WANC 62: The Odd Couple

First I would love to thank you for giving me the image of my girlfriend-wife-thing with a summer sausage superglued between her legs… oh god. I assure you she is still very much a lady just too lazy to type it out. :p

Me and Umbra never throw out books, ever, I recommend you learn to make bookshelves out of books. I actually do re-read books all the time though, I’ve read the Kushiel’s Dart series probably about 15 times by now. I actually carry a book in my purse at all times.

My issue with DRM is that we can lend a physical book, CD, or DVD to a friend or family member whenever you want, so why shouldn’t we be able to lend our digital files as well? I’m not saying go sell or give it away to whoever but, if I buy an e-book shouldn’t I be able to lend it to my sister just as I would the physical book?

For the online gaming thing, wouldn’t livestreaming one persons desktop displaying the multiple video screens work? Provided your computer can handle multiple video windows.

Good show guys

I would totally listen or watch you guys game, would be kinda awesome.

That was absolutely not where I was going with the Umbra being a Lady thing. Mike, you’re a sick man.

I would have posted sooner but I passed out halfway through. I started my own drinking game; whenever Mike says “I’ve got a friend…” and whenever Jason says “I’m okay with that” I take a drink. I didn’t make it all the way through.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been what most people would consider ‘zany’, with or without Doz. You both realize that complimenting is going to go straight to his head.

And Neph, a few comments…
1) I believe Jason carries books around in his purse too.
2) The fact that you’re willing to watch these guys game just points out the fact that you’ve never seen them game. It’s not a pretty sight. If you’re going to do it anyway, you and Lady U should play too, not just watch. At least you might actually stay awake.
3) Stop listening now. Life is short and I’m sure there are much better things you could be doing with your time.

AntiWANC-you’re doing it wrong!

If you wanna get really drunk really fast(I mean all the way to possible alcohol poisoning) take a shot every time Mike says”you know…”

Hmmmm if someone had only told you that the kindle app. was good and easy to use…

It is piracy when you photocopy a book and give it to someone which is most similar to lending a digital book. It’s generally not worth it to photocopy much but gamers do things like that from time to time so I’m sure some WANCer has done it.

When you ‘loan’ a digital file you’re making a copy, so to appease the publishers it needs some kind of DRM that limits number of uses or has an expiration date or something on the copy.

So Jason, isn’t that what your Zune does?

Publishers don’t have a problem with people getting the content for free. If they did there would be no libraries. With a digital book, you actually give a copy rather than the original and that’s what scares the publishers. That’s why I tried to compare it to photocopying. In that case both the loaner and the loanee wind up with a copy.

I know the Topeka library has a service to get mp3 downloads of audio books. I’ve never tried it but I’m guessing most newer books aren’t available because of publisher’s paranoia. I don’t think the same thing will happen with ebooks until a suitable form of DRM is worked out. DRM in a situation like that seems reasonable to me since I didn’t purchase the book. However if I purchase a book I want to be able to use it how I choose.

Despite feeling like I beat the subject of DRM into the ground, I see there is still discussion on it.

I would disagree somewhat with the statement that publishers don’t have a problem with loaning content or getting it for free, it’s just that currently, the law does not prevent people from doing this with physical media. The movie studios fought against the idea of renting movies on VHS and DVD initially. There really is a big push to move towards a viewing rights model, where you purchase the right to watch/listen/read media for specific time periods or specific devices, with anything outside of that requiring the purchase of other rights. So you might purchase the ability to watch a movie on your computer, but if you want to watch it in high-def on your plasma tv, well that is an additional fee. You also see this with music services that allow you to listen to whatever you want, as long as you continue to pay a monthly fee. If you stop paying, you lose access to everything.

I have used the mp3 checkouts at the Kansas State Library system which the Topeka Library is part of. As Doz said, much of it requires a third party app be used that manages the DRM. This was usable, but a pain with the Zune. They also only allowed X number of copies to be out on loan at one time. Meaning that there were waiting lists to check out many titles, even though there were no physical constraints. Some content was available in a DRM free mp3 format, but not all.

Both the Nook and Zune have features for lending material. With the Zune I think the song could be lent for three days or three plays, after which it would remove itself from the other person’s player unless they purchased it. This limitation was imposed, even if the original song had no DRM. So an artist could not distribute their own music to people in this manner.

The nook goes a step further and locks the copy of the lent material on the owner’s nook, meaning they can’t read it while it is lent out. This more closely resembles lending a real book, and I have nothing against it in principle. However, it can only be lent for two weeks (I think) and only once. So I cannot lend it to the person again if they were unable to finish it in two weeks, nor can I lend it to another person. To top it all off, this feature can be enabled/disabled on a per book basis by Barnes & Noble (much as the audio book ability on Kindle).

Of course, with the nook and Kindle you can register multiple devices to the same account and they allow you to do this with members of the same household, so you can effectively share whatever you want with your family.

Heard Leo Laporte interviewing Felicia Day and I for some reason thought about WANC. Apparently she’s released a new Bollywood-style video that I haven’t taken time to track down. I’m guessing it’s not as good as the Avatar one, but who knows. Well, at least one of you will.

I actually hadn’t heard of it, maybe the unmarked van wasn’t wheel chair accessible this time.

I did go find it, and it was pretty cool. I like Bollywood movies, so I enjoyed both the worlds of reference.

I seem to remember going down to KC to record a show while I was on vacation…or was that a dream or drug induced hallucination…