All Articles Tagged big media

iTunes can rip a CD and make the tracks rapidly available for you to listen to on your iPhone (or iPod) or stream around your house via other computers, or AppleTV/Airtunes and a variety of third party products.

ZDNet thinks they should do the same with DVDs. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Why? While ripping CDs is legal in the US, ripping DVDs is not and Hollywood and Big Media would do their best to sue any product, iTunes included, into oblivion if put that feature in. In fact, that’s what they’re doing with Real’s RealDVD right now. This is based on the claim that it violates the DMCA by breaking copy protection, though Real wraps copy protection of their own around the ripped movies).

Apple, of course, has $30 billion in the bank, which could fund one heckuva legal battle (and maybe even get the EFF on their side?) If anyone is in the position to help consumers retain fair use of their media, and increase the functionality and appeal of their own product at the same time, it’s certainly Apple.

But would they spend their time and money litigating the right to rip content from old, legacy media when they’re busily trying to get people to embrace digital downloads of the same content as the “next big thing”? Should they?

For consumers, it would be the same win as letting iTunes rip CDs even as music downloads were coming online. Apple maintains they run iTunes at low-profit levels simply to fuel hardware sales. The same model holds true for DVDs. Some consumers have huge collections of legacy DVDs and would love nothing more than easily, officially, load them up into iTunes and sync them over to their iPhone, iPod, set top box, computer, etc. alongside new digital downloads.

Of course, savvy consumers are already doing this with free, third party programs, and perhaps Apple is happy enough with the status quo. It’s less expensive for them that way, and doesn’t offend the same media companies Apple has deals with for iTunes rentals and downloads.

So the question is, are you happy with the status quo as well? Or is this a fight Apple should be fighting?

Yesterday, Dieter told us Apple had finally pulled the trigger on HD downloads for iTunes. Today, the internets (led by iLounge, via Gizmodo) are up in arms because said downloads are infected with Big Media-enforced DRM to such a degree that they can’t even play on older, non-HDCP (high definition copy protection) compatible devices.

What does this mean? Even if you forked over $2K for a ginormous Apple 30″ Cinema Display, that “cinema” part of the branding will be just plain useless to you except for the very helpful popup you’ll get reading:

This movie cannot be played because a display that is not authorized to play protected movies is connected.

Lovely. We understand Hollywood wants to protect their movies from pirates. We also understand that this type of nonsense doesn’t stop pirates (who run at pretty much a commercial scale nowadays) one bit — it only makes life extremely difficult and financially draining for actual consumers. (Poetically, pirated content plays just fine on older displays, making us wonder if someone deep inside Big Media secretly owns license to the torrents and is actually trying to drive traffic that way…)

Seriously, in what other industries can you get away with this? Sorry, your home is not copy protected, please back your car out and try burning down any non compliant houses before parking again. Sorry, food 2007 is not compatible with fridge 2009, please upgrade your fridge and then try eating again.

Sheesh.

Boxee, a branch of XBMC (originally Xbox Media Center, something that gave my original Xbox a life and power well beyond what Microsoft ever intended) is free alternative to Microsoft’s Media Center and Apple’s Front Row and AppleTV that many believe soundly beats both on features alone. It’s had some hiccups as of late, what with Big Media pulling Hulu content (they likely don’t want Hulu on TVs as the same shows fetch much higher ad revenue from traditional networks than they do from the internet streams), but that hasn’t stopped them from pushing forward. The latest example? Boxee Remote for iPhone:

• the boxee remote app has two modes: Gesture and Buttons
• in the Gesture mode you need to hold down your thumb and move it around in order to navigate.
• clicking on the boxee logo acts as Select/Play/Pause
• dragging the boxee logo to the edges of the screen will act as a continuous up/down/left/right
• clicking in an input field will open up the iPhone Qwerty keyboard and will enable you to easily enter text
• the app works over WiFi, so make sure the WiFi on your iPhone is turned on

If you’re a Boxee user and you try this out, let us know how it works for you!

We’ve heard rumors about this before, but now the New York Times (via MacRumors) is pretty much coming right out and saying it. Apple was ready to give up their uniform pricing model ($0.99 per song) over a year ago but they wanted not only DRM-free licensing in return, but over-the-air (cellular) iPhone downloads. It seems many, including Apple and the music industry, think that’s the Next Big Thing.

Still, things were tense down to the last few moments before the big Macworld 2009 announcement:

All the labels agreed except Sony Music. Its chairman, Mr. Schmidt-Holtz, wanted the pricing to go into effect right after the announcement, while Mr. Jobs wanted a longer time horizon. According to a person briefed on the telephone call, Mr. Schmidt-Holtz and Mr. Jobs had a heated exchange by phone on Christmas Eve. Eventually, Sony gave in and agreed to a longer waiting period.

With Steve Jobs (the smartest man in music?) on leave of absence, however, don’t think things will get any easier for the historically out-of-touch music industry. Insiders report that others inside Apple, including iTunes VP Eddy Cue, follow Steve Jobs’ line.

Apple and music aside, what does this mean for — you know — the end users? How important is downloading music over the cell network to you? Will it make you buy more music? And will some songs being cheaper, and others more expensive, change you buying habits as well?

What finally made Apple and Steve Jobs relent on their previously locked-in-stone $0.99 single price for single songs iTunes business model? Many suspected it was the lure of DRM-free music, which the record labels (except EMI) had been withholding from Apple and providing competitors like Amazon MP3 in an attempt to break the iTunes juggernaut.

Maybe not, however, according to Ars Technica (referencing the Associated Press):

the key negotiating component was over-the-air downloads for the iPhone. The record companies held out on allowing users to download songs on the 3G and EDGE networks (instead of just WiFi) until Apple relented.

While this might seem strange, technically many users probably don’t care (or don’t even know about DRM) unless they run into the old 5-machine limit or try to move their protected music outside the iPod ecosystem. However, anyone hitting the iTunes icon on the iPhone and getting the message to switch to WiFi likely suffers a bad user experience. Then again, strange is normal in a strange industry filled with strange old media dinosaurs, innit?

Higher prices, according to the article, are also intended to make discounted song bundles seem like better values.

How important is 3G or EDGE downloads to you? Worth the potential cost bump for premium “hot” singles? Mitigated at all by the thought of cheapo bundles of the same? Let us know!

Earlier this week, Macworld cried foul over some movies that appeared to be disappearing from the iTunes Store. There was no apparent pattern as the movies were all released by different studios. I checked a few of them in the Canadian Store, and they were still there…

So what was up?

CNet did some investigating, and it turns out we — once again — have big media to thank for our poor user experience:

Normally, release windows don’t affect retailers or video-rental services after they’ve begun selling or renting films. Warner Bros. doesn’t go into Best Buy and pull DVDs off the shelf when Comcast airs Casablanca. The corner Mom and Pop video store doesn’t surrender copies of Gladiator to Universal Studios when the film appears on ABC. But Internet stores are being treated differently. What this means for iTunes and Netflix customers is that movies will pop in and out of the services.

CNet notes that DVDs, of course, aren’t yanked off the shelves when TV wants to air a movie, so why are online stores like iTunes treated differently?

The answer, of course, is because broadcasters say they are.

Is that reasonable? Is the internet different than the brick-and-mortar? Should movies be yanked down from iTunes but still be for sale on a DVD at Walmart? Or have we evolved past those differences, and content should be available for us to buy when and how we want to buy it?

With the super-fast new 3G iPhone Steve Jobs will all but certainly announce this June, it makes sense that Apple would want to provide services that exploit all that delicious bandwidth, like over-the-air (read: via cell as opposed to WiFi or local sync) ringtones, ringbacks (shudder!), and iTunes Music Store purchases. Sounds great! You’re on the road, away from your WiFi and your computer, and you hear a great song, and it’s available right there via 3G HSDPA download. More songs for us, more content for Apple, and more money for the artists, right?

Wrong. Enter the record labels, who reportedly think that if you buy a song over 3G as opposed to WiFi on your computer, it should somehow give them MORE money. That’s right, a bigger cut for them, meaning higher cost to Apple, meaning (unless Apple eats it like they are with movie sales right now), higher cost to us.

Makes, sense: be given a bigger, more convenient market… demand higher prices.

Where did these guys come from? Did I miss some late-night infomercial…?

Read the rest of this entry »

NBC done gone lost their rainbow peacock’d minds? Maybe, if Gizmodo is properly quoting their Chief Digital Officer, George Kliavkoff:

“We’d love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience. We’d love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes.” [They want more money per show to] “reflect the full value of the product.” [And for iTunes to block you from loading pirated content onto your iPod.] “If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy [sic] measures. We are financially harmed every day by piracy. It results in us not being able to invest as much money in the next generation of film and TV products.”

Huhbuwhat?!

NBC is currently turning down $1.99 per 22-44 minutes of The Office or Battlestar Galactica. 2 bucks for content previously aired on FREE television, which can be easily, legally (and much to their chagrin and previously failed efforts to block it) taped or PVR’d. They’re turning down that EXTRA money because they want MORE of it, and they want iTunes to prevent you from, say, shifting that FREE content from your PVR or media center to your iPhone without paying MORE of that EXTRA money?!

Dare I suggest the only reason the pirates exist is because of Big Media’s greed and short sightedness. The minute they charge fair prices for fair use, given the low barrier of entry and elegance of use of iTunes’ interface, the piracy disappears for everyone but zealots. (Never mind the marketing value of downloads alone — The Office being a prime example.)

Apple really can’t pull the trigger on their DVR patent fast enough.

What do you think?