Sigh

I really enjoyed Todd A's first novel, Being Good. His next one is almost ready, and I can't wait to read it. If you have any interest at all in discovering what it takes to do all this, check out Todd's blog.

Thursday night, I finished reading Peter Spiros's Saniya. I'm not sure what I expected when I opened it, but it was a damn good read, very sweet, and a nice break from my usual fare.

Then last night, I got to the last page of Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain. The right/libertarian side of the blogosphere has been buzzing about this book for a couple weeks now, and all I can add is that the buzz is dead-on.

If you follow tech blogs like Engadget or Slashdot, you probably noticed a blurb about how several movie companies are suing Samsung, over an obscure DVD player that was sold for just a few months in 2004. Like many, many other DVD players, the Samsung DVD-HD841 had a "back door," or a semi-secret code that could be entered in through the remote control to turn off various copy protection schemes. Disney, Time Warner, Fox, Paramount and Universal have all sued claiming they've been damaged by video piracy related to the Samsung players, and are demanding a complete recall of all units in private hands (how the heck they plan to pull that off, I have no idea, and I imagine the plaintiffs don't, either).

The existence of such a DVD player is nothing new; the age of DVD secret codes goes back at least seven years, to the venerable Apex AD-600A, which caused a huge commotion when its own back door was revealed by USA Today and the Washington Post way back in 1999. The Apex players, which were cheap for the day at $175, flew off the shelves of Circuit City, their only retailer, and hundreds if not thousands made their way to eBay for resale at a hefty profit.

Thing is, all of these players, from the Apex all the way up to the Samsung and beyond, wouldn't let you do much more than avoid the MPAA's asinine region coding scheme (meaning you could play DVDs bought anywhere in the world, as opposed to only those from the one region the movie companies think you ought to be able to buy from), or successfully copy a DVD onto videotape, or later onto a set-top DVD recorder. The really funny thing is, not one copy made in that manner would be nearly as high-quality as the exact duplicate anybody can make today with a $40 DVD burner and free, easy-to-find DVD copying software. And region-coding actually affects only a tiny portion of any DVD's purchasers.

So, what's the big deal here? Why are all those movie companies suing Samsung over a DVD player that really didn't do much of note, and at any rate hasn't been for sale for a year and a half? What the heck are they going to accomplish, beyond sending the Samsung player's resale value through the roof?

I'm glad you asked.

This lawsuit is not about Samsung. It's not about the DVD-HD841. It's not even about DVD players as you and I know them.

It's a warning. It's a shot across the bow to Samsung and Apex and Panasonic and Cyberhome and every other hardware manufacturer, great and small, to lock up all those back doors in future products.

The movie companies know that the DVD copying cat is so far out of the bag, its kittens have reached every corner of the Earth. They've lost that fight, but they don't plan to lose it as easily in the new generation of high-definition hardware. They know very well that the guys (and almost all of them are male) who design the hardware and software for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD and every other variant of jasminlive video technology want to be able to make copies for themselves, the movie studios' wishes be damned.

That's what happened with the back doors on all these consumer products--they were put in by engineers who wanted to get around the copying restrictions placed on their hardware. Today, Hollywood is leaning on the bosses of those engineers to stamp out any such shenanigans in future products. They figure if the hardware suits are worried enough about getting sued, they'll lean on their engineers to only produce products unlikely to draw the fire of Hollywood's First Lawyer Division.

Will it work? I frankly doubt it. Every engineer alive thinks he's smarter than any lawyer, and a lot of them are right. But Hollywood is going to do its damnedest to scare them out of proving it.

I honestly don't know what to make of the port management story. I'm not clear on what the implications of the whole deal are. On the one hand, I can certainly understand the "What the hell are they thinking?" instinctive reaction. That initial response to a country from the Middle East 'taking over US ports' is not hard to sympathize with.

On the other hand, I think Bush has a point when he says we aren't doing ourselves (or anybody else) any favors by taking a "no Arabs need apply" position on doing business. That's a bad way to make friends--and enemies. Whether or not you buy the line 'we are not at war with Islam,' we are not at war with every Arab on the planet. We really are trying to win people over in that part of the world. Throwing what appears to be a normal business transaction back in the faces of a decent ally is not going to help our cause.

And UAE is an ally. At least as I understand it, the UAE is easily the most Americanized of the Gulf states. We already sell them the most sophisticated version of the F-16 ever built; the new jets they're getting are more advanced than any US F-16 (no kidding). That's a pretty big statement of trust, and that deal was done well before Bush came to power; I remember seeing the first chaturbate models doing flight tests back in the 1990's.

That's not to say that the US can't or shouldn't be careful here. I have no problem at all with doing extensive screenings of port employees, for instance (I'd be pretty hypocritical if I did, since I had to go through a pretty damn intensive government screening myself for my own job). But after further review, I do have a problem with "no Arabs need apply." The opportunistic stuff I'm hearing out of everybody from Hillary Clinton to Bill Frist sounds a lot like that, and that's not something we ought to be standing for.

For whatever it's worth, I think Bush is going to take a big political hit for the whole affair. Nobody can accuse him of going with polls or focus groups on this one.

UPDATE: The proprieter of Aladdin's Rant (full disclosure--he's a friend of mine) has a few thoughts on the subject.

I grew up in a small town in south Alabama. Until I was a sophomore in college, there weren't any rock radio stations within daytime listening range. The choices were Top 40, country, "easy listening" (aka the stuff my dad played at his dentist office), NPR, and a few religious stations. The only real rock radio in the region came out of Atlanta (96 Rock) or Pensacola, which was home to the then-legendary WTKX-FM, better known as TK-101.

TK was one of the last independently-programmed stations in the country, surviving until 2000, when it was bought out and artistically gutted by the ClearChannel conglomerate (96 Rock in Atlanta suffered the same fate). In the early 80's, it was the first place I ever heard Rush on the radio, or R.E.M., or U2, or Van Halen (pre-"Jump", natch), or Metallica, or any of scores of bands that didn't, at that time, fit in to anybody's format. The first time I ever heard "Sympathy For The Devil," or the Faces' "Stay With Me," I was listening to TK.

But that wasn't what was really great about the station. TK had a personality, and it was unpredictable. The station was programmed by the in-house jocks, and you really never knew what you were going to hear next, particularly in the first half of the '80's. TK picked up on new acts in a hurry, and even played stuff like Cyndi Lauper and Duran Duran long before they were unavoidable on Top 40 stations (and like them or hate them, at that time they were still new and very different from the automated pop of the day). It was a station that could effortlessly go from Judas Priest to Bruce Cockburn to an old Journey tune, and then roll into an obscure live U2 track one of the jocks found on the back of a vinyl EP.

In other words, it was a lot like KCDX, profiled today in the LA Times. Unfortunately, it's not like much of anything else you can find today, either on the dial or even on satellite radio.

Now, don't get me wrong; I've had an XM receiver for over a year, and I wouldn't voluntarily give it up (unless I decide I like Sirius better one of these days). Their programming is light-years better than anything on terrestrial radio; Bluesville is a particularly fantastic channel. But at its heart, even XM is nearly as segregated as any ClearChannel-choked radio dial.

Deep Tracks is the closest thing on XM to an old-style rock radio station, but it's still limited to a fairly slim slice of mid-tempo 70's and 80's tunes (and it's gotten entirely too hippie-oriented for my tastes lately). Anything more muscular is relegated to the ridiculous hair-band ghetto of Boneyard, and that's asinine. There's a lot of heavy music out there that doesn't suck, so why lump the aforementioned Van Halen in with outright crap like Poison or Warrant? Where are the progressive rock acts? Or for that matter, the singer-songwriters? Where are the new, genuinely alternative bands from college radio?

Well, of course, they're on their own jasminelive channels (whoops, except for progressive rock, which just got bumped to internet-only). But out of all of XM's bandwidth, why isn't there at least one place that plays some of everything?

XM brags about being an alternative to commercial radio, and on some occasions and stations they live up to that boast, but with hundreds of channels available, why isn't there a genuine free-form channel? Why all the harsh segregation? Why are they just repeating ClearChannel's playlist on Top Tracks and Big Tracks? You can hear all those same songs every day on any commercial "classic rock" station, so why does XM even bother?

In other words, XM, you're getting my $13 a month. Now how about you deliver me just one station with... personality? Here's a suggestion: look up a guy who went by the handle "Strummer." He was as close as TK-101 had to a programming director during the station's glory days. You could do a hell of a lot worse than hiring him and turning him loose.

Is Atlas Shrugged finally coming to the big screen? With a major studio – and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt showing interest – it might just be, finally, at long last, coming soon.

That means it’s time to play a game I’ve toyed with since 1984: picking the Atlas Shrugged dream cast. Anyone can play, but let’s try to keep it real. Twenty years ago, I thought Rutger Hauer was the perfect choice to play Hank Reardon. But twenty years ago, Hauer was twenty years younger. He’d be a bad choice in 2006. With that in mind, here’s my current dream cast.

Dagny Taggart. If Angelina wants the role, it’s hers. Of course, you’d probably give her your car if she showed the slightest interest.

John Galt. I used to joke that instead of a live actor, Galt should be played by a very large piece of cardboard with a speaker on it. But Brad Pitt? He has a natural, likeable oddness about him which could bring some humanity to the character. Perfect.

Hank Reardon. Another good fit for Pitt. But if he’s got Galt, then the role should go to Kiefer Sutherland. Right age, right looks, right inner turmoil.

Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d’Anconia. Antonio Banderas is the obvious choice, and the best one.

Ragnar Danneskjöld. Only Val Kilmer is pretty enough to play Ragnar. Or at least he was until he got all puffy. Plan B: Jude Law.

Jim Taggart. Edward Norton manages to combine goofy with malice when he needs to.

Cheryl Brooks. Jim’s ill-fated young wife. Role goes to Big Love’s Ginnifer Goodwin.

Balph Eubanks. Jeremy Piven, who else?

Dan Conway. The owner of the competing railroad that Jim railroaded out of business. Harvey Keitel might be too New Yawk to play someone from Arizona, but I still think he's the guy for the part. Also consider Benicio del Toro.

Dick McNamara. Old-school contractor. Should be played by a character actor with a lot of presence. I like Charles S. Dutton.

Eddie Willers. Dagny’s earnest aide-de-camp. How about Nick Stahl? He’s a few years too young, but otherwise right.

Ellis Wyatt. Young, intense Colorado oil magnate. If Cillian Murphy can dial down his Creep Factor, he’s got the part.

Hugh Akston. I’ve always said Paul Newman should play Hugh, and I always will.

Lillian Reardon. Ten years ago, you’d have cast Sharon Stone. In 2006, you might give Carrie-Anne Moss a look. Uma Thurman would work, too – but Moss is the better Ice Queen

Midas Mulligan. Gene Hackman is my first choice, but it looks like he's retired. Who else could play it earthy and light? I'd take a look at James Garner.

Orren Boyle. Hank’s government-enabled competitor. Wallace Shawn fits.

Phillip Reardon. Can you picture Jason Lee as Hank’s whiny little brother? If not, then James Franco will need something to do after Spider-Man 3 is done shooting.

Quentin Daniels. The Utah-based scientist Dagny hired to study the Motor. Firefly’s Nathan Fillion looks and sounds right.

Richard Halley. Composer of the Concerto of Deliverance. Forest Whitaker all the way.

Dr. Robert Stadler. John Malkovich. Who else could do such a combination of intellect and menace?

Wesley Mouch. Nobody plays the vicious dunce better than William H. Macy.