Tag Archives: BitTorrent
SD#43 Facebook Assassins
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And shoot them.
The world has decided that all the news should all happen at once . . . and it chose this week. Hackers are back in action, you need to drive “hands free”, and BitTorrent will save our entertainment! Ten points to the first person to identify that background noise!
Blu-Ray DRM Is An Utter Failure
If you’re a fan of the podcast, you’ve no doubt heard by now that I use Windows Media Center for my TV. It has always met the needs of my family and never ceases to impress people who visit. However, it hasn’t been upgraded in a couple years now and is starting to show its age.
Some of that age showed itself this Christmas holiday. My mom gave the grand kids a couple movies (Kung Fu Panda 2 and Cars 2) on Blu-Ray for them to enjoy. We were all excited to watch them, however there was one problem; the media center doesn’t have a Blu-Ray drive. Well, that’s a problem that we’ll have to address later. In the mean time I have four kids and some house guests who want to watch the new movies.
Out came my laptop to the rescue! My laptop not only has a Blu-Ray drive, but also a super powered GPU and HDMI out so it was ideally suited for playing Lightning McQueen on our big screen LCD. Popped in the disc, hooked the laptop to the TV, and . . . nothing. Nothing at all. The computer could see the discs but couldn’t play them. I was stumped. We had borrowed another Disney movie, Tangled months earlier and had watched it without issue. Why we suddenly couldn’t see these movies now were a complete mystery.
And with four kids, the freak outs did indeed happen.
Music: Buy Or Pirate?
Ever since the advent of Napster back in 1999, the music industry has done all that it could to prevent people from downloading music without some money ending up in their pockets. Between shutting down Napster, suing anybody who may have even thought about downloading a song without paying for it, and making those who sell music downloads incorporate some form of evil DRM, the RIAA has made many enemies out of music lovers across the interwebs.
I love music. I also love holding a CD in my hand. Downloading music doesn’t give me something tangible that I can hold, something that I can see what I spent my money on. Plus, I enjoy reading the liner notes that come with CDs. Digital downloads are nice and convenient but I’m not a big fan of them. However, I do recognize the fact that this is the way that music has shifted and that it won’t be long before the DVD follows the same path.
Ever since the Sony Rootkit fiasco of 2005, I have been wary to buy any music at all. In fact, I think that the only new CD that I have purchased since then is Straight Outta Lynwood by Weird Al. Like most people, I put my music collection on my computer so that I can easily transfer it to my MP3 player. With the possibility of rootkits being installed, I don’t want to put new music on my system if it came from a CD. The flip side is that if I buy music from an online provider, then I have to deal with DRM. I may as well be renting my music because if a server is taken down, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Needless to say, my music library has been somewhat stagnant over the past few years. I hate it but I have my principles and that’s how it’s going to be until the music industry stops treating their customers like criminals.
I found this comic on xkcd the other day. It shows the dilemma that many music fans are going though as word of more and more DRM servers are being shut off.
We're all criminals!
This actually got me thinking about music downloads. If you download music illegally, you’re a pirate and, if caught, the RIAA will feast upon your soul for Thanksgiving dinner. If you download it from a service like Yahoo or Microsoft, or even WalMart, you run the risk of not having your music be available to you thanks to the DRM servers being shut off. So what do you do? I personally go without. (Getting a notice of copyright violation from your ISP has some strong influence over downloading options.) My guess is that until DRM-free music becomes readily avaiable for download, sites like The Pirate Bay will continue to be successful.
