techdirt

TechDirt offers $10k for new media-biz models

If you believe consumers should be allowed to freely share music, movies, and books over the Internet, then you've probably read Mike Masnick.

He's the founder and operator of Techdirt, a blog that champions the search for alternative business models for distributing songs, books, and movies. In that vein, Techdirt announced yesterday that it is launching a new message board that will pool the ideas and experiences of musicians, filmmakers, and writers who are experimenting with new ways to support their art.

The new discussion platform, which is designed in a Q&A style, can be found … Read more

Dirt cheap: Techdirt bets on 'free' business models

Heaping criticism and scorn on media companies has worked well for Mike Masnick, operator of the popular blog Techdirt.

Masnick is the firey commentator who blasts copyright owners and anyone else he believes has failed to accept that in the Digital Age most of the control now rests with consumers. He strongly maintains, however, that there are still ways for entertainers, artists, and journalists to make money. They just have to be developed. Plenty of people disagree with him of course.

Still, there's no denying that his brand of criticism has resonated with the growing number of techies, bloggers, … Read more

The music industry looks to ISPs instead of lawsuits

As reported in Friday's Wall Street Journal, the music industry has apparently given up on suing 13-year olds and dead people in its quest to stem music piracy. Instead, it plans to work with ISPs to identify and notify copyright infringers of the need to come clean:

[T]he Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers … Read more

"Free" as a component of great businesses

Techdirt has a great response to those that believe that "free" isn't everything in building a next-generation music business:

Of course it isn't, you dolts.

Well, Techdirt tried to be more diplomatic than that, but it does a good job of ripping into those that criticize free distribution of music as a viable business model. The problem with such critiques, as Techdirt notes, is that no one is arguing that "free" is THE business model. As in music and open-source software, the argument is simply that free makes a great component of a killer … Read more

Report: Gamers angry at DRM system from EA

Over on Techdirt Thursday morning, there's a report about some angry PC users of Electronic Arts games.

The gamers are upset, according to a post in the Mass Effect forums, because EA is apparently implementing a new Internet-based digital rights management system, known as SecuROM, that they find onerous, intrusive, and inconvenient.

Techdirt writes that a new version of SecuROM being employed by EA "is causing controversy due to an online verification system connected to its CD key. The system requires a connection to the Internet during installation to check (that) the CD key is valid, and then … Read more

All together now: 'Long Flat Balls' for free!

A director from Norway, whose movie credits include the critically acclaimed Agent Cody Banks as well as the unforgettable, One Night at McCool's is thrilled someone thought so highly of his latest work as to pirate his latest oeuvre, Long Flat Balls 2. (Unfortunately, I missed the classic which preceded it.)

Torrent Freak offered a translation of the comments made by the director, Harald Zwart, to the Nettavisen.no:

"I think it's perfectly fine that some people choose to post the movie online. It shows that people are interested in it. In the IT society of today … Read more