first read about it in connection to the early days of VCR. The studios had tried kill VCR and the courts had rejected the studio argument's saying that consumers had a limited right to use the VCR to time shift TV broadcast to a more convent time.
I am not going to try to explain a very complicated subject, which I only have a broad and very basic understanding of the concept. Instead I will supply links at the bottom of the article to give you more detailed reading material.
The idea of this article is to try bring together the idea of protecting copyrighted material, and the individual consumers right to use the material as they see fit. It is generally accepted the one can make a couple copy's of a disc for back-up proposes. The question starts to be sticky when you try to give a copy to someone else. Is it just sharing a interesting work or stealing,?
In the early 1990's when the mp3 craze started and Napster came into vogue, and folks discovered they could copy all their Cd's into their computers, which were finely powerful and fast enough to actually store and play them, This also coincided with the opening up of the Apra-net, becoming the Internet. We all know the stories of college students sharing gigs of music through the campus. This is when the RIAA came out of hiding. Of course once the cat was out of the bag, so to speak it can't be put back in.
The records companys say the because of the sharing of music over the Internet that they had lost a substantial amount of sale, and thus monies they would have made through the sales of CDs during the heyday of file sharing. While this may be true, they know they will never get that money back. That's like saying you lost money because you didn't or did do or buy something and wanting the money you would have made back. Not going to happen. Essentially the 1990's and early 2000's is water under the bridge.
Its time for the RIAA to bite the bullet and sowoll hard and stand up and say they've made some big mistakes in the last 12 or so years. and essentially, be a man ,and take their lumps. and start over and work on new models is distribution , which if it wasn't for Apple and I-Tunes they probably still wouldn't be doing.
By continuing to down the path they are now, they are alienating they very public they are trying to reason with.
There is the question of where all the money that they get when they settle one of the suits goes. In theory, it should go to the artist, they are supposed to represent . We all know about the only people making money is the lawyers.
It would seem to me that if any suing was done at all it should be up to the artist themselves. After all it was their work that was "stolen" Then the RIAA can sue on behalf of the artist and the amounts of damages should be up to the artist themselves. and make sure they get the money.
I would venture to say most artist probably would elect not to sue, if nothing else because of the negative image it would bring them, and if the truth were known, most of them had probably done some file sharing themselves. Which puts them in a rather interesting spot. If a artist had the RIAA sue some one and in the course of the trial it come out that they had or even at the time were doing exactly what they were suing about, one can imaige what a laughing stock they would be.
There is also another aspect of the file sharing, that is how much of the material downloaded by folks is material that they already own in LP or cassette or 8-track from and what they were essentially doing was getting material they already own in a new format. That opens up more questions of fair use and copyright issues. If one can prove they a already own a copy of the material and were getting copies of their material.
No one I have seen has mentioned that issue.
In short , its time for the RIAA to back down and rethink its approach to the consumer. By continuing as they are they are in a lot of cases driving people into he idea that they don't want to support them and refuse to buy CDS , if nothing else in a form of protest.
I have been reading lately, the there has been a movement to drop DRM on mp3s. This is a sign that they have finely discovered that it don't work and causes more problems then it solves. Sony got into trouble earlier this year over a hidden root-kit it had on some of it CDs, which had actually damaged peoples computers.This proved that that model was not going to work and it was dropped by Sony after they were sued.
What it all boils down to is when doses "fair use" turn to stealing and who decides it and what are the penalties and who gets to droll them out.
This is a open letter to the RIAA asking them to rethink their tactics and consider the points I've mentioned.
As for the links;
Here are the links I promised;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/fairuse.htm
http://w2.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html
http://www.digitalconsumer.org/bill.html
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.riaa.com/
Now it seems they've become the BIg Brother of the music world.
And they're looking for a fight. I venture to say that most folks had never heard of the RIAA until the started suing everyone for doing something they've been doing doing for many years. Actually they didn't know it at the time. When I bought a record, (LP) You remember them? I would play it the first time and make a copy onto whatever tape machine I had at the time, cassette or 8 track and put the record away and save the record. If someone wanted a copy I'd either make a copy from the record or the tape, whichever was easiest at the time, that not counting all the mixed tapes with songs from different artist on it. Of courses we were using good 'ole RCA jacks and swapping cables back and forth.we were using the technology we've had for the last 60+ years, of course Until about 20 years or so, we had never heard of digital anything. Now everything is digital theses days.
There is a term in the entrainment industry called "fair use". I first read about it in connection to the early days of VCR. The studios had tried kill VCR and the courts had rejected the studio argument's saying that consumers had a limited right to use the VCR to time shift TV broadcast to a more convent time.
I am not going to try to explain a very complicated subject, which I only have a broad and very basic understanding of the concept. Instead I will supply links at the bottom of the article to give you more detailed reading material.
The idea of this article is to try bring together the idea of protecting copyrighted material, and the individual consumers right to use the material as they see fit. It is generally accepted the one can make a couple copy's of a disc for back-up proposes. The question starts to be sticky when you try to give a copy to someone else. Is it just sharing a interesting work or stealing,?
In the early 1990's when the mp3 craze started and Napster came into vogue, and folks discovered they could copy all their Cd's into their computers, which were finely powerful and fast enough to actually store and play them, This also coincided with the opening up of the Apra-net, becoming the Internet. We all know the stories of college students sharing gigs of music through the campus. This is when the RIAA came out of hiding. Of course once the cat was out of the bag, so to speak it can't be put back in.
The records companys say the because of the sharing of music over the Internet that they had lost a substantial amount of sale, and thus monies they would have made through the sales of CDs during the heyday of file sharing. While this may be true, they know they will never get that money back. That's like saying you lost money because you didn't or did do or buy something and wanting the money you would have made back. Not going to happen. Essentially the 1990's and early 2000's is water under the bridge.
Its time for the RIAA to bite the bullet and sowoll hard and stand up and say they've made some big mistakes in the last 12 or so years. and essentially, be a man ,and take their lumps. and start over and work on new models is distribution , which if it wasn't for Apple and I-Tunes they probably still wouldn't be doing.
By continuing to down the path they are now, they are alienating they very public they are trying to reason with.
There is the question of where all the money that they get when they settle one of the suits goes. In theory, it should go to the artist, they are supposed to represent . We all know about the only people making money is the lawyers.
It would seem to me that if any suing was done at all it should be up to the artist themselves. After all it was their work that was "stolen" Then the RIAA can sue on behalf of the artist and the amounts of damages should be up to the artist themselves. and make sure they get the money.
I would venture to say most artist probably would elect not to sue, if nothing else because of the negative image it would bring them, and if the truth were known, most of them had probably done some file sharing themselves. Which puts them in a rather interesting spot. If a artist had the RIAA sue some one and in the course of the trial it come out that they had or even at the time were doing exactly what they were suing about, one can imaige what a laughing stock they would be.
There is also another aspect of the file sharing, that is how much of the material downloaded by folks is material that they already own in LP or cassette or 8-track from and what they were essentially doing was getting material they already own in a new format. That opens up more questions of fair use and copyright issues. If one can prove they a already own a copy of the material and were getting copies of their material.
No one I have seen has mentioned that issue.
In short , its time for the RIAA to back down and rethink its approach to the consumer. By continuing as they are they are in a lot of cases driving people into he idea that they don't want to support them and refuse to buy CDS , if nothing else in a form of protest.
I have been reading lately, the there has been a movement to drop DRM on mp3s. This is a sign that they have finely discovered that it don't work and causes more problems then it solves. Sony got into trouble earlier this year over a hidden root-kit it had on some of it CDs, which had actually damaged peoples computers.This proved that that model was not going to work and it was dropped by Sony after they were sued.
What it all boils down to is when doses "fair use" turn to stealing and who decides it and what are the penalties and who gets to droll them out.
This is a open letter to the RIAA asking them to rethink their tactics and consider the points I've mentioned.
As for the links;
Here are the links I promised;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/fairuse.htm
http://w2.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html
http://www.digitalconsumer.org/bill.html
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.riaa.com/
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