My inane life… in glorious details!
Archive for May, 2006
Starting to Hallucinate…
May 30th
Yes, editing is bad for you. After a while, I began having hallucinations of Tux.
Who to blame for the f$#ckup RIAA interview?
May 26th
CNET released an interview they conducted with the RIAA yesterday. The thing is though, the answers that CNET put in their story really did not match up to the questions asked.
For instance, take the following Question and Answer:
Q: Do your view your lawsuits, even ones where you sued a 12-year-old girl or a Boston grandmother, as a success overall and do you think the process is working?
Sherman: Yes. We’re feeling pretty good. There will be the opportunity for business models that are consistent with P2P networks (such as demo versions or low quality). There have been a lot of conversations recently about ad-supported models.Bainwol: Now there is additional legal clarity.
Q: How useful has the NET Act, which makes not-for-profit copyright infringement a federal crime, been?
Sherman: Did it have an impact? Sure. Anything that increases risk would have an impact. The only thing that has an impact is: “What does it matter for me?” When we’ve done surveys, the lawsuits are the No. 1 or No. 2 reason for why people have changed their behavior.
See how the answers are so disjointed to the question? I can sort of see a mild relevance, but its a stretched and confusing one at best. Now techdirt has already gone ahead and pinned the blame on the RIAA. I’m wondering whether its CNET’s reporter.
The reporter asked very good questions, some that we’ve all been wondering (while subvertly pushing a certain point.) But I question how it collected the answers – the answers here seem like snippets of longer conversations. Nonetheless, it is premature of me to pin the blame on anyone.
GTA4 to have multiplayer
May 25th
Warning: Speculation at this point.
Rockstar North have just posted their new recruitment positions. All these are game related, with motion editors and environment artists. Now assuming that they already have an expansive team to begin with, some of these positions would already be existant.
Meaning that Rockstar needs more of these people. More environment artists? I’d argue that they’re needed for the new GTA4, which just began pre-production. So they’re hiring for GTA4, or so I assume. What’s neat is that they require a Network Programmer. For GTA4.
I therefore arrive at the conclusion that GTA4 will have multiplayer, something to which GTA3/VC/SA was so close to achieving with their unfinished network code. On that topic – It only takes a 3MB mod to get GTA: San Andreas fully online with a decent server browser, a net-oriented scripting language, and a persistent online world. Oh how they were so close.
“On Piracy” Documentary Pre-Release Version 0.8 Now Out!
May 21st
Yep, you heard right. The new pre-release is out, and available for download. All those who have donated thus far are included in the end credits. My main concern right now are the graphics – namely the lack of them. If you have ideas as to what I can add where in that respect, feel free to email me.
Download the Pre-Release v0.8:
Download via HTTP.
Download via Bittorrent.
See it now on Google Video.
Pre-Release Piracy Doc. Version 0.8 out in 2 Days
May 18th
The new version features some improved audio, a completely revamped soundtrack, and added graphics. The final version may or may not contain a new interview, and is likely to contain more a few more graphics.
I’ll need your help though, coming up with ideas of what kind of visuals I could add to the film to help bridge the technical gap between the not-so-technically inclined and the documentary itself.
Update:
Add a few extra days to that. It’s currently 12AM May 21st; and I’m on render cycle 4 of 5. When I wake up, I’ll start render cycle 5. When I come back from work, I’ll start the upload processes (Piracydoc HTTP Mirror; Google Video). Everything should be up by the morning of May 22nd.
As for the interviews I’ve been trying to conduct: no new word.
A Mysterious Call:
And while I was out at a friend’s place today, I got a call from a foreign area code. As it turned out, it was someone based in Pennsylvania that had heard about the situation I was in with the “Ain’t Misbehavin” song – pretty neat. He offered a few suggestions as to possible ways of dealing with the situation, and we chatted a bit. Only because of the delay, I kept interrupting him. :S
Pretty cool experience.
One last interview…
May 16th
I’ve decided to try to get one last interview. There’s a pro-DRM stance that has been ignored in my film, and for the sake of balance I want it included.
I’ve sent out three phone interview requests to parties that would be involved in such a stance. They haven’t replied yet, and I’ll be calling them Friday to get updates. This is how interviews are had people: you call, call, and call again.
Apart from that, the film remains unchanged and uncensored. I’ve cleaned up alot of the audio, have a solid soundtrack setup, and am in the midst of adding animations to the film to help less tech-oriented people in understanding the concepts at hand.
Phew.
May 16th
Sooo my plan was to replace the soundtrack with Royalty Free music. So I bought a CD of decent royalty free music, which cost $100. With or without donations I was going to do it.
And guess what – as it turns out, the CD might not be royalty free in *Canada*. So I called up RoyaltyFreeMusic’s support line. I had sent them an email beforehand, saying I hadn’t yet purchased the music as I didn’t want to pressure them into a defensive “no refund” stance, as that wasn’t what I was after. I just wanted to know what was up with royalties.
Well, as it turns out, I’m good. They have all rights on their music, and agencies such as the CMRRA are not supposed to collect royalties or funds on their behalf. CMRRA also returned me an email; and apparently they don’t have the songs in their database. So I’m good. Thank god. I was very close to just giving up entirely.
Taking down Piracy Doc.
May 12th
I received a call today from the president of the association in Canada in charge of reproductive rights on music. The final track on the documentary – “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, was still under copyright. I obtained the song from a public domain database, but as I was informed, things aren’t so simple. I thank the person very much for informing me of this, esp. in the kind fashion he did.
In any case I’m pulling down all links to the documentary from my site until the issue is resolved. I’ve also deleted the video from my uploads section on Google; and I’m pulling all the links I’ve given to the communities I discussed it with. Finally, I’m sending a letter to ThePirateBay asking that they take down the torrent.
This is not the end of the documentary. All that that means is that I have to remove the final track, which is not a problem. However, since it takes about 24 hours of supervised work/rendering to apply such changes, I’ll implement these with the final rendition of the film, due out in a week. Until then, I’ll make sure to remove all references to the infringing copy.
I offer my sincerest apologies to all those that were affected.
Goods on E3 Presentations…
May 11th
I’ve been starting to watch the press conferences for E3.
The Nintendo E3 presentation was excellent. However, Nintendo is really treading on thin ice, as the *only* thing it seems to be relying on for its success is the gaming experience brought forth by its new controller. The graphics on the Revolution are not spectacular, but nonetheless workable. Equivalent to 2003-2004 PC graphics.
They showed their controller in action as a baton managing an orchestra, as a sword in a fight, as a gun in an FPS, and as a quasi-racing wheel. I’m completely in love with the concept, but nonetheless this overreliance on the controller is foolish. With the exception of a game where you conducted an orchestra, there was really nothing innovative on the gaming front by nintendo.
I also saw the Sony PS3 presentation. I was quite dissapointed. Unlike Nintendo, who displayed alot in terms of gameplay footage, all Sony had was “Gran Turismo HD.” It’s essentially GT4, but in HD resolution. And they talked about the resolution on and on. They also showed trailers for a few games, such as MGS4 and Gundam Mobile Suit. Things that we already saw to some extent or weren’t impressed much with.
They had nothing to really show off the graphics capabilities of the PS3, which I found quite dissapointing. And much of the 2 hour presentation was actually quite worthless – they had videos of people saying why they liked the PS2, they explained the online model for far too long, and the main host of the presentation simply talked his BS for too long. The whole presentation should have been 1 hour long – not 2.
Apart from that, I watched the Halo3 and Gundam Trailers. Halo3 was a cinematic, no gameplay footage. Think Halo2 trailer. And the Gundam game? Looked like a fairly poor game.
Film Editing on Hold
May 9th
Leave to work from home @ 8:30AM, get back home from work at 8:30PM.
Plus I have to work 7 days straight this week, it looks like. With days like that, its pretty much near impossible to do any editing. Things should ease off soon though (maybe in a week.)
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