According to Dela at afterdawn.com, “[t]he battle between artists and Sony BMG over the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy protection on audio CDs just got even more interesting.”
The reason, says Dela, is that the band My Morning Jacket, whose album “Z” was copy protected by Sony BMG, is doing their own recall of the CDs and also burning unrestricted copies of the CDs and sending them out to fans.
Dela says “[i]t would appear that their actions are actually clear violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), even though it is a CD with their own work on it.” While noting that other bands, including Foo Fighters, Switchfoot and Dave Mathew’s Band have also spoken out on DRM, Delay says My Morning Jacket appears to be the first to take the step of burning and distributing unrestricted copies of their CDs.
The band’s move was apparently first reported by Rolling Stones’ Brian Hiatt, who also noted that a second copy-protection software used by Sony BMG appears to pose a security risk for consumers:
Sony BMG’s attempts to protect its CDs against piracy continued to be a source of woe for the company in early December: Soon after recalling 5 million discs that contained the intrusive copy-protection software XCP, Sony BMG acknowledged that as many as 5.7 million more CDs posed a security risk for consumers. Those discs contain another form of copy protection, SunComm’s MediaMax (version five), which could allow hackers to break into users’ computers. Among the affected titles were Santana’s All That I Am, My Morning Jacket’s Z, Alicia Keys’ Unplugged and Maroon 5’s live album.
The company released a software patch (available at sonybmg.com/mediamax) intended to fix the problem. “We take the security issues very, very seriously,” says Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG president of global digital business. But Hesse adds that the company has no plans to recall the CDs or offer refunds: “At this point, this is pretty much it.”Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 5:35 PM | Print | Comments (0)
In an article in Sunday’s NYT, Randall Stross questions whether Mark Cuban’s investment in the Landmark theater chain is a good one in light of the movement toward on-demand and DVD distribution of high-resolution digital video to large-screen in-home entertainment systems. In a blog post responding to the article, Cuban explains some of his thinking about why higher quality home viewing will not necessarily cannibalize Landmark’s theater business, which is migrating to digital distribution itself.
Rex Hammock notes that:
The ink isn’t dry yet on tomorrow’s NY Times, but billionaire blogger Mark Cuban has already posted a response on his weblog to a piece critical (or, at least, dubious) of him in the business section of the Times. Among Mark’s classic responses is his posting of the complete email interview the writer conducted with him. This email displays the cherry-picking of facts the writer had to perform to get to the “truth” he was trying to represent. Mark Cuban is displaying the rapid-response blogging approach possible when everyone in the world (not just someone who gets published in the NY Times) has a platform on which to instantly present their side of a story written about them. I’ll give the NY Times credit for one thing: Very prominently displayed along side the column written about Cuban is a link to his blog.
In a follow-up post, Cuban asks “Who has higher editorial and reporting standards. Your typical fulltime blogger, or the NY Times? Who puts more effort into researching their articles? Who conveys more depth?” Cuban invites and receives some interesting comments on his post, which goes on to say:
The NY Times is obviously feeling some financial pain and cutting back. Costs impact the amount of space they can provide for any article, or for all content as a whole. Bloggers do not have that limitation. I can write as many pages as i like. The NY Times is limited by deadlines. They have to get to print and get the product out the door. Bloggers do not. Costs and deadlines limit the amount of resources that can be applied to any given article for both bloggers and the NY Times. Who is more constrained as a result?
The NY Times certainly has more feet on the street than any given blog, so should they do a better job of breaking news than a specific blog? Or are there more blogger feet on the street en total throughout the blogger universe for any given topic?
Can a reader get a better understanding of the topics of the day, week, month in a given area by trusting the NY Times to present the news, or is it better to do a search of news sources and the blogosphere for keywords, topics and tags on Icerocket.com and become your own aggregator on an ajax homepage like netvibes.com, goowy.com, my.yahoo, google.com or any other personal aggregation environment?Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 3:18 PM | Print | Comments (0)
A recent WSJ story by Peter Grant discusses the growth of local “on-demand” programming being carried on cable systems. Though the piece focuses largely on a “Dating on Demand” service offered by Comcast in some of its markets, it also discusses a range of other initiatives by Comcast, Time Warner and other cable operators, including on demand videos of homes for sale, high-school sports, church sermons and pets available for adoption.
As Grant notes, local on-demand is, in some respects, an “upgrade” of the traditional public-access channels that cable operators have been required to offer. And he suggests this upgrade is welcomed by operators and at least some of their public access programmers and digital video subscribers:
Members of the general public have been able for years to get local content on cable via public-access channels. But for many viewers aspiring to be producers, on-demand TV has a greater appeal because it often gets watched more. Viewers don’t have to wait for a particular segment to be aired, and they can watch their favorite parts — like the winning catch in a football game — over and over using the fast-forward, pause and rewind buttons on their remotes.
The Waukesha Education Foundation in Wisconsin, which has put shows on public-access channels for years, has found that its content often has more impact with on-demand TV, says Jay Walt, the vice president of its board. He notes that public-access channels are limited to single cable systems, while Wisconsin on Demand can be seen throughout half the state. “I’ve had people in Green Bay calling me to tell me they’ve seen me,” he says.
Cable operators, which tend to regard public-access channels as an obligation, see local on-demand programming as a revenue opportunity. The service is helping persuade subscribers who take the standard analog package of channels for about $45 a month to upgrade to digital cable, for an additional $15, which is needed to receive on-demand programming. With digital upgrades the goal, Time Warner and Comcast have made almost all their local on-demand content available at no charge.
Local on-demand content also is turning into an important competitive weapon for cable operators. Cable companies’ biggest competitors, satellite-TV operators, can’t offer on-demand content tailored to a particular community. At the same time, on-demand content gives cable operators a way of fending off competition from the Internet, which is already becoming a major distributor of video content.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 2:08 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Last week, SIPphone’s Gizmo Project joined Yahoo in cutting the per-minute rate for VoIP calling to U.S. PSTN lines to just one cent per minute. A post by SIPphone founder Michael Robertson on his web site gives a sense of his thinking and of where the voice market may be heading.
One-cent-a-minute calling conjures up crazy Internet schemes of the bubble era where companies were selling $10 bills for $5, but that’s not the case this time. This isn’t a money losing offer to garner customers and impress venture capitalists. It doesn’t end the day after Christmas. This is the new permanent calling rate for all Gizmo Project customers. Unbelievably, SIPphone, backers of Gizmo Project, is making a profit at 1 [cent] per minute calls. Our cost is close to 1/2 a cent per minute. What you’re witnessing is the march to free calling.
The average caller makes 600 minutes of calls per month which will equate to just $6 at 1 [cent] a minute…In January, watch for Gizmo Project to offer free U.S. telephone numbers. Major VOIP companies today charge $3-$5 per month for a telephone number. But soon every user on the Internet can sign up for a free U.S. telephone number that will ring their computer anywhere in the world. This will put the smackdown on high international calling rates! (NOTE: Priority will be given to existing Gizmo Project users who will be alerted electronically about number availability.) At that time you’ll be able to get a phone number for free and pay on average $6/month for U.S. calling. It isn’t quite free yet, but it should be a tiny sliver of your current phone bill and mean the stampede to VOIP should accelerate.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 1:38 PM | Print | Comments (0)
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