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The DRM Distraction: Part I

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Reality Refresh
Having looked closely at the publishing industry for the past few months, and having worked in both the software industry and the film industry at various times over the past two decades, I’ve come to a few conclusions about digital rights management (DRM). The most important is that there is no clear-cut solution to the question of piracy, and anybody who tells you they’ve got it all figured out is working their own angle. And that includes Cory Doctorow and me.

Like the subject of abortion in the political arena, DRM is injected into every conversation about content ownership and distribution whether it’s directly relevant or not. If you don’t say the right things to the right people about DRM you risk associations and opportunities that might be of value, not because you’re wrong on the merits, but because you’re giving aid and comfort to the enemy by implying that they are not pure evil. At the same time, those people who don’t buy into a black-and-white view of DRM will think you an idiot for not using the impassioned nuts on both sides to your own advantage.

The correct answer to questions about DRM in the current context is not to be suckered into a debate about technological solutions or the prosecution of college students, but to educate and evangelize about the problems that drive the implementation of DRM technology in the first place. Although most end users who pirate content do so as individuals, the collective effect of these individual decisions hurts copyright holders and content creators in very real ways. Yes, some piracy may be sticking it to The Man, but it’s also killing artists that people apparently want to read, listen to and watch.  [ Read more ]

Site Seeing: Richard Curtis | E-Reads.com

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What is there to say about Richard Curtis that hasn’t already been said? If you’re interested in books, publishing, agents, writers, ethics, and the money that holds them all in a gravitational embrace, you have to read Curtis’ posts at E-Reads.com.

You have to. (You don’t always have to agree.)

I first learned of Curtis decades ago when I was trying to get a fix on the book business, to see if I wanted to move toward writing novels. Curtis’ books on the publishing industry — including How To Be Your Own Literary Agent and Beyond The Bestseller — demystified a world that many power brokers would still prefer clouded in cigar smoke.

(There is a revised 3rd edition of How To Be from 2003; Beyond doesn’t seem to have been updated, but I suspect much of the content is still relevant despite the pace of change in the industry.)

— Mark Barrett

Living in the Moment

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Thinking about my reluctance to recommend an e-reader to anyone, I realized over the weekend that it’s not simply a belief I have that e-reader technology isn’t ready. That’s part of it, but there’s another issue for me — a more global concern that I tend to mute because I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it.

Twenty or thirty years ago, products were rated in two basic ways. How well they did the job they were designed to do, and how reliable or long-lasting they were. Between then and now, however, the question of reliability has changed. It no longer refers to a product’s ability to perform over time, but rather to a product’s ability to perform at all.

I have no proof of this, but I believe the change took place as the products in our lives became predominantly electronic, as opposed to mechanical. Where physical mechanisms used to power most of our devices, those devices are now controlled by circuitry that is inherently more complex, if not unfathomable.  [ Read more ]

Weekend Reads

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More links of interest for your weekend reading pleasure:

  • Video Games Writing: Where We Are and What We Need
    Craig Stern updates the perennial question: why isn’t game writing better than it is? A good overview, and less needy than the usual game-writing rant. That nothing much has changed in the past decade says less about what’s possible than it does about calcification of the industry around a working business model. Buggy whips indeed.
  • A Long, Detailed Look at Distribution Windows
    Kassia Kroszer fills a hole in the old data bank, and does so in comprehensive fashion. The internet is wreaking havoc with all content industries as it destroys traditional distribution channels, but solutions for each industry will not be the same because industry products are not all the same. (See also Part One: Response to Nat Sobel.)
  • Study: 58% Of Users Buy Goods From Free-To-Play Games
    The title pretty much covers the subject matter, but this is another clear reminder that solutions to the problem of internet distribution necessarily vary for each content industry. Unless readers prove willing to plop down money for bonus adjectives, the book industry is not going to get a lot of utility out of the free-to-play games model.
  • Death and Taxes
    April L. Hamilton takes a look at tax time. Worth a read if you’re really thinking about writing professionally, or if you’ve never heard of a 1099 before.
  • Make-a-Flake
    A reader gift from Lou in the comments section. The user interface takes a bit of getting used to, but after that it’s joy. (Tip: to make a cut, center the scissors over an edge and click, then move the scissors to mark the first line of your cut.)

If you want to try making snowflakes with your own scissors and paper, origami paper works best because it’s very thin. You should be able to find it at any craft store.

— Mark Barrett

Greatest Song Ever

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In a post about the Beatles in early November I wrote this:

A week later I’m listening to I Am The Walrus again and it’s just genius. It’s over forty years old and it’s as relevant and good and insane and perfect as anything anyone is doing today. It’s not just holding up. You can’t name a better song. There are no better songs. Goo goo gajoob.

Last night I listened to I Am The Walrus again, and I stand by what I said. I think it’s the greatest song ever. I don’t have a massive analytical treatise to back me up, or sales figures if that’s the only thing that matters to you, but on every level that a song is supposed to work, I Am The Walrus works transcendentally.

Tell me I’m wrong. Point to a better song by anyone. Classical, disco, whatever you’ve got. I don’t think you can do it.

Update: a link to a YouTube clip of Walrus from Magical Mystery Tour. I think the song has outlived the images, so feel free to look away.

Later Update: I found myself wondering where I Am The Walrus ranks in the various all-time great songs lists, and after a while I found myself reading through the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time (full list archived here). The first thing that caught my eye was the fact that Walrus isn’t listed, meaning Rolling Stone doesn’t think it’s one of the 500 greatest songs of all time. They do have Rick James’ Super Freak at 477, and Sonny and Cher’s I Got You Babe at 444, and Don Henley’s Boys of Summer at 416, but no Walrus.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that a list like this has to spread the wealth around, and you’re right. There are 4 Beatles songs in the top 20, 7 in the top 30, 10 in the top 100, and 21 in the entire list. By Contrast, the Rolling Stones have 4 in the top 100, so you know the Beatles are getting their due.

But here’s the problem. The last Beatles song on the list is Ticket To Ride at 387. For 1965, maybe it was head-turning stuff. But forty years later, it’s simply another catchy pop tune from the pre-Martin Beatles era. Whereas I Am The Walrus was and still is the kind of timeless musical statement that transcends its own context. (Look at the dated clip of the song from the movie Magical Mystery Tour and you’ll see what I mean.)

Any Top 100 Songs of all Time list that doesn’t have Walrus on it is a fail. Any Top 10 Songs of all Time that does include Walrus is a list I would pay attention to.

— Mark Barrett

Dueling Nook Reviews

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Fully one short day after I questioned the utility and validity of crowd-sourced product reviews, the New York Times and PC Magazine post contradictory assessments of the Nook — Barnes & Nobles’ e-reader.

The NYT reviewer finds the Nook…

buggy. In four days, my Nook locked up twice and displayed an “Android operating system has crashed” message twice.

The PCMag reviewer finds the Nook…

might just be the most sophisticated e-Book reader on the market.

PCMag reports no bugs, but does not state whether the device was used for a prolonged period or merely tested for feature compliance.

Read the two reviews and you’ll come away thinking they’re talking about completely different products, with one exception.  [ Read more ]

Changing the Rules

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Bear with me — this comes back to publishing…

There was a rule change just prior to the start of the National Basketball Association season, and I think the NBA’s decision sheds some light on the options the publishing industry has for increasing interest in books.

The new rule reads, in part: “A player who receives the ball while he is progressing or upon completion of a dribble, may take two steps in coming to a stop, passing or shooting the ball.”

It is believed to be the first time any league, at any level anywhere in the world, has explicitly allowed two steps.

As the article notes, the rule has always been one step, and that’s been true at every level of basketball. However, as the article also notes, the NBA has been allowing two steps for years, so this rule change only reflects reality. Or at least reality as defined by an unenforced one-step rule, which may be a great deal different than an enforced two-step rule. (Predictable NBA double-speak denial here. Phil Jackson on the obviousness of the sham here.)

Why did the NBA allow two steps against their own rules, and why have they now written this admission into the rulebook?

Enforcement of the one-step rule has been hit-or-miss at every level of basketball. Archival footage shows NBA greats, from Magic Johnson and Pete Maravich to Bob Cousy and Julius Erving, getting away with two steps. Borgia, whose father was also an NBA official, said he cannot remember a time when NBA referees did not allow two steps.

Others insist allowing two steps represents an NBA strategy to aid scorers and make the league more exciting. Legendary point guard and current Knick broadcaster Walt “Clyde” Frazier says the league relaxed traveling standards some time ago to increase scoring.

Enforcement may be hit-or-miss at every level of play, but that’s partly because the traveling call is inherently hit-or-miss. Unlike, say, a missed basket, which is obvious to everyone, a traveling call requires assessing multiple moments which play out in various ways. Did the player pick up his dribble early, but still only take one step (or, now, two)? Precisely because referees have to wait until a player completes a series of moves to know it’s an infraction, it’s not clear a player is traveling until fully after the fact. Even a foul — which is also a tough judgment call in many cases — has only one inciting incident. Traveling is now a multi-step judgment call, which, at the professional level, plays out at blinding speed in a forest of giants.

Enforcement is also not proportionately hit-or-miss when comparing the NBA with major college basketball. You can watch whole NBA games and never see a traveling call, while college games regularly feature such calls. (More proof that the NBA has been lax about the one-step rule for some time.) As to whether the rule has been relaxed in order to increase scoring and excitement (you get better power dunks off a two-step stampede to the rim) I don’t think there’s any question that that’s the case. And I don’t think the NBA is alone in this regard.  [ Read more ]

The Ratings Game

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Apple has removed 1,000 apps from its online store in the wake of a large-scale ratings scam perpetrated by a Chinese developer:

This scam was so effective that the applications regularly rose to the tops of charts. One, called ColorMagic, even made it into the Staff Favorites section of the store (which brings some doubt as to whether these are actually staff picks at all).

Apple is to be congratulated for taking action. It’s also to be condemned for failing to have controls in place that were capable of discovering and exposing this wide-spread fraud. Whether Apple is faking its own “Staff Favorites” picks or not, Apple has an obligation to police its own marketplace for the sake of Apple’s users.  [ Read more ]

The Snowball Effect

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Standing at the top of a snowy hill you pack a handful of snow into a tight little ball. You put the snowball on the ground and give it a nudge, and as the snowball rolls it gathers more snow, growing in mass with each revolution. By the time it reaches the bottom your little snowball is an unstoppable force.

Right now, around the internet and around the world, most of the people involved with the creation and distribution of content are looking up hill for a snowball. They’re waiting for someone else to come up with the magic business model, for that model to gather mass, for the venture capitalists to fall all over each other trying to profit from it, and for the net-trend opinion makers to wax breathless about the NextBigThing.

Everyone is sure a snowball is coming. Nobody is sure when.

I mention this because it snowed Saturday night. It was the first snow of the season, and it was also a wet snow. Which is why I got up Sunday morning and made this:

(That’s a snow-covered basketball in the lower-right corner of the frame, for scale.)

I’m a big believer in traditions. I don’t believe some traditions have more inherent merit than others, and that’s true no matter how sacred those traditions are to believers or how goofy they seem to outsiders. What I believe is that traditions are meaningful to us as individuals, whether we share those traditions with others or not.  [ Read more ]