With Hulu essentially a timid extension of the cable industry, Netflix is about as disruptive as you’re currently going to get in the Internet video space. That’s certainly not thanks to Hollywood, which has employed obnoxious licensing restrictions like 30 day new release delays to limit Netflix’s power and supposedly protect DVD sales revenue. CNET notes that Hollywood execs continue to be “spooked” by Netflix, and are worried about a number of things, including Netflix’s impact on in-flight movie purchases and DVD sales, which the studios insist have slowed in the age of digital media despite their new release delay windows (duh). Hollywood’s plan appears to be to simply dump less valuable content to Netflix and home consumers “get bored”:

Incessant whining and trying to disrupt a new delivery route for your content you weren’t innovative enough to create ourself certainly sounds like Hollywood thinking. However, Hollywood isn’t Netflix’s only problem — with Netflix getting more vocal about the anti-competitive impact of metered billing, North America’s largest ISPs are also going to increasingly be taking aim at the company.
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Tags: Appeal, delays, Digital Media, DVD, Internet, Media, Telecommunications India, Windows

This is a guest post in reaction to the idea floated by Mathew Carley who mentioned this in the exchange of the emails published earlier.

The idea is very straight forward. Create a place where the computers are on, always. You hire the place depending on the time and the requirement. Run the place on solar energy (just to be “environmentally correct”) and Linux and you are ready to go. Of course, if you are in India, rest assured that you have to deal with a maniacal governmental control (the same assholes you have elected in power are screwing up your happiness). I can’t help the collective wisdom of masses but there is always a hope in imperfect world. Without much delay, here is the post.

The idea of establishing a network for Free Public Internet Cafe is something that ALL of the developed countries have already implemented.

We, in Canada have similar arrangements in all our libraries. But we have THREE parallel arrangements. Each network group is located on different floors and sections of the library. The first one is located on the ground floor and close to the entrance and is like a walk-in health clinic; the second one is located in the general section of the library and it is less crowed as compared to the 1st one; AND the third system is in the Research Section of the Library where you have absolute silence and everyone is quietly working on their own researches. The programs and settings of each type are different. And it is all FREE.

1. The 1st Network is similar to the system Mathew explained, it is available on first come first served basis with no advanced reservations. You can use a terminal for 15 minutes at a time. After the 15 minutes the system logs the person out automatically.

2. The 2nd Network is for people who need to use computers for longer duration up to 1 hour or two hours at the most in one day unless there is no one else that wants to use the computer. You have to book a particular terminal in advance, but no one hogs the computers. A floor supervisor is present all the time to help and they have the administrative access and authority to bar any card from having the access if someone abuses. Such a scenario is EXTREMELY rare.

3. The third Network is for those who need to do extensive research or work/prepare research papers and they can use these terminals for one full day if they want (9 a.m. to 9 p.m.). These are also to be booked in advance.

The computer reservations at any branch of the library across the nation can be done online from any place in the nation at anytime, because the libraries are online 24/7. You can also search the available resources in the libraries and reserve them, extend the time on the book/materials you have borrowed (there is a limit of several days/weeks depending on the demand and availability of that particular book/CD/DVD etc) or have them transferred from any library in the country to a branch you want to use in or collect from and it is done in 3 to 10 days time (that is pretty good considering the fact that it is over three times the size of India in terms of geographic extent. It takes minimum 5 hours in a Jet plane to travel from the east to the west of Canada).

The library cards expire after two years unless it is renewed. It has a photo of the person in it and not transferable and you cannot use the card unless you have the pin for it. You can use the card and issue resources to yourself from the general sections (not reference materials) at a terminal similar to an ATM machine and walk out with it. If you try to take anything out of the building without issuing it on your card the alarm will ring at the check post situated several feet from the exit door; and the security guard who is posted between the check post and the exit door would not allow you to go until everything is checked with the librarian at the front desk (sometimes it could be a false alarm because the system failed to deactivate the barcode).

There are no commercial internet cafes in Canada, even visitors/tourists can get a temporary library card issued if they have proper documents but only with a citizen or a permanent resident of Canada co-signing the application form.

This kind of networks for free public access can be organized and established in India without the government having to spend much in cash (may be about 5 thousand rupees per house hold at the most) but in kind. We would require a team dedicated to garnering relevant resources – technical manpower, hardware, software, space, etc. free of cost from various stakeholders in various sectors – Business sector, Higher Education Sector, IT sector (various types of IT Companies including ISPs and Cable companies), Real Estate Builders/Promoters, etc. who can write their contribution off as donations for charitable/social development purposes in their tax returns (under the non-refundable tax credits).

Building a structure for housing such a social enterprise in each community can be easily accomplished FREE of COST with in-kind contribution from the local community members (from each house hold), local businesses of every size and local social organizations, and use government waste-lands or lands that were used as garbage dumps sites, or swamps etc.; which are in plenty in all our suburbs and villages if we only look for them. Indian Land & Revenue department has classified all land in very part of the nation and the info is available online for anyone.

So also various departments of Central and State governments can pitch in their little bits and they would all add up to be a VERY LARGE POOL of RESOURCES, provided the RESOURCE HARVESTING TEAM would be corruption proof and corruption free. The pool of resources so gathered would be so large that we would have a lot left over and would have to come up with new projects to use them.

I am not exaggerating, but professing this possibility, after having carefully evaluated for several years now, all resources in India that are not used, underused or wasted; and after having spent considerable amount of time researching on various Indian government programs and funds that are available and not used. Which could be tapped into by the RESOURCE HARVESTING TEAM and this dream and more can be made a reality immediately within THREE to FIVE years if we put together our heads and contribute our time and skills to do it.

Believe me there are plenty of every resource we would need for such a project in India. It is just that no one has done anything about it as yet. Similar efforts have been successfully established and been fruitful in India with respect to ‘Green Revolution’ pilot project in Punjab; RUSA project (Rural Unit for Health and Social Affairs) under the management of Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu and many more in small obscure places/communities in India; of which not too many Indians have knowledge about.

Sheena David

Update 1: This post has been edited with some changes as suggested by the author herself.

Update 2I have strongly encouraged the author to come on board since it is very rare that a motivated soul comes in to contribute ideas for national resurgence. It is very important to provide a platform for wider dissemination of ideas.

I strongly encourage readers to contribute for guest posts, if possible. Ideas need to be shared; your view point should start of a discussion on how best to achieve the elusive goal of “broadband for all”.

Tags: Assholes, author, Broadband, Broadband in India, Corruption, DVD, EDGE, India, Indians, Internet, Linux, Media, Telecommunications India, TRAI

Piracy, in strictest sense of the term, is defined as “copyright violation”. It is strictly the realm of law to define the various provisions and it’s literal meaning. The purpose of this post is not to go in the legalese but to define the reason behind this “growing phenomenon”: Broadband.

I remember the days of pathetic 56 kbps access on the telephone modem. The dial up access was atrociously expensive, the lines faced frequent disconnections and the overall experience was laced with frustrations. I writhed my hands in despair when I heard about Napster allowing unrestricted exchange of music residing on the hard drives. While I don’t condone this (for legal reasons) but it allowed unrestricted exchange of music one never knew ever existed! Napster died a horrible death due to unrelenting legal challenges by MPAA.

MPAA is a quasi union to protect the interests of the content creators. US has been a test bed of the way this contentious issue has evolved over the years. The MPAA has garnered a lot of bad press from the people who fuel the peer to peer networks. There has been a dissent generated from the ISP’s who claim that this kind of traffic chokes their network and cite FUD campaigns to announce the imminent breakdown of Internet; that the bandwidth would soon run out with the kind of content that is being shared.

In the Web 2.0 arena, interestingly, none of the players are making serious money but follow the basic “Christy” method of “harvesting of souls“. Content is created to dumb down the masses in name of entertainment and people hooked on to the “opium of masses” (based on the loose misrepresentation of Marx). Frankly, content creation involves mega budgets and creators look for perpetual “evergreening” of “copyright” in order to milk whatever is worth it.

In this scenario, it is a double pronged attack on the people who share something that is inaccessible or content that has been blocked because of complex copyright issues. For example, a movie having a theatrical release in US quickly goes through it’s DVD sales and then released “worldwide”. Peer to peer networks (Torrents or it’s variants) has changed the game altogether. The moment a DVD is released, it is “ripped” and uploaded for all. The “seeders” abound for the “leechers” and the cycle continues.

The speeds are an issue worldwide. Primarily, the governments have encouraged faster speeds by tax breaks and other incentives to promote digital lifestyles and the positive spinoffs from that. Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea and Japan have lead the way. Recently, Australia announced it”s grand plan to push rural broadband impetus. US has had an acrimonious debate about the role of FCC (their version of TRAI) and the paltry definition of broadband access at 256kbps. Despite the intensive lobbying, nothing really has come out of it.

Piracy has kept pace with the “increasing” speeds so as to say. Legislation has not kept pace with the attempts to thwart this growth. Europe has seen some activity which led to confiscation of Pirate Bay servers and as a result the public rose in revolt against this “misstep” and formed a “Pirate party”. Interestingly, it even managed to win at the hustings and got a seat in the parliament.

I feel that “rooting” out the piracy is impossible. If Governments find means to thwart Internet access or even “slow down speeds”, there are people to bypass these issues in the name of unfettered access.

I don’t endorse piracy in the present form (to be on the right side of law) but there is an inherent need for people to share. This basic impulse cannot be wished away for times to come.

Broadband is going to change the equations in the way we connect. I don’t have any teary eyed dreams of a “global connected village” though but it’s a good feeling that resources can be shared by one and all.

Tags: Broadband, Broadband access, Digital Divide, DTH, DVD, DVD Rips, FCC, FCC sucks, File Sharing, Globalisation, Indian ISP's, Internet, ISP's, Peer to peer, Piracy, Pirate, Telecommunications India, Torrents, TRAI, TRAI sucks