Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

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Category: Technology

Shiny gadgets and clever computers

  • PRS versus YouTube: what PRS For Music is telling its members

    This was posted on Jockrock by Commander Keen. I haven’t seen the original.

    Dear Member

    You may have read the news stories this week about Google blocking access to ‘premium’ video content on YouTube in the UK as a result of their not agreeing a new licence with PRS for Music. Premium content appears to refer to music videos that are traditionally uploaded by record companies.

    You may also have read that Google took this decision unilaterally, without any request from us to do so. Their licence with us had expired at the end of December 2008 and we were negotiating their new one. We do not usually ask anyone to remove content as long as good faith negotiations are taking place.

    Immediately we heard news of Google’s decision to pull content from YouTube, and that they were talking to the press about it, we issued our own press statement. We expressed our outrage, shock and disappointment on behalf of UK consumers and on behalf of you, our members that Google should take this action.

    Google’s decision must be seen as an attempt to influence commercial negotiation and the focus on ‘premium’ content as an attempt to cause disruption within the music industry again. This content may account for about 1% of YouTube music streams.

    At the heart of Google’s precipitous action is the going rate for music. This is the rate set by the UK Copyright Tribunal in 2007. The Tribunal is the ultimate and independent arbiter of copyright dispute. Digital service providers pay a fraction of a penny per stream to the creator of the music.

    Most of the major digital service providers are licensed by PRS for Music. And just recently we have signed deals with Amazon, Beatport, Nokia Comes With Music and Qtrax.

    YouTube has signed-up to licences in very few countries around the world – we were one of the few. They have never before taken down content unless they have been forced to do so by copyright holders. Meanwhile, in the UK, consumer streams of YouTube ‘premium’ content have risen by almost 300% in the last year alone (up from 75m streams a quarter to nearly 300m streams a quarter). In total, Google want to pay 50% less than they paid before for that usage. Google think they paid too much last time. But their music usage, charged at the going rate, suggests they were significantly underpaying.

    A further delay to our negotiation has been that Google is, at present, not giving us the data we need to calculate correct royalty payments to you. We ask them to make returns on their music use in the same way that every other major licensee does in order that we can properly analyse it, charge the right fee and then pay the copyright owners we represent. If there’s a stream of a track we don’t control, Google won’t pay us for that stream. Google would like to see our database in order to match it against theirs so they can calculate how much they owe us.

    We look forward to continuing our negotiations with Google where we will be looking for them to pay an appropriate amount for the volume of music they use and the contribution that songwriters make to the success of their service.

    In the meantime, please help us to help you. There are numerous Internet blogs hosting discussions on songwriter royalties. All too often, the voice of the composer and songwriter is lost in the midst of issues relating to the freedom of the Internet. Many blog posters misunderstand how royalties work and how you get paid. We should not forget that more than 90% of PRS for Music members receive less than £5,000 per year in royalties.

    Wherever possible, please contribute fully to this online debate, putting the composer and songwriter point of view. Additionally, if you feel you could give your time, where needed, to talk or write to the media in support of PRS for Music and of the composer/songwriter community, please email us.

    With best wishes

    Steve Porter, Chief Executive, PRS for Music

  • Techradar: YouTube versus PRS, and banishing software irritants

    It’s Tuesday! First up: why the YouTube/PRS spat is bad news for musicians.

    Ultimately, though, the spat is like watching two bald men fighting over a comb. On one side we have a multi-billion dollar corporation demanding that musicians pay the price for its inability to find a properly profitable business model; on the other we have a rights agency that appears to be stuck in a pre-internet age and can’t or won’t accept that online streaming simply doesn’t bring in the same amount of money as traditional broadcasting.

    Also, 7 annoying apps you don’t have to put up with.

    Printing, as Eddie Izzard once ranted, shouldn’t be hard. Control-P-Print! So why do printer manufacturers insist on installing applications for every conceivable task, such as programs that enable you to add gaudy picture frames?

    Long-term readers will immediately spot that one of the nasties, Snap Shots, was briefly on this blog. I was young then, and crazy.

  • YouTube starts blocking music videos in the UK over PRS dispute

    From the official blog:

    PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our licence than before. The costs are simply prohibitive for us – under PRS’s proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback. In addition, PRS is unwilling to tell us what songs are included in the licence they can provide so that we can identify those works on YouTube – that’s like asking a consumer to buy a blank CD without knowing what musicians are on it.

    We’re still working with PRS for Music in an effort to reach mutually acceptable terms for a new licence, but until we do so we will be blocking premium music videos in the UK that have been supplied or claimed by record labels.

  • Game ratings: forget the kids, it’s about protecting the grown-ups

    Nice piece on Rock, Paper, Shotgun about proposals to enforce the age ratings on video games:

    I’d argue that enforcing age ratings on games is perhaps essential, and not because I’m worried about seven year olds playing GTA IV. I’m worried about 31 year olds not being able to play GTA IV.

  • Bugger off and take your Beatles with you

    A slightly inflammatory piece by me on Techradar: why the music industry doesn’t deserve government help.

    Now, like General Motors, the record companies are hurting – and like General Motors, they want the government to save them. GM wants cash; the record companies want ISPs to act as their policemen, while the Digital Britain report suggests a broadband tax to create a new organisation to fight piracy and find new and exciting ways for DRM to annoy us.

    Why doesn’t the government tell them to get stuffed?

    The New Music Strategies blog linked in the article is well worth your time.

  • Interesting things: an article about netbooks and an article about the Kindle

    Wired Magazine has a fascinating piece about the rise of the netbook:

    For years now, without anyone really noticing, the PC industry has functioned like a car company selling SUVs: It pushed absurdly powerful machines because the profit margins were high, while customers lapped up the fantasy that they could go off-roading, even though they never did.

    And Richard Cobbett’s posted a great piece about the Kindle and ebooks in general:

    I’m aware that there are some people who will happily read a novel on the iPhone. These people are crazy.

  • Techradar Thursday: 3G sucks, Google should buy things

    More words on the Internet. First, six companies Google should buy including, yep, Twitter:

    Google’s search spiders are amazing things, but they can’t do what Twitter Search does: let you see in real time what six million people are saying. Bringing Twitter into the fold could work in two ways: as a search tool in its own right, and as a way to refine web results based on ‘trending’ – that is, up and coming – topics people are chatting about. For Twitter users, Google could offer better reliability: while Google Mail has been up and down a bit over the last few months, you’re still much more likely to see the Twitter Fail Whale than have problems with a Google site.

    Then, 3G sucks when you’re in the sticks.

    On a good day, outside, you’ll see the little 3G icon. Go indoors, though, and it disappears. That’s on a good day. On a bad day, like yesterday, there’s no 3G signal at all. We couldn’t even use GSM. Phone calls? Yes. Data? Nope.

    The further from the cities you go, the worse it gets. And Scotland, like Wales, Northern Ireland and the North of England, doesn’t have too many big cities. If you stick to the big motorways, the cities and the very biggest towns you’ll get decent coverage. Everywhere else – and in Scotland, most of the country is everywhere else – you won’t.

  • Belated Techradar Tuesday: seven reasons why Apple should make a netbook, and why laptops are just handbags

    First up, a feature: seven reasons why Apple should make a netbook (and a few reasons why it shouldn’t). Here’s one of the reasons why it shouldn’t:

    An HD Touch would be more compelling

    Take one iPod Touch, make it twice the size, give it some desktop-style apps and you’ve got something that no other computer firm can deliver (or, we suspect, even imagine). You’d have all the things you expect from an iPhone, plus decent e-book reading and document editing. How great would that be? Bluetooth support for an external keyboard, 3G modem as an option, best computer ever.

    Then, a column: if Confessions of a Shopaholic was about tech instead of handbags, we’d think it was great. Tech Firms! You’re doing it wrong!

    …the tech industry is just like the fashion industry. It sells you stuff and tells you you’ll look like Audrey Hepburn or Brad Pitt; six weeks later it’s shouting “You look like your gran!” and telling you to buy something else or kill yourself. An overpowered laptop is no different to a £1,000 It Bag: it’s just more crap that helps fuel credit crunches and contributes to climate change. When we’re eating each other for food and having fist-fights with polar bears in the High Street, we’re going to regret it.

    The column isn’t up yet. I’ll post the link when it is.

    Update

    Here’s the link: why netbooks prove that the tech industry’s gone nuts.

  • Techradar Thursday: cool things in the labs, clown computing and 3D gaming

    Two by me, one by Neil Mohr that I thought was really interesting. First up, Cloud Computing – or Clown Computing?

    So much for the cloud.

    Can we really rely on web-based services and software? If you’re expecting us to say no, surprise!

    Then a look at some of the interesting things Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Mozilla have got cooking in their labs including:

    4. Google Mars
    Fancy looking for Martians or discovering whether The Watchmen really do have a base on the Red Planet? Google Mars brings the power of Google Maps to nearby planets. Sadly Street View and Local Search aren’t yet available, so if you’re trying to find a kebab shop you’re out of luck.

    This piece by Neil Mohr caught my attention: 3D gaming. Is it ace, or is it arse?

    At its best with Left 4 Dead, some primal instinctive part of the brain lights up as you realise you now have depth perception. Zombies flailing towards you suddenly have a natural order and a beauty as they spiral in space with a well-placed shotgun to the head. Blood spurts in awesome Jackson Pollock-esque fashion onto your virtual camera lens that views this apocalyptic world. This is the 3D at its best; it works straight out of the box complimenting the gameplay, even enhancing it.

    Yay! But it’s a qualified yay:

    At its worst, though, it’s a frustrating mess. A crosshair that makes you feel you’ve drunk five pints, constant ghosting from lights and effects, while struggling to make the stereo effect work at all without inducing eye-strain. Somewhat akin to magic-eye pictures, it’s an effect that you gradually get more and more used to or not at all.

  • Don’t buy a laptop. Buy a netbook and a desktop, and keep the change

    Back in 2006, I wrote this:

    Many laptops, such as the MacBook Pro, are real desktop alternatives. But they also cost an awful lot of money, and they’re hefty things to carry around. Any time I’ve used a laptop when travelling – on planes, on trains, on ferries – I’ve wished I had a smaller computer (particularly on planes, where you get less room than a veal calf). Unless you need serious horsepower from a mobile PC, a top-end laptop is a daft buy: even the titchiest machine is perfectly capable of DVD playback, office applications and anything else you might need on your travels.

    That was before the invention of the netbook, which is the smaller computer I wanted whenever I tried to unfold a Powerbook or MacBook Pro in a plane seat. With netbooks becoming so handy (particularly in the battery life stakes) and cloud computing making it easy to share and/or sync stuff between multiple machines it’s bordering on insanity to buy a fully-featured laptop for travelling: with netbooks going for £300 or less (and refurbs starting to appear from the likes of EuroPC) you really need to be rich or daft to buy anything bigger.

    As my 2006 post put it:

    The little laptop will be smaller, lighter and therefore more portable than a big beast of a machine – and you’ll be less upset if it gets broken, nicked or blown up by terrorists because you’ll still have a working machine at home.

    I’ll be testing a Samsung NC-10 fairly soon, so I’ll eat my words if it’s a load of crap. But I suspect it won’t be.