Is Apple planning to unveil a robust new content distribution system in January at Macworld Expo alongside its revamped media-savvy Mac mini? apparantly Think Secret believes they are going to do just that. The new content system and related media deals, which will include feature-length content, expanded televisions offerings, and more, will further cement Apple’s increasing lead in digital media delivery.
Apple’s new technology will deliver content such that it never actually resides on the user’s hard drive. Content purchased will be automatically made available on a user’s iDisk, which Front Row 2.0 will tap into.
Should change better indicator of what is “News” “Editorial” “How-To” “Rumor” articles. IMHO.
Kinda a like a news site?
True we do need more destinction between: news, rumour, etc I’m changing the title and synopsis slightly to make it more obvious that its rumour more than news.
Agree, but the fact that title contains a question mark should tell you something.
“Is Apple planning to unveil a robust new content distribution system in January at Macworld Expo alongside its revamped media-savvy Mac mini, apparantly Think Secret has learned they are going to do just that.”
That does not sound right.
“Is Apple planning to unveil a robust new content distribution system in January at Macworld Expo alongside its revamped media-savvy Mac mini? Apparantly Think Secret has learned they are going to do just that.”
Although the sentence itself still sounds wierd, it no longer has that glaring error.
There’s a spelling error in apparent too.
>>> Apple’s new technology will deliver content such that it never actually resides on the user’s hard drive <<<
For how long I wonder… I guess only the first couple of weeks after its release and in 2 month we’ll see a windows version of Front Row, which saves the data directly to the disk without purchasing anything of course
“Apple’s new technology will deliver content such that it never actually resides on the user’s hard drive.”
X-D Crazy world!
Digital distrubution is screwed down so tight that the industry won’t allow anything unless they’ve got their thumbs in _all_ the pies. IMO maybe Apple will release a “subscription” digital distribution media centre. This way, content is streamed, DRM’d, not saved permenantly and likely, Broadcast-Flagged – everything to keep the ??AA happy and give it the green light for existance.
Is it that hard to believe some people would rather pay for stuff than spend ~3 days trying to get it from a P2P network?
When people started trading ??AA content on the net and they complained we said: The internet is here like it or not, adapt your buisness model to it.
Now they are finding protected means to sell content through the internet and people want to complain about it.
Edited 2005-12-03 16:03
I agree with you in this regard. Obviously, paying for something will in turn generally give you content easier, faster, and in some cases, higher quality. What I find a little annoying about the concept is the actual lack-of ownership type of style. Sure, I can access the content whenever I want, but do you actually have control over it? What if I decide that I’d rather watch a movie on my DVD player as opposed to the Mac? Am I out of luck, or are they truly going to accomidate for all of those situations? Sure, you can also make it like a media center and run it into the TV, but is that really as easy as simply using a device designed to only play content? And if I were to try to record it for myself using some other method (TV-Out recording type of thing, StreamRipper, etc) just to have another means of controlling it, I’m breaking a law of some sort?
So for me, this doesn’t work out quite as well as I’d like, or so it seems. Who knows though, it may very well change easily. I’m sure Apple can develop methods of doing all sorts of things and having it be safe, but then again, people will also figure out ways to get around it too I’m sure.
I think it’s actually hard to believe. If those people would like to pay for convenience and speedy delivery they would go and buy a DVD rather than wait 3+ days on unreliable connection.
“Apple’s new technology will deliver content such that it never actually resides on the user’s hard drive.”
Oh, goody. More ways in which to make me pay ownership prices for stuff I don’t own. Where do I sign up?!
I am still unsure if any of these January announcements are true. On the Media Center front, Apple has to get it out quickly, get it into people’s hands, before the MS hype machine gobbles up all the attention.
I have an MS MCE that I really like, I RENT movies from movielink.com (a little expensive but no late fees.)
Will that be Apple’s way of doing things, rent? If it stays on their servers and only works on thier hardware I hope they don’t claim to be selling it.
Is irrelevant if the content has DRM.
>>So for me, this doesn’t work out quite as well as I’d like, or so it seems. Who knows though, it may very well change easily. I’m sure Apple can develop methods of doing all sorts of things and having it be safe, but then again, people will also figure out ways to get around it too I’m sure.
Me:
No, what’ll happen is what always does – **AA will do away with the current distribution method. Just like LP’s, 8 tracs and cassettes disappeared CD’s and DVD’s will be the next things to disappear. All content will be this DRM rented type. The market does NOT drive this product; instead they force the new product on us whether we like it or not.
The biggest flaw in this is that there are a whole lot of people who do not have broadband. Not to mention that most people still want to physically possess something they bought. I do have a problem with having something like that which I own being stored someplace else except as a backup.
This seems to me to be playing right into the hands of the RIAA and the MPAA to give them the complete control over media that they have been salivating over for years now. Hopefully some enterprising programmer will come up with a way to capture and record the stream so we can make physical copies of “our” videos when we buy them.
But, if you look at it we are getting exactly what we deserve. As long as most computer users go along with it and blindly purchase this stuff the situation will not change. The only thing the entertainment industry understands is money. As long as we spend it in sufficient quantities they will strive to maintain the status quo. Only if enough people refuse to buy the stuff will they change. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening.
Bill
>>The biggest flaw in this is that there are a whole lot of people who do not have broadband
Yea but they don’t care. There’s enough who do to make money from. Look at cell phone coverage. A lot of people don’t have good cell coverage either but that hasn’t stopped the cell phone companies from selling (it should have due to false advertising). So instead of paying for more infrastructure what many have now done is established agreements with each other so that roaming is now free to the end user and hope for the best. I call it the “Redmond” syndrome. When I lived in Seattle area the Redmond/Kirkland area had all the tech yuppies who all wanted their cell phones but none wanted the towers in their backyard so there were lots of blank spots. But that didn’t stop the companies from selling or the consumers from buying into 2 year contracts.
I think that the streaming idea is really bad. Even though I’ve got a fast enough broadband service (2Mb/sec), streaming isn’t very smooth. It will still be a few years before most people have above a speed of 5Mb/sec download speed. The proposed service just sounds so crappy.
In order to combat piracy, the entertainment industry needs to let go and allow digital content distributors to provide a service that is better than current illegal content distribution systems.
check out: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/ptech/12/02/imac.g5.ap/index.html
People are picky about their video. If can’t skip a frame, much less make you wait for minutes at a time to load the next segment. The average user doesn’t have broadband. Of those with broadband, it’s usually not fast enough for decent video. Finally, those who have a fast enough broadband connection still have to face the limitations of every connection between you and the server hosting the material you want.
You don’t connect DIRECTLY to Apple’s servers, you connect to someone who connects to someone who connects to someone yada yada who finally connects to Apple’s server. Do a traceroute sometime. Your speed is limited to the SLOWEST connection in that route. I swear – sometimes there has GOT to be a C64 with a 300 baud modem as one of those connections.
When all the connections are good and I’m doing NOTHING ELSE, I can get 112kB/sec. When I happen to be routed through that C64, I’ll get 30B/sec. NORMALLY, I can count on maybe 40 to 60kB/sec. That’s not good enough for streaming video… unless you like video that sucks. I certainly wouldn’t pay for that quality.
osrumours.com?
#sorry if this seems like a manifesto and sorry for my buggy english
is slowly transforming the internet from a freedom and creativity space to a stalinian COMMUNIST heaven : you OWN nothing, you depend TOTALLY on some anonymous shareholder to ALLOW you to see and to hear what is SOCIALLY correct (aka blockbusters and the like…). you are GUILTY until the contrary is proven, and even tough you stay guilty because you refused to plug this DRMchip into your brain 😉 . What is happening now is totally PERVERT : the “distribution” system (book editors, Hollywood Majors, software sellers, petrol distros…) are taking over the production system (creators, scientists, artists, workers, techies, military…) and using capitalist laws (related to free trade, concurrence and FREEDOM and not necessary to $$$) to enforce monopoly and ANTI-capitalist positions ! Let’s look 1 sec to the history :
1-there were once upon a time commercants that used the lack of knowledge (bad) and great specialisation among nations/tribes (bad) to sell goods at a very high price+political privilieges+anormal power until the day…
2-industrial revolution led ppl/nations to being aware of the power of science/tech to -have the ability to- change radically the society and be less dependant on humans/slaves/animals (dependence were the reason of slavery everywhere, sad but true) thus giving REAL CHOICE=FREEDOM to western societies that had time to make war 1&2(a pervert effect on high tech when mixed with reactionnary culture) and then hopefully peace, progress, democracy, techno-military power (i.e real sovreignty) and real economical power and independance -> good. this had evolved to…
3-information revolution that is destroying (technically) the last advantages that “distributors” had : consumer knowledge (asking for high quality, better prices etc) and consumer choice (more products etc more DIFFERENT competitors). so…
4-these “Major Distribution Corps” that did NOT participate in : rechearch, education, infrastructure, military security, all built with public $$$-tax and thanks to OTHER Manufacture/industrial/techno Corps, want now to control all these areas : patents (!= ( rechearch and education) ), freedomicide laws (!=infrastructure) and miliraty sec (not only about weapons, but also petrol-dependance => petrol-politics-dependance etc and the like).
the REAL problem is that the public, as usual
, is not aware that :
1- art, the real one, personnal, complex, unique and subjective have always been and will always be, with or without Big $tupid corp$.
2-the same applies for science : it depends only on BRAIN, and when $$$ are neededthese can be found whether in public institutions, foundations, or private etc…
3-these copr$ have not participated in that; so from an economical POV, they dont EVEN have the right to use internet, which have been built thanks to mil (public) decision taken for U.S (public) interest using academic res. (public) etc etc. so ONLY in this age Coprs that deserve tech respect (everybody knows them, or can, from the smallest to the biggest) deserve ppl respect.
Say NO to COMMUNI$M
Huh?
Well, I don’t really understand much of this rant, but I disagree with the premise. What we have is not communism (the economic model with the negative connotation), but a largely unregulated form of capitalism (you, know, the freedom and democracy stuff). In this system, money implies power, power implies money, and positive feedback contributes to the aggregation of both.
In the context of digital media, there are three stakeholders, presently playing a game of chicken with one another: the content providers, distributors, and consumers. The content providers, being at the top of the supply chain, have the most powerful position. The consumers at the bottom have the least to lose from non-cooperation. Until recently, consumers have been comfortable with non-cooperation, but the power of the media conglomerates is beginning to reduce the feasibility of this approach.
The content distributors, stuck in the middle, have the least desirable position in the digital media ecosystem. From the top they are completely beholden to the growing power of the content providers, and from below they must satisfy a target audience that has become accustomed to disregarding the rights of the content providers. The sellers and buyers are largely at odds, which doesn’t fare well for the transaction agent.
As we have begun to see with iTMS, there is a point where legal media distribution can become just barely tolerable to consumers, and they will open their wallets to pay for meager rights to their media. Unfortunately for consumers, the media companies are in the power position, and short of multinational regulations on media distribution, there’s nothing we can do about it.
Will Apple succeed? I don’t know, but if any company can manage to be successful in a highly problematic segment of the media market, Apple is that company.
Thanks Butters for clarifying my thoughts, I totally agree. By the way, i used the term “distribution” for “content provider” and “techno companies” for “content distributors”, because “content providers” does just distribute what authors, scientists and artists create, while “content distributers” are the companies like apple/iTMS, napster or even google book that give acess to content, and that rely/developp/use technology. What i wanted to say (and probably failed to) is that “content providers” are hijacking the “technology market” by putting obstacles (or trying to do so) for every company that creates a new way to acess content/information. a good example is the war against P2P software-and not only networks- which is absurd and dangerous, because judging that P2P software is illegal because is offers access to illegal content means simply that any communication software, or even hardware (powerful CPU that facilitate DRM cracking, high speed fiber optics, maths behind optimized compression to shrink the size and give easy access to illegal content, for ex) should be approved by these “content providers”. which means putting technology at the service of no-techno-related companies that dictates their rules with no counter-power. when it comes to communism, contrary to what appears at first (a totalitarian and faschist political system), communism is in fact about controlling the economy: if you do so you control everything. and the legislation is going little by little in this direction, where the end consumer will not only have no choice from a tech point of vue (everything will be DRMed, DRM will be controlled by 1 or more similar entities), but also from an artistic pov because independant artists will also be dependant on that.
I only hope i’m exagerating.
“(everything will be DRMed, DRM will be controlled by 1 or more similar entities), but also from an artistic pov because independant artists will also be dependant on that.
I only hope i’m exagerating.”
You are correct up to a point. At the moment the best option that the consumer has is not well known but if used has the power to bring down the RIAA and eventually even the MPAA. And that is getting your content from the many small sources that provide content directly from the artists. Especially in the audio arena there are many alternatives that provide free and low cost music that differs only in that the artists are not household names.
A perfect example is magnatunes.com which provides a nice array of music directly from the artists. the model used there is to provide music that lets you listen to the entire piece and then purchase if you want to. The price is not fixed which allows you to pay more for albums you really like. 50% of the purchase price goes directly to the artist. If you purchase you can coose to download the music in a lossless format with no DRM applied to it.
Anyway, the site demonstrates that it is possible for artists to make money sans the RIAA. Obviously the RIAA hates the idea because it primarily relies on the fact that most people really do want to pay for the content they get, they just don’t want to be ripped off in the process. What it is going to take is for more people to get their content from places like this. If the sales start to decline the big companies will of course blame it on piracy and try to make it harder for people to own the content they buy. This in tuen will force more people to turn to alternatives like this…
Anyway, you get the picture. This is the biggest hope we have of seeing some return to normalcy in the content business. So encourage all your friends to purchase their music through these type of channels.
Bill
One correction to the previous post. You buy the entire album on Magnatune and not individual songs. A small price to pay in the ongoing battle for control of our audio files. 🙂
Bill
Protagonist, thanks for this “magnatune.com” link, i just visited it. it seems more respectful of artists and consumers as well and choice is diversified. a great biz model to encourage and a good illustration of the power of the net
“Protagonist, thanks for this “magnatune.com” link”
You’re welcome. I really like the site and John has taken the time to answer my email when I have had occasion to write to him. The more of these kind of businesses we can get out there the more likely we will be able to force a change in the content industry on this DRM problem.
Bill