Google Offers Full Refunds, Customers Screwed Slightly Less

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Mark

Today Google Video offered a full refund after [initially announcing](http://www.marklectic.com/2007/08/11/google-gets-bored-selling-videos-customers-screwed/) that customers would only get a Google Checkout credit. According to the story on [Ars Technica](http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/BAaf/~3/146540536/20070821-google-video-store-gets-stay-of-execution-full-refunds-coming.html), “Google has seen the error of its ways and is effectively doubling refunds for customers of its video store. The company also said it would grant a stay of execution to its DRM services, meaning customers can watch videos from the store for a little longer.”

Of course, after the limited time is up, people’s video screens will still go dark. I would guess that most people who bought the videos Google sold actually wanted to purchase them.

After all, almost every movie you can buy is also available for rental. Yet, people continue to buy copies of movies all the time. Even though Google is giving people their money back, they’ve still taken away something the customers thought was theirs to keep.

If Disney showed up on your doorstep with a check and wanted all of their animated films back, would you hand them over? How would you explain that to your kids? And, would you ever buy a Disney movie again?

Sometimes I rant about the content industry and how people should stop them from trying to control every use of their media. And sometimes I think all I need to do is wait and they’ll do something so stupid that they’ll end up shooting themselves in the foot. This isn’t quite the spark that touches off the revolution, but if it does happen it’ll look something like what Google has done this week.

Posted in Tech | Comments Off

Google Gets Bored Selling Videos, Customers screwed

Posted on August 11, 2007 by Mark

Google launched Google Videos a year ago and started selling TV episodes and other videos. It was never very popular and, even then, there were complaints about Google’s use of Digital Restrictions Management technologies applied to the videos you bought.

Well now it seems Google has become bored with being in the online video downloads business and has decided to shutdown. Fine, they have every right to shut down an unpopular service.

However, what I’m sure nobody realized when they bought a video from Google is that, now that Google is going to stop “selling” videos, all of the videos that they already own will stop working.

Google’s letter to customers says: “After August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos.”

Now, I may be old fashioned, but when I purchase something, I usually expect to have the use of it until I either sell it, give it away. I’m sure Google wrote a EULA for their video sales that claims to give them the right to do this, but I’d love to see them challenged in court over this.

Imagine if, whenever Ford discontinued a car model, everyone who owns that model got a letter telling them their car will no longer start after August 15.

Posted in Tech | 1 Comment

Safari on Windows is About the iPhone

Posted on June 15, 2007 by Mark

The pundits are all a-buzz about Safari on Windows and wondering why Apple would do it.

Personally, I think it’s really obvious why Apple has done it and its not about switchers or browser market share, it’s about the iPhone.

The other announcement Steve jobs made during the WWDC keynote was that the third-party application model for the iPhone is Web applications with AJAX goodness. Want to write an application to run on the iPhone? You’re going to be doing it with web technologies.

So, now connect the dots. Apple wants people to write cool apps for the iPhone. The iPhone uses a version of Safari that likely shares a lot of code with the desktop version. Now there is a desktop version of Safari for Windows.

In other words, Safari on Windows is about providing Windows developers with an iPhone development platform. If people like the look of Safari and decide to switch to a Mac, that’s icing on the cake.

Posted in Tech | Comments Off

Microsoft Just Blinked

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Mark

Wow. I’ve been in the IT industry for over ten years and one of the things I’ve learned is that strong companies compete and weak companies sue.

Microsoft’s sabre rattling over possible patent violations in Linux and other open source software is incredible because of what it says about Microsoft. If they thought they could beat open source by building a better mousetrap, they would. But they can’t. And their standard tactic of buying the competition just won’t work here.

So instead, they’re threatening open source users with patent lawsuits. Amazing. It makes me think they are in more of a panic than anyone thought. And, to be honest, it’s not surprising.

Posted in Law, Tech | Comments Off

Why the AACS Key is a Non-Story

Posted on May 13, 2007 by Mark

One of my friends asked me why I hadn’t written about the recent publicity surrounding the [AACS Processing key](http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=09+f9+11+02+9d+74+e3+5b+d8+41+56+c5+63+56+88+c1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) that’s proliferating on various blogs, news sites, t-shirts, and songs.

Part of the reason is, of course, that I’m lazy. As said friend well knows, I’d much rather drink beer than almost anything else. But that’s not the entire reason.

The other reason I haven’t written about it is that it’s actually a big pill of non-story. The AACS copy protection system, like all DRM systems, is never going to do what it says on the tin. The fact that it was broken in less than two months merely reinforces the point once again. But, it’s not really news.

The problem with AACS and every other DRM system is that they are simply trying to achieve the impossible. Really.

All DRM systems are built around cryptographic techniques where the message (in this case, a film) is encrypted with a key. The idea in cryptography is that only the person with the key can decrypt the message. So, lets say Mr. T wants to send a message to Mr. H without Mr. F reading it, he can give the key to Mr. H and only Mr H. will be able to read the message.

Encrypted communication forms the basis of online banking, shopping, e-commerce, and of course, military command and control systems. They work and work well. But, when applied to DRM systems, they fall apart. Not because weaknesses in the cryptography itself, but because of who it’s trying to stop from reading the message.

In a DRM system, the person who is given the key is also the person the system is designed to prevent from reading the message. Read that again as it’s the fundamental problem with DRM systems. In other words, when you buy an HD-DVD disk, the movie studio has to provide you with a way to de-crypt the contents (otherwise it’s just a shiny bit of plastic). But, they don’t want you to be able to de-crypt the contents unless your playing the movie on a standard player hooked up only to a television.

Therein lies the inherent weakness of DRM. They have to give you the ability to decode the contents, but also prevent you from decoding the contents when not allowed. The problem for DRM is not one of crypto, but rather that a machine cannot be made that can’t be tricked into giving up it’s secrets.

Crypto systems work because the sender isn’t stupid enough to send the key along with the message. In a DRM system, that’s exactly what happens. So the AACS system is broken.

The situation with DRM is a bit like the ending of [Wargames](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/). One of these days the content industry will realise that the effort to win is futile and the best way forward is not to play. In the meantime, they will continue to send out stupid letters, hold back technological innovation, and drive up the cost of hardware and software for everyone.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off