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Sorry for the long news blackout. We were remodeling at home and
amongst all the commotion, I had very little time to spend in front
of a computer. Fortunately, everything is back to normal now, but
there are a few IT related projects left.
AutoGK 2.47
allows multiple instances to run simultaneously, uses the latest
DGMPGDec and fixes external subtitle and XviD undersize problems.
DGMPGDec
1.5.0 beta 4 fixes a few problems with TS files, and let's not
forget the automated field order correction in CLI mode introduced
in beta 3.
Then we have the first
beta of the patent free theora video codec - I wonder if it's
finally in a usable state.
If you're into lossless audio, madFlac
might come in handy when using DirectShow to decode FLAC encoded
music files.
Now here's an interesting new approach to selling music - Britain's
Radiohead allows you to pay
whatever you deem appropriate for their next album. Is anybody
surprised that the band doesn't have an RIAA label contract?
At the start of our remodeling, I found this review
of amazonmp3 - I took it as motivation to surf around a little
and my first impression was also positive.. up until the point where
I figured I'd try it out and had to find out that it's restricted
to the US. Well, dear RIAA, here I was willing to shell out some
money (I haven't bought a CD in quite a while.. what is online radio
for?), and then I can't because I live in the wrong country? And
you blame P2P for declining sales? I'd imagine that having customers
willing to pay you for something and you not being able to deliver
is one of those things that just mustn't happen in business.
One of the remaining IT projects in my home is setting up a NAS
- I took my CD collection and converted everything to MP3s that
I intend to stream on the network. Now, according to Sony, I should
be locked up for the rest of my life - since
ripping your own CD is piracy. I wonder what kind of prison
sentence they'd deem appropriate for the roughly 1500 tracks I just
ripped these past few days.
The same lawsuit where Sony - the company that once sold us Mini
Disc players as the perfect companion to take CDs on the road -
basically calls everybody a pirate, also brought out a lot of other
interesting details: amongst others, the
music industry cannot really put a number they can back up on the
losses they make due to unauthorized redistribution of their works
on P2P networks.
In the end though, the
RIAA won their first jury victory and were awarded $222'000
in damages. The victory largely stems from one controversial jury
instruction - jurors were told that the mere act of making a song
available to others infringes on the copyright of the labels in
question. In other words, even if nobody ever downloads anything,
and the label incurs $0 in lost sales, you are still as guilty as
if thousands of people download music from you. The defense plans
to appeal.
Hot on the heels of triple layer HD DVDs, we have the Blu-ray
camp going 4 layers and 100GB - although the disk isn't quite
as far along as its triple layer counterpart. As with the triple
layer HD DVDs, compatibility to existing players remains to be proven.
Whereas Blu-ray holds a comfortable lead in disc sales over HD
DVD, things appear different in the rental arena - Netflix
reports quite the opposite numbers.
Fox has resumed releasing Blu-ray discs - and the first two discs
actually sport BD+, plus the latest AACS revision. So the 10 year
clock starts now. Any bets on how long it takes till we can bring
out the champagne and toast the latest Fair Use victory? In the
meantime, Blu-ray
owners are either stuck with unplayable discs, or have to wait up
to two minutes before playback starts. Welcome to the world
of BD+. Fox' comment on these issues: contact the manufacturer of
your player - we're using Blu-ray to its full potential and it's
not our fault if players can't keep up. While the 1.1 profile mandate
is not too far off, there's still not one single player that actually
supports some of the more advanced features studios are eager to
use. In fact, one of the first players that would have to support
the more complete profile, Samsung's BDP-2400, scheduled for November,
has
been canceled, and Samsung's dual format player, the BDP-UP5000
has been delayed until December.
Will we all have to start paying extra fees if we listen to music
with our windows open? In the UK, a
car repair firm has been sued for using radios at their workplace
- because coworkers as well as customers can potentially listen
in.
And here are the latest industry numbers on piracy - according
to copyright industry lapdog "Institute for Policy Innovation",
the US suffers $58 billion losses due to piracy every year. As usual,
loss estimates are largely based on industry numbers (which are
known to be blown out of proportions), and as usual, the fact that
if you save money by downloading a song rather than paying for it
gives you more money to spend on other things (and as we know from
recent economic developments, at least in the US, most people don't
hoard up money on their bank accounts) - so if the RIAA doesn't
get 20 bucks for the latest album, another industry will end up
getting those 20 bucks.
Last but not least, we have NBC's CEO's rally
cry for more copyright enforcement. How about we simply put
a cop in every home who watches over what we do. By the way Jeff,
I'd like to watch 30 Rock, too, even though I don't live in the
US. Now how exactly are you going to make that possible again without
me having to wait for the DVD?
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