Key Sony Gaming Websites Go Down Because They Let Their Domains Expire

from the spare-some-change? dept

As online gaming becomes more and more popular, we're of course beginning to hear stories of occasional missteps in how the online infrastructure is handled. The reasons for this can vary. For instance, maybe you're Electronic Arts and you've both made your game require a connection to your servers but you misjudged the load that would be on those servers. Or maybe you're Electronic Arts and you decide to shut down an online game without refunding the money people have spent to play it. Or, hey, maybe you're Electronic Arts and you decide to pull the plug on online gaming servers extremely soon just to push gamers into buying the next annual sports title. The point is that these reasons tend to be things that could be avoided.

Sony appears to be learning that lesson now, what with the gaming universe both shouting and laughing at them for forgetting to renew the domains on several popular gaming sites they run.

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) sites www.soe.com and www.sonyonline.net were sometimes redirecting users to generic holding pages from Network Solutions. Some SOE-related sites for games such as Everquest, Everquest 2, Landmark and H1Z1 were also apparently affected.

The reason became quickly apparent: the domains of the sites expired. The details are basically that the renewal emails all went to a junk mailbox set up for an employee that had left the company a while back and were never actually seen by whoever had taken over their duties. SOE President John Smedley, to his credit, isn't even attempting anything besides an admission and an apology.

“The payment notifications went to a junk email box,” Smedley tweeted, adding, “Someone left and it got caught in the replacements junk filter. Simple as that. Embarrassing as that. No point dodging. DNS problems could take up to 48 hours to resolve,” he wrote, adding, “We are really really sorry on this one folks. Embarrassing and preventable. We screwed up.”

Look, it's unfair to expect anyone to never make a mistake, but this all comes off as bush-league stuff that we just shouldn't be reading about when it comes to a company like Sony, with all their experience in running an online gaming platform. Get it together guys. I mean, granted, I have no skin in the game, because I game the way God intended: in a dark room, playing alone, and with a cold craft beer next to me. But, you know, for all the other people.

Filed Under: domain expiration, domains, junk mail, registration, sony games, spam
Companies: sony

Microsoft And Sony Double Down On Patent Trolling; Dump More Cash Into Intellectual Ventures

from the because-innovation-is-for-suckers dept

Last fall, we noted that the world's largest patent troll, Intellectual Ventures, was running out of cash, which is somewhat incredible, given that it had previously claimed to have raised $6 billion in investments (though many of its earliest deals with tech companies were categorized as "investments" when they were really promises not to sue, combined with access to the patent bank) and a further $3 billion in licenses. It should take a long time to spend $9 billion when your company produces nothing that has ever been brought to market, but that's IV for you. As we noted in that story last fall, many of the tech companies that initially "invested" in Intellectual Ventures had no interest at all in re-upping, as they felt that the whole thing had been a bait-and-switch. They were initially told it was a "patent defense fund," not a giant patent troll itself.

However, while many of the companies have indeed avoided giving IV any more money, it appears that Microsoft and Sony were quite happy to dump a lot more cash into IV, which has now ramped up its patent buying efforts again (as well as its lobbying and political contributions in an effort to kill off patent reform). Microsoft, of course, has always been close to IV, seeing as it was started by the company's former CTO, Nathan Myhrvold, who is also a close friend of Bill Gates (who has directly helped IV get some patents). Similarly, Microsoft has become one of the most aggressive patent abusers over the last decade, increasingly relying on its stock of patents to make money from other people's innovations, rather than innovating on its own.

It is similarly no wonder that the company somewhat famous for having nearly all of its major success based on copying the work of others, is now trying to stop anyone else from doing the same without paying a massive tax. There was a time when Bill Gates said:

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today... A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose."

And, now, via Intellectual Ventures and its own patent holdings, Microsoft seems to be trying to make sure Gates' prediction is a reality. It all fits in to the same paradigm we've observed for years. When you're young, you innovate. When you're old, you litigate. Microsoft appears to have given up on innovation, but is ramping up on litigation, and re-investing in patent trolling via Intellectual Ventures is merely the latest step.

Filed Under: innovation, patent trolling, patents
Companies: intellectual ventures, microsoft, sony

Sony And YouTube Take Down Sintel; Blender's Open Source, Creative Commons, Crowdfunded Masterpiece

from the how-to-mess-up-everything dept

Pretty much everyone has been sending over the bizarre story of YouTube taking down the film Sintel based on a copyright claim from Sony Pictures. While I imagine it will be back up soon (if not already by the time you read this), as I write this the Sintel link shows the following (and between writing this and posting it, the video was put back up, but all weekend it looked like this): If you're unfamiliar with Sintel, we wrote about it back in 2010. It's an amazingly well-done short animated film created via the open source software Blender, in part to promote how amazing Blender's 3D content creation suite is. The video was partly crowdfunded and was released under a wonderfully broad Creative Commons license that even allowed commercial use (it only required attribution). Sony had nothing to do with any of this.

The Slashdot post about this explains what probably happened here. Sony recently added Sintel to its official 4k demo pool to show off its 4k "ultra HD" TVs. Who knows if they worked out a specific licensed to use it, but under the Creative Commons license, the company wouldn't need to, so long as Sony properly attributed the clip. But, the thinking appears to be that once in the demo pool, the film was somehow added to Sony's "contentID" list of works that Sony claims copyright on, leading YouTube's automated system to pull down the original as infringement. As others have pointed out this highlights almost every possible thing that pisses off people about copyright and automated takedown systems like ContentID.

It's a big company -- one who has fought against the idea that "amateurs" could do powerful work -- taking down a work that it has no copyright claim over. And the work it took down is a well-known example of a freely distributable, Creative Commons-licensed work, created via open source software, and partially crowdfunded. It's hard to think of any other takedown situation that would be more ridiculous or better highlight how broken an automated copyright takedown system is.

Over the last few weeks, in various hearings and conferences, the legacy entertainment industry (and its supporting politicians) have made it pretty clear that they're going to push for automated systems like ContentID to be mandatory in the future. The Sintel takedown by Sony should be the perfect case study in why that's a huge problem.

Filed Under: censorship, content id, copyright, creative commons, crowdfunded, open source
Companies: blender, google, sony, youtube

Surprise: ASCAP and Music Labels Colluded To Screw Pandora

from the incredible dept

On Thursday, ASCAP -- the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers -- will turn 100 years old. ASCAP was the original music collection society in the US, and over the years we've detailed just how out of touch and obsolete it has become, basically harming independent artists to help rock stars. At the same time, it has bizarrely lashed out at Creative Commons, and when Larry Lessig offered to debate ASCAP boss (and famed songwriter) Paul Williams, Williams refused while claiming it was all an attempt to silence ASCAP.

Yet, in the last few years, we've been covering the incredible and bizarre legal fight between ASCAP and Pandora, which has seen ASCAP stoop to amazing lows. You can read some of the basic background in some of our previous posts. A key part of this was that the major labels, key members of ASCAP, suddenly started "dropping out" of ASCAP in order to do licensing directly. At first we thought this was a sign of how the labels might be realizing that ASCAP was obsolete and out of touch, but it has since become clear that these "removals" were all something of a scam to force Pandora into higher rates.

What happened was that ASCAP and Pandora had first negotiated a higher rate than Pandora had agreed to in the past -- reaching a handshake agreement. However, before that agreement could be finalized, these labels started "withdrawing" from ASCAP in order to negotiate directly. As part of that, both ASCAP and the labels refused to tell Pandora which songs had been withdrawn, meaning that if Pandora accidentally played one of the withdrawn songs (again, without knowing which songs were withdrawn), it would face massive copyright infringement liability. With its back to the wall, Pandora was forced to agree to much, much higher rates with those labels who had "withdrawn" their songs -- and then those labels magically put their songs back in ASCAP... and then ASCAP claimed that those newly "negotiated" deals represented "true market" deals, and argued that in an open market, it deserved those kinds of crazy high royalty rates. Pandora pointed out that this pretty clearly violated the antitrust decree against ASCAP -- an argument that Pandora won in the first round.

The case is moving forward, and many more details have been revealed, highlighting just how slimy ASCAP and the major labels have been about this. It makes it quite clear that the "withdrawals" were never actually about the labels withdrawing their music from ASCAP, but what certainly looks like collusion to have labels "withdraw," put a gun to Pandora's head, get them to agree to massively higher rates to avoid a lawsuit, and then feed that info back to ASCAP, which would continue "managing" the songs, even though they had been "withdrawn."

This comes clear in Paul Williams' deposition. Given that all these major labels were apparently "withdrawing" all of their digital rights, you might think (1) that ASCAP would be upset since it was losing all its key labels and (2) that Williams might look at reducing the cost of his licenses, since apparently they would no longer have all these important songs. Not so. From the trial transcript, here's Pandora's lawyer explaining how Williams responded when they asked him about it at his deposition:

"Did you ever consider that ASCAP could charge a lower price and try to get more people to use the works left in ASCAP rather than have users use the higher priced EMI repertoire?"

"Answer: Never once did that occur to me."

In other words, it was all about raising the rates. It was not about competition.

On top of that, it details how, even as these labels were "withdrawing," representatives from those very same labels/publishers still sat on ASCAP's board. As for that issue of the labels and ASCAP refusing to reveal what songs were being withdrawn, more evidence has come out during the case, showing that this was all part of the plan between the labels and ASCAP. In fact, they joked about it over email, which has now come out. During the opening, Pandora's lawyer told the story of Pandora seeking information about what songs were being withdrawn by Sony.

Your Honor, by the time Pandora asked for this information on November 1st, both ASCAP and Mr. Brodsky [Sony Executive VP] had in their possession this very list. The deposition testimony from ASCAP was that this list as is could have been delivered to Pandora within 24 hours were it only to get the go-ahead from Sony to do so. ASCAP never received the go-ahead.

We cited much of the internal back-and-forth on this in our briefs... My favorite is the following exchange between Mr. DeFilippis and Mr. Reimer of ASCAP on December 19th, 2013, PX 193. You see the question being asked by Mr. DeFilippis: why didn't Sony provide the list to Pandora?

Mr. Reimer's response: Ask me tomorrow.

Mr. DeFilippis: Right. With drink in hand.

And the inference here is just incredible. This data was sitting there, your Honor, and nobody was willing to give it to Pandora.

There's a lot more in there, but it seems abundantly clear that these labels "withdrawing" from ASCAP had nothing to do with competition or market rates. It appears that it had little to do with even withdrawing from ASCAP. Instead, it seems to have been designed from the start to basically screw over Pandora, in what certainly smells an awful lot like collusion, by forcing Pandora to pay exorbitant rates or suddenly face a massive copyright liability because no one would tell them what songs were being "withdrawn" from an existing licensing agreement. Then, ASCAP and the other labels could turn around and use those "agreements" pretending they represented a "market rate" to argue for higher rates at the Copyright Royalty Board, which is supposed to try to come up with a "market rate" for various licenses (even though the high rates were supposed to have a confidentiality agreement tied to them).

Considering ASCAP's previous antitrust problems, this certainly looks... incredibly sketchy. And then it's ASCAP going around claiming that Pandora is somehow trying to game the system? The whole thing is incredible, and paints a really nasty looking portrait of the highly questionable games that ASCAP and the major labels/publishers played to try to force ridiculously high licenses on Pandora by setting up fake competition, and putting a gun to Pandora's head.

ASCAP has often come across as sleazy in the past, but the details coming out at this trial take it to a whole new level.

Filed Under: antitrust, collection society, collusion, internet radio
Companies: ascap, emi, pandora, sony

Little Evidence Of 'Infringement Risk' For 'Copyright Intensive' Companies

from the more-smoke-and-mirrors dept

For decades now, we keep hearing various "copyright intensive" companies whining to the press and politicians about how the "biggest threat" they face is continued copyright infringement. We hear about how it's undermining not just their business, but entire economic sectors, the basis of capitalism and the fundamental rule of law. Copyright infringement, we are told, is one of the largest risks to the economy and society that you could possibly imagine. We've long questioned the validity of those claims, especially since history has shown that the industry cries wolf fairly frequently and has always been wrong. Most famously, of course, the MPAA's Jack Valenti told Congress that "the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." That was in 1982. In 1986, the home video market -- which the VCR created -- made more money for the MPAA's studios than the box office did. It's tough to believe the "threat" claims when they're always wrong.

But, the "copyright intensive" industries just keep on making those claims, and there's always some in the press and among elected officials who either don't know or don't care about the past (or technology or reality) and automatically believe those claims. They just assume that of course copyright infringement must be a huge threat because these companies say so.

A new study, however, found a pretty good way to evaluate the reality of that threat. Jonathan Band and Jonathan Gerafi realized that a good "independent" third party to evaluate the risk and threat of copyright infringement would be investment analysts. Their only stake in the game is whether or not the company is going to do well or poorly. If the perceived risk and threat was real, they'd certainly be letting everyone know. So, Band and Gerafi have produced a new research report studying equity research reports issued over the last quarter for eight of the top companies in the so-called "copyright intensive industries."

The choice of companies is interesting, because all eight are among those that regularly scream the loudest about the "threats" of infringement: Sony (owner of Sony Music and Sony Pictures), Vivendi (owner of Universal Music), Disney, Viacom (who also owns Paramount), Microsoft, Adobe, Pearson and Reed Elsevier. If you're keeping track, that's basically three of the largest movie studios, two of the largest music labels, two of the largest software companies and two of the largest publishers. If copyright infringement was really this existential threat they've all been screaming about, certainly it would show up in the equity analysts' reports, right?

Well, let's take a look at the findings:

• None of the 14 reports for Reed Elsevier and 18 reports for Pearson identified copyright infringement as a risk factor.
• Only 13% of the 15 reports for Sony and 22% of the 23 reports for Vivendi mentioned copyright infringement as a potential risk.
• Just 8% of the 26 reports for Viacom and 27% of the 26 reports for Disney referred to copyright infringement as a risk factor.
• 26% of the 19 reports concerning Adobe and 41% of the 27 reports concerning Microsoft identified copyright infringement as a risk factor.
• Cumulatively, only 19% (32) of the 168 reports referred to copyright infringement as a possible risk; 81% did not.

And, in case you were wondering, the reports that didn't list copyright infringement as a risk (i.e., nearly all of them) did list out a variety of other factors. It wasn't just a case where they weren't covering risks at all. They carefully looked at the market, and didn't seem to think infringement was a real risk at all.

And, it's important to note that since these are all public companies, the execs at those companies often spend a lot of time "educating" the analysts about the state of their business. In fact, in the annual reports for six of the eight companies listed, the companies themselves do list infringement as a major risk. It just looks like the analysts looked at the detail and simply didn't see any legitimate threat in most of the cases.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright intensive industries, equity analysts, infringement, jonathan band, jonathan gerafi, risk
Companies: adobe, disney, elsevier, microsoft, paramount, pearson, reed elsevier, sony, sony music, sony pictures, universal music, viacom, vivendi

Sony Spoils The Fun Again: Takes Down Alternate Breaking Bad, Malcolm In The Middle Ending

from the of-course-they'd-do-that dept

Over the five seasons that the show Breaking Bad ran, it became increasingly common for people to joke about how it was really a very differently toned sequel to the comedy Malcolm in the Middle, which also starred Bryan Cranston. At times Cranston and the creators of the Breaking Bad had even cracked a few jokes about the supposed "coincidences" between the two very, very different shows. However, over the weekend a video clip was released showing a potential "alternate ending" to Breaking Bad, in which Cranston's wakes up in bed with his wife from Malcolm and admits that Breaking Bad was all just a dream. It's an amusing little clip that the Breaking Bad crew included on the DVD release of the series. And the video got everyone talking about it.

So, of course, Sony Pictures had to issue a takedown on the YouTube clip. Because, apparently, no one is allowed to have any fun until they pay Sony. Spoiler alert: this doesn't make anyone more interested in buying the DVD. It just pisses people off.

Filed Under: alternate ending, breaking bad, bryan cranston, malcolm in the middle
Companies: sony, sony pictures

Sony At E3: Look How Unlike Microsoft We Are!

from the no-connection-required dept

It has been no secret that Microsoft's handling of the launch of their Xbox One console has been controversial at best and a complete debacle at worst. As rumors of mandatory internet connections and fees for playing used games made the unsteady transition to reality, dedicated fans of other consoles mobilized to make sure their voices were heard. Most substantial was the fanbase of the Sony Playstation, who made their wishes for a more traditional and open PS4 known. I had mentioned in that post that Sony in particular had a real opportunity on their hands, assuming they were willing to both stick up for their customers and take the issues against Microsoft head-on.

Well, to some extent, that's exactly what they did at this year's E3 convention, going out of their way to point out all the ways in which they are not doing things the Xbox-way.

During their Electronic Entertainment Expo press event, Sony Computer Entertainment of America president and CEO Jack Tretton says its PS4 will not restrict used games, nor will it require an online connection.

Tretton specifically noted the PS4 "won't stop working if you haven't authenticated within 24 hours," a jab at the Xbox One and its requirement to perform online checks of consoles.

Now, to be sure, this isn't a completely unambiguous stance in favor of its customers, but credit Sony for doing what many of our commenters thought they wouldn't: seeing an opportunity in sticking up for customers and running with it. Having said that, there are still many questions surrounding whether or not the Playstation platform will simply be agnostic with used games, leaving that decision instead up to the game developers and publishers. It might seem a better thing for Sony to simply say they won't allow the kind of used game pocket-picking that MIcrosoft is codifying, but that might be a bit too much to ask. After all, Sony needs developers for their platform, too. Besides, as long as it isn't Sony acting in an anti-consumer way, developers that might wish to be restrictive on used games can be judged on their own individual merits. In other words, we'll actually get to see what the market impact of anti-consumer behavior on used games is.

And if some of the reaction I've seen thus far is any indication, such as Sony Entertainment now being listed on Wikipedia's list of "burn centers in the United States" after they torched Microsoft at E3, developers might begin rethinking their plans.

Filed Under: consoles, drm, e3, online connections, ps4, used games, xbox one
Companies: microsoft, sony

Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans

from the opportunity-is-knocking dept

We recently discussed the somewhat mishandled release announcement for Microsoft's new gaming machine, the Xbox One. While a big part of the problem was a lack of firm answers to gamers' questions, it's clear that something is going to change in how the new Xbox handles used games. The rumors vary, but we know that the used games market that has existed for the past several decades is going to be altered to come under stricter control of Microsoft directly. Reception of this news has been cold, but it isn't just Xbox fans reacting.

No, the ultimate effect of Microsoft's actions may end up being a highly mobilized Playstation fandom and a massive opportunity for Sony if they want to grab it. You see, famousmortimer of the popular gaming message board, NeoGAF, decided to bring the wants of the customer to Sony's attention through a simple Twitter hashtag, #PS4NoDRM.

I can say, for sure, that the past week's PR nightmare for MS has not been lost on Sony and they, in fact, do have a used game 'solution' working and have been going back and forth for months on whether to use it. This past week is pushing them strongly into "Yeah, let's not use that."

He then suggests that readers politely tweet several high-ranking Sony executives, indicating that they want a free and open used game market, and including the aforementioned hashtag. While he later went on to say that he didn't expect any of this to become much of a movement, that's exactly what it became. Not only did something like 14,000 tweets with the hashtag go out across Twitter, it has become big enough that even the mainstream press is reporting on it.

The campaign has reached dozens of news sites including NBC News. Even now, people are tweeting messages with the hashtag in hopes of getting Sony's attention.

"It's much larger than I ever imagined," Dodd told me this afternoon. "Honestly thought the post would go about 2 pages." As of right now, the NeoGAF thread has 105 pages and 467,690 pageviews.

Several Sony executives have replied with encouraging tweets, suggesting that, at the very least, they're seriously listening. And listen they should, because that isn't just the sound of gamers typing on their keyboards ringing over the Twitterverse. It's opportunity. Real opportunity.

Imagine what happens if Sony issues an official response to this campaign. Imagine further that this response acknowledges the fans, thanks them for all of their interest, and firmly states that, on its system, the used game market will go on unhindered. Let's say that a company that has an unfortunate reputation on consumer rights flips the script completely in the gaming arena and positions itself as the consumer's choice compared to Microsoft. What would the market's reaction be? It would be huge.

Finally, if you believe that used games don't harm game sales, but rather spur them along by creating added value, then this should represent the easiest no-lose choice in the gaming business's history. Now let's see if Sony hears opportunity knocking through those corporate walls.

Filed Under: drm, playstation, used video games, video games, xbox, xbox one
Companies: microsoft, sony