When is the last time the AP got copyright permission from any of it's sources or subjects? Every single AP story is "stealing" some person's derivative story. How would the AP like it if some politician sued the AP for quoting the politician, for instance at a news conference? More proof that "copyright" is solely about stealing the free expression rights of others, and then profiting from eliminating that potential competition.
What a smack down blunder for the AP. And it shows how truly out of control insane copyright has become. We now need legal retaliation civil damage penalties action false and threatened DMCA take down notices. Every one of these blog sites needs to counter sue for 6 figures, and hope for 7 figure punitive jury awards.
These broadcasters are also paying far under market rate for broadcast spectrum, and not subject enough to renewable lease periods. That's how they can still afford to purchase even more spectrum to shut out new competition, and lay out huge lobbying bribes for Congressmen.
If they are going to start metering the internet, it's time we start metering media corporations by the bit for information sent over *public domain* airwaves. Let every citizen get a quarterly dividend check paid by those *renting* their spectrum. Then when the price of cable, or cellular service doubles, we can double the price of renting the spectrum. Call it the Citizen Spectrum Compensation Act.
The media isn't informing anyone because the media has its own agenda. We saw that extremely clearly with the manipulative questions politicians are asked in the primaries. The media (and those controlling it) wins by funneling a "lesser of two evils" choice to the general populace to continue the "mirage" of democratic choice. They could care less whether McCain or Obama wins because they are set with their behind the scenes policy groups, especially in regards to Israel and foreign policy, international banking, and big government redistribution programs to manage to ensure the bureaucratic cut.
If the election were to have been Kucinich versus Paul, the media would be in crisis mode. The next president is determined by media manipulation early in the primary debate process, before the general population has a clue of what's going on. This is done by framing who is the "front runner", who is the "fringe kook", etc. Huckabee's surge was controlled and set up by Anderson Cooper's "Jesus" question.
YouTube clips made this manipulation too obvious to too many people, and it is imperative for the powers that be behind the scenes to control information flow with things like DMCA takedown notices, making independent news delivery on the internet too expensive, and using jack boot thug scare tactics such as wiretapping and invasion of privacy to try and stem the tide of a never before seen giant international town hall of message board talking heads competing directly with the officially sanctioned opinion shapers. This is a Berlin Wall falling historical moment.
it wants to know if the FCC will create a ruling that would prevent DVR to able to record the movie BEFORE its released to DVD Is the FCC a higher court than the Supreme Court? Maybe the FCC can also overrule the Supreme Court Beta Max case which ruled consumers have a right to record and time shift content with their VCRs.
This is a fishing expedition for retroactive immunity from the massive civil liability damages the cable companies will be accumulating, if not disabling sold DVRECORDERS isn't considered criminal fraud. If it does end up being considered criminal fraud, remember to confiscate the personal assets of the executive management under Sarbanes-Oxley.
What's next? Comcast can eliminate all competition in the television hardware market by changing the digital signal so that all content is scrambled unless you purchase a proprietary Comcast digital television with built in DRM chips?
Good point. Does anyone think that the RIAA spent less than $222,000 in legal fees on their most famous high profile award judgment J. Thomas case (which is itself now going back for retrial)? You can't get blood from a stone, and people with nothing to lose (less than $10k assets) have a lot to potentially gain by loading up on the countersuits and playing the House jury verdict odds. We are very close to pro bono defense paying for itself many times over. At that point, the movement will be a high growth legal corporation listed on the NASDAQ, advertising for clients next to big pharma erectile dysfunction commercials. The knowledge that the RIAA is handing out free lottery tickets needs to be spread to all these college students and others. You might not only have your college education expenses covered, but receive a mansion graduation present.
Let somebody demonstrate when the RIAA ended up with more money in their account after fighting anybody who didn't settle. I'd speculate the RIAA is looking at at least a 10:1 ratio of losses for disputed cases that go to court. For every $10,000 in damages they are awarded by a court of law they will on average lose at least $100,000 in attorney's fees. They're not even breaking even with thousands of people settling for $3k, for what, less than a hundred people fighting in court. The RIAA won't be able to afford fighting a measly 10,000 people fighting back. A less than 1% of the population of those engaging in "piracy" would completely bankrupt the RIAA on attorneys fees.
How are they going to send any settlement letters when the criminal John Doe fishing expeditions are permanently denied? Since when has any alleged IP address ever met the beyond a reasonable doubt standard of identifying a specific *person*?
File a criminal court case of summary judgment for the purposes of discovery and then drop the case to while celebrating the option to refile in civil court... and then send a settlement letter before filing their cases with any civil courts. Notice nobody sends settlement letters without prior court judgment. Why do you think that is? Because it would be a shame if any accidents happened to your property and person. Since you the reader, are a "bad person" who likely by a preponderance of the evidence have done "bad things", it's best you wire $10,000 to my Nigerian account to avoid further legal action.
I would include a countersuit of criminal charges against every RIAA registered civil filing. Examine their computers for discovery purposes in even every civil trial (to attack the credibility of their methodology), and report the trillions of dollars of statutory damages copyright infringement committed by the RIAA and their employee "Media Sentry" for all their "mistakes". You can't deep packet inspect, you can't determine "hashes", without by definition copying bits of data. Some of us who have had our personal copyrighted commentary files regarding popular music illegally uploaded onto the internet would appreciate being notified of definitive proof of illegal copying and "making available" in torrent files of our commentary work (which is vitally important in a 24/7 news commentary age). I'm sick and tired of having my work stolen, labeled "decoys", and trampled with unequal treatment under the law copyright infringing abuse.
How are copyright trolls supposed to make a living if they aren't paid?
Exactly as negative one flamebait as the Drake Equation, as the idea of "Singularity", as Artificial Intelligence, as random as including the possibility of Intelligent Design, as rubbing two sticks together causes a butterfly effect of global warming, as remunerative as the sport of trolling for rate downs, thank you for taking the time and effort to let your opinion be known. Fire. Good.
How about a clause that requires any future sale of your house can only occur through the original builder's real estate brokerage arm at 10% commission? Oh, and your house is architecturally copyrighted. Any landscaping, additions, painting, renovation, etc. is derivative work that requires licensing fees. That's nothing less than vendor lock in contractual indentured servitude.
Notice that the book content industry doesn't care about the livelihood of your UPS and FedEx delivery man. It would be interesting to calculate the total weight shipped and total fuel burned from delivering information which can be digitally transmitted.
When are we going to start comparing people who purchase physical books, cds, DVDs, and software programs to SUV driving hogs, and indirectly funding terrorist foreign oil countries? It's a waste of time, resources, and environmentally unfriendly. Bookstores are unnecessary urban toxic dumps. Boycott them!
Nope, not reasonable. Copyright is a bargain which sacrifices free speech redistribution rights for the promotion of the advancement of the arts being returned to the public domain after a limited time. Since copyright is no longer contemporary limited to even anyone's lifetime, copyright owners have abused and forever forsaken their responsibility and rights. The only reasonable action is to pass a Constitutional Amendment eliminating copyrights so that such abuse and violations cannot occur in the future.
Copyright is absolutely unnecessary to the promotion of the arts. If the art is created in advance of any payment, copyright does absolutely nothing for the creation of that art (it is afforded completely with no up front payment by the surplus leisure spare time given by the division of labor and technological advancement). If the production of art is voluntarily funded in advance of the creation, copyright is completely unnecessary. Thus, it is proved that Copyright violates the Constitutional condition for its existence being "the promotion of the advancement of the arts", and is therefore forever unconstitutional except by explicit Constitutional amendment changing the wording of the copyright clause.
Also the likely intent of limited and not explicitly Constitutionally defined length limit would be so that the term time limit could be *lowered* as technological advancement made the spread of ideas faster, *not* increased, contrary to sane legal reasoning of justification for advancing and promoting the arts into the public domain. The critical mass inflection point bulk of profits from all art is made well within 5 years these days. The public domain is being held up for 165 years so that 99.9% of art can make an extra 3.3% profit, and that 0.1% of art can make 50% more profit before expiration. This needs to be an academic research paper. Average length of time where % of total likely profit is earned for average copyrighted work. Make sure you specifically credit monxrtr in the paper for the methodological basis of the paper, or else you're "stealing" my idea. Ha, j/k.
Keep in mind, the precedent ultimately set is lose lose for copyright enforcement. If what you say is true, private enforcers like the RIAA/Media Sentry will commit trillions of dollars of liability for being in streams where the copyright is owned by someone else. You can't know the hash, you can't know the content, before you are done analyzing it manually or automatically, both requiring full copying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any federal offenses (I'd just love to see the PR and voter reaction to the DOJ copyright cops charging 10,000 BitTorrent citizens like they were drug dealers), or significantly infringing (in the case of mistakes) partial preponderance of the evidence civil liability. Britney_Toxic.mp3 and Britney_Sux.mp3 can have the same hash, the same content, but even computer deep packet inspection programs are not a priori omniscient, let alone artificially intelligent.
Not at all. The actions of uploading and the actions of downloading will always be subject to Constitutional interpretation, First Amendment protection, Eight Amendment Protection, and numerous other challenges which can overturn the laws. See gay marriage in California. The copyright laws are still going to be overturned one appellate circuit court at a time, until the Supreme Court rules whether $150,000 fines for $0.99 preponderance of the evidence property damage is Constitutional, whether limited Constitutionally means life plus 70 years. Sue every merchant that has an unconstitutional correspondent limited time sale. And there are many many others with respect to enforcement. The legal methodology which kills copyright can also likely be extended to kill the property seizure drug enforcement laws.
It's just a big game of Texas hold 'em, and the government is about to throw property seizure drug enforcement confiscation laws into the pot.
We need to "set up" the precedent ourselves. Need two slashdot volunteers to mimic an RIAA lawsuit. Balancing the RIAA strategy calls for elite highly paid representation to represent the defendant. Need a scapegoat pro se plaintiff to register some 3 minute shit.mp3 and then file suit against "the ringer".
It's impossible to know what the contents of a file actually are before you download the file and listen to it manually, OR EQUIVALENTLY, before you copy the bits into a hash detection or deep packet inspection program automatically.
Please check this file for copyright violations. I am not an omniscient expert on all content which has been copyrighted. You could be being ripped off! So please, check these files, before you wreck these files. Investigative purposes only. If you do not own the copyrights to this files, you must destroy it after verification. This is not an authorized distribution. This is for educational and discovery legal purposes only. All rights retained by their respective owners.
Good case to set up. One slashdotter sells a lump of clay to another slashdotter with the express contract that it cannot be publicly displayed. Slashdotter Two challenges the validity of the contract in circuit court. Make the Court rule one way or the other. The outcome doesn't matter at all. It will be lose lose precedent for enforcing copyright. Why? Because Pop 40 songs are willingly played on the radio, and implicit revocation of rights occur. Or do you think I can walk down the main street exiling $100 bills into the air and sue anybody who picks one up with theft?
Yes, this is exactly correct. If the RIAA thought they had a solid case against uploaders, they wouldn't have chickened out of this "making available" case. The settlements work on pure bamboozlement and fear, not solid legal foundation.
They are already liable for trillions of dollars in copyright infringement statutory damages from copying and uploading files in torrents that are not their copyrighted works. One "rogue" DA can destroy the RIAA and MediaSentry with ease, merely by using the bought copyright laws against those enforcing them. You can't deep packet inspect, you can't check "hashes", without by definition copying bits.
Just watch how the PRO-IP Act ends up being self decapitation for the big content industry. We will elect some such "rogue" DA in a city(-ies) to be named at a future time. Fuck wasting time and money lobbying Congress. There's big fortune, fame, and political power to be had from taking down the music industry. Eliot Spitzer's career as New York City DA paved the way. The internet operates in every jurisdiction. "Hello, my name is DA Inigo Montoya. You sued my father. Prepare to be bankrupted."
That would be the quickest way to completely abolishing copyright. Once the copyright trolls are unleashed, giant media organizations, ISPs, will be bankrupted within a year, their assets confiscated, and distributed through bankruptcy courts. Nobody will be able to afford enforcement except those who have nothing to lose from putting up personal commentary copyrighted Bobby McGee.mp3 content. If you can deep packet inspect those files, you can download and analyze those file manually, on the exact same legal basis. If you can't, you've got no enforcement power.
Which, again, for the millionth time, is not quantifiable, ergo not subject to scientific analysis. Since that "value" for the Person 1 can be less then a penny and at the same time for the Person 2 it can exceed the worth of the entire Universe. You will never know.
Wrong. *Preference* is an economic concept, an economic term. Preference means valued *more* than something else. This is scientifically established (unless you want to claim mathematics is not science, which would have a huge impact upon the oceans of statistical masturbation "research"). Trade only occurs when one thing is preferred to another thing. This is irrefutable. The scientific data is the observed trade event. Of course subjective value can never be established as precise numeric ratios. And using monetary prices as proxy measures doesn't change the underlying facts, that trade EQUALS *preference*, which EQUALS a "greater than" mathematical sign *more*.
Statistics is mathematically deduced. If there are "confidence" levels, preference of value is 100% absolutely epistemologically known.
"Valued equally" is INDIFFERENCE, not preference. Equal subjective valuation is as impossible to numerically scientifically establish as greater or less subjective valuation. It's *SUBJECTIVE*. Subjective value is epistemologically impossible to measure. That's why the best the scientific approach can accomplish is an ORDINAL RANKING. Ordinal rankings are measured by observation of exchange events. And none of these valuations are constant for any individual. They are constantly changing. But you don't hear physicists claiming quantum mechanics is "not quantifiable, ergo not subject to scientific analysis".
And thus it is irrelevant and the only observable, measurable value happens to be that of strict equivalence to other goods and labor and is called the "market value" or "price".
There is no measurable equivalence, according to the same methodological basis you object to regarding the measurement of more or less. All that is known when it comes to trade, is one good is worth more, one good is worth less, and both goods are not equal. Pretending they are equal when it is *known* they are not equal is not a scientific methodology, it is flat earth religion. And on an epistemological basis it's silly to pretend that a circle is a square, to pretend that an apple is an orange, to pretend that a $1 is a hamster. These are *different* unequal things by nature. Possessing one form as opposed to another form is purely subjective value preference.
You need to see how "price" is a non-scientific *custom* of measuring in terms of monetary units. Money doesn't measure value. Never has, never will. Money itself is subject to changing subjective valuations. Money can never be a scientific standard unit measurement of value. Money is just another *good*, the most commonly traded thing in exchange. It's scientifically, epistemologically, no more than that ever. Money doesn't measure value. Get it through your flat earth head. Price is nothing more than a barter exchange ratio of one good in terms of another good. It says nothing about *value*. That's why people subjectively talk about particular barter exchange ratios as being "a good deal", "a bargain", "a sale", etc.
You might as well complain that biology and geology aren't scientific fields because name like Neolithic are arbitrarily named by humans, and it cannot be established that that is the "correct" name for a period, or that periods are classified arbitrarily by arbitrary events rather than scientifically measured equal time periods.
And I will keep telling you that individual whims and preferences are unquantifiable and unmeasurable and thus cannot be used in calculations of trade values.
This is not true. They can and are quantifiable *ranked* ordinal numbers, 1st, 2nd, greater, lesser, etc. The act of trade is a revealed *observed* act of subjective value ranking. If you trade $1 for a candy bar, it is rev
Great, great, but cut to the chase: what do I put down on that bank application in the "net worth" field, since me and the banker disagree somewhat about the value of that hamster by.. oh... about $2 billion? Do explain.
The bank puts down it's valuation, which may or may not correspond to your valuation. Don't like that particular bank's valuation of your hamster, go find another bank that may value your hamster higher than the first bank. This type of thing is a common occurrence in the automobile insurance industry. Get in a car wreck and the insurance company may write a check that does not correspond to your valuation of your car before it was wrecked.
Valuing your hamster at $2 billion is no more or no less a priori absurd than valuing a Picasso painting at $15 million. It all completely depends on independent subjective valuations.
Prices fluctuate due to many factors such as availability of labor and resources, etc, also amongst them personal preferences of buyers and sellers. Some of these factors are quantifiable, and thus subject to economic analysis, and some are not, and thus not subject to such analysis.
The specific things which are exchanged are quantifiable. If one banana is exchanged for one apple that's perfectly quantifiable even though there is no fiat currency involved in the exchange. But it is irrefutable that the TOTAL valuation of 'A' for Person 1 and Person 2 are *different* if 'A' is exchanged.
The fact that trade is driven by people's desires does not mean that the desires themselves can be part of economic analysis. Trade in many goods is also influenced by weather patterns and yet no one sane would attempt to modify economic models to account for the "value" of movements of individual clouds in the sky.
Weather futures already exist and already are traded. They exist for rainfall quantity in specific months. They exist for average temperature for specific areas in specific months.
The desires can and are valued by definition of trade. A won't be traded for B if B is valued less than A by Person One and A is valued less than B by Person Two (Person One owns A, Person Two owns B). You should be able to easily comprehend this case. You should also easily be able to comprehend the case that A will be traded for B if B is valued more than A by Person One and A is valued more than B by Person Two. The exchange will make both Person One and Person Two better off wealthier. Mutual profit wealth is created from this exchange.
You are confused on the case where both Person One and Person Two are *indifferent* between A and B, where both Person One and Person Two value A and B exactly the same. They *won't* trade in this case. Why won't they trade in this case? Because, as we covered earlier, it would be a waste of time and energy. It would still be a marginal waste of time and energy the first time they trade, and it would be a further waste of time and energy the Nth time they traded back and forth the exact same things. If they don't trade, or if they *stop* trading, that is solely because the time, effort and resources of trading A for B would make them both worse off. They are not *by definition* better off swapping A for B, and hence going through the process of wasting time and energy to make the swap would cause mutual losses for both Person One and Person Two. QED.
Do you understand now? You'll get an 'F' grade for claiming otherwise in any mainstream university, if not 99.9% of them. As far as I am aware this is standard economic knowledge, whether its Chicago, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Austrian School, or London School. There's no point arguing further if you don't comprehend or *demonstrate* otherwise. You'll just be regarded as a discredited Marxist kook if you religiously *believe* otherwise.
You see, it seems that most of the planet insists that price is... well... a value
The chutzpa they have! To use these wholly subjective balance sheets and income statements on us! And totally subjective money! Bastards! I wanna have my hamster valued at $2 billion for the purpose of my loan collateral!
You can and do value your hamster subjectively. That does not mean others value your hamster equally to your subjective valuation. They have their own independent non constant subjective valuations. In trade, two people value the same thing differently. One values it more, one values it less. If nobody is willing to trade $2 billion for your hamster, then tough luck. If you value your hamster at $2 billion then you would be willing to trade it for $2 billion, which would by definition mean you valued the $2 billion more than your hamster. But if nobody else values your hamster at $2 billion, nobody else is going to trade $2 billion for your hamster. No TRADE will occur. That is independent of your subjective valuation. But you also aren't (at least for the moment, as evidenced by any willing and able offers for a trade) not going to trade your hamster away for less than $2 billion.
So the rest of the sane world disagrees in unison with your "objective" assessment. You alone stand heroically against this evil globe-spanning conspiracy with your banner of "My Value Is Bigger Then Your Value!"
You're back to your crazy talk ranting.
They also had this thing called "price". Ever hear of it?
Price *changes*. How do you explain that?
What is his net worth? Stop evading. Give a coherent answer.
His market net worth is whatever people are willing to exchange for his stuff (what he could *theoretically* obtain in exchange for his stuff). If he does in fact engage in the action of exchange of all his stuff for some different stuff, then he will be wealthier than before at the moment of that exchange, as will the other party that takes possession of his stuff, by definition of preferring the state of wealth of stuff received after the trade to the state of wealth of stuff given away which he owned before the trade.
Huge balance sheet net worth write downs just occurred for housing loan instrument portfolios in the banking industry. So was that prior balance sheet net worth of illiquid assets worth what they thought, what they hoped it was, a week prior to the write down. Of course not. You cannot know what your stuff is worth until someone is able and willing to make an offer.
So market net worth is determined by offers of exchange (or lesser quality *guesses* as what "reasonable" offers would likely fetch). Exchanges are prices. If bananas trade for apples at a 1:1 ratio in a school lunchroom, the price of apples is 1 banana *AND* the price of bananas is 1 apple. If apples and bananas trade for $1, the price of apples and bananas is $1 *AND* the price of dollars is 1 apple or 1 banana. Strict barter exists still even in a "monetary" economy.
PRICE IS NOT *AN* (singular) EQUATION! except by inaccurate custom alone, just as exactly as the belief that the Sun revolved around the Earth was an inaccurate custom. Nobody trades away or for dollars unless they value the thing they trade away or for dollars *MORE*. It is plainly absurd to pretend dollars equate in value to other things which are exchanged. Are you going to get nutrition by eating dollars, or are you going to trade dollars for food, because food is more valuable to you at the time you eat that food than the dollar amount you traded away for that food? AND VICE VERSA for the person who traded food away for dollars.
You did claim, persistently, complete universality of your definition of "value" even going as far as claiming that it is the very foundation of industrial civilization as we know it. Thus one example to the contrary, no matter how extreme, ruins your entire argument. That is why you are ducking it so desperately.
Society only exists in so far as peaceful cooperation exists. Peaceful cooperat
So, according to you, the religious loon has, right at the conclusion of his transaction, his net worth valued more, in economic terms, then Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined (as that is what the loon believes)?
You are trying to impose your personal subjective valuations, or the market's (sans that individual) subjective valuation. Of course, he does not have what the rest of the market considers "net worth valued more, in economic terms, than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined". So what? Pet rocks were at what time valued. Value is not constant. Value is not universally objective. Charity exists. The only reason Bill Gates created the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is because he prefers that Foundation to using that same money for a private space exploration company, for instance, or swimming in a pile of it in his mansion like Scrooge McDuck, for another instance.
There's plenty of instances of people not selling at what others consider "above market valuation". People hold out selling homes where expressway roads are planned to be built. Men marry women the market may consider "ugly", below market value on physical looks. It's all subjective individual valuations, without exception.
Just because a religious loon donates all his material possessions to another is an extreme case does not invalidate economic theory. Economic theory in fact explains those actions.
Just to think of it, that dude I see at the corner sometimes must be our city's richest man! Who knew?!
Happiness has value. The same things don't make the same people equally happy. Happiness is subjective.
What exactly is the economic value of this transaction as clearly, according to you, merely measuring it by such mundane things as money is woefully insufficient?
If he didn't prefer it, he wouldn't voluntarily do the exchange. So much the better for both sides. Charity happens all the time. And charity has an economic explanation. Charity requires someone accept what is being given, and someone willingly giving. It occurs precisely for the same reasons as all other exchange, for the same reason as all other transference of goods from one person to another occurs, because, obviously, as you can so clearly from your extreme case example, exchange does not involve the transfer of equally valued things, but differently valued things, without exception.
You've merely conflated two wholly separate concepts: the monetary value of goods in trade exchanges and a subjective preferences of traders and then keep on insisting on renaming this new concoction as "value" to replace the traditional concept used by economists.
You still fail to see that trade and the division of labor create wealth, and are thus a piss poor economist. Money is itself subjectively valued. See past currencies which are now worthless after hyperinflation. Subjective valuation is not constant. QED. So your religious loon who gave away 10 billion post WWI marks for a religious lecture might be purchasing "cheaply". Money only has market value if people are willing to trade non money things for money. QED.
Multiple things contain value, not just money. "Money" is just a crude proxy measure of market exchange value. Money is just the most commonly thing involved in trade exchange. Money has subjective value. Diamonds have subjective value. Water has subjective value. Money is not the sum total of all value in an economy. If you entirely destroyed the money supply you would not entirely destroy all economic value. It is epistemologically impossible to trade all the money for all other goods of economic value.
While personal preferences of traders are what drives trade, the term "value", in economics, is only applicable to the actual transactions themselves where exact equivalence between both sides of trade is a given.
You're just flat out wrong again. Personal *preferences* are valuations of one thing *over* another thing. That is a
Slashdot Mirror
When is the last time the AP got copyright permission from any of it's sources or subjects? Every single AP story is "stealing" some person's derivative story. How would the AP like it if some politician sued the AP for quoting the politician, for instance at a news conference? More proof that "copyright" is solely about stealing the free expression rights of others, and then profiting from eliminating that potential competition.
What a smack down blunder for the AP. And it shows how truly out of control insane copyright has become. We now need legal retaliation civil damage penalties action false and threatened DMCA take down notices. Every one of these blog sites needs to counter sue for 6 figures, and hope for 7 figure punitive jury awards.
These broadcasters are also paying far under market rate for broadcast spectrum, and not subject enough to renewable lease periods. That's how they can still afford to purchase even more spectrum to shut out new competition, and lay out huge lobbying bribes for Congressmen.
If they are going to start metering the internet, it's time we start metering media corporations by the bit for information sent over *public domain* airwaves. Let every citizen get a quarterly dividend check paid by those *renting* their spectrum. Then when the price of cable, or cellular service doubles, we can double the price of renting the spectrum. Call it the Citizen Spectrum Compensation Act.
The media isn't informing anyone because the media has its own agenda. We saw that extremely clearly with the manipulative questions politicians are asked in the primaries. The media (and those controlling it) wins by funneling a "lesser of two evils" choice to the general populace to continue the "mirage" of democratic choice. They could care less whether McCain or Obama wins because they are set with their behind the scenes policy groups, especially in regards to Israel and foreign policy, international banking, and big government redistribution programs to manage to ensure the bureaucratic cut.
If the election were to have been Kucinich versus Paul, the media would be in crisis mode. The next president is determined by media manipulation early in the primary debate process, before the general population has a clue of what's going on. This is done by framing who is the "front runner", who is the "fringe kook", etc. Huckabee's surge was controlled and set up by Anderson Cooper's "Jesus" question.
YouTube clips made this manipulation too obvious to too many people, and it is imperative for the powers that be behind the scenes to control information flow with things like DMCA takedown notices, making independent news delivery on the internet too expensive, and using jack boot thug scare tactics such as wiretapping and invasion of privacy to try and stem the tide of a never before seen giant international town hall of message board talking heads competing directly with the officially sanctioned opinion shapers. This is a Berlin Wall falling historical moment.
This is a fishing expedition for retroactive immunity from the massive civil liability damages the cable companies will be accumulating, if not disabling sold DVRECORDERS isn't considered criminal fraud. If it does end up being considered criminal fraud, remember to confiscate the personal assets of the executive management under Sarbanes-Oxley.
What's next? Comcast can eliminate all competition in the television hardware market by changing the digital signal so that all content is scrambled unless you purchase a proprietary Comcast digital television with built in DRM chips?
Good point. Does anyone think that the RIAA spent less than $222,000 in legal fees on their most famous high profile award judgment J. Thomas case (which is itself now going back for retrial)? You can't get blood from a stone, and people with nothing to lose (less than $10k assets) have a lot to potentially gain by loading up on the countersuits and playing the House jury verdict odds. We are very close to pro bono defense paying for itself many times over. At that point, the movement will be a high growth legal corporation listed on the NASDAQ, advertising for clients next to big pharma erectile dysfunction commercials. The knowledge that the RIAA is handing out free lottery tickets needs to be spread to all these college students and others. You might not only have your college education expenses covered, but receive a mansion graduation present.
Let somebody demonstrate when the RIAA ended up with more money in their account after fighting anybody who didn't settle. I'd speculate the RIAA is looking at at least a 10:1 ratio of losses for disputed cases that go to court. For every $10,000 in damages they are awarded by a court of law they will on average lose at least $100,000 in attorney's fees. They're not even breaking even with thousands of people settling for $3k, for what, less than a hundred people fighting in court. The RIAA won't be able to afford fighting a measly 10,000 people fighting back. A less than 1% of the population of those engaging in "piracy" would completely bankrupt the RIAA on attorneys fees.
How are they going to send any settlement letters when the criminal John Doe fishing expeditions are permanently denied? Since when has any alleged IP address ever met the beyond a reasonable doubt standard of identifying a specific *person*?
... and then send a settlement letter before filing their cases with any civil courts. Notice nobody sends settlement letters without prior court judgment. Why do you think that is? Because it would be a shame if any accidents happened to your property and person. Since you the reader, are a "bad person" who likely by a preponderance of the evidence have done "bad things", it's best you wire $10,000 to my Nigerian account to avoid further legal action.
File a criminal court case of summary judgment for the purposes of discovery and then drop the case to while celebrating the option to refile in civil court
I would include a countersuit of criminal charges against every RIAA registered civil filing. Examine their computers for discovery purposes in even every civil trial (to attack the credibility of their methodology), and report the trillions of dollars of statutory damages copyright infringement committed by the RIAA and their employee "Media Sentry" for all their "mistakes". You can't deep packet inspect, you can't determine "hashes", without by definition copying bits of data. Some of us who have had our personal copyrighted commentary files regarding popular music illegally uploaded onto the internet would appreciate being notified of definitive proof of illegal copying and "making available" in torrent files of our commentary work (which is vitally important in a 24/7 news commentary age). I'm sick and tired of having my work stolen, labeled "decoys", and trampled with unequal treatment under the law copyright infringing abuse.
How are copyright trolls supposed to make a living if they aren't paid?
Exactly as negative one flamebait as the Drake Equation, as the idea of "Singularity", as Artificial Intelligence, as random as including the possibility of Intelligent Design, as rubbing two sticks together causes a butterfly effect of global warming, as remunerative as the sport of trolling for rate downs, thank you for taking the time and effort to let your opinion be known. Fire. Good.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/
How about a clause that requires any future sale of your house can only occur through the original builder's real estate brokerage arm at 10% commission? Oh, and your house is architecturally copyrighted. Any landscaping, additions, painting, renovation, etc. is derivative work that requires licensing fees. That's nothing less than vendor lock in contractual indentured servitude.
Notice that the book content industry doesn't care about the livelihood of your UPS and FedEx delivery man. It would be interesting to calculate the total weight shipped and total fuel burned from delivering information which can be digitally transmitted.
When are we going to start comparing people who purchase physical books, cds, DVDs, and software programs to SUV driving hogs, and indirectly funding terrorist foreign oil countries? It's a waste of time, resources, and environmentally unfriendly. Bookstores are unnecessary urban toxic dumps. Boycott them!
'Cause the pilots aren't going to fall for the banana in the tail pipe trick.
Nope, not reasonable. Copyright is a bargain which sacrifices free speech redistribution rights for the promotion of the advancement of the arts being returned to the public domain after a limited time. Since copyright is no longer contemporary limited to even anyone's lifetime, copyright owners have abused and forever forsaken their responsibility and rights. The only reasonable action is to pass a Constitutional Amendment eliminating copyrights so that such abuse and violations cannot occur in the future.
Copyright is absolutely unnecessary to the promotion of the arts. If the art is created in advance of any payment, copyright does absolutely nothing for the creation of that art (it is afforded completely with no up front payment by the surplus leisure spare time given by the division of labor and technological advancement). If the production of art is voluntarily funded in advance of the creation, copyright is completely unnecessary. Thus, it is proved that Copyright violates the Constitutional condition for its existence being "the promotion of the advancement of the arts", and is therefore forever unconstitutional except by explicit Constitutional amendment changing the wording of the copyright clause.
Also the likely intent of limited and not explicitly Constitutionally defined length limit would be so that the term time limit could be *lowered* as technological advancement made the spread of ideas faster, *not* increased, contrary to sane legal reasoning of justification for advancing and promoting the arts into the public domain. The critical mass inflection point bulk of profits from all art is made well within 5 years these days. The public domain is being held up for 165 years so that 99.9% of art can make an extra 3.3% profit, and that 0.1% of art can make 50% more profit before expiration. This needs to be an academic research paper. Average length of time where % of total likely profit is earned for average copyrighted work. Make sure you specifically credit monxrtr in the paper for the methodological basis of the paper, or else you're "stealing" my idea. Ha, j/k.
Slashdot Survey says
Keep in mind, the precedent ultimately set is lose lose for copyright enforcement. If what you say is true, private enforcers like the RIAA/Media Sentry will commit trillions of dollars of liability for being in streams where the copyright is owned by someone else. You can't know the hash, you can't know the content, before you are done analyzing it manually or automatically, both requiring full copying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any federal offenses (I'd just love to see the PR and voter reaction to the DOJ copyright cops charging 10,000 BitTorrent citizens like they were drug dealers), or significantly infringing (in the case of mistakes) partial preponderance of the evidence civil liability. Britney_Toxic.mp3 and Britney_Sux.mp3 can have the same hash, the same content, but even computer deep packet inspection programs are not a priori omniscient, let alone artificially intelligent.
Not at all. The actions of uploading and the actions of downloading will always be subject to Constitutional interpretation, First Amendment protection, Eight Amendment Protection, and numerous other challenges which can overturn the laws. See gay marriage in California. The copyright laws are still going to be overturned one appellate circuit court at a time, until the Supreme Court rules whether $150,000 fines for $0.99 preponderance of the evidence property damage is Constitutional, whether limited Constitutionally means life plus 70 years. Sue every merchant that has an unconstitutional correspondent limited time sale. And there are many many others with respect to enforcement. The legal methodology which kills copyright can also likely be extended to kill the property seizure drug enforcement laws.
It's just a big game of Texas hold 'em, and the government is about to throw property seizure drug enforcement confiscation laws into the pot.
We need to "set up" the precedent ourselves. Need two slashdot volunteers to mimic an RIAA lawsuit. Balancing the RIAA strategy calls for elite highly paid representation to represent the defendant. Need a scapegoat pro se plaintiff to register some 3 minute shit .mp3 and then file suit against "the ringer".
It's impossible to know what the contents of a file actually are before you download the file and listen to it manually, OR EQUIVALENTLY, before you copy the bits into a hash detection or deep packet inspection program automatically.
Please check this file for copyright violations. I am not an omniscient expert on all content which has been copyrighted. You could be being ripped off! So please, check these files, before you wreck these files. Investigative purposes only. If you do not own the copyrights to this files, you must destroy it after verification. This is not an authorized distribution. This is for educational and discovery legal purposes only. All rights retained by their respective owners.
Good case to set up. One slashdotter sells a lump of clay to another slashdotter with the express contract that it cannot be publicly displayed. Slashdotter Two challenges the validity of the contract in circuit court. Make the Court rule one way or the other. The outcome doesn't matter at all. It will be lose lose precedent for enforcing copyright. Why? Because Pop 40 songs are willingly played on the radio, and implicit revocation of rights occur. Or do you think I can walk down the main street exiling $100 bills into the air and sue anybody who picks one up with theft?
Yes, this is exactly correct. If the RIAA thought they had a solid case against uploaders, they wouldn't have chickened out of this "making available" case. The settlements work on pure bamboozlement and fear, not solid legal foundation.
They are already liable for trillions of dollars in copyright infringement statutory damages from copying and uploading files in torrents that are not their copyrighted works. One "rogue" DA can destroy the RIAA and MediaSentry with ease, merely by using the bought copyright laws against those enforcing them. You can't deep packet inspect, you can't check "hashes", without by definition copying bits.
Just watch how the PRO-IP Act ends up being self decapitation for the big content industry. We will elect some such "rogue" DA in a city(-ies) to be named at a future time. Fuck wasting time and money lobbying Congress. There's big fortune, fame, and political power to be had from taking down the music industry. Eliot Spitzer's career as New York City DA paved the way. The internet operates in every jurisdiction. "Hello, my name is DA Inigo Montoya. You sued my father. Prepare to be bankrupted."
That would be the quickest way to completely abolishing copyright. Once the copyright trolls are unleashed, giant media organizations, ISPs, will be bankrupted within a year, their assets confiscated, and distributed through bankruptcy courts. Nobody will be able to afford enforcement except those who have nothing to lose from putting up personal commentary copyrighted Bobby McGee .mp3 content. If you can deep packet inspect those files, you can download and analyze those file manually, on the exact same legal basis. If you can't, you've got no enforcement power.
Which, again, for the millionth time, is not quantifiable, ergo not subject to scientific analysis. Since that "value" for the Person 1 can be less then a penny and at the same time for the Person 2 it can exceed the worth of the entire Universe. You will never know.
Wrong. *Preference* is an economic concept, an economic term. Preference means valued *more* than something else. This is scientifically established (unless you want to claim mathematics is not science, which would have a huge impact upon the oceans of statistical masturbation "research"). Trade only occurs when one thing is preferred to another thing. This is irrefutable. The scientific data is the observed trade event. Of course subjective value can never be established as precise numeric ratios. And using monetary prices as proxy measures doesn't change the underlying facts, that trade EQUALS *preference*, which EQUALS a "greater than" mathematical sign *more*.
Statistics is mathematically deduced. If there are "confidence" levels, preference of value is 100% absolutely epistemologically known.
"Valued equally" is INDIFFERENCE, not preference. Equal subjective valuation is as impossible to numerically scientifically establish as greater or less subjective valuation. It's *SUBJECTIVE*. Subjective value is epistemologically impossible to measure. That's why the best the scientific approach can accomplish is an ORDINAL RANKING. Ordinal rankings are measured by observation of exchange events. And none of these valuations are constant for any individual. They are constantly changing. But you don't hear physicists claiming quantum mechanics is "not quantifiable, ergo not subject to scientific analysis".
And thus it is irrelevant and the only observable, measurable value happens to be that of strict equivalence to other goods and labor and is called the "market value" or "price".
There is no measurable equivalence, according to the same methodological basis you object to regarding the measurement of more or less. All that is known when it comes to trade, is one good is worth more, one good is worth less, and both goods are not equal. Pretending they are equal when it is *known* they are not equal is not a scientific methodology, it is flat earth religion. And on an epistemological basis it's silly to pretend that a circle is a square, to pretend that an apple is an orange, to pretend that a $1 is a hamster. These are *different* unequal things by nature. Possessing one form as opposed to another form is purely subjective value preference.
You need to see how "price" is a non-scientific *custom* of measuring in terms of monetary units. Money doesn't measure value. Never has, never will. Money itself is subject to changing subjective valuations. Money can never be a scientific standard unit measurement of value. Money is just another *good*, the most commonly traded thing in exchange. It's scientifically, epistemologically, no more than that ever. Money doesn't measure value. Get it through your flat earth head. Price is nothing more than a barter exchange ratio of one good in terms of another good. It says nothing about *value*. That's why people subjectively talk about particular barter exchange ratios as being "a good deal", "a bargain", "a sale", etc.
You might as well complain that biology and geology aren't scientific fields because name like Neolithic are arbitrarily named by humans, and it cannot be established that that is the "correct" name for a period, or that periods are classified arbitrarily by arbitrary events rather than scientifically measured equal time periods.
And I will keep telling you that individual whims and preferences are unquantifiable and unmeasurable and thus cannot be used in calculations of trade values.
This is not true. They can and are quantifiable *ranked* ordinal numbers, 1st, 2nd, greater, lesser, etc. The act of trade is a revealed *observed* act of subjective value ranking. If you trade $1 for a candy bar, it is rev
Great, great, but cut to the chase: what do I put down on that bank application in the "net worth" field, since me and the banker disagree somewhat about the value of that hamster by .. oh ... about $2 billion? Do explain.
The bank puts down it's valuation, which may or may not correspond to your valuation. Don't like that particular bank's valuation of your hamster, go find another bank that may value your hamster higher than the first bank. This type of thing is a common occurrence in the automobile insurance industry. Get in a car wreck and the insurance company may write a check that does not correspond to your valuation of your car before it was wrecked.
Valuing your hamster at $2 billion is no more or no less a priori absurd than valuing a Picasso painting at $15 million. It all completely depends on independent subjective valuations.
Prices fluctuate due to many factors such as availability of labor and resources, etc, also amongst them personal preferences of buyers and sellers. Some of these factors are quantifiable, and thus subject to economic analysis, and some are not, and thus not subject to such analysis.
The specific things which are exchanged are quantifiable. If one banana is exchanged for one apple that's perfectly quantifiable even though there is no fiat currency involved in the exchange. But it is irrefutable that the TOTAL valuation of 'A' for Person 1 and Person 2 are *different* if 'A' is exchanged.
The fact that trade is driven by people's desires does not mean that the desires themselves can be part of economic analysis. Trade in many goods is also influenced by weather patterns and yet no one sane would attempt to modify economic models to account for the "value" of movements of individual clouds in the sky.
Weather futures already exist and already are traded. They exist for rainfall quantity in specific months. They exist for average temperature for specific areas in specific months.
The desires can and are valued by definition of trade. A won't be traded for B if B is valued less than A by Person One and A is valued less than B by Person Two (Person One owns A, Person Two owns B). You should be able to easily comprehend this case. You should also easily be able to comprehend the case that A will be traded for B if B is valued more than A by Person One and A is valued more than B by Person Two. The exchange will make both Person One and Person Two better off wealthier. Mutual profit wealth is created from this exchange.
You are confused on the case where both Person One and Person Two are *indifferent* between A and B, where both Person One and Person Two value A and B exactly the same. They *won't* trade in this case. Why won't they trade in this case? Because, as we covered earlier, it would be a waste of time and energy. It would still be a marginal waste of time and energy the first time they trade, and it would be a further waste of time and energy the Nth time they traded back and forth the exact same things. If they don't trade, or if they *stop* trading, that is solely because the time, effort and resources of trading A for B would make them both worse off. They are not *by definition* better off swapping A for B, and hence going through the process of wasting time and energy to make the swap would cause mutual losses for both Person One and Person Two. QED.
Do you understand now? You'll get an 'F' grade for claiming otherwise in any mainstream university, if not 99.9% of them. As far as I am aware this is standard economic knowledge, whether its Chicago, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Austrian School, or London School. There's no point arguing further if you don't comprehend or *demonstrate* otherwise. You'll just be regarded as a discredited Marxist kook if you religiously *believe* otherwise.
You see, it seems that most of the planet insists that price is ... well ... a value
Price
The chutzpa they have! To use these wholly subjective balance sheets and income statements on us! And totally subjective money! Bastards! I wanna have my hamster valued at $2 billion for the purpose of my loan collateral!
You can and do value your hamster subjectively. That does not mean others value your hamster equally to your subjective valuation. They have their own independent non constant subjective valuations. In trade, two people value the same thing differently. One values it more, one values it less. If nobody is willing to trade $2 billion for your hamster, then tough luck. If you value your hamster at $2 billion then you would be willing to trade it for $2 billion, which would by definition mean you valued the $2 billion more than your hamster. But if nobody else values your hamster at $2 billion, nobody else is going to trade $2 billion for your hamster. No TRADE will occur. That is independent of your subjective valuation. But you also aren't (at least for the moment, as evidenced by any willing and able offers for a trade) not going to trade your hamster away for less than $2 billion.
So the rest of the sane world disagrees in unison with your "objective" assessment. You alone stand heroically against this evil globe-spanning conspiracy with your banner of "My Value Is Bigger Then Your Value!"
You're back to your crazy talk ranting.
They also had this thing called "price". Ever hear of it?
Price *changes*. How do you explain that?
What is his net worth? Stop evading. Give a coherent answer.
His market net worth is whatever people are willing to exchange for his stuff (what he could *theoretically* obtain in exchange for his stuff). If he does in fact engage in the action of exchange of all his stuff for some different stuff, then he will be wealthier than before at the moment of that exchange, as will the other party that takes possession of his stuff, by definition of preferring the state of wealth of stuff received after the trade to the state of wealth of stuff given away which he owned before the trade.
Huge balance sheet net worth write downs just occurred for housing loan instrument portfolios in the banking industry. So was that prior balance sheet net worth of illiquid assets worth what they thought, what they hoped it was, a week prior to the write down. Of course not. You cannot know what your stuff is worth until someone is able and willing to make an offer.
So market net worth is determined by offers of exchange (or lesser quality *guesses* as what "reasonable" offers would likely fetch). Exchanges are prices. If bananas trade for apples at a 1:1 ratio in a school lunchroom, the price of apples is 1 banana *AND* the price of bananas is 1 apple. If apples and bananas trade for $1, the price of apples and bananas is $1 *AND* the price of dollars is 1 apple or 1 banana. Strict barter exists still even in a "monetary" economy.
PRICE IS NOT *AN* (singular) EQUATION! except by inaccurate custom alone, just as exactly as the belief that the Sun revolved around the Earth was an inaccurate custom. Nobody trades away or for dollars unless they value the thing they trade away or for dollars *MORE*. It is plainly absurd to pretend dollars equate in value to other things which are exchanged. Are you going to get nutrition by eating dollars, or are you going to trade dollars for food, because food is more valuable to you at the time you eat that food than the dollar amount you traded away for that food? AND VICE VERSA for the person who traded food away for dollars.
You did claim, persistently, complete universality of your definition of "value" even going as far as claiming that it is the very foundation of industrial civilization as we know it. Thus one example to the contrary, no matter how extreme, ruins your entire argument. That is why you are ducking it so desperately.
Society only exists in so far as peaceful cooperation exists. Peaceful cooperat
So, according to you, the religious loon has, right at the conclusion of his transaction, his net worth valued more, in economic terms, then Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined (as that is what the loon believes)?
You are trying to impose your personal subjective valuations, or the market's (sans that individual) subjective valuation. Of course, he does not have what the rest of the market considers "net worth valued more, in economic terms, than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined". So what? Pet rocks were at what time valued. Value is not constant. Value is not universally objective. Charity exists. The only reason Bill Gates created the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is because he prefers that Foundation to using that same money for a private space exploration company, for instance, or swimming in a pile of it in his mansion like Scrooge McDuck, for another instance.
There's plenty of instances of people not selling at what others consider "above market valuation". People hold out selling homes where expressway roads are planned to be built. Men marry women the market may consider "ugly", below market value on physical looks. It's all subjective individual valuations, without exception.
Just because a religious loon donates all his material possessions to another is an extreme case does not invalidate economic theory. Economic theory in fact explains those actions.
Just to think of it, that dude I see at the corner sometimes must be our city's richest man! Who knew?!
Happiness has value. The same things don't make the same people equally happy. Happiness is subjective.
What exactly is the economic value of this transaction as clearly, according to you, merely measuring it by such mundane things as money is woefully insufficient?
If he didn't prefer it, he wouldn't voluntarily do the exchange. So much the better for both sides. Charity happens all the time. And charity has an economic explanation. Charity requires someone accept what is being given, and someone willingly giving. It occurs precisely for the same reasons as all other exchange, for the same reason as all other transference of goods from one person to another occurs, because, obviously, as you can so clearly from your extreme case example, exchange does not involve the transfer of equally valued things, but differently valued things, without exception.
You've merely conflated two wholly separate concepts: the monetary value of goods in trade exchanges and a subjective preferences of traders and then keep on insisting on renaming this new concoction as "value" to replace the traditional concept used by economists.
You still fail to see that trade and the division of labor create wealth, and are thus a piss poor economist. Money is itself subjectively valued. See past currencies which are now worthless after hyperinflation. Subjective valuation is not constant. QED. So your religious loon who gave away 10 billion post WWI marks for a religious lecture might be purchasing "cheaply". Money only has market value if people are willing to trade non money things for money. QED.
Multiple things contain value, not just money. "Money" is just a crude proxy measure of market exchange value. Money is just the most commonly thing involved in trade exchange. Money has subjective value. Diamonds have subjective value. Water has subjective value. Money is not the sum total of all value in an economy. If you entirely destroyed the money supply you would not entirely destroy all economic value. It is epistemologically impossible to trade all the money for all other goods of economic value.
While personal preferences of traders are what drives trade, the term "value", in economics, is only applicable to the actual transactions themselves where exact equivalence between both sides of trade is a given.
You're just flat out wrong again. Personal *preferences* are valuations of one thing *over* another thing. That is a