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CBC to release a TV series via BitTorrent
As previously predicted and then reiterated last week another public television network has started to dabble in DRM-free BitTorrent distribution. (yeah!) According to Michael Geist the CBC is going to use bittorrent to distribute the program "Canada's Next Great Prime Minister" which airs this Sunday the 23rd. This is not quite as adventureous as Norwegian Public Broadcasting's first try, but it's a good start.Pardon me I spoke to soon. Upon reading up on the CBC's "Next Prime Minister" show, I see now it's an ambitious ongoing show, not just a single special as I had prematurely assumed. This release of an ongoing show is a very ambitious start for the CBC as it will give viewers a chance to establish regular viewing habits week after week. By the end of the series the CBC should have a really good idea if they can establish a regular audience for Internet based TV viewing. While I haven't heard of anything from the Participatory Culture Foundation I certainly hope the two are working on a specialized distribution of the Miro open source TV platform for the CBC, as this would not only be tremendously beneficial to both parties, but I believe it may be essential to the success of the CBC's trial. (hint hint ;) My guess is sometime in the next six months either the BBC and PBS will be the next to embrace BitTorrent distribution on limited programing. Once again I must point out that the model of distribution that the Participatory Culture Foundation has attempted to promote with Miro is exactly what I believe to be the winning model and that a partnership with the CBC would be a logical step on forging alliances with either the BBC or PBS. As to my supposed success in predicting the popularization of BitTorrent by public TV providers it doesn't take a genius to spot this trend. It is one I and other video bloggers have been promoting since as far back as 2004 and it's one the Participatory Culture Foundation has been working on since at least 2006. P2P technology is the only distribution technology that can effectively scale to meet the demands of timely full length and high definition TV programing on the Internet. It is an inevitable part of the future of media distribution on the Internet especially as Internet distributed video gets more timely and gains the attention of large global audiences. Add to this the fact that public radio and television stations such as NPR, the CBC and BBC were some of the first to embrace audio and video podcasting and you have to deduce that sooner or later they would be among the first to start dabbling in BitTorrent TV distribution as well. In fact I have to point out that I'm still amazed that NPR has over 500 podcasts. With this embrace of podcasting by public radio and TV it was only a question was timing, and with Norweigen Broadcasting taking the lead January of this year other public broadcasters were likely to soon follow. If the trend continues then sometime possibly before the end of 2008 we may well see a commercial TV network dabble in BitTorrent distribution as well. Counterpoint Hulu.comSpeaking of commercial TV networks there is a very interesting counter point with the launch last week of Hulu.com. Hulu.com is a very centralized, "page centric", albeit fairly sociable attempt at offering full TV and movie screenings to users. So far in my limited experience with it it seems to be holding up (scaling) well to the traffic. However I don't believe demand has been overwhelming do to Hulu's the very inconsistent offerings. To be specific even though there are some great TV and Movie offerings that I think the early adopter / high tech crowd would be interested in (i.e. Battlestar Galactica, Serenity) these offerings often have very inconsistent episodic offerings. It would seem that instead of building viewing habits (an audience) Hulu.com and it's partners are "expiring" older episodes in what I can only guess is some misguided attempt to "tease" fans into purchasing further options. However this just leaves would be fans just as befuddled as the TV scheduling experience, perhaps more so. In short, they have failed to fix the major problem. Hulu.com does not even solve the basic problem that Tivo has solved in letting your return to old episodes you may have missed or might want to see again. If a user has missed an episode there is once again no alternative source for the fan to find these episodes but turning to the bittorrent grey/black markets. Hulu.com should be this catch all, not continue to perpetuate this problem of TV scheduling. Hulu should be offering back episodes so a fan can catch up with an episode they may have missed, or would be fans can preview early episodes to determine if a show is something they're interested in. This does not undermine TV viewership or DVD sales of a show. In fact it supports them. Hulu.com is not, nor is it likely to be an *alternative* to TV. Hulu.com's role in this future should be a *supporting role*. I know of no one who would rather watch their favorite TV show on a computer rather then live on TV or via DVD with no commercial interruptions. As long as content creators struggle to understand this new medium fans will keep returning to p2p grey markets as that catch all solution. It is all about building viewer habits, and as long as media companies fail to provide solutions on which fans can form good habits with good quality alternatives to cable or satellite fans of shows will build habits around p2p grey markets and it will be increasingly costly to lure them from those habits. This is particularly true of younger generations whom are growing up in this age of digital media prohibitions where all they have known is getting their media from the local speakeasy (p2p nets) because there has been know other digital option. To continue with this metaphor... once the prohibition is removed, and work is done to rebuild trust and remove the taboo of digital media consumption.. when these goods come back to an open and sociable market the people will return to the digital sidewalk cafe's of the future and business will be brisk... but it must be natural, and open. No one is likely to return to this market with an attendant watching over them like a hawk, eavesdropping on their conversation and constantly reminding them of the time. Respect, balance and trust must be restored to the digital marketplace and given how badly generations feel it has been betrayed it is not likely they will easily return. It's going to be costly. We need to drag media and digital culture back out onto the open Internet where it can benefit everyone and be a part of a naturally sociable vibrant and bountiful marketplace. This digital prohibition has gone on to long. This last week was the ten year aniversary of the mp3 player. TEN YEARS and only this year have the major labels finally started selling mp3's. If you failed to respond to your customers for ten years where would your business be? Labels: bbc, bittorrent, CBC, digital prohibition, distribution, drm, hulu, michael geist, Miro, NPR, p2p, PBS, public-tv, the future
HDTV Series Mass-Distributed for Price of an iPhone
Some people took exception to my recent(ish) post about DRM-less peer based distribution being the future of IPTV. Their primary issues being that "people can skip the ads" and/or "cut out the ads and redistribute ad-less shows". My points are as follows. People can already cut out the ads with now common solutions like TIVO, and people can and do already cut out the advertisements and redistribute TV shows via bittorrent. No amount of DRM is going to stop this. Period. The promises of DRM are a myth. It only takes one person to crack the DRM... and the very fact that you can hear and see TV means it is fundamentally re-recordable and copyable with little to no loss of quality. Secondly, If there is an "official" peer based release, a legal, legit and secure alternative that offers a sufficiently user friendly experience (i.e. not to excessive of advertising or to cumbersome an interface) this greatly diminishes the demand and interest in grey market or black market alternatives. Thirdly, Advertising is already evolving away from 30 second interstitials into integrated product placements, overlays and sponsorships which are not as easily removed or skipped. I always use the example of the NFL game: Advertising and sponsorship is seamlessly integrated into every aspect of the experience... both on the actual field, in the stadium, on the uniforms and equipment, even the stadium name, as well as overlaid with scoring and stats on the screen. The advertising model is increasingly independent of the proverbial 30-second spot. Finally, These above points brought up by readers are not even the primary issue. The primary issue is as such: centralized distribution systems are increasingly cost prohibitive and do not scale well at all for the mass market. The infrastructure and inherent cost in distributing media from a centralized point or non peer based CDN (content distribution network) such as Akami or other is tremendous. In fact with more popular and mainstream content where there may be real-time demand for HD quality video upwards of 400,000 this distribution model completely short circuits. Timeliness is an important factor both to the media (ie. news and content) and the experience (ie. skipping video). Peer based distribution such as bittorrent therefore become not just a logical alternative but in some cases a necessity. Peer based systems are not just the most efficient means to scale distribution with demand, they are fundamentally the only way when dealing with economics of scale in an increasingly global market. Protecting this future is yet another reason why protecting net neutrality is so important to the future of the internet. Peer based mechanisms are a fundamental and important part of the internet. Not just with media but in all aspects of social networking and communications of which media in the form of VOIP, video sharing, podcasting and such are increasingly the killer applications of the network. In short communications are fundamentally peer based. All that's changing is we're making them media rich with video, VOIP, podcasting, and blog-like mechanisms. The following is a recent post from the Miro blog providing further details about the Norwgian Public Broacasting's use of bittorrent to distribute programing. Norwegian Public Broadcaster, NRK, recently made waves with the success of their pilot project where they put one of their full series online, in HD, without restrictive DRM, over bittorrent. The initiative has been a huge success on every front ? viewers love the super high-resolution picture and most people have reported incredibly short download times (given the file sizes). Furthermore, viewers have been downloading the episodes en-masse (around 80,000 times in the past 3 weeks). To top it all off, NRK hasn?t broken the bank to deliver the goods; in fact, they haven?t even broken a sweat. To-date, NRK has paid a total of $350 for storage and delivery of the entire series. This information was disclosed to me by project manager Eirik Solheim; he also estimated that the bandwidth bill would have been roughly $8,000, had NRK chosen a more traditional delivery method. Eirik shared the secret sauce behind the project: All the HD video files were stored and delivered using Amazon?s S3 data service, which has optional bittorrent capabilities. NRK syndicated the .torrent episodes over an RSS feed, which allowed the program to work something like a podcast. NRK recommends that people use Miro to subscribe: it?s the easiest way for folks to use BitTorrent and it fits their public-interest mission. The estimate that a high percentage of their downloaders (50% or more) are using Miro. The ease of use is very important, because it encourages more people to participate in watching and sharing the shows. Technically, the cost to the producer for distributing to a handful of viewers, say 300, is basically the same as doing so for 1,000,000 people. This is because after a point, distribution is handled by the viewers themselves; as the number of viewers rises, the work that NRK does stays constant. All in all, the pilot has been a major success, and is blazing a trail to wider adoption of bittorrent delivery for NRK programs. We?ll definitely post here when we get more details. Labels: amazon, amazon-s3, bittorrent, black markets, cdn, distribution, drm, iptv, Miro, net neutrality, network neutrality, p2p, public-tv, tivo, VOIP
RSS + Bittorrent distribution for TV and online video
The Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) has made their most popular TV series available DRM-free via BitTorrent, even better it's available as a subscribe-able RSS feed via software like Miro. Shown here is the subscribe-able feed in Miro the popular open source video aggregater. I just wish the show was available in English. :)  Entire and partial news programs like CNN, ABC and CBS nightly news are already widely available via subscribe-able RSS feed (podcast), and the Daily Show, Colbert Report and other highly popular TV shows have been widely distributed unofficially via similar means on TVRSS.net, but this may be the first TV show to officially embrace this technology pioneered by video bloggers. I expect that this form of distribution (RSS + Bittorrent) will become increasingly popular with TV producers as they realize it does not threaten their traditional advertising supported models. To start with I expect PBS, BBC or other distributors less threatened by peer based distribution (P2P) culture to officially embrace the RSS + bittorrent distribution model. NPR has already widely embraced RSS distribution (aka. podcasting) for audio programing with over 500 subscribe-able channels for their radio shows, and PBS has a dozen or so subscribe-able video podcasts though they are currently just partial shows or show clips. I expect timely news programs such as Frontline will be the first to officially embrace the RSS + bittorrent distribution model as bittorrent scales much better for popular, timely, high definition content, much like the Daily Show and Colbert Report. RSS + bittorrent distribution is a counter point to new proprietary distribution services from content creators like Hulu.com (currently only available via private beta) and NBC.com and which are only currently available by visiting and watching programing on website, have no subscription mechanisms, and are not available beyond desktop computers.... i.e. on your TV or hand held device. There are also alternative systems like Joost and Veoh but while these proprietary 3rd part networks have a high degree of usability and interface polish as is typical of proprietary solutions they lack the flexibility to scale to handle the wide variety of newly available content on the web and the various cellular, hand held and set top box platforms. Of course there are also solutions from Apple, and Tivo for television producers, but these are increasingly complimentary to RSS / Podcasting and perhaps in the future even added bittorent distribution. What makes RSS + bittorrent such a powerful combination is it's increasingly openly accessible to virtually anyone who wishes to distribute media online via various services, and RSS / podcasting is already starting to be adopted by set top box, cellular, and handheld manufacturers like Apple ( AppleTV, iPod & iPhone), Tivo, Nokia, Akimbo and many others. Bittorrent is the final piece of the puzzle allowing extremely rapid scaling for the distribution of high definition content but it may take much longer to popularize do the greater technical requirements in implementation on various hardware platforms. Labels: apple, appletv, bbc, bittorrent, colbert report, daily show, distribution, drm, Frontline, iPhone, Miro, Nokia, NPR, PBS, podcasting, rss, television, tivo, tvrss.net, video blogging
Universal to sell DRM free songs
It's happening as predicted. Since the announcement by that Apple would be selling non-drm music in iTunes from EMI other major labels are slowly falling in line. The New York Times is reporting that the Universal Music Group is going to be selling part of its catalog sans DRM for the next few months to gauge consumer interest. This is great, but the only catch is that these DRM free songs won't be available via iTunes. Universal, in an effort to lessen Apple's dominance of the digital music market, will be offering up the DRM free music via Amazon, Google, RealNetworks, and Wal-Mart for $.99 a song (a price many accredit Apple to pioneering). From: Universal to sell DRM free songs, but not on iTunes - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Also You might recall that Universal recently decided not to renew their contract with Apple to sell music in iTunes, and switched their commitment to a month by month basis. What does all this mean? I am betting that this experiment will succeed, and that Universal will reverse their decision and sell DRM free tracks via iTunes, why not sell your wares on the top online music store? Boingboing.net has a good take on universal's inevitable move to selling non-drm music too. The original article is on NYTimesLabels: amazon, apple, drm, economics, emi, music industry, new york times, universal music
Darknet culture and the Harry Potter leak
My friend Raymond from Copenhagen did an awesome write up on some of the behind the scenes culture that went on before the Harry Potter leak and the corresponding Newsweek article. It's truly fascinating and unlike anything I've read before. Re: Evil Vlog is... Darknets and the Harry Potter leakHere are some Cliff notes on his writeup and the corresponding Newsweek article 1) the NEWSWEEK writer admits to downloading, or at least attempting to download, a pirated copy of the book 2) it's overwhelmingly obvious based on the opinions of those in the Newsweek article this leak will in no way effect sales of the book and does in fact enhance the experience of the fans. 2) What really undermines and subverts the piracy efforts are scores of fan fiction... only a true fan would be able to tell the real from the fake. 4) Raymond's posts takes a look at the behind the scenes culture and collaboration on transcribing the book by multiple groups who are all competing to be the first to release a pirated copy. They are not driven by anything other than pride and being big fans. 5) Raymond's post documents the remarkable transparency of these groups, even documenting the Newsweek reporters direct contact with one of the P2P groups transcoding and leaking the book on Pirate Bay. 6) The Newsweek article while pointing out the inherent impossibilities in stopping piracy both inside the publishing world and by fan culture also documents how remarkably pervasive watermarking technologies are getting. While the age of DRM may be finally slowed or stopped moving forward we're now entering an even more dangerous age of ubiquitous watermarking. Soon every digital good you make and every digital good you buy will be watermarked and traceable back to you. This is a very scary thought, which has implications well beyond piracy such as freedom of speech. Hopefully more later, that was just the cliff notes. Labels: darknets, digital culture, dltq, drm, harry potter, newsweek, p2p, piracy, pirate bay, watermarking
Amazon to launch music store with DRM free music
As predicted it's happening, the wall is crumbling. Now that apple has announced DRM free music offerings in their music store on EMI we knew soon others would follow. Amazon was as predicted the next, also partnering with EMI to sell EMI's catalogue DRM free. Jeff Bezos puts it very clearly in the amazon press release. "Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. "We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone." To paraphrase, "MP3-only mean it will play on any device." That's something everyday ordinary people who don't spend all day obsessing about their music can not only understand, but always have understood. The market wants MP3 and always has. It's just taken the music labels 8+ years to listen to them. That's two major stores and one label down. About four more major labels to go. My prediction is this holiday season will pay big rewards for Apple, Amazon, EMI and others selling DRM free music. Putting a serious haste in the step of anyone still not selling mp3's. By this time next year nearly all the major labels will be selling non-DRM music and there will be over two dozen major online music stores like Apple, Amazon and other early players like the wonderful emusic, CDbaby and innovators like ArtistShare. Users will once again have choice, as to where they want to buy, what hardware they want to use and where they want to listen. This combined with podcasting will put an end to things like satelite radio, win and real media, digital music stores like napster that sell DRM music, and whole industry of middle players that have sprung up to serve this inequity in the market. This includes the P2P black market. Well may actually start seeing a slow down in it's explosive growth, though any decline in p2p's popularity will take years. It occurs to me that in as little as 3-5 years time that people won't even remember what "DRM" was in the first place... that most people won't even know this battle was fought to keep the future of music, media, culture and innovation open. It's a silent fight mostly, one the majority of the public doesn't really even fully understand let alone will most realize this battle has taken nearly *10 years*, and cost billions in lost revenue. We'll be taking it for granted again in no time. In five years time music mainstream artists profits will be at an all time high and the music market will have realized it's explosion not only in profits by the major labels, but in the breadth of new music and artists in the market. Labels: amazon, apple, black markets, drm, emi, jeff bezos, music industry, napster, p2p, the future
Why Microsoft is dead
Paul Graham's article " Microsoft is Dead" on why Microsoft's relevance in the computing world has radically declined is a gut check on how far we've come in the last few years. Microsoft is no longer a threat to competition and progress not only because of increased competition from linux and apple, but primarily because the desktop is no longer the most important platform. As gmail and other web services have proven the web and the web browser are the new platform. So called "office 2.0" has taken over. Gmail is the new Outlook, wiki's are the new Microsoft Word, and various other services like Upcoming.org and a whole lot more have put a severe dent in Microsoft's control with the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office. Computing has also moved beyond the desktop with cell phones and mobile computing and media has taken a bigger role and microsoft is completely failing to get a handle on media, see it's failure with the zune, Play's for sure drm, right up to Vista which is frighteningly anti-consumer... and ironically all this would appear to be wasted as per the EMI and Apple announcement to sell non-drm media... though admitedly the video market and new technology like HDTV, Blueray, and HDDVD have yet to play out. The biggest realization of this for me came when I was chatting with a friend via IM and I called twitter "cross platform". No longer does cross plaform necissarily mean Mac, Win and Linux. It now means many things and among them cross platform can mean the world wide web and the mobile web. The operating system has lost some of it's relevance, which is why I can happily write this blog post from a computer running Ubuntu... because the majority of my primary applications are either open source like Firefox or web based like Gmail. The big question is... is this the end of the tyranny or are we just swapping on tyrant for another. Clearly google is the leader in the new economy trailed closely by yahoo, while they have seen their share of critics neither exercises the dominance or control Microsoft once held. Labels: apple, competition, cross platform, drm, googlezon, microsoft, monopoly, new economy, office 2.0, open source, paul graham, tyranny, ubuntu, web 2.0, yahoo
The market is correcting itself
It's happening. Since the announcement by Apple and EMI to sell non-drm songs the long predicted shift to DRM free music is starting. Microsoft changes tune on selling DRM-free songsWhen the tracks actually start selling we should see market forces move the market quicker and quicker to non-DRM music. 8+ years of digital culture prohibition is starting to come to an end and I couldn't be happier. :) Labels: apple, digital culture, digital prohibition, drm, emi, free market, intellectual property, market forces, microsoft, music industry, zune
Youtube coming soon to an iPod near you!
So, in the last couple days I've come to the realization that Google Video has started putting iPod and PSP compatible MP4 videos in their RSS feeds. Google has always had downloadable MP4 videos for free content though they haven't always put them in their feeds. This is no minor thing. In fact it's pretty amazing what you can aggregate directly to your iTunes, iPod, PSP or media center. For example, you can get compatible RSS feed of the highest rated documentaries ( RSS feed / google page) or the latest Machinima videos ( RSS feed / google page). In fact why don't you try and pop the below RSS feed into iTunes now. http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&q=duration%3Along+is%3Afree+genre%3ADOCUMENTARY&so=3&num=100&output=rss*Please make sure to turn off "auto downloading" in your iTunes podcasting preferences so you don't swamp google or your computer with multiple downloads. If this is still not * digg worthy* enough for you, don't worry there's more. You can also access MP4 feeds on pretty much all youtube users.That's right, let me say it again... you can get iTunes/ iPod / PSP compatible RSS video feeds for pretty much ALL youtube users. So for example here's the latest youtube videos from spectacular comedian Mark Day. http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=MarkDayComedyAnd here's the corresponding ipod/PSP compatible RSS feed from google video. http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&q=MarkDayComedy&so=1&num=20&output=rssNote the syntax. All I did was pop Mark's username from youtube, " MarkDayComedy", into the google query url. You may notice there are a few other youtube users videos in the query. These videos are responses from other users to Mark Day's videos. Many might consider this pretty cool. All the same I tried to find a way to filter them out but I cannot find a way to limit the query to a single youtube user. So... to bad I guess. Deal with it. ;) This does bring to mind, the next big question.
Does this mean we'll see video podcast feeds on Youtube soon?I certainly can't tell you that, but now that the question has been posed, maybe if enough people * digg it* or blog about it youtube will listen. :) I can say this. There are really no legal implications, but there are some important business considerations for Youtube regarding video podcasting. Youtube's business model is predicated on adding value through distribution with it's very nice, but arguably very controlling, Flash based player. This added value includes such things as links back to youtube, links to related videos others have found interesting, and above all such "social networking" features as the ability to comment, blog about and email the video. That said it would certainly appear all the content is already available through google video so does it really matter when youtube gets around to promoting their video podcasting feeds in the youtube interface? If you're reading this then you have everything you need to start using youtube with your favorite video aggregator, handheld video player, media center, set top box, or even cell phone today. While I'd love to see youtube take some development initiative and take that final step for the sake of all youtube users... I'm not going to sit around and wait for it. I'm already plugging my favorite youtubers videos feeds into my favorite aggregators like iTunes, mefeedia.com, Fireant and Democracy Player. While some aggregators and players do support youtube's Flash based video feeds there are certain obvious things you can't really do with flash videos.... like store them on your hard drive... play them back in preferred video players... or media players... and many more obvious things... like playing them on your iPod. While MP4 is a proprietary video format and is not freely licensed it is quickly evolving as the MP3 of the video world. Most new handheld video players, set top boxes, and many new cell phones (such as the Nokia N95) support MP4. With the recent announcement by EMI and Apple to sell non-DRM mp3's the big question is will video based distribution evolve in a parallel open fashion as music with mp3's or does the overhead of video based distribution and production require such digital crutches and controls as Flash based players, or even DRM? What I very much believe is that youtube doesn't need to use Flash like DRM to create an artificial "speed bump" around youtube to force youtube users to keep coming back. Quite the contrary, the use of only Flash is discouraging use of youtube and encouraging the creation of a cottage industry of tools for cracking youtube and alternative "open" solutions. I think there's enough love of youtube that if they did open up and allow MP4 downloads and video podcasting... along with some improvements to their EULA... that the good graces will cement them in a favorable light with many of their users. There is also TREMENDOUS opportunity around these features for users to start offering proverbial "pro level" services, and advanced demographics and statistical information, the removal of caps on video length and resolution (HD VIDEO!) and even offerings for video based advertising, and optional paid subscription offerings on video feeds. This is to say nothing of the opportunity for youtube to create standards and promote partnerships with set top box manufacturers, cell phone, and other hardware makers to bring the entire videoblogging space beyond the desktop computer and out into the world. It's also important to note that these aims would correspond directly if not be complimentary to the aims of google video whom is already offering paid downloads, and the web based distribution of high quality and feature length content. It's time for youtube to set the video free. Some tips for the uber users. As far as googles video podcast feeds you might also note the variable "num=20" this is the number of items in the feed. If you like you can easily increase that number to 50 or even 100 items. Just us this power sparingly or your hard drive and iPod will be full of videos, google will disable this feature and I'll have to come and personally kick your ass. ;) So for example if you wanted to download ALL youtube user Mark Day's videos to your iPod you might change the variable "num=20" to "num=100". http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&q=MarkDayComedy&so=1&num=100&output=rssAgain... try turning off "auto downloads" in your podcast preferences in iTunes so as not to overload google or iTunes with multiple downloads and instead browse the podcasting tab in itunes and download ONLY those posts which you want on your iPod. So what else can you do with this knowledge. Well, to start with you can go look up your favorite youtube personality, and try putting their USERNAME into the following query. Disclaimer: results vary depending on the uniqueness of the username. http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&q=YOUTUBE_USERNAME&so=1&num=100&output=rss
Or... you could create any sort of complex query you like. For example... How about the last 50 machinima videos? http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&q=MACHINIMA&so=1&num=100&output=rss
Or... how about using google's advanced video search to find THE highest rated documentaries ( RSS feed). I highly recommend " Revolution OS" about the advent of GNU, open source and linux, it's right there in the top 10 highest rated documentaries on google video, and it's available in it's entirety at 1 hours 25 minutes, for FREE. I already own the DVD, but I appreciate it all the same. :) Obviously not everything on google video is available as a freely downloadable mp4. In order make sure you only get freely downloadable MP4's a highly recommend selecting "is free" in the "price section" when using Googles's Advanced Video search settings or adding "+is%3Afree" to your query string. http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&q=duration%3Along+is%3Afree+genre%3ADOCUMENTARY&so=3&num=100&output=rssLabels: defective by design, drm, emi, google, ipod, itunes, Mark Day, N95, Nokia, psp, social media, social networking, videoblogging, youtube
Tell Steve Jobs to set the music free
Defective by Design has followed through on Steve Job's " thoughts on music" with a petition to ask Steve Jobs to put his money where his mouth is. Point number one is that Steve Jobs allow independent artists to sell non-DRM music in the iTunes store. The petition has already far surpassed it's goal of 1000 signers with over 2100 signatures as of this writing. The message is dead on. Help us all call Steve Job's bluff. Either he's genuine or he's simply a hypocrite. Let it be known by adding a punctuation mark and signing the petition! 1) Drop DRM on iTunes for independent artists
Many independent artists and labels distribute their music through iTunes and many wish to do so without DRM, but you won't let them. You could show good faith immediately by dropping DRM for those artists and labels.
This will make it clear which artists are actually locked to one of the four big labels, allowing your customers to avoid those labels and the burden of DRM. Independent artists, who respect the desire of the fan to be free from DRM restrictions, will receive more support.
You can set the ethical example and be the first "major" to drop DRM, by freeing independent artists. You have the direct power to do this. From: An Open Letter to Steve Jobs | DefectiveByDesign.orgRelated Post: Mr. Jobs tear down this wall!Labels: apple, defective by design, drm, fairplay, free software foundation, itunes, steve jobs, tear down this wall, thoughts on music
Mr. Jobs tear down this wall!
OK, let's keep this simple. If Steve Jobs is not a hypocrite and was indeed genuine in his open letter about his willingness to sell music without DRM then Apple needs to allow independent artists and labels the opportunity to sell their music through the Apple Music Store without DRM. I'm not even going to discuss Apple's position on MacOS running on Intel boxes, nor the closed nature of the new iPhone, and above all the distribution of Pixar movies with DRM but I've got to call B.S. on steve Jobs open letter titled " thoughts on music". It's not because I don't believe what he wrote. I absolutely agree with it! Indeed it is a beautiful letter full of sentiments of the majority of all digital music lovers for as far back as five years. The cruxt of the matter is this. An *open letter* is the last attempt of a desperate customer... it is the act of a desperate person... a person who doesn't have control or power to make change. An open letter is an appeal to the common good when no other action can be taken. One must ask as a precursor of this letter, is Steve Jobs so powerless that all he can do is write an open letter and post it to the web like all us everyday people and bloggers... or is there something he can do more with his vast resources and power as the CEO of both a media company, Pixar, and the CEO of the largest digital music reseller in the world, Apple? The answer to that question is YES, there is most definitely something Steve Jobs can do to back up his open letter, to put his money where is mouth is. Something quite obvious in fact. Now that Steve Jobs has said it... now that he's declared himself anti- drm... now that he's called for the major four music labels to stop living a lie and sell digital music without DRM it's time for him to put his money where his mouth is and start allowing independent musicians and labels to sell music through the Apple Music Store without DRM. Everything in the Apple music store is NOT from the big four labels. Steve Jobs does NOT need their permission to sell other music without DRM as his letter seems to imply or at the very least ignore. It's time for Apple to allow independent artists and labels already selling music in the Apple Music Store the opportunity to sell music without DRM. I've been stymied as to why more bloggers have not asked this question, but now I now find that I've got some good company. Richard MacManus at ReadWriteWeb.com the EFF and Jon Lech Johansen (famous for cracking the DVD encryption) are in agreement with me. From the EFF post. We agree wholeheartedly with Jobs, since EFF has been making exactly the same points for several years now. As a first step in putting his music store where his mouth is, we urge him to take immediate steps to remove the DRM on the independent label content in the iTunes Store. Why wait for the major record labels? Many independent labels and artists already recognize that DRM is a dumb idea for digital music, as demonstrated by the availability of their music on eMusic. Apple should let them make that music available without DRM in the iTunes Store now. From Jon It should not take Apple?s iTunes team more than 2-3 days to implement a solution for not wrapping content with FairPlay when the content owner does not mandate DRM. This could be done in a completely transparent way and would not be confusing to the users.
Actions speak louder than words, Steve. The bottom line is it's time for Steve jobs to sh*t or get off the pot. He's said it. Now it's time for him to back it up by allowing independent artists and labels to sell their music in the iTunes music store without DRM. I feel like this is in a very real way a Reagan / Berlin Wall moment in digital culture. Mr. Jobs tear down this wall!From: AppleInsider | Jobs gains support from Yahoo, Monster on DRM issueIn an immediate response to the Apple cofounder's February 6th letter, Electronic Frontier Foundation urged Jobs to put "his music store where his mouth is" by promptly stripping the company's proprietary Fairplay DRM protection from independent music on the iTunes Store for which it is not required.
Jon Lech Johansen, an infamous DVD protection cracker known as DVD Jon, seconded the motion and even did some background research on the matter.
"It should not take Apple?s iTunes team more than 2-3 days to implement a solution for not wrapping content with FairPlay when the content owner does not mandate DRM," he said. "Actions speak louder than words, Steve." Labels: apple, berlin wall, drm, DVD Jon, eff, emusic, fairplay, itunes, readwriteweb, Reagan, steve jobs, tear down this wall, thoughts on music
mmeiser blog » February 2005 » January 2005 » December 2004
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