I have 100% Googleshare on "DRM destroys value".
This is a shame - still, other people are picking up on the idea.
Welcome Microsoft, seriously. The sooner you stop pretending to the publishing industry that DRM is a good idea, and they should buy yours, the sooner we can move on to making a real marketplace for media
Saturday 30 November 2002
Missing the point
Cory points toLiterary Devices, a short story by Richard Powers.
It's well written, and worth reading. I'll wait while you do....
...OK then The problem with it is the author's barely-masked contempt for any real writing online, in his pursuit of the chimerae of dead literature mediated through AI. Had he connected with other living writers online, he would have realised that their conversations were what he was missing, rather than the simulcra he found. The implication at the end that we cannot tell stories except in person, and that new media cannot help at all is so wrong that it jars the rest of the piece.
It's well written, and worth reading. I'll wait while you do....
...OK then The problem with it is the author's barely-masked contempt for any real writing online, in his pursuit of the chimerae of dead literature mediated through AI. Had he connected with other living writers online, he would have realised that their conversations were what he was missing, rather than the simulcra he found. The implication at the end that we cannot tell stories except in person, and that new media cannot help at all is so wrong that it jars the rest of the piece.
Friday 29 November 2002
Washing-up gadgets
I know some people blog about mechanical tools to help them wash up, but I have found the ultimate. It's a high-pressure steam cleaner that Rosie bought for cleaning floors, walls and windows, but there's nothing like superheated stream at 4 atmospheres for getting baked-on gunk off roasting dishes and pyrex cookware.
Thursday 28 November 2002
Keep Dancing
Jonathon Delacour wrote about the song For a Dancer
Here is a performance of it by Clive Gregson and Christine Collister (Love is a Strange Hotel, the CD I got it from, has been deleted; you might find a copy on eBay or Amazon auctions).
Today is Thanksgiving in the US. Give thanks for those we have known, and those still dancing with us.
Here is a performance of it by Clive Gregson and Christine Collister (Love is a Strange Hotel, the CD I got it from, has been deleted; you might find a copy on eBay or Amazon auctions).
Today is Thanksgiving in the US. Give thanks for those we have known, and those still dancing with us.
Wednesday 27 November 2002
filtering out the noise
Jakob Nielson
we asked users to find the supplies they'd need to install a new kitchen floor. One user was a particularly sad case: On a page that asked for the square footage of the area to be covered, he was swearing as he tried to calculate his floor area by hand. Next to the form he was struggling with was a large animated graphic with flying words, including "room planner," "set up room size," "length," "width," and several other terms indicating that the box linked to an application for computing floor sizes. Too bad this user didn't see it. Nor did our other test users. To get usability data about the actual Flash design, we had to force people to launch the application.
The problem is clear: users try to avoid anything that's overly hyped or promoted, especially if it looks like an advertisement.
I find this very encouraging, though if Advertisers take it to heart, we'll have a lot more stealth advertising.
we asked users to find the supplies they'd need to install a new kitchen floor. One user was a particularly sad case: On a page that asked for the square footage of the area to be covered, he was swearing as he tried to calculate his floor area by hand. Next to the form he was struggling with was a large animated graphic with flying words, including "room planner," "set up room size," "length," "width," and several other terms indicating that the box linked to an application for computing floor sizes. Too bad this user didn't see it. Nor did our other test users. To get usability data about the actual Flash design, we had to force people to launch the application.
The problem is clear: users try to avoid anything that's overly hyped or promoted, especially if it looks like an advertisement.
I find this very encouraging, though if Advertisers take it to heart, we'll have a lot more stealth advertising.
Sunday 24 November 2002
AlienAid - Chocolate - UK to US
I was going to write about how most US chocolate tastes like wax, and how we have the good stuff smuggled in from England by visitors, but Orson Scott Card wrote the AlienAid chocolate piece for me.
However, he doesn't mention Joseph Schmidt of San Francisco,who make the yummieat chocolate in the world. (note that they don't ship on Thursdays or Fridays so it doesn't melt in the post - no wax there).
However, he doesn't mention Joseph Schmidt of San Francisco,who make the yummieat chocolate in the world. (note that they don't ship on Thursdays or Fridays so it doesn't melt in the post - no wax there).
Orson Scot Card on Copyright
Back in May, the Author of Enders Game wrote this article:
The entertainment business is driven by two great devils: greed and terror.
And nowhere do these twin monsters reveal themselves more clearly than in the current demand by the entertainment industry for perpetual copyright and universal copy protection.
[...]
I make my living from copyright, so you'd think I'd have more sympathy for the music and film industries. After all, I wouldn't appreciate it if somebody started taking my books and letting people read them ... for free! Without paying me each time!
Oh, wait. They already do. In fact, the government does it -- with libraries.
But ordinary citizens do, too. They buy my books and then lend them to friends. They proudly tell me, "Fifteen people have read this copy of your book."
[...]
The entertainment industry is convinced that digital copying is completely different. If you can get a perfect copy of a cd for free, why would you pay for one? Therefore, they have to eliminate the possibility.
They are so wrong.
[...]
The only piracy that hurts the publishers is when somebody copies their music and sells it. Otherwise, it's the modern equivalent of singing around the piano.
And I will never, never buy a copy-protected cd. I have too much good music already to need to give in to this paranoid, greedy, self-defeating attempt to keep me from using the cds I buy in the way I choose to use them.
And for those who say, Ah, but would you put your books online where people could download them for free? -- well, my answer is, I not only would, I did. Until the bookstore chains made me stop.
It didn't cost me royalties. It widened my audience. But try persuading a greedy paranoid of that!
The entertainment business is driven by two great devils: greed and terror.
And nowhere do these twin monsters reveal themselves more clearly than in the current demand by the entertainment industry for perpetual copyright and universal copy protection.
[...]
I make my living from copyright, so you'd think I'd have more sympathy for the music and film industries. After all, I wouldn't appreciate it if somebody started taking my books and letting people read them ... for free! Without paying me each time!
Oh, wait. They already do. In fact, the government does it -- with libraries.
But ordinary citizens do, too. They buy my books and then lend them to friends. They proudly tell me, "Fifteen people have read this copy of your book."
[...]
The entertainment industry is convinced that digital copying is completely different. If you can get a perfect copy of a cd for free, why would you pay for one? Therefore, they have to eliminate the possibility.
They are so wrong.
[...]
The only piracy that hurts the publishers is when somebody copies their music and sells it. Otherwise, it's the modern equivalent of singing around the piano.
And I will never, never buy a copy-protected cd. I have too much good music already to need to give in to this paranoid, greedy, self-defeating attempt to keep me from using the cds I buy in the way I choose to use them.
And for those who say, Ah, but would you put your books online where people could download them for free? -- well, my answer is, I not only would, I did. Until the bookstore chains made me stop.
It didn't cost me royalties. It widened my audience. But try persuading a greedy paranoid of that!
Thursday 21 November 2002
Forget Digital Identity
Clay Shirky explains that Biological Identity is the really scary thing - deriving the ultimate unique database key from your DNA.
imagine if all radio spectrum was like Airport
David Weinberger is:
You can't just start up your own radio station because you might be interfering with, say, the batch of spectrum used to dispatch emergency vehicles. Besides, if everyone started up a radio station, the signals would be overlapping right, left, up and down. So, we need a centralized chokepoint to divide up the spectrum rationally.
Except put that in the past tense. New technology can do real-time negotiation of spectrum, seeking the optimal wavelength the way Internet routers seek the best next hop. Assigning fixed bandwidth necessarily means wasting bandwidth, like keeping cars locked into assigned lanes even if the result is bumper-to-bumper traffic in one lane and empty lanes on either side of it.
In effect, we can do to spectrum what the Internet has done to networks. By putting all the intelligence on the edges, the network can support maximum innovation.
You can't just start up your own radio station because you might be interfering with, say, the batch of spectrum used to dispatch emergency vehicles. Besides, if everyone started up a radio station, the signals would be overlapping right, left, up and down. So, we need a centralized chokepoint to divide up the spectrum rationally.
Except put that in the past tense. New technology can do real-time negotiation of spectrum, seeking the optimal wavelength the way Internet routers seek the best next hop. Assigning fixed bandwidth necessarily means wasting bandwidth, like keeping cars locked into assigned lanes even if the result is bumper-to-bumper traffic in one lane and empty lanes on either side of it.
In effect, we can do to spectrum what the Internet has done to networks. By putting all the intelligence on the edges, the network can support maximum innovation.
Wednesday 20 November 2002
subtle nag
Mark Pilgrim shows me which sites I have been too lazy to add to my links list to the right with remarkable accuracy.
Here's some of what I was reading instead of writing here recently
Paul Boutin puts Andrew Odlyzko's point about Hard disks growing faster than network bandwidth into practice.
John Udell repeats my point about signed email being the long-term answer to spam.
Michael Wolff namedrops about hanging with the moguls, but thinks that:
the next big thing was that we would all soon find out how unhappy everybody is in the media business. That nobody can enjoy or get satisfaction from working in an uncertain colossus. That there is a dark and growing rage in the ranks. That while we partied, the media business was rebelling from within. It would be pulled apart by a bigness-induced psychosis, as well as by the ever-growing pressure and sure futility of the search for the next big thing.
Kevin Myers is becoming a censor:
...censors these days have become relics of ancient rituals: the guardsmen inspecting the vaults of Westminster searching for more associates of Mr Fawkes, or the tipstaff offering non-existent protection to a judge from a non-existent mob.
[...]Although the internet means that off-screen protection is almost impossible to achieve these days, we noble censors can't shirk our duty because of this. So at the one time, being a censor contains the impossible contradictions of being utterly ridiculous yet also being morally vital.
Peter Chernin is spouting again:
Using terms like "looting," "piracy" and "digital hijacking," Chernin said that the rampant free downloading of copyrighted material is akin to shoplifting. The big difference, however, is that downloading music and movies for free is tolerated.
Perhaps if companies like News International hadn't devalued music and movies by making them available 'free' as long as you suffer through advertisements, people's perceptions of their value would be higher. Jim Griffin says something like this, in his argument for nationalizing P2P systems:
Making art feel free, without being free, is the history of media. Radio, television, newspapers, magazines � almost all take a loss on distribution.
Doc Searls explains the real problem:
In commercial broadcasting, for example, customers and consumers are totally different populations. You and I pay nothing for what we hear on our car radios. We're just consumers. The customers of the stations we hear are the advertisers who buy time.
The same goes for commercial television. Consumers of commercial TV have no economic relationship whatsoever with their local NBC station, with the network, or with the producers of shows. All the "content" is just bait. Chum on the waters. The commercial broadcasting marketplace is a conversation that exists entirely between the media, advertisers and intermediaries such as advertising agencies.
The consumers have zero influence, basically, on commercial television because they pay nothing, and don't have any kind of direct feedback mechanism. And if we put that mechanism in place (as the Net and TiVo threaten to do), guess what happens? The colossal inefficiencies of advertising get exposed. A $100 billion business worldwide is suddenly at risk.
There is negative demand for most TV and radio advertising. It subtracts value for listeners and viewers. That's why TiVo viewers skip over the ads. TiVo isn't exactly Net-native, but it could easily be. And eventually, it will be, if its backers let it survive.
Andrew Marr met David Hockney:
Hockney is a great critic of government interference, from pornography to banning fox hunting, and told me he went on the recent Countryside Alliance demonstration in London. He had marched under a placard with the excellent general sentiment, "End Bossiness Now". But on reflection he thought that perhaps this was a little aggressive, a little peremptory. So he has carefully altered it for the lapel badges he now gives out, which read, rather more wryly and Britishly, "End Bossiness Soon". It made me feel quite patriotic.
Perhaps. On the other hand, this report combined with these posters do make my joke about being a political exile from England seem less funny.
Kevin Kelly explains the Universe-as-computer idea, but misses out the subtlety of the 'free will as the halting problem' idea.
Sony comes up with the most clueless locked-up CD scheme yet. AKMA is aghast.
John Udell repeats my point about signed email being the long-term answer to spam.
Michael Wolff namedrops about hanging with the moguls, but thinks that:
the next big thing was that we would all soon find out how unhappy everybody is in the media business. That nobody can enjoy or get satisfaction from working in an uncertain colossus. That there is a dark and growing rage in the ranks. That while we partied, the media business was rebelling from within. It would be pulled apart by a bigness-induced psychosis, as well as by the ever-growing pressure and sure futility of the search for the next big thing.
Kevin Myers is becoming a censor:
...censors these days have become relics of ancient rituals: the guardsmen inspecting the vaults of Westminster searching for more associates of Mr Fawkes, or the tipstaff offering non-existent protection to a judge from a non-existent mob.
[...]Although the internet means that off-screen protection is almost impossible to achieve these days, we noble censors can't shirk our duty because of this. So at the one time, being a censor contains the impossible contradictions of being utterly ridiculous yet also being morally vital.
Peter Chernin is spouting again:
Using terms like "looting," "piracy" and "digital hijacking," Chernin said that the rampant free downloading of copyrighted material is akin to shoplifting. The big difference, however, is that downloading music and movies for free is tolerated.
Perhaps if companies like News International hadn't devalued music and movies by making them available 'free' as long as you suffer through advertisements, people's perceptions of their value would be higher. Jim Griffin says something like this, in his argument for nationalizing P2P systems:
Making art feel free, without being free, is the history of media. Radio, television, newspapers, magazines � almost all take a loss on distribution.
Doc Searls explains the real problem:
In commercial broadcasting, for example, customers and consumers are totally different populations. You and I pay nothing for what we hear on our car radios. We're just consumers. The customers of the stations we hear are the advertisers who buy time.
The same goes for commercial television. Consumers of commercial TV have no economic relationship whatsoever with their local NBC station, with the network, or with the producers of shows. All the "content" is just bait. Chum on the waters. The commercial broadcasting marketplace is a conversation that exists entirely between the media, advertisers and intermediaries such as advertising agencies.
The consumers have zero influence, basically, on commercial television because they pay nothing, and don't have any kind of direct feedback mechanism. And if we put that mechanism in place (as the Net and TiVo threaten to do), guess what happens? The colossal inefficiencies of advertising get exposed. A $100 billion business worldwide is suddenly at risk.
There is negative demand for most TV and radio advertising. It subtracts value for listeners and viewers. That's why TiVo viewers skip over the ads. TiVo isn't exactly Net-native, but it could easily be. And eventually, it will be, if its backers let it survive.
Andrew Marr met David Hockney:
Hockney is a great critic of government interference, from pornography to banning fox hunting, and told me he went on the recent Countryside Alliance demonstration in London. He had marched under a placard with the excellent general sentiment, "End Bossiness Now". But on reflection he thought that perhaps this was a little aggressive, a little peremptory. So he has carefully altered it for the lapel badges he now gives out, which read, rather more wryly and Britishly, "End Bossiness Soon". It made me feel quite patriotic.
Perhaps. On the other hand, this report combined with these posters do make my joke about being a political exile from England seem less funny.
Kevin Kelly explains the Universe-as-computer idea, but misses out the subtlety of the 'free will as the halting problem' idea.
Sony comes up with the most clueless locked-up CD scheme yet. AKMA is aghast.
Wednesday 13 November 2002
AlienAid - roads and offices - Bay Area, CA US to Germany
Doug Wyatt writes on Autobahns and offices
Thursday 7 November 2002
Wednesday 6 November 2002
Tablets - take two (and call me in the morning)
My snarky comments about Gates and his Tablet PC got me some email responses.
A semi-submersible options holder of Mountain View writes:
I don�t think you get what is being described here. �Gates is talking about annotating a web page with a pen, (which means you can draw arrows, underline things, circle one person in a group picture or whatever) then sending that page to someone.
Weblogging or normal email would allow you to send a link and a comment but that is not the same thing.
I have a javascript toolbar favourite in IE that gets the current selection, opens my weblog tool, pastes it in with attribution and lets me add comments. I can underline with <u> or whatever. I could grab a screenshot and scribble on it if I want to, but it's a lot less useful.
Gates' example is something that's better to give than receive, like voicemail.
Getting a monster bitmap of the article with scribbles on, instead of a link to page is not enticing if it isn't coming from the richest man in the world. If it can annotate the page and make a valid HTML page of the result, that's interesting. It's doable as well - have a look at this QuickTopic version of the Windows Media DRM page
Another correspondent comments:
I couldn't pass up the opportunity to point out that in your article on BBBG (Big Bad Bill Gates) using his tablet PC to annotate magazine articles. He probably can't if his tablet incorporates DRM. He'll have an expensive hunk o' plastic and glass, and he'll still be tearing out magazine articles and sending them to his buds.
A semi-submersible options holder of Mountain View writes:
I don�t think you get what is being described here. �Gates is talking about annotating a web page with a pen, (which means you can draw arrows, underline things, circle one person in a group picture or whatever) then sending that page to someone.
Weblogging or normal email would allow you to send a link and a comment but that is not the same thing.
I have a javascript toolbar favourite in IE that gets the current selection, opens my weblog tool, pastes it in with attribution and lets me add comments. I can underline with <u> or whatever. I could grab a screenshot and scribble on it if I want to, but it's a lot less useful.
Gates' example is something that's better to give than receive, like voicemail.
Getting a monster bitmap of the article with scribbles on, instead of a link to page is not enticing if it isn't coming from the richest man in the world. If it can annotate the page and make a valid HTML page of the result, that's interesting. It's doable as well - have a look at this QuickTopic version of the Windows Media DRM page
Another correspondent comments:
I couldn't pass up the opportunity to point out that in your article on BBBG (Big Bad Bill Gates) using his tablet PC to annotate magazine articles. He probably can't if his tablet incorporates DRM. He'll have an expensive hunk o' plastic and glass, and he'll still be tearing out magazine articles and sending them to his buds.
CD Copy Protection Worthless
New Scientist
John Halderman, a computer scientist from Princeton University in New Jersey, plans to show delegates at a digital copyright conference in Washington DC next week that the idea of CD copy-prevention is "fundamentally misguided".[...]
The record industry could lose a fortune if people stop buying CDs and make their own copies. Halderman reckons he has a solution for them. "Reduce the cost of new CDs; if discs cost only a few dollars each, buying them might be preferable to spending the time and effort to make copies or find them online."
John Halderman, a computer scientist from Princeton University in New Jersey, plans to show delegates at a digital copyright conference in Washington DC next week that the idea of CD copy-prevention is "fundamentally misguided".[...]
The record industry could lose a fortune if people stop buying CDs and make their own copies. Halderman reckons he has a solution for them. "Reduce the cost of new CDs; if discs cost only a few dollars each, buying them might be preferable to spending the time and effort to make copies or find them online."
Macrovision and Midbar to merge
Maybe they can gather all the snake-oil together in one company and join Dataplay and LiquidAudio in the DRM graveyard
CNET.com By melding the two companies' products, they hope to be able to improve compatibility with computers. The companies also promise that by next year CDs using their joint copy-protection technology will include two versions of songs--one for ordinary CD players, and one that can be loaded onto computer hard drives in much the same way that MP3s can be "ripped" or copied onto computers today. Listeners will not be able to make unrestricted copies of these alternate digital files, but the songs will be able to be transferred to mobile devices such as MP3 players and even burned onto CDs in a limited way, company executives said.
"We've kind of learned over the past year that consumers are really fighting this," said Brian Dunn, Macrovision's senior vice president of business development. "They want more flexibility."
I do hope the labels don't fall for this. If it can be heard, it can be copied. These things are just customer-deterrents.
CNET.com By melding the two companies' products, they hope to be able to improve compatibility with computers. The companies also promise that by next year CDs using their joint copy-protection technology will include two versions of songs--one for ordinary CD players, and one that can be loaded onto computer hard drives in much the same way that MP3s can be "ripped" or copied onto computers today. Listeners will not be able to make unrestricted copies of these alternate digital files, but the songs will be able to be transferred to mobile devices such as MP3 players and even burned onto CDs in a limited way, company executives said.
"We've kind of learned over the past year that consumers are really fighting this," said Brian Dunn, Macrovision's senior vice president of business development. "They want more flexibility."
I do hope the labels don't fall for this. If it can be heard, it can be copied. These things are just customer-deterrents.
Tuesday 5 November 2002
Geek presents
What do you give the man who has everything? Penicillin.
For the geek who thinks he has everything, you could give him the raw materials to make anything - samples of the complete periodic table of the elements.
For the geek who thinks he has everything, you could give him the raw materials to make anything - samples of the complete periodic table of the elements.
AT&T Update
Part of AT&T's standard threatening letter for non-payment is to cut off Cable TV, @home, and mobile services, as well as landline long distance. This strikes me as contrary to the spirit of the 1996 telecoms deregulation act.
Also, they are among those lobbying the FCC for the removal of all documentation and accounting requirements, so records of disputed bills vanish (their online billing only holds a 3-month history).
Lots of interesting info at TeleTruth
Also, they are among those lobbying the FCC for the removal of all documentation and accounting requirements, so records of disputed bills vanish (their online billing only holds a 3-month history).
Lots of interesting info at TeleTruth
Friday 1 November 2002
Missing the point
Gushing Tablet PC Puff piece:
For years, William H. Gates III and Warren E. Buffett have routinely mailed each other magazine articles that have caught their eye. They rip pieces out of the magazines, jot notes in the margins, and pop them in the mail. Gates anticipates the day when he won't have to mess with all that. With his new Tablet PC, he plans to call up articles from the Web, scrawl thoughts on the screen with a digital pen, and shoot it off to Buffett via e-mail. He's already using an early version of tablet software to send electronically annotated articles to Microsoft colleagues. "I have anticipated this for many, many years. And here it is," says Gates.
Am I the only one who found this laughable? You don't need to spend millions on research and thousands on a tablet computer to do this; you just need to get free weblogging software. Can't Gates type?
For years, William H. Gates III and Warren E. Buffett have routinely mailed each other magazine articles that have caught their eye. They rip pieces out of the magazines, jot notes in the margins, and pop them in the mail. Gates anticipates the day when he won't have to mess with all that. With his new Tablet PC, he plans to call up articles from the Web, scrawl thoughts on the screen with a digital pen, and shoot it off to Buffett via e-mail. He's already using an early version of tablet software to send electronically annotated articles to Microsoft colleagues. "I have anticipated this for many, many years. And here it is," says Gates.
Am I the only one who found this laughable? You don't need to spend millions on research and thousands on a tablet computer to do this; you just need to get free weblogging software. Can't Gates type?