Posts By: Natalie North

Kindle, compatible eBooks and DMCA

Posted | Category: Media Business.

I just read in Slashdot about how Amazon Uses DMCA To Restrict Ebook Purchases. Basically, someone figured out how to get eBooks from another service onto the Kindle.

As a part of our business, we occasionally have spirited debates about the DMCA, and how it is to be applied properly. Basically, Amazon is trying to use the DMCA to shut out competing eBook formats. The DMCA does not cover interoperability – only copyright infringement – and in my opinion Amazon is clearly in the wrong in this case. No copy protection is being cracked here – a DRMed eBook remains DRMed.

As some of the commenters point out, Amazon’s business model is to make money selling the eBooks, and not the hardware. The Kindle is at best a break-even proposition for Amazon. If people are able to purchase eBooks outside of Amazon, then that destroys their business model to a certain degree.

Another comment articulates the legal position really well:

Leaving aside the issue of users’ rights, as far as I can see Amazon is just plain wrong on the law and lacks legal justification for the takedown notice. What the DMCA prohibits is the distribution of tools for overcoming technical measures for protecting copyrighted materials. The first program generates a MOBI ID from a kindle serial number. The second program rewrites a non-Amazon ebook so that it contains the id that will allow it to work on the Kindle with the given serial number. Neither program modifies or copies the Kindle’s software. Since the ebooks in question are not produced by Amazon, no material whose copyright belongs to Amazon is affected in any way. In other words, this software does not defeat any technical measure of Amazon’s for protecting copyrighted material since Amazon has no copyrighted material at stake here. The DMCA is inapplicable, and the takedown notice invalid. Indeed, it is so clear that this software does nothing to defeat protection of copyrighted material that I would say that the takedown notice was issued in bad faith.

What this software actually does is allow for interoperability, which is explicitly protected by the DMCA.

How to connect your TV to your PC

Posted | Category: Video.

It seems like there’s a lot of interest in how online video might kill Cable and Satellite services like DirecTV and Comcast, so I started a mini home project to see what it would be like for someone to actually try to send streaming video from a PC to a large screen TV. I know there are a lot of different ways to do this, and I figured it should be pretty easy.

I went to Fry’s – the best super-retailer for everything geek in California, expecting to see some sort of all-in-one setup for this. I can’t be the only person wanting to do this right? Anyway – after about an hour of searching I finally found what looked like it was going to work – a VGA to AV converter (with 3 different outputs) for about $39, and a separate 3.5″ mini-jack to RCA cable for the audio ($17). I would have expected a nice all-in-one setup, but alas – the video and the audio are separate beasts. My laptop has a VGA output and a 3.5″ mini headphone jack, so I was all set. (There were some other USB-based audio enhancer thingys, but these seemed like overkill.)

Now – back home to hook all this up. It seemed to be pretty straightforward, although I couldn’t get my AV receiver to display the video. There’s probably some menu setup I needed to do, but not being very patient, I finally just hooked all three outputs into the front of the VCR (yes – we still have one), and lo and behold – it actually worked!
I was a little concerned about the quality – since I figured attaching the output directly into the AV receiver would be better, but testing with Hulu and iTunes video – the results were totally acceptable. I was immersed into my shows, and not noticing anything horrible with the video or audio quality.

So anyway – this is totally doable. I will probably go back and play with the AV receiver some more, and maybe try to clean up the wires (which my wife hates). Eventually a wireless system would be ideal. But it works! And it’s awesome. The house I’m in right now has no cable, so this is a great way to get more entertainment without spending $70+/month.

Do you have any experience hooking up your TV to your PC? Please share in the comments. I suspect a lot of people are interested in this.

Are we really ready to cut the cable?

Posted | Category: Media Business.

According to this article in TV Week, people are indeed discontinuing Comcast, but may be moving to Satellite and IPTV services like Verizon. Online video may be making an impact amongst the digerati, but until there is a nice easy way to pull it up on your TV, online video has a ways to go. This is all in spite of the horrid economy.

Maybe that will change soon with better software – and easily available content? This should be an interesting year.

First Newspapers, now Broadcast TV?

Posted | Category: Media Business.

You’ve probably read how many local newspapers are in deep financial doo-doo recently. Some have even closed, like the Rocky Mountain Daily News.

Now, the same thing appears to be happening to Broadcast TV. This article shows the writing on the wall.

The problems with the newspaper and broadcast TV businesses are similar: people prefer on-demand content. Why huddle around your TV at 8 PM Thursday to watch your favorite show, when you can watch tons of great stuff from sites like Hulu whenever you like? Why read the newspaper (which may be 12 hours out-of-date – god forbid!) when you can get the latest breaking news online?

We’re moving to an on-demand world, and any businesses that fail to adapt to that mindset are doomed to fail.

CBS boldly going where no one has gone before

Posted | Category: Media Business.

There’s a new iPhone app out from CBS that lets you watch full episodes of some TV shows on your iPhone. Some old Star Trek episodes are available, but not everything. It looks like they are giving this a test run to see what happens.
If this sort of thing becomes prevalent, will it bring all 3G traffic to it’s knees? Beware the wrath of AT&T.

Cable TV – Coming soon to a PC near you!

Posted | Category: Media Business.

This is an interesting article relating to Comcast’s plans to move into the video space.

It seems the Cable companies are scared to death about being bypassed by online video delivery, so rather than sit idly by and watch their business evaporate, they will be trying to make a compelling offering, with the hopes that their subscribers will stay.

You don’t suppose a recording option will be a part of their offering, do you???

YouTube cracking down on download sites

Posted | Category: Media Business, Replay Media Catcher.

Looks like programs like Replay Media Catcher will soon be the only way to download videos from YouTube. TechCrunch’s video download tool has recently been blocked by YouTube, and it’s likely they will start to block other sites.

Here’s the story:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/13/youtube-kills-our-video-download-tool

What do YOU do about this? Use a PC-based download tool like Replay Media Catcher, which works free with YouTube. If you want the technical meat of why this will continue to work read on…

The way TechCrunch (and likely other sites) are being blocked is via the IP address of their servers. The server goes directly to the YouTube site, and pretends to be a web browser, and then figures out the download link. It’s easy for YouTube to write a script to block certain IP addresses.

The “client” approach (like Replay Media Catcher) cannot be foiled in this way, since the IP address for the download request comes from an individual user’s PC, and not a server. YouTube cannot tell the difference between your web browser, or a client running on your PC, since the IP address of the request is the same.

It will be interesting to see if YouTube continues to crack down on other sites.

Changes to Replay Media Catcher

Posted | Category: Applian Software, Replay Media Catcher.

As of January 28, 2009, new installations of Replay Media Catcher will no longer be able to record web sites that use Adobe Secure RTMP Measures.

We have resolved a dispute with Adobe Systems Incorporated, without admitting any wrongdoing or liability, by agreeing not to circumvent any Secure RTMP Measures developed by Adobe.

Our other high-quality web video recording product, Replay Video Capture, will continue to work with ANY site. And we will continue our quest to make the best possible streaming media recording tools for our customers to fully exercise their Fair Use rights to online media.

Fun with domain sellers

Posted | Category: Miscellaneous.

Occasionally, it’s good to take a break from talking about streaming media recording solutions. Here’s a story of something we encounter more often than you think.

Every once in a while, we get people with marginally valuable domain names to sell contacting us and asking for an excessive amount of money. Here’s one guy with a somewhat relevant three letter domain we had some fun with. (The domain name and author’s name have been changed).
“Bob” wrote:

Hi Bill,
We own site XYZ.com and were looking to sell it.
We would much rather sell it – previously we were entertaining offers in the high 5 figures – let me know your highest bid and maybe we can work something out.
Thanks
Bob

My reply:

Hi Bob –
Your site and domain will require a lot of work. Google says you have 1 outside link, and a 2 page rank for the home page, and your Alexa rank is 600,000+, which means you have very little traffic. If you were me, how would you justify a 5 figure price were I to present this to my partners?
Thanks,
Bill

Bob writes back:

Hi Bill,
It all comes down to supply and demand – we are only interested in getting the current market value.
eg. a similar 3 letter domain sold for $195,000 last week => MCC.com

See the link below:
http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

In my opinion, XYZ.com is a much higher quality domain with much more potential…

Try searching XYZ vs MCC on google.com it generate results for 62,100,000
“Results 1 – 10 of about 62,100,000 for xyz. (0.05 seconds) ”

The XYZ.com domain is clearly more valuable than other simple 3 Letter dot com domains e.g. MCC.com
With the right promotion & development this domain can easily be turned into an 8 figure/year operation.
Due to the current economic situation, I would be willing to let it go for under $195,000 – but it must be a competitive offer…
Thanks
Bob

And my response:

BOB –
IMO, WTF? LOL
– BSD (CEO)

iPhone Media Downloads – is Apple Stupid, Evil, or Weak?

Posted | Category: Apple.

As a new owner of an iPhone, I am very happy with the whole experience. The device is great.
As a media geek, I’m finding it difficult to something basic. And Apple seems to be working against me. Here’s what’s frustrating:

I want to be able to update the media on my iPhone over-the-air. I want my Podcasts to be updated automatically, without having to sync with my PC. I also want to be able to email radio shows automatically recorded as MP3 files (using Replay A/V) to my iPhone, and then play them. (Think TiVo for the radio – on your phone!) For me, this would be the coolest. But no luck 🙁

On the Podcast side, an app called Podcaster promised to do just that sort of thing, but was rejected from the Apple store for no apparent reason.

On the Radio show side, Replay A/V is able to send me emails with links to download radio shows automatically recorded by my home PC. I was hoping to be able to send myself radio shows to listen to on my iPhone. But alas, Safari is “unable to download” files from these links. (The links are generated by YouSendIt, which is integrated into Replay A/V).

So, here are my theories:

Stupidity: Is Apple so dumb as to disallow significant over-the-air media transfers for no good reason?

Evil: Is Apple disabling this capability in order to enable their own service?

Weak: Is Apple being bullied by AT&T to disallow too much 3G data traffic? (Another app that let you use your iPhone as a laptop modem was also killed by Apple.)

This is also puzzling given the Pandora player, which is also a media downloader, and works great on the iPhone. There’s no way Apple could kill the Pandora app though, as it would create a huge outrage.
These uncertainties should be troubling to anyone seriously considering developing media enabled apps for the iPhone. And the authoritarian, opaque, random policies behind the app store really need to end, otherwise all the development talent will go to Android or some other truly open platform, the coolness of the iPhone notwithstanding.

Recording Online Media Since 1997
Located in Marco Island, FL

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