Distribution

ISPs are not police - and don't want to be

Written by Forum Editor Wednesday, 17 June 2009 00:11

Two more examples today of big media attempting to get ISPs to do their work for them.

First, from the UK, where the head of Kudos Film and Television has called for ISPs to actively police their users for piracy, first warning, then cutting off their connections for repeated infringement.

This is exactly the kind of legislation that France attempted to introduce, only to have the new laws overturned by the supreme court, citing internet access as a basic human right and the laws therefore unconstitutional.

And in Australia, ISP iinet has been forced to hand over the records of 20 customers as an example of their supposed negligence. Anti-piracy group AFACT has been facing off against iinet in court recently in an attempt to get the ISP to actively police against piracy, a move the ISP has been resisting.

It continues to be the case that anti-piracy and media companies alike continue to mis-represent the effect of piracy on their business in order to maintain their stranglehold on their respective industries.

As has been stated many times in the past, rather than suing their customer base, the music and film industry would be better served by engaging with their customers by embracing and monetising new methods of distribution.

48Hours online viewing

Written by Kelsey Brookes Tuesday, 16 June 2009 23:56

48Hours, the largest film competition in New Zealand, has started posting episodes from the latest entries.

The competition which challenges filmmakers to produce, shoot and edit a film in 48 hours attracts hundreds of teams each year and has a $100,000 prize pool up for grabs.

View the episodes at C4TV.

National Film Board of Canada supports Boxee

Written by Kelsey Brookes Tuesday, 16 June 2009 23:14

Boxee, the social media centre software based on XBMC is gaining a supporter in the National Film Board of Canada.

The lead developer for the NFB recently contacted Boxee, announcing the release of a plugin for the platform that allows the entire 700+ film catalog to be viewed online by anyone using the media centre application.

Boxee are very much tapped into the idea that people want options when it comes to how they access their media. Applications such as Boxee, Plex and XBMC allow users to setup attractive, usable interfaces on common hardware and that accesses all the media on their network. While many people use these platforms as a presentation tool for their media, it's also one of the easiest ways of liberating your viewing from the computer: hook up one of these boxes to the TV and your entire media collection is available from the couch.

That the National Film Board of Canada is willing to explore this type of option speaks volumes as to how mainstream the idea of the networked media centre is becoming.

Full blog post at the Boxee Blog.

Jumpcut closes its doors

Written by Kelsey Brookes Tuesday, 16 June 2009 22:21

Acquired by Yahoo! in 2006, the online video editing and hosting service has closed down due to 'ongoing prioritisation efforts' at the parent company.

The suggestion on the jumpcut site is to edit using iMovie or Windows Movie Maker and upload to Flickr - also owned by Yahoo!.

Goodbye analog TV

Written by Kelsey Brookes Monday, 15 June 2009 23:07

As the U.S. enters the new era of DTV and the last analog sets without set-top boxes tune in only to static, the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes the passing of an unwelcome corollary to broadcast media: DRM.

Although broadcasters and movie studios have tried for years to make the 'Broadcast Flag' a part of the DTV spec, disorganisation, greed and consumer revolt have led us to the point where DTV is here but there is no mandate for the Broadcast Flag.

In essence, the Broadcast Flag was meant to allow producers and broadcasters to tell your hardware whether it was authorised to play specific media. Broadcasters could, at the flick of a virtual switch, tell your home-theatre devices to not play or record any content under their control.

Fortunately for consumers, the scaremongering generated by broadcast media over the last few years has fallen on mostly deaf ears. Even Viacom's threat to not produce HD shows after 2003 if the Broadcast Flag was not honoured proved an empty one, as the EFF article shows:

It's six years later and these threats have all fallen flat. This week, CBS will broadcast dozens of popular programs, like CSI, Without a Trace, Survivor, and The New Adventures of Old Christine, in high definition via over-the-air broadcast. So will all the other major networks. Digital TV also continues to feature popular movies with no DRM.

Go to the EFF website for the full article.