Microsoft warns of banned Xbox 360 consoles for sale on eBay

The comments section here is quite interesting; it illustrates that a large number of (presumed) Canadians are seemingly unable to comprehend the definition of the word copyright. I think that, in light of this apparent ignorance, as we approach a time in which essentially everyone is connected to high-speed internet at all times, a fundamental change in the way that we pay for software rights is bound to occur. We have already seen some examples, such as with the game Company of Heroes, for which an internet connection is required to play the game at all (even single player). More strikingly, in China (where software piracy is rampant [not to mention other piracy]), the popular game World of Warcraft is essentially free (I think it costs ten Yuan or something ridiculously trivial, and it might even include a time credit, in order to get users “hooked”), but users have to pre-pay for playtime.

In the future, I think it’s possible that almost all software will perform a license check before starting (and perhaps periodically while running), and users may be subject to a use based charge, although the software itself might be free. Companies might be able to combat the piracy of say, an office program (which, if pirated, could create documents independently), by having the software that a given client is using first grab a key from a server. Then, only documents that were created by genuine versions of the office program could be accessed by other genuine versions, or shared. Of course, this all would require many agreements between software firms in order to work, as certain office programs would have to be compatible with the files of others, but I’m confident that some sort of “ISO” type standards organisation could handle such a task. It certainly will be interesting to see how accurate this prediction turns out to be in, say, ten to fifteen years.

I was checking my mail (Gmail) last night when I came across and interesting text ad. Now – I NEVER and I mean NEVER click on text ads, but this one caught my eye for some reason or another. It read “Cinese Furniture Beware” and linked to a simple one page site. If you check out the site yourself, you’ll see that it shows a number of photos of damaged furniture and the complaints of a customer who was apparently shafted by the company.

In an age in which online marketing can have a hand in determining the success or failure of many third world country export companies, I think this is a very positive sign. Through Google and a little cash spent on adwords, the disgruntled customer has a reasonably viable recourse against bad business practises. If he targets “Cinese Furniture” as his keyword, then anyone who is getting email from that company and using Gmail will most likely see his ad, and think twice about making a deal. Also – the savvy customer who searches for “Cinese Furniture” will most likely see the site “cinesefurniturebeware.com” on account of the keywords in the domain name.

Certainly living in a more connected world has all sorts of advantage, and promotes general liberty and equality; like the press, it ensures that unethical companies / people are more likely to be held accountable for their actions, unlike the press, however, you don’t have to be a tycoon in order for people to hear your message. I can only hope that Google stays “not evil” as they say, and continues the good fight.