I am working on a website for Jessica and I at www.aloftcorp.com. Its only a framework at this point - I am thinking about the theme and logo. I am planning to use it as a pointer to our sites that we run our consulting work through. It's time to wind down www.drmconsulting.com. It seems Drupal and DRM are just not compatible, and have been thinking about abandoning DRM consulting at least as a main business. I think it's essentially over - the very notion of DRM is no longer useful because it's been contaminated by so much bad press.
How did it get so bad? Well, I think it's a simple case of extremism damaging the environment for everyone. DRM was never as bad as a notion as the EFF oriented people would like to believe. It's possible to have content that is rights managed that is not even copy protected, something I have always advocated - that the rights are attached to the content and payment etc is handled by the system. There would be a tremendous amount of leakage to be sure. On the other side, the content companies have been so reluctant to get their stuff out there for use that they have encouraged a lot of piracy. Plus they don't seem to understand the real value in letting content move "on it's own" and utilizing the peer to peer nature of the web. The recent successes digital delivery like Hulu and even Netflix are really just extensions of the broadcast paradigm, something that the internet is not well suited to at all.
In any event this blog has been running for a while now (it's not really a blog since it's flat html - I've moved it so many times). It's time to update our site to match the company and I might as well use this as a chance to build it properly in Drupal 6.
Jan 19, 2009
In the past I had moved to where there was more work (Tokyo, San Francisco) - now that's not an option as I am quite dug in and anyway, there aren't any booming areas.
Maybe because we went fast and in a global, interconnected way into recession we will come out fast.
June 9, 2008
November 27, 2005
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Monday, February 02, 2004
January 16, 2004
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Sunday, August 17, 2003
Thursday, August 07, 2003
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Saturday, April 05, 2003
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Monday, November 11, 2002
Monday, October 28, 2002
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
Friday, September 13, 2002
Thursday, August 29, 2002
Monday, August 26, 2002
Friday, August 23, 2002
Monday, August 19, 2002
Thursday, August 01, 2002
I got word a couple weeks ago that there will be no new features added to the Marlin site. That's ok, it's quite stable and the fact that Intertrust can manage it on their own and don't need me is testament to how well Drupal works. Looking for work - it's certainly harder than it was. The recession seems to be at the top of everyone's mind. Fear seems so powerful that people cut back because they hear about others cutting back. Not a huge revelation but it seems that the economy does badly because the economy does badly. People seem so..I don't know...influenceable.
Over a year since my last post. I guess that's what having a 2nd kid does to one's schedule. But honestly, it's been really busy - DRM for video in particular is really getting a lot of attention. Lately I have been reccomending to all my clients that want to put video online to simply go with Windows Media DRM (or rights manager or whatever they call it these days). It goes against my gut feeling about the whole industry (I think Microsoft makes crap products and is finally in serious trouble as Ballmer totally botches what Gates built) but it's the only game in town for downloadable content because the platform is so ubiquitous. And even though I love Apple stuff, until the allow others to use FairPlay, that's all we've got. Maybe that means the best thing is to simply sell unprotected mp4 files. If I can get that idea to pass I usually try. But usually it is not a popular idea with rightsholders.
I've also been playing a lot with DLNA, especially on the PS3. It's well implemented on the PS3 but I have not found a great option on the server end - at least not in XP. TVersity is not bad. The workflow to get content onto the server is slow and rather cumbersome. But it's still much better than getting stuff to the TiVo and since it goes to the Playstation which is a great rendering machine, it looks ok. For a while I thought I could play VOB files but it seems the PS3 does not deinterlace properly through the DLNA client.
January 16, 2007
Last week was splitting my time between the OSCMS, where I presented on Video Delivery with Drupal and SD West. The difference was staggering - the freshness at the OSCMS was exhilirating whereas the mood at SD West among the attendees at least was, well dour.
Dries Butyart and Rasmus Ledorf (in blue - he's a Yahooligan!) discuss PHP4 vs PHP5 in front of a rapt audience
March 30, 2006
I've been thinking about what would make Netflix better...the ideas I have fall into three categories. They range from the totally trivial to the rather elaborate. Note that Netflix is now running a contest to imporive its rating system.
1. Browsing and choosing movies.
AUTEUR BROWSING
One of the main attractions for me (and, indeed the way that I quickly went to 137 movies in my queue which was a total shock to me) was being able to rent on an "Auteur" paradigm; that is, taking a director and moving through his or her career. Doing this alone generated dozens of rentals. However, I was surprised that I was unable to sort by date. As a web developer I know that this can be fairly simple to implement. Other people may be more interested in following a particular actor, cinematographer etc., or even film critic, all of which could be sorted by date and other criteria.
RATINGS SYSTEMS
Of course the member reviews and ratings are a big part of how I go about deciding on a movie but one factor that I discovered was that I tended to like movies that had a high variance in the members' reviews, That is, if there were a lot of one and five star ratings it seemed to be a movie that *affects* people one way or another. I tend to like those films - other people may be the opposite. Having a "variance indicator" may help customers (at least, ones who understand variance) choose movies. This kind of information may be better presented in an "advanced" browsing mode.
USER BROWSING HABITS
It strikes me that the data that Netflix collects in the logs about the types of browsing people are doing to choose movies is of tremendous value. Someone who always goes to new releases is a markedly different person than someone who goes to the classics section all the time. The user experience could be tuned to the particular type of customer - intellectual, academic, sports-fan, etc. The beautiful part is that there is the possibility of finding out what kind of person the customer is without having them fill out surveys and so forth - it can be inferred from the data in their browsing habits.
In advanced mode a "This is a bad recommendation for me" button and perhaps even reason sliders - hate the actor, director, genre, etc. would help collect even better data.
2. Strategic Considerations
PARTNERSHIP WITH IMDB
IMDB is such a deep resource that it may be possible to extend Netflix' listings to include 'all movies' in order to determine whether it makes sense to try to get an obscure or old movie printed. Perhaps it may make sense to allow people to include movies in their queue that are not even slated for DVD release - this would indicate real interest in a film and eliminate the guessing game procedure with respect to ordering up small runs of obscure movies.
GOLIATH THREATS
Although the stock performance of late would seem to indicate that the market has tremendous confidence in Netflix, there is still a very real threat from both Wal-Mart and Blockbuster, as well as from the generally low barriers to entry as is the case with any online business. Network effects help some but only to a certain point as this is not a marketplace like eBay. General technological leadership would seem to be a decent strategy but specialization may be a consideration as time goes by. A price war with Wal-Mart could be very damaging.
3. Service Extensions
REMINDER TAGGING
A simple note with every movie to help one remember why one rented the movie would be a great addition to the rental queue. Perhaps, for a fee, one could have a printout of this note in the email notification and sent with the film.
SPOT RENTAL GIFTING
Netflix might consider the capability to send films to other people for one or two movies...or to another location.... or a way to do a one-off rental for an additional fee which might be useful when one knows one has more time and would like more movies at home.
COMMUNITY
Community is a horribly over-used and misunderstood term in the online space, but for Netflix there is some real value. For example, my Netflix friends are also my closest friends. I feel a real kinship with them as they are movie lovers and people who really want to be in control of their movie-viewing as opposed to accepting the usual stuff at Blockbuster. Therefore a way to communicate with other people that I know would be an excellent service and could get the customer back to the site more frequently. There could be a way to share rental queues and rented movie lists. Moreover, the system could even allow others to add to someone else's list or send them recommendations. Perhaps cooperation with Yahoo!, for their IM function, would help here but is definitely not necessary.
posted by C.J. at 8:30 PM
Lately, I've been talking with a technology company has me thinking about just who makes up the DRM landscape. There are three value chain participants that are impacted by DRM technologies
Traditionally, a DRM technology companies focus has been on selling to media companies as this was perceived to be the head of the snake and that was where the power was. The most 'dangerous' place to sell was to consumers as they were seen to be the weakest and thus they were neglected - resulting in a bad user experience and a lot of hostility supported by the slashdot crowd and journalists. However, this traditional top down paradigm is being challenged mostly due to the democratizing effects of the internet and technologies. Fairplay, the only market success in modern DRM (as opposed to simple copy protection) has focused on the needs of the customer above the desires of the labels (non-permanent licensing, high prices).
posted by C.J. at 8:16 AM
DMP THOUGHTS
I was at the Digital Media Project in LA, which I found very interesting and informative. I won't describe it - there is lots of information on it at the DMP website. It seems to be trying to straddle the line between the interests of society and content owners. Nevertheless, there still seems to be a "drift" toward the interests of the content owners, to the peril of the entire DRM endeavour. I just saw this article on the difficulties the Japanese broadcast system is having getting people to accept heavily restrictive copy protection on digital TV, a topic that came up at the DMP as an example of a 'successful' DRM implementation.
posted by C.J. at 12:18 PM
NEW JOB
So the haps is that I am now working at Dolby, well actually a subsidiary of theirs, Via Licensing. It's great so far, and I'll write more about as I get my sea legs.
posted by C.J. at 11:09 PM
Phil Windley's site had a neato visited states thingy - I couldn't resist. You can see the paths I have taken in roadtrips - we planned to take the minivan through idaho etc to Portage La Prarie in Manitoba a couple years ago but then our fab president took us to war and gas went to $3/gallon - so that was out. :(
create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide
Sunday, December 14, 2003
OUCH AGAIN
Not surprising, but nevertheless not a good thing: Canada is going to start charging a surtax for mp3 players:
"The cost of an MP3 player will increase in Canada after the government's copyright agency decided Friday to charge a tax of up to $19 per unit to reimburse singers and songwriters.
The new levy on MP3s will use a sliding scale depending on memory size: $1.50 for units with up to 1 gigabyte, $11.25 for 1 to 10 gigabytes, and $19 for devices of more than 10 gigabytes."
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60434-2003Dec12.html
This is a major ouch as it penalizes those who are "playing by the rules" - see the August 26 post for more of a commentary.
posted by C.J. at 11:41 AM
ASTOUNDING
Amazon is obviously digitizing the entire contents of their books:
This must be putting a lot of pressure on the publishers to get their books online. I think that Amazon is going to be a pioneer here. Apparently there is a new way to check out books from a library that perserves the concept of "one copy, one checked out", which I think does a decent job of bridging the structural gap between atoms and bits in regards to business models.
posted by C.J. at 9:08 AM
CONTINUUM
I think the range of opinions on DRM, as it stretches from being despised to accepted is interesting. For the one extreme, the free software view, espoused by Free Software Foundstion founder Richard Stallman, against DRM on principle. A little farther along, O'Reilley talks about how DRM has uses for some kinds of media but is dangerous for software. Makes sense, he is a publisher, but one that has to tread lightly as many of his customers are big FSF advocates.
At every stage in the continuum, however, even incredibly knowledgeable people such as these two seem to miss that DRM is not so much about copy protection as it is a digital content billing, accounting and exchange mechanism. If this persists as a misunderstanding, I believe the bad associations around DRM will seriously hamper its acceptance.
posted by C.J. at 6:22 PM
THAT WAS QUICK
I was trying to re-tool my post to be a little less harsh on Steve but he was all over it before I could finish:
Unfortunately, I have to disagree with your quote "The not-so-subtle implication is that Apple does not use DRM."
I am well aware that Apple uses DRM. While the
sentence in the article is open to interpretation, I
don't think that it implies that Apple doesn't use
DRM.
Apple clearly uses DRM to control how downloaded
content is distributed. I believe, however, that
Apple's implementation of DRM does indeed "slip in
under the social acceptability threshold". Their DRM
has managed to seem harmless to buyers because buyers
can copy music to three different Macs and allows
users to burn songs as many times as they want.
The BuyMusic hodgepodge is simply a very poor
implementation of DRM as several publications have
pointed out.
This is not to say that Apple's DRM is perfect.
However, they seem to have read consumer wishes and
offered them DRM they can live with.
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
It's a tired expression and I used to hate it, but I have to say that I think we're in 'violent agreement'.
posted by C.J. at 12:18 PM
DRM AS A DIRTY WORD
It's funny how the term has become a rallying cry against copyright online: I was reading about the failure of BuyMusic.com vs iTunes.
Check this out: Stephen Van Esch writes:
BuyMusic's DRM (digital rights management) system has been savaged by The Globe and Mail, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and TechTV. BuyMusic tunes can't be transferred to portable music players.
What interests me here is implication that Apple does not use DRM.
Of course it has to. Apple never talks about it, which is smart. The article Van Esch quotes points out that there is DRM in both systems:
Apple's "FairPlay" rules attempt to strike a reasonable balance between the desires of the music industry ("No copying!") and customers ("No copy restrictions!"). Apple limits the number of CDs that can be burned using the same playlist, and prevents users from storing downloaded music on more than three Macs at one time.
BuyMusic.com has left the DRM decisions up to each label and copyright holder, which complicates the buying process. Some songs can be burned to CD just once; others can be downloaded, transferred or burned to CD an unlimited number of times. This is bound to create confusion when people attempt to make "mixed" CDs that combine music purchased from different labels.
Ironically, despite its name, BuyMusic.com does not actually let you "buy" music. The system's "Terms and Conditions" note that content is "sublicensed" to users, "and is not sold, notwithstanding use of the terms 'sell,' 'purchase,' 'order,' or 'buy.'"
As I've said before, iTunes has managed slip in under the social acceptability threshold with its DRM. BuyMusic makes the blunder (among many others) of calling it DRM when speaking to the music buyer. Foolish. Very foolish.
posted by C.J. at 10:48 AM
THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
This is a good summary of the "Super DMCA" that is being quietly pushed through in states all over the US. (Irony: Unfortunately it requires a subscription - Business2 just changed from a free website to one that is paid.) The essence of the this legislation is that the cable companies are pushing for legislation that gives them more control what kinds of things can connect to the Internet. It's interesting legislation because one of the things holding back the introduction of good content and more business uses of the Internet is the 'excessive anonymity' that means the Internet is a generally too 'wild and wooly' for many content providers.
On balance, however, this legislation seems to me to be far too likely to be misused - the idea that new every device, be it a computer, phone or even a firewall/router would have to be approved by a cable company is regressive and out of touch with what makes the Internet so dynamic. The author points out that had AT&T been able to hold on to laws that prohibited the connection on non-sanctioned devices we would not have had the internet become a public phenomenon as modems would likely not have been approved, at least not as quickly.
I see a pattern: it seems that business interests with content under management (in this case cable companies) work to have restrictive laws passed, society does something else (fair use), and the end result is somewhere in between. We saw this with Xerox machines, the cassette tape, and VCR's. I think that this is similar - technology companies should theoretically be lined up on one side with their interests aligned with consumers - it's unlikely that the apocalyptic vision that some are afraid of is somewhat exaggerated.
I remember a great story I heard several years ago: RCA was demonstrating the an early video casette to Disney back in the '70's and had made this video casette that would only play once before having to be returned to the manufacturer to be reset. Disney's response: "This is great stuff, but we could never support it. I mean, how on earth could we ever know how many people are actually watching the movie?"
posted by C.J. at 10:28 AM
TURNING POINT
I've been meaning to write about iTunes for a while. It's a remarkable achievement -
- Sales settling at around 500,000 per week.
- All labels participating
- Windows iTunes SW on the way
- Indie support - 9% comission/$40 registration to list an album
The $1 price for a track seems to be acceptable to the market. The most important thing, I think, is that Apple seems to have, either conciously or unconciously, realized that protection is not the main game - DRM as an accounting system and breadth are. The issue is not piracy but convienence.
This makes me think, for the first time ever, that apple may be a decent investment - the revenue possibilities from itunes, particularily in the windows market, are perhaps not priced into the stock. Of course Apple's flawed model (HW+SW) is likely to always drag it down, but this seems like a real win on its own - this is the label-displacing energy in a paid model that has been so absent till now.
The thing that amazes me is Jobs' skills in the entertainment business. (this and Pixar) It's almost like he's unaware where his true abilities lie.
Thanks to Rajiv Sinclair for keeping me up to date.
See this article
posted by C.J. at 11:15 AM
BLOOD FROM A STONE
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued four students on April 3 for allegedly operating music-sharing Web sites, accusing them of enabling large-scale copyright theft. Although the RIAA initially asked for $98 billion in damages, it settled the case on May 1, with the four students paying fines ranging from $12,000 to $17,500.
From http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/june03/copyright.html
posted by C.J. at 12:36 AM
RSS
I'm getting excited about the implications of the google purchase of blogger. Corporate internal blogs might be a way to utilize internal knowledge, and the addition of a google appliance makes the whole thing potentially disruptive to the content management field. Relation to DRM? You wouldn't think so. But while researching the topic on slashdot I discovered RSS, which looks like a copyright management extension to XML.
posted by C.J. at 3:53 PM
BORING
Guess what. The labels are in trouble, according to this article from the New York Times (free registration required, sorry). This is a replay of the same article with the same types of quotes we've been seeing for 5 FRIKKING YEARS. "Sales are down". "Kiosks might help". "Prices too high?". "Record Execs lethargic". "Downloads not working" It's bloody boring already. The (major) labels are finished, and I say that without emotion, though the glacial realization of that fact is rather maddening. They're just not going to pull through. The only interesting question any more is how long they will live in the ICU of legally brain dead companies (the major airlines are in the same terminal ward.) There's been a major accident, people. They won't pull out of their collective coma. Nothing going on upstairs.
Moreover, it looks like the movie studios are just being wheeled into the emergency room. The price of DVD-R blank media is falling like a rock. The death spasms are going to be more violent but the outcome is very likely to be the same.
posted by C.J. at 9:22 AM
BACK AGAIN
Phew, that was quite a pause...a very busy end of term in my MBA (almost done now, looks like the summer will be the end!) and a new contract with Cenzic, doing product development for an interesting new website security product.
Another thing that I've been doing is talking with Smart Mediary Systems who is doing some great things in the legal publishing arena. They are doing very sane things with DRM in that they are doing what works - get the content, offer ways to manage it well, put protection that works but is not onerous, listen to your customers and give them what they want. Basically the opposite from Movielink. (I tried them and it's a long story but basically they wouldn't refund me $2.99 even though the system ran aground on technical issues - well, maybe they will, but they want me to phone them about it. Who has time for that kind of thing?)
posted by C.J. at 2:03 PM
ONLINE MOVIES
The BBC reports that movielink is now launched. The movie industry is just a hair ahead of the recording industry with the benefit of that awful experience. They have a slightly more reasonable catalog. But they are still pricing it at a "what the hell?" level...$2-5 for a 24 hour playable MPEG-4 download. It's a small step for a company and a small step for mankind.
The sad thing is that when someone comes up with a decent business model, they get shut down, like movie88.com, a scrappy little Tiawanese company. Reminds me of the icravetv.com story, a little Canadian company offering timeshifted TV over the internet, something that is legal in Canada but the MPAA still managed to shut them down.
posted by C.J. at 9:26 AM
THE BROADBAND PARADOX
This is a good idea:
The impractical method for stimulating broadband adoption is to make music
free on the Internet. As Thierer notes, Napster and its cognates have
been among the main reasons people buy broadband connectivity. Instead of
using the law to choke file swapping, perhaps we should encourage the
telecom industry to buy off the music studios. Total recorded music
sales in the US come to a grand total of about $15 billion per year, while
telecom spending is over 20 times higher. Thus in the abstract, it might
be a wise investment for the phone companies to buy out the studios.
This is of course wildly impractical for business and legal reasons,
but it would quickly stimulate demand for broadband. (It would also
demonstrate that the content tail should not be wagging the telecom dog,
as it too often does in political, legal, and business discussions.)
From http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/misc/thierer-broadband-paradox
This is a somewhat naive and highly academic solution that would require a lot more coordination than is likely possible, but it brings up an important point about the relative scales of the music and telecom industries. It also underscores a core problem with the internet (and, I believe, some part of the internet crash) - that good digital content is simply not available online. There are two reasons for this: the lack of a good DRM system and the lack of public acceptance of paying for bits with no physical manifestation of the content.
What's interesting is that there is an important psychic tug of war going on between what people think they are buying and what companies want to sell. With a CD, the record company wants to sell a temporary copy. They effectively do so by changing the format every 20-40 years (72, LP, 8 track, cassette, CD). On the other hand, consumers want something permanent or at least the sense that it's permanent. I think that this gap will plague the development of digital media vending mechanisms until the consumer has the sense that the copy they are getting is accessible indefinitely and that they will be able to move it to another medium. Record companies have a tough time with this idea.
I also suspect that going forward, music may share some characteristics with long distance telephone service: as it gets cheaper we spend more on it by consuming a disproportionately larger amount. My telecom bill is higher than it's ever been despite the steady decline in prices because I never think about the cost of a long distance call anymore.
posted by C.J. at 9:52 AM
FLASH TRENDS
Origionally an animation tool, Flash was gradually co-opted to be an animated logo generator. This was an annoying but essential development of the standard. (by the by, why do little companies feel compelled to have the flash thing running across the page? Respected companies, who can definitely afford to, don't. Have a look - Oracle, Cicso, Microsoft, even Apple are all not inclined.
The good news is that there are some excellent things happening with Macromedia Flash these days. I am very happy to see that some extreemely creative people have started using Flash as a means of publishing animated shorts My favorites: Zefrank, OddTodd, and Dogshitter Wants. Okay, some of it is bizarre, but I love it.
Here's the sad part. These people who now have a channel don't have a simple way to get paid for their work. (Zefrank, for example, is looking for a web host.) Advertising turns out to be pretty much a bust all over the web, at least for small operators - the web is, after all, a narrowcasting medium (with all the things advertisers hate: no national borders, short attention span, and altogether too much control over the outlet device (the computer)). Macromedia would appear to be oblivious to this: at a conference I posed to a Macromedia product manager the issue of valuable content in Flash, and the potential value of putting in a vending mechanism. It's a natural: you have the UI, and now with FlashMX there is some excellent database connectivity. (You could even use it for music.) He was completely flat on the subject. Maybe they're keeping quiet about something. I doubt it.
posted by C.J. at 5:39 PM
WHAT BOOKS FEEL LIKE
At Seybold yesterday I stumbled across E-Book Systems and spoke with the president, Sengbeng Ho, for a little while at the end of the show (is the end of a show when more senior people are around? I never noticed before). Sengbeng has a doctorate in something like cognitive science/usability and E-Book has created a neat application that really does simulate the feeling of flipping pages. It was high performance and had good tactile feedback - you could see the contents of the pages as they turned and, maybe even more importantly you can see where you are in the book, how much more there is to go, etc. We talked a but about this style which on the face of it would seem unnecessary and inefficient, hell, just plain old-fashioned, (vs scrollbars) but in actuality just seems to make sense once you see it in action. I have always thought that when portables have better battery life, and more importantly, wake from a non-power consuming state almost instantly, and most importantly are really much tougher, we will start to see the move to E-Books. What I hadn't realized was that the UI was not right either.
Just later the same day I was in the SF MOMA around the corner and saw an E-Book with Lewis Carroll's photographs (in addition to the photos themselves, which were surprisingly uninteresting, actually). The (hypercard based, I think) piece was done in the style that the photographer used to like to present his photos in an album, one per page. The reason I bring this up is that there was a page flipping thing here too, but just that little less tactile feedback (no visibility of the images on the turning pages, no sense of where you were in the book, no ability to turn more than one page at the same time). It was just enough less 'real' and felt phony and computery.
posted by C.J. at 12:33 PM
SELF PUBLISHING
Lately I've been thinking about self-publishing. At a Ryze mixer I was talking with Steve Breuhaut who was at SealedMedia. It seems that even as big, well funded companies (Sealedmedia, InterTrust) shrink, or disappear - when I was at InterTrust I used to track MediaDNA but they are gone.
A fair while ago, Fatbrain set up a digital self publishing system (greymatter as I remember), but then imploded. But now, self publishing seems to be getting some traction. It seems that as venture funding contracts, there is less support for inviable business models. Qtik seems to be an almost grassroots effort at subscription content. What's interesting though is that the web allows people to publish more simply as it is a collaborative medium, either by helping small authors traditional publishing (getpublished.com) or to publish to more web type environments (blogs). This is whole different topic, but I want to comment on it soon.
But the interesting thing is that the meduim seems to be changing the process by which people actually publish.
posted by C.J. at 9:59 PM
A VERY BLUNT INSTRUMENT
This sure is slipping by quietly, like many things in Canada (even in the Canadian media): it looks very likely there will be new, very hefty fees on blank media in Canada. The law, which would surtax an Apple iPod to the tune of $210CDN and even a (not so huge) 160GB internal hard drive $336. In fact the plan is to tax a wide variety of digital media, removable or not, and more significantly, regardless of end use. The tax on blank CD-R's is already more than the purchase price and will no doubt be levied on top of an already scary 15% sales tax. The tax is considered a done deal (with some exceptions for governmenty organizations, as is often the case).
The sad part about all this is that it is such a blunt way of tackling the problem of compensating artists, and it will add to Canada's struggle to be competitive. It is a very good idea to try to have artists compensated for their work, but this type of thing really just increases the technology industry/government divide. It's an old-fashioned solution to a rather new problem - modern computers are multifunction devices and storage media are used in a wide variety of ways, the significant minority of which are related to copyright infringement. Any data intensive business is caught in the legal/governmental crossfire.
posted by C.J. at 5:07 PM
FEE VERSUS FREE
It seemed appropriate to start this commentary with a discussion of the running debate between fee vs free. It's not worth getting dragged into a discussion of which is better, or even what "free" is, though I recognize that for some people these things are important. I've noticed that there is a pattern, though, and people break out into their groups pretty fast:
1. Companies that have content, and particularly those that have a traditional business model, are nearly rabid in their defense of copyright at any cost...the labels are a good example, and they managed to ram through the DMCA
2. Those who think that there should be as free a flow of information as possible. We're all pretty familiar with this one, and for some reason the media likes to take this viewpoint. There are many orgs like the eff, and this one
3. There seems to be a third paradigm emerging gradually over time....especially since the dot-com collapse...which is the "fee advocacy" movement. The end of free is a good example and there are now consultants that are seem to be working quietly in this area. Some journalists seem to get it.
One thing that's interesting is that it's been sometimes framed as a "media company versus technology company" battle. One CATO conference I went to recently in Palo Alto posed it this way, for dramatic tension I guess. (they don't seem to have the past events linked but I did find this) The fact is that DRM companies (which are technology companies to be sure) have had this 3rd viewpoint for a while. It's kind of the neutral stance, so it's not exciting. But like many things that are not exciting in by being either evil or principled, this way is the way that will work in the long run.
posted by C.J. at 4:52 PM
Hello. This page will be updated for the DRM consulting website as I find interesting things. If you are curious about DRM in general, you can check out the background.
posted by C.J. at 5:54 PM
This is the first post...welcome to DRM consulting
posted by C.J. at 7:16 PM