wappinghigh Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 No more pussy footing around Control4 Apple has declared war on your current and future customer base. On your platform... On your entire SDK.. You've got to fight back. You have NO chance whatsoever with the current way you are doing things. No chance in the long run. They are simply too big: with way to much market penetration into peoples homes and lives already.. Your ONLY chance now is to fight them in the courts. And fight them you MUST. You simply have to launch suits against DRM. You have a great case IMHO.. It is impossible to play or stream video content around the Control4 platform because of DRM.. This has been the problem all along.. And it's about to become the mother of *all* your problems... Because as night turns to day Apple will now clearly merge the seamless Apple TV media experience with control over third party devices like amps/mutiroom distribution, AV gear and media room lighting... They will turn this into a Video Sonos experience (all centered around the family room TV/movie viewing experience).. now with lighting, HVAC and security HA fruit.. So, DRM is thwarting the development and use of the Control4 platform. It's choking the use of your product at it's core. Because media management lies at the heart of your product experience. It is the essence of a universal remote setup. Which is your core business. Therefore DRM is anticompetitive to Control4's business. There is your case right there Fight them in the courts. For the sake of us. Your passionate users. Your dealer base. Your employees and your shareholders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogdvr Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 I thought you just said you were off for a while? Or is this the start of one of your epic rants? Brent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesterwilson Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 Do Australians need a visa to enter the US? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 7, 2014 Author Share Posted June 7, 2014 It's "the last post" for a while.. Sure.. It's not a rant. It's a call to arms.. Go ahead and watch our beloved product be trampled on and die for all I care.. I've only got a few TS's and linux based units at stake here.. No bother: as a customer I can move on. Very quickly... But others? They have way more invested and at stake here... You got any other bright ideas? Just what is so illogical about what I have posted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogdvr Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 Who said anything about illogical, I asked if you were about to go on a epic rant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 7, 2014 Author Share Posted June 7, 2014 Do Australians need a visa to enter the US?Nope. Look what do some of you guys have against me? I've done nothing ever wrong. I don't torrent. I don't pirate. All I ever want to do is get 100% access to world content in a timely and anti-competitve free trade kind of way.. It's all paid for. I just want to be able to play the content as easy on my C4 system as the torrent guys get to play it on a computer or Apple customers get to use it on an AppleTV.. The only difference is I WANT to pay the content license fees!!! And I wish I could do this within my Control4 platform. I mean what a dhead I know.. but there you have it... !!! That is Control4's case. You can't do what I want on the Control4 platform because of DRM. Open and shut case as far as I can tell.... You can't write that Netflix app. Or put those Apple movies in your C4 library. All because of DRM. I mean why should the bitttorent thief's get a better deal in media streaming all the time? Why should these multinational bullies make users play certain content *only* within their devices? This *is* anti-competitive. This is not a rant. It's pointing out the bleeding obvious That's why Control4 needs to fight them. That's why it should now be war.. And the war they can fight them on is DRM... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snaffle8 Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 David vs Goliath. Might not matter if C4 has a good case with DRM, Deep pocket usually lose a few battles, but win more wars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WillEV Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Nope. Look what do some of you guys have against me? I've done nothing ever wrong. I don't torrent. I don't pirate. All I ever want to do is get 100% access to world content in a timely and anti-competitve free trade kind of way.. It's all paid for. I just want to be able to play the content as easy on my C4 system as the torrent guys get to play it on a computer or Apple customers get to use it on an AppleTV.. The only difference is I WANT to pay the content license fees!!! And I wish I could do this within my Control4 platform. I mean what a dhead I know.. but there you have it... !!! That is Control4's case. You can't do what I want on the Control4 platform because of DRM. Open and shut case as far as I can tell.... You can't write that Netflix app. Or put those Apple movies in your C4 library. All because of DRM. I mean why should the bitttorent thief's get a better deal in media streaming all the time? Why should these multinational bullies make users play certain content *only* within their devices? This *is* anti-competitive. This is not a rant. It's pointing out the bleeding obvious That's why Control4 needs to fight them. That's why it should now be war.. And the war they can fight them on is DRM... I still don't know why you don't get that you do NOT have a right to watch anything you want, even if you want to pay for it at the correct market price. The owner of the content gets to choose who, if anyone, they want to sell their product to..And why sue Apple? They don't make any content, so they're not the ones who are choosing to put DRM on the content. That's the studios. I don't mind you pissing in the wind every week, but at least try and understand why you're pissing into the *wrong* wind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 ^ LOL man.. You know as well as me its all about the "middle men" and governments .. still trying to protect there silly little empires dating back to when content used to arrive via post on tape reals... Just take a look at how the BBC still delivers content to Australia!!! We might have access to BBC world.. but what about every other BBC channel? You have NO idea what it's like. I can sit here and share "content" with you real time on the net via forums like this..., yet It might be 12 months before I can see a repeat of Panorama.. (if at all... and then at the discretion of the Australian government!) Is *that* good for Democracy and the dissemination of accurate and timely information? People who don't live in this (or any other isolated part of the Non Euro-American centric part of the world) have NO idea. Because they don't necessarily witness it. The world has totally changed. Digitalisation of content and the internet has seen to that.. Yet true market forces are not allowed to offer up the free flowing distribution of content... wait correction... they are actually.... in the form of the torrent market!! go figure.. There is no such thing as "free trade".. Your right. The studios see to that. Apple will be complicit in this. Don't worry about that. Because it suits them to be quiet and do nothing about it... As Control4 is about to find out!!! They will slowly steer people away from using Control4's "control" of the viewing process. Apple therefore will only drop it (like they eventually did with music) when a serious other player breaks free... which is precisely why Control4 needs to "break" this anticompetitve behaviour... I'm not suggesting C4 consider fighting Apple specifically... I'm no media lawyer.. might be one of the major studios instead (if it was seen to be more appropriate)..... After all they are the ones trying to steer viewers to their own outdated cable network box GUI's all the time.. Again. There is anticompetitive behaviour right there... But fight they MUST. Because as I've said multiple times before it is ALL about where the viewing eyeballs land... and media is where 95% of interactions with Control4 start.. If eyeballs start to wander from the Control4 GUI and out of the Control4 platform....it's game over.. And that is precisely what Apple will do with their new SDK!!! You of all people should understand this. It's exactly why your Sonos driver is such a success!!!! It keeps eyeballs within the C4 viewing experience.. BUT my friend *this* is only possible because music is DRM free!!! NOW do you understand where I am coming from? Mark my words, if C4 doesn't fight this they are finished... They'll get trampled.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Well it is about middlemen but not about them 'protecting their silly little empires' Those middlemen have legal agreements about giving them rights and ownership of the content in that territory. Do you actually know how this works? The SonyBMGs and Warner Bros and Disney of the world do not have an outpost and owned distribution network in every country of the world. Instead they find a local distributor. Someone with expertise in 1) getting the movie 'rated' by the local rating agency.2) translating the movie into local language (not relevant in Australia but it is in many territories). Did you know that many movie stars have a local voice who is also their 'star' voice. Imagine, you could be the turkish voice of Brad Pitt.3) marketing it, communications with local tv networks to run trailers, billboard companies4) local premiers5) printing movies (more usual in many teritories, digital cinema is not yet global)6) vhs / dvd / blurayAll of this maximises the return in that country. While the business model involves a middle man, I am not quite sure yet how you would remove that person within your gimme everything now model. I would like to think that DLNA and some other clever transport stuff would allow content aggregation within the Control4 environment but the flip side is that it takes a user away from the GUI that the licencor owns and that is the GUI where they buy more content. Smart people (well smart people that can code) should be able to get their hooks into UV content suck that into C4 easily, you then just need the service and box to play it on. (Now I'm gonna think more US) Netflix is busy building a platform agnostic GUI and so you need to question why Netflix or anyone would build ithis into a HC when it would look the same as on my Roku. C4 would do well to partner with TiVo or Roku in this space as both have been building great global search functionality. If Roku had a 2 way driver it would be killer for the C4 platform. Tiny footprint, able to provide search and response feedback (I'm thinking a GUI like Rhapsody), but for just browsing you will get a better experience in their own universe. Able to use my UV library to populate movie content and then hook out to the right app and show in the roku box. I'm sure some of that is also available in Dune / Popcorn. Problem also is that this is a 1% problem. Roku has shifted 5m hockeypucks. http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/10/roku-5-million-sold/ Developing code / UI / 2 way interface for C4 is not going to get the next million, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 ^ That's is one of the best posts I've read around here in a long while.. Thankyou for understanding where I am coming from And your right about the middleman.. They are usually Governments and all their ludicrous outdated content regulations... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamT Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Nope. Look what do some of you guys have against me? THE FACT THAT YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID AND YOU KEEP SHOOTING ARROWS AT THE WRONG PEOPLE. DONT LIKE DRM, DONT BLAME C4. THEY ARE JUST THE STAMP ON THE ENVELOPE, NOT THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE THE ENVELOPE MAN. I've done nothing ever wrong. I don't torrent. I don't pirate. All I ever want to do is get 100% access to world content in a timely and anti-competitve free trade kind of way.. It's all paid for. I just want to be able to play the content as easy on my C4 system as the torrent guys get to play it on a computer or Apple customers get to use it on an AppleTV..THAT WHY TORRENTS ARE ILLEGAL! I WANT 100% ACCESS TO THE BLOND WITH THE BIG KNOCKERS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD BUT I DON'T THINK MY WIFE WANTS ME TO SINCE I HAVE A MARRIAGE LICENSE AND NOT AN ALL ACCESS WOMAN LICENSE. The only difference is I WANT to pay the content license fees!!! And I wish I could do this within my Control4 platform. I mean what a dhead I know.. but there you have it... !!! WELL ILL PAY THE BLOND TOO, BUT ONCE AGAIN IT ISNT RIGHT. That is Control4's case. You can't do what I want on the Control4 platform because of DRM. Open and shut case as far as I can tell....YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN A LAWYER SINCE YOU TAKE ALL OF THE TIME TO GET THE FACTS BEFORE RANTING ON....WAIT YOU DONT! I mean why should the bitttorent thief's get a better deal in media streaming all the time? CAN I COME INTO YOUR HOME AND USE YOUR STUFF, YOUR TV, CREDIT CARDS AND SUCH WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION? YOU THINK THEY ASKED THE MOVIE COMPANY IF THEY CAN? ALSO THOSE PEOPLE USING APPLE TVS HAVE TO JAILBREAK, MEANING ANOTHER LEGAL ACTION TO WATCH THAT "FREE DRM" STUFF YOUR TALKING ABOUT. This is not a rant. YES IT IS. OHHHH YES IT IS. It's pointing out the bleeding obvious AND ITS ABOUT AS OBVIOUS AS ENRON WASN'T GOING ANYTHING WRONG.....ALL THOSE PEOPLE IN PRISON ARE INNOCENT AND MISUNDERSTOOD...... DUDE IF YOU HATE C4 SO MUCH GO HANG OUT IN A CRESTRON FORUM, OR ON A HIGHWAY. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Adamt, taking your 'i'll pay the blond' analogy through, well, the cost for that licence, especially for the new stuff is not $10 a month. It's in the thousands. Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 The post next but one above aside.. I think maybe the penny is dropping what I have been on about with DRM here?? I can see the C4 prosecution case right now: They would put up the EV Sonos app as a brilliant case of how important DRM free content (in this case music) was to the Control4 GUI and platform. Then they would ask Will from EV to demonstrate this brilliant app, and if if he could please show His Honour the same with a Movie from the Apple store.... And his reply would be.. "well no Sir"... "I can't actually do that because that movie has DRM on it.. " "I might have been able to kind of give it a try (with a less adequate back door fix) when the Apple TV MK1 was around... But Apple shut that door completely shut, when they blocked companies like us displaying the content on our GUI in any shape or form after they developed the MK2 and 3 pucks... " Open and shut case as far as I can tell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 But the music streams on the Sonos have drm applied. Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 Huh? Sure the music streams might.. but that doesn't stop them coming thru something like Pandonos.. Music flows thru seamlessly because Pandora isn't acting in an anticompetitive way... Music tracks don't have DRM ( a track is a file.. which is the equivalent to a movie file which does have DRM) What's you point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 ^ This would potentially prove the case against Apple and the studios even more.. Would it not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 ^ This would potentially prove the case against Apple and the studios even more.. Would it not? But music on ITMS started out drmed. Video is currently drm. It is Apple dealing with the deck they have not the deck they want. Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WillEV Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 You just don't get it. The people who own the content can do with it what they like. There is no law that says if you make something you have to sell it to anyone or in any format other than the format you choose. This isn't an anti-competition case, and I just don't get why you think it is. DRM is irrelevant to C4, as they're not playing back the content. What is important is an API that third party devices can access, and there is absolutely no requirement that any device manufacturer expose that. For example, every device that can play back Netflix is able to play back Netflix's DRM'd content. No device provides a way to browse that content except on the UI of that device,, because Netflix have said that you have to use their UI, which has very strict look and feel terms, because it's Netflix's content to distribute. If you break that agreement and make it possible to browse in another way, you will very shortly stop being able to play back Netflix's content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 While I understand the sentiment, there's no way to be "at war" with a concept (DRM). DRM appears to be here to stay, and there's no coherent way to manage having all Control4 partners (or even one, in many cases) give out their metadata (which would allow the searching / indexing functionality) to Control4 in a two-way protocol. There will undoubtedly be some of that sort of metadata available from some partners, but IMHO it's unlikely to be an industry-across-board feature anytime soon. RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamT Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Hang on, I cant hear you guys with my foil hat on.....Ok thats better, WAR! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 While I understand the sentiment, there's no way to be "at war" with a concept (DRM). DRM appears to be here to stay, and there's no coherent way to manage having all Control4 partners (or even one, in many cases) give out their metadata (which would allow the searching / indexing functionality) to Control4 in a two-way protocol. There will undoubtedly be some of that sort of metadata available from some partners, but IMHO it's unlikely to be an industry-across-board feature anytime soon. RyanEAnd that is precisely why Control4 is in trouble.... Because that is precisely where Apple could take this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 You just don't get it. The people who own the content can do with it what they like. There is no law that says if you make something you have to sell it to anyone or in any format other than the format you choose. This isn't an anti-competition case, and I just don't get why you think it is. DRM is irrelevant to C4, as they're not playing back the content. What is important is an API that third party devices can access, and there is absolutely no requirement that any device manufacturer expose that. For example, every device that can play back Netflix is able to play back Netflix's DRM'd content. No device provides a way to browse that content except on the UI of that device,, because Netflix have said that you have to use their UI, which has very strict look and feel terms, because it's Netflix's content to distribute. If you break that agreement and make it possible to browse in another way, you will very shortly stop being able to play back Netflix's content.I am astounded you think this way... Yes the people who "own the content" can do "with it what they like".. Sure.. The point is when they do this, Control4 is not able to then pass it on in the best way that suits Control4 (and it's users). THAT IS WHY the behaviour of the content owners is anticompetitive. Because Control4 is itself in the content distribution business.. Not in getting it into the home.. But distributing it around the home and displaying it to the eyeballs of it's customers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 Anyway. There it is. I have had enough of trying to help people realise the importance of this issue for our wonderful C4 platform... Make of it what you will Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Because Control4 is itself in the content distribution business..http://investor.control4.com/index.cfmCompany ProfileControl4 is a leading provider of automation and control solutions for the connected home. We unlock the potential of connected devices, making entertainment systems easier to use, homes more comfortable and energy efficient, and families more secure. We provide our consumers with the ability to integrate music, video, lighting, temperature, security, communications and other functionalities into a unified home automation solution that enhances our consumers’ daily lives. More than 75% of our consumers have integrated two or more of these functionalities with our solution. At the center of our solution is our advanced software platform, which we provide through our products that interface with a wide variety of connected devices that are developed both by us and by third parties. Our solution functions as the operating system of the home, making connected devices work together to control, automate and personalize the homes of our consumers.Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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