HomeWeekly News Roundup (15 August 2010)
Looks like I’ll be managing to bring you this week’s WNR on time. Again, it wasn’t a week bursting with news items, but the NPD folks were kind enough to release their July US video game sales reports, and I was able to get the analysis done yesterday. The Xbox 360’s big win in July has people talking, mostly those who think that the result won’t last. I agree, because just like when the PS3 Slim was released, the sales boost is all very temporary. But as I said at the beginning of the year, 2010 is about Microsoft trying to make sure the PS3 doesn’t run away with things until Kinect comes out, and thanks to Sony’s mistake of not providing enough stock to the market, and thanks to the “surprise” release of the Xbox 360 “Slim”, Microsoft has managed to do this. Now, all eyes on are Kinect and whether it will give Microsoft the boost to overtake the Wii as the most popular console, at least in the US, for this generation. I think it may be possible, but mainly because the Wii isn’t looking too healthy – it’s an ageing console in terms of hardware, with mostly sub-par games (especially if one looks at third party titles), and both Sony and Microsoft will soon be able to do what the Wii can do. The only thing in the Wii’s corner is Nintendo’s ability to make great games, and it’s these great games and accessories (Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit …) that are keeping the Wii alive. For now. Anyway, on to the news.
Let’s start with the copyright news for the week. We’ll start with Viacom’s appeal of the US District Court decision in June to throw out their copyright case against YouTube.
Let’s be honest here, this news isn’t any sort of surprise at all. It wasn’t as if Viacom would just give up, and it’s very likely this case will end up before the US Supreme Court before we have a final decision. Viacom still argues that YouTube, knowing that piracy was happening on their website, didn’t do nearly enough to stop it and profited from it as well. YouTube argues that the US District Court’s decision was correct, that the DMCA affords them some level of protection for user generated content, as long as they had an active policy in place. Whether that policy is good enough for the likes of Viacom, and whether the policy was effective at stopping piracy, that’s an entirely different matter. It’s very much like the AFACT vs iiNet appeal I mentioned last week here, in that the copyright holders are demanding an Internet service provider (YouTube providing a video upload service, iiNet being the more traditional service provider) to do more to fight piracy, when the service provider feels they’ve already done all they can. Viacom feels they’re the victims, and and party to profit most from these activities is in fact YouTube, not the uploader (who doesn’t get paid) nor the downloader (who, if we’re honest, has many other better places to get their piracy fix). This argument has some merit, but there is only so much YouTube can do, and in the end, it has to be the copyright holder’s responsibility to point out which pieces of content violates their copyright, as only the copyright holders can say for definite if this is the case, unless we want an automated system with a high degree of false positives, which isn’t good for anyone. And Google/YouTube rightly points out that Viacom and other copyright holders sometimes are more than happy to let a piece of content that violates their copyright stay on the network, since the hype and attention it generates outweighs what potential loss that could stem from the copyright infringement.
Copyright holders like Viacom must understand that certain acts of copyright infringement is actually good for them
And just because someone steals your copyrighted content, it doesn’t always mean you lose money. Someone using a copyrighted song in their home video that’s uploaded to YouTube would have otherwise used another song, perhaps a royalty free one, if they were prohibited from using the song, where’s the actual gain or loss for the copyright holder in this situation? Perhaps if there was a system in place where home users could pay a nominal amount, say $10, to use a song in their uploaded video, then the copyright holders could argue that there was an actual loss. But what if the video, with the illegal audio, became a hit and the song, as a result, becomes a hit too. Shouldn’t it work both ways too, that the copyright holder then have to pay the video uploader for their efforts in promoting the song? Or at the very least, allow the video to stay online, regardless of the copyright infringement. And this is why copyright holders should be the one responsible for signalling which content is okay, which isn’t – it’s more work for them, but it’s actually beneficial for them as well. YouTube’s only obligation is perhaps to make this process a bit easier, perhaps automatically help identify a list of potentially infringing videos, but they, like iiNet, should not be held responsible for determining whether an infringement has occurred or not. I know I like my analogies, but it’s like asking the bus driver to be responsible for something stolen on his or her bus, and not only responsible for the loss, but responsible for identifying the stolen object, the rightful owners, and to place guilt on the offender. I know Google are powerful, but legal authority is not something I would want them to have, no matter how easy it makes things for the copyright holders.
Is the FBI prioritizing copyright infringement over missing persons and crimes like identities fraud?
But with the hysteria over Internet piracy, I wouldn’t bet against the government giving Google, and other corporations, just exactly this kind of authority. All’s fair in love and war right? Love for ridiculous copyright legislation in the war against online piracy. The huge lobbying efforts of Hollywood and music labels are paying big dividends, and it seems the political will has translated to actual action, when the FBI is concerned. Citing recent reports which point to cases like missing persons and identity fraud are no longer “priorities” for the FBI, and the recent noises made about special task forces dedicated to fighting the serious crime of movie and music piracy, website techdirt can only surmise that the FBI takes copyright infringement far more seriously than those other crimes. Those that have watched the excellent HBO show, The Wire, will have noted how it identified the quickly shifting focus of the FBI when 9/11 hit, and the War on Drugs was no longer a top priority. Now, I’m not saying that the FBI now takes terrorism less seriously than people downloading a cam copy of Inception (great movie, btw), but it’s certainly possible that things like identity fraud, hacking, and other online crimes are taking a back seat to the Crusade Against Piracy (CRAP, for short). With Vice President Biden pushing for his friends at the RIAA and MPAA, the lobbyist busy in DC, scary stories being told to governments all over the world about the impending collapse of the world as we know it if people download too much, it isn’t too big a leap to come to the conclusion that there must be political pressure on the FBI to take action. And I recently reported on the diabolical plans by the French when it comes to fighting online piracy, basically making computer wire taps legal without seeking a court order (and I did mention the comparison with the reaction to terrorism, and how even during the height of the scare, nothing like this was being proposed seriously), and so nothing is too outrageous any more, now when this thing has morphed into a moral crusade.
Premium cinema experiences, bigger screens, 3D and just better movies, all help to fight piracy more effectively
And all of this when box office receipts from around the world are showing record profits for the film industry. Even here in Australia, where there’s relatively little current government action to curb piracy (current, but of course the Great Internet Filter of Australia proposed by the current government will see things turn nasty in the future, perhaps even more so than the proposed French model), and the courts haven’t given the film industry all they’ve wanted (referring back to the iiNet case), and by all accounts, Internet piracy is up – despite all of this, box office receipts for 2009 have just managed to break all records, and 2010 looks to be even better. So much so that even the traditional “piracy is ruining everything” brigade has to come out and admit that innovation at the cinema seems to be winning against piracy. Whether it’s bigger screens, budget Tuesdays, or 3D, or even just better, bigger films, a pirated video is not a substitute for the cinema experience. Are there people who would rather watch a poorly camcorded recording of a movie on their computer instead of going to a cinema to watch the same film on the big screen with friends? I actually don’t think these are the same set of people. I can understand why people with a quality home cinema set up may forgo going to the movies, price and comfort the key considerations, but people who are happy watching a slanted, cut off, inaudible version of the movie with someone’s head blocking half of the action, to me, just aren’t the kind of people who would pay $15 to watch a movie at the cinema. But I guess it also depends on the movies themselves. ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘Avatar’, ‘Inception’ – most people would gladly pay for the full experience (IMAX, 3D … and even popcorn). For movies like ‘Why Did I Get Married Too’, ‘The Tooth Fairy’ and ‘Furry Vengeance’, well, perhaps piracy is hurting these movies. And maybe that’s just it, that studios are concerned that the Internet makes filtering out bad movies too easily (both at the cinema, and when if gets released on home video), and so making good movies is all the more important these days. Maybe that’s why they hate piracy so much – it means they may actually have to produce better stuff!
In 3D/HD news, for those in Australia that’s still wondering if we really need fast broadband (or just broadband) or not, here’s another application that’s will put further pressure on your bandwidth (or rather, throughput, but also bandwidth too).
Samsung will soon start to stream 3D content to their Internet equipped TVs and Blu-ray players. It will start with trailers, but move onto full movies, and games. 3D videos streams will be around 1.5 times larger in bitrate than their non 3D equivalents, and if we’re talking about Blu-ray 3D, then the peak bitrate is up at a high 60 Mbps. Let’s just for a moment imagine that Blu-ray quality 3D is to be streamed, IPTV style, then the 100 Mbps being offered by Australia’s National Broadband Network is just about enough. The only thing stopping someone from providing Blu-ray (or Blu-ray 3D) on demand right now is the lack of broadband speed, and bandwidth quota, and Australia has a great opportunity to catch up to the other countries that are already offering Gbps connections. We’ll find out this time next week whether the NBN will survive, when national elections will pitch one party that wants fibre to homes (but with the annoying Great Internet Filter of Australia), and another who think 12 Mbps, peak, is already good enough for most (but barely good enough to even stream proper 720p content, let alone 1080p or 3D). Generally speaking, if HD IPTV is to take off, ADSL2+ just won’t cut it, and considering there’s a huge percentage of Australian homes that can’t even get access to ADSL, let alone ADSL2+, money needs to be spent on infrastructure so Australia won’t get left out of the IPTV revolution.
It's official: Star Wars is coming to Blu-ray in 2011
Samsung also introduced a new portable Blu-ray 3D player. It doesn’t actually play 3D on the portable screen, you’ll still need a compatible 3D TV, so it’s not as innovative as it sounds. With the 3DS coming out, I think we’ll soon see portable Blu-ray players with autostereoscopic screens (that’s 3D screens without the need for glasses).
And good news for Star Wars fans, all six Star Wars movies will be available on Blu-ray sometime in 2011, George Lucas made the announcement at Star Wars Celebrations V. Of course, “real” fans will only want the first three, or is that the last three, movies. You know, the ones that didn’t suck. But real fanatics won’t care and will watch all 6 movies in one go while wearing their Jedi robes and swinging their hand built lightsabers. My only wish is that Lucasfilms include the original theatrical versions on the Blu-ray discs too, and pray that George doesn’t tamper with the films too much for yet another release (not much hope of this happening though, not with Star Wars 3D also in the works).
And finally in gaming, the NPD analysis means there’s not much I want to talk about here, except some more Blu-ray news, but this time, it’s got to do with the Wii.
Rumours surrounding the Wii 2 is hotting up, with the latest rumour suggesting that the console’s new 1080p resolution will be coupled with a Blu-ray drive too. But knowing Nintendo, it will probably be the only Blu-ray equipped machine that doesn’t actually play Blu-ray movies, because if the rumours are to be believed, Blu-ray discs are being used for Wii games to help curb piracy. It is true that Blu-ray discs are harder and more expensive to copy, but if the Xbox 720, Wii 2, and PS3/PS4 all use Blu-ray discs, expect burner prices to drop (they’re already not that high), media prices to drop, and piracy to increase. I think Nintendo do need a new console though, since the Wii is looking pretty outdated compared to what the PS3 and Xbox 360 will be offering via Move and Kinect.
And that’s all the news for this week. I won’t promise “more next week”, because chances are, there will be less. Have a good one.