Megaupload and what it means..

Well its probably about time i got round to writing a post on possibly the most important legislative event for techies this year. The shut down of Megaupload.com and its subsidiaries has been the cumlination for months of campaigning on both sides of the fence. It has sent ripples right through the internet ether and is continuing to keep SOPA and PIPA in the news.

Now i will state here that i believe in the rights of copyright holders to protect their work and i think that those who create such amazing content everyday of their lives and who work the arses off in the name of their art certainly deserve to reap the rewards of producing that material. In that sense even i am on the side of SOPA/PIPA. However while the basis of those acts are sturdy and true the way in which they are looking to be enacted and the scope of damage to free speech which could be inflicted from the forms of these acts is something that i cannot and will not support. Its very much like trying to stamp out a plague by killing the infected hosts rather than by giving them the necessary anti-biotics.

We need better communication between these websites and the major labels in the entertainment industry. Why were these links not taken off these webstites?? probably i suspect because nobody had asked them to be removed. Megaupload is not going to be able to check every upload to see if it the latest Britney Spears track but it should be very easy for someone within her record label to seach for her song on google and to ask sites like megaupload and google to remove infringing links. The scale of information transfer over the internet these days makes it impossible for a site like megaupload to check all of its traffic for infringements but it is much more manageable for one label to check for its individual products.

This is ofcourse an ongoing and evolving situation, and deffinately one which will not see any true end. Views on things like internet freedom come and goes depending mostly on current situations. I for instance can see a big change towards government run internet protection in maybe a decades time when state sponsored cyber-warfare is more commonplace. More recently there have been many calls for the government to crack down on groups such as anonymous, surely such a crackdown would recquire the sacrifice of certain online liberties similar to those we all gave up in the aftermath of 9/11. Although there are still those who complain the vast majority (mainly those who like myself have grown up with and am used to) accept the neccessary screening and security procedures at airports. If the Us had tried to bring in the patriot act in 2000 there would have been global outcry similar to that against SOPA/PIPA today.

The question for me then is not WHEN will these acts (or similar legistalature) go through but rather WHY will we allow it?

"Format Syndrome" Strikes Back

Its back, sort of. Recently Youtube have been slowly develop a redesign for their nearly age-old (in terms of the internet) design UI. However it seems that youtubers are less partisan with opinion on the new design split evenly between those who love it those who hate it. This only seems to add more questions to this odd phenomena, first of which is why its not such a big deal when Youtube decides to have a complete overhaul of its websites design and yet when Facebook decides to move some elements around the internet explodes in anger.

Whatever the reason its more data for someone to compile for the official "Format Syndrome" clinical trials which must surely be coming, i mean im sure pharmaceutical companies are champing at the bit to get the first "Anti-Facebook Anger" medications, maybe something to help those deal with being defriended.

Youtube & the Future of Entertainment

The way in which we consume info and entertainment has dramatically changed in the last decade. Through HD and Blu-Ray onto 3D formats the quality of our products has increased exponentially the quality of content being broadcast at us. But the biggest shift in the way that we view material has been the boom of streaming. As internet speed have increased so has the amount we all want to download. Nowadays we are streaming shows via Netflix or BBC iPlayer while simultaneously downloading a new film onto our Xbox's, all while  downloading the latest album straight onto our smart phones.

Never before have we had so many ways of getting the media "we want" straight to our homes. And here is the key, "personal choice". Why spend money on an expensive cable or satellite bill in order to get hundreds of channels you will never use when you can get exactly what you want, when you want it and for a price that you know is only going towards the cost of the shows that you want to see.

In the title of this piece i made a point to name one of the sites that i believe will be central to the viewing experience in the future. Youtube is vast, both in its content and use. Almost anything can be found on it, from catching up with the latest current affairs or fashion news it is fast becoming the hub around which people live their lives and i believe that this will move into the entertainment experience in the future. Rather than searching through multiple channels in a menu on your TV screen you will be searching for the latest videos from channels which you the user has subscribed to.

The future of entertainment is simple. Its all about getting the viewer exactly what they want and exactly when they want it, no matter where they are in the world.