Published August 9th, 2007
in Security and Software.
“There will always be something that falls into the gray area,” BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa told the Wall Street Journal. That’s where his company comes in. BayTSP is currently employed by Viacom for over $100,000 per month—other companies pay up to $500,000 per month—for its services. For that money, BayTSP sends out over a million takedown notices every month and says that clips are often removed within a couple of hours. — Ars Technica
I was reading today on Ars Technica about BayTSP (a digital copyright protection firm) and how they were contracted by Viacom to find and eliminate pirated clips on video sharing sites like YouTube. This is a very interesting idea but could only happen on the west coast. Viacom supposedly pays $100k per month for their services which include paying individuals $11 per hour to sift through videos and send a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take down notice. On top of that BayTSP claims they have other corporations paying $500k per month for the same services. Now I can’t imagine many other corporations with the same size pirated portfolio as Viacom on sites like YouTube, so who really is paying those $500k per month fees?
There is no way to see inside the operations at BayTSP but from what I can imagine they have a numerous employees working in cube land and once they spot infringing content they can submit the URL for further investigation. The employees tasked with verifying the content of course would have more experience in these matters and more than likely use a standard DMCA notice which they just paste the offending content URLs into. I just can’t believe and entire industry has sprung up over the past ten years based just on watching online videos!
I think this just proves that DRM and that old media fighting new media is here to stay and prosper!
Published August 3rd, 2007
in News and Networking.
A bill introduced into the House of Representatives this week will attempt to spur broadband development in the US by overturning existing state bans on municipal broadband deployments. Titled the Community Broadband Act of 2007, the bill (PDF) is cosponsored by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI).Currently, laws in Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Texas, and a handful of other states prevent cities and towns from installing and operating their own broadband networks. Most of those laws were enacted in the wake of heavy lobbying from the telecommunications industry, which doesn’t want to see competition coming from local governments. — Ars Technica
It’s about time in my opinion that the government step in and create broadband networks and license their use just like a public utility. With today’s networking technology it is completely feasible for a new company to open shop and start offering Internet access on a municipal or state owned network. Unlike water and power works, consumers can have a choice on who they use for Internet access and how much they want to pay. I completely understand the fear that the powerful cable/DSL duopoly control could be undermined by such a offering but I’m certainly all for that! I love free markets but sometimes the government needs to step in so the free market doesn’t become closed due to mergers and acquisitions.
Published August 2nd, 2007
in Software.
Microsoft’s first ad-supported office suite is almost here; it just happens to not be Microsoft Office. The Redmond giant has opted to use a more expendable test subject for its foray into ad-supported software: the much overlooked Microsoft Works. The existence of the pilot program has been confirmed by Microsoft to Ars Technica and other news out — Ars Technica
So Microsoft plans on releasing software that retails for $39.95 for the low low price of free if you are willing to look at ads. I applaud Microsoft for venturing into Google’s playground of ad supported software but who actually uses Works any more? I haven’t seen it installed on a PC in years, and when I did see it I was uninstalling it for people! I think Microsoft needs to start out with some more serious software otherwise they are setting the whole program up for failure. Add on to the fact this program will only be available from OEMs like Dell, HP, Toshiba and it’s easy to see how this won’t work! You can get Works installed for free on most Dell PCs. So how do you get users to utilize ad supported software when it’s already available to them for free?
The Microsoft Expression development tools look great and I think a ‘lite’ version would be the perfect target for the ad supported software market! Once that is finished you would just need to make the software available to everyone and Microsoft would be making a great way to thousands of more developers attached to Microsoft products instead of Adobe’s!
