RIAA Wins It's First Lawsuit and Alienates All It's Customers

Well, here you have it:

The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music online and levied $222,000 in damages against her.

See the full story here.

First, I've gotta wonder what the jury in Minnesota was thinking here. Most folks from Minnesota that I know are pretty level headed. Or... could it be... they're sending us an oh so subtle message?

Subtle you ask? Why, yes! I think they did this intentionally to send the message to every music fan out there: Don't you go supporting these RIAA folks, the letter of the law, which my not be a good law, but is a law, says this poor girl owes them about... oh... $222,000.

Now, ya all go out and tell all your friends about this. First tell em this law is dumb and has plenty of letters to follow, but no spirit, no spirit at all, and they should make sure their lawmakers know that. Then, make darn sure they know that supporting any artist who publishing through any label that's a member of the RIAA is, deep down inside, a self centered narcissist who's music isn't to be supported by fans cause they signed away their creative souls (not to mention all their rights for anything their creative souls might think up), for a few dollars, to groups of kinda slimy people that just can't understand that they're destroying their own business, and their artists, by trying to hang onto an old dated and irrelevant business model and ignoring the realities of the digital world. Did ya all get that?

Good.

We're going home now to have some Lefsa.

Linux Wins over Vista

I've got a lot of boxes (PC's) scattered around my life. Most run Windows XP, a couple are Mac OSX machines and exactly one runs Vista and as of a couple weeks ago now, my personal laptop, runs Ubuntu Linux.

I'm running the Vista and Linux boxes next to each other and now that I've turned off my CableTV and no longer find a need for MediaCenter software, it's a no brainer win for Linux (although there are Media Center like programs for Linux as well, I still don't need it).

There are hundreds of blog posts up about the whys of this so I'm not going to repeat it all yet again. Here's one, and another and another (you get the idea).

Even Bob, My IT director, a guy I've known for years as a Windows bigot (and I mean, B I G O T- I can't count the number of times I had to referee a flame war in email between him and one of our linux guys), also just made the change. All his servers, desktops and laptops are running Linux. I think he has one Windows machine still running to play games on, but that's it.

His reasoning? Vista. He considers it incredible resource hog requiring huge amounts of memory and processing power (with no advantage to the user) and a form of DRM infection (among many other 'really serious issues').

When hard core lifelong Windows guys who make their living off of knowing the weirdness of Windows switch to Linux, you know something's up.

Me? I just want a machine that runs my Firefox browser. I live about 95% of the time on the web. The only times I work locally anymore are on presentations and particularly large spreadsheets (OpenOffice!) and multi-track recording (Audacity!)- and yes, both are free and both run great on Linux. Everything else is a website and GoogleDocs.

The vast majority of people using computers today don't care alot about getting deep into technology. They want to create and edit documents, presentations and spreadsheets. They also want to do email and manage contacts and calendars. And, they want to access the internet via some browser that supports the functions websites support through Flash and Java (any browser will do, really- unless is Safari on an iPhone... but I digress).

That's about it. I would bet that list above covers at least 80%, and maybe even 90% of the people using computers today.

Ubuntu Linux, finally, meets and exceeds those needs. And it does it in a way that's as easy to install and use as Windows XP and easier to use day to day than Vista.

Oh.. it'll run quite nicely on a 3 year old laptop to boot.

I wonder if Microsoft (and Apple, for that matter) really understand what's going on out there with this shift to web based services and free easy to use and fully compatible Opensource software vs. standard shink wrap software. I know both (particularly Microsoft) are trying, but that legacy boat anchor around their necks makes looking up and seeing that mondo wave come at you really, really hard.

I now have a free and very viable alternative to Windows and OSX. It's not quite ready for my Mom to use, but damn it's close.

I give it 12 months, tops.

Ahhh.. the iPhone Debacle

Heh.. I just knew this would happen with the iPhone.

The reality is Apple's history and inclination means it just can't help itself. Here's a short blurb from today's New York Times :

It was not unexpected that Apple would try to stop people from unlocking the phones, as this threatened to cause problems for AT&T, Apple’s exclusive United States partner for the iPhone.

“I don’t blame them for fighting the unlocks,” said Brian Lam, editor of Gizmodo, a blog devoted to gadgets. “They are trying to make money, as a business. I get that.”

Still, he said, that disabling someone’s phone, “instead of just relocking it and to wipe out the apps, it seems like Apple is going way too far; I’d call it uncharacteristically evil.”

There you have that 'evil' word, again, being applied to Apple. I do think 'uncharacteristically' isn't exactly right. I also think evil isn't exactly right either. It's a bit more complicated than that.

As some of you know, I worked for Apple in Cupertino from the mid 80's to the mid 90's and got a very up close and personal view of the company, how it worked and how it tended to think. I was one of the converted when I joined them and, by the time I left, I had very mixed feelings about the company.

I still do.

On one hand, this is a company that makes truly wonderful products. It's basic DNA is all about making technology useful for the average person. And it knows how to infuse beauty and elegance into products like no one else on the planet.

But the dark side of this equation is it's control freakness. This is largely a result of Steve Job's personality, but I was at Apple during the time that Jobs was not part of the company and that control freak nature was alive and well without any one person egging it on.

I could name dozens of examples but one that sticks out is when Gasse' (then president of the R&D organization) found a group secretly porting the MaxOS to the Intel platform. This was the second half of the 80's. And, they'd done it. Gasse' (I'm told) saw it for the first time and immediately fired them all and shut it down. Same thing happened again a few years later when John Sculley was CEO and David Nagel was in Gasse's shoes. I was told Sculley sanctioned it, it got to the point of being real and Nagel convinced Sculley to shut it down (they didn't fire everyone this time though).

Why be so weird about not having Apple hardware running Apple software?

Copy protection of Apple's software.

Seriously.

What do you think a Macintosh is? It's hardware copy protection, Apple's own take on DRM, if you will, for what Apple considers is crown jewel: The MacOS.

This is one of the main business reasons you can't buy a the MacOS without a a Mac. Oh, sure, it also has to do with controlling that experience (there's that control word again) but in the end, it comes down to the dollars involved.

Going from a (when I was there) an $11B hardware/software company to a $2B software (only) company was something that couldn't even be contemplated. Still can't.

Same thing is happening here with the iPhone. That hardware (and it's locked down services) are a form of copy protection for the real value: The software that makes the phone so easy to use. And that revenue number for hardware AND software just looks a hell of lot better on the balance sheets. It certainly makes the stock price easier to justify.

So....Control Freakness for sure, but also a way of doing business that Apple hasn't really moved off of since the Macintosh was first shipped in 1984.

What complicates things are how the MacOS is now built on top of BSD. Many many Open Source, what's fair, what should you share kind of questions here.

Apple's built a great set of products on top of the work of others now. It's not all Apple's sweat anymore.

You'd think, with that in mind, they'd be a little more open. I can see locking down the cellphone service. There's a lot of investment and business contracts circling that particular relationship.

But locking out all third party applications? That's not only a little bit evil, it's just plain dumb.

And I will bet you an unlocked working iPhone that it's all Steve Jobs doing.

King of the control freaks; back in the saddle again.

Games: Bigger than the Movies

Anyone wonder why creative types spend time on making movies anymore?

Halo 3 Breaks Records, Pulls $170 Million First-Day Sales

Microsoft grabbed first-day sales of $170 million on Halo 3, the latest edition of its ultra-popular Xbox series. The tally easily eclipses any first-day album sales total, though it also bests record-setters within film and other forms of media.

The comparable, record-setting total in Hollywood comes from Spiderman 3, which grabbed estimated worldwide debut-day revenues of $117 million - and $151 million over the course of its opening weekend. Halo 3 also trumped the recently-released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which shifted 8.3 million copies on its opening day.

Microsoft quickly trumpeted its newfound record for the highest-grossing launch day in entertainment history. But the biggest rewards could come from ramped sales of Xbox consoles, especially ahead of the critical holiday sales season. The result further reinforces the ultra-powerful role that gaming now plays in the entertainment world, and that stronghold is attracting more promotional energy from labels and artists.

Man o man.. not me. It's REALLY clear where creative people who are also interested in getting the biggest return for their time and the invested buck should be focusing their energy.

Skip Hollywood. Game On!

Power of The Blog... or...Getting Comcast to actually do it's job

Here's a first.

I've been using Planetfeedback.com for years to complain to companies about their service. If you don't use it, you should. It actually works about 30-50% of the time to get a response from a company when nothing else works.

Some companies respond (like Qwest, our local RBOC.. but only if you use 'magic' words like PUC- Public Utility Commission and FTC- Federal Trade Commission in your cc: list).

Some don't. Circuit City, Best Buy and CompUSA, for instance, could care less if I write them to complain. At least in the past.

But... I do believe I just learned a new Magic Word that get's companies to do what they should do without resorting to public humiliation. That word is:

Blog.

Here's why I think so:

After Comcast turned off my internet access at home for reasons I have yet to determine, going through the usual 5 calls to the support number and getting put on hold for hours, hung up on and transfered to weird nooks within Comcast that couldn't help me... I just gave up and put up a planet feedback posting (www.planetfeedback.com).

I put in the usual (here's what happened, here's why you suck, I'm telling all my friends family you suck, blah blah..) but then, I put in something new that I haven't done before, on it's own line:

And I will be posting about this in my Blog.

What Planetfeedback does is it emails your complaint to the Company CEO (and posts it on there semi-social networking site where others can read it and comment on it). Pretty simple thing really but it's nicely packaged and works well.

Now, I do not have a popular/powerful blog presence. But, I suspect they don't know that and what they DO know is BLOGS out people and companies when they do bad things. Ton's of press on it.. so it's gotta be true.

Within the day, "Special Assistant to the CEO" had emailed AND called me back. He referred it to an 'executive support' person who had my internet access back on within a few minutes of getting my email with what I wanted fixed.

I've complained to Comcast with no response in the past. The only difference between then and now is that BLOG comment.

BLOG is the new Magic "use this if you want a response" Word!

Whodathunkit

Context and Editorial Perspective

Kfir Pravda has a great post on content titled "Can Someone Please Create the HBO of Online Video"

Our CEO, Tom Keller, and I go back and forth on UGC vs. more professionally produced pro and semi pro content. I tend to lean toward UGC, he leans toward the pro stuff.

The more I use online video, the more I'm thinking Tom's right.

You could even say I'm doing a full circle in becoming a believer. Peter Gabriel just lead a $5M round for a music site called 'The Filter". His view is that there is so much stuff out there that people need editorial context to guide them.

This is something that swings back and forth. Back in the late 80s, I was saying the same thing when we did eWorld at Apple. I recruited Knight Ridder and The Washington Post newspapers (among many others) to create cache and draw people to our service. I spent a day at the post watching the paper 'being made' and decided it was a daily miracle that it actually got out each day (sooo much labor).

One thing the managing editor said to me sticks with me even now: "Scott, people don't pay us for what we print, they pay us for what we don't print...it's all about filtering out the noise and presenting, with a discerning eye, things that matter to our readers".

There's a balancing act in here somewhere that's the sweet spot of online video content. There's some really great UGC out there. And there's obviously some great pro and semi pro content. The real added value here is figuring out how to filter the UGC and procure the pro and semi pro content in a way that doesn't require a thousand people like the old media systems of The Washington Post, or in our case the old video stalwarts like TV networks and movie studios.

Do that, and find ways to make the process as automated and painless as possible, and you've hit a home run.

No one's really hit it dead on. Yet.

Don’t die with your music still in you

I don't generally link to a blog entry as a blog post, but this post, in my book, is a must read for anyone, really, but especially entrepreneurs. There's a good chance you've already read it in which case, it's worth revisiting. If not, it's a potential life changer.

It's from Steve Pavlina and you can find it here.

It clarifies why guys like me leave behind the Big Job at the Big Company and forgo the Lofty Titles and Cushy Perks to work our asses off and, if we're lucky, get a 1 in 5 chance of succeeding at creating a company from scratch.

I read it whenever I'm having one of those inevitable down days on the roller coaster ride.

It's especially relevant if you're thinking about taking the plunge and doing your own thing, but haven't figured out how to do it yet.