BrokenBlog

I wrote a post a while back describing how wary digital distribution made me. Now a perfect example of the huge flaw in digital distribution exists. It was provided, surprisingly enough, by Google. They decided to back out of the pay-to-download video market, taking the videos people purchased with them. Refunds are offered, but in the equivalent of “store credit”. Google will likely do something to escape backlash, but more importantly, they really don’t have to do that. This is why digital distribution in its current form is very flawed, not because it isn’t a good idea, but because physical ownership is lost.

Edit: Looks like Google’s giving out full refunds instead of store credit, and they’re being extra nice about it too. Doesn’t change the fact that they didn’t have to do that.

Oh my goodness. Andre has really done it this time. It’s a very “Web 2.0″ community remixing site that uses Flash, allowing it all to run straight out of a browser. The Creative Commons-loving crowd is going to have a joygasm when they see it. Cory Doctorow will be so happy he’ll fall from his balloon. Also, my ongoing battle to outmatch Andre in AS skillz has been nixed again. Of course it seems another fellow did all the real audio work, but I must try harder nonetheless. You win this round Michelle.

I spotted this article describing how to make Ubuntu send mailto: links through Gmail. It’s not wrong exactly, but I wanted to improve upon it a little. I have my own version which requires no external files, and all it needs is that you send your mailto: links through this command…

sh -c "firefox 'https://mail.google.com/mail?view=cm&tf=0&to='$(echo \"\$1\" | sed -e 's/mailto:\(\/\/\)\?//' -e 's/\?/\&/' -e 's/\&subject=/\&su=/I')" custom-mailto-launcher "%s"

On Ubuntu, go to System -> Preferences -> Preferred Applications, change your mail reader to “Custom”, then put this line in. If you use another version of Linux, you’ll have to figure that part out yourself. Keep in mind %s is the variable and firefox is the default browser in my example.

Mine removes the “mailto” part a little better, and makes a hacky attempt to parse the subject/cc/bcc arguments these links sometimes have. Most importantly though, it’s a one-step process.

I read Mark Shuttleworth’s post on DRM today. He makes some good points about how DRM doesn’t work, and he’s right. Thing is, he and other DRM-haters seem to think digital distribution is the future. It’s not.

What ever happened to physical ownership? You can’t have that with digital distribution (and in some ways, DRM). When I own something I want to hold in my hands. If you buy a movie online and your hard drive breaks down, which any hard drive will ultimately do, you don’t own the movie anymore. You can probably get the movie back again, but that’s expensive for the distributor and what if they refuse, or go out of business? I’m sure plenty of people would be fine with this, but it won’t become a popular idea until all types of people jump in.

In the end, a DRM-laden Blu-Ray disk is still better than any movie I’d download. When I own something I don’t want it stuck on my computer, I want it to exist independently, and I’m sure plenty of other people feel the same way whether they know it or not. Unless digital distribution finds a way to seperate itself from a computer (although any efforts to do so today would be hindered by DRM) it will never succeed. Ownership is about freedom, and both DRM and digital distribution don’t offer that.

Update: I wrote a followup.