Free Content - Part 2

My last posting provided a little history about how we went from software pirates to music pirates and now to movie pirates. Congress has proposed legislation to help curb this piracy, but is has been put on hold for the time being. This brings up the question: Is legislation the answer? In a nutshell, no.

If you look at the software and music industries, enacting new laws didn't really help. A combination of enforcing existing laws coupled with simple technological advances like software licensing keys had the largest success for the software industry. As for music, piracy just went underground. The same will happen with movies.

Talking with one of my co-workers exposed a mindset of the younger generation that was new to me. He expressed that teenagers and young adults expect certain things to be free. If you look at the software industry, open source is a large movement that gains more and more projects every day. The same thing is happening with music. If you look at iTunes, they constantly have the free song of the week. There are also bands that make their music freely available from their websites. One would think this would kill innovation. I personally believe it has the opposite effect. If you are a commercial software company and put out a sub-standard product, there is an open source project that your customers can replace you with. That means your product had better be good enough that people will pay money for it. I see the same thing happening with music.

So what is the solution for Hollywood? My suggestion would be to embrace the Internet and don't try to litigate or legislate it. Use it as a new medium for distributing your products. While fewer people are interested in actually buying DVDs, more people are interested in streaming movies from places like Netflix. Think about it. If you don't have to create a DVD and ship it somewhere, you shouldn't have to charge nearly as much, but still be able to make the same amount of profit.

Unfortunately movies are not the end of free content. Today I saw a prototype of a new electronics device created on a 3D printer. It is only a matter of time before you will be able to download plans from the Internet and create your own Ferrari. Let's see Congress try to figure out how to legislate that one.

Free Content - Part 1

I recently had a conversation with several coworkers and we talked about the new anti-piracy legislation that seems to have been put on hold by Congress. On one hand, Hollywood wants to protect their movies, and on the other, Silicon Valley doesn't want censorship, which is what they felt was happening. This brought up a very interesting discussion.

When computers first came out, there was little to keep friends and family from sharing software with each other. If you had a program your friend wanted, simply make a copy of it and he had it too. Then software companies came up with anti-piracy methods to keep this from happening. After all, why should software developers miss out on lost revenue from software pirates.

Then the Compact Disk or CD was developed. The deterrent that kept people from copying and sharing music was the massive size of one single song. Twenty years ago, 75 megabytes was huge and that only got you a single song. Back then, a 100 megabyte hard drive was considered massive. Eventually better compression techniques were created and the size of disk drives increased. Gigabyte hard drives emerged and MP3s shrunk the size of a song to around 5 megabytes. Then the same problem the software industry faced years earlier, plagued music companies. Their solution was to litigate. Sites like Napster were shut down and several high-profile offenders were slapped with huge fines and threats of jail. Unfortunately the music companies were not nearly as effective as software companies and stolen music continues to be a problem.

Now we face the same issue with movies and Hollywood isn't too happy with the music industry's success. Hard drives have continued to increase capacity to the point where countless movies can be stored on even the most basic laptop. The movie industry has enough trouble making profitable films and they don't want to loose any potential revenue. So what is their solution? Lobby Congress to enact tougher laws regarding copyrighted material. This includes creating a new police force, which is made up of Internet service providers (ISPs). Furthermore, anyone can claim a copyright which could force ISPs to suspend service to anyone with a false claim against them. If you don't like the content found on a website, claim it is yours and force the ISP to remove it. Then wait for the court system to churn through all of the false claims, which takes a lot of time.

So that is how we got to this point. What do we do now?

A Break from TV

This weekend I have a guest from Japan visiting me in Utah. He came for business last week and has business at our offices next week. Rather than get stuck in San Francisco over a long weekend, he asked if he could come skiing with me in Utah. Seeing as I had already invited him when I was in Japan, I was more than happy to host him this weekend.

I didn't watch much TV when I was in Japan because I didn't understand anything being said. There is only so long that you can watch people on the screen speaking a different language before you get really bored. Rather than subject my guest to a similar fate, we have all gathered in the living room this evening and are reading, working on the computer, or playing hand-held video games. I have to say that I don't miss television.

This has me questioning the future of TV. While I don't plan to toss my idiot box out the window any time soon, I may rethink my cable subscription. Why pay a fee every month when I could pay a fraction of the cost and get better service. After all, most networks allow you to watch recent episodes of your favorite show at the time is most convenient for you. If I want to watch a movie, there are a number of services that offer downloaded or streaming content via the Internet. Perhaps I should look into replacing one of my current televisions with one that has built-in Internet features. In the past I haven't given an Internet capable TV a second though, but maybe these electronic companies are onto something.

The Power of the Keyboard

There were several days during my Christmas break where I meant to create a Blog entry but was upstairs and away from my computer. Rather than going back to my office, I pulled out one of my Android-based tablets and pontificated on the day's events. You can tell which days they were because the entries are significantly shorter than the others.

Don't get me wrong, I love using my tablets to look things up on the Internet or take short notes during meetings. They are just difficult to use to create a Blog entry. While your finger makes a great pointer, it makes a lousy substitute for a mouse when it comes to highlighting text. The on-screen keyboard found on any tablet is usable, but is no match for a real one. In the end it was just easier to use my laptop.

I have a friend that is wondering if he can replace his home computer with a tablet. Unfortunately I don't think either of the tablets I have are there yet. Perhaps I should spend some time at an electronics store and see if I can't get an external keyboard. I wonder if there is a way I can win one?

Internet on the Plane

Friday night I took my usual flight from Oakland back to Salt Lake on Southwest airlines. When the flight attendant announced that the plane had WiFi capability, I thought I would give it a shot. As I fly a lot with them, I am what they consider an "A-List Preferred" customer and so the Internet was free for me instead of the usual $5.

I thought I would add a Blog entry from the air, so I tested the connection speed. There was a huge latency issue, which means that there was a noticeable pause after typing in a web address before any data was returned. Once the web page started being rendered, it was fast. That was to be expected given the technology they use to provide Internet access on airplanes. I also wanted to see if I could watch a video and so I fired up YouTube. Once again, there was a pause between typing the address and getting the first screen to appear. However, once I started watching a sample video, things ran smoothly and I was impressed with the connection speed.

I felt I had done enough research and so I logged into my Blog and started to write about the experience. Unfortunately Southwest puts a banner across the top of every web page. It happens to cover the heading and toolbar for the Blog site I use. That means I could type text, but couldn't give my entry a title nor add any links. There was an "X" button that should have removed the Southwest banner. Unfortunately it just gave me an error message with an apology as why that wasn't supposed to happen.

It seemed fun to be able to use the Internet from a flying plane and the cost wasn't that bad. If I had a pressing e-mail to send or some critical research, the $5 fee is more than worth the price. My only complaint is that I couldn't use the service to write in my Blog. I'm sure that will get fixed eventually. Until then, all my entries will have to be from the ground.

My New Years Resolution

Christmas break is over and now I find myself back at work in San Francisco. That means I don't have as much time to play video games and I have to admit that I am a little sad about that. The last couple of days of vacation, I picked up my PSP and was having fun playing some new games I got for it. Luckily the PSP is small enough that I can throw in my suitcase and cart back and forth between Salt Lake and the Bay Area.

Last night, I got back to the boat after a full day at the office and watched a little television while I cooked and ate dinner. Then there was nothing on that I really wanted to see so I did something new: I turned off the TV. For about two years now, I have gone back to the boat after work and wasted my time in front of the idiot box. This year I have decided that I want to watch a lot less television. When I turned it off last night, I had three hours of free time to do whatever I wanted. I turned on my computer and spent time working on one of my many projects.

I find it interesting that I spent my Christmas break playing video games instead of watching television in the evenings and that seems to have broken my addiction to the various shows I felt the need to watch. Now I have a lot more time for other things and I feel like a new man. See, there is a benefit for video games. At least there was for me as your mileage may vary.