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Archive for September, 2010

Weekly News Roundup (26 September 2010)

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

We’re nearly in the final quarter of the year. 2010 seems to have gone by quickly, hasn’t it? I’ve actually avoided trying to use the “time has gone by quickly hasn’t it” line for most of this year, but since we’re nearly in the final stretch, and I’ve run out of things to say for this intro, so I thought, why not?

Despite my lack of material for the intro, there’s actually quite a bit of news this week, so let’s get started.

We’ll start with what was a very busy week for copyright related news. It seems genuine war has broken out, in cyberspace at least, with 4chan/Anonymous’ cyber attacks continuing against targets of opportunity in Operation Payback.

The Low Orbit Ion Cannon strikes again. And again. And again.

Since the initial attacks on AiPlex (the company that was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back, when they admitted to attacking BitTorrent websites with DDoS attacks) and the MPAA, has since expanded to the RIAA and UK law firm ACS:Law (infamous for being one of the first law firms to take advantage of “suing for pre-trial settlement”). It’s unknown how long Operation Payback will last, and how many other targets are part of the attack (you would think the server admins of the US Copyright Group’s website should be very much on edge at the moment). Now there is the legal issue to consider, in that these DDoS attacks may be breaking laws all over the place. But then as one commentator pointed out, many kinds of protests break laws, but when people are pushed so far, then there will always be some kind of reactions. And besides, AiPlex started it first, many will feel. The fact is that corporations, governments and law firms have colluded with each other to take away our rights and to target all of us and label us all criminals, and so the reactions was always coming. And it appears that the attack isn’t only coming from 4chan’s Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), but that others with access to their own botnets are joining in the attack, and actually contributing more to the attacks than the easily blockable LOIC attacks.

But one unexpected result from Operation Payback came from when ACS:Law relocated their website to a new server to get out from under the attack. The website admins that made the move may have inadvertently left the backup files, used to make the move, on a publicly accessible part of the server, and it wasn’t long before it was downloaded, and distributed, ironically, on the BitTorrent network (first uploaded to The Pirate Bay). Amongst the passwords, source code, were ACS:Law’s email archives, a goldmine of behind of the scenes information on a law firm’s relentless quest to sue downloaders and recoup large amounts of money (and also some personal emails). It has been an absolute disaster for ACS:Law. I haven’t personally gone through all the emails, but this is about the worst thing that could happen for ACS:Law, as all of their dirty little secrets are revealed to the world. From the bragging about just how much money has been made (“May go for a Lambo or Ferrari”, as posted by owner Andrew Crossley when boasting about improved finances), to emails that try to convince copyright holders to sign up by promising big piles of cash at the end of the pre-trial settlement rainbow, to how it is decided when to drop a claim (against 70 year old pensioners) or whether to proceed to the next step (based on “action points”, that chart the progress of a claim). Many websites are still going through the mountain of information and I’m sure more will be uncovered. Website TorrentFreak’s conclusion is that all of the emails seems to be talking about money, none actually about stopping or reducing piracy, and that’s exactly why people take offence at the actions of law firms like ACS:Law and USCG, because for them, this is all about the money. Being a law firm though, I wonder what actions ACS:Law will take to get these very sensitive emails taken down, but so many people have downloaded it now, it will be impossible to stop the spread of information.

I'm still not entirely convinced XXX Copyrights isn't some kind of spoof website

A lot of ACS:Law’s actions were against people downloading pirated porn, like one email which alleged that a married man had downloaded pirated gay porn, which caused untold distress to family members no doubt. The reason these law firms go after these kinds of downloads is because they’re so embarrassing, that nobody wants to fight them, especially in court, although thanks to legal advice freely available online, many are putting up more of a fight than before. In any case, suing for porn still remains more lucrative than suing for mainstream music or movie downloads. And a new firm in the US been created that target only pirated porn. The company, name XXX Copyrights, has already filed 7 lawsuits with more than 5000 individuals probably being named (so far, just John Does). The only thing that surprises me about this development is that it took so long for someone to do exactly this. With the US being such a litigious society, I am actually quite disappointed that this “brilliant” idea originated in Europe. Hang your heads in shame, Ambulance Chasers of America.

But with porn lawsuits proving to be a good earner, Righthaven’s pursuit of penniless bloggers seems all a bit pointless. And it’s proving more difficult than going after music and movie downloaders too, because the bloggers that copy newspaper articles are not doing so for profit or personal gain, and it seems the courts are a little bit more reluctant to provide summary judgements. There’s also the issue, as argued by blogger Jan Klerks, that newspapers encourage its online readers to share and link to the original article, and so there may be an implied license being granted to bloggers who seek to repost the article, but complete with a link back to the original article. Judge Navarro, presiding over the case, seems to agree that at the very least, these are valid arguments that should be examined in a full trial, and Righthaven’s task of extracting pre-trial settlement fees has just gotten a bit harder because of the Judge’s decision.

We’ll come back to the US in a minute, but let’s first cross the Atlantic and to France, Europe, where citizens will soon start to receive the very first strike of their three-strikes. The government agency responsible for handling three-strikes, Hadopi, will soon start sending out the first warning letters, if it hasn’t done so already. We know this because it has already requested subscriber information from several ISPs, and many have already replied. And once the letters go out, and this whole three-strikes business becomes more real to a lot of people, perhaps there will be some kind of change in people’s attitudes towards movie piracy. Or at least that’s what the government hopes will happen. I’m sure it has originally wanted just the threat of three-strikes to be enough to strike enough fear into people to drop the piracy rate, but the rate actually went up after the introduction of the law, as people moved off BitTorrent and onto other sources of pirated content that Hadopi may have difficulty tracking. And I suspect this latest development will just push more people into services that Hadopi can’t get to, and that’s a bad development for those serious about protecting copyright online.

Governments may use the ACTA to shut down websites like Wikileaks

But back to the Americas, this time to Mexico, where a group fighting the controversial ACTA treaty has had a meeting with the Mexican government to talk about the treaty negotiations, a meeting which was attended by the MPAA as well. What was strange though was one question the MPAA put forward, in which they asked whether the ACTA would allow “damaging” websites like Wikileaks to be shut down. It was a strange question, but one can only imagine the MPAA asked it because it has plans to shut down quite a few “damaging” websites, including no doubt The Pirate Bay. If the ACTA actually allows government to silence critical voices like Wikileaks, then I really fear for the future of democracy and free speech, and perhaps again highlights how biased copyright laws have become, that government can use it as an excuse to silence dissent.

But even without the ACTA, the government are doing plenty to help out the MPAA. The new proposed “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act”, introduced in a bi-partisan manner in the US senate, gives law enforcement even more power to combat online piracy. The specifics of the act isn’t important, but it’s just the idea that combating online copyright has now become the responsibility of the Justice Department (aren’t they already quite busy with, like, real crimes and stuff?), as opposed to being the responsibility of copyright holders, turning what is normally a civil matter into a criminal one. It’s basically using tax payer funds to protect the business interests of billion dollar corporations, while disguising the effort as “protecting American jobs”. Every industry provides jobs, even the online piracy industry, so why should music labels and Hollywood get special protection? And before you blame any political party, both of them are quite vocal in their support of these corporations, so we, as the people, as pretty much voiceless. Which is why the Low Orbit Ion Cannon has to do what it has to do …

And more victory for YouTube as it won a case in Spain which mirrors the Viacom judgement handed to them earlier in the year. So copyright holders will have to work a bit harder and actually go after the people who uploaded unauthorised clips, as opposed to the nice, big target of YouTube/Google. Nobody say anti-piracy was easy.

High Definition

Let’s move onto 3D/HD news. The big news for the week was that the PS3 3D Blu-ray firmware has been released, and suddenly, many many more people now have a Blu-ray player capable of playing 3D movies, if and when they are ever released en mass.

So how does the PS3 perform as a 3D Blu-ray player? It does pretty well, but there are some limitations. The biggest one is that you won’t be able to play a 3D Blu-ray movie and also output Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD-MA audio in bitstream mode. The reason is that because the PS3’s HDMI port is not version 1.4, it has to do some software trickery to enabled the output of frame packed 3D content, and this trickery basically means bitstreaming is out. Of course, those with PS3 Fats, like me, don’t have bitstreaming anyway, so nothing lost there. But apparently, the silver lining in this means 3D can work through HDMI 1.3 equipment, such as HDMI splitters and receivers, but I can’t confirm or deny whether this is the case or not.

The other limitation is that when you press the “triangle” button to bring up the PS3 playback options, 3D is disabled/flattened. Standalone 3D Blu-ray players don’t suffer from this, and their overlay menus are sometimes in 3D as well. It’s kind of annoying, but just how many times do people bring up the playback options during playback is debatable.

Otherwise, 3D Blu-ray output is as good as any standalone 3D Blu-ray player, and response times as as quick as ever on the PS3, and I never believed those stories which said the PS3’s powerful cell processor couldn’t handle 3D Blu-ray (and yet the low powered standalones could?).

The PS3 3.50 firmware disables support for unlicensed, third party controllers

But 3.50 is apparently more than just about 3D Blu-ray, but not in a good way. The firmware update disables the majority of third party, unauthorized controllers and USB devices, and apparently introduces a few issues with playing back non 3D Blu-ray titles such as Sunshine.

Not much happening in gaming this week, so I’ll skip it. Although I will mention Sony’s attack on Microsoft for having only one genre of exclusive games, most likely a dig at yet another hit on the Xbox 360, Halo Reach, being yet another shooter. But I think Microsoft will probably be the first to agree with Sony’s assessment, since they’re trying to expand their range of experiences with games like Alan Wake, and of course, the whole Kinect platform. Meanwhile, Sony is spending a lot of efforts promoting the Move as a great way to play, you guessed it, shooters.

In any case, Halo Reach will ensure Microsoft wins September again as the most popular console (in the US at least), taking a lot of thunder away from the launch of Move. And this is before Kinect is even close to release, in early November. Although some of the claims being made by Microsoft (and its employees), such as comparing Kinect to the iPad or pulling a random large number out of the air when talking about potential sales, are a bit over the top, if not downright strange.

Anyhoo, that’s the week. Have a good one, and watch out of the LOIC.

Posted in 3D, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (26 September 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (19 September 2010)

Sunday, September 19th, 2010

And so another week is upon us. Not much news this week though, but there was one big breaking story, which we’ll get to soon enough. The PlayStation Move has been released since I last posted, and there’s a bit more on that in the gaming section, although I do plan on writing a short little comparison between the Move and Kinect, or rather, why a direct comparison between the two motion gaming accessories is a bit silly, and that one doesn’t necessarily have to lose in order for the other to win (unfortunately, the Wii loses in either scenario).

In copyright news, the big news of the week I alluded to earlier is that HDCP, the copy protection scheme we’ve all learned to love, is dead.

HDCP, as found in the HDMI standard, is cracked

It was short lived, we hardly knew thee, but HDCP copy protection has been cracked, with the master key posted on Twitter of all places. People at first were sceptical, but a few days later, we had confirmation from Intel, the company that developed HDCP, that, yes, the posted key was in fact the legitimate master key. So what does the master key do? Well, it the way HDCP works, it allows legitimate source keys (keys for things like Blu-ray players) and sink keys (keys for receiving devices, mainly TVs and monitors) to be generated, and therefore it means that there is no way now to tell the difference between authorised devices, and unauthorised ones, thus killing HDCP as a viable DRM scheme. Well some articles screamed that “Blu-ray copy protection has been killed”, it isn’t quite that simple. Yes, Blu-ray players rely on HDMI and therefore HDCP copy protection, but the disc itself is still protected by several other layers of DRM, including AACS. However, it will now be possible to intercept the HDMI output and get access to the raw digital stream to make copies of the movie, although that will require a bit of hardware ingenuity, although something could be done in software too. Those around when DVD ripping first came onto the scene will remember Power Ripper, the tool that used PowerDVD’s screen capture tool to rip DVDs, frame by frame. Since then, many DRM schemes have protected this sort of ripping by disabling screen capture or encrypting the path from software to screen. But with HDCP out of the way, this kind of ripping may be possible again (and this time, since HDMI carries audio too, the whole stream can be riped). Of course the question is why would anyone want to do this when there are much easier ways to rip Blu-ray movies? But there are also other applications other than ripping, such as allowing movies to still be played via HDMI even when the TV’s HDCP chip has died.

But the most important aspect of this leak of the master key is that it confirms once again relying on technical measures to prevent piracy is an extremely naive strategy. There are people that crack HDCP for fun, and it doesn’t matter if it takes a month, or 5 years, they have the time! Now, Intel has hinted that since the technical protection is all but gone, they may rely on legal protection to keep HDCP viable. After all, it’s worked for DVD’s CSS, which has been cracked since 1999 and yet it’s still widely in use today, largely thanks to the legal protection it, and any DRM scheme (no matter how weak), offers (thanks to the DMCA). But even legal protection won’t stop people doing things that annoys rightsholders, once the technical barriers have been removed. So HDCP will still be around, and all your TVs and Blu-ray players will use it, but once again, you have to ask, what’s the point? Having some crappy DRM in there makes lawsuits simpler, but copyright infringement is copyright infringement, it doesn’t really matter to the court if DRM has been broken once, a hundred times, or that DRM didn’t exist at all. And when the DRM negatively impacts on legitimate customer’s user experience, then one should wonder if this is a fair deal, that legitimate customers have to pay dearly just to give rightsholders a false sense of security (but I guess a false sense of it is better than nothing, which is why companies are still paying a lot of money to license DVD’s CSS).

Technical, legal ways to fight piracy has obviously failed, and continues to demonstrate how it fails every single day, whether it’s HDCP, or France’s Three-Strikes, or multi-million dollar settlements being thrown out of court for being unconstitutional. The common sense approach would then to be to find another way to fight piracy, perhaps a way where rightsholders can get loyal customers to join their battle, no, not by paying out rewards for dobbing your friends and family, but by making sure that paying customers want to stay paying customers because they are treated right. So right that even those that aren’t paying would start to envy those that are paying, and would do so if they could afford it. Whether this means making the whole experience so much easier than going out and obtaining the pirated version, or if it means more exclusive content and experiences that cannot be pirated, or even just making the price so reasonable that, it makes it not worthwhile to pursue pirated content. I firmly believe such a solution is possible, and in the end, everyone will benefit.

4chan DDoS attacks AiPlex and the MPAA, giving (AiPlex at least) a taste of their own medicine

Or you can just launch DDoS attacks on BitTorrent websites. But if you use less than ethical and possibly illegal tactics, then don’t be surprised if the response is of a similar nature. Last week, I mentioned the story of an Indian based anti-piracy firm, AiPlex, who appeared to have owned up to launching DDoS attacks on BitTorrent website. So this week, a group from 4chan, called Anonymous, have decided that the right response is to DDoS AiPlex’s website. And attack they did, bringing the entire website down for hours. And not only that, they decided to attack the MPAA website too, also bringing it down for several hours. Both websites appear to be back up again this afternoon, after having changed IP addresses, but it’s unknown at this point if the attacks will continue (both sites appear to be slowing down again, which could signal the start of a new attack, or just that I have a crappy Internet connection). Now, I don’t think many people will condone DDoS and similar attacks, but that’s exactly why people were shocked to discover that AiPlex had resorted to such actions in the first place.

Over to the UK, Internet users over there will soon have to pay to be spied on by their ISPs, so the profits of record companies and other rightsholders can be protected. The government has announced that ISPs will have to foot 25% of the cost of anti-piracy operations, with the rest of the 75% being the rightsholder’s responsibility. You would think that rightsholders, you know the multi-billion dollar music and movie industries, would be happy with this arrangement, but they’re not. They had wanted ISPs to foot all of the bill, to even pay for the investigation part of the operation, and so wanted to contribute nothing in order to gain all the benefits. I should be surprised, but I’m not, because these are industries that are out there blaming everyone else for problems of their own creation (by that I mean not moving quickly enough to satisfy user needs, so the users found something better, cheaper).

High Definition

Let’s move onto 3D/HD news. The good news is that the PS3 should be able to play 3D Blu-ray movies by this time next week, as apparently the “delayed” 3D Blu-ray firmware is now going to launch on time, on September 21st.

There’s very little detail about the exact implementation, so there’s all sorts of rumours on 3D Blu-ray being a bit more limited on the PS3 than compared to dedicated 3D Blu-ray players. One of the rumours suggest that when 3D is being played, BD-J/Java based menus can’t work at the same time. I find this highly unlikely though, since the PS3 has to still be the most powerful Blu-ray player out there (how many other Blu-ray players can do 1080p 3D rendering?). Another earlier rumour suggests that due to the older version HDMI on the PS3, especially the fat one, that 3D Blu-ray will not be full 1080p. This sounds more likely, but I think Sony has already refuted this suggestion. Anyway, we’ll know more in a few day’s time.

But while the update means the number of 3D Blu-ray players around the world has just jumped up quite a bit instantly, the number of 3D Blu-ray movies, on the other hand, is still barely above double digits. One problem many have noticed is that most of the movies released are tied to hardware, usually 3D TVs, and most are not available for general sale. Sometimes like 60% of the movies released or announced for release so far are this types of exclusives, including the big one, Avatar. And some say this will kill off the 3D Blu-ray format before it begins. I’m not sure I agree. Yes, the exclusive releases are an annoyance, it means many 3D Blu-ray owners, like myself, have access to a very limited number of movies (for me, I only have just the one). However, this is just the effect of the hardware-before-content model that 3D Blu-ray has adopted. And this causes the lack of content means manufacturers are even more protective of whatever content they can get their hands on, so they can make it an exclusive and sell more TVs. The alternative is to have content-before-hardware, but producing a 3D Blu-ray movie is quite costly possibly, as opposed to adding 3D to TVs, which isn’t costing manufacturers much at all (and in fact, they’re making more per TV because of the premium attached to 3D sets). In any case, Warner has just announced they will release 6 more 3D Blu-ray movies to general release for this holidays, including the “faux 3D” Clash of the Titans. Sony have also announced Open Season on 3D Blu-ray as well. But all eyes are on when Avatar is going to get a general release on 3D Blu-ray, and that will be the title to take the format to mainstream, I think.

And finally in gaming, the PlayStation Move is out and I thought I should briefly talk about it. Most people are wondering if Move will beat Kinect or the opposite, but really, the battle people should be looking at is whether Move can hurt the Wii, and I think it will.

One annoying thing about still using motion controllers is all the accessories you need to buy for it, no matter how cool they look

The similarities between the Move and the Wii makes the Move both harder to market, and easier. Easier because people already know what it’s all about, harder because many thinks it’s just a Wii clone. However, those that have played it (not me though) will almost always say one things: it’s very very accurate. That doesn’t sound as sexy as Kinect’s “look Ma, no controllers” advantage, but super accuracy can give motion gaming a whole new dimension. For traditional gaming, accuracy already makes a huge difference (think controller versus keyboard/mouse for FPS games). With motion gaming, accuracy will draw users more into the action, without them wondering why their real world movement of the controller isn’t being translated into the virtual world. And accuracy means the Move controller can be used for games that are more simulations than just random waving of the wand. And of course, accuracy makes for better player, and allows for more complicated games that require more intricate movement. Now whether this makes for better games, I’m not totally convinced yet, but the potential is there. And by being similar the Wii, but better, the Move positions itself as a potential Wii killer.

Kinect is a totally different animal. It’s a lot riskier, but if it succeeds, then Microsoft will have a truly unique product that offers something completely different to the Wii and Move. And this difference could either make or break Kinect, but I’m already seeing lots of signs where people generally tend to think of Kinect are more innovative, more fun, and these are two very critical factors in determining what’s the must have item for this holiday season. And not having to buy controllers, and the endless list of accessories for them (from steering wheels, to guns, to tennis racquets …), might be a plus for some.

And as I mentioned before, I might just write a blog comparing the two new motion control systems, and also whether the Wii is doomed.

But that’s the news for this week. A bad week for DRM, which in my book, means a good week. I wonder which DRM will get broken next week!

Posted in 3D, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 2 Comments »

Weekly News Roundup (12 September 2010)

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

I posted the August US video games sales analysis yesterday here. Nothing too surprising, but we’re getting into exciting territory now (if, one can be excited about video game sales stats, that is), what with the Move and Kinect on the way. Many have already expressed their opinion that the Wii is doomed, but rather than looking at it at a glass is half empty perspective, I think the Wii has done extremely well given what it offers. It was never going to last as long as the Xbox 360 or PS3, due to the use of old tech in the console. And the fact that its core audience are casual gamers, and casual by definition means these are not the type of users to buy a lot of games frequently.

Let’s start with copyright news. Sometimes there is such a things as saying too much, and an anti-piracy firm based in India may have just admitted to too much in their pursuit of copyright infringing websites.

The managing director of AiPlex, Girish Kumar, has admitted that apart from requesting web hosts to shut down websites that are hosting or providing links to copyrighted material, they have even gone as far as to trying to “attack the site and destroy the data”. This could either mean actual server hacking, although it seems more likely to be describing an attack based on denial of service. Regardless, both acts are illegal in most countries (or at least frowned upon), and so using an illegal technique to pursue anti-piracy goals seems to be a bit over the top. Although if you consider that the likes of the MPAA and RIAA are willing to forgo even the basic tenets of democracy and rights to privacy, then a little hacking or DoS doesn’t sound too bad at all. While DoS isn’t a popular anti-piracy method, but anti-piracy companies have tried various similar techniques to make Torrent downloading a harder task. These includes uploading fake torrents, uploading invalid pieces to increase the number of errors, and massive leech based attacks, denying downloaders from connecting to seeds. As far as I know, these kinds of “attacks” are not illegal, although their effectiveness is highly questionable.

Sharron Angle sued by Righthaven for reprinting a newspaper article without permission

An update on the newspaper copyright trolling news last week, it appears that a Nevada Republican Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, has become Righthaven’s latest victim, being sued for up to $150,000 for allegedly copying/pasting a newspaper article. It will be interesting to see what happens, whether the settlement fee is paid up promptly, and whether this has any impact, positive or negative, on the actual election campaign. It was always a matter of time before someone prominent was sued by one of the copyright trolls, and it just made things a little bit more interesting. And if it was downloading one of the porn torrents I mentioned in the last WNR, then expect the fireworks to fly. On a side note, if I was running against Angle, I would use the slogan “Sharron Angle, She’s no Angel”. You see, that’s funny because people often misspell both words, and not a reflection or opinion on her actual character by this blog, since I have no idea who she is.

But one issue that has been raised before is whether an IP address is considered to be private data or not. If it is considered to be private data, then monitoring and storing it could in fact breach privacy laws in many regions. And one country seems to be moving in this direction, as a recent court case in Switzerland has pretty much made copyright trolling illegal. A government agency there actually took an anti-piracy investigation firm to court and won the case that basically confirmed that IP addresses are in fact private. Already, some are saying this ruling is a mistake which may turn Switzerland into a safe haven for copyright infringers. I like to think of IP addresses as akin to phone numbers (those with static IP addresses in particular, but those with dynamic ones, then it’s more like having a different pre-paid number every so often). Just like a phone number, an IP address is required to establish communications, and because of this, it means it has to be given out to other parties. But just because it can be seen publicly, like say in a phone book for phone numbers, doesn’t mean that it isn’t personal, private data. You can’t sell a list of my phone numbers for money without my permission, for example, and I think the same should apply to IP addresses. The fact that these companies are making money collecting other people’s IP address suggest there needs to be more protection on Internet addressing. Certainly, just like it was argued in the Swiss case, IP addresses should not be used so negligently in civil cases – criminal cases would be another matter, of course. Hopefully, other countries will follow suit, but somehow I doubt this will happen …

And this is also why making ISP liable for their subscribers potentially illegal activities is just so wrong. Of course, the powers that be aren’t asking ISPs to be liable for all crimes, just copyright infringement, which seems strange to me. Why would the ISP be more liable if one of their subscribers downloaded the movie Inception, then say if another user used their Internet connection to send spam or commit Internet fraud? Either they’re liable for everything, or they’re not liable for anything that their subscribers do. One of the more controversial points of the ACTA is the request for member nations to implement new laws designed to add liability for ISPs, but it seems that this provision is no more. So instead of forcing every country that is a signatory to the treaty to make their ISPs liable, the requirements will now most likely be much more vague, although many countries are still very keen to adopt similar legislation to France’s Three Strikes, for example. And again, I have to ask, why is copyright infringement so special that it requires special laws to overrule long standing privacy laws and practices, and to force liability onto ISPs, when other more or less serious “crimes” are not getting the same attention? I haven’t heard one argument that explains this, other than the fact that copyright infringement is far too common and so it needs something special. But I would argue that spam, spreading malware, hacking, DoS, fraud, identity fraud, Internet bullying and the myriad of other crimes that can be committed via an Internet connection all deserve more attention than helping the movie and music industry make more money. Spam and spam related fraud, for example, takes billions out of the economy each year, and yet, we see very little action (comparatively) from government agencies and industry bodies in combating this rather serious problem. Is this because the anti-spam lobby isn’t as rich or powerful as the anti-piracy lobby?

Steam offers cheaper games via sales, and the frequency of sales suggest it's a strategy that's working

And all this misplaced attention on anti-piracy all assumes that piracy is actually hurting the economy badly, but you look the record profits that Hollywood studios and music labels are bringing in, and you wonder is this really the case? Is piracy really that bad? Well, for video games at least, an industry experts says that piracy isn’t so bad after all. Scott Steinberg, head of technology and video game consulting firm TechSavvy Global, says that piracy can actually help the video game industry. Or more precisely, the industry can use what makes piracy so popular to their advantage, as opposed to continuing the “arms race” against piracy websites and groups, a race in which the industry is losing badly, or using the legal system (and politically lobbying) to stop piracy. Instead, Steinberg argues that by making games cheaper, or even free, and charging small amounts for add-on content, may just be the way, pointing to free social network games such as Facebook’s FarmVille (which is free to play, but extra items can be purchased to enhance the gaming experience). This isn’t actually a new strategy, or one that hasn’t been tried – it has been deployed in practice and the results are usually quite good. For example, Steam are now offering discount games (or even free ones, like Portal a couple of months ago) much more often than before, and I suspect that’s because it’s making them much more money than charging full price for games. Of course, hit games like Starcraft II will always sell well, and a high price is sometimes justified, even though it will lead to more piracy. But I think a balance can be achieved, where you can minimize piracy by reducing the price, but not so much that it becomes unprofitable – if the balance is right, I think publishers can look forward to short term increases in revenue and bigger long term benefits such as purchasable add-on content, sequels, paid online services. The alternative is to take the short-sighted approach and continue charging $50+ for games, and then complain about why gamers aren’t buying all the numerous good games that come out every year.

High Definition

In 3D/HD news, what if there was a way to get Blu-ray movies to play on the iPad, or even the iPhone?

VLC for the iOS is coming soon, but don't expect full HD clips to play well on the iPad

Sounds too good to be true? Then perhaps it might just be. The upcoming VLC player for iOS promises to support HD MKV files, which for those with the skills, means they can rip their Blu-ray movies and get it to play on the iOS. But play it might, just don’t expect to be at full frames, or anything approaching semi-playable if this video demo is any clue. Without some sort of optimization and acceleration support, it’s just expecting too much of the 1 GHz processor in the iPad, remembering that even a P4 3.2 GHz processor struggles to play Blu-ray movies at more than 15 FPS without help from a GPU that supports AVC/VC-1 video decoding.

So the dream of being able to use your iPad for 1080p HD movies remains just that … a dream. For now.

But that HD MKV file may not play on the iPad, it may very well play on your TV. Many TVs already support the decoding of HD MKV files. Then there are HD streams on the Internet too, and these will be much easier to access thanks to Google TV, which is coming to a TV near you this Christmas. It’s hard to describe exactly what Google TV brings to your TV, but just have a look at the video I posted here, and it will give you a fair idea of what to expect. I’m not sure browsing the web on your TV is going to be great experience, without a keyboard and mouse that is, which is why most Internet TVs have offered only “closed” Internet, just apps that have been custom designed to make using them easier with the TV remote. But with Google TV, perhaps it will be incentive for websites like Facebook and YouTube to offer a version made specially for TV/remote navigation (if they haven’t done so already, in the case of YouTube XL).

And finally in gaming, the PS3 has just had a new firmware out, and the changelog lists “additional security features” as pretty much the only change.

So I’m just going to take a wild stab here and say that it had something to do with the PS Jailbreak device. And guess what, the PS Jailbreak device certainly no longer works after installing firmware 3.42.

But for those that avoided the update, then there will apparently be a new updated version of the Backup Manager. It promises support for future firmware updates (I gather this means that someone will go about hacking 3.42 or later to ensure that the exploit is still there, and that online services are still working). The update also promises native MKV playback, a much missed feature of the PS3, and even bringing back PS2 emulation. So it’s clear that the PS Jailbreak device will be more than just about piracy in the future.

And that’s all the news I have for you this week. Have a good one.

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (12 September 2010)

Game Consoles – August 2010 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

Saturday, September 11th, 2010

It’s August already, and we’re quickly approaching the holiday season. This holiday season is even more interesting because we have new motion gaming accessories from both Sony and Microsoft, both wanting to challenge Nintendo’s dominance in the casual gaming market. With the PlayStation Move being released in September, and Kinect in November, the months before is all about building enough momentum and hoping that the new accessories help one console get over the line, in terms of being the most popular console during the holiday season. And unlike last year, there are no signs pointing to a clear winner for this holiday season – any of the home consoles can win it – so it’s even more important to have a good August and September to lead up to the crucial October, November and December months. The figures are from NPD, a marketing research firm that releases games console sale data every month.

The figures for US sales in August 2010 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (August 2009 figures also shown, including percentage change):

Xbox 360: 356,700 (Total: 21.4 million; August 2009: 215,400 – up 66%)
DS: 342,700 (Total: 43.3 million; August 2009: 552,900 – down 38%)
Wii: 244,300 (Total: 30.1 million; August 2009: 277,400 – down 12%)
PS3: 226,000 (Total: 13.2 million; August 2009: 210,000 – up 8%)
PSP: 79,400 (Total: 17.5 million; August 2009: 140,300 – down 43%)

NPD August 2010 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of August 2010)

My prediction from last month was:

Looking at the Amazon charts, the new Xbox 360 4GB isn’t actually doing fantastically, and it’s being outsold by the 250GB. So while most people are predicting that it would be another month where the Xbox 360 rules, I’m not as certain. I think sales will do well, but it might be the case of things being very close, with the new 4GB probably just allowing the Xbox 360 to sneak to top spot. In games, NCAA Football is usually followed by Madden NFL, the 11th version, and that will always do well. But otherwise, it’s another slow month before the busy holiday period begins, so the top 10 should look pretty familiar.

Well, it was pretty close at the top, but the Xbox 360 still managed to beat the DS by 14,000 units, even as it recorded a month to month drop. And the top two were Madden NFL titles, but that wasn’t hard to predict (although there were some surprises here too, more on that later). And I was right too about it being another slow month, as sales dropped compared to July.

As mentioned above, the Xbox 360 was the most popular console for August, that’s two months in a row, and only the Wii or the DS has ever managed to do this. The new 4GB didn’t help the Xbox 360 record growth compared to July, but it did help to secure first spot. One should not underestimate the importance of these last two month’s victories for the Xbox 360, and of course the new form factor for the Xbox 360, which has finally allowed it to become as “sexy” an item as the PS3, possibly more so depending on who you ask. Plus the increased stability finally allowed Microsoft to put the whole RRoD business behind them. And all in time for Kinect too!

Last month, I mentioned that this month would be important for the PS3. For the first time, we can have a year on year comparison that compared the PS3 Slim to the PS3 Slim (and to the post price-cut PS3 sales figures). Of course, the Slim and price cut was launched in the middle for August last year, so we will have an even better comparison next month. But looking at the PS3 figures, while it still managed a year-on-year growth, but it was only 8%, compare and contrast to the 76% last month. And this could very well mean that PS3 sales would actually drop, year-on-year, next month, although that depends on whether the PS Move shifts any consoles along with it or not (bundles and otherwise). But a drop is not necessarily a bad result, it just means that it’s unfair to compare the post Slim/price cut bump to what is now a normal level of sale for the console. Just like it would be silly to compared Xbox 360 sales 0f July 2011 with July 2010, due to the post Xbox 360 “Slim” sales bump. And the PS3 was the only console to manage a month to month growth in August, I guess largely thanks to the stock issue finally clearing up completely, so thing are still looking good for the console (and even better overseas, but that’s beyond the scope of this analysis). The less said about the PSP the better.

For Nintendo though, the news remains bad. The Wii is very close to dropping to the third most popular home console (that’s last place, btw), and DS sale has started to drop, perhaps reaching market saturation (although the 3DS will help, a lot, and its only competitor is the PSP, which is doing quite awfully). But with both Microsoft and Sony bringing out their motion gaming devices, it’s not looking good for Nintendo. The low tech nature of the console, which made it an affordable, profit making piece of hardware, and was largely fine for casual games, may finally have caught up with the console – so expect the Wii 2 sooner than later, as the Wii just doesn’t have the longevity of the other two home consoles. And regardless of which camp you’re in, whether you think Kinect will win, or the Move will, what is clear is that both seem better pieces of tech than the Wii. Whether their games will be as good as the best Wii games, remains to be seen, but you can’t argue that both are innovative enough (Kinect with the controller-less interface, Move with its super accuracy) to cause Nintendo concerns, at the very least.

Onto software now. As expected the Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Madden NFL 11 were the top selling titles, in the described order. What some commentators concentrated on was the surprising lack of a gap between the sales figures of the two versions, despite the advantage in hardware units the Xbox 360 enjoys (1.6:1). The actual software advantage was only 1.235:1. But this is actually up on last year’s 1.231:1 ratio. Another multi-platform release was Mafia II, and again the Xbox 360 version outsold the PS3 version, but by how much, we don’t really know because NPD no longer provides sales stats for anything other than the top 5 titles (Mafia II for the PS3 was 7th). Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii was third, and fifth place was occupied by another Super Mario game, New Super Mario Bros. for the DS. The Wii version of New Super Mario Bros. was also in the top 10, with Wii Fit Plus making a return too. For the Xbox 360, Modern Warfare 2 stayed in the top 10 (related to the upcoming Black Ops game, perhaps), and last month’s top title, NCAA Football 11 also remained in the top 10.

Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

Madden NFL 11 (Xbox 360, EA) – 368,000
Madden NFL 11 (PS3, EA) – 298,000
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii, Nintendo) – 193,000
Mafia II (Xbox 360, Take 2) – 121,600
New Super Mario Bros. DS (DS, Nintendo) – 141,700
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii, Nintendo)
Mafia II (PS3, Take 2)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360, Activision)
NCAA Football 11 (Xbox 360, EA)
Wii Fit Plus w/Balance Board (Wii, Nintendo)

Prediction time. September = Halo Reach. That’s what next month will be all about. The fact is that, as I type, the top four items in Amazon’s Video Games section are all Halo Reach related (standard, limited, legendary editions, plus the 360 Halo Reach console bundle), just shows how dominant it will be in September’s figures. So expect the Xbox 360 to remain on the top of the console pile hardware wise too, and possibly the best month since, well, the last Halo release. Halo Reach will overshadow Sony’s launch of the Move unfortunately, although it’s doing well to just hang in around 10th, or just outside of it. The Sports Champions bundle should be counted in the software charts (in the same way Wii Fit Plus is in there), so it should be in the top 10 (especially when the top 3 will be condensed into a single entry for Halo Reach). It will be a very interesting month, I feel.

See you next month.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 3 Comments »

Weekly News Roundup (5 September 2010)

Sunday, September 5th, 2010

Good news everyone! Another edition of the WNR is ready, for you to enjoy. Actually, since I write the intro first, the WNR isn’t ready at the exact time I’m writing this. And I’m not sure why I started with a Futurama inspired phrase, except perhaps for the fact that I’ve been watching Futurama lately. I kind of feel cheated having previously purchased the *entire* Futurama series on DVD, only for the show to be revived. Let’s just hope they don’t revive Arrested Development as well, to ruin my *complete* collection. It’s pretty news lite this week, but it won’t mean I will write less crap. You’ve been warned!

Let’s start with copyright news, like I always have with the 150+ WNRs I’ve done so far. Copyright trolling is a relatively new term that’s been coined to describe the act of suing for copyright for profit, much like how patent trolls secure patents with no product, in the hope of one day profiting.

The latest trend in copyright trolling is in the dying newspaper business, and I’ve reported on the sue-for-settlement activities conducted by Righthaven for Stephens Media, owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal amongst other papers. But it looks like another newspaper chain has signed up, with Arkansas based WEHCO Media also joining the trolling activities. These cases usually involve suing blogs and aggregators for posting full versions of articles published by the newspaper chains. Now some will argue that there’s nothing wrong with this, and as someone who has had their articles copy/pasted without permission many times, I kind of agree. But as someone who also runs websites that contain user generated content, it’s hard to ensure your users don’t also break the rules by copying/pasting articles. The DMCA safe harbor provisions should protect website owners in these kind of situations, as long as they have clear, enforceable rules in regards to copyright, but it appears the DMCA is not offering protection to those being sued, unless they go to court to claim safe harbor, as their own expense. And while I agree that it’s important to protect copyright, the attempt at monetization here seems a bit too obvious – it’s almost as if this has become a new source of income for the struggling newspaper industry. This blog isn’t well suited to discuss how to save the newspaper business, but with the iPad and similar devices, there does exist a small window of opportunity for innovation. If newspapers can deliver an unique product for devices like the iPad, based on a paid subscription service, then there is potential there. Not trying to do their work for them, not that I have the ability anyway, but perhaps by making news more interactive, with real feedback (polls, text/video comments, user video updates), by providing more in depth coverage, more multimedia coverage – they’re all directions to look at. It’s certainly a better long term solution than copyright trolling.

The US Copyright Group is scoping for more potential targets in their Hurt Locker lawsuits

And an update on the other infamous copyright troll, the US Copyright Group are moving ahead with their The Hurt Locker cases, with the first users receiving notices via their ISP after the USCG’s subpoena request to ISP Qwest. So for those hoping the USCG would quit after finding more resistance than first expected will be disappointed. What I fear, and I’ve covered this before, is that copyright trolling will be used as an excuse to bring in even harsher copyright laws. After all, three-strikes is better than the one-strike system that copyright trolls are relying on, right? This has already happened over in the UK, after all. And just like overseas, taking the same approach and suing for downloading pirated porn has arrived, and it is expected to bring in an even higher ROI. I mean when accused with downloading a movie called “Shemales From Hell”, even if you knew you didn’t download this file, would you dare to challenge this in court? Of course not, and people will pay up almost every time, and that’s exactly what the law firms are counting on. Is it legal blackmail? Does it sound like a scam? But it is legal, and expect more firms to take up this potential lucrative practice.

Speaking of scams, if I told you I could offer you free unlimited music download from all the major labels for only $25 per month, and since this is a new service, I’m waiving the $25 per month fee for a limited time, and all I need is your credit card number, then would you trust me? I know I wouldn’t trust myself, thanks largely to the Scrooge like pricing strategy of the major labels, ironically. It just sounds to good to be true, and so it probably isn’t true. So beware of sites offering too good to be true offers, because they may be offering illegal services, or worse, offering no services at all.

High Definition

Moving on quickly to HD/3D news, there are a couple of important announcements regarding Blu-ray 3D. But before we get to that, why did the Blu-ray people decide to call this thing “Blu-ray 3D” and not “3D Blu-ray”? Should it be at least “Blu-ray: 3D” or “Blu-ray in 3D”.

Avatar 3D on Blu-ray, but only for Panasonic 3D TV buyers

Anyway, the first announcement is that Avatar will be released on “3D Blu-ray” in December. But only to those with Panasonic 3D TVs. It’s a shame such a high profile title is being released as a manufacturer exclusive title, but with the close links between Panasonic and the movie, this was never a big surprise. The details are still not available, so we don’t even know if the title will be free for all buyers of Panasonic 3D TV’s, or only offered to those that buy a TV during the promotional period. Those who can’t wait and don’t have Panasonic equipment, then eBay may be your friend. Otherwise, expect the general release 3D Blu-ray version of Avatar sometime in early 2011, maybe in April, exactly a year after the 2D Blu-ray release. Or sooner.

The second announcement is that the eagerly awaited 3D Blu-ray firmware update for the PS3 won’t be coming this month as promised earlier, but should still be here before the end of next month. This is kind of a big deal for 3D Blu-ray, because it would at least guarantee that there will now be millions of 3D capable Blu-ray players in people’s homes, and that may help people make up their minds when buying their next TV (whether it should be a 2D only or 3D). But it would be a bigger deal if more movies are made available on 3D Blu-ray, because the current selection is pretty thin.

Cloud storage for music and movies come to the mainstream via the new Apple TV

Apple announced new iPods recently, but buried amongst the announcements was a new updated Apple TV. Dubbed Apple’s pet project, the Apple TV has not received the same amount of attention and marketing as their other devices. But the new Apple TV is slightly controversial, as Apple is asking people to change the way they enjoy movies and TV shows this time – by renting, and not buying. Apple plans to do this via the cloud, which is just a fancy way of saying that everything is online, and nothing gets downloaded. But I have serious doubts about such a service taking off because of a few fundamental issues. One, people still like to buy movies and TV shows, as people do re-watch their favourite movies or TV shows, and most don’t want to pay every time they do it. Two, not everyone has an Internet connection capable of streaming the HD video that Apple is promising, not without some buffering, which then becomes just downloading (so not very “cloudy” at all). And three, Apple’s argument that people don’t want to manage large video and music collections simply doesn’t stack up, to me at least, because people do that all the time. And unless Apple offers the ability to store our own sourced content in the cloud (whether it’s ripped from CDs, or purchased from other stores), then there will still be the need to manage a file collection of some sort. But as long as you only use Apple products and services, you’ll be fine, and that’s what Apple is counting on, I suppose – interoperability can take a back seat.

But the biggest problem I have with this approach is still number one, the fact that you can’t buy movies. Just because content is stored in the cloud, doesn’t mean you can’t buy them. The only difference is that with purchased content, you don’t have to pay every time you access it in the cloud, but by providing such a service, Apple would have to charge more per music/movie file made available for purchase on the cloud, compared to a download purchase. And when faced with the choice, people may still just go for the cheaper download and choose to invest a bit more time managing their own file collection locally (or via a third party cloud hosting service). And that’s not what Apple wants.

So cloud storage is great, but as long as the fundamental problems gets solved first, specifically people’s average Internet connection speeds, DRM/interoperability, and please please allow people to purchase stuff.

And finally in gaming, more news on the PS Jailbreak device, which last week say legal action in the Australian courts which led to a ban on the device.

This week though featured news that Sony won’t have liked, in that someone has managed to extract the software from the PS Jailbreak device and have made it open source. Dubbed PSGroove, the open source version won’t allow pirated games to be played to avoid too much legal trouble (although there will still be plenty of trouble, I can guarantee it), but it does allow unsigned code to run on the PS3, in other words, homebrew! The PS Jailbreak exploit is based on tricking the PS3 into thinking that it’s a USB hub of some kind, and an overflow exploit to inject code to make it all work. The nature of this exploit means that it’s easy (but not trivial) to build your own USB device, or even use your existing USB device to do it (like smartphones, for example). But what is trivial perhaps is Sony’s “fix” for this exploit, so this exploit is unlikely to work on firmware beyond version 3.41.

And so we come to the end of another issue of the WNR. Hope you enjoyed this edition as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Except I didn’t enjoy writing it 🙂

See you next week.

Posted in 3D, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (5 September 2010)

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Archive for September, 2010

Weekly News Roundup (26 September 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (19 September 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (12 September 2010)

Game Consoles – August 2010 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

Weekly News Roundup (5 September 2010)

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