64. goodbye 28-day wait to rent a new movie, hello zediva. and thank you, copyright loophole.

the idea of being able to stream movies and television over high speed broadband connections is wonderful, especially when there's so many sources to access it from.  now you buy streams for single episodes, complete television seasons and moves from hulu, itunes, amazon and netflix's online servics among many other sites that provide similar service.  now i'm sure you could just download it from a newsgroup if you really wanted, but people that play it legit pay to watch, because there's always those pesky copyrights to worry about, breaking laws, ridiculous lawsuits and blah bloopity blah blaaaaaaah.  but the problem is that you always have to wait - up to 28 days because movie studios impose limits on these services.  so you can't rent a new dvd until it's been on the shelves for sale for a while.  weakness, i know. but one new site is trying to fill that 28-day gap, and says that they've found a way to be able to do it, for as low as $0.99 per rental, without the imposed wait period, and wait for it...

completely legally.  no jolly roger or eyepatch required.  welcome to zediva.

and they've found an extremely novel way to do it.  it all hinges on the concept of the first-sale doctrine (title 17 - §106 and §109 should suffice ), which goes all the way back to 1908.  the first-sale doctrine puts limits on the absolute power of a copyright, saying that someone who legally purchased a legally produced copy of copyrighted material is allowed to sell, lend or give away that copy once they've gotten their hands on it (i mean otherwise ebay wouldn't really be able to exist now would it?).  while that's what allowed brick-and-mortar video rental to operate, netflix and companies of its ilk don't operate that way - they rent you a license to watch a streamed movie.  and while you're watching it, other people can stream it too - there's no such thing as a "copy" really.  old places like blockbuster and hollywood video used to actually own copies of the movies - where if there's one copy of a movie left, and customer 1 grabs it, customer 2 can't get it.  because there's a limited number of copies.

zediva uses that old brick and mortar model and brings it up to speed for our digital lives - they've actually bought copies of these dvd's, not licenses to share. so since they own copies, by the first-sale doctrine they don't have to wait 28 days to let users rent them.  their servers actually have dvd drives in them using physical disc media instead of using digital files, and when you order a movie, they pop it in, and stream it right to your computer.  so what you're actually renting is a physical disc and a dvd player.  genius.  zediva founder venky srinivasan explains the logic behind the service -  "it seems like a completely reasonable thing for people to do, and that’s how it started."  he was trying to find a way around his frustration trying to watch new release movies while travelling when the idea hit him.

otherwise, what you're watching works like a regular dvd with player controls, even subtitles in multiple languages if you want them.  you can take a break and watch it later for a period of 2 weeks.  even if your wifi signal is low and you don't have full connection, zediva will automatically adjust bitrate for the stream to make sure you're not getting hiccups in playback.  they're kicking off with about 100 titles, but there is still that one downside of operating like an old brick-and-mortar rental business - there's the possibility that the movie you want to rent will be temporarily sold out.

so sure, they may be doing it because they think a 28 day wait is ridiculous, but their attitude is that they want hollywood to see them as a customer, not a lawsuit target.

check them out at www.zediva.com for more details.


sources:
wired
mashable
united states copyright office 

47. guillermo del toro wants to make you cry

del toro in wired magazine

we're at the point in gaming (particularly console) now where i don't think tech is so much of an issue anymore.  the xbox 360 and ps3 can both generate excellent graphical experiences and the wii... well if the wii's your primary console you probably don't really care.  like motion?  you have your pick of the litter between the wii, the move and kinect.  but either way, giving a player ridiculous graphics is more or less commoditized now.  and since that (in my opinion) doesn't enter too much into user experience anymore, some game makers are trying their best to bring players something unique through the game itself.  the fable series was one of the few games where your character's choices had direct consequences, and you gradually had to choose whether or not your character would be good or evil through action (yes i know, you're thinking chrono trigger and maybe jedi academy, but i'm working from a current graphical platform here).  as RPG's have more and more cinematic elements than they used to, quantic dream tried to mix it up earlier this year with heavy rain - which was really an interactive movie more so than a game.

and now the lines between movies and games are becoming even more blurred.  THQ announced that they are entering into a multi-year deal with guillermo del toro, director of pan's labyrinth and screenplay writer of the upcoming the hobbit movies, for a series of horror games called inSane. he's going to be a creative director, and while THQ has rights to the game series, he has the rights to any and all associated "filmed entertainment."  which less than explicitly says that this is going to be a project with multiple media outlets, the bare minimum of which will be games and movies.  i'm sure there will be some sort of web element to tie the whole thing together, but that's just a guess.

so back to games challenging players with creative play styles.  how is inSane any different than other games of the horror survival genre?  well according to him, "with this new series of video games, i want to take players to a place they have never seen before, where every single action makes them question their own senses of morality and reality" (1up).  and coming from del toro, that's completely believable - he openly comments to the media and press on the topic of video games as art.  passionately.  when he was asked at a book signing in october, he described games as the comic books of our time, and is upset that the medium "gains no respect among the intellegentsia (gamerant).  he goes on to say, "they say, 'oh, video games...' and most people that complain about video games have never ****ing played them." (i know i know, this here's a family show, but that noise was on point)

so needless to say, i'm a fan.

logo from the teaser

and the teaser trailer that is out there right now supports that - which consists of 30 seconds or so of viewer discomfort, followed by 10 seconds of an image that may even make horror buffs twitch a little bit - see for yourself on the game's official website, www.insanegame.com.  according to del toro, we can also expect some sort of lovecraftian tentacled creature.  i'm still waiting for details to slowly drip out from the THQ camp, because there will be a lot more to come.  the first installment of inSane won't be out until 2013.

now i'm trying to treat this film-game union with a healthy bit of skepticism.  there have been a number of partnerships like this that never really panned out to much.  remember the movie hard boiled?  john woo tried to make a direct video game sequel in 2007 with stranglehold, but it never really took off.

but then again, no kind of movie/game crossover/sequel will EVER be the goonies II.