I am experimenting with the Vudu beta software for in-home “upgrading” of old DVD’s to HD streaming movie files for selected titles from my DVD collection.
All in DRM
Some Disappointments with Walmart Vudu's DISC-TO-DIGITAL Service
Once I got things to work, I was really impressed with the audio and video performance of Walmart’s Vudu movie service, so I was really interested in trying out Vudu’s Disc-to-Digital service for a small number of my old movie DVD’s I’d like to see in higher-than-DVD definition.
Mike Elgan’s How Smart TV Will Change Your Living Room is one of the better “future of TV” articles I’ve read. His view of the changing role of TV is straightforward:
Last week my friend Charlie came over after dinner. We go out to movies a couple of times a month and afterwards go for a beer. This time we decided to stay in. He would supply the beer and I the popcorn. Our intended entertainment: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE GHOST PROTOCOL.
I recently watched Phil Grabsky’s feature length documentary In Search of Beethoven. It provides a fascinating overview of Beethoven’s life and incorporates comments and musical performances by many different artists and performers
Amazon Kindle Orwell Deletion May Be Legal -- But It's Still Doubleplusungood
I know I know — the Orwell titles deleted from customer Kindles by Amazon were unauthorized copies. I’m still concerned. Why? Because it demonstrates how this technology can be applied and managed remotely without the owner’s involvement.
It will be interesting to see if Amazon can succeed with the expensive ($489) new Kindle DX without negotiating exclusive licensing and distribution deals that lock in and control distribution of different ebooks in selected vertical markets.
“Web 2.0 Is Dead” posts are a dime a dozen. It’s a pleasure to read one with real content. Andrew Chen’s Which startup’s collapse will end the Web 2.0 era? warns that business models that don’t include secure revenue streams are hazardous to corporate health. At minimum, if you have valuable content parked in the cloud on a network you use for free, consider yourself warned, especially in these perilous economic times.
Before you get too excited about Apple’s recent decision to give up DRM on its iTunes music service, be sure to read Apple Shows Us DRM’s True Colors by Richard Esquerra which appeared January 7, 2008 on Electronic Frontier Foundation’s blog. Esquerra lists all the remaining uses of “DRM” being made by Apple.
Higher Education Act Reauthorization Requires Colleges to Subsidize Copyright Anti-Piracy Efforts
If you have recently written a check to pay college tuition for the coming semester, you will be interested to know that, if Congress has its way, part of the money you spend on your child’s college education will now be going to subsidize college-based copyright enforcement and anti-piracy efforts.
Copyright law has abandoned its reason for being: to encourage learning and the creation of new works. Instead, its principal functions now are to preserve existing failed business models, to suppress new business models and technologies, and to obtain, if possible, enormous windfall profits from activity that not only causes no harm, but which is beneficial to copyright owners. Like Humpty-Dumpty, the copyright law we used to know can never be put back together again: multilateral and trade agreements have ensured that, and quite deliberately.
What the Heck is "Social DRM"?
When I first heard the term “social DRM” in the context of e-book anti-piracy efforts — the link is to the RSS feed of my del.icio.us bookmarks tagged “socialDRM” — I thought it referred somehow to group peer pressure not to copy files without permission.
Social Data Portability, Privacy, and DRM
When Bob Weber published his post-CES DRM 3.0 Has Arrived he made the point that, while DRM for music may be dying, the entertainment industry’s interest in Digital Rights Management is still quite strong. This got me to wondering whether this “next generation DRM” might have some relevance to current interest in social network portability.
I'm listening to another one of Command Line's podcasts, this time Rant: Is Fair Use a Right? (Command Line produces one of my five favorite podcasts.)
Despite the logical nature of Command Line's thesis (he believes that copyright Fair Use is a "right," not just a legal defense) I'm still skeptical about being able to unambiguously explain to people what their "fair use" rights actually are.
We met again last night at a downtown DC bar, a group of policy analysts, bloggers, lawyers, activists, and geeks. I reported on last month's discussion here.
Last night's conversation covered several topics:
I’ve always been a frequent user of public libraries. In fact, I paid my high school and college tuition by working at the Bexley Public Library in Columbus, Ohio.
We have a great public library system here in Alexandria Virginia. I’ve been using it steadily ever since my kids were little and we took them to weekly story hours at the Queen Street Branch.
Last night I attended the monthly meeting of DC CopyNight at a bar within walking distance of the Gallery Place Chinatown Metro stop in Washington DC. Here’s the official description of the group:
Carey Lening (a fellow member of the group DC CopyNight) pointed out some news: Lawrence Lessig has announced he is “shifting gears” and moving on to devote his “next ten years” to a different set of issues from those that have consumed him for the past decade.
The OECD has published the Executive Summary of a major report on international trade involving counterfeited and pirated products. The report, The Economic Impact of Counterfeiting and Piracy, estimates that international trade in 2005 involving counterfeit or pirated works totalled $200 billion US.