words
Court Maintains Ban on DVD Backup Software
Judge sides with MPAA in case against Real Network’s RealDVD software that would allow consumers to make backup copies of purchased DVDs for personal use. Chalk up another win for the MPAA and another loss for consumers. For US District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has issued a permanent injunction against Real Networks DVD-backup software RealDVD.
Continue reading »Canadian Throne Speech Says Government Will ‘Strengthen’ Copyright
If you thought that the Canadian government will finally get at least a clue on copyright after protests, swarming riding seats and giving very clear signals through the copyright consultation, you have another thing coming if you heard the speech from the throne today. When the Conservative government of Canada held a copyright consultation to gauge what the public wanted in terms of copyright laws, Canadians were very clear about it. A graph from Michael Geist shows where Canadians stand on the issue and a vast majority are against another Bill C-61 (often referred to as the Canadian DMCA), against anti-circumvention laws, are for a stronger Fair Dealings, and stronger protections from liability for non-commercial use.
Continue reading »Court Rejects IFPI Appeal For ISP To Block The Pirate Bay
In keeping with their new strategy of going after ISPs instead of end users, in March 2009 the IFPI, MPAA and several local movie studios began threatening Telenor, Norway’s largest ISP. Their demands were simple enough – stop your customers from accessing The Pirate Bay voluntarily or we will make you do it by force. Telenor boss Ragnar Kårhus refused to comply and the entertainment groups made good on their promise and took the ISP to court.
Continue reading »P2P responsible for 19 percent of global mobile data traffic
P2P is responsible for 19 percent of the traffic on global mobile data networks, according to a new report from network management vendor Allot Communications that my colleague Stacey Higginbotham is covering in depth over at Gigaom.com . Just for comparison’s sake: YouTube is causing 10 percent of the traffic on those networks, and actually 32 percent of all HTTP-based streaming traffic. Does that mean that the blame game for congested 3G networks will finally shift from P2P to, well, everyone else?
Continue reading »iPad as Video Device? Not So Much
In the unlikely case you were somehow unaware of the big news from yesterday, Apple announced the iPad, a new device (and category) somewhere between a smartphone and a laptop that will either revolutionize the entire computing space, or will flop miserably (depending on which analyst you read). So much has been tweeted, facebooked, blogged, and written about the iPad already, I’m not sure that what I have to say will be all that new, but there are a few specific aspects of the iPad that I find very intriguing (and less commented upon). While the value of the device for casual web-surfing, gaming, and light productivity seems pretty obvious, another key aspect touted by Apple for theiPad was video. And here is where I feel the iPad is at best a step backward, and at worst a real failure. Everyone who has been able to get their hands on the iPad lauds it’s screen clarity, but from a purely video watching standpoint, it is far from ideal. 4:3 aspect ratio and limited to 720p resolution? That strikes me as very weak. A screen that size (9.7″ diagonal) might seem small for full 1080p resolution but since the use case is geared towards handheld situations, or very close watching (while on a plane for example), 1080p is actually quite appropriate in my opinion, as is a 16:9 aspect ratio. Worse, though, from a video standpoint are the format restrictions the iPad enforces. The iPad can only play back video files in .mp4, .mpv, and .mov file formats with H.264 video at Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps/48kHz. In other words, the iPad basically plays back video in the iTunes format and really nothing else. The vast bulk of Internet video files are in other formats, specifically Xvid in .avi for standard definition and H.264 High Profile 4.0 in .mkv for high definition content. True, we are talking about grey market content here, but that remains the vast majority of what users consume in terms of downloaded video files. This strategy mirrors what Apple did with the AppleTV, by severely limiting what kinds of content it could play back, essentially restricting it to iTunes video purchases and rentals, instead of the de facto standards of what people actually watch. The AppleTV/iPad strategy is the opposite of what Apple did with the iPod, it must be said, for that device could always play back the truly popular format, mp3. I believe that the main factor in the AppleTV’s failure has been the inability to play back formats outside of iTunes, and from a video standpoint, the iPad is repeating that error. Yes, there are relatively easy ways to transcode video content into an iPad playable format, but that is a massively annoying requirement, especially when it’s utterly unnecessary. I have no doubt the iPad has the graphic horsepower to decode 720p Blu-Ray rips in .mkv with either .ac3 or multi-channel .aac soundtracks natively, but Apple decided differently.
Continue reading »