In the book, the slippers were silver - they were changed to ruby for the movie. So none of the non-MGM properties can use Ruby slippers. For the musical Wicked (owned by Universal Pictures), I noticed that they were in fact silver, but almost the entire time they were on stage, all the lights pointed at the stage were red, so most of the audience would have had no idea the slippers weren't actually ruby. colored. Pretty clever way around that little copyright claim, if you ask me!
Universal claims digital sales are not considered 'licenses,' but rather 'sales' - which means they're able to deduct the costs associated with manufacturing, shipping, and selling physical copies of media at retail locations. That includes, for example, a 'breakage' cost to account for the percent of vinyl records & cd's that break before they reach the customer.
So it's not just Def Leppard crying that they want different contract terms - Universal is manipulating the terms of their pre-digital distribution contract to keep more of Def Leppard's royalties for themselves.
Maybe the guys in Def Leppard would rather spend extra months/years in the studio re-recording, than in the courtroom fighting over the definition of 'sale' vs 'license.'
Jake's shower analogy is dead on. Users that are contributing most to the real problem (using for a short time during peak hours) are not being penalized, while users who do not contribute at all to congestion (extended usage during non-peak hours) are penalized with a cap. The only bottleneck is during peak usage hours, but there's no incentive not to use the network at that time.
If the carriers really wanted to address the problem, they'd implement something more akin to the unlimited nights & weekends they've been using with 'minutes' for years, but with data, and a time scheme that addresses peak data usage times. Then if their networks really are getting hammered at a certain time every day, they can set a lower limit for 'anytime' data, in turn curbing use during high-traffic hours.
I'm not a fan of any caps, but if they really wanted to address the actual problem, that kind of solution would make a lot more sense than just setting everybody's cap really low, no matter when they use the data.
I have Comcast, and often come close to reaching my 280GB data cap every month. We get most of our video content from Hulu, Amazon Prime, YouTube, etc.. I also back up my computer online, and regularly transfer files to/from work. As time goes on and my data needs increase (video bitrate/quality increase, more data to back up, bigger files to transfer) I'm going to regularly exceed Comcast's data cap. If I were to stop streaming video, or switch to Comcast's new Netflix clone (StreamPix), which conveniently does not count against my cap, I would probably be able to stay safely under the cap, at least for a while. So, clearly Comcast has given themselves an unfair advantage, leveraging their position as my ISP to force me to use their other service as my online video provider as well. This is exactly why the idea of Net Neutrality was conceived several years ago, and why we can't depend on the ISP's to regulate themselves. If the rest of the ISP's implement similar caps + their own 'private' video services, then Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, et al are doomed, as customers will have no choice but to use their ISP as their sole video provider, or have to cut back on all their other internet use. And with the other video providers out of the way, the ISPs will be free to raise their video service prices, much like they all did with text prices a few years ago. Comcast claims it's not a net neutrality issue, because their videos are going over a 'private line' -- but I will bet you, if I watch something on StreamPix, and try downloading a big file at the same time, my download will be slower, and/or my video quality will be lower -- which means it is the exact same line coming into my computer, and it most certainly is a net neutrality issue / service bundling issue.
Yeah.. but how many people can afford to spend a few months (or more) going to court, for a possible $850? This is why we have class-action lawsuits; but wouldn't you know it, AT&T expressly forbids those in the agreement they all had to sign in order to get their 'unlimited' service in the first place!
So, hopefully a million people sue individually.. but it doesn't really seem likely.
I don't understand why, rather than killing off the games completely, they didn't transition them to be more downloadable-content-centric. I'm not going to buy a new version of the game for $80 every year, but that's all they were marketing. They should have concentrated more on marketing the new music that was available to add to the game people already owned. They could sell new guitars with a smaller sample of songs, say 10, to keep the price down by not paying so many song royalties right off the bat - and allow users to download whatever songs they want to build their own library. Activision wouldn't get buried in song licensing fees, and we users could get the songs we wanted to play.
As for the labels - I already have most of the songs on iTunes, but I'm willing to buy them again so I can play them on Guitar Hero. Why in the world would you over-charge for that? That and the fact that guitar hero songs lead to more purchases outside the game. It just seems like a missed opportunity on both sides.
I get 100% of my TV from the internet, through my HTPC - exactly what Google was trying to make easier & more mainstream with the GoogleTV. The problem with (the legal options for) my setup is, the content is all over the place, and I'm not going to skip around from Hulu to CBS.com to ComedyCentral.com to get it. If it were all on Hulu (or even Hulu Plus), or easily accessible like it should be on GoogleTV, I'd probably get it all that way - and watch their (*targeted*) ads. But instead, it's much easier for me to just download it all from the same ('underground') place. If they allowed devices like GoogleTV, I wouldn't have to work around their system. They may not get as much in advertising revenue if it's streamed online - but they get *something* - which is more than they're getting from me now.
They also need to figure out that targeted ads are exponentially more valuable than blanket ads. I would have no problem allowing them access to my Google or Facebook data, so they could better target ads for me. I'd much rather sit through computer ads than, say, tampon ads, and they should be able to figure out which one to serve up to me based on my Facebook profile. Even without the Facebook integration, just the data Hulu collects should be enough to more accurately target ads at me, just based on all the videos I watch. They're missing a huge opportunity to actually make *more* from advertising, but they're missing it because they're just too stupid & stuck in their old ways to see it.
Wicked (the musical) walks the same tightrope
In the book, the slippers were silver - they were changed to ruby for the movie. So none of the non-MGM properties can use Ruby slippers. For the musical Wicked (owned by Universal Pictures), I noticed that they were in fact silver, but almost the entire time they were on stage, all the lights pointed at the stage were red, so most of the audience would have had no idea the slippers weren't actually ruby. colored. Pretty clever way around that little copyright claim, if you ask me!
(untitled comment)
Universal claims digital sales are not considered 'licenses,' but rather 'sales' - which means they're able to deduct the costs associated with manufacturing, shipping, and selling physical copies of media at retail locations. That includes, for example, a 'breakage' cost to account for the percent of vinyl records & cd's that break before they reach the customer.
So it's not just Def Leppard crying that they want different contract terms - Universal is manipulating the terms of their pre-digital distribution contract to keep more of Def Leppard's royalties for themselves.
Maybe the guys in Def Leppard would rather spend extra months/years in the studio re-recording, than in the courtroom fighting over the definition of 'sale' vs 'license.'
More info on some other lawsuits:
http://www.fortherechord.com/royalties-reallocation-rock-stars-sue-umg-over-digital-dis tribution-dollars/
Re: Re:
Jake's shower analogy is dead on. Users that are contributing most to the real problem (using for a short time during peak hours) are not being penalized, while users who do not contribute at all to congestion (extended usage during non-peak hours) are penalized with a cap. The only bottleneck is during peak usage hours, but there's no incentive not to use the network at that time.
If the carriers really wanted to address the problem, they'd implement something more akin to the unlimited nights & weekends they've been using with 'minutes' for years, but with data, and a time scheme that addresses peak data usage times. Then if their networks really are getting hammered at a certain time every day, they can set a lower limit for 'anytime' data, in turn curbing use during high-traffic hours.
I'm not a fan of any caps, but if they really wanted to address the actual problem, that kind of solution would make a lot more sense than just setting everybody's cap really low, no matter when they use the data.
caps + lack of net neutrality = no more Netflix
I have Comcast, and often come close to reaching my 280GB data cap every month. We get most of our video content from Hulu, Amazon Prime, YouTube, etc.. I also back up my computer online, and regularly transfer files to/from work. As time goes on and my data needs increase (video bitrate/quality increase, more data to back up, bigger files to transfer) I'm going to regularly exceed Comcast's data cap. If I were to stop streaming video, or switch to Comcast's new Netflix clone (StreamPix), which conveniently does not count against my cap, I would probably be able to stay safely under the cap, at least for a while. So, clearly Comcast has given themselves an unfair advantage, leveraging their position as my ISP to force me to use their other service as my online video provider as well. This is exactly why the idea of Net Neutrality was conceived several years ago, and why we can't depend on the ISP's to regulate themselves. If the rest of the ISP's implement similar caps + their own 'private' video services, then Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, et al are doomed, as customers will have no choice but to use their ISP as their sole video provider, or have to cut back on all their other internet use. And with the other video providers out of the way, the ISPs will be free to raise their video service prices, much like they all did with text prices a few years ago. Comcast claims it's not a net neutrality issue, because their videos are going over a 'private line' -- but I will bet you, if I watch something on StreamPix, and try downloading a big file at the same time, my download will be slower, and/or my video quality will be lower -- which means it is the exact same line coming into my computer, and it most certainly is a net neutrality issue / service bundling issue.
Re: AT&T is screwed at least
Yeah.. but how many people can afford to spend a few months (or more) going to court, for a possible $850? This is why we have class-action lawsuits; but wouldn't you know it, AT&T expressly forbids those in the agreement they all had to sign in order to get their 'unlimited' service in the first place!
So, hopefully a million people sue individually.. but it doesn't really seem likely.
They should have mimicked iTunes
I don't understand why, rather than killing off the games completely, they didn't transition them to be more downloadable-content-centric. I'm not going to buy a new version of the game for $80 every year, but that's all they were marketing. They should have concentrated more on marketing the new music that was available to add to the game people already owned. They could sell new guitars with a smaller sample of songs, say 10, to keep the price down by not paying so many song royalties right off the bat - and allow users to download whatever songs they want to build their own library. Activision wouldn't get buried in song licensing fees, and we users could get the songs we wanted to play.
As for the labels - I already have most of the songs on iTunes, but I'm willing to buy them again so I can play them on Guitar Hero. Why in the world would you over-charge for that? That and the fact that guitar hero songs lead to more purchases outside the game. It just seems like a missed opportunity on both sides.
They're both greedy AND stupid.
I get 100% of my TV from the internet, through my HTPC - exactly what Google was trying to make easier & more mainstream with the GoogleTV. The problem with (the legal options for) my setup is, the content is all over the place, and I'm not going to skip around from Hulu to CBS.com to ComedyCentral.com to get it. If it were all on Hulu (or even Hulu Plus), or easily accessible like it should be on GoogleTV, I'd probably get it all that way - and watch their (*targeted*) ads. But instead, it's much easier for me to just download it all from the same ('underground') place. If they allowed devices like GoogleTV, I wouldn't have to work around their system. They may not get as much in advertising revenue if it's streamed online - but they get *something* - which is more than they're getting from me now.
They also need to figure out that targeted ads are exponentially more valuable than blanket ads. I would have no problem allowing them access to my Google or Facebook data, so they could better target ads for me. I'd much rather sit through computer ads than, say, tampon ads, and they should be able to figure out which one to serve up to me based on my Facebook profile. Even without the Facebook integration, just the data Hulu collects should be enough to more accurately target ads at me, just based on all the videos I watch. They're missing a huge opportunity to actually make *more* from advertising, but they're missing it because they're just too stupid & stuck in their old ways to see it.