Managing Rights Management

Another View of Piracy in the PC Games Space

Loyd Case writes on the ExtremeTech site about rampant piracy in the PC games space. This longish article is well worth a read. Among other data, Case offers selective quotes from an article by Michael Fitch on the shutdown of Iron Lore Entertainment, for reasons that include piracy: ...the numbers... Read more →

The RIAA is At It Again-Where Has All The Music Gone?

CNet reports that the RIAA is shooting new threatening letters across the bows of numerous colleges and universities coast to coast in what must be a failed attempt to deter piracy. Critics charge that the letters are just a scare tactic, and the RIAA has admitting to goofing on identifying... Read more →

The Things You Can Do With Skype

CNET reports that Voice-over-IP service Skype is being used for P2P filesharing and Skype-casting. There's a growing number of people sharing their iPod digital music using freely available software and Skype, a free Internet phone service. The enthusiasts are borrowing heavily from another personal broadcasting phenomenon called podcasting, in which... Read more →

The Superdistribution Chronicals, Pt. 2

I want to suggest that superdistribution is evolving in 3 stages and that we are presently moving from Stage 2 to Stage 3. In part 1 of the Chronicles, I outlined the evolution of thinking about superdistribution. We can now say that the evolutionary stages are probably these: (1) Broadcast... Read more →

Media Rights Technologies

Santa Cruz, CA's Media Rights Technologies recently put out a press release offering to license their entire Intellectual Property portfolio. Here's an excerpt: Media Rights Technologies ("MRT"), a software company developing and implementing content-control solutions, has announced the worldwide availability for licensing of its suite of intellectual property. MRT's voluminous... Read more →

The Superdistribution Chronicles, Pt. 1

Superdistribution was coined by Ryoichi Mori in a 1989 article entitled "What lies ahead". Reduced to its essence, superdistribution refers to turning consumers into (re)distributors. Using DRM systems, superdistribution promised--depending on the preferences of content producers, distributors, and redistributors--to increase revenue for rights holders and create revenue opportunities for consumers.... Read more →