Why I hate iTunes for TV/Movies
Chris pretty much hit the nail on the head.
See, there’s a reason bit torrent and other P2P services are so popular. And it’s not the “free” part that makes it so.
You see, there have always been pirates and illegal bootlegs. Well, at least as long as there have been VCRs. And there’s very little you’re going to be able to do to prevent a very small group of crooks from trying to profit from illegal copies of popular works. At the very least, they’ll use a camcorder and point it at a monitor to make their copies. Hell, they’ve done that in movie theaters for years.
So why is P2P a big deal? Accessibility. It’s easy and it’s convenient. People feel more like criminals when they watch the 5 minutes of warnings on a DVD than when they click on a link and get what they want.
How should the movie and TV industries compete with the likes of Bit Torrent? By offering us something better. What do I mean?
Movies:
- I want to pay you money for the movies I want to see. I want to pay you for an HD copy that I can download from a fast server that will play on my Media Center, my Xbox 360, my phone via ORB, or maybe an iPod Video (if I had one).
- Don’t make me wait. If I can get something I want sooner by another means, I probably will. We Americans are impatient folks. If you’ve got the movie ready to watch, I don’t want to play your little games. I don’t go to movie theaters because I like being surrounded by annoying high school kids, paying out the ass for soda and popcorn, or to experience audio and video that’s inferior to my home theater system. I do it because that’s where you release them first and it’s really my only option most of the time.
And for TV:
- Would I pay Time Warner $2 to watch one TV show? No. So why would I pay Apple that?
- I pay Comcast $50/month or something for digital cable. Plus $10/month for HD DVR. Companies like Apple shouldn’t be trying to get me to pay piecemeal for shows I’m already paying a subscription for. They should be offering me a better subscription.
- An online TV show service could so easily replace cable TV for me entirely. And I’d love it. IPTV is great for live events, sports, etc. But for most of the TV I watch, who the heck wants to simulate a broadcast scenario when it should be as easy as downloading a goddam file. Who needs to worry about CableCards, DVRs, and all that junk.
- How would I do it? Start by making good shows. Then make the first 2 episodes of the season completely free to download. Then charge me for the rest of the season. Include some targetted advertising if that’s what makes this possible. I would be more than happy to pay for seasons of SG-1, Atlantis, 24, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Family Guy, American Dad, The 4400, Lost, and so on.
- Hell, you could make a Cable box that works like this. I could sample shows on demand, then when I find something I like – press a button to buy it, kind of like how Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace works. Those shows could be automatically downloaded (in an HD MPEG4-like format so you can fit lots on the drive), and I could watch them whenever I want. The cablebox could be a server with something like Orb or Slingbox so that I could get to my favorite content remotely.
Hell, with a bigger hard drive… the Xbox 360 could do this. What a coup that would be.
*MAJOR* update to MSN Spaces
Wow! This stuff looks amazing! No more /members in the URL! Photo comments! Xbox Live integration! Mobile version! And way more!
Whoa, just saw there’s even a way to make money from your Space!
Why do you need Vista?
I’m often asked by people I talk to about Vista why they’d want to upgrade. For me it’s a no-brainer. But for others, the reasons to upgrade will vary.
Manuel Clement has a round-up of Channel 9 videos that demonstrate why you’ll want to upgrade to Windows Vista.
Last Friday, Ken Moss posted an entry to the MSN Search Blog where he jumped into the discussion about Google’s refusal to hand over subpeoned data to the DOJ. The controversy has sprung up largely because of reports that competing search engines like MSN, Yahoo, and AOL have already complied (to varying extents) with the order.
Here’s the relevant excerpt from Ken’s entry:
Let me start with this core principle statement: privacy of our customers is non-negotiable and something worth fighting to protect.
Now, on to the specifics.
Over the summer we were subpoenaed by the DOJ regarding a lawsuit. The subpoena requested that we produce data from our search service. We worked hard to scope the request to something that would be consistent with this principle. The applicable parties to the case received this data, and the parties agreed that the information specific to this case would remain confidential. Specifically, we produced a random sample of pages from our index and some aggregated query logs that listed queries and how often they occurred. Absolutely no personal data was involved.
It seems to me that two types of information were revealed. The first being a selection of pages from the index – which as far as I can tell is available publicly to anyone by going here. The second is a collection of statistics. My understanding is that aggregated query logs that listed queries and how often they occurred actually means something like – In December of 2005 – 400,000 people queried for the word “porn.” (That number is a fictional example and nothing more)
Still, the comments to Ken’s post give the distinct impression that some readers are not satisfied. I’ve boiled down the complaints to 3 issues:
1) What queries did the DOJ receive statistics for? Could some of those queries have contained personal data (like a query for “John Doe 123 Evergreen Lane”)?
2) What happens if the DOJ comes back and subpoenas for personal information – such as a list of IP addresses that conducted certain queries? Or a list of how many times certain combinations of queries originated from the same user?
3) Why did MSN not inform users about the DOJ request and what information was being handed over at the time that it happened?
I wish I could say I had answers for you, but at this time I don’t. However, it is my hope that Ken or someone else from MSN will address these issues to the satisfaction of MSN’s users.
Naked review
Let’s hope Chris isn’t starting a trend.
Congratulations to Robert and Shel
Congratulations to Robert Scoble and Shel Israel on the launch of their new book, Naked Conversations.
I just got home from their fantastic launch party with my signed copy of the book in hand. It was definitely an appropriate venue to launch this book considering the number of interesting connections and conversations that happened.
Also Buzz Bruggeman and Maryam Scoble deserve major props for organizing tonight’s event. And special thanks to our gracious hosts John and Alison Dillow for sharing their beautiful home with us all.
Update: Robert has posted a round-up of party coverage.
Infoworld: Top tech follies of 2005
Infoworld has published it’s 2005 GUI Awards – or awards for “Greed, Underhandedness, and Imbecility.”
Check it out here.
Just upgraded to WordPress 2.0
I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to WordPress 2.0. So far I haven’t seen any problems and the site actually feels faster. The new admin features are great, although the new rich text editor for posting seems to lag behind my typing. Hopefully I can do something about that. In every other way the editor rocks. And I can now add categories from the “Write Post” page. Yay!
I also updated my permalink format. Maybe now Google won’t ignore my site.
Let me know if you see any problems on the site as I’ve heard there could be a glitch or two as a result of the upgrade.
Update: Looks like the performance issues in the WYSIWYG editor and the admin pages in general is related to Maxthon. If I use a “normal” IE window I have no performance problems at all. Looks like I’ve found a bug for the Maxthon guys to fix in their next release.
Best blonde joke ever
Speaking of Robert, he has a link to the best Blonde joke ever.
Happy Birthday, Robert!
It seems today is the Scobleizer’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Robert!