As soon as the Crazy Month of March ends, I start procrastinating like mad again. Rather than finishing off the work I was supposed to be doing today, I had to doodle a picture of an idea I had about 3 weeks ago when I was wishing I had time to procrastinate. It’s a very complex situation.
So this is Duckie McGee, Time Pirate. The floating helidrone is Ion, his first mate. The proton slug is named Walter. They have been blackmailed into travelling through time, trying to stop the evil Greenwich from destroying the past. See, he got a hold of the banned alpha version of Wikipedia that rewrote history instead of articles, and since he was already an infamous wiki troll to begin with… well, it’s a bad deal for everyone.
Beyond that, I’ve got nuffin. I think I shall create some software and write this like Mad Libs, which should be fun. No idea what the end result should be tho. Book? Animation?
Okay, I feel sufficiently guilty for ignoring my work now.
As you were.
Ze Frank’s show may be over, but his songs live on. He’s just released all the songs from The Show on iTunes. $9.99 for the album, mainly consisting of 30-secondish tracks. It sounds like it’s not worth it, but it very much is. These things, mixed into your average shuffle mode, will make your eye twitch uncontrollably. It’s priceless is what it is.
Go buy Ze’s songs. If you don’t, the communists win. Or something.
Michael Geist has a great column in the Toronto Star about how the Canadian broadcast industry is aiming to have CRTC oversight for the internet, to help reign in the internet media market. One particularly distressing part:
The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting go even further, maintaining that “Canadian broadcasting policy should recognize new delivery systems such as MP3 players, satellite radio receivers, and interactive Web clients as part of the new Canadian broadcasting system. If the commission is unable or unwilling to regulate their content, it should be charged with ensuring that a percentage of the revenue they generate from the distribution of these services is circulated into the system.”
I like the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. I agree with a lot of what they say, most of the time. But in this case, they’re looking for cash that doesn’t belong to them. The revenue generated from new media enterprises should not be circulated into the system, because the system is not built to support new media.
Could the system be adapted to handle both major broadcasting and on-the-fly online entertainment? Let’s think of how that works: I am a webcaster in Vancouver. I am required to send 10% of my revenues to the Canadian Television Fund to support Canadian Content. Of course, in return for that, I’ll want to be able to apply for funding from the CTF, because otherwise I’m being unfairly taxed with nothing to gain.
To meet CTF standards, I have to meet all sorts of requirements that push my production budget from $50,000 to close to $200,000… because I’m no longer allowed to do things cheaply or quickly. The bureaucracy involved in TV production is staggering… everybody at every stage along the way wants their piece of the pie, and it inflates costs beyond what a rational person would expect. And even worse, if I have my special effects team in Holland (which is plausible for a webcaster), and my writer’s in London, all of a sudden I don’t even qualify for CTF funds at all.
So now if I can’t find another $150,000 to finance my project, I can’t do it. Or I can do it without CTF money for $50,000, and give away 10% of my profits for nothing. Either way, I’m getting a bad deal, and I’ll either give up on the idea, or leave the country to get it done. The current make-your-own-luck online environment will be replaced with paperwork and forced mediocrity, because that’s what Canadian Content is all about.
New media is the one area where regulation has not yet managed to suck the innovation out of entertainment. If the CRTC gets into the game now, all they’ll be doing is lining the pockets of the established players, and locking out the next generation of content creators, who stand a good chance of making Canadian Content accessible and plentiful within our borders, and beyond.
Dear god, the music industry joined the 21st century! Or at least the last years of the 20th. Apple and EMI will start selling DRM-free songs in May! What’s amazing is not the idea, but that a major label has people inside it who are not as oblivious to the real world as I originally thought.
The pricing is $1.29 for a DRM-free higher-quality track, and the $0.99 DRM-ed version still exists. Albums are the same price regardless of DRM or not. This is a thinly-veiled attempt to make people opt to buy albums again (recent reports said albums were dying in favour of singles). It’s sleazy business trickery, but it’s the GOOD kind of sleaze, because rather than forcing the user to accept one scenario or another via DRM, they’re making it about price. It sucks in a way, but the choice has been moved back to the customer. Not perfect, but definitely worlds better than before.
Someone said this is the start of Music 2.0… the tipping point from which we see the great new world of music spread out beyond us, and we can frolick in the meadows all day long. I think that’s overly optimistic. This is Music 1.5… this where we should have been 8 years ago. There have been major advances in music-delivery technology that have been stifled or undiscovered for the last 8 years, and it’s going to take us at least another 5 to catch up to where we should be.
When all the music is DRM-free, when better licensing is in place, and the tech industry and really make the difference it’s meant to do, THEN we’ll be at Music 2.0.
Can’t wait.
Important note: It may not jump out at you anymore, but this post was done on April 1. Please don’t send any more hate mail!
I’m excited to announce The Pig and the Box: Special Edition, coming soon to bookstores everywhere! Yes, Random House picked up the rights, and are coordinating with Warner Bros. to turn my little book into a feature film! Apparently Al Pacino is keen to play the pig. Shia LaBeouf as the crazy squirrel.
Anyway, there have been a few changes to the story. All great ideas, and they greatly improve the pacing etc. Let me give you a taste:
Pig was so upset he sat down and started to cry: “This magic box is nothing but trouble!”
“Oh, Pig!” said Duck, “don’t feel bad! It’s not your fault! It’s OUR fault for not using the buckets according to the terms and conditions set forth in the End User License Agreements we signed upon receipt of the merchandise!”
“Yeah, WE’RE the bad ones!” agreed Bunny.
“I feel dirty,” said Maurice.
Just then, MPAA CEO and all-around great guy Dan Glickman showed up!
“Hello consumers!” he said happily, “I’ve brought arrest warrants for you all!”
“Golly!” said Bunny, “for only $750 a violation, I can clear my conscience! Thanks, Mr Glickman!”
“Don’t mention it, son!”
The book is now 95 pages, which includes a special tour of the slums of L.A., where the poor, abused former creative types of Hollywood go to die after their works are pirated. And there’s a bit of a twist where the Crazy Squirrel infiltrates the Piratpartiet and assassinates its leaders… but it’s still the same heartwarming story we all love!
Note: to anyone that’s downloaded the previous version: I just want to say sorry about the SWAT teams that will be serving you warrants over the next few weeks. You know you deserve it, though.
