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Cisco's New Router — Trouble For Hollywood 335

A user writes "Time Magazine has published an article about the impact of Cisco's new CRS-3 router on the business practices of the MAFIAA. This new router was previously mentioned here on Slashdot and is expected to alleviate internet bottlenecks that currently impede steaming video-on-demand services. Some of the highlights from the article: 'The ability to download albums and films in a matter of seconds is a harbinger of deep trouble for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which would prefer to turn the clock back, way back. ... The hard fact is that the latest developments at Cisco, Google and elsewhere may do more than kill the DVD and CD and further upset entertainment-business models that have changed little since the Mesozoic Era. With superfast streaming and downloading, indie filmmakers will soon be able to effectively distribute feature films online and promote them using social media such as Facebook and Twitter. ... Meanwhile, both the MPAA and the RIAA continue to fight emerging technologies like peer-to-peer file sharing with costly court battles rather than figuring out how to appeal to the next generation of movie enthusiasts and still make a buck."
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Cisco's New Router — Trouble For Hollywood

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  • sweet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ldconfig ( 1339877 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:14PM (#31511014)
    THANK YOU CISCO!!!
    • Re:sweet (Score:5, Insightful)

      by courteaudotbiz ( 1191083 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:35PM (#31511538) Homepage
      But hey, before this actually results in having 1080p videos streamed directly to your computer, the price per downloaded Gb will have to lower a lot. At least here in Canada. You imagine, I am currently capped at 25Gb per month with my current ISP, and it costs me 65$ per month for my Internet access.

      So I still rather go at the Blockbuster to rent a BluRay than download or stream the movie.
      • by Again ( 1351325 )

        But hey, before this actually results in having 1080p videos streamed directly to your computer, the price per downloaded Gb will have to lower a lot. At least here in Canada. You imagine, I am currently capped at 25Gb per month with my current ISP, and it costs me 65$ per month for my Internet access.

        I am also in Canada and mine is capped at 60 GB (plan here: http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Internet/High-Speed/ [www.shaw.ca]) and I pay significantly less than 65$ a month. Do you live in a rural area?

      • I am currently capped at 25Gb per month with my current ISP, and it costs me 65$ per month for my Internet access.

        You're getting ripped off. Teksavvy has 5M/800K ADSL with a 200G cap for $29.95/month.
  • Nothing new (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ihatejobs ( 1765190 )
    Its not like this is anything new... MPAA and RIAA are QQing because they are just like the newspaper industry: Behind the times and refusing to change.
    • Exactly.

      effectively distribute feature films online and promote them using social media such as Facebook and Twitter

      This was written about music in the days of Napster, and again when Myspace was popular. Those changed distribution to some degree but they didn't do a lot for indie musicians. The 1000s of garage bands connected to the internet have yet to put a dent in the old guard. Instead of the major labels and WalMart its still the major labels and Apple.

      Even people who don't want to pay for music prefer to pirate as opposed to download free indie material. This stays true even in the digital stores. Apple ma

      • Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)

        by commodore64_love ( 1445365 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @01:09PM (#31512236) Journal

        >>>The 1000s of garage bands connected to the internet have yet to put a dent in the old guard.

        I wouldn't say that. Radio is on the verge of death, and more and more young persons are listening to songs I've never heard of before - stuff they pulled off the internet. There's definitely a "dent" there.

        And the biggest sign things have changed? MTV stopped playing videos. That model survived until the 2000s and then died, because it was killed-off by the instant access of Youtube. Another channel called "TheTube" tried to revive music television, but it went bankrupt in 2006.

        The interactive nature of internet is slowly-but-surely killing off passive forms like TV and Radio.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by cgenman ( 325138 )

          Sure, but a lot of those bands are Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Usher, etc. They're new and incredibly popular, but they're all housed under major labels.

          A really popular independent musician can expect to make a hundred dollars a month or so on iTunes. Realistically, though, the money all goes to a few people with concentrated star power, all of whom are on major labels at the moment. Sure, CD sales have nosedived for iTunes, the radio is struggling to keep up with Pandora streaming, and digital home rec

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        Even people who don't want to pay for music prefer to pirate as opposed to download free indie material. This stays true even in the digital stores.

        Because it's impossible to find the good indies among the mountians of utter crap. and some in the utter crap would be good if they simply learned to record.

        mp3.com had a effective indie charts setup, but all other places have a useless way of filtering down the ooky stuff. Granted my ooky is someones holy grail. I cant stand screamo-deathmetal or gangsta-r

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Its not like this is anything new... MPAA and RIAA are QQing because they are just like the newspaper industry: Behind the times and refusing to change.

      Editor's note: "QQ" is internet slang for "cry". The little lines are supposed to be tears, while the O's are eyes.

  • The wrong model. (Score:3, Informative)

    by InsaneProcessor ( 869563 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:16PM (#31511074)
    The MPAA and the RIAA continue to use the lawyer model. They are operated by lawyers for lawyers. Remember "I would rather fight than switch"?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:18PM (#31511116)

    I don't buy the more bandwidth equals more piracy angle at all. We already have enough bandwidth to destroy Hollywood if we wanted or if that was even possible.

    The one thing that has changed more that any new pipe size is that world governments are finally taking command and control of the internet. They will shutdown the whole thing at Hollywood's request. They will require the ISPs to provide point-and-click shutdown just like they enable point-and-click spying. Hell, they will require they build anti-piracy into the CRS-3, if they don't already. And internet anonymity will be made illegal and anyone who provides such services will be shutdown or walled off the internet.

    • by Pojut ( 1027544 )

      If this happens (which is entirely possible), I wouldn't be surprised if a "pirate" internet appears in some form or another.

    • by schon ( 31600 )

      I don't buy the more bandwidth equals more piracy angle at all.

      Who said anything about "piracy"? If you read the summary (not even the article) you'll see this:

      With superfast streaming and downloading, indie filmmakers will soon be able to effectively distribute feature films online

      • That's the real point of the article, I think. Not "OMG PIRATEZ" but "kiss the corrupt, archaic, money-sponging, control-grubbing distribution mechanism good-bye."

        Cut out the middleman once he's no longer a necessary evil. Get your films into moviehouses without paying your tribute and signing away your rights; bypass the labels and directly publish your tunes to the masses.

        That said, the pigopolists will insist it really is all about OMG PIRATEZ. If buggy-whip manufacturers could have, I'm sure they would

  • Not as long as ISPs offer most of us nothing better than high-latency 1.5 Mbit DSL, or low-rate cable. If we even get a choice of those two.

    Oh, I forgot, the FCC is going to magically solve the last-mile (or last-500-feet) problem. Right, there you go.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Not everyone in the world is stuck in a backwards third world in denial shithole.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        I live in Arkansas, you insensitive clod!
      • by _KiTA_ ( 241027 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:53PM (#31511912) Homepage

        Not everyone in the world is stuck in a backwards third world in denial shithole.

        Hey, our infrastructure might be falling apart, our education system is an intentionally inadequate rote memorization nightmare, and we recently had a bloodless coup by the corporations (which wasn't reported on much, cause our news all comes from corporations), but at least we have McDonalds and Cable TV!

        AMERICA, FUCK YEA!

        • McDonalds and Cable TV are now available almost anywhere in the world.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          but at least we have McDonalds and Cable TV!

          Hate to break this to you but I can get those in the third world these days.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      >>>the FCC is going to magically solve the last-mile

      Yeah it's called "spend until you go bankrupt" and then wonder why it happened. Like those $7/hour McDonalds or Walmart employees who can't figure out why they lost their $250,000 homes. You spend beyond your means, even if you are the U.S. Government, and consequences will occur.

  • Steaming? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymusing ( 1450747 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:19PM (#31511126)

    From the summary: "steaming video-on-demand services"

    Does the new router dry-clean and iron the services, too? Or do they mean "steaming" as in "pile of stuff that my dog just left behind on a cold day"?

  • The Last Mile (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Redwin ( 837889 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:19PM (#31511136)
    I was under the impression that the backbones where these routers are used was never the "bottleneck" for streaming video and such. Isn't the connection from each user's home to the ISP more the issue? I mean its great to triple the backbone bandwidth, but is it really accurate to say doing so is going to make it easier for the average user to download movies?
    • Not sure what your experience has been, but my connection is 10mps down. The bottleneck is always on the server or server's isp -- it is very hard to find servers that can actually stream video at reasonable quality and speed.
    • I was under the impression that the backbones where these routers are used was never the "bottleneck" for streaming video and such. Isn't the connection from each user's home to the ISP more the issue?

      I mean its great to triple the backbone bandwidth, but is it really accurate to say doing so is going to make it easier for the average user to download movies?

      I have a 20 mbps connection and on a good day, speed tests will show me in the 15-18 mbps range. 99% of the time I can't break 6 mbps, though. Maybe the backbone is my bottleneck.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Bengie ( 1121981 )

        During peak hours(5-10pm) I get these speeds typically
        Me to ISP: ~30mbit sub 10ms ping 1ms jitter
        Wisconsin to Wisconsin(Another ISP): 28mbit sub 10ms ping 1ms jitter
        Wisconsin to Chicago: ~15mbit ~20ms ping 2ms jitter
        Wisconsin to New York: ~10mbit ~40ms ping ~5ms jitter
        Wisconsin to LA: ~8mbit ~40ms ping ~5ms jitter

        My ISP seems quite good, but obviously the back bone starts to bottle neck.

    • Increasing the backbone bandwidth will allow for faster connections between ISPs and customers because there will be more bandwidth available between ISPs and their providers.

    • Not really (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:57PM (#31511986)

      Coaxial cable has loads of bandwidth (in the analogue spectrum sense). On a typical modern HFC network you are talking probably 1GHz of bandwidth to the home. Now DOCSIS 2 doesn't make real good use of that as you can use only 1 6MHz channel which gives you about 38mbits total effective throughput shared among all users on the segment. However segments are getting smaller as the fibre part of the network is built out, and there is the possibility of having different kinds of users on different channels.

      All that isn't a big deal though, as DOCSIS 3 is up and operational. It can bond an arbitrary number of channels together to increase bandwidth. Currently, DOCSIS modems out there can do 4 or 8 channels giving you 152-304mbps.

      Also, there's going to be a lot of that cable space available rather soon. Currently you find that most of the spectrum is taken up by analogue TV. 6MHz per channel, often as much as 100 channels. 600MHz of the spectrum can go to that. In the remaining 400MHz comes all the HDTV and so on plus usually a digital version of said analogue channels these days. So, get rid of that, you've got 600MHz of space for data.

      That gives you in the realm of 3.8gbps per segment.

      Last mile is capable of much more than we see right now, and can be scaled up even further. The reason you don't tend to see it is the bandwidth higher up. If a cable company suddenly switched everyone over to 300mbps DOCSIS 3 service they'd get slammed. Customers wouldn't get anywhere near their supposed service because there just isn't the bandwidth for it high up stream.

      If you want more speed to the house, there's got to be more speed higher up. That's just how it goes with any network. Also the more a router can handle the less the bandwidth costs. If 10gbps takes up a whole line card on a router and the router can only handle a few of those cards, it is going to be pretty expensive. If 10gbps can be packed in by the hundreds of ports, it costs a hell of a lot less.

      The less bandwidth costs your ISP, the less they have to charge you for using it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by crashumbc ( 1221174 )

        The less bandwidth costs your ISP, the less they have to charge you for using it.

        That should read
        "The less bandwidth costs your ISP, the MORE they WILL TRY to charge you for using it."

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        The frequencies being released are at the low end, they cant carry as much information. RF modulation over coax is nothing like Fiber. you cant free up a transmission mode and use it as much as the others. The low channel 2-13 frequency segment cant carry 1/2 of what one of the upper QAM constellation channels can carry.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 )

          While I don't know enough about RF data encoding to counter that for certain, I'm a bit skeptical. Reason being I do know about video and how the 6MHz channel bandwidth is used. If in fact there was half the available data, that would mean those channels would look markedly worse than the higher frequency ones. You'd see a halving of the luma resolution, which would be very noticeable. That is not the case from anything I've seen.

          So I'm not sure that you are wrong, but can you provide a source for your info

  • The speed of most downloads is bandwidth limited by the computer it is being downloaded from, not by the network. This new router isn't going to make peer-to-peer networks noticeably faster. It's not going to make downloads from servers with thousands of concurrent connections noticeably faster either.
    • by Andy Dodd ( 701 )

      Maybe if this router has improved multicast support and SOMEONE ACTUALLY TURNS IT ON, it might make a difference.

      Increased backbone capacity or downstream capacity isn't nearly as much of a threat to Hollywood as multicast would be... It would allow torrents to be VERY rapidly seeded to multiple peers. You could still use "classic" BT techniques for filling in the holes, but if the initial seed were done as multicast, you'd get lots of distrubuted seeds up and running very quickly.

      Similarly, for most vide

  • by garcia ( 6573 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:21PM (#31511186)

    What stops them is my 10000/1000 connection that I pay $100/month to get and the additional fees (like $10/month to Netflix) to get a small selection of movies on top of that because the MPAA refuses to allow direct competition with new DVD releases.

    I guarantee you that if someone did some digging they'd find serious collusion with Blockbuster and the MPAA over Redbox and thus why Redbox isn't allowed to get the cheap new release DVDs it once did. God forbid we have cheap access to movies right away. If you have to pay $6/rental for them you'll think they're worth so much more money than $1/day.

    Oh nevermind, this is why I no longer go to the movies either. If it's not on Redbox for $1 or Hulu for free I'm not going to watch it. Now if only I could get the rest of the world to do that too maybe the MPAA would really be worried.

  • by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:22PM (#31511198)

    Same thing we have been saying for years: Technology advances, get over it, find a better business model or quit. Buggy whips!

    The problem is, the current market doesn't need the middle man anymore. The middle man makes the media crappy and monotone to appeal for a large audience so they can make a quick buck, people want better stuff. Eventually the pendulum is going to swing back as 'indie' filmmakers trying to make a quick buck are going to be distributing their own stuff overloading the consumer with crappy, monotone media - the consumer is going to start looking at a more centralized source which will aggregate several of these media sources and filter out the bad stuff until they see the need to make a quick buck by overloading their loyal customers with crap again.

    Eventually it all comes around but for now we don't need the middle man anymore. Just as we don't need buggy makers anymore but we have wanted fossil-fuel-powered buggy makers for the last few decades and the next few decades we're going to need electric-powered buggy makers. All-in-all, we need buggy's, it's just that the type and kind has changed.

    • The problem is that the US government is so short-sighted that it only sees the current crop of services as the only way to move it's economy forward so you get things like ACTA. It's to the point that making unpopular decisions about how to lock everything up that might be a thought is a fricken' national security issue. Well, any government that let itself get into that position shouldn't be asking all their friends to lock-in to their mistake. Even when we don't it's not the end of the US, I still hav
      • by guruevi ( 827432 )

        That's the same mentality that short-term managers have had for the last few decades and businesses are currently reaping the problems associated with it (Microsoft format/vendor lock-in, riding/investing on a bubble, offering long-standing companies up on the stock market altar to gain IPO money - then slowly dying).

        As always, government is a few years behind on inheriting those business-processes so over the next few decades you'll see the government slowly killing itself while selling out to the highest

  • Yeah, right. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:22PM (#31511234) Homepage

    The new router is just the previous model with plug-in cards that can switch 3x as much data. It's even possible to upgrade existing CRS routers without a shutdown, changing out the cards one at a time. It's a nice upgrade if you have a need for a router that big, but not that revolutionary. The revolution happened years ago, when routers got big enough that video streaming on a large scale was possible.

  • MAFIAA (Score:2, Insightful)

    by wjousts ( 1529427 )
    I fail to see how childish name calling in the summary helps advance the debate.
    • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

      by ArcadeNut ( 85398 )

      It doesn't help the debate, it just makes it more likely to be accepted by /.

      The more sensational the summary, the more likely it gets picked....

    • I fail to see how childish whining helps do anything to further this debate...

      Besides, everyone here with half a braincell already knows the MPAA/RIAA is evil. The 'debate' (really a discussion) is over whether or not this new router hurts them.

      But hey, never pass up a chance to bitch about slashdot right?

    • The name-calling helps people read the slashvertisment. It's actually a very well-written bit of guerrilla marketing.

    • It's not really childish name calling, so much as it has become accepted as the name we all use for referring to the MPAA and RIAA, without having to refer to them both individually. What's easier to type, MPAA/RIAA or MAFIAA? MAFIAA has become so commonplaced, that I don't even recognize the dig against them anymore. Even if we did recognize it, the fact that they use organized, yet pseudo-criminal, methods for getting money from people is just that: a known fact. It's now beyond debate.

      The term is si

  • by RobotRunAmok ( 595286 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:24PM (#31511266)

    NetFlix is streaming online. So is Hulu. Downloads of audio and video are available from iTunes, and, increasingly, Amazon. Sure, there are some rights issues, region issues, changes won't be made over night (get over it), but they are clearly happening. The stagnation/fear that followed in Napster's wake is ebbing considerably.

    For the most part, if you want to legitimately download/stream a popular bit of mass culture from/through the Internet, you pretty much can.

    The problem is that too many people want to do that and not pay for it. To keep their self-righteous indignation and justification alive, they continue to bitch that "Hollywood is not delivering stuff the way I want to get it (so I'll just take it)"

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 )

      While I agree and disagree with parts of your post, I don't see a line of it that is a troll.

      Someone mod him back up.

      --

      I think the prices are too high. You can easily drop the price of a *good* new car in under 10 years. That's insane.

      I watch and listen to indie stuff, I play the service changing game (now on directv and back at $34 a month again. I cut my service repeatedly at Dish to get it down to 60 and they kept raising the price back to over $70 for less and less product).

      I watch shows on the free

  • bandwidth costs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:26PM (#31511340)

    So does this mean that we'll be able to have less expensive bandwidth and/or pipe costs in the near future? No? I didn't think so.

    I find it highly unlikely this will do much more than shave the costs of operation a bit for larger organizations which might actually need something like this: hosting providers, pipe providers, colo providers, and the like. I'd say the chances are slim that the common man would gain much benefit from this change.

  • by porky_pig_jr ( 129948 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:27PM (#31511352)

    the whole thing of "downloading DVD in a few seconds" is a complete nonsense. We're talking about a backbone router. You download speed is limited by the bandwidth of the either end point of your connection, whichever is slower. *That's* your major bottleneck, and not a bottleneck on a backbone.

  • embrace the pain (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bugi ( 8479 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:29PM (#31511382)

    If it improves the situation for indie filmmakers, then it can't be bad for the film industry. It may be painful for the entrenched interests, but they should be embracing that pain as a learning tool rather than amplifying it and passing it on to innocent bystanders.

  • by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:30PM (#31511420) Homepage

    I just bought DRM-free FLAC files of a new album from The Whigs [thewhigs.com], who belong to a sub-label of Sony. The music industry is slowly but surely starting to modernize and correct how they sell music. I'm sure we'll eventually see the movie industry do the same and start offering high-quality DRM-free stuff online. If anything, infrastructure upgrades like this router will just help that come sooner because their bandwidth costs will go down. I'm sure they're not happy about changing, but they don't really have a choice and I think they're finally beginning to realize that.

    (Not to say I condone any of their lawsuits, privacy invasions, or other malicious shenanigans -- I wrote PeerGuardian for frak's sake.)

  • Adapt or die.
  • by xs650 ( 741277 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:34PM (#31511502)
    "The hard fact is that the latest developments at Cisco, Google and elsewhere may do more than kill the DVD and CD and further upset entertainment-business models"

    I read that as entitlement-business model the first time. Made more sense.
  • Slanted Wording (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @12:38PM (#31511582) Homepage Journal

    Dear editors,

    I have been reading and posting on Slashdot for years. The reason I have stuck around for so long is that I appreciate Slashdot as a place where interesting discussions take place. There are many sites on the World Wide Web where everyone is free to comment, but Slashdot stands out from the crowds by making interesting and well-worded messages visible amid the quagmire of nonsense, insults, spam, and other noise people are bound to post to public fora.

    The summary posted for this story, unfortunately, is full of slanted wording. Without wanting to defend the RIAA and the MPAA or their business practices, I will simply note that calling them "MAFIAA" or claiming their business models "have changed little since the Mesozoic Era" is not very conductive to having a civilized discussion. Since having or witnessing such a discussion is what I come to Slashdot for, summaries such as the present one are not up to the standards I like Slashdot to aspire to.

    Let's have discussions based on rational arguments, so that we may all benefit from what everybody has to say. Insults buy us nothing. Moderators mod down comments that consult them, and I would like for the editors to not post summaries that contain them. If the story is interesting, someone can submit a summary without such or other noise.

    Thank you for your consideration, and please keep Slashdot above the level of other fora.

    Sincerely,

    A Faithful Slashdotter

    • I agree that "MAFIAA" does not belong in the summary. The "Mesozoic Era" is a quote from the article though, so that's not something the editor is responsible for.
    • Re:Slanted Wording (Score:5, Informative)

      by kindbud ( 90044 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @01:12PM (#31512290) Homepage

      Did you read the Time article linked in the article summary? The language you complain about in the summary came directly from the Time article, or is a paraphrase of it. And that's just the beginning.

      The CRS-3, a network routing system, is able to stream every film ever made, from Hollywood to Bombay, in under four minutes.

      Cisco's superrouter is expected to turn what is now the equivalent of a country road into an eight-late superhighway for Internet data traffic, including 3-D video, university lectures and feature films such as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

      This would allow consumers to complete a PC download of a Hollywood blockbuster like Avatar in about 72 seconds.

      The ability to download albums and films in a matter of seconds is a harbinger of deep trouble for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which would prefer to turn the clock back, way back.

      Consider that the MPAA, whose members include Disney and Universal, attacked the VCR in congressional hearings in the 1980s with a Darth Vader-like zeal, predicting box-office receipts would collapse if consumers were allowed to freely share and copy VHS tapes of Hollywood movies.

      Today the film and recording industries maintain an iron grip over distribution of their intellectual property through megaplexes and national retailers such as Best Buy, Tower Records and Walmart.

      The hard fact is that the latest developments at Cisco, Google and elsewhere may do more than kill the DVD and CD and further upset entertainment-business models that have changed little since the Mesozoic Era.

      The upshot is that the high castle walls built over the past 100 years by the film industry to establish privilege and protect monopolistic profits may soon come tumbling down, just as they have for the music industry.

      Your problem is not with /. editors, it's with Time Magazine.

    • by kindbud ( 90044 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @01:17PM (#31512426) Homepage

      And you people who are moderating the parent up are just as bad as he is. Didn't read the article before adding your two cents.

      What was parent saying about the contribution of Slashdot moderators to the quality of its "fora?"

      ...but Slashdot stands out from the crowds by making interesting and well-worded messages visible amid the quagmire of nonsense, insults, spam, and other noise people are bound to post to public fora.

      The author of the parent is one of the same people he complains about, and so are the mods who rated him up.

      Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

    • Geeknet, Inc.
      650 Castro St.
      Suite 450
      Mountain View, CA 94041
      US

      You may want to complain to them. They own /., a comment posted here is less likely to be taken seriously than a letter to the corporate masters.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by roman_mir ( 125474 )

      Mr. RAMMS+EIN (578166), that is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out objection.

      (at this point you should say 'Thank you, sir'.)

      Overruled.

  • The only problem here is that the companies that make up the RIAA and MPAA have put on a facade of being the producers of entertainment. It's a facade because they got into producing only after the fact, and usually what they produce can hardly be considered original or creative in any way. They are not artists.

    Their original business model was distribution. The internet has opened up communication between any two people on the earth from the narrow confines of voice and fax to just about anything that ca

  • If DVDs are from the Mesozoic, peer-to-peer file sharing is not an "emerging technology." The new routers and Internet speeds you're talking about are an emerging technology; P-t-P has pretty darn well emerged. Protip: if you're going to use hyperbole for a good semi-comedic/sarcastic effect, don't mush the meanings of terms in the "straight" part. :)

  • The film and music industry must realize that there is a new distribution model: the online distribution.

  • Well, instead of HD, the MPAA should push for a 1920000*1080000 standard so it will be so large that it's not feasible to download from the line. How they are going to distributed it on disc media is a homework left for the reader.

    Accept the fact MPAA! Newspaper didn't die because of the Internet, they just adopt and changes and now I see some newspaper are making money by providing access to the archive, or other link and analysis functions which is not possible with the deadwood media.
    I believe you can do

  • What is this business model that involves distributing movies for free via p2p and still making a buck? Selling t-shirts? It's slipping my mind right now.
    • Merchandising does make a lot of money. Just ask George Lucas or those responsible for Ben 10 to name just two.

    • Likely the same business model that allowed networks to broadcast free content over the airwaves for half a century, though, there are other models.

  • The ability to download albums and films in a matter of seconds

    I can do that now.... from a datacenter.

    The point being Cisco's new routing equipment is so far up the food chain consumers won't *ever* know the difference.

    Given Cisco can bribe their way into any deal with a viable customer, I'm still interested to hear about the chances this device has in the marketplace and its competitors.

  • i thought that copyright, the basis for all media corps, can at best be traced back to the 1700s.

    also, i wonder how much of the current issue is that laws, at least i parts of the world, is mixing the rights of the creator as being named as just that creator, and the issue of who can make copies. As long as this is under one set of law, one can argue for time frames to benefit the former while its real effect will be seen in relation to the latter.

  • by xee ( 128376 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @01:28PM (#31512660) Journal

    Isn't Time-Warner the single biggest member of both the MPAA and the RIAA? Why would anyone listen to their obviously biased opinion on this matter? The article is full of misinformation, fear, uncertainty, and doubt: just the kind of sensationalism we love here at slashdot.

    First, consider the comparison made at the outset to describe the difference in scale between a home router and a CRS-3. Rather than using a neutral example, like car horsepower, an example is given which puts none other than the vicious T. Rex dinosaur in the position of the CRS-3. What is more understandable to the reader, the big violent dinosaur or the car with 1,000,000 horsepower? Of course both are equally understandable, but they give drastically different impressions.

    "As it turns out, these megarouters sitting inside data centers of major telcos and cablecos are among the biggest bottlenecks of the Internet, because as bandwidth speed to end users has shot up in recent years, router technology has not kept up, resulting in traffic jams that can slow or freeze downloads."

    You know you can trust TIME Magazine to report on the state of the art in core Internet statistical measurements. Need I say more? These bozos have the audacity to make such a bold claim, without even a hint of statistical data, without attribution to an outside study, without a quote by a recognized expert or even an industry insider. Am I supposed to take author Erik Heinrich's word for it? He's the guy who compares routers to geckos and T. Rexes!

    The real story here should be Time-Warner's blatant use of the TIME publication to further it's corporate overlord agenda in collusion with the other members of the Big Media cartel. We'll see much more of this coming from all the usual suspects as we get nearer to a vote on ACTA.

  • by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday March 17, 2010 @01:56PM (#31513172) Homepage

    The Time article mentions that one of the major distributors over which the music industry has an "iron grip" is Tower Records. Tower Records went bankrupt in 2006, and all the US retail outlets were closed. They still have some online operations, and a few stores around the world use the name, but that's it.

    That part of the article leads to a point few have mentioned. The RIAA and the MPAA used to deal almost entirely with distributors who were weaker than they were - record stores, often small ones, and movie theaters. That's no longer the case. The remaining stores that sell CDs and DVDs do so as a sideline. There are DVDs in WalMart, Best Buy, Target, etc., but they're not a big fraction of the business. Online, the RIAA and MPAA have to deal with Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. All of those companies are much bigger than any music industry player, and bigger than most of the film studios.

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