Industry Rant: Piracy, DRM, and The Corporation as a Victim

I'm a Pirate. I'm not sorry that I'm a pirate, it's necessary to survive the age of bloatware and rebuys. I also purchase a lot -most, I'd say- of the applications that I use professionally, so if that opening admission makes me a target, shame on you, Big Software. I'm a supporter.

Let's define our terms.

Highware: Large companies and corporations need software to function. This software is priced pretty exorbitantly because companies will pay it or, even better for the developer/publisher, buy bulk licenses. If you're a teacher you know this to be true because, almost always, the academic discount shaves off a *significant* percentage. Companies that make this software- I'm not mentioning names because it doesn't matter- generally don't care if the software is stolen or not. If you steal it and use it properly, you'll eventually get to the point where you're a professional and you're making money using that software. It will pay for itself, and you'll buy it. Everyone wins. If you suck at using the software, you haven't lost any money and you aren't eating into the industry that uses it. Personally, stealing software is only harmful if you use it for personal or monetary gain without (eventually) giving back to the team of creators- tho as we've mentioned, they usually aren't hurting for cash. (I'd been calling this Bloatware, turns out that's slang for software that uses up more system resources than considered necessary or efficient. So for now I'll call expensive software suites HighWare.)

Rebuys: My family has purchased the movie Jaws on VHS, Laserdisc (yeah, laugh it up,) and DVD. I pay for netflix, so in the event that I need to stream it to something, I can do that too. Now I'm supposed to buy it on BluRay? No wonder people freaking steal movies. Corporations, meet me at camera three. Hello there. You know those things on the backs of products called barcodes? They are used to keep track of inventory. How about you let me use the barcodes on the back of my old products for a discount on new formats?* Or if I've purchased the Alien Legacy QUAD SET collection on Amazon, you let me scan the barcode and send in for 50% off the BluRay? Or a free soundtrack disc? Or freaking... Poster. Something to commemorate how much freaking money I have already thrown your way. I think you see where I'm headed with this. Help the consumer, don't hurt them. And if one thing is absolutely destroying consumer confidence, it is this:

DRM: Digital Rights Management. This is a form of copy protection that either kills or limits the consumer's ability to duplicate, copy, back-up, transfer, or alter digital media that they themselves have purchased. This is one of the largest fallacies of the information age and it has less to do with copyright law and more to do with the corporation being a huge headless beast. There are a few great (grave?) examples of DRM that I'm going to mention and tear apart.

1)iTunes store files:

Ever buy a song, show, or movie using the iTunes store? Ever try to play that song, show, or movie on someone else's computer? Yeah. No dice, unless you authorize that hardware address. You can't share anymore. Remember- the difference here is the delivery. Technically, when you buy a CD, you're buying a non-exclusive license to play that music privately for yourself. You don't own the song. You own a disc of it. The benefit of the hard copy is what I like to call (yes, I make up my own terms to organize toughts) the Kindergarten Principle. --Sharing is caring. Like an album? Share it! Burn it and pass it along. This is technically illegal, including back in the days of the first CDR drives or dub-ready stereo machines, on and on. What the DRM-using corporation doesn't realize is that this is the greatest benefit they could have to their market. Firstly, it puts sharing tracks and mixes in the hands of users. This uses not one but two of the the very definitions of advertising in the new Century of the Self- involve the consumer and make the consumer define or inform him or herself with the product itself. It's all about making them feel like they are building something alongside the artists and craftsmen. Mixdubs and mashups, internet radio, build your own smart playlists, again... on and on. Come up with new ways to involve and inform the consumer. And since it's music, hell- people have been defining themselves with musical choices since operas- but I'd argue that the walkman really turned the music world upside down. Suddenly life had a soundtrack, and that involved people in a whole new way. Btw, RIP Sony Walkman. ... Where the hell was I? RIGHT. DRM is crap and those that use it for music files are actually limiting their own market saturation, their own growth. If you cut out some of this DRM nonsense, let the files spread a little, you'll find that suddenly people are finding new bands with ease. Word spreads faster. Things catch on faster. More artists grow new fans. Everyone wins. With DRM, everyone is losing. When's the last time you bought something on vinyl? Artists and publishers that provide vinyl now often include a digital download of the album with the purchase. BRAVO! This is the path. Inclusion, not limitation.

2)Steam game apps:

If you don't play video games you are ridiculously stupid. Sorry, that... That came out wrong. If you don't partake in any form of video games, or worse, you are down on them for being childish or time-wasting, you are a sad, sad relic of a dead era. Sorry... I just don't understand people that are down on games. Interactive New Media is a fantastic new wave of entertainment that is growing and expanding at a dangerously speedy rate. Even more than music it exemplifies the nature of the new century in allowing the user to take part in the generative, or, dare I say, creative process. Little Big Planet and Sleep Is Death are great examples of how interactivity and creativity can join together to form something challenging and unique... Even communal. But we're not talking about games. Let's get back to DRM.

So you aren't one of those dead-era persons. You're a gamersperson. A gamesman. You pick up this PC game via a download store called Steam, Valve Software's online gaming store. It's a rainy day, a storm knocks out your internet, or your wireless is acting up because your roommate is torrenting porn. Whatever. You're having trouble connecting to the net. You boot up Steam to play your new game and LO! You can't play it because you can't connect to a Steam server. What's this then? It's a single-player-only game, how could- Oh, THAT's what that is. See what happened? Steam has instituted a DRM policy that *requires* an internet connection to "verify" your "licensing." Every. Single. Time. You play. I'm sorry but this is ludicrous. How can you not just build an offline key specific to an account and a hardware address? Store this key in the user's online account and build a new replacement key if they want to transfer to a new system?* I realize that sites like GOG offer DRM-free game downloads... Wait, they just closed down. /sigh.

I think I understand the source of the problem. The corporation doesn't know how to be a victim. They can't stop suing their own consumers. It's ludicrous out there! The RIAA, the MPAA, Cable companies are SUING THEIR OWN CUSTOMERS FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. They don't know what to do so their flailing around like characters out of Peter Bagge's HATE and hoping that fear will stop all this unabashed piracy! Two things. First, most pirates are Chinese, European, Scandinavian, and Eastern-European users that won't have access to what you're selling for another 8 months or more, if at all. It's a global economy, morons. Get with it. If it's good, everyone wants it, and they want it now, not 8 months or a year after America. Second, pirates that are 'stealing' your music and shows and movies and games are going to watch them and play them. They will recommend the good ones, building cred, word-of-mouth, support, and consumer base. These will sell more than usual. Equally, they will *not* recommend the bad ones, and no one will buy your crap any more. Suddenly the market is gaining intelligence and sources, thus not paying for crap when it comes out only to find out it's crap. Suddenly the product matters again. Suddenly the corporation is responsible. Scary stuff for this headless mass, so used to pushing people around and defining its own trends without a care for the individual consumer! Information isn't changing these waters, it is the water itself; the consumer is evolving past the old line of corporate sales and into a new realm of user-defined consumption. Let's all make it a responsible realm. Support your artists. Buy things from those that need the attention, and, hell, steal it too. And blog/tweet/status update about how awesome they are. Culture will grow with or without capitalism. I am an artist, and I support piracy.

*I think this is a bang-up idea.

An Open Letter to Gamers and The Entire Video Game Industry, Especially Journalists

Dear Gaming Community,

Are games art? YES. Now STFU.

Cheers.

Industry Rant: The Meta-Score Fallacy

I use metacritic a good amount. It seems like a fantastic idea to form a huge amalgam-review from all the individual voices out there. But there's been something bothering me for a long while.

Check this:


On the left is films. Wide releases are at the top, limited (indie, foreign) releases are at the bottom. See all that yellow? See all that red? Now. Music is on the right. Music appears to be limited to only wide releases. By which I mean there are no 'limited' releases.

Look at all that fucking green. What is that? There are... SEVEN MIXED REVIEWS and NO BAD ONES. You actually mean to tell me that ALL featured music is that good? Do musicians get a grading curve? Is a prerequisite of music critique being addicted to Xanax? If all music was this good- all MAINSTREAM music, mind you- nobody would be able to figure out what to purchase at the store and everyone would listen to every genre. Every genre would also not have any varying degrees of quality production- everything would be green. Like it appears here. But it's not. So.


Hypothesis 1: All the music is actually this good, and films, especially wide-release ones, are just so incredibly bad that they deserve harsh perspective.

Refutation of Hypothesis 1: I've heard lots of this music. Most of it is not what many would call "good." When "souldj4 boiiiI!1i1" is your only red score in 6 months, your critics are broken, your scoring is questionable, or both.

Hypothesis 2: There are more film releases than movies, so there are bound to be, statistically, more bad movies.

Refutation of Hypothesis 2: I have no desire to look into the release statistics of records versus films, but I think it's safe to say there are probably plenty of releases of both and each carries a certain percentage of crap. Whether these percentages vary is not the issue- the issue is that not a single album up there has been universally panned as being the crap that it probably is. Why? Why are these albums not called crap? Also, film actually has 2 sections- one for mainstream, which features much of the crap, and one for limited, which, while featuring more good stuff and more stars and highlights, is still riddled with average and bad reviews. Music doesn't even *have* a section for limited, it seems that popular culture is all that need be reviewed. I mean, it's all just so damn good, right?

Hypothesis 3: It's a matter of taste or genre.

Refutation of Hypothesis 3: Nobody reviews films according to genre. Some music publications seem to align to genre, but we aren't talking about singular sources, metascores aggregate multitudes. It is possible that genre helps music scores because people that focus on genre are more likely to relate to that genre and harbor an inclination to be kind, while people outside of the genre will score in a more objective manner. But this would make me think that the scores would even out, and more mixed reviews would result. And if it's a matter of taste... Really? I can't see how. The MPAA and the RIAA have very similar systems of cash cow talent and mainstream milking. Similar marketing ploys. Hell I think Hollywood's adoption of the ARG (Alternate Reality Game) as a type of marketing is downright brilliant. Music doesn't do that. I'd argue that the music industry is just as much a harbinger of schlock and crap as the film industry. So why the scores? People's taste? Critics enjoy all this crap? ALL of it? I just don't see it. Is it possible that the reviews chosen per album do not accurately reflect enough of a varied sample-set of critics? Are music critics being manipulated or brainwashed?

Hypothesis 4: Musicians have it easy.

Refutation of Hypothesis 4: Hey- it's just as difficult to break into the recording industry as it is the other entertainment fields. But industry aside, I'll have to go with this one. It seems like there's just no such thing as a music critic that actually knows anything about music. There. I said it. Video game journalists seem to have a better track record than these schmoes! And video game "journalists," are mostly no-talent wankers.

Go find one of your favorite albums of the last decade, look at its metascore, then read some reviews. If you can make it through more than 3 without wanting to slap the author come tell me which albums they are. And no, one of them can't be Brian Wilson's SMILE, that doesn't count. Everyone loved that album for 7 days and proceeded to forget it ever existed.

In any case, yeah. I've been gone a while. More [on the film] soon. Needed to rant off on that tomfoolery for a bit. Metacritic should adjust their music scoring curve so that 50's and 60's amount to 20's and 30's. Or something.

I wanted to include games and books-- Games were often mixed like film, while book reviews were majorly green with singular mixed reviews and an odd "bad." But metacrit did away with book reviews years ago.

Industry Rant: The Animation Sandbox

Here's the thing about animation.

It's fun, it's quirky, it lets the creator do just about anything. One can turn humans to liquid or a dog and cat duo into incredibly emotive lead characters.

The biggest strength of animation is also its biggest pitfall. All this freedom- essentially telling stories without the constraints of the natural physical universe- well sometimes that leaves the story out to dry and the viewer is left with a running demo reel.



Take the film "Sorry I'm Late." It's a gorgeous, fun, creative little romp. Check out the behind-the-scenes work- a whole pro crew, a slew of props and techniques, test shoots, casting, lighting. And for what? A play reel. It's quirky and creative, sure, but at the end of the day the film isn't actually about anything. It's literally a jaunt from an undisclosed point A to an undisclosed point B. No discernible reason for the trip and so there's really no reason for me to care. It's eye candy. Actually, it's more like eye fast food. An excuse to go play in a sandbox. And honestly? You might as well skip the pro budget and be these guys. It's less expensive and just as fun.

You can spot a similar trend with some of the leanings of the shorts of le Gobelins.



A quirky setup, a big chase with Rube Golberg style situational escalations and gags, then finally a payoff. Nothing too engaging and certainly no emotion or thought beyond some good solid laughs. And of course there's nothing wrong with a few laughs now and again.



I love Oktopodi. It got an Oscar nod last year.

I'll end with a counterexample. Pat Smith, a cool dude by any standard (I used to work at his studio so yeah, shameless plug) and his work is pretty wicked. A simple film like Handshake (one of my favorites of his) shows how in a few short minutes, with one location and two characters interacting, an entire story can really unfold. Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Sparks. Muddled existential dual identity crises. Relationship clashes, woes, humanity. Over and out. Rinse. Repeat.



It's not too innovative and the style is recognizable to the point of being familiar- but it's an original take on something timeless. And most importantly, the story is present both on the surface and between the lines.

In any case, everyone's a critic, and I'm no exception. I've been trying to put my money where my mouth is for years (which is hard with little to no resources) so-- no day like today! Until the next, I suppose.

Industry Rant : "The Information Economy"

Lots of people think they know lots of things. In my experience they know half as much as they'd expect, and expect they know about twice as much as you'd guess of them during a conversation. Well, I'm not one to judge but I've had this conversation with too many people who don't know what they're talking about when it comes to media. Essentially they the argument is that the models of digital downloads will replace retail and in many cases, the need for retail and manufacturing altogether.

Here's why that's not going to happen for at least a decade, if at all.

First, people aren't taking into account quality. Anyone who knows anything about data knows that the highest file sizes in media come from two places: sound and moving image. With audio, compression can save you a good amount of space at the expense of quality, but hi-quality audio gets pretty massive. And in first place of course is video. Moving pictures, even at a compressed rate, become absolutely astronomical very quickly. Codecs (compression/decompression algorithms) aren't going to save you that much space when you're talking about delivery of quality assets- 1080p HD video with 5.1 or 7.1 surround is what people want to fucking watch, alright? Hell, they expect it. And when you talk about digital media downloads, of films and such, you're not only talking about taxing storage solutions, but you're also talking about dealing with the [unnecessary] bandwidth caps of most American ISPs.

Second, people are forgetting ownership. If you buy a film digitally, it's sitting on a hard drive. If you buy a film in stores, it's palpable. It's on your shelf. It's unique in that it is your copy of something. It's a tangible purchase. Whether or not you think this is a good thing, you can't ignore the fact that having a tangible collection will always be more reliable, accessible, and collectible than digital media. Or, in some cases, some studios are bright enough to include a lower-res copy of the film for ipods/itunes on the disc(s) as well.

Third, Look at Apple TV. This is essentially the same thing you're talking about. So far it's been a dud in the Apple lineup. This comes back to quality. Why buy a movie if it's going to be 640X480 resolution? And still push 300-600 megs a film! Storage is getting cheaper, but that doesn't make these look any better when you full-screen the thing. Sure, they'll play on an ipod but nobody crowds around the ipod to take in a good flick.

People expect some kind of information revolution to whisk away the need for stores and hard copies of things on disc, but they don't realize that what they're talking about would be another product to replace a computer or DVR that essentially does the same thing in one concentrated place. (Another box on the shelf that does stuff? Good luck, Marketing.) I just need something that plays movies, man. Console movie downloads, iTunes movie downloads and rentals, instant viewing on Netflix- these things are a step in the direction for the so-called 'information economy' taking over media distribution. But completely replaceing cold, hard hi-quality media is pretty far away for those three reasons above and more.

To be fair, the people I talk to about this don't work in, on, or with this media. They're actors, journalists, writers. They'be never had to allot hard disk space for HD renders or spend hours tweaking compression for download and then cringing at the inevitable picture/sound degradation. They also don't realize that for the last 10 years, DVD sales have been 46% or more of the revenue stream for the major studios. For a good reason. Reliable, good picture quality, disc-based, attractive replacement for VHS, simple to use.

I could be proven wrong. Someone could blow Apple's h.264 codec out of the water and combine it with a solid-state storage solution with a low-cost fixed-rate fiber optic delivery system and a sleek, fast UI that puts every movie ever at people's fingertips. But if the quality isn't top-notch it won't go anywhere and lots of investors will lose lots of money on phantomware.

I was just writing a post to those people and those who agree with them blindly, saying, basically, it's like flying cars. Don't hold your breath.

A self-indulgent post? Maybe. But media is in the half of what I think I know that I do actually know. I think.

Industry Rant: "The Land of Catch 22"

My system drive is kaput and in the process of being replaced.

In the meantime I'd like to discuss screenwriting- a quirky but vital scrum on the field of entertainment. Yeah, that's a rugby metaphor. Anyways, most people don't understand the craft because they don't need it. Particularly animators and advertisers that just sort of fly straight to boards and play in their films like a big sandbox. Meeting Chen-Yi Chang, lead character artist at Disney for years, I learned Tarzan didn't even have a script. They threw out the latest draft and went straight to boards. In any case, I've had the pleasure of studying basic and advanced Dramatic and Visual Writing under both pros and struggling amateurs. All forms of this training served to give me a great idea of what to expect out of the industry: Nothing. Nobody's going to help you. Nobody wants to read your scripts. Nobody cares. You have to pry your way in with a godsdamn crowbar. [TL;DR see POINT below]

Here's the thing. You can't sell a script without representation. You can't get representation without selling a script. This isn't made up. This is the way the industry works. I've discussed it with agencies, with fellow writers, with speakers at the WGA headquarters and with WGA reps visiting Tisch. It's broken. It's archaic. It's inbuilt exclusivity that has nothing to do with good writing and everything to do with networking. It's literally a catch-22 and the only thing that the system as it stands serves to do is to make it incredibly hard for new talent to enter the industry and to ensure (via "membership") that hacks and frauds with little regard for art become entrenched among other respectable writers.

The WGA does nothing about this because exclusivity ensures a tightly-knit circle of pros and it keeps demand manageable, measurable even. Sadly, I've seen a brainwashed member defending this system. I've seen the face of old whitey* shouting "We all have to go through this! We all pay our dues!" Easy for you to say, old man. You're a fucking member of the WGA.

So, what can one do? One of the most helpful things to keep in mind is the 10% rule. Which is to say, avoid making this specific list of errors and you're already in the upper 10% of screenwriters. Not a bad bump for the first step. Then find agencies that accept unsolicited works for reading and start pinning rejection letters to your wall. After that, for now, your only option is to schmooze your eyes out, make your own films, or to be born into a Hollywood family. Oh, finally, it helps to be good at writing and storytelling. Sort of bass-ackwards but that's the industry for you.

Finally, and this is a personal complaint- for an industry that demands impeccable grammar and tosses out a script with a typo before page 10... Who says they know a damn thing about grammar? What did they major in English before moving to LA to become a skeez? I diagram sentences in my sleep, bitches, and I don't trust these agencies to know the difference between an appositive and a comma splice.

POINT: The Studio System as it pertains to screenwriting is an archaic monopoly perpetuated by obsolete unionized lapdogs and a system of nepotist and/or prejudiced agencies that maintain exclusivity based on a set of arbitrary self-referential requirements that have nothing to do with screenwriting.

I have an idea about this but putting it into action has taken a back seat to my next film or two. More next week.