So are these numbers good or bad; with what can we compare them? Well to the European market of course.

1.4M users acquired in just one month with one to ten ratio between paying and non-paying customers is a great launch where ever the launch may be. To do this in the US, competing with new services appearing daily is even stronger. I believe that these numbers show that there is an acceptance to paying for music as long as the service and amount of music is good. Napster was quick and easy back in its days and created the basic mental framework which made people into taking music for granted. To see it as a right instead of a service really. They created a wave and a movement which Spotify is riding on today with a legal option which also work even better then Napster did in some areas. Since Spotify made music mobile with great apps they really made music as a commodity that we can all have with us at all times. Personally I have been a paying customers for quite some time and I have never had any thoughts of cancelling since it gives me the ability to have music with me using my iPhone where ever I go.

Given the brief amount of time Spotify has been available in the US and already show a just over ten percent conversion rate between free and premium users is really good. As the free users start running out of time per month I strongly believe that the rate will increase towards about fifteen percent which is the number it has been reported from the European market according to Sean Parker. I truly hope that the music industry finally will see the potential in these services so that we can continue to have legal alternatives to get music into our lives.

If you live in the US and don’t have an invite yet, just let me know and we’ll sort it out! I see the fee I pay every month both as a subscription fee but also to show the industry how I am prepared to pay for music. Flat rates instead of individual pricing when it comes to mainstream music is my preferred way and I accept without any doubts that I will need  to buy albums and songs from artist too small be found on streaming services. Streaming is the future for music that already happened, let’s get out there and show that we support it.

I am not in any way affiliated with Spotify and write just based on my own experience. If you have any tips of other services similar or even better please get in touch with me so I can evaluate! If you already have a Spotify account, you can look at what’s in my listening lists by following the link below!

References

• http://allthingsd.com/20110808/spotifys-u-s-score-so-far-1-4-million-users-175000-paying-customers/
• http://allthingsd.com/20110307/spotify-toots-its-own-horn-one-million-paying-subscribers/
• http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/07/22/spotify.uptake.in.us.growing.fast/
• http://www.businessinsider.com/sean-parker-spotify-2010-10
• http://www.spotify.com
• http://www.napster.com

I am one of those who have two alarms set each morning where the first one goes off simply by giving me the pleasure of snoozing once. Due to that I can calculate who much I have to pledge each month using simple math.

Those of you who can stop hitting that snooze button however; this one is for you!

I saw a story on CultOfMac about a session that was held at Cupertino City Council not too long ago where Steve Jobs where unveiling the new campus Apple want to build there. Not only is the building and the surrounding area a beautiful piece of architecture, the whole session is also very interesting since it shows Mr Jobs in a setting we often do not see him.

Let’s look into what the game and it’s creator is all about.

For those who have not played or seen any gameplay of the game Minecraft it is a sandbox game created by Mojang AB, much inspired by crafting and creating a personal world out of an untouched land. The tabula rasa concept is often driving force behind all sandbox games and also in Minecraft.

The game start in a situation where you are all alone in a vast world and what to do is up to you and not the game. The only incitement the game do give which force the player to take action is the fact that the world is a safe place during the day but as soon as the darkness fall at night, monsters come out to play and they have the diabolical plan to kill you. Since the only quest the player have is to survive, imagination is ones closest ally.

Since early stage of the game there have been a presence from the community not only as quality assurance but also as requirement gatherers and specification writers. They contributed ideas and comments which the development team actively have taken into account and created a game people asked for. However; ideas which did not fit into the world was rejected and a reason was often given to why. Even though functionality was rejected it can still get into the game if it is picked up by modification developers which also at a early stage was welcomed. Instead of pulling the plug on modifications or trying to stop them, they looked into how to make them legit and to create a way of using the communities crowd knowledge for the product. Naturally the modification community have given the game an enormous amount of input and feature requests which will keep the product evolving for a long time. The community is what’s keeping the game alive, not the creator.

Now and then a truly innovative game hit the market that goes viral and the concept is praised by the communities. I see Minecraft in about the same category as Angry Birds, Lemmings or perhaps The Sims. It is a concept which will change the market and also show that there is a segment of players out there which are looking for something else then what is currently offered. There is always a new player segment out there, screaming for attention. The concept don’t even have to be unique, it just need to be in right time.

So why have Minecraft become such a force to recon with the last year and why is it mentioned in all from papers to news programs?

First of all we can not forget the kind of fairy tale the game is for it’s creator, Notch. It is a story about a developer who quit from his employer to instead do what he wanted to do in own force. On top of this we have a community driven game developed by a person with a very good feeling for how to handle a crowd project. Using the good ideas and keeping a close contact with the people who come up with them. Instead of pushing people away, saying;

– Good idea, give it yet another spin and return afterwards and we’ll see how it fit.

I do believe that Minecraft is here to stay long enough to build up a economic base for Mojang AB so that they can continue to develop good indie games for quite some years. I keep my fingers crossed for Scrolls which is Mojang’s new game. Can’t wait until I can try it.

A word of caution however; nothing is harder then to follow up on pure success. I keep my fingers crossed.

All images in this article are from within the game Minecraft by Mojang AB.

Germany have had a similar law as Sweden for about the same duration. What happend here was that the law created a new offspring of lawyers which specialized in canibalizing on the new market as henchemens of the movie industry. By sending out fierce threats of courts they demand a fee from about 1000 SEK (about €100) up to ten times that amout. By paying this fee stright away the suspected pirate can skip court and with this also a risk or a bigger fee together with a court order.

[...] if a person break a law they have accepted the consequence of doing so.

Let’s start by making something clear. I do not condone the use of force from a country in which a law has been broken, if a person break a law they have accepted the consequence of doing so. In this case however it is no longer the state that make this decision, instead it is the individual lawyer on behalf of a company which perform an act of violence (by using threat) to force a person to pay. You have a private company, which should help us by defending our rights, instead working with handing out threats since their masters are not honest enough to do accept how the law was written. One might wonder, is this the same path we will walk in Sweden?

According to Katrina Hebben who work out of an lawyers office involved in these questions called Baumgarten Brandt they do not yet hold any Swedish clients. The reason for this is that the law is written a bit different in Sweden then it is in Germany. Perhaps our law is not that bad after all? Perhaps it is not killing of our freedom but instead securing it in a situation where it easily could have gotten out of hands?

While the specialized lawyer firms stand tall behind the movie industry there is however yet another section of lawyers who due to this specialized in defending the persons who recieve the threats. Well, we all must be happy that the situation seem to generate jobs any way! The thing is however that a person which recieve a threat don’t have that much of a choice then to pay what is requested. A pirated movie for example is a fellony and since it is, the fee must be payed. I just hope that one of those letters don’t get to the elderly or the ones not technically knowing which have an hacked wifi which the neighbours use to download.

This is more money payed by pirates then the movie has made in Germany, dvd sales and cinama tickets combined.

But back to the main story, can the threat of court make pirates pay up enough to give back the investment of chaising them? Since the lawyers own fees quite often is held in the shadows all we can see is what money they get payed for they threats. The Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan had the movie Antichrist by Lars von Trier as an example[1] (english translation). Upon contract from the movie company Zentropa more then 600 people has been threatened by Baumgarten Brandt and these 600 persons have combined payed about 5.5M SEK (about €550.000) to not go to court. This is more money payed by pirates then the movie has made in Germany, dvd sales and cinama tickets combined.

So the hunt for pirates is steaming ahead, all at the same time as the cinemas breaking new records[2] (english translation) for visiting people paying to see movies on the big screen while the rest of the media is continuing to report on the massive loss[3] of income caused by pirates.

I wonder if the industry had made the same amount of revenue if they actually looked into a substainable payment model and level where people could rent or buy movies online quick and easy. Looking at the massive increase in services the last year in video on demand, it is obvious for me that the ordinary movie watchers have been longing for this. Even the market itself have known for a long time what was happening[4][5][6]. I still belive that most people would pay for a movie if the price was right and the service was easy enough. From my end, when iTunes get a deal to be used (legally) in Europe I know that more people will find the service irresistable just as I have.

We all want to watch movies and if there is a simple service which can make it so that we don’t have to get out of the sofa to do so – we will use it. If there is no such service, piracy will just grow. As long as piracy grows, counter efforts do to.

Isn’t simple buisness mechanics beautiful?

Resources

1. http://www.sydsvenskan.se/kultur-och-nojen/article1339771/Hot-far-fildelare-att-betala.html
   English translation
2. http://www.sf.se/nyheter/nyhet/134463/Bio-fortsaetter-att-slaa-rekord
3. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/us-government-finally-admits-most-piracy-estimates-are-bogus.ars
4. http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204805175
5. http://gigaom.com/video/netflix-the-future-is-streaming/
6. http://stairwellblog.com/2010/12/netflix-streaming-video-surpasses-direct-mail-dvds/

The movie let us follow 9 (voice by Elijah Wood), a torn and rugged doll created out of burlap and with lenses for eyes. 9 enters the world without any understanding for why he is or when. Soon it become obvious for him that he does have a purpose in the time to come, not alone however. Together with the eight other dolls (voices by Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer and Jennifer Connelly to mention a few) the path clears on the task at hand. The movie has a few parts which may be a bit to strong for the younger audience and it seem that it is created more for an mature audience just as the movies of Tim Burton often are.

A post-apocalyptic wonderland

The first thing that did amaze me was the wonderful but eerie environments created in which the world exist. The destruction of the world just occurred and all that remain is scorched homes and wrecked cities, all entangled by sandbag-shelters and dug out trenches. The destruction becomes almost beautiful even though the entire setting is created out of darkness.

All the characters we meet throughout the movie has an arsenal or personality, which make me as a view to completely surrender the thought on small dolls who can speak to be something out of this world. Not many minutes pass until I can enter into the world which I’m seeing.

The only downside of the movie which I did notice would be a somewhat lack of crescendo. The later part of the movie could be even more dramatic to intensify the feelings of the characters. The movie still make sense but a more intense later part of the movie would have raised it even further.

9 gives us a very good start of the new movie-year and I highly recommend it for the more mature audience. Tim Burton has become one of the greater creators of our time in my opinion.

Resources
9 at IMDb

Todd is a call-center manager who quite frankly do not like his job. Nevertheless he get upset when he find out that his company is outsourcing him and his team to an Indian company. He even get the task of learning his own replacement about what to do. All from his first views of the Indian society to the clash of cultures is coated in a warm and fuzzy feeling as it is a romantic comedy.

So how does the movie compare to my own observations then? Well first of all, there is more people – everywhere. In Outsourced all that was shown was these calm suburban streets found in the US, and those was not the case in the India I was located in. What was perfectly shown though was the amazing warmth and kindness of the Indian people. You did see smiles and colors almost where ever you went which was an amazing experience for me, coming from the cold and a bit reserved Scandinavia.

If you are ot for a general feel-good movie with no real surprises this is a movie for you. Eventhough the movie can be a bit predictable in parts it will deliver a couple of smiles.

Resources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425326/

Knowing is a new movie just out featuring Nicolas Cage. This time Mr. Cage takes on the role of a singe-parent astrophysicist named John Koestler who is struggling to handle his life after he lost his wife. The story evolve surrounding John and his son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) who attends the William Dawes Elementary School. At the day when the time capsule is opened Caleb receives Lucinda’s sheets of numbers and brings them home because he think that they have a higher purpose. Drunk and broken down by his loneliness after his wife, John find a pattern in the numbers and the plot takes of.

As the first half of the movie goes the tension really builds up and they hold the audience in a great grip, as a viewer one feel that the story can take many different turns. The problem is that this twist never really arrive and when it does, I think almost everyone in the theater has already figured it out. For some this might actually be a good sign but for most people I think it will be more of a turn off.

Also, the special effects of the movie did halter in a few places which made me question the production a bit. Because at the same time there was other pars of the movie which was incredible in both effect and realism. Especially the part which involves a plane crash which was shown during a full continues two-minutes shoot.

Knowing currently hold a score of 6.5/10 at IMDB, and 33% at RottenTomatoes and a user-score of 6.4/10 at MetaCritic which can be seen as “OK” but nothing more. Personally I’d go for a score of 5/10. I feel the story had a great chance of blowing the audience away but did instead settle for the easy way out.

From the first moment I got the movie in my hands I noticed the obvious references between the story in the movie and the documentary I saw a while ago called Ross Kemp on Gangs. A documentary where the actor Ross Kemp travelled the world to understand the gangs around the globe. In one of the episodes he visited Rio de Janeiro and I got a view of the city that have ever since lingered in my mind. I was surprised on how it was possible for a city in such decay just could go on.

The movie is based on the book Elite da Tropa by Luiz Eduardo Soares together with two BOPE-officers (Major André Batista and Capten Rodrigo Pimentel). The story is about the elite police-squads roaming the streets of Rio de Janeiro trying to keep the druglords of the favelas at bay. The toughest of the squads is called BOPE or Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais and it is the people in this squad the movie follows.

The feeling of the entire movie is about more or less meaningless killing and power-struggles between people that have nothing but their own life. The only way of surviving is to get into the buisness of drugs and violence. Young kids beeing used as runners and lookouts and the older people not yet shoot as soldiers and hitmen. The only thing uniting all these people is the hatred against the police who themselfs is extreamly corrupt. And in some way the corruption feels like the main reason for the entire situation because if the people could trust the police the hatred would never grow as fierce. But as the situation is today it seem that all with a gun can be bought.

The movie is increddible violent and graphical and categorized as an action-movie but I would call it and action-drama due to the underlaying story of the movie. For all that have been reading about the gangs of Rio before it is a quite interesting story to get the words of the police instead of the criminals. The disturbing violence can cause quite some people to look the other way but for me the social aspects of the movie really opened my eyes and I hope to be able to learn more about the situation.

Most of the times I watch movis which I have been looking forwad to for a long time the eyes I see it with gets filled with ever more criticism. This makes movies like these sometimes loose a small portion of their glance because of the expectations that is needed to be fullfilled for it just to reach the surface. I was afraid that this would be the case with Districs 9 but I was happily surprised when the movie really did deliver a great show!

When dealing with aliens, try to be polite, but firm. And always remember that a smile is cheaper than a bullet. –MNU

Sharlto Copley (main antagonist) did an awsome interpretation of his character Wikus Van Der Merwe and the downfall of his personality was beautiful. If Van Der Merwe had been casted using a known actor I think that a great portion of the mocumentary-feeling of the movie would have been lost. The raw gruesome feeling was kept intact by disturbing images of war and terror which also did strengthen the feeling of the “mockumentary”.

I can greatly recomend the movie for all into sci-fi with a twist. A word of warning is needed though for the movie do include some really disturbing images and can be seen as upsetting. Already looking forwad of seeing it again as soon as it is released on Bluray!