Re: [backstage] Microsoft says it 'has always preferred' DRM-free content
And why shouldn't they? They don't make money off DRM'd content but legally they are obliged, not to mention the strong lobby of the RIAA/MPAA has ensured that all major music players in the market faciliate copyright through DRM. If the iPod weren't DRM'd, iTunes wouldn't have any sort of deal with the labels. AAPL doesn't make much on iTunes (but that's slowly changing as its position grows ever more commanding and the RIAA are aware and trying to mitigate this somewhat). FWIW, apple also maintains the same position (despite iPod DRM annoyances) though Jobs has been slightly more forward about this position. What do you find so alarming about their stance on DRM? -- Aleem On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:45 PM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another alternative universe moment... http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_says_it_has_always_preferred_DRMfree_content/1227222823 At a Media Center-centric event here Wednesday, Microsoft's new Media Center marketing manager Mike Seamons, charged with demonstrating the charms of the Windows 7 version of Media Center, said that Microsoft has always preferred DRM-free content, adding that the company nonetheless understands the need for protections. --- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Microsoft says it 'has always preferred' DRM-free content
MS has a lot of employees - many have never liked DRM, many would bet their future on it. En-masse I thinkg MS tends towards the latter rather than the former. I don't think DRM will go away either but that doesn't mean I like it. If I were a company seeking out to build a music player I would opt have to support DRM to stay competitive. Since you have heard the debate in its entirety, maybe you can save me an hour and respond to my question? MS has a lot of employees - many have never liked DRM, many would bet their future on it. En-masse I thinkg MS tends towards the latter rather than the former. That's conjecture. His follow-on avoided a flamewar and pointed to a neat catalogue of previously stated views. Your response was to try and inflame the thread. Please don't do that. I was soliciting a categorical response to my question. Of which I have not seen any from you or him (why is it so surpising that microsoft would prefer DRM-free content). -- Aleem
Re: [backstage] Microsoft says it 'has always preferred' DRM-free content
Aleem, are you aware of the difficulties the BBC has encountered in the iPlayer project after choosing Microsoft DRM to satisfy content rights owners? Of course not. He can't be arsed to listen to the podcast. Is the question so confounding that you cannot offer a quick response and feel compelled to link to a one hour video that doesn't directly pertain to my question. If you had a response you'd have given it by now--you probably don't so you are waffling about. -- Aleem
Re: [backstage] Microsoft says it 'has always preferred' DRM-free content
Does it in any way run counter to Microsoft's statement that they prefer DRM-free content? Microsoft has a tainted history of bugs around DRM (possibly even reason enough them the skip it altogether). The point, however, is that Microsoft has little to gain from DRM but that's the will of the media moguls. I would like to know what Brian found so alarming about Microsoft's stance? -- Aleem On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 4:31 PM, Sean DALY [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Aleem, are you aware of the difficulties the BBC has encountered in the iPlayer project after choosing Microsoft DRM to satisfy content rights owners? On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 12:25 PM, Aleem B [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BBC is a public service so the issues don't really translate to Microsoft/DRM which is inclined to support DRM so it can sign deals with labels and sell their music players. Your original mail (and subsequent follow up) is classic flamebait--something you should avoid altogether. On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/11/23 Aleem B [EMAIL PROTECTED] And why shouldn't they? They don't make money off DRM'd content but legally they are obliged, not to mention the strong lobby of the RIAA/MPAA has ensured that all major music players in the market faciliate copyright through DRM. If the iPod weren't DRM'd, iTunes wouldn't have any sort of deal with the labels. AAPL doesn't make much on iTunes (but that's slowly changing as its position grows ever more commanding and the RIAA are aware and trying to mitigate this somewhat). FWIW, apple also maintains the same position (despite iPod DRM annoyances) though Jobs has been slightly more forward about this position. What do you find so alarming about their stance on DRM? cf http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/02/bbc_backstage_p_1.html -- Aleem On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:45 PM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another alternative universe moment... http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_says_it_has_always_preferred_DRMfree_content/1227222823 At a Media Center-centric event here Wednesday, Microsoft's new Media Center marketing manager Mike Seamons, charged with demonstrating the charms of the Windows 7 version of Media Center, said that Microsoft has always preferred DRM-free content, adding that the company nonetheless understands the need for protections. --- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Microsoft says it 'has always preferred' DRM-free content
BBC is a public service so the issues don't really translate to Microsoft/DRM which is inclined to support DRM so it can sign deals with labels and sell their music players. Your original mail (and subsequent follow up) is classic flamebaithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamebait--something you should avoid altogether. On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: 2008/11/23 Aleem B [EMAIL PROTECTED] And why shouldn't they? They don't make money off DRM'd content but legally they are obliged, not to mention the strong lobby of the RIAA/MPAA has ensured that all major music players in the market faciliate copyright through DRM. If the iPod weren't DRM'd, iTunes wouldn't have any sort of deal with the labels. AAPL doesn't make much on iTunes (but that's slowly changing as its position grows ever more commanding and the RIAA are aware and trying to mitigate this somewhat). FWIW, apple also maintains the same position (despite iPod DRM annoyances) though Jobs has been slightly more forward about this position. What do you find so alarming about their stance on DRM? cf http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/02/bbc_backstage_p_1.html -- Aleem On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:45 PM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Another alternative universe moment... http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_says_it_has_always_preferred_DRMfree_content/1227222823 At a Media Center-centric event here Wednesday, Microsoft's new Media Center marketing manager Mike Seamons, charged with demonstrating the charms of the Windows 7 version of Media Center, said that Microsoft has always preferred DRM-free content, adding that the company nonetheless understands the need for protections. --- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Microsoft says it 'has always preferred' DRM-free content
Michael, The reason for this is probably due to the rather extreme lengths that Microsoft appear to have gone to with regard to their DRM system. This is a either a good thing or a bad thing from any given individual's perspective. From the end consumer it's never good. From a company's perspective, as I have repeatedly pointed out, there's no money to be made through music sales. It's a break-even distribution channel for the most part as Oppenheimer repeatedly points out during AAPL earnings. As a result, given the rather (apparently) extreme lengths gone to, the statement Microsoft has always preferred DRM-free is a rather big surprise. It would be akin to hearing Richard Stallman say that he'd always preferred proprietary software - ie completely at odds with observed behaviour. Years back, Apple has dominated the market with the iPod. Prior to Zune, Microsoft was licensing it's Plays for Sure technology and licensing it to third parties. Third party vendors didn't have much choice because Microsoft provided them a platform to unite against AAPL--they figured they'd differentiate on the hardware and the music would be made available through Microsoft's channels and give them a chance against Apple (which had already proven that the vertical model was the best). This was not an extremem measure. It was the only way to remain competitive. Apple along with the rest of the market already had (and still have) some riduclous DRM restrictions. I don't see how Microsoft's position was any more extreme. Microsoft was coming up with a competitive platform and it is _simply not possible_ to be competitive by offering a DRM free player. Sad as that may be but the RIAA defends its turf very aggresively. Let's not forget the university students who were taken to court for filesharing and made examples of. Making Microsoft a scapegoat is to ignore all the other vendors. LG, Sony, Philips, YouTube, Samsung, Creative, Apple, and whoever deals with copyright content goes down the DRM route--not only that but that's the route they all started upon, from beginning to end. So really, there isn't much choice. If you can make money off a linux based media player which supports open standards, kudos to you. But you won't get very far. There are no existence proofs. No. Microsoft are not legally obliged to facilitate copyright through DRM. No one is. They may have chosen to make certain decisions based on economics and based on how they expect markets to change with the aim of increasing their value to their shareholders, since that's the bottom line for a publically traded company, but they had a clear choice. It's not possible to be competitive with a DRM-less player. You can't legally download JayZ or Pink Floyd or whatever mainstream channels/stations are airing. DRM free is the edge case, not the mainstream and as such it is not a viable economic alternative. The links you provide for DRM free content are all on the edge... it doesn't mean all that much until you can point me to a succesful DRM free hardware device. Most arguments to do with DRM really boil down to economics in the end, and the DRM involved only affects the economics involved whilst it remains effective. Even then, it's debateable how effective that affect is. After all, DVDs seem to be doing OK, and one of the more amusing aspects about that is that some people prefer DVD because it doesn't have any DRM. DVDs are not DRM free. DVD players have region codes (movies and games alike). DVDs are not easy to copy (the litmus test is if any of your aunts or uncles can do it). Also, no one I know has a DVD player with a copier sitting in their lounge like it used to be with the VHS. User's don't choose DVDs out of preference, DVDs are the only viable option they've got if they want to watch movies. If things go at the same pace, years blue-ray will also go down the route of planned obsolence. - Aleem
Re: [backstage] Flash everywhere
On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 12:19 AM, Paul Battley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is what scares me about Flash. Adobe's gaining a monopoly over the internet. Being dependent on one company is a practical drawback as well as an ideological one Flash enjoys a natural monopoly which is not entirely the same thing as an anti-competitive monopoly. MS Silverlight or Google Gears came late to the game but there were no barriers to software companies to compete with Flash. : there's no Flash for 64-bit Linux, for example, let alone more obscure platforms, and this is a practical barrier to the emergence of new technologies. Java also failed to deliver on its promise even though write once, run anywhere was central to their strategy. Ideology often doesn't translate to practicality. Trying to support the hundreds of flavors of linux (and gaming consoles and handhelds/microprocessors) can be quite taxing on a company's resources, not to mention more bugs, more regression testing for every feature etc. I feel the same about the BBC's embrace of Flash's cousin Air - it's giving Adobe yet more leverage over the computing public. I can see the pragmatic reasons, but I feel that the BBC has deeper responsibilities than that. Air is aiming to creep into the desktop space. Any why shouldn't it? Java set out to do the same thing. Why should developers have to go through a real hard time and rewrite and recompile their apps for each platform? Paradoxically, I see the very closed iPhone platform as something of a bulwark against Flash: it's popular enough - especially among a segment of the population that makes technical decisions - that that 2% still matters. I really hope that Apple sticks to its decision over Flash. You argument is in itself paradoxical. It's ironic you mention that it's a good thing that Apple doesn't support flash but you don't question their motives. Apple has more interest in controlling the vertical which is central to its own strategy and Apple's own interests have taken precedence. If the iPhone did support flash, Apple's own app store and dev community wouldn't be enjoying much if any glory and they wouldn't be able to extend their iTunes model into the app space. If Apple had really though to put the consumer first, they would support Flash because there are hundres of thousands of games and apps that can run directly off the browser and would add tremendously to the user's value proposition (but they would be free and Apple wouldn't make any money or acquire many developers for it's own platform). And again, the purported claims you make against Adobe Flash are even truer of Apple's technologies that run primarily on Apple hardware, running Apple's OS, sold in Apple stores etc. (remember the first iterations of the iPod didn't support USB? Apple even goes to great lengths to erase any traceable marks on the various chips it utilizes). (That is not to say that Apple's fanaticism about controlling the vertical is a bad thing. It actually gives them agility which is easy to see if you contrast them with Windows Mobile which has to regress each feature update or bug fix across a large spectrum of permutations/combinations of different phones, models, manufacturers, screen resolutions, input mechanisms, localizations, etc). Aleem
Re: [backstage] Greedy BBC Blocks External Links
FWIW, adding an onclick is not the preferred way of doing this. It's better
to attach events to anchors during document.onload event. If anchors need to
be filtered, dom/css classes can be used.
Sounds interesting, care to share a little more about this method?
There are some good Javascript APIs out there for providing interesting,
cross-browser functionality. Prototype (prototypejs.org), jQuery and YUI are
popular ones I can think of. Under jQuery you would have:
$('a.outlink).click(function() { ... }
which finds anchors with class name outlink and attaches an onclick event
thus abstracting a lot of the JS tediousness. I actually managed to write up
a pretty cool Web 2.0 Scrabble game while exploring Prototype.js
http://aleembawany.com/yabble/
Google for jQuery or Prototype getting started tutorials. You should be
looking to do away with any and all JS in your markup just like you would do
with CSS.
Re: [backstage] Greedy BBC Blocks External Links
Brian, http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/greedy-bbc-blocks-external-links/1478/ Greedy BBC Blocks External Links In an outrageous act of selfishness and greed the BBChttp://news.bbc.co.uk/ has decided to stop giving real links to the websites featured in the Related Internet Links section on the right hand side of each news story. I would not categorize this as evil behavior per se... it's to protect from phishing attacks. Though I would suggest BBC not allow open redirect altogether and instead generate a hash for the url and append it to the redirect to ensure that redirects are not open to potential adversaries. Google's solution is slightly more elegant and they take the hash key approach: http://www.google.com/url?sa=tsource=webct=rescd=9url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vaio.eu%2Fei=pg8QSeKUDIqOwQHN29SuCwusg=AFQjCNGEZF4TAMzxTywhVCfBZKTJcsE8Qwsig2=z3E6_NauPvoc6RmJcuaDQA If you hack the above URL and replace vaio.eu with vaio.com you get a redirect page similar to BBC's (but no auto-redirect): http://www.google.com/url?sa=tsource=webct=rescd=9url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vaio.com%2Fei=pg8QSeKUDIqOwQHN29SuCwusg=AFQjCNGEZF4TAMzxTywhVCfBZKTJcsE8Qwsig2=z3E6_NauPvoc6RmJcuaDQA I thought *I* went over the top with things like this. Is is any less evil than wikipedia using rel=nofollow on all its external links? Why is this evil or even over the top? Any open system should have rel=nofollow to revent attacks to boost PR. If it did not, wikipedia would become an integral part of the marketing strategy right alongside DMOZ or something. -- Aleem B It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves -- Sir Edmund Hillary (1919 - 2008)
Re: [backstage] Greedy BBC Blocks External Links
I keep thinking of using a bit of onclick=... with an AJAX routine to do the testing and counting. It is a simple matter of returning a true value to allow the link to activate. I guess if it broken you could return false... FWIW, adding an onclick is not the preferred way of doing this. It's better to attach events to anchors during document.onload event. If anchors need to be filtered, dom/css classes can be used. On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 3:31 PM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: 2008/11/4 Gavin Pearce [EMAIL PROTECTED] I might be being a bit blond here, but why even the need to have rel=nofollow at all? It is supposed to be there to stop automatic and commercial links polluting search engine rankings. ** Sorry I meant within the BBC related links section specifically. My bad for not making it clear. Exactly Brian, I think we are on the same page … my point is why does the BBC need to make use of JavaScript, or NoFollow tags for links to key sites related to the story in hand? I can see a good point about using a redirector as you can use it a) test to see if the link is broken; and b) count the number of times it get used. I keep thinking of using a bit of onclick=... with an AJAX routine to do the testing and counting. It is a simple matter of returning a true value to allow the link to activate. I guess if it broken you could return false... End-user generated content is a different matter … *Gavin Pearce* |* **Web Developer* |* **TBS *The Columbia Centre, Market Street, Bracknell, RG12 1JG, United Kingdom Direct: +44 (0) 1344 403488 | Office: +44 (0) 1344 306011 | Fax: +44 (0) 1344 427138 MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Yahoo: pearce.gavin *http://www.tbs.uk.com* *TBS is a trading name of Technology Services International Limited. Registered in England, company number 2079459.* *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Brian Butterworth *Sent:* 04 November 2008 10:12 *To:* backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk *Subject:* Re: [backstage] Greedy BBC Blocks External Links 2008/11/4 Gavin Pearce [EMAIL PROTECTED] I might be being a bit blond here, but why even the need to have rel=nofollow at all? It is supposed to be there to stop automatic and commercial links polluting search engine rankings. I can understand on user generated content, but when it's a link to a relevant and respected website on the topic in hand, than that isn't a good or valid reason to use the nofollow syntax. In fact as stated already, that's a large part in how the big search engines work. Google isn't likely to start penalising the BBC site as it's no doubt on a respected site / white list somewhere else within the Google system... But that isn't, to be fair, the issue. The issue is that even if the BBC decides to link to an external site, if it uses either the methods described, a visiting user will get there, but a search engine will dismiss it. Incoming links are useful for SEO and to have them turned off from the BBC is a big problem. Last time I had a link from a major BBC page to my site, my usual traffic (and ad revenue) tripled for three days. But the link did not boost any search engine ratings. Gavin Pearce | Web Developer | TBS The Columbia Centre, Market Street, Bracknell, RG12 1JG, United Kingdom Direct: +44 (0) 1344 403488 | Office: +44 (0) 1344 306011 | Fax: +44 (0) 1344 427138 MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Yahoo: pearce.gavin http://www.tbs.uk.com TBS is a trading name of Technology Services International Limited. Registered in England, company number 2079459. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Martin Belam Sent: 04 November 2008 09:36 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Greedy BBC Blocks External Links I don't think it is evil, and as I've pointed out on their blog and on Sphinn, since Patrick at Blogstorm himself applies nofollow to all outbound links it is a little rich to be complaining that the BBC doesn't provide 'trusted' links. Interesting point about how Google can be expected to run a trusted link based algorithm in the future, but lets not forget it was the search engines that concocted nofollow themselves, and Google is these days notorious for penalising sites in the rankings that it 'believes' are displaying paid links that are not clearly marked as advertising. I've blogged a little about the Blogstorm post as well - http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2008/11/bbc_news_clumsy_linking.php cheers, martin - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ This message has been scanned for viruses by Viatel MailControl - http://viatel.mailcontrol.com/ - Sent via the
