Meet CinemaCube – An MPAA Nightmare

The device pictured to right is BrightView’s CinemaCube and, if they are aware of it’s existence, it is giving those in the MPAA nightmares.

The device plugs directly into a user’s TV and uses any USB storage device (from thumb drives to external hard drives) to store data. On the surface, that means you could watch your home movies or view photos.

The CinemaCube is also comes with a built-in BitTorrent client, meaning users can access the online file sharing service. It’s also networkable, letting users can grab files (ranging from music to video to photos) from a remote PC to view on their television.

The device, which supports HD content up to 720p and comes with an HDMI port, is on sale now for $89.99.   LINK

I don’t have much to add except that it’s one more reason the MPAA and the major movie studios should be spending more time a new distribution model than on suing sites like The Pirates Bay

MPAA Wonders Why Public Views Them (and RIAA) So Poorly

There is a devestating post in response to comments made by Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and senior policy adviser for the MPAA at the World Copyright Summit, who said:

”The enemies of copyright have really done a good job at creating the false premise that the interest of copyright holders and the interest of society as a whole are antagonistic, and they always talk about the need for balance.”   LINK

ZeroPaid’s Drew Wilson asks, “Gee, why would the public view them as antogonistic?” He then answers with a few possibilities:

…destroying Napster and Audio Galaxy and not creating an alternative for the get-go, raiding people’s homes because they uploaded Star Wars (not necessarily leaking it in the first place), hacking the URN hash and polluting FastTrack, hacking The Pirate Bay, having Viacom serve DMCA notices to people posting video’s of people eating in a restaurant on YouTube, suing tens of thousands of average American’s including fining one individual $222,000 for sharing a couple songs, saying that files in a shared directory is copyright infringement in court, saying that evidence is too hard to get and that the industry shouldn’t be burdened to prove their cases in court, suggesting that iPods are little more than little pirate ships…

And that’s just  a taste of the entire post.  When people of the future look back at how the massive entertainment industries of the late-20th Century crumbled, this post would be a good starting point.

MPAA Teaches Teachers to Pirate with Video Cameras

The MPAA is one of the most revolting associations I can think of (yes, RIAA also comes to mind).  Not only do they do nothing to increase the artistic or creative value of film but they are anti-consumer and anti-viewer.

The lastest example of the MPAA’s wrongheadedness is their advice to school teachers who would like to use pieces of DVDs in their teaching.  Instead of doing the simple, cost-effective and flexible thing – rip the DVD to a usable file format allowing it to be quickly and easily incorporated into the lesson plan – the MPAA is actually telling teachers that they should videotape the monitor showing the DVD and use the resulting tape.

What?!

Not only would that seem to send the message to students that videotaping a copyprotected screening of a movie is ok – something the MPAA goes to nearly criminal lengths to prevent – but it’s incredibly more time-consuming and complicated than simply ripping the file.

We’re not even talking about the rights of a consumer to rip a DVD they have already purchased but the rights of a teacher to create a dynamic lesson plan – a clear example of “fair use.”

The only silver lining is that the more boneheaded the MPAA reveals itself to be the more likely they are to hasten their own extinction.

LINK

Hulu Boosts Pirates By Blocking VPN Access

Saw that Hulu has implemented a block on overseas users who were accessing the site via an anonymous proxy server called HotSpot Shield.  The point of the VPN is to block the user’s IP address so that Hulu doesn’t know they are trying to access the content from outside of the US.

Currently, due to a slew of misguided and ill-conceived rules and regulations, Hulu will not provide its content outside of the US and is clearly willing to go to some lengths to keep out those dirty foreigners.

Of course, these are just regular people who really really want to see the content Hulu provides.  They aren’t trying to bypass the advertising or trying to download the content so that they can make it into DVDs to sell on the street.  They’re just fans.

By blocking their access, Hulu (and the studios providing most of their content) simple force those outside the US to use “pirate” services – either P2P bittorrent sites or streaming sites – that are easily accessible. Sites like Megavideo, Supernovatube and Ninjavideo.

Basically, by continuing to believe that they can somehow artificially limit and control where their content is consumed, Hulu (et. al.) are giving a big boost to “pirates” while simultaneously losing viewers who could help drive up the price of ads.

And of course, those who still want to watch the programming on Hulu but can’t access it will probably just go somewhere else — torrent indexes and streaming sites like Megavideo, Supernovatube and, my personal favorite, Ninjavideo.

The Pirate Bay Loses Battle, Not War

In a small setback for all those who believe in progress and innovation , the Swedish courts have found the four key principles involved in running P2P BitTorrent site, The Pirate Bay, guilts of copyright violations.  The sentence is one year in jail and $3.6M in fines.  All that, officially for:

…having made 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site.

Of course, this case is not about 33 files but about the entertainment industry’s claim that The Pirate Bay was simply a hotbed of illegal file traffic.  The big question was whether or not simply providing links to the protected content was enough to be found guilty of violating copyright law.  It looks to me like the prosecution was unable to make that case and basically got the founders of The Pirate Bay on what amounts to a techicality.

One shudders to think how many people would have to be rounded up and imprisoned for a year if all it took was making 33 protected files available via a common P2P protocol.  And what about the lesser “crime” of downloading a protected file?

An estimated one in 10 people in the Nordic country engaged in file sharing last year.

Are we really ready to lock up 10% of the population because groups like RIAA and MPAA have tragically outdated business models and have thrust their heads into the sand as a response?

While this is a “win” for big media it certainly isn’t going to turn the tide back in their favor.  Not only is it impossible to put Pandora back in her box but the very same links provided by The Pirate Bay are available on Google.

Plus, it sounds like this verdict is only further empowering those who are hungry for change:

The Pirate Party political group–which has been supporting Pirate Bay and thus has gained popularity among the large number of file sharers in Sweden–also sees the verdict as an opportunity. The verdict is the “ticket to get elected to European parliament” in June, the Pirate Party said in a press release.

And don’t worry about the guilty party, they are appealing and it will be years before this thing is settled.

LINK

Time to Stop Calling Everyone a Pirate

Unless you happen to be discussing Johnny Depp or Blackbeard, I think it is time for the overuse of the word pirate to describe both people who engage in the sharing of copyrighted content and people who use violent force to hijack ships at sea.

As a description of file-sharers, the term “pirate” just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  Not only does it imply a higher level of criminality than tends to be the case, but there aren’t a whole lot of similarities between downloading Wolverine via BitTorrent and boarding a ship with the help of guns.

Now, the people hijacking ships off the coast of Somalia are technically pirates but I think the constant use of the term in the media makes them seem a whole lot more cool and intriguing than actually are – in fact, they’re just gangsters in speedboats.  Ok, that sounds kind of cool, too… Still, pirates is worse.

Labels are a powerful tool and in the case of “pirates” I fear the label is doing little to either resolve the complex issues surrounding copyright law or make the high seas safer.

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Should Kindle Fear Literate Pirates?

Some Kindle users are upset over the $10+ cost of eBooks for the device and have begun to tag such books in an effort to convince others to boycott them and somehow drive down the price.

I’m not so sure this particular effort will have the desired effect.  However, the guys at Freakonomics are on the right track:

One of the boycotters’ main complaints: you can’t lend out your e-books to friends. When digital music fans were confronted with this problem, they just made illegal copies.

As we have seen ad nauseum in the music world, once a product is no longer controlled by a physical scarcity (i.e. paper books) but can instead be transimited in a purely digital and thus unlimited manner, it becomes very difficult to convince consumers to pay the same amount they once paid for the hard good.

If the publishing industry isn’t quick to respond it is hard to imagine why there wouldn’t quickly be a pirate market that succeeded in meeting consumer needs instead.

LINK

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Free Anti-Piracy Advice to NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX et. al.

According to a post on NewTeeVee:

Regardless of how many ads were shown, 90 percent of ABC.com viewers continued to say they’d rather get the show for free than pay to get it without ads.

Why aren’t the TV networks releasing copies of their shows to pirate sites complete with the ads built in?  While I do love my ad-free TV torrents, I tend to watch on Boxee even with the ads since there is simply no wait.  However, I miss being able to download and watch the show on other devices or outside of a wifi hotspot.

I think most people would be perfectly ok with downloading a show with the ads built in.  Sure, one could fast-forward past them but most people don’t bother, especially if the ads are short and varied.

Not only would the networks actually get to show advertisers an ever larger pool of eyeballs but they would be putting the pirates right out of business.

Just thinking aloud…

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Data Indicates Women are Pirates, Too

Probably due to my own prejudices, I have always assumed that men were more likely than women to be downloading pirated materal.

However, according to TorrentFreak, the top two TV shows downloaded last week were “Desperate Housewives” and “Gossip Girl.”  Now it is completely possible that these numbers are due to men who don’t want to admit they watch these shows but I don’t think so.

Instead, I think this indicates that women are quickly becoming just as active in pirating video as men.  More and more, I believe that the generation growing up right now will be the first to demonstrate little gender difference when it comes to the use of technology.

None of this explains why “Prison Break” remains one of the top pirated shows every single week…

Cutting the Cable – How I Canceled My Cable, Saved $1000/yr and Still Get TV!

Just about two weeks ago I completely severed my Time Warner Cable TV service that was costing me right about $80/month.

This was not because I was tired of TV.  In fact, TV is part of my job and keeping up on what’s on is pretty darn important.  Also, I sort of like TV sometimes, so I was not trying to get rid of the content.

So, what have I replaced my cable with?  Here’s the rundown:

1) Boxee – Boxee is still in alpha but I love it.  It is an app that pulls all the major networks web portals into a convenient central location and is completely controlable by my tiny little Mac remote.  Boxee currently gets me access to Hulu, CBS, WB, CNN, Comedy Central and a bunch of other stuff.  Plus, with my Netflix account, the somewhat disappointing but still cool list of “watch now” films and TV shows are also a click away.

2) EyeTV – This is a TV converter that lets me run an over-the-air HD antenna right into my MacBook Pro.  Since I live in NYC this gets me access to HD versions of NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CW, whatever UPN is called now and a few random things from Ion.

I also got a 20″ external LCD monitor for $99 at Staples and have a set of inexpensive speakers that go into the headphone jack.

This gets me a vast amount of programming for a very low cost.

The few drawbacks: Still some sports I will have to go to a bar to see – but fewer every day and more networks live-stream.  I bought a super-cheap HD antenna and think I will need to upgrade.  To get a really constant signal means a bit of moving the antenna if I change channels.  Still, the picture is great.

There are also a few shows I love that I just can’t get through any network-approved method.  In these rare instances I take advantage of BitTorrent.  While it might fall into the not-quite-legal category it seems pretty obvious how they can stop me – offer the programs online with limited commercials and I am there!

Overall, while it takes a bit more work to get up and running than just flipping on the TV, I find I am more thoughtful about what and when I watch and I also get a huge satisfaction out of the knowledge that Time Warner Cable, a crappy monopoly, is only getting my $40/month for RoadRunner.  If anyone knows a comparable service available in Manahattan please let me know.

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