Was going through my mail today and came across a column by David Pogue of the New York Times describing the generational divide that exists today around copyright. He walks through an interesting thought process that really highlights the different shades of gray that exist around sharing digital media today - and in particular, really illustrates generational attitude differences. Here's a snippet of responses from a talk he gave to an older, mixed audience (with an ask for people to raise their hands when someone thought the example crossed the line of legality):
"I borrow a CD from the library. Who thinks that's wrong?" (No hands go up.)
"I
own a certain CD, but it got scratched. So I borrow the same CD from
the library and rip it to my computer." (A couple of hands.)
"I have 2,000 vinyl records. So I borrow some of the same albums on CD from the library and rip those."
"I buy a DVD. But I'm worried about its longevity; I have a three-year-old. So I make a safety copy."
With each question, more hands go up; more people think what I'm describing is wrong.
Then I try another tack:
"I
record a movie off of HBO using my DVD burner. Who thinks that's
wrong?" (No hands go up. Of course not; time-shifting is not only
morally O.K., it's actually legal.)
"I *meant* to record an HBO movie, but my recorder malfunctioned. But my buddy recorded it. Can I copy his DVD?" (A few hands.)
"I
meant to record an HBO movie, but my recorder malfunctioned and I don't
have a buddy who recorded it. So I rent the movie from Blockbuster and
copy that." (More hands.)
And so on.
The exercise is
intended, of course, to illustrate how many shades of wrongness there
are, and how many different opinions. Almost always, there's a lot of
murmuring, raised eyebrows and chuckling.
He then describes how he goes through the same exercise with a college crowd:
Recently, however, I spoke at a college. It was the first time I'd
ever addressed an audience of 100 percent young people. And the
demonstration bombed.
In an auditorium of 500, no matter how far
my questions went down that garden path, maybe two hands went up. I
just could not find a spot on the spectrum that would trigger these
kids' morality alarm. They listened to each example, looking at me like
I was nuts.
Finally, with mock exasperation, I said, "O.K., let's
try one that's a little less complicated: You want a movie or an album.
You don't want to pay for it. So you download it."
There it was: the bald-faced, worst-case example, without any nuance or mitigating factors whatsoever.
"Who thinks that might be wrong?"
Two hands out of 500.
Now, maybe there was some peer pressure involved; nobody wants to look like a goody-goody.
Maybe
all this is obvious to you, and maybe you could have predicted it. But
to see this vivid demonstration of the generational divide, in person,
blew me away.
I don't pretend to know what the solution to the
file-sharing issue is. (Although I'm increasingly convinced that copy
protection isn't it.)
I do know, though, that the TV, movie and
record companies' problems have only just begun. Right now, the
customers who can't even *see* why file sharing might be wrong are
still young. But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be
*everybody*. What will happen then?
I found this particularly interesting since I've spent quite a bit of time this holiday trying to figure out the best way to archive and playback some of my DVDs from the basement media server. Although the Xbox 360 Fall update enables a bunch of new scenarios, it's still not an easy task, especially if you want to stream the content at its original quality... and DRM is one of the primary culprits.
This is my personal opinion, of course, but I just don't think DRM (at least in its currently highly-restrictive state) is going to be the primary enabler of legitimate digital media sharing/purchasing business models in the long run. For one, consumers hate it - heck, even I detest the 24-hour viewing period for downloaded movies... including the ones from the Xbox marketplace. And the cat and mouse game between DRM providers and hackers will never end. As David says, 10, 20, or 30 years from now the world will be a very different place... especially as those of us who grew up with the concept of being able to use digital media flexibly become the same people who define the rules and laws around using that content.
To be clear, I think that future will have ways for content owners to be paid - that's obvious, or content simply would stop being created! But it's very interesting to watch the business models change from year to year - the fluidity with which DRM-free MP3s have slipped into the market is a great signpost pointing toward the future.
Right - enough rambling for now. Happy New Year!
Getting a surprising amount of people pinging me asking what's up with Xbox Live. Short form, I'm not actually on the ops team fixing this, and don't have anything special I can share. Sorry about that... but I can say that there is a full-time ops team working hard on this, and it's not being ignored or misunderstood or anything. Your best bet for updates is to keep an eye on Larry's posts at majornelson.com - he'll be updating folks just as soon as there's anything to be said.
Beyond that, hope you're all having a great holiday and will have a great New Year!
...and really enjoyed it. Probably the first PS3 title that I could actually recommend to someone without reservation. It's only the second PS3 title I've finished (the first being Resistance), and I have to say it was good fun.
The game isn't super-original - in fact, it's basically a Tomb Raider / Gears of War mash-up (albeit a very polished one). Visually the game looks great - Naughty Dog pulled off some really iconic scenes throughout the game and exploring them really brought me back to that old-school joy I felt with the first Tomb Raider. Although the story isn't terribly strong (feels a bit contrived at times), it's good enough to keep pulling you along... but make no mistake, the primary joy of the game is around exploration. There is a bit of puzzle solving, but they're pretty darn easy. Combat is a lot of fun, too - AI is good enough to keep you on your toes and the controls are smooth and tight.
On the negative side, combat gets a bit trying as you get further into the game. Your primary opponents are pirates (at least up until the last section of game), and it's astounding just how many there are on the island. Seriously - they're pirates, not a third-world country army, yet somehow you run across them over and over and over (and over) again to the point of tediousness. The game also has quasi-Achievements you can earn (mirroring Xbox 360's Achievements to the point that you have 1000 points you can earn), but without a meta-game that those points apply to, you don't really have a lot of reason to go hunting them down.
Overall, if you're a fan of Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones style adventures, Drake's Fortune is worth checking out. Sales are surprisingly poor right now - can't figure it out, to tell the truth. Don't let that stop you if you already have a PS3.
On a side note, a co-worker of mine will occasionally be posting thoughts on the game industry here going forward. He and I tend to discuss a ton of the stuff I've written about in the past, and I'm sure he'll have some interesting insights you might enjoy. Not sure whether he wants his real name used at this point, so we'll just call him Krotus for now. I think I may ask him to grade my 2007 game industry predications I made a while ago - could be a fun excercise. :)
Thought this story from Next Gen was interesting since I used to work at Intel as their PC Games evangelist. Back in the day, Intel always struggled with what to do with the burgeoning console market. There was a general belief that the PC was where gaming was at, especially online gaming, and that consoles wouldn't be able to expand much beyond where they were at. Obviously that changed, and Intel became a partner with Microsoft on the original Xbox. Unfortunately (for Intel), Motorola really swept the parts-provider role in this current generation... sounds like Intel doesn't intend to allow that to happen again.
Really can't say anything more since I know a bunch of folks who have left various companies to join Intel on their new effort. I will say that it's great to see a reinvigorated Intel getting back into the game!
A friend just forwarded me a rather cool use of Halo 3's Forge editing environment - a self-portrait! Keep looking at it if you don't see it at first - it sometimes helps if click on the image and look at it in a larger form.
Some comments from the author's post:
I wanted to approach this with a completely different technique. I was thinking that an image could be created if objects were placed in the foreground, middle ground and background and then viewed from a specific area that would converge the objects to make the image. If done correctly, the image would appear vertical and 3D as opposed to lying on the ground.
I decided to try this by doing a self portrait. The face would be made using facial shadows. The forge objects (vehicles, boxes, weapons, etc) would create those shadows. The sand environment would be the negative space between (the flesh of the face). It ended up working out pretty well. The tough thing was positioning the objects so that the face maintained the correct proportions. For example, the mouth is about 100 yards away from the eyes, but it looks proportionately correct. Once I had all the objects placed (which took a while) and had my viewing location marked, the objects converged together and made the image. The cool thing is that the image begins to break apart once the player starts moving in any direction. Also, the foreground, middle and background perspective technique makes it to where I could distort the image itself based on how I move. For fun, I viewed the face from a gravity lift and watched the face scrutch up and stretch out.
