There's just something about when also-ran brands suddenly team up to try to "do something" that gets clueless people excited. It almost never works however. The latest is that Microsoft and Barnes & Noble have settled their (somewhat acrimonious) patent dispute (in which B&N was making the case that Microsoft violated antitrust law with its patents) in order to work together on a new spinoff company built around the Nook ebook platform. To be fair, lots of reviewers have raved about the Nook, and noted that it's actually a better device than the Kindle. But actually getting the market to agree has been a pretty big challenge. Could Microsoft help? Perhaps, but these kinds of linkups don't have much of a history of working well. In part, it's because you have different parties with different priorities. In part, it's because deals like this usually involved a lot more planning than executing. But, largely, it's because these companies don't really understand the market. At least, they seem to think that if they do a few superficial things up front, that will suddenly catapult them to the top. They may discover it's a lot more difficult than that.

But, of course, that hasn't stopped some from getting really excited about this. B&N stock shot upwards in response, though perhaps it was just because investors were happy that the company was able to "unload" the Nook. But, then, you see comments like this:

"With the new Windows rollout, there are so many things you can do with the Nook beyond e-reading," Glickstein, who is based in New York, said today in a telephone interview. "Now that Bill Gates and Microsoft are in on the tech side, it’s absolutely compelling."

Of course, you could do lots of things with the Nook beyond e-reading that have nothing to do with Windows. Tying the Android-based platform to anything having to do with Windows seems like a step backwards, not forward. Also, er, someone should tell this guy that Bill Gates retired four years ago. But, you know, why would anyone who's in charge of analyzing these kinds of things be aware of little facts like that?

Every year around this time, the USTR puts out its increasingly laughable Special 301 Report, which merely takes the countries that IP maxmalists say are bad, and officially declares them naughty. The 2012 list has come out (pdf and embedded below) and it's as silly and pointless as usual. Canada has an official policy stating that it does not accept the Special 301 process as legitimate, and (of course) it once again finds itself on the list. There is no fathomable reason for this other than the fact that Hollywood wants Canada to pass stringent new copyright laws that include anti-circumvention provisions. But the fact is that Canada's copyright law is already much more draconian than US law. Then there are countries like Israel, whose copyright laws are actually on par with the US's... but they get put on the naughty "priority watch" list as well.

You know who gets removed? Spain. As you may recall, Spain recently put in place its own version of SOPA -- a law that goes way, way beyond current US copyright law, which was heavily pushed by US diplomats, despite the fact that public hated the bill -- and even local movie industry insiders hated the bill. On top of that, economists argued that it would do significant harm to the Spanish economy. But Hollywood wanted it, so the USTR cheers it on and removes them from the list.

What a joke.

Just last week, we wrote about an alternative list, from Consumers International, that judged copyright laws around the globe, based on how much the laws actually benefited the public. On that list, Israel, India and Indonesia took the top three spots. On the USTR list -- all three of those countries end up on the "naughty" priority watch list.

Amusingly, the Special 301 report talks up the importance of both ACTA and TPP... conveniently ignoring the fact that the EU Parliament seems very interested in rejecting ACTA, and not even mentioning the worldwide controversy over the binding treaty (which the US signed unconstitutionally, without getting Congressional approval). It also completely ignores the fact that Colombia just rushed through its own version of SOPA to appease the US. Instead, it complains that Colombia isn't doing enough.

It's really amazing that anyone takes this list seriously. We've seen officials from the US Copyright Office -- who are ideologically aligned with the USTR -- publicly mock the Special 301 list before, which is about the level of respect it deserves. Public Knowledge refers to the process as being "fact-free" and that's being generous. The list is such a joke at this point, that it would be a good thing for other countries to just respond to any mention of it by laughing heartily out loud.

Some folks are worried about Peak Oil. Others are worried about "Peak Helium" when most of the Earth's resources of the lightweight element have vanished into space. There are also all kinds of metals that are getting harder and harder to find. Where will we be able to replenish precious, finite materials? Duh, just go get some from other celestial bodies. You only need to be a billionaire with a few other billionaire friends to start this project. Estimated time for completion: 10 years in the future.

• Planetary Resources has been getting some buzz for its plans to mine nearby asteroids for precious metals and water. If gold was as abundant as aluminum, what would we do with it? [url]
• Is it time to start studying up on space law now? Ownership of asteroids and the legalities of mining them could be a lucrative field someday! [url]
• NASA and Astrobotic Technology are going to look for ice deposits and possible sources of useful materials on the moon. Silly, NASA, everyone knows the moon is made of cheese... [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

I had a nice moment when I saw this and hesitated to write about it. As we see more and more and more artists (even Metallica!) embrace early leaked copies of their albums, it's getting less and less newsworthy—which is fantastic. Still, I was pleased to see that rapper/producer El-P (one of my personal all-time favorite artists, who I was lucky enough to interview briefly years ago) had a great reaction to the leak of his much-anticipated new album, expressing his support and offering up some reasons to buy:

elephant in the room: i know a lot of yall already got the album. im ok with that. if you enjoy it and can afford to support me doing more music hit up www.definitivejux.net and pre order. there are dope deals on there. love, el

The pre-order packages include some cool, if somewhat basic, extras like signed posters and limited edition colored vinyls. Judging from the reaction in the comments of the Facebook post, plenty of fans have downloaded it but still want the official copy, and some are even vowing to wait for its release rather than listen to the leak. One states that even if he didn't like the new album he would still buy it "as a thank you for your sonic contribution to my life". Now that's what true fandom looks like—and artists who cultivate it don't have to worry about leaks and piracy.

Brian LaSorsa points us to the unfortunate case of Steve Kardynal, a pretty popular maker of funny online videos. There are all sorts of creative people who have been enabled to create and put their works out to the world thanks to things like YouTube. Kardynal makes funny sketches, with some of the most popular being his "Songs in Real Life" videos, in which he creates scenes where every so often the dialogue actually is a short clip -- between 3 and 10 seconds -- from a popular song. Unfortunately, as he notes in the video explaining what happened, the second one of these videos received a takedown from Sony (a year after it was posted):
Realizing that getting three strikes on YouTube means he would lose his account -- which already has about 100 million views -- he's pretty freaked out. In response, he's set his other "Songs in Real Life" videos to private to hopefully avoid getting any other strikes while he tries to figure out what to do.

While his videos are no longer available, with a little searching you can find them elsewhere. I don't know how long this will remain available, but here's someone who put all three of the "Songs in Real Life" videos into a single video. It's difficult to see how this isn't fair use, and I'd argue that this is a clear case of Sony engaging in copyfraud.

As Steve notes, all of the video clips are between 3 and 10 seconds. No one is going to reasonably claim that this takes away from the market for that song. Furthermore, as he also points out, he listed all the songs that were used in the description of his video and made it easy for people to go buy the songs. In other words, it's difficult to see how these videos didn't actually help the market for these songs, rather than hurt it. The Lenz v. Universal case showed that copyright holders need to take fair use into account when they issue DMCA takedowns, and it certainly doesn't look like Sony did so in this case.

But, really, what's even more interesting about this story is just how much it has impacted Steve. He talks about how he's afraid to lose all that he's worked on and how it's like losing a family member. This is the exact opposite of what copyright law is supposed to do. Here it's being used to stifle and shut down creativity. And while some may claim that what Steve feels is no different than what an artist whose work is infringed on experiences, it seems quite different, actually. With an infringement, an artist hasn't lost anything. It's just that their own wishes for how the music is used or paid for gets denied. In this case, the content is actively being shut down. There's a real loss. That's unfortunate.

We've certainly written about Amanda Palmer's many success stories on this site before -- including her celebration of the fact that she finally got dropped from a record label two years ago. Since then, she's done a bunch of fun projects, more or less going musically wherever she suddenly felt like going (all without the meddlesome hand of a record label demanding she do things its way). These experiments have been quite successful, and also quite lucrative. But she decided it was time to do a "traditional" studio album again, and put together a full orchestra to help, while also planning to make the physical package she sells totally and completely worth buying by including all sorts of original artwork with it.

So... of course, she turned to Kickstarter to help put together funds, seeking $100,000 in 32 days. Instead, she got it in SIX HOURS. Damn. As we've noted, the success of Kickstarter as a funding platform is making it easier and easier to fund big projects, and this is yet another example of that. If you have a semi-decent following, you might question why you'd ever sell your soul to a large company for an "advance" again. The details of what she's offering are, as you might expect, quite interesting as well. All too often, it feels like people seem to think that all you have to do is "put it on Kickstarter." And, sometimes that can work, but it helps to have cool options. Amanda's offering has a lot of cool goodies and opportunities (including live events) for backers, allowing them to self-select in to how they'd like to support her. A lot of the offering is vinyl focused, which isn't that surprising, given the renewed popularity of vinyl these days, but also the ability to do more artistic work in combination with a vinyl release. Of course, not everyone has a record player... but they've got that covered. At some of the higher level packages, they'll include a USB-enabled Crosley turntable which they'll custom-paint for you, making it awesome. Also, with this project, Amanda announced a new project called Loanspark, which is kind of like a Kickstarter, but as a loan, where the money gets paid back (assuming it's made up) and the "interest" isn't monetary, but creative. This is definitely for larger amounts, but you can see the listing of options, which include things like getting a home concert (or for a charity) or a work of art created by Amanda. Who knows if anyone will take her up on it, but it's another interesting idea worth watching.

Once again, it seems that lots of artists are figuring out cool and creative ways to make money these days, even as the old industry continues whining. Of course, what's notable is that these new ways don't seem to involve those old industry players -- or their ridiculous deals where they get the copyright and keep the vast majority of income.

This was mostly expected since earlier this year, but the UK's High Court has now ordered a bunch of ISPs to block The Pirate Bay. This is pretty unfortunate, given that we were just talking about how UK-based musician Dan Bull used The Pirate Bay to help him get on the charts. That avenue is about to be closed off to up and coming musicians... all because the legacy recording industry remains too closed-minded to figure out how to adapt and provide consumers what they want. And, of course, the blockade won't even be remotely effective. Lots of people will just use VPNs or proxies to get what they want anyway. Even more ridiculous is that it will hinder perfectly legitimate activity. Just a few weeks ago I was in the UK, and I was doing some research on The Pirate Bay's "Promo Bay." I wouldn't have been able to do that if The Pirate Bay was blocked. I did nothing illegal, and yet the UK courts want to treat it as such. That's sad.

Last week we wrote about Dan Bull's experiment to release a song, "Sharing is Caring" for free via The Pirate Bay (and other sites) and to see if he could still get it to show up in various charts. As we discussed, it definitely was making its way onto the lists of Amazon UK's top hip hop sales. And, on Sunday, the official UK charts came out -- with Sharing is Caring coming in at number 9 on the Indie singles chart and number 35 on the RnB singles chart. In both cases, "Sharing is Caring" was the top new entrant on both of those charts. While some will say that not making the pop charts suggests this was a failure, it sure looks like a ton of folks were happy to support Dan's effort. As for the US charts, those have a weighted system that includes radio airplay, meaning that there's simply no way Dan could get listed, because he's not going to play the payola game to get on the air. Either way, it was a great experiment, and a job well done by Dan.

There are lots of details in this case that aren't worth getting into, but in a dispute over a firing of some employees for the local sheriff, after they "liked" the Facebook profile of someone running for election against their boss, a court appears to have declared that Facebook "likes" don't get First Amendment protection. It feels like the court was more focused on reaching the result it wanted, rather than thinking through the implications of its own ruling.

Venkat Balasubramani's assessment of the ruling is so good that I'm going to repeat it here:

Gak!

The court’s conclusion on qualified immunity may or may not be defensible, but the court veered off course in concluding that a Facebook like is not speech. Maybe the court slept through Arab Spring and the many other instances of online activism in the past five years. Maybe the court is unaware of the robust body of First Amendment precedent which says that protection for expression is not limited to just actual words. Hello, Tinker (black arm bands) and Texas v. Johnson (flag burning)! More likely, as Eric notes in his comments below, the practical implications of a "like" threw the court for a loop.

It’s easy to dismiss Facebook "likes" as one of those mindless knee-jerk online activities we all routinely engage in that have little or no societal value. Courts can discount Facebook friendships in other contexts (see, e.g., Quickly v. Karkus, discussed here: “It’s Officially Legal: Facebook Friends Don’t Count”), but it’s well off the mark to say in this case that "likes" were not speech for First Amendment purposes. As menial as a Facebook like may be in the overall scheme of life, it’s an announcement to your Facebook friends that you support something, whether it’s a cause, a candidate, a company, or another person. A like also promotes a particular page or newsfeed to your friends, which sounds like quintessential expressive activity. [See Eric's comments below for various potential implications of a Facebook like.]

While I remain leery of Facebook's "like" ecosystem, I "dislike" this ruling.

As Eric Goldman notes later on that same page:

Listing a person's name as an "endorser" of a political candidate is core First Amendment activity. That's exactly what the "likes" did here.

Perhaps it's just a simple way of "dismissing" a Facebook "like" as being something inconsequential. Many "likes" are, indeed, inconsequential, but not all of them are. And, there's nothing in the First Amendment that says that inconsequential expressions of opinion are somehow less protected (or not protected at all). Who knows if this ruling will be challenged, but it's difficult to see how it would survive higher level scrutiny.

We've discussed in the past how Hulu's owners -- the major Hollywood/TV studios -- absolutely hate that Hulu is actually useful and convincing people to watch TV online. Because of that, they've been trying to destroy Hulu. Hulu's management -- which mostly seems to understand the internet -- tried to get out from under this potentially paralyzing ownership structure, but the studios (stupidly) telegraphed the message that they would block Hulu from getting their content, meaning that no one wanted to pay the ridiculous asking price.

Well, now it appears that phase one of making Hulu absolutely useless to people who might cut the cord from pay TV is going into effect, with plans to join the networks silly "TV Everywhere" setup and require users to have a pay TV subscription in order to access parts of the service. Hulu's main (non-studio) investor, Providence Equity Partners, sold its shares last week because it heard about this plan and knew it was suicidal.

In no rational world would Hulu move in this direction on its own. Hulu's key selling point is that it's the go-to source for cord cutters, helping it build up a very large audience. Taking that crowd out of its audience makes it close to useless. While the studios love this because they make so much money from pay TV companies, it's incredibly short-sighted in the long run. It's pure protectionism of legacy revenues, done by sacrificing the one truly innovative platform they've invested in.

Meanwhile, along the same lines, the THResq story that we link to above also notes that NBC Universal will, once again, seek to marginalize its own online coverage of the Olympics, by also requiring proof of a pay TV service. Way to raise a giant middle finger to all the cord cutters out there -- guaranteeing that they seek out alternative streams for which NBC Universal gets no money.

In the last couple years we've had a bunch of stories about people arrested for filming police. While it seems that more and more courts are recognizing that such filming is protected activity, there have been a few bizarre moments, including famed appeals court judge Richard Posner complaining about how allowing such filming would mean that it would actually happen.

But, as we've seen over and over again, filming police is one of the few ways to prove abuse of police power. Back in the summer of 2007, a police officer named Salvatore Rivieri in Baltimore decided to use his position to harass some skateboarding kids in Baltimore's Inner Harbor area. As part of his harassment, he took one kid's skateboard after throwing him to the ground and screaming at him. The whole thing was videotaped by another kid... and it was uploaded to YouTube a few months later:
At the very end, you hear the officer starting to ask if he's being filmed -- and notes "if I find myself on...." Given his earlier harangue, it sure sounds like he's about to warn the other kids about putting the video online, though we don't know exactly what was said. Either way, the video went online (eventually, months after the incident) and it got quite a lot of attention.

As a result of the massive publicity storm from the video going up online, Rivieri was suspended (with pay) a few days after the video went up in early 2008. More than two years later, a disciplinary panel cleared Rivieri of the most serious charges ("using excessive and unnecessary force" and "uttering discourtesies") but guilty of failing to file a report about the incident or provide the kid with a "contact receipt." The board recommended a short suspension. Instead, the police commissioner fired Rivieri, arguing that "his ability to interact effectively with the citizens of Baltimore has been seriously compromised."

Last week, a Maryland state appeals court upheld the firing (pdf and embedded below -- thanks to Eric Goldman for alerting us to the story), agreeing that the commissioner had the right to fire Rivieri.

What's most interesting in all of this, however, is that none of this would have happened if the incident hadn't been filmed and subsequently posted online. In fact, absolutely nothing did happen for many months until the video was posted online. Rather than causing problems, this video seems to have done exactly what many defenders of filming police have said all along: helped to display and call attention to abuse of power by the police, in a way that not only punishes those who did the abuse, but also which will alert other law enforcement officials to obey the limits of their profession. Judge Posner may regret that police can be filmed, but it certainly seems like a good way to keep police from engaging in the kind of harassment that they have been able to get away with for years.

One of the key points that backers of CISPA had made throughout the debate on the bill was that it had the support of the "tech industry" -- with Facebook and Microsoft being the key supporters of the bill. Of course, a few weeks ago, Facebook re-pledged its support for the bill... but also stated that it was aware of the privacy concerns and that it would work with lawmakers to fix the bill. Seeing as it's not clear that much was really done to fix the bill, does that mean Facebook may drop its support?

Similarly, Microsoft is now admitting that there are some privacy concerns with CISPA and has softened its stance on it slightly, while not completely pulling its support. Declan McCullagh at CNET reports:

In response to queries from CNET, Microsoft, which has long been viewed as a supporter of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, said this evening that any law must allow "us to honor the privacy and security promises we make to our customers."

Microsoft added that it wants to "ensure the final legislation helps to tackle the real threat of cybercrime while protecting consumer privacy."

This sounds similar to what Facebook was saying. Of course, what's not clear is why they're unwilling to pull support from the bills until such changes are made. Either way, combined with the fact that a few CISPA sponsors even voted against the bill suggests that -- even though it may have passed the House -- support for the overall bill is eroding. That's important, as the fight now moves to the Senate, where the existing cybersecurity proposals are quite different.

Yahoo has now responded to Facebook's patent countersuit, as the stupid and destructive nuclear war that Yahoo launched against Facebook out of spite and jealousy continues to expand. As you probably know by now, the incredibly desperate Yahoo sued Facebook (as it was laying off 2,000 employees), because it has no clue how to innovate any more, and decided the best course of action was to broadcast as loudly as possible to good software developers that they should work elsewhere (at least that seems to be the general interpretation of Yahoo's actions here in Silicon Valley). In response, Facebook hit back with a countersuit, claiming that Yahoo violated some of Facebook's patents.

As we noted at the time, most of the patents that Facebook was using in the counterclaims did not originate with Facebook, but were bought. Yahoo's response to Facebook's claims tries to make a big deal out of this, arguing that using such patents is not in "good faith."

In retaliation for Yahoo!'s good faith allegations of patent infringement, Facebook alleges infringement of ten patents as counterclaims. However, on information and belief, Facebook lacks a good faith basis for most, if not all, of its counterclaims, particularly those patents that it purchased from others.

Facebook purchased eight patents from non-practicing entities: two patents were purchased from "IPG Electronics 503 Limited," a San Diego-based patent aggregator; two patents were purchased from "Cheah Intellectual Property Licensing," a California-based patent holding company; one patent was purchased from "Right Point LLC," a Texas-based patent aggregator; and three patents were purchased from New York University's intellectual property licensing department. All eight of these patents were purchased by Facebook in the past five months, and several of these patents were purchased (independent of any separate technology acquisition or merger) after Yahoo! filed its complaint in this action. On information and belief, many, if not all, of these patents were acquired by Facebook for purposes of retaliation against Yahoo! in this case.

No employee or officer of Facebook or any affiliated company conceived of, reduced to practice, or developed the alleged inventions claimed in the eight patents acquired from non-practicing entities. In fact, the applications for many of these patents predate Facebook itself.

While all of those do highlight just how silly some of our patent system is, I have no idea what it has to do with the law. There's nothing in the law that says it's not in "good faith" to buy patents to assert against others. Though, amusingly, perhaps if Yahoo! wins this argument it could set a bizarre precedent that limits the usefulness of purchased patents -- but I can't see that happening.

Yahoo!'s argument is full of similarly bizarre assertions. For example, Yahoo! seems to have its feelings hurt that Facebook didn't contact Yahoo! before filing the counterclaims. While I can understand how it's obnoxious to use before reaching out under normal circumstances, Yahoo! seems to ignore that Yahoo! sued Facebook first. Then it gets upset that Facebook doesn't want to be all friendly? Really?!?

Yahoo! also claims that the parts of its business that Facebook thinks infringes are areas where the details are secret, so the only way that Facebook would know that Yahoo! infringed is if it "unlawfully acquired Yahoo! confidential business information." Because of this, Yahoo! actually goes so far as to ask for sanctions against Facebook's lawyers, which is a pretty extreme move in a case like this.

Yahoo! also goes into great detail to raise some procedural questions about the granting of some of the patents that Facebook is using in counterclaims. In other words, it's trying to find absolutely anything to hit back with.

Suffice it to say there is no love lost between these two companies at this point.

Oh yeah, just for fun, Yahoo! adds two more patent infringement claims of its own back at Facebook:

• US patent 7,933,903: System and method to determine the validity of and interaction on a network
• US patent 7,698,315: System and method allowing advertisers to manage search listings in a pay for placement search system using grouping

What isn't explained in the filing? How any of this actually helps make Yahoo! relevant again.

Techdirt has published several posts recently about the growing anger among scholars over the way their work is exploited by academic publishers. But there's another angle to the story, that of the academic institutions who have to pay for the journals needed by their professors and students. Via a number of people, we learn that the scholars' revolt has spread there, too:

We write to communicate an untenable situation facing the Harvard Library. Many large journal publishers have made the scholarly communication environment fiscally unsustainable and academically restrictive. This situation is exacerbated by efforts of certain publishers (called "providers") to acquire, bundle, and increase the pricing on journals.

Harvard’s annual cost for journals from these providers now approaches $3.75M. In 2010, the comparable amount accounted for more than 20% of all periodical subscription costs and just under 10% of all collection costs for everything the Library acquires. Some journals cost as much as $40,000 per year, others in the tens of thousands. Prices for online content from two providers have increased by about 145% over the past six years, which far exceeds not only the consumer price index, but also the higher education and the library price indices.

As a result, Harvard's Faculty Advisory Council has come to the following conclusion:

major periodical subscriptions, especially to electronic journals published by historically key providers, cannot be sustained: continuing these subscriptions on their current footing is financially untenable. Doing so would seriously erode collection efforts in many other areas, already compromised.

So what's the solution? Open access, of course. Here are the Faculty Advisory Council's suggestions for how to promote it:

1. Make sure that all of your own papers are accessible by submitting them to DASH [Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard] in accordance with the faculty-initiated open-access policies.

2. Consider submitting articles to open-access journals, or to ones that have reasonable, sustainable subscription costs; move prestige to open access.

3. If on the editorial board of a journal involved, determine if it can be published as open access material, or independently from publishers that practice pricing described above. If not, consider resigning.

If one of the world's top and presumably wealthiest universities says the current approach to academic publishing "cannot be sustained", you know that something is seriously wrong with that system. Coupled with the more than 10,000 academics who have now joined the Elsevier Boycott, this latest turn of events suggests that the tipping point for open access is close.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

If I had to choose one company as the antithesis to Ubisoft's boneheaded take on business, I would probably choose Stardock. Stardock is one of those companies that continues to do everything right while many other companies in the video game industry insist it is wrong. So, it really comes as no surprise that Stardock producer Jon Shafer wrote that respecting your fans should be one of the most important aspects of doing business. He makes four very good points in this essay that I think all entertainment companies can learn from.

First up, Jon speaks about the importance of demos to a project's success:

When you don't put out a demo, some people will start asking questions… is it because the game isn't any good and the developer is afraid people will find out? Did they run out of time and the lack of a demo is a sign that the game is sloppy and unfinished? You don't want players asking those questions -- you want them trying out your awesome game and telling everyone they know about it.

We have spoken numerous times about the importance of fans being able to sample entertainment before they buy. We have seen study after study that shows that those who have the ability to try things out before dropping money for it, are much more likely to not only buy, but buy more. Why would you deny your fans the ability to try out your game, music, book or movie? A nice demo can go a long way.

Next up, Jon shares some words about interacting with fans:

As developers working on the oft-mundane, daily tasks required in making a piece of software, we often lose sight of the fact that there are also many players who love our work. For them the opportunity to talk with someone that worked on their favorite game is incredibly exciting (something we are occasionally reminded of when we get to meet the creators of our favorite games!).

Ah. The old adage of connecting with fans. What this does is make sure that not only that the fans like your work, but that they also like you. We know that it is far easier for customers to buy something from a company or a person they actually like. The best way to gain that affection is to put yourself out there and communicate with your fans.

Then, Jon speaks about giving fans ownership:

Players like having ownership. It's one of the reasons why they're playing games (an active form of entertainment) rather than experiencing a self-contained work in another medium. The absolute best way to hand over the keys to your game is to make it moddable. Many of the most beloved and long-lasting games of all time are also highly moddable, and their communities live on long after the last official update. Why? Because the players took ownership and had a vested interest in the longevity and overall success of the game. This sort of relationship between player and game is only possible when the players have the power to reshape the game to their liking.

While modding itself is unique to gaming, the idea behind it is as old as recorded media. The idea behind modding is pretty close to that of remixing in other media. This desire to reshape and make our own the entertainment we consume is something that should be embraced by successful creators. Doing so not only gains you more fans, but also ensures that your work will live on in the hearts and minds of those who enjoy it.

Finally, Jon speaks on piracy:

Ah, the elephant in the room. I’ll just put it this way: if the CIA can get hacked, you’re not going to be able to prevent your game from being cracked. Sorry. You can't stop piracy. Focus on building up a fanbase and higher sales through goodwill instead of trying to bend the internet to your will. If you're spending a ton of effort trying to "win the war" on piracy, then you're wasting resources you could have been used to make better games. The reason why studios like Blizzard and Valve are so successful and beloved is because they focus on delivering the best games possible, time and money be damned. Don't make enemies of paying customers by making them jump through hoops. As history shows us, in most wars there are no winners -- only losers.

We are already well aware of Stardock's official position on piracy. It would rather maximize sales than waste resources fighting a losing battle. This is something that many people within the entertainment industry need to learn. Piracy is a symptom of far larger problems. By wasting time and money fighting it, you are shifting resources away from those areas that truly matter to the end consumer.

While these four points are nothing new to many of us here, they are things that too many still have not learned or refuse to recognize. It is time to stop the war on fans and begin to embrace them and their culture. Times are changing. People do not consume entertainment in the same ways they did ten years ago. Fans know what they like and know who provides it. Those who refuse to adapt are going to be left behind.