MySpace.com and Viacom’s MTV have hooked up with Auditude as part of its quest to create revenue streams from online video piracy. Nowadays, Internet video piracy doesn’t just exist on BitTorrent sites or P2P networks. User-driven sites like YouTube and MySpace are packed full of videos published without authorization, providing easy access to the content and little or no control to owner of the content.
That’s where Auditude comes in. Auditude, theoretically, through partnerships with online social networking sites and content providers, gives another option besides removal; gaining advertising revenue. On the surface this sounds like a logical and professional move for content distributors to take. It can provide revenue with little or no extra work put in by the content companies. The work to get the content online is taken care of by the user and the bandwidth costs are covered by the service involved.
However, what it does take away from the content companies is a level of control. One thing that most content providers always want control of, is the distribution of its copyrighted works. Apple’s iTunes service sold billions of legal downloads after launching in an era of rampant music piracy, yet the control it demands over aspects of distribution has caused serious tension between the company and record labels.
Gaining partnerships like MySpace and MTV shows some confidence in the idea however, but whether or not Hollywood studios would embrace the service with open arms is not a question easily answered. Auditude’s technology is now being used by MySpace and will give Viacom the opportunity to place advertisements beside content from MTV published by users of MySpace.
Result for: Downloads
Last month we reported that the New Xbox Experience dashboard update was headed to Xbox 360 gamers on November 19th.
However, like most media content, the NXE has been leaked online and has seen thousands of downloads already. If you download it though hoping to be the first person on your block to do so, you are in for an unwanted surprise though. Any user trying to log into Xbox Live while running the leaked NXE will be blocked from XBL until November 19th.
Although unconfirmed, you also run the risk of being blocked from XBL permanently, in the same boat as users using flashed firmwares and copied games.
If you are really that excited for NXE, I think it pays to wait the almost three weeks for it.
Result for: Downloads
THX chief scientist Laurie Fincham has been quoted as saying that despite its victory over HD DVD, Blu-ray will not become the next standard in the home entertainment market.
“Personally, I think it’s too late for Blu-ray. I think consumers will only become interested in replacing DVD when HD movies becomes available on flash memory. Do we really need another spinning format?” Fincham is quoted in the Home Cinema Choice Magazine.
“In the future I want to be able to carry four to five movies around with me in a wallet, or walk into a store and have someone copy me a movie to a USB device. Stores will like that idea, because it’s all about having zero inventory. I don’t want to take up shelf space with dozens of HD movies.”
“By the time Blu-ray really finds a mass market, we will have 128GB cards. I would guess that getting studios to supply movies on media cards, or offer downloads, will be a lot easier than getting them to sign up to support a disc format,” he concluded.
