Rob Reid on copyright math and the $8-billion iPod.
Currently browsing Posts Tagged “piracy”
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Louis CK is being very open about how his video experiment is performing.
The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.
Andy Baio on copyright culture:
Here’s a thought experiment: Everyone over age 12 when YouTube launched in 2005 is now able to vote.
What happens when — and this is inevitable — a generation completely comfortable with remix culture becomes a majority of the electorate, instead of the fringe youth? What happens when they start getting elected to office? (Maybe “I downloaded but didn’t share” will be the new “I smoked, but didn’t inhale.”)
Remix culture is the new Prohibition, with massive media companies as the lone voices calling for temperance. You can criminalize commonplace activities from law-abiding people, but eventually, something has to give.
Apple offers music pirates permanent amnesty for $24.99.
Once Apple has replaced all the 5,000 plus non-iTunes songs in my music library with clean 256-Kbps non-DRM copies that are mine, permanently, with all the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud, why would I pay for a second year of the service? The job is done, thank you very much, I’ll take it from here.
For my kids — and all those other kids who are still building their music libraries — the question is more complicated. A one-time charge of $25 to convert up to 25,000 pirated songs to legal iTunes-plus quality copies is a no brainer. If they plan to continue stealing music, however, they’ll have to make a calculation at the end of the year. Have they collected enough new music to justify spending another $25 to bring them into the iTunes fold?
If you update your iTunes, the first version of the iCloud is already available — it’ll let you download iTunes purchased music, apps and books to your computer. Except in Canada, where the music option isn’t available. Because Steve Job is racist.
Netflix is kicking the shit out of BitTorrent. As Matt Mason would say, competing with the pirates i
Netflix is kicking the shit out of BitTorrent. As Matt Mason would say, competing with the pirates is good for the consumer.
Want to end piracy? The pirates have a list of demands. They seem reasonable.
The 2011 edition of Andy Baio’s Pirating the Oscars.
Continuing the trend from the last couple years, fewer screeners are leaking online by nomination day than ever. Last year at this time, only 41% of screeners leaked online; this year, that number drops again slightly to 38%.
The Pirate Bay is threatening to blow up what’s left of the music industry.
The woman in Minnesota who was fined $1.92-million for downloading 24 songs has had her fine cut to $54,000. Her initial fine was $212,000, before a judge who is obviously insane opted for the $1.92-million upgrade during the second trial. I think this is kind of proof that nobody knows what music is actually worth.
Publishers are losing nearly $1-trillion every year because of libraries! Hilarious! [via]
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Heroes was the most pirated show of 2009, proving once and for all that pirates don’t actually have any taste. The show returned last night (I’m trying to decide whether or not I’ve finally given up on it for good), which also means the return of the Wold Gnards Hiro Meter.
Every time I activate the Hiro Meter though, I always say, “this is the last time.” Heroes (the show) has gotten kind of boring, and Hiro (the man) is just a lesson in futility. He will never be anything more than a half-ass stereotype and the show has become a soap opera with super powers.
Where are this year’s pirated Oscar screeners? Specifically the ones for the movies I haven’t seen yet.
Today in piracy news: Legal downloads are outpacing piracy in growth and the RIAA may stop suing people for downloading music.
Didn’t see this coming (he said in an overly sarcastic tone): Pirates of the Amazon Too. There’s no way Amazon is keeping this script off the web. I installed it, and I don’t even use bit torrent.
A few days ago some Dutch guys released a GreaseMonkey script that added Pirate Bay download links to products while you surfed Amazon. I was going to link to it, but didn’t. Anyway, they got hit with a takedown notice from Amazon and have complied. Now there are all kind of crazy questions being raised about art and piracy and media consumption. [some via]
