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Time Warner required to give just 28 IP address owners to US Copyright Group per month

July 7th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

A few months ago, the US Copyright Group launched massive lawsuits against thousands of Internet users it alleges downloaded illegal torrents of the movies Far Cry and The Steam Experiment in two separate suits. It sent the IP addresses it had to the respective Internet Service Providers and demanded to know the real identities of the users behind those addresses.

Time Warner Cable complained loudly that it doesn’t have the time or resources to immediately return thousands of IP trace requests as it was being asked to do. In turn, the US Copyright Group lawyers accused Time Warner of being a good ISP for copyright infringers.

I guess we’ll see if the lawyers in these cases now throw the same accusations at the US court system. Judge Rosemary Collyer, who is overseeing both cases, has ruled that Time Warner Cable is obligated to supply only a minimum of 28 IP address checks per month, and that’s a total of 28 across both cases.

Considering that Time Warner received 809 lookup requests in the Far Cry case alone, we’re likely looking at a period of years before they’re all completed. And this is likely to simply continue to snowball in to a bigger problem as new cases throw thousands more requests at ISPs. Meanwhile, the continuing high rate of downloads for The Hurt Locker, despite it being the center of another of these massive lawsuits, show that the cases have thus far had zero effect on curbing movie piracy.

(Thanks to Ars Technica).

Posted in Movies and TV

Tags: Far Cry, movie lawsuits, The Steam Experiment, Time Warner Cable, US Copyright Group

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Prince provides amusement with bizarre misreading of his business

July 6th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

Normally, I’m all about simply facts and information. I put something up that I figure people can learn from, and I’m happy with that. But there’s a darker side…a side that enjoys laughing at someone. Luckily, we have people like Prince around to provide that someone.

You remember Prince, right? Used to be king of the music business? Well, it seems that it’s not just the big music labels who seem befuddled by the direction music is moving in.

From an interview with The Mirror :

He explains that he decided the album will be released in CD format only in the Mirror. There’ll be no downloads anywhere in the world because of his ongoing battles against internet abuses.

Unlike most other rock stars, he has banned YouTube and iTunes from using any of his music and has even closed down his own official website.

Yes indeed, while most other artists are fighting their labels for the right to be able to use their own music and videos, Prince is going the other way and restricting access to his stuff all by himself. And why?

He says: "The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.

"The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.

"They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you."

Yes ladies and gentlemen, we might as well all log off this Internet thing and move on because apparently it’s headed in the same direction that the dinosaurs went.

I mean, there WAS that poll that showed the majority of Brits polled enjoy music digitally…but hey, what do they possibly know about how they should be listening to music? Prince will set them straight. And Youtube is immensely popular, among the most visited websites online…but hey, it’s on that Internet thing that’s choking and dying as I type this, right?

Ah, Prince.

Posted in Music

Tags: Internet, iTunes, Prince, Youtube

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Account hacking a problem on iTunes

July 5th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

It appears that iTunes accounts are being hacked in to by app developers to and use them to purchase apps. That in turn shoots the apps in question up the bestseller charts, gaining them attention from other customers through hacked account sales.

Some details from The Next Web :

-A number of iTunes accounts have been hacked from across the globe, not just the US, and used to purchase apps.

-iTunes users have reported anywhere between $100-$1400 spent using their accounts.

-The trend: buy a couple of low cost apps ($1-$3) and then one app at an extortionate price ($90+).

-Currently all the app purchased have been owned by Asia based developers with little information known about them. Clearly they feel being based in Asia will give them immunity to any US laws.

-This seems to have been happening over the course of the last 4 weeks, although MacRumors shows hacking on some level dating back to 2009.

This all came to light when one of the developers who was using this method to popularize his software was busted, and had his apps removed from the store last week.

So, if you have an iTunes account, keep an eye on your purchases and watch for anything you didn’t buy.

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tags: App Store, hackers, iTunes

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Activision unhappy with lack of multiplayer revenue

July 5th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

In an interview with the Financial Times (account may be needed to read), Activision CEO Bobby Kotick talked about being unhappy with the fact that Activision doesn’t make any money from Xbox Live subscriptions, despite it’s Call of Duty series being some of the most popular games on the service.

“We’ve heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft’s] subscribers are principally on Live because of Call of Duty,” says Mr Kotick. “We don’t really participate financially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on Live, but it’s not our network.”

Since there isn’t much he (or the company) can do about that, he mused a bit about perhaps making the PC market a bigger piece of the company’s focus.

Mr Kotick sees an opportunity to break the consoles’ “walled gardens with new gamer-friendly PCs, designed to be plugged into the television. PCs have long been used for online play, but PC gaming remains niche when the games industry needs to widen its appeal.

“We have always been platform agnostic,” says Mr Kotick. “[Consoles] do a very good job of supporting the gamer. If we are going to broaden our audiences, we are going to need to have other devices.”

Activision will “very aggressively” support efforts by Dell and HP to connect PCs to TVs.

Now, on the surface this sounds great for PC gamers. Here we have the top guy at one of the biggest publishers speaking out in support of the platform. And yet, considering that it all started with an expression of frustration that Activision can’t monetize multiplayer on the console, one has to wonder what exactly is providing the motivation to looking back at the PC. Could it perhaps be to ‘provide much more value’ to PC gamers via some sort of subscription service for Activision titles, something that has been mused at before with stated desires to sell a subscription model Call of Duty?

Posted in Games

Tags: Activision, Bobby Kotick, Call of Duty, multiplayer revenue, Xbox Live

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US Colleges & Universities required to help combat illegal media swapping

July 2nd, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

As of this month, a provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 kicks in to being. That provision states that colleges and universities have to (from Skunkpost) :

effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material by users of the institution’s network" without hampering legitimate educational and research use

Any school that doesn’t can face the risk of losing some or all of their federal funding.

Many schools have already put steps in place to help combat the problem, simply since students were using university systems and bandwidth to share music, movies and games. For those that don’t have any programs in place, they’ve been stuck in scramble mode to institute something since the whole provision became required on Thursday.

Many colleges worried they would be asked to monitor or block content. But the provision says schools can get a great deal of flexibility, as long as they use at least one "technology-based deterrent."

Their options include taking steps to limit how much bandwidth can be consumed by peer-to-peer networking, monitoring traffic, using a commercial product to reduce or block illegal file sharing or "vigorously" responding to copyright infringement notices from copyright holders.

My issue with this provision is that it’s the colleges and universities that have to foot the bill to deal with users that the RIAA or MPAA, not any actual legal authority, says are a problem. And since they don’t want to possibly affect their own future funding, there could be often a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ kind of mentality when it comes to enforcement.

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tags: college federal funding, copyright enforcement, MPAA, RIAA, university federal funding

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Ipsos Reid polls show many buyers still prefer physical goods to digital

July 2nd, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

A report based on several polls run in the UK by Ipsos MediaCT shows that many buyers still prefer purchasing a physical product to a digital version, with the percentages varying depending on the market.

The survey of 1,000 people found that 64 percent of game buyers still prefer physical discs, while 63 percent of newspaper purchasers prefer an actual paper to a digital version.

Finishing far lower were music and movies, with 45 percent and 51 percent respectively preferring physical versions.

From MCV :

“I believe the preference for physical discs amongst next gen gamers reflects the potential value they derive from the pre-owned market, which is holding up the preference for physical – this is unlike the music and film markets,” said Ipsos MediaCT director Ian Bramley.

“Physical games discs have a long and well-established history, which is a deep mindset to change – particularly when gamers build a physical collection as they fear losing digital versions. And in-store browsing is also important to buyers.”

Interesting numbers. Of course, precisely who was polled has a lot to do with the numbers, but it certainly shows that people have already accepted the music market in its digital form. And while the games industry is shifting towards the digital marketplace, they have a ways to go before that becomes something closer to ‘the norm’ among the current generation of buyers.

Also worth noting for the games results is that, according to to Thinq, PC gamers were NOT polled…it was console gamers only.

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tags: digital goods, Ipsos Reid MediaCT, physical goods

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Hulu Plus fully detailed

June 29th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

A bit of a follow up here now that more details are out about the Hulu Plus service as it heads in to Beta.

It will still be limited to US based customers, just as the Hulu web streaming service is. For $9.99 per month, users gain access to full seasons worth of dozens of different network TV series, as well as past seasons of other shows, all streaming in HD.

The other big change is that it can be watched on a myriad of different devices now. The iPad, iPhone and iPod touch can all be used on the go. As well, Inter-enabled Samsung, Sony and VIZIO TV’s and Blu-ray players can be used. Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 game consoles and (of course) desktop computer are also available viewing options.

You can check out the Hulu website for more information, or to sign up for a Preview invite.

Posted in Movies and TV

Tags: Beta, Hulu, Hulu Plus

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EA Sports President Peter Moore defends Online Pass

June 28th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

A short time ago, EA Sports announced a new initiative called Online Pass. What it entails is a one use code being included with every copy of an EA Sports console title. That code will unlock the majority of the multiplayer content, or some other major feature of the game, but can only be used once. So someone buying a used copy of the game will need to pony up the $10-$15 to obtain a code of their own.

EA Sports President Peter Moore talked about Online Pass during an interview with Kotaku.

"One thing I have to do, and it’s my job, and my development team’s job, and my marketing team’s job, is make you not want to trade the game in," Moore said.

Moore talked about hoping that making multiplayer a more ‘value added’ feature might encourage more people to really give online play a try. By EA’s own numbers, while Madden 10 is still popular months after the close of the last NFL season, 350,000 Madden owners logged in to multiplayer once and never returned.

"From our perspective, [it's] conditioning you to punch a code in, to get you going, get some digital content, and conditioning you to look at digital content as a value-add to the game experience itself," Moore said.

Moore also asked people to keep in mind that while multiplayer is free for any new purchaser, it isn’t free for EA to maintain the server network needed to keep it in place for those million plus still actively playing Madden 10 online.

Finally, he talked about his view that a lot of those active in reading games media are new players, and they certainly understand the value of purchasing new vs. used.

"I read everything you write, and then i read everything that they write about what you write underneath, and I will say you have the overwhelming majority of people that are buying new," Moore told me. "And those guys are actually vocal – this is me just saying what I read – against people who buy used. They recognize the business model implications of new versus used used. Whilst I’m not sure they’re angry, they absolutely look at what’s going on in the marketplace and understand totally what it is we’re doing."

Whether or not you agree with the direction EA Sports is taking with their Online Pass program, at least they’re willing to try to explain it to people.

Posted in Games

Tags: EA Sports, one time multiplayer code, Online Pass, Peter Moore

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Hulu testing the waters of subscription service

June 27th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

Hulu, an Internet TV service co-owned by New Corp., NBC Universal & Walt Disney Co., is launching a test run of a subscription service that will run alongside their standard free offering.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the new service will be called Hulu Plus. For $10 a month, chosen Beta users will get access to content beyond that offered on the free Hulu service, as well as the ability to watch programming on other devices like Apple’s iPad.

There is no time given for when the Beta period might end and Hulu Plus would become available to anyone to subscribe to. Hulu’s traffic has increased enormously since first launching at the end of 2007, and it has become a profitable entity.

If this idea takes off, it could have widespread effects on the television industry since the many networks not affiliated with Hulu would likely look to either join up or set up their own web subscription services for viewers.

Currently, video on Hulu is largely limited and viewable only within the US market.

Posted in Movies and TV

Tags: Hulu, Hulu Plus, subscription service, Web TV

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Analyst says used game market is a significant drain on software sales

June 25th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

According to Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz, a large share of the blame for currently weak game sales can be placed on second hand game purchases.

From Gamasutra :

“In our view, GameStop has exploited the negligible difference between the value propositions of new and used games to capture a significant portion of the video game value chain,” says Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz.

The biggest part of the market currently seeing slower sales of new games is consoles, specifically the 360 and PS3. Creutz puts part of the blame on the high price points for console titles, but the growth of used games sales is described as a significant factor.

His recommendations? More game options that need to be purchased after a used copy is bought as extra DLC. He actually suggests publishers go further in to ‘cordoning off’ more game content from used players that has to be added later on, since there’s nothing Gamestop can do to prevent it.

I find myself wondering if this might actually have a different affect, as Gamestop would eventually be forced to lower used game prices to reflect the fact that other content would also have to be purchased from the publisher by anyone grabbing a copy.

Also suggested is a more aggressive shift towards digital distribution, a market that Gamestop obviously can’t really be a factor in when it comes to used sales.

How will gamers respond? “We believe that consumers are likely to grudgingly accept a revised and evolving pricing strategy that reflects the value they receive outside of and in addition to the traditional single-player offline experience,” predicts Creutz.

“Against a backdrop of our expectation for improving growth in videogame software sales through the remainder of 2010, we believe that the evolution of these new pricing strategies give investors additional reason to become more constructive on the third party video game publishers,” he concludes.

Posted in Games

Tags: Cowen Group, Doug Creutz, Gamestop, used game sales

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