It’s been about a month since I’ve written an entry, and I’m getting bored of looking at the Sony entry so I think it’s time to have an update. Over the next 2 months I have the inclination that I will be writing a few entries in regards to politics. Since my last entry, the Liberal minority government here in Canada has fallen and we are now into a long winter election campaign. While today I want to get an unrelated topic off my mind, you can satisfy your craving for election satire by checking out Rick Mercer’s Blog.

As a lead into the topic I have planned, I just want to throw some shameless plugs to social bookmaking services. As I hope you are familiar, I currently use Del.icio.us for bookmarking Globe and Mail articles I find interesting, which are displayed in my sidebar. (Aside: To view some of the articles they expect you to register, though you can just block cookies and delete your existing ones, and a flaw in their system allows you to read them without the registration) After my recent installation of Firefox 1.5, I was reviewing my bookmarks and came to Digg.com, another social bookmarking system that is sort of like a cross between Del.icio.us and Slashdot, but with a better interface. I suggest you check it out when you get a chance!

The real topic that I’d like to talk about is the value of digital media and print media, and the recent buzz over DRM. An aside, I’ve really been considering opting for an LL.B with a focus in Patent Law, Law and Technology, or Intellectual Property over my previous plan to get my M.Eng in Mechanical Engineering. Patent law has been especially prevalent in the media recently with the epic RIM and NTP battle over patent infringement. (It should be noted that I favour RIM in this dispute, and will also note the all of NTP’s patents have been initially rejected by USPTO) In the age of Web 2.0 and rising concepts of Open Source, Copyleft and the GPL there is a vast field of interesting topics I could pursue. (And which interest me much more than an engineering position that can’t help but be 3/4 management responsibilities, as is often the case)

I sometimes consider it shocking that I still purchase CDs. I am an avid user of iTunes, and even listen to the iTunes New Music Tuesday podcast. I have yet to purchase a song from iTunes (though I download the free song each week). My reasoning? The Digital Rights Management or DRM technology that comes along with it. When I buy music, I just want the music. When I purchase something, I don’t want restrictions on what I can do with it. Sure, when you take other more tangible items, say, for example, a gun, you are “restricted” to your use of it by law by measures in that if you use it to shoot someone, you will be charged with Murder (or if you don’t succeed in the likely goal, Assault). It’s the concept of Fair Use though that I’m going to focus on. To me, when I buy music, it is Fair Use to play it on my iPod, and on my computer. Yes, when I rip the music from the CD I am copying it, but what I am doing is not illegal. When it was “inconvenient” to rip my Our Lady Peace CD to play on my iPod, I felt I had bought a defective product. What use is a product that I can’t use? You can have an entire discussion over the right to break a law (which is the reason DRM technology is being added, to prevent piracy), but never should a company impede my ability to fair use of material that I legally purchased with good intentions. It would have been alot easier to pirate the music, but I didn’t, and I got punished for it.

In contrast is the peculiar digital print media, which varies in forms. The overall encompassing term of “content” I will use for both news print media (I sort of type of dynamic content), and articles (A type of static content). The latter has been a hot topic recently with scandal involving Wikipedia, where no one owns the content, and the communal whole work to better the content through checks and balances and constant peer review. The value of that content comes from the fact that there is a great satisfaction in the achievements of the Wiki community (I reject the assertion that it is altruistic). While the value is of a more subjective nature, then of a fixed (term used lightly) value, such as monetary value, the individual articles and the collective whole gain value as they are expanded and revised to higher level. (Look at the featured articles to see the quality that can be achieved)

Dynamic content is an interesting case. In a traditional news form, such as a newspaper, the value of the content diminishes, hence you pay for the most recent paper with the most premium and applicable content. Past news editions become archived, and there isn’t a cost for it. (I can remember going to the library and scanning microfilms for articles :) ) For the online form of this content, it seems to be inconsistent with this seemingly logical content value system. You get the newest news for free, while outdated stuff you pay for. What caused this switch in content value when the medium changed from traditional print to digital print? The business plan. While both mediums have a business plan founded on advertising, it is the context of the content and the market that changed. The difference is that the same content provided digitally can also be found at a multitude of other locations. If you have to pay for content in one spot, likelihood is that you don’t have to in another. It’s not like your quait traditionalist southern town (I know…play on enough stereotypes) in which that one biweekly community newsletter is your prime source of news. The Internet is vast, and if the content provider wants the business (that is your viewing), they need to draw you in with features and benefits. The value of your content is respective to their presentation of that content.

So why even charge for old content (especially when the costs associated today with hosting print media are so mundane)? While the relative content value generally declines, the specialized content value may rise. An esoteric article on a easily overlooked (by the general population) topic may have great value to an academic who is searching for that exact content. A summary or reference might not be good enough for them, and access to that content is valuable. The value then comes with the ability to retrieve that content. Today there is so much content that new content is quickly buried and even lost in the billions of web pages. The value of location and retrieval becomes extremely important for this esoteric market. Google has taken advantage of this and become the superior retrieval service. Google increased the value of content, and hence why it is such a valuable resource. An example is the Google initiative to scan books (Google Print) from selected libraries. Many of these books would never even be known to an individual searching for content, so providing the scanned info increased the value of these lost content sources. Publishers should be paying for such a valuable service, which is sure to increase sales, though Google is freely providing it. Every text that they scan and allow to be found has it’s value drastically increased by this service.

This brings me back around to my DRM infected digital media. Why pay for devalued content when I can receive the content of similar if not better quality (such as without the restrictions) for less cost (through iTunes), or for free (which in Canada, the courts have said is fine :P). The distributors are driving me away from content they offer (and that I want-I love my music) because of their restrictions and devaluing of the content I want before I even get it. And they wonder why sales are down…

Currently Listening to: Load Me Up - Matthew Good Band
Random Wikipedia Article: John Titor