Tuesday, September 15, 2009 |
Priceless Piracy
Season 1 of Man vs Cartoon on iTunes$9.99 Trying (and failing) to convert to non-DRM format 1 hr Trying (and failing) to find a way to burn DRM videos to DVD 45 mins Tearing your house apart to find external speakers since you'll HAVE to watch it on your computer 30 mins Being able to pirate the shows you like Priceless ------ There are some things that money can buy.... but the free version is usually better Labels: apple, drm, itunes, mafiaa, piracy (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Saturday, July 12, 2008 |
Thoughts on Viacom
A friend of mine, @edroberts, posted his thoughts on Google and Viacom to his blog and subsequently received a comment from Viacom. I added a reply to that comment that I wanted to also post to my blog. You can view Ed's post at http://edrobertsblog.com/?p=66Actually, there are quite a few of us that know it's out there but we are unable to use it in a way that we would enjoy. There are times that we want to take shows on the road or watch them on a machine that may not be compatible with your website. We also don't want to have to go to a website to see if a new episode is available but we want to be able to use an RSS feed and download it into our network so that when we sit down to watch something it's there ready for us. Let me share my story. I never knew who Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert was until the Net Neutrality debate arose and I caught Jon's clip on youtube regarding that issue. I instantly became a fan and over the next few weeks I became addicted to those shows. I use MythTV for watching shows and I set it up to record every show. A couple months ago Comcast really screwed their subscribers in my area over and as a result I dropped my cable TV service. I've since switched to watching shows off of sites like www.revision3.com because I am able to program my mythtv system to look at their RSS feed and download the show. When I sit down on the couch I grab my remote and can see all of the shows that are ready for me to watch. Your viewers are all very unique people and they have different habbits and different preferences. The one thing that we all have in common is that we want to enjoy your shows in the way that we like to enjoy TV in our own ways. Requiring someone to watch your show at their computer reduces their attention span and, quite frankly, causes many of them to bail out as soon as the first commercial hits. Now if you put that in a video stream that can be downloaded to a PVR or other device that can be connected to a TV, people are more willing to watch the commercials. I certainly know that I am. The answer is not tying people's hands and telling them how they are supposed to enjoy your content but it's allowing them to enjoy it - period. Three years ago I knew a lot of people that had the stance that music piracy was wrong but after the treatment that we have received from the RIAA I now don't know a single person that respects the legal rights of the music industry simply because the RIAA has abused those rights. Now, I am not saying that you should not pursue the lawsuits that you think you need to but you have to understand that these clips are introducing your content to people who then start watching the full shows. The majority of the clips on YouTube are just that -- clips. I can certainly understand you fighting full episodes being put on YouTube but the majority of these incidents are not full episodes. Allowing people to view your content in ways that they enjoy only provides you with more viewers. Another thing that I want to add is that it may not be Google's fault that people don't know about your sites. In fact, people may very well know about the sites and totally despise them. I run MacOS and generally use the Opera web browser. Your sites do not work for me. Occasionally I can open up Safari and watch a show but the performance is less than desireable. The rarity of my visits to your sites are not the result of me not knowing about them but that they just frustrate me more than what I get out of them. Also keep in mind that Google is NOT the internet. Google has shown a good effort in controlling copyrighted material and, in fact, may be doing the best job of any company I've seen so far. Their methods aren't perfect and I can understand your desire to have them strive for perfect but please keep in mind what happened when the music industry shut down Napster -- it pushed everyone somewhere else to get what they wanted and now instead of it being one place that needs to be policed you've got numerous sites devoted to doing exactly what Napster was doing. The closing of Napster encouraged pirates to be more innovative. This is the internet that you are dealing with and no matter how hard you fight there will be people that will continue to break the law. It's a sad truth but its still the truth. Instead of pushing these people more underground why not look for a compromise? Ultimately it is your copyrights and you are entitled to control those -- that is your right. I would just encourage you not to alienate your viewers by forcing them to play by your rules and watch things the way you want them to be watched because you'll ultimately end up pushing many viewers away and many of us already have a very sour taste in our mouths from the RIAA. Labels: copyright, google, mafiaa, television, viacom (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Friday, August 31, 2007 |
I just simply can not stop laughing about this.... it's gotta be one of the funniest news stories in a long time! Ben S. was the first of many folks to submit to us this incredible story of Viacom's latest ridiculous claim of copyright infringement. As you're most likely aware by this point, Viacom is in the middle of a nasty $2 billion lawsuit with Google over what it alleges are videos that infringe on Viacom's copyright appearing on YouTube. Of course, in making those claims, Viacom has been known to be a bit too aggressive in taking down videos -- including some that clearly did not violate Viacom's copyright. This latest case, however, may be the most ridiculous. VH1 is a Viacom property that has a popular TV show called "Web Junk 2.0." It basically just takes the more popular/funny/stupid clips that show up on YouTube every week and shows them on TV along with some goofy commentary from the show's host. I'd always wondered if Viacom compensated the owners of those videos -- especially given the company's position about YouTube. It turns out that neither Viacom nor VH1 compensate the video owners, or even ask their permission. It just assumes that it can use them. Most turn out to be perfectly happy (not surprisingly) to get this sort of free publicity. One guy thought it was so cool that he recorded the clip of Web Junk that featured his own video and posted that on YouTube so he could blog about it. And, in an incredibly ironic move, Viacom sent a takedown notice to YouTube forcing it offline. Just to make it clear: Viacom used this guy's work without permission and put it on TV. The guy then takes Viacom's video of his video and puts it online... and Viacom freaks out claiming copyright infringement. Effectively, Viacom is claiming that it's infringement of Viacom's copyright to display an example of Viacom infringing on copyright. Labels: copyright, duh, funny, mafiaa, viacom (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Thursday, August 16, 2007 |
It's about freaking time! Labels: mafiaa, mp3, p2p, riaa (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Sunday, April 29, 2007 |
Sound stupid? Well, what else would you expect from the RIAA? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/24/141326/870 (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
Tuesday, September 16, 2003 |
RIAA: They suck. Its crazy that they are suing 12 year old girls over the swapping of music. Granted, copyright laws need to be enforced but the music industry is not giving consumers an option. They should be embracing this technology and trying to find ways to make money off of it rather than trying to stop it. The technology is here. No matter how hard they try they are not going to be able to stop it. Why not charge $5 a month for a file swapping blanket license and actually give the artists royalties. I think that the RIAA's actions have given me reason not to purchase any more CDs. They dont deserve the money. SCO: I may not be too well versed on this subject but I think that SCO is trying to cheat their way into profit. In case you dont know, they are suing IBM and other Linux companies because they claim that Unix System 5 code is contained in the Linux 2.4 kernel. For one, SCO just recently received the rights to UNIX, which was first developed (to my knowledge) by AT&T. They simply do not know the history of what they are dealing with. Secondly, they have yet to show code that is in violation. The open source community has the power to fix these problems if only SCO would allow them. They have yet to produce code and when IBM and SGI requested to see the code, SCO told them they were required to sign non-disclosure agreements. This is insane. If their code was violated and entered into the open source community, then that nullifies the need for a NDA. What is there left to protect if this code has in fact been violated? To my knowledge IBM has not signed this. In response, IBM is suing SCO over patent infringements. Come on SCO.... why mess with IBM? Big Blue can make your life a living hell and they probably will. SCO has nothing to gain in this lawsuit. Even if they win they will only kill Linux and allow the open source community to start something else. The image of SCO has been damaged and I doubt they will be able to gain that back. Last but not least, the ramblings of my head. I really miss Tiffany right now. I know in my last few posts I have wrote some things that may really cause you to question how I feel about her. Maybe I am questioning it myself.... and most of what I said is truly what I feel.... but I really do miss her and I want nothing more than to hold her right now. I hope she is having a fun and safe trip and that her semester goes well. I love you, tiff! I really do. Labels: linux, mafiaa, riaa, sco, tiff, unix (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
(C)2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved
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