In recent months, I've seen several stories where adult entertainment companies have either filed suit, attempted to file suit, or just sent threatening letters to people for copyright infringement. Not surprisingly, more than a few people have quietly settled rather than fight the case. A recent settlement raised some disturbing issues, though.
According to this article, one of plaintiffs (John Doe 4) sued by Corbin Fisher agreed to a $10,401 settlement. He claims he was an "innocent infringer" and agreed to secure his wireless network to prevent anyone from using it to infringe. The breakdown of the settlement, according to Techdirt, is as follows:
* $200 for innocent infringement
* $200 for contributory infringement
* $1 to pay off the conspiracy charge
* $10,000 for the negligence of having an open router
I'm not sure what shocks me more: the idea that an open router is negligent or that it's $10,000 worth of negligence. It seems out of proportion with the damages. Corbin Fisher's attorney attempts to rationalize the negligence here. His argument is simple: If you leave your Wifi open and someone uses it for copyright infringement, then you should bear the responsibility for any injury done by a copyright infringer because you (not the copyright holder) should bear the burden of damages because you were in a much better position to prevent the damages from occurring (i.e. prevent someone from using your Wifi by locking it). The argument is persuasive until you spend even one second thinking about it, then it's utterly ridiculous.
I agree that leaving your Wifi open exposes you to certain risks and I personally keep my Wifi locked both for security reasons and because I don't want to risk an FBI raid because someone uses my network to download child pornography.
I also strongly agree with the theory that the person who was in the position to prevent the injury to another person should be required to take the appropriate steps and, if he doesn't, he, not the innocent injured party, should bear the cost of the injury. In his example, if you leave your keys in your car and if someone steals your car and then destroys a fence, you, rather than the owner of the fence, should bear the cost of replacing the fence because you were in a better position to prevent the destruction of the fence.
The problem with Mr. Randazza's opinion is that it assumes that an unlocked wireless network is inherently bad and people who choose not to lock their network are negligent in the same way that a person who leaves her keys in her car is negligent. He mentions that he chooses not to use a loaded gun analogy because it would be "overly melodramatic and hysterical. This isn't the first time that someone has tried to draw a parallel between piracy and cars. The MPAA's attempt to draw parallels between piracy and car theft struck a lot of people as ridiculous and spawned a lot of parodies, my two personal favorites being the IT Crowd and Futurama.
Furthermore, while I have yet to see anyone arguing that more people should leave the keys in their cars, the EFF has made a pretty solid argument for an Open Wireless Movement, pointing out that there's a legitimate need for widespread access to Wifi and that the potential benefits to the average user (free Wifi anywhere, in an ideal world) would more than offset the potential problems (slower connection and less security)...especially when steps could be taken to minimize those problems.
It's important to remember that there's no case law saying that an open Wifi is negligent and that this is just a settlement by someone who was probably in a fairly weak bargaining position and just wanted to make everything go away without being exposed for allegedly downloading gay pornography. It's entirely possible (and hopefully probable) that if this did to go trial, the idea of open Wifi as negligence would be laughed out of court...though courts seem to have less of a sense of humor than I would hope when the magic words of "intellectual property" come up.
That said, the fact that someone is even trying to make the argument of open Wifi as negligence is somewhat disturbing, since recent months have shown that a lot of truly ridiculous laws are passed when it comes to the internet, copyright infringement, and intellectual property. I understand that the entertainment industry has to make money in order to continue to create movies, music, games, etc and I also realize that piracy is a very real issue, but I don't like the implication that it's my responsibility to prevent third parties from committing copyright infringement.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
A few days ago, I came across a short story called Nanolaw with My Daughter. The premise was interesting: In a world where people were literally being nickeled and dimed with lawsuits, a father sat down and taught his daughter how to answer her own lawsuits. In a day, the daughter received over fifty suits, only a few over a dollar, and several dealing with copyright. It should have been ridiculous (you hum a song walking down the street, the copyright hold catches it on video and demands a few cents because of your infringement), but a couple of stories this week made it seem less so. First, there was a proposed bill that would make it a crime to embed a copyrighted Youtube video without permission. Second, Tennessee passed a bill that makes it a crime to share your entertainment subscription login information. Tennessee's governor supported this by "citing the large record industry presence in Nashville." The article mentioned that the bill was aimed at hackers and thieves who resell passwords, but made sure to mention a couples cases where college students share Netflix login info with everyone they know. Techdirt posted an interesting commentary (RIAA Wants To Put People In Jail For Sharing Their Music Subscription Login With Friends).
This bothers me for a couple of reasons. First, based on my understanding of how Netflix and other providers license content, the recording or movie industry isn't losing money if subscriptions are shared. Netflix pays a yearly fee for licenses (for instance, $30 million for Starz content). Period. Starz doesn't get paid more if Netflix has more accounts or less if they have fewer. In other words, Starz gets $30 million a year, even if everyone with a Netflix account shares their password with everyone they know. I assume that other companies license content in a similar way. So I'm a little unclear as to how the RIAA is claiming that sharing subscription info is resulting in lost revenue. At most, Netflix and Rhapsody are losing subscription revenue.
Second, why is this being criminalized? Looking over Rhapsody's terms of use, only the user can access the service. Netflix limits usage to members of the immediate household. Obviously, sharing login information violates the terms of use and could result in an account being terminated, in addition to possible civil liability. Furthermore, entertainment services already have protections in place to prevent massive password sharing. Rhapsody will only stream to one device at a time and Rhapsody to Go limits the user to three devices. Netflix only allows the user to have six authorized devices as well as the number of devices that can stream simultaneously (between one and four devices, depending on the plan). That alone would probably dissuade most users from sharing login information. It's all well and good to let ten of your best buddies watch their favorite shows and listen to their favorite songs for free with your subscriptions when it doesn't affect you, but when it means that you might not be able to use the service you're paying for, it's a lot less tempting.
Personally, I'm getting tired of hearing about how the recording industry's profits are down and how movie piracy hurts corn farmers. Like most people, I consume a lot of media and I'm a huge fan of streaming media. I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Rhapsody To Go and I come out ahead for doing it. In fact, since I subscribed to Rhapsody to Go at the beginning of this year, I haven't bought any music. I'm still buying DVDs, but I'm definitely spending less as Netflix increases their catalog. I still buy games and books, although I'm using the library more for books and I would happily pay a reasonable monthly subscription if I found a good streaming game service or if I could download all the ebook I wanted.
In short, I understand and accept that the entertainment industry has to make money to continue producing works. I also understand that consumers have to pay for content. However, just because the entertainment industry likes the model where the only way hear a song is to either listen to the radio for hours or pay $15 or more to buy the entire CD for one song doesn't mean that they can turn back time and recreate that model. Like it or not, today's consumers are accustomed to being able to either buy songs a la carte or pay a flat fee for all you can eat. If the RIAA's profits are decreasing because of this (and I'm skeptical as to whether they are), then maybe they should be grateful that they managed to get away with overcharging consumers for so many years and try to figure out how to make a fair amount with the current model. Personally, if I had to go back to the days of buying an entire album to get one song (assuming, of course, I could even find the album in a store), I would probably just stop buying music completely.
This bothers me for a couple of reasons. First, based on my understanding of how Netflix and other providers license content, the recording or movie industry isn't losing money if subscriptions are shared. Netflix pays a yearly fee for licenses (for instance, $30 million for Starz content). Period. Starz doesn't get paid more if Netflix has more accounts or less if they have fewer. In other words, Starz gets $30 million a year, even if everyone with a Netflix account shares their password with everyone they know. I assume that other companies license content in a similar way. So I'm a little unclear as to how the RIAA is claiming that sharing subscription info is resulting in lost revenue. At most, Netflix and Rhapsody are losing subscription revenue.
Second, why is this being criminalized? Looking over Rhapsody's terms of use, only the user can access the service. Netflix limits usage to members of the immediate household. Obviously, sharing login information violates the terms of use and could result in an account being terminated, in addition to possible civil liability. Furthermore, entertainment services already have protections in place to prevent massive password sharing. Rhapsody will only stream to one device at a time and Rhapsody to Go limits the user to three devices. Netflix only allows the user to have six authorized devices as well as the number of devices that can stream simultaneously (between one and four devices, depending on the plan). That alone would probably dissuade most users from sharing login information. It's all well and good to let ten of your best buddies watch their favorite shows and listen to their favorite songs for free with your subscriptions when it doesn't affect you, but when it means that you might not be able to use the service you're paying for, it's a lot less tempting.
Personally, I'm getting tired of hearing about how the recording industry's profits are down and how movie piracy hurts corn farmers. Like most people, I consume a lot of media and I'm a huge fan of streaming media. I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Rhapsody To Go and I come out ahead for doing it. In fact, since I subscribed to Rhapsody to Go at the beginning of this year, I haven't bought any music. I'm still buying DVDs, but I'm definitely spending less as Netflix increases their catalog. I still buy games and books, although I'm using the library more for books and I would happily pay a reasonable monthly subscription if I found a good streaming game service or if I could download all the ebook I wanted.
In short, I understand and accept that the entertainment industry has to make money to continue producing works. I also understand that consumers have to pay for content. However, just because the entertainment industry likes the model where the only way hear a song is to either listen to the radio for hours or pay $15 or more to buy the entire CD for one song doesn't mean that they can turn back time and recreate that model. Like it or not, today's consumers are accustomed to being able to either buy songs a la carte or pay a flat fee for all you can eat. If the RIAA's profits are decreasing because of this (and I'm skeptical as to whether they are), then maybe they should be grateful that they managed to get away with overcharging consumers for so many years and try to figure out how to make a fair amount with the current model. Personally, if I had to go back to the days of buying an entire album to get one song (assuming, of course, I could even find the album in a store), I would probably just stop buying music completely.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Great Phone Debate 2011
I've had AT&T since it took over Cingular and it's never been that great. Until I got a smartphone, the biggest problem was the dropped calls and lack of reception in certain areas. It was actually amazingly predictable in some places and people I talked to frequently could actually figure out where I was based on dropped calls. When I upgraded to a smart phone in 2009, I discovered a new reason to be frustrated: their internet. It wasn't that noticeable at first, since I had a Blackberry Pearl that didn't have 3G (which meant, though I didn't realize it at the time, that I only connected to the Edge network, even in 3G areas, yet I was still paying $30 per month for data). Once I upgraded to a Blackberry Bold, the problem became more pronounced, since I would sometimes have 3G (which works well enough) and have to deal with Edge other times (which is sloooooow). My other mistake was in getting another Blackberry and signing a two year contract that expires in 9/12. My reason for this was that I had trouble wrapping my mind around paying $200-300 for a phone with a contract (which ruled out Droids and iPhones) and I paid about $50 for the Blackberry with a contract. It worked better than my Pearl in the same way that even an old car running on the worst gas possible works better than a bicycle...except when it stops working completely.
I've been frustrated enough to want a new phone and possibly a new wireless company (Verizon is looking pretty good now), but I wanted to wait until the new iPhone came out. By then, I would be able to see how the iPhone looked, compare it to the available Droids, and the longer I waited, the lower my ETF would be if I switched to another provider. (Right now, it's $275.)
My view changed Gamestop debacle last week. I had a coupon for a "Buy Two Get One Free" on used games that I didn't print out, but decided to use in the store. The guys working there said I could just go to my account on the website and pull up the code, so I tried it. And tried it again. And again. First, I couldn't even log in with the Blackberry's native browser, so I tried Opera. Then, the coupon was a PDF file and while it downloaded to my phone, neither my roommate nor I could figure out how to open it. We tried multiple things and nothing. The frustration was increased by AT&T's slow Edge network (which made loading pages horrible) and the Blackberry's overall slowness (which made switching apps equally frustrating). We started around 8:45 and finally left the store at about 9:20 and we still weren't able to pull up the coupon.
This, more than any other problem I've had with my phone, drove home the fact that I'm paying for a service that I can't fully use. I've been debating whether I really needed a smartphone for a couple of months now, since I've noticed that I use my iPod Touch much more than my Blackberry. My Blackberry gets used mainly for a quick web check, email, Facebook (and the reliability on that is 50/50) or Google maps. I track my spending on my Touch, organize coupons, use Rhapsody, organize store cards, and lots of other things. Forgetting my Blackberry is inconvenient if I need a phone or if I need to check an address or pull up a number, forgetting my Touch affects my daily routine. And there's also the fact that I'm carry two devices, one that comes with a $30 monthly fee and I use 25% of my time, one that is free and I use the remaining 75%.
Based on this, I've come up with a few different plans of action. Here's what I have so far:
Stay with AT&T and Do Nothing. This one seems like the worst of all possible worlds. I'll stay with my current provider (AT&T), keep my current phone (Blackberry Bold), and current plan ($30 unlimited data pack). The one pro to this is that it requires the least effort and I won't incur any additional expenses by buying a new phone or paying an Early Termination Fee of $275 (it will keep dropping $10 per month). The other pro is that I'll keep my $30 unlimited plan, which is grandfathered in and I would lose if I dropped t. This may also be a con in pro's clothing, though. When I had my Pearl, with the exception of one month, my data usage never exceeded 26MB. Getting the Bold in September increased my data usage, so I currently use an average of 96.3MB per month with a max of 120.4MB and a minimum of 57.9MB. Not surprisingly, the amount of data used increased with the more time I spend in 3G coverage areas and decreases with Edge. Based on this, I could easily drop to the $25 2GB plan and probably drop to the $15 200MB plan. The other thing to consider on this is that while switching providers would cost $275 as of this payment cycle, keeping the unlimited data plan is going to cost $580.
Keep AT&T, Switch Smartphones. A better phone might offset the incredibly slow internet. I know that a significant portion of my problems last week were related to the Blackberry's limitations. The problem with this is that getting a new phone will involve signing a new contract and buying a new phone, which would probably run at least $100. There are a couple of Droid and iPhone options below that, but most are at least $200. And I'm still going to be paying $30 per month (or $25, if I drop to a limited plan) for a service I'm not happy with. This is the worst choice.
Keep AT&T, Downgrade to a "Dumbphone." This option has its merits. The biggest cons again would be either signing a new contract or else paying a significant amount out of pocket to avoid a contract. A contract would mean a free or very cheap phone and, since the non-smartphone ETF is $175 less $4 for every month of completed service, if I rode it out for the remaining 18 months on my Blackberry contract (I have extra lines available for upgrade), the ETF would be a little over $100. The data plan would run $30 per month for unlimited data and texting and I'm currently paying $45 for a smartphone data plan and 1500 texts. Alternatively, I could drop to 1000 texts which would put the cost at $25. The biggest pro to this is that I managed to get a 450 plan. Looking at last month's bill, I used 143 rollover minutes, 323 minutes, and 220 expired. I also have 3300 rollover minutes banked. Switching to a regular phone would drop my bill by between $15-$20 dollars per month, not counting fees and taxes.
Switch to Verizon and Keep My Blackberry. Pros here would be faster internet. Cons are AT&T's $275 ETF, higher prices (the cheapest plan I could put together with a smartphone still ran about $25 more than my current bill), losing free calls to my parents' landline (they're on AT&T, so it doesn't cost minutes), and losing free mobile to mobile with friends who use AT&T. I could get Friends and Family, but that would increase my bill another $20. Also, I'm still stuck with my Blackberry, so I'm on the fence.
Switch to Verizon and Get a New Phone Same cons as switching to Verizon and keeping my Blackberry, but also add the cost for a new phone (again, budgeting $100 would be conservative, I think), another contract, and my $275 ETF.
Switch to Verizon and Get a "Dumbphone" This would reduce the cost of a new phone and a data plan, but it's still going to be more with Verizon. Also, given that I would use that phone less for internet access, I'm not sure how much 3G would matter.
Drop to Voice and Texting Only and Get MiFi This would work for either AT&T or Verizon, but AT&T would have more advantages. I've been looking at the Virgin MiFi Hotspot for a while and I really like the idea. It costs $150 for the device and then either $50 per month for unlimited data (2.5GB 3G, then 256K when 2.5GB is reached) or $10 for 10 days with a limited of 100MB. The second plan is intriguing to me, because daily use would mean 30 per month for 300MB assuming daily use and possibly being able to get away with $10 per month when I didn't use the service daily and used it lightly. The MiFi also works with multiple devices and the devices treat the connection as a WiFi connection instead of 3G, which makes a difference with some sites or services. (Verizon offers a similar service with the device free with a 2 year contract or $70 with a one year, but the monthly service fee is $60). Since I jump back and forth between my Touch and my iPad, this might be a nice option and if I knew how well Virgin MiFi would work, I'd probably jump on this option right away. Unfortunately $150 is a lot to spend when I don't know how it works.
The bottom line is that I'm pretty fed up with paying $30 for a service that's unusable half the time and I'm not that crazy about dumping another $100-300 for a new phone that may or may not improve my issues, but that will extend my contract with a company I don't like doing business with. Verizon looks good and seems to have some great reviews and some loyal customers. (Plus "Verizon Sucks" gets 323,000 Google hits, "AT&T Sucks" gets 4,410,000 hits.) That said, I'm not sure how much wireless phone service is worth to me period and how much good (or great) service is worth to me vs adequate service. (And make no mistake, AT&T service is adequate. Calls go through, but drop more than I like, service is sometimes spotty in places where it shouldn't be, and I'm thoroughly unimpressed with their customer service.) But is Verizon service really worth an extra $30 per month or $360 per year? Or, for a two year contract, $720?
I'm going to talk to Verizon to see if I can get a better deal in-store than on the website. My sweet spot is about $90 for the equivalent of my current plan. If someone can offer my that, I would switch in a heartbeat because that's going to put me in the same place financially that staying with AT&T would leave me. I doubt that's realistic, though, so I think it's going to be a game of "how low can you go" until I find out exactly what "good" vs "adequate" service is really worth to me.
That said, being able to leave AT&T without losing money would put me over the moon.
I've been frustrated enough to want a new phone and possibly a new wireless company (Verizon is looking pretty good now), but I wanted to wait until the new iPhone came out. By then, I would be able to see how the iPhone looked, compare it to the available Droids, and the longer I waited, the lower my ETF would be if I switched to another provider. (Right now, it's $275.)
My view changed Gamestop debacle last week. I had a coupon for a "Buy Two Get One Free" on used games that I didn't print out, but decided to use in the store. The guys working there said I could just go to my account on the website and pull up the code, so I tried it. And tried it again. And again. First, I couldn't even log in with the Blackberry's native browser, so I tried Opera. Then, the coupon was a PDF file and while it downloaded to my phone, neither my roommate nor I could figure out how to open it. We tried multiple things and nothing. The frustration was increased by AT&T's slow Edge network (which made loading pages horrible) and the Blackberry's overall slowness (which made switching apps equally frustrating). We started around 8:45 and finally left the store at about 9:20 and we still weren't able to pull up the coupon.
This, more than any other problem I've had with my phone, drove home the fact that I'm paying for a service that I can't fully use. I've been debating whether I really needed a smartphone for a couple of months now, since I've noticed that I use my iPod Touch much more than my Blackberry. My Blackberry gets used mainly for a quick web check, email, Facebook (and the reliability on that is 50/50) or Google maps. I track my spending on my Touch, organize coupons, use Rhapsody, organize store cards, and lots of other things. Forgetting my Blackberry is inconvenient if I need a phone or if I need to check an address or pull up a number, forgetting my Touch affects my daily routine. And there's also the fact that I'm carry two devices, one that comes with a $30 monthly fee and I use 25% of my time, one that is free and I use the remaining 75%.
Based on this, I've come up with a few different plans of action. Here's what I have so far:
Stay with AT&T and Do Nothing. This one seems like the worst of all possible worlds. I'll stay with my current provider (AT&T), keep my current phone (Blackberry Bold), and current plan ($30 unlimited data pack). The one pro to this is that it requires the least effort and I won't incur any additional expenses by buying a new phone or paying an Early Termination Fee of $275 (it will keep dropping $10 per month). The other pro is that I'll keep my $30 unlimited plan, which is grandfathered in and I would lose if I dropped t. This may also be a con in pro's clothing, though. When I had my Pearl, with the exception of one month, my data usage never exceeded 26MB. Getting the Bold in September increased my data usage, so I currently use an average of 96.3MB per month with a max of 120.4MB and a minimum of 57.9MB. Not surprisingly, the amount of data used increased with the more time I spend in 3G coverage areas and decreases with Edge. Based on this, I could easily drop to the $25 2GB plan and probably drop to the $15 200MB plan. The other thing to consider on this is that while switching providers would cost $275 as of this payment cycle, keeping the unlimited data plan is going to cost $580.
Keep AT&T, Switch Smartphones. A better phone might offset the incredibly slow internet. I know that a significant portion of my problems last week were related to the Blackberry's limitations. The problem with this is that getting a new phone will involve signing a new contract and buying a new phone, which would probably run at least $100. There are a couple of Droid and iPhone options below that, but most are at least $200. And I'm still going to be paying $30 per month (or $25, if I drop to a limited plan) for a service I'm not happy with. This is the worst choice.
Keep AT&T, Downgrade to a "Dumbphone." This option has its merits. The biggest cons again would be either signing a new contract or else paying a significant amount out of pocket to avoid a contract. A contract would mean a free or very cheap phone and, since the non-smartphone ETF is $175 less $4 for every month of completed service, if I rode it out for the remaining 18 months on my Blackberry contract (I have extra lines available for upgrade), the ETF would be a little over $100. The data plan would run $30 per month for unlimited data and texting and I'm currently paying $45 for a smartphone data plan and 1500 texts. Alternatively, I could drop to 1000 texts which would put the cost at $25. The biggest pro to this is that I managed to get a 450 plan. Looking at last month's bill, I used 143 rollover minutes, 323 minutes, and 220 expired. I also have 3300 rollover minutes banked. Switching to a regular phone would drop my bill by between $15-$20 dollars per month, not counting fees and taxes.
Switch to Verizon and Keep My Blackberry. Pros here would be faster internet. Cons are AT&T's $275 ETF, higher prices (the cheapest plan I could put together with a smartphone still ran about $25 more than my current bill), losing free calls to my parents' landline (they're on AT&T, so it doesn't cost minutes), and losing free mobile to mobile with friends who use AT&T. I could get Friends and Family, but that would increase my bill another $20. Also, I'm still stuck with my Blackberry, so I'm on the fence.
Switch to Verizon and Get a New Phone Same cons as switching to Verizon and keeping my Blackberry, but also add the cost for a new phone (again, budgeting $100 would be conservative, I think), another contract, and my $275 ETF.
Switch to Verizon and Get a "Dumbphone" This would reduce the cost of a new phone and a data plan, but it's still going to be more with Verizon. Also, given that I would use that phone less for internet access, I'm not sure how much 3G would matter.
Drop to Voice and Texting Only and Get MiFi This would work for either AT&T or Verizon, but AT&T would have more advantages. I've been looking at the Virgin MiFi Hotspot for a while and I really like the idea. It costs $150 for the device and then either $50 per month for unlimited data (2.5GB 3G, then 256K when 2.5GB is reached) or $10 for 10 days with a limited of 100MB. The second plan is intriguing to me, because daily use would mean 30 per month for 300MB assuming daily use and possibly being able to get away with $10 per month when I didn't use the service daily and used it lightly. The MiFi also works with multiple devices and the devices treat the connection as a WiFi connection instead of 3G, which makes a difference with some sites or services. (Verizon offers a similar service with the device free with a 2 year contract or $70 with a one year, but the monthly service fee is $60). Since I jump back and forth between my Touch and my iPad, this might be a nice option and if I knew how well Virgin MiFi would work, I'd probably jump on this option right away. Unfortunately $150 is a lot to spend when I don't know how it works.
The bottom line is that I'm pretty fed up with paying $30 for a service that's unusable half the time and I'm not that crazy about dumping another $100-300 for a new phone that may or may not improve my issues, but that will extend my contract with a company I don't like doing business with. Verizon looks good and seems to have some great reviews and some loyal customers. (Plus "Verizon Sucks" gets 323,000 Google hits, "AT&T Sucks" gets 4,410,000 hits.) That said, I'm not sure how much wireless phone service is worth to me period and how much good (or great) service is worth to me vs adequate service. (And make no mistake, AT&T service is adequate. Calls go through, but drop more than I like, service is sometimes spotty in places where it shouldn't be, and I'm thoroughly unimpressed with their customer service.) But is Verizon service really worth an extra $30 per month or $360 per year? Or, for a two year contract, $720?
I'm going to talk to Verizon to see if I can get a better deal in-store than on the website. My sweet spot is about $90 for the equivalent of my current plan. If someone can offer my that, I would switch in a heartbeat because that's going to put me in the same place financially that staying with AT&T would leave me. I doubt that's realistic, though, so I think it's going to be a game of "how low can you go" until I find out exactly what "good" vs "adequate" service is really worth to me.
That said, being able to leave AT&T without losing money would put me over the moon.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Make It Easy for Me to Give You My Money
I don't know if I'm in the minority for this, but for me, the initial charm of Napster circa wasn't the fact that I could suddenly get music for free. What I loved about it was the fact that, despite living in an area with limited radio variety, I had access to a wide variety of music. Before that, no matter how much someone raved over and album and told me how much I'd love that artist, it was hard to justify spending $15 for a CD I'd never heard. More than that, though, even if I was willing to take the risk or if I was familiar with the artist, my only option for getting the CD was to either special order it at a store or order it through the mail or online. And, of course, bear in mind that ordering online wasn't nearly as easy in 1999 as it is now.
Suddenly, though, I was able to download MP3s and check out the albums that people recommended to me. Granted, it was only three songs at a time and each of those songs had about a thirty minute download time, but who cares? I was able to listen to artists that I loved but most people hadn't heard of. And I'm also proud to say that, for the most part, if I liked the music, I bought the album eventually...usually when I could finally find it. (There was also the matter of rare songs that, to this day, I haven't found since.)
This is not an ode to piracy, however. Nowadays, I get my music through the proper channels. Initially through iTunes, then Amazon, and currently Rhapsody. In most cases, it's cheaper, which was the big reason I was willing to make the jump from CDs to MP3s. Saving a few dollars per album is always a good thing, plus there's the option of downloading individual songs. What I love is the convenience and variety. If I like a song, it's probably going to be available on Amazon or Rhapsody, so I can download it right away without having to find a store that carries it. (I'm starting to approach that attitude with ebooks, too, but I'm not fully converted yet.)
Unfortunately, this isn't how it works with games, movies, or television shows. It's getting better, but between availability and pricing, it still trails behind music.
Here's my major frustration: With digital music, I can go to the site of my choice, find the music I want, and easily put it on my iPod. I like the iPod for reasons other than digital music, so I didn't have to significantly change the way I listen to music. The other industries just don't seem to have that yet. Assuming they're available online at a reasonable price, I still frequently have to modify how I would watch the movie.
Netflix is moving in the right direction. I pay a flat monthly fee and, in exchange, I can watch television on my television (provided I have a device that plays Netflix). Unfortunately, Netflix's options are still somewhat limited. Watching Hulu is nice enough, but, as of now, I have to watch the shows on my computer. Hopefully, Hulu Plus will come to the 360 and PS3 soon and help fix this. As for Amazon or iTunes video rental? It's great if you have the equipment and they would be nice to fill in gaps where the content wasn't available on Netflix or Hulu, but if you don't have the equipment, then you can't watch it on television. And, call my crazy, I like my television on a television.
The problem I see is that a lack of convenience and availability might be a big factor in piracy. I'll use my experience with Breakfast at Tiffany's as an example.
I read the novella about a month ago and I wanted to finally watch the movie. Unsurprisingly, I couldn't buy it at any local stores and it wasn't available for rental at Blockbuster. It wasn't on Netflix, so no instant streaming. Until I thought of Amazon Instant Video, I thought my only option was to order it off Amazon and wait. Unfortunately, even though it was available on Amazon Instant Video and I can watch Amazon content on my Tivo, I hit a snag when I found it it would take five hours to download. And with that, my pizza and movie night with Breakfast at Tiffany's died.
The incredibly frustrating part was the knowledge that, most likely, somewhere out there I could find a copy of the movie that I could download quickly and easily. Since I have a 360, I could play certain file types on that, so I could watch it on an actual television instead of a computer.
Now, piracy is a complicated issue and I'm not implying for one moment that if it was just easier to get things, piracy would stop. It wouldn't. However, the fight against online piracy has been going on since at least 2000 and, frankly, while I wouldn't say that Hollywood, the music industry, and the game industry are losing, I can't say that they're winning. They go after one service or site, another pops up.
That said, when it's easier to get an illegal copy of the item than it is to pay for it, that can't help their cause. They have to understand how people are using their products and accommodate that. I want to play music on my iPod, watch movies and shows on my television, and play games on my consoles. And, frankly, I've been spoiled by things like iTunes, Netflix, Rhapsody, and Hulu. I'm willing to pay for the content, but I'm not willing to go out of my way to get it. I want to be able to come home and be able to choose my movie after I've settled down on the couch. I don't want to have to plan ahead and go out of my way to get it. And I'm willing to bet a lot of other people feel the same way.
In short, if Hollywood wants to fight piracy, they at least have to make it as easy to buy the product legitimately as it is to pirate it. Doing so won't stop piracy, but I'm fairly sure that failing to do so means Hollywood is behind before the race even starts.
Suddenly, though, I was able to download MP3s and check out the albums that people recommended to me. Granted, it was only three songs at a time and each of those songs had about a thirty minute download time, but who cares? I was able to listen to artists that I loved but most people hadn't heard of. And I'm also proud to say that, for the most part, if I liked the music, I bought the album eventually...usually when I could finally find it. (There was also the matter of rare songs that, to this day, I haven't found since.)
This is not an ode to piracy, however. Nowadays, I get my music through the proper channels. Initially through iTunes, then Amazon, and currently Rhapsody. In most cases, it's cheaper, which was the big reason I was willing to make the jump from CDs to MP3s. Saving a few dollars per album is always a good thing, plus there's the option of downloading individual songs. What I love is the convenience and variety. If I like a song, it's probably going to be available on Amazon or Rhapsody, so I can download it right away without having to find a store that carries it. (I'm starting to approach that attitude with ebooks, too, but I'm not fully converted yet.)
Unfortunately, this isn't how it works with games, movies, or television shows. It's getting better, but between availability and pricing, it still trails behind music.
Here's my major frustration: With digital music, I can go to the site of my choice, find the music I want, and easily put it on my iPod. I like the iPod for reasons other than digital music, so I didn't have to significantly change the way I listen to music. The other industries just don't seem to have that yet. Assuming they're available online at a reasonable price, I still frequently have to modify how I would watch the movie.
Netflix is moving in the right direction. I pay a flat monthly fee and, in exchange, I can watch television on my television (provided I have a device that plays Netflix). Unfortunately, Netflix's options are still somewhat limited. Watching Hulu is nice enough, but, as of now, I have to watch the shows on my computer. Hopefully, Hulu Plus will come to the 360 and PS3 soon and help fix this. As for Amazon or iTunes video rental? It's great if you have the equipment and they would be nice to fill in gaps where the content wasn't available on Netflix or Hulu, but if you don't have the equipment, then you can't watch it on television. And, call my crazy, I like my television on a television.
The problem I see is that a lack of convenience and availability might be a big factor in piracy. I'll use my experience with Breakfast at Tiffany's as an example.
I read the novella about a month ago and I wanted to finally watch the movie. Unsurprisingly, I couldn't buy it at any local stores and it wasn't available for rental at Blockbuster. It wasn't on Netflix, so no instant streaming. Until I thought of Amazon Instant Video, I thought my only option was to order it off Amazon and wait. Unfortunately, even though it was available on Amazon Instant Video and I can watch Amazon content on my Tivo, I hit a snag when I found it it would take five hours to download. And with that, my pizza and movie night with Breakfast at Tiffany's died.
The incredibly frustrating part was the knowledge that, most likely, somewhere out there I could find a copy of the movie that I could download quickly and easily. Since I have a 360, I could play certain file types on that, so I could watch it on an actual television instead of a computer.
Now, piracy is a complicated issue and I'm not implying for one moment that if it was just easier to get things, piracy would stop. It wouldn't. However, the fight against online piracy has been going on since at least 2000 and, frankly, while I wouldn't say that Hollywood, the music industry, and the game industry are losing, I can't say that they're winning. They go after one service or site, another pops up.
That said, when it's easier to get an illegal copy of the item than it is to pay for it, that can't help their cause. They have to understand how people are using their products and accommodate that. I want to play music on my iPod, watch movies and shows on my television, and play games on my consoles. And, frankly, I've been spoiled by things like iTunes, Netflix, Rhapsody, and Hulu. I'm willing to pay for the content, but I'm not willing to go out of my way to get it. I want to be able to come home and be able to choose my movie after I've settled down on the couch. I don't want to have to plan ahead and go out of my way to get it. And I'm willing to bet a lot of other people feel the same way.
In short, if Hollywood wants to fight piracy, they at least have to make it as easy to buy the product legitimately as it is to pirate it. Doing so won't stop piracy, but I'm fairly sure that failing to do so means Hollywood is behind before the race even starts.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The iPad and the Budding News Junkie
It's also amazing how a different method of delivery can drastically change someone's behavior regarding news. Case in point, me.
Up until recently, I've kept up with the news well enough, but it was always fairly passively. I would stop to listen to the story running on a 24 hour news channel or click on whatever stories interested me when I checked my email or visited a search page. About a year ago, I started using Twitter to follow news or other feeds that interested me, mainly legal related. That wasn't bad, but it was a bit of a pain scrolling through several hours worth of posts and clicking on the links that interested me. (I never said I wasn't lazy.)
Next I tried Google Reader. It's great for a lot of reasons, including the ability to star and share interesting posts as well as the "sort by magic" feature that filters everything based on past history. Still, it's a lot of work. I suppose I could add everything into one category and read it, but then it's a jumbled mess and I find myself always trying to wade through hundreds or thousands of posts to get to the ones that interest me. I've tried to organize everything by category and to prune my Reader frequently and that helps a lot, but it still feels like a bit of a chore.
Enter the iPad. It's more flexible for reading and I find myself using it instead of my laptop more and more often. Unfortunately, reading Google Reader through the iPad web browser worked fairly well, but it was much easier to use on a computer. Reeder was recommended frequently, but at $4.99, it seemed to be a waste of money when Google Reader worked well enough on the iPad and the computer was always a viable option. (On a side note, this is why app developers need to offer free trials of their products. I have no problem with paying for an app that provides a service that I can't get for free or improves upon the free service, but I need to know that the service is worth the money. Had Reeder offered a free trial, I might be using it now.)
Then I discovered Flipboard. It was my favorite price, which is free, so I downloaded it and promptly forgot about it. I started using it again about a week ago, though, and I'm fairly happy with it. You can add your Google Reader account, your Facebook account, and your Twitter account, or you can just use pre-selected feeds like News, Art, Fliptech. You can also add individual blogs or Twitter accounts. What I like most about it is that it shows up as a magazine-like layout. The Twitter section doesn't just show Tweets, it also displays linked articles or photos in some cases. If it just shows a Tweet, I can easily click it and view the whole article. Same with Facebook posts. When my FB friends share a link, I see the entire article or video...or at least a decent teaser. It makes it a lot easier to scan through them to see what interests me the most. I like the Google Reader selection for the same reason, though as far as I can tell, flipping through the headlines doesn't mark them as read. I like the fact that I'm still able to star items or add things to my shared items, but I miss being able to bookmark things with Diigo. Still, it works and I'm more or less happy with it.
I'm also experimenting with Zite, which is about a week old. Supposedly, you can add your Google Reader and Twitter and it gives content based on that. It also claims to learn from your reading habits and give you more of the types of stories that interest you. The good thing about this is that it allows you to get information from sources you wouldn't normally read, which is always a good thing.
I'm not impressed, though. It wasn't bad enough to make me give up on it totally, but it also wasn't good enough to make me give up on Flipboard. First, despite following 40 different Twitter feeds and having 228 subscriptions on Google Reader, Zite wasn't able to generate automatic content for me so I had to add my own. Not a huge problem, but definitely not living up to the hype. Second, it's buggy in a couple of ways. The most noticeable was extremely slow loading times and, at one point, a message saying that it couldn't access content because of too many users. In most cases, it wasn't a huge wait, but I left behind waiting five to ten seconds for a page of text and one picture to load when I gave up dial up. It also crashed a couple of times and I couldn't get linked videos to play. Also, if I clicked on a link to another website or even another story on the site I was reading, it opened Safari. That meant that when I was finished, I had to reopen Zite, wait for it to load, go back to the section I was reading, and start again. I didn't have this problem in Flipboard. Finally, a few things were out of place on categories. It didn't stand out until I got to the humor section and found a story about a tiger killing a lion in a zoo. This wasn't by the Onion and it didn't reference Charlie Sheen, so either their categories are glitchy or someone has a really, really sick sense of humor.
All in all, I do see myself using the iPad more and more for news. I can't see myself paying subscription content, though that might change. What I want is a nice little iPad app that will let me manage all my Google Reader and Twitter content, share or bookmark as needed, and let me easily leaf through all the content. Oh, and introducing new content? It's a positive, but not a requirement. And since I plan to stick with a wifi only iPad, the ability to periodically refresh and store content for offline browsing would be great, too.
Up until recently, I've kept up with the news well enough, but it was always fairly passively. I would stop to listen to the story running on a 24 hour news channel or click on whatever stories interested me when I checked my email or visited a search page. About a year ago, I started using Twitter to follow news or other feeds that interested me, mainly legal related. That wasn't bad, but it was a bit of a pain scrolling through several hours worth of posts and clicking on the links that interested me. (I never said I wasn't lazy.)
Next I tried Google Reader. It's great for a lot of reasons, including the ability to star and share interesting posts as well as the "sort by magic" feature that filters everything based on past history. Still, it's a lot of work. I suppose I could add everything into one category and read it, but then it's a jumbled mess and I find myself always trying to wade through hundreds or thousands of posts to get to the ones that interest me. I've tried to organize everything by category and to prune my Reader frequently and that helps a lot, but it still feels like a bit of a chore.
Enter the iPad. It's more flexible for reading and I find myself using it instead of my laptop more and more often. Unfortunately, reading Google Reader through the iPad web browser worked fairly well, but it was much easier to use on a computer. Reeder was recommended frequently, but at $4.99, it seemed to be a waste of money when Google Reader worked well enough on the iPad and the computer was always a viable option. (On a side note, this is why app developers need to offer free trials of their products. I have no problem with paying for an app that provides a service that I can't get for free or improves upon the free service, but I need to know that the service is worth the money. Had Reeder offered a free trial, I might be using it now.)
Then I discovered Flipboard. It was my favorite price, which is free, so I downloaded it and promptly forgot about it. I started using it again about a week ago, though, and I'm fairly happy with it. You can add your Google Reader account, your Facebook account, and your Twitter account, or you can just use pre-selected feeds like News, Art, Fliptech. You can also add individual blogs or Twitter accounts. What I like most about it is that it shows up as a magazine-like layout. The Twitter section doesn't just show Tweets, it also displays linked articles or photos in some cases. If it just shows a Tweet, I can easily click it and view the whole article. Same with Facebook posts. When my FB friends share a link, I see the entire article or video...or at least a decent teaser. It makes it a lot easier to scan through them to see what interests me the most. I like the Google Reader selection for the same reason, though as far as I can tell, flipping through the headlines doesn't mark them as read. I like the fact that I'm still able to star items or add things to my shared items, but I miss being able to bookmark things with Diigo. Still, it works and I'm more or less happy with it.
I'm also experimenting with Zite, which is about a week old. Supposedly, you can add your Google Reader and Twitter and it gives content based on that. It also claims to learn from your reading habits and give you more of the types of stories that interest you. The good thing about this is that it allows you to get information from sources you wouldn't normally read, which is always a good thing.
I'm not impressed, though. It wasn't bad enough to make me give up on it totally, but it also wasn't good enough to make me give up on Flipboard. First, despite following 40 different Twitter feeds and having 228 subscriptions on Google Reader, Zite wasn't able to generate automatic content for me so I had to add my own. Not a huge problem, but definitely not living up to the hype. Second, it's buggy in a couple of ways. The most noticeable was extremely slow loading times and, at one point, a message saying that it couldn't access content because of too many users. In most cases, it wasn't a huge wait, but I left behind waiting five to ten seconds for a page of text and one picture to load when I gave up dial up. It also crashed a couple of times and I couldn't get linked videos to play. Also, if I clicked on a link to another website or even another story on the site I was reading, it opened Safari. That meant that when I was finished, I had to reopen Zite, wait for it to load, go back to the section I was reading, and start again. I didn't have this problem in Flipboard. Finally, a few things were out of place on categories. It didn't stand out until I got to the humor section and found a story about a tiger killing a lion in a zoo. This wasn't by the Onion and it didn't reference Charlie Sheen, so either their categories are glitchy or someone has a really, really sick sense of humor.
All in all, I do see myself using the iPad more and more for news. I can't see myself paying subscription content, though that might change. What I want is a nice little iPad app that will let me manage all my Google Reader and Twitter content, share or bookmark as needed, and let me easily leaf through all the content. Oh, and introducing new content? It's a positive, but not a requirement. And since I plan to stick with a wifi only iPad, the ability to periodically refresh and store content for offline browsing would be great, too.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Not So Delicious Now
Edit: Turns out Delicious is only being sold, not shut down.
I'm not necessarily an early adopter, but I'm not the person who has to be dragged on the bandwagon, kicking and screaming all the way. In other words, I don't fear change, but I also don't embrace change just for the sake of change. What this generally means is that when a new product or service is released, I'm not going to buy it just for the sake of being current. I generally wait to see if it's something that will benefit me. If so, I'm all for it. If not, I'll let it pass. The plus side to this is that I seldom regret buying a product or signing up for a service. The downside is that I sometimes find myself wishing that I'd thrown caution to the wind and embraced the latest thing, just so that I could say I was there when it started.
I suppose that this was a long way of saying that I recently signed up for Delicious. If you aren't familiar with the service, it started back in 2003 as a social bookmarking service. Users added their links, including tags. The site was useful for two reasons. First, it allowed users to add and tag their bookmarks, meaning that they could access a current and neatly organized list of their bookmarks from any location. If you've ever switched computers and lost links or spent ages trying to figure out exactly where you bookmarked that link that you really need, you'll see why this was a good idea. Second, the site kept track of how many people added a bookmark, so it was a great way to see what was popular on a given day.
I've known about the site for ages, back when it was still del.icio.us. I never signed up, mainly because I didn't see a reason to. The idea of a large, systematic list of my bookmarks on a site like that was beyond me. I rarely bookmark sites and, when I do, I tend to do it in such a way that it's virtually impossible to actually find the site when I need it. I finally broke down and signed up a couple of months ago and I've been slowly building my own library of organized, tagged bookmarks.
Unfortunately, I found out today that Yahoo is shutting down Delicious. The timing was interesting for me because I had just decided a couple of days ago that it was pointless to save links to two or more sites (I also use Digg and StumbleUpon). I guess I was wrong about that.
I got off fairly easy, though. I only had a handful of sites that I needed to save, most of which I very easily added to Digg and StumbleUpon. However, looking at some of the comments to the stories, some people were apparently pretty upset. A few people mentioned having over a thousand (one person said 4800) links on Delicious with no backup. If that sounds a little excessive, if someone signed up for Delicious back in even 2004 and saved three links a week, that would come out to over a thousand bookmarks.
This raises a few questions on whether a service like Delicious is a good thing or not. As I said earlier, the benefits are fairly obvious. The user has a list of bookmarks that can be accessed from any computer and won't be erased if there's a problem with the user's computer. As anyone who uses multiple computers or who has lost data due to a computer problem and no backup, those are pretty obvious benefits. The drawback is that the user has little or no control over the content once it's posted. As shown with Delicious, the content disappear with little or no warning.
So what to do? Ignore online services and keep the material on your hard drive and under your control? Post and risk it? Post to multiple sites?
I think that the steps taken should depend on the value of the content. For instance, I read webcomics. When I find a strip that's either very amusing or might be relevant to something in the future, I bookmark it. Given that some of the bookmarks are a couple of years old and haven't been used in that time, losing them wouldn't be a huge tragedy, so why bother backing them up? On the other hand, something like pictures or video might be much more valuable. In that case, a little extra effort might be worthwhile, but it has to be within reason.
For my part, I'm not going to write off online services. Having a copy of important files stored remotely is a good thing. I am, however, going to avoid putting my faith in one service. For instance, for links I know I want to keep, I plan to use both Digg and StumbleUpon. I'm also going to work on keeping the bookmark folder in my browser up-to-date and organized, rather than just bookmarking and letting it go. For photos, I plan to make sure they're organized and tagged on my computer, then post to Flickr and a backup site.
It seems like a good number of the articles and blogs I read mention cloud computing. I think it's a wonderful thing and I think it's going to be used more and more. However, even as I use it more and more (and I know I will), I also plan to keep things organized on my hard drive and to be more diligent about backing things up. Hopefully, I'll be able to implement a system that lets me accomplish both.
I'm not necessarily an early adopter, but I'm not the person who has to be dragged on the bandwagon, kicking and screaming all the way. In other words, I don't fear change, but I also don't embrace change just for the sake of change. What this generally means is that when a new product or service is released, I'm not going to buy it just for the sake of being current. I generally wait to see if it's something that will benefit me. If so, I'm all for it. If not, I'll let it pass. The plus side to this is that I seldom regret buying a product or signing up for a service. The downside is that I sometimes find myself wishing that I'd thrown caution to the wind and embraced the latest thing, just so that I could say I was there when it started.
I suppose that this was a long way of saying that I recently signed up for Delicious. If you aren't familiar with the service, it started back in 2003 as a social bookmarking service. Users added their links, including tags. The site was useful for two reasons. First, it allowed users to add and tag their bookmarks, meaning that they could access a current and neatly organized list of their bookmarks from any location. If you've ever switched computers and lost links or spent ages trying to figure out exactly where you bookmarked that link that you really need, you'll see why this was a good idea. Second, the site kept track of how many people added a bookmark, so it was a great way to see what was popular on a given day.
I've known about the site for ages, back when it was still del.icio.us. I never signed up, mainly because I didn't see a reason to. The idea of a large, systematic list of my bookmarks on a site like that was beyond me. I rarely bookmark sites and, when I do, I tend to do it in such a way that it's virtually impossible to actually find the site when I need it. I finally broke down and signed up a couple of months ago and I've been slowly building my own library of organized, tagged bookmarks.
Unfortunately, I found out today that Yahoo is shutting down Delicious. The timing was interesting for me because I had just decided a couple of days ago that it was pointless to save links to two or more sites (I also use Digg and StumbleUpon). I guess I was wrong about that.
I got off fairly easy, though. I only had a handful of sites that I needed to save, most of which I very easily added to Digg and StumbleUpon. However, looking at some of the comments to the stories, some people were apparently pretty upset. A few people mentioned having over a thousand (one person said 4800) links on Delicious with no backup. If that sounds a little excessive, if someone signed up for Delicious back in even 2004 and saved three links a week, that would come out to over a thousand bookmarks.
This raises a few questions on whether a service like Delicious is a good thing or not. As I said earlier, the benefits are fairly obvious. The user has a list of bookmarks that can be accessed from any computer and won't be erased if there's a problem with the user's computer. As anyone who uses multiple computers or who has lost data due to a computer problem and no backup, those are pretty obvious benefits. The drawback is that the user has little or no control over the content once it's posted. As shown with Delicious, the content disappear with little or no warning.
So what to do? Ignore online services and keep the material on your hard drive and under your control? Post and risk it? Post to multiple sites?
I think that the steps taken should depend on the value of the content. For instance, I read webcomics. When I find a strip that's either very amusing or might be relevant to something in the future, I bookmark it. Given that some of the bookmarks are a couple of years old and haven't been used in that time, losing them wouldn't be a huge tragedy, so why bother backing them up? On the other hand, something like pictures or video might be much more valuable. In that case, a little extra effort might be worthwhile, but it has to be within reason.
For my part, I'm not going to write off online services. Having a copy of important files stored remotely is a good thing. I am, however, going to avoid putting my faith in one service. For instance, for links I know I want to keep, I plan to use both Digg and StumbleUpon. I'm also going to work on keeping the bookmark folder in my browser up-to-date and organized, rather than just bookmarking and letting it go. For photos, I plan to make sure they're organized and tagged on my computer, then post to Flickr and a backup site.
It seems like a good number of the articles and blogs I read mention cloud computing. I think it's a wonderful thing and I think it's going to be used more and more. However, even as I use it more and more (and I know I will), I also plan to keep things organized on my hard drive and to be more diligent about backing things up. Hopefully, I'll be able to implement a system that lets me accomplish both.
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