You'd maybe have point here if private business were required to operate this way.
But that's not how it works in reality. Business pay out of their operational funds as a cost. They don't put aside the full expected pension for every employee at the time of hire.
The USPS has something close to 400 billion dollars set aside for future pension payments, and the requirements to do so is the only thing causing them to operate in the red.
The player would need to embed that into the beginning of the stream, or announce it during quality changes. I would expect that the streaming sites would be happy to do this, as it would reduce their bandwidth costs by greatly reducing overuse. Streaming services really don't care if you get the full buffer in 5 minutes or 50, as long as you can play the video back with out waiting.
Again, this is why my suggestion prevents throttling below the bitrate(read as playback rate) of the video. They would be disallowed from reducing bandwidth below what is necessary to play back the video without waiting for a buffer.
AKA if there is available bandwidth to watch a video without pause from start to finish, they can not reduce the speed to the point where you would need to let it buffer. However they could reduce the speed so you aren't using 10 times the bandwidth need to actually watch it.
The problem with this is most consumer connections do not have guaranteed bandwidth, meaning that legally speaking, it's perfectly fine for you connection speeds to drop to 1/100th of its rated value from heavy use by other users. Using my 10GB hour video as an example along with a 1000 user node , the 10 minute(unthrottled) client would use 18 MB/s for ten minutes, or 1.8 GB/s of bandwidth for 100 users. If their connection node only has 2 GB/s of bandwidth available that leaves 200 MB/s for the remaining 900 users.
If the steaming was throttled to bitrate+20%, then that same video, at the same quality with the same experience(hit play watch video) would instead only use 3.5 MB/s. 400 users could then watch the video simultaneously, while still providing 600 MB/s of bandwidth for the remaining 600 users.
In other words, 4 times as many users can utilize the same service while allowing 3 times more bandwidth for everyone else, and the only people negatively affected are those attempting to rip the stream. Even then they aren't prevented from doing so, just prevented from using bandwidth from someone that's actually watching said video, and not violating the sites ToS.
You don't "stream" a download. It's a totally different type of traffic that is already easily identifiable, they already know the difference And again, the idea in the OP is to limit throttling to bitrate +20%, meaning that would could just hit play and it would go without buffering.
I think you misread that a bit. Both the 10 minute buffer and the 48 minute buffer can hit play and start watching immediately. The example is an hour long video, the difference being the 10 minute download used 5 times the bandwidth for the same end effect, meaning in a bandwidth limited scenario that user prevent 5 other users from being able to do the same thing.
That's the basis of the idea, allowing throttling that doesn't effect playback, but prevents spikes in usage from preventing others the same access.
You are advocating not overselling line capacity. While noble, this would result in large decreases in top speeds, a large increase in pricing or both. If the throttling was limited to bitrate +20%, as long as the video source has available bandwidth you can hit play and watch till the end, or skip to any point in the video and continue watching without pause. The only users that would be affected would be those using steam capturing software, something generally against the ToS of whatever service they are using.
This would allow far more bandwidth to be available for other users, meaning generally faster speeds in other services. Ideally, the ISP would just build more infrastructure, but we all know they won't do that until they have to. Unfortunately we can't force them to do that, so allowing for throttling without effecting the user experience is the better solution.
I'm against throttling as much as the next guy, but I do see the need to manage bandwidth on a large scale. I'd think any ban on streaming video throttling should allow throttling down to a minimum of the video's bitrate +20%.
If you are streaming an hour long 10GB video, does it matter if it buffers in 10 minutes or 48 minutes? As long as there are no service interruptions the experience to the user would be exactly the same.
[quote]easyDNS Terms of Service: easyDNS reserves the right to revoke any or all services associated with a domain or user account, for policy abuses. What constitutes a policy abuse is at the sole discretion of easyDNS and includes (but is not limited to) the following:... copyright infringement...[/quote]
Right, and interestingly enough the site in question is not serving copyrighted information. It's a torrent site. It hosts information on copyrighted content, but has none itself. If they want easyDNS to take it down, then they need to show that actual infringement has occurred.
The video was made as a training exercise for the new facilities. The studio wasn't built to do the star trek video, the star trek video was done to train people for the studio. In other words they used the existing training budget to do a fun exercise instead of filming 70's style PSAs that would never see the light of day.
It doesn't matter what syndrome she has, it doesn't matter that she is a women. It doesn't matter that the "offenders" are male, or if they have any syndrome.
What matters is a person, reacting in offense publicly shamed two other people after eavesdropping on a conversation that did not involve said person. What matters is that said person used a company linked public account to do said shaming, and did not make any attempt to rectify the situation through lesser means, direct or indirect.
Said person could have request the behavior be stopped, or if said person was unable/unwilling/otherwise incapable of of doing so privately contacted staff to rectify the situation. Instead said person choose to make the affair public, with an audience of thousands and now millions.
Said persons actions cost a supporter of 3 minor dependents their job, over an inappropriate sexual comment that was not directed towards said person, not sexual harassment, nor was sexist in nature. Said persons actions caused damage to both the commentor's and their own company's image by the public nature and use of company associated social media.
This is what this is about. Both sides acted shamefully, and one side decided to make it a public affair. That is all.
Copyright wasn't "Invented" to restrict the printing press. Yes, the first copyright laws on the books(that we have records of) were due to the printing press, but the idea of ownership over ones own creations is a much older idea. The printing press is only relevant because prior to it's existence there was no economic advantage to mass copying. You couldn't sell books in quantity at the costs it took to produce them. Only once that became possible did you see laws start to pop up around them.
Remember laws don't have to follow their purposes or original intents. However the concepts and issues they are built around can be used to rebuild them in a way that does.
If you first though is hypocrisy, you've missed the point. If you believe a tool or process is broken, and have advocated about how it needs to change, then using said tool to directly illustrate how broken something is is far from hypocrisy. In this case they are using it to highlight the hypocrisy of the groups promoting high levels/draconian enforcement of copyright.
There is also the issue of actual content theft. Not the MPAA/RIAA's so called theft, where a distribution control is being breached, but taking content developed by another and claiming it as your own. You know, the thing copyright was actually invented for. Remember, even the Pirate Party doesn't call for a total abolition of copyright, just a reform to more reasonable terms instead of multiple lifetimes.
Uh, Apple has 4 hours left to give any of their arguments. They gave her a list of 75! witness that she had to read and familiarize herself with overnight. Even apple themselves said they would only get 20 of the witnesses on the stand in 4 hours.
To recap. 4 hours 20 planned witnesses 75 objections to review.
That's straight up bullshit. They are being unprofessional, she is simply taking them down a peg.
Sound Exchange doesn't just collect for members, they collect royalties for non-members as well. AKA even if you play only PD and CC licensed music, you still have to pay Sound Exchange royalties.
To some people $0.99 for one song is not reasonable at all.
Then they are not living in the demographic to which I was specifically referring. Which ultimately means, what are we talking about - as its not addressing my statement.
Ah here is the problem with your line of reasoning. ALL people live within one demographic when it comes to digital sales, that demographic is called the "Internet" Its this network that allows access to information and content from all other the world no matter where you live or who you are. When someone finds a product they want that they feel is not priced reasonably, they have the option of getting it for free. This option may not be legal, but is available nonetheless.
You can either set your pricing so its attractive to that customer or lose the sale. On the other hand, if that is truly not the demographic you are perusing, then following the logic inferred from your statement - Any sales lost due to piracy are not lost at all because you were never trying to sell to them in the first place and were not deprived of any manufactured goods.
"Rights" have nothing to do with market behavior. The point of the anecdote is that regardless of the legality of the procedure she had 4 options: 1. Get content now, for free, at DVD quality or higher. 2. Get content now, for free, at less to higher than DVD quality (not available) 3. Get content now, at treble cost of DVD, less than DVD quality 4. Get content later, DVD
The problem exists in that the content owner are trying to sit on content to sell it later at a higher price. zero cost reproduction makes this impossible, as the illicit market will always be there to provide the content that is being withheld. Until they shift their business model to reflect this it will continue to be a problem.
Reality seems to agree with me just fine here.
My working hours have been reduced recently so I've had to live on a small amount of money. Between canned foods, low cost starches and the local farmers market I can make due on about 20 dollars a week. A CD at retail goes for 14.95 (yes this varies, but a new releases go for $15-20, while most others are around $10)
That is cold hard reality that I and thousands of others deal with on a daily basis. Do not attempt to tell me its a delusion.
Music is affordable to people who are making $40K+ a year or people who do not have to provide a home for themselves. A full 50% of the nation makes less than $44K. This means at current pricing nearly half of the US(western society prime example #1) can not afford to regularly buy music.
Since the actual cost of reproducing music is near zero, an illicit market has sprung up to cater to those 150 million (in the US only) allowing free access to said music. More often than not, said illicit market can provide better quality, better quantity, and better selection than the legitimate market. And no law changes or legislative work will fix this, because its already illegal. Add in the fact that the industry went nearly a decade before trying to compete in the digital marketplace, allowing the illicit market place to become entrenched, and you have the current situation.
When you have to start changing laws and restricting the rights of others tell sell your product, you are no longer selling the product for what it can sell for. It also makes you the less ethical person in this situation.
You have no right to make profit, you have a right to do business. If that business fails to make money because of how they do business(pricing,customer relations, etc) or makes a profit but not "enough", then you must change your business.
'Even in those jurisdictions where there are legal distribution channels, pricing renders many products unaffordable for the vast majority of the population.
Most, if not all, Western nations completely invalidate such studies given that music is extremely affordable and reasonably priced - and much cheaper than capitalistic pricing would otherwise allow.
Its a societal failure, not an economic failure. Period.
I'm sorry but what!?
Music in western society is priced way outside its actual value. Even more so now that the Label are trying to sell you a limited use license instead of a personal copy.
Remember, a music CD at retail is roughly the equivalent of a weeks worth of food.
It won't be the PRC government that prevents them from getting money, it will be the USA government that stops them. The hostages held by Iran for 444 days tried to sue (there were substantial Iranian assets in the US that had been frozen and could be used to pay damages), but they lost their lawsuit not because of any defence put on by Iran but rather by the US government.
If the USA government does that to protect a state which it considers an enemy (Iran), imagine what they will do to protect the PRC to which they owe a trillion dollars or so.
Those hostages are alive and free today because of an agreement known as the Algiers Accords (wikipedia). Part of the aggreement that freed them stated that they could not sue Iran.
If we reneged after making the accord we would forever lose the option to recover hostages through such an aggreement. This type of action is down to protect US interests and its citizens abroad.
Slashdot Mirror
You'd maybe have point here if private business were required to operate this way.
But that's not how it works in reality. Business pay out of their operational funds as a cost. They don't put aside the full expected pension for every employee at the time of hire.
The USPS has something close to 400 billion dollars set aside for future pension payments, and the requirements to do so is the only thing causing them to operate in the red.
The player would need to embed that into the beginning of the stream, or announce it during quality changes. I would expect that the streaming sites would be happy to do this, as it would reduce their bandwidth costs by greatly reducing overuse.
Streaming services really don't care if you get the full buffer in 5 minutes or 50, as long as you can play the video back with out waiting.
Again, this is why my suggestion prevents throttling below the bitrate(read as playback rate) of the video.
They would be disallowed from reducing bandwidth below what is necessary to play back the video without waiting for a buffer.
AKA if there is available bandwidth to watch a video without pause from start to finish, they can not reduce the speed to the point where you would need to let it buffer. However they could reduce the speed so you aren't using 10 times the bandwidth need to actually watch it.
The problem with this is most consumer connections do not have guaranteed bandwidth, meaning that legally speaking, it's perfectly fine for you connection speeds to drop to 1/100th of its rated value from heavy use by other users.
Using my 10GB hour video as an example along with a 1000 user node , the 10 minute(unthrottled) client would use 18 MB/s for ten minutes, or 1.8 GB/s of bandwidth for 100 users. If their connection node only has 2 GB/s of bandwidth available that leaves 200 MB/s for the remaining 900 users.
If the steaming was throttled to bitrate+20%, then that same video, at the same quality with the same experience(hit play watch video) would instead only use 3.5 MB/s.
400 users could then watch the video simultaneously, while still providing 600 MB/s of bandwidth for the remaining 600 users.
In other words, 4 times as many users can utilize the same service while allowing 3 times more bandwidth for everyone else, and the only people negatively affected are those attempting to rip the stream. Even then they aren't prevented from doing so, just prevented from using bandwidth from someone that's actually watching said video, and not violating the sites ToS.
You don't "stream" a download. It's a totally different type of traffic that is already easily identifiable, they already know the difference
And again, the idea in the OP is to limit throttling to bitrate +20%, meaning that would could just hit play and it would go without buffering.
I think you misread that a bit.
Both the 10 minute buffer and the 48 minute buffer can hit play and start watching immediately. The example is an hour long video, the difference being the 10 minute download used 5 times the bandwidth for the same end effect, meaning in a bandwidth limited scenario that user prevent 5 other users from being able to do the same thing.
That's the basis of the idea, allowing throttling that doesn't effect playback, but prevents spikes in usage from preventing others the same access.
You are advocating not overselling line capacity. While noble, this would result in large decreases in top speeds, a large increase in pricing or both.
If the throttling was limited to bitrate +20%, as long as the video source has available bandwidth you can hit play and watch till the end, or skip to any point in the video and continue watching without pause.
The only users that would be affected would be those using steam capturing software, something generally against the ToS of whatever service they are using.
This would allow far more bandwidth to be available for other users, meaning generally faster speeds in other services. Ideally, the ISP would just build more infrastructure, but we all know they won't do that until they have to. Unfortunately we can't force them to do that, so allowing for throttling without effecting the user experience is the better solution.
I'm against throttling as much as the next guy, but I do see the need to manage bandwidth on a large scale.
I'd think any ban on streaming video throttling should allow throttling down to a minimum of the video's bitrate +20%.
If you are streaming an hour long 10GB video, does it matter if it buffers in 10 minutes or 48 minutes? As long as there are no service interruptions the experience to the user would be exactly the same.
[quote]easyDNS Terms of Service: easyDNS reserves the right to revoke any or all services associated with a domain or user account, for policy abuses. What constitutes a policy abuse is at the sole discretion of easyDNS and includes (but is not limited to) the following: ... copyright infringement ...[/quote]
Right, and interestingly enough the site in question is not serving copyrighted information. It's a torrent site. It hosts information on copyrighted content, but has none itself.
If they want easyDNS to take it down, then they need to show that actual infringement has occurred.
It should also be noted that they spent over twice that much money on speakers for a single conference.
The video was made as a training exercise for the new facilities. The studio wasn't built to do the star trek video, the star trek video was done to train people for the studio.
In other words they used the existing training budget to do a fun exercise instead of filming 70's style PSAs that would never see the light of day.
It doesn't matter what syndrome she has, it doesn't matter that she is a women. It doesn't matter that the "offenders" are male, or if they have any syndrome.
What matters is a person, reacting in offense publicly shamed two other people after eavesdropping on a conversation that did not involve said person.
What matters is that said person used a company linked public account to do said shaming, and did not make any attempt to rectify the situation through lesser means, direct or indirect.
Said person could have request the behavior be stopped, or if said person was unable/unwilling/otherwise incapable of of doing so privately contacted staff to rectify the situation.
Instead said person choose to make the affair public, with an audience of thousands and now millions.
Said persons actions cost a supporter of 3 minor dependents their job, over an inappropriate sexual comment that was not directed towards said person, not sexual harassment, nor was sexist in nature.
Said persons actions caused damage to both the commentor's and their own company's image by the public nature and use of company associated social media.
This is what this is about. Both sides acted shamefully, and one side decided to make it a public affair. That is all.
News flash:
They didn't make a sexist joke
They made a penis joke via "dongle"
Jokes about male genitalia are not inherently sexist. In order to be sexist, the joke would need to directly denigrate women.
Inferring that any joke that referencing male genitalia is sexist on the other hand, is sexist in and of itself.
Copyright wasn't "Invented" to restrict the printing press. Yes, the first copyright laws on the books(that we have records of) were due to the printing press, but the idea of ownership over ones own creations is a much older idea.
The printing press is only relevant because prior to it's existence there was no economic advantage to mass copying. You couldn't sell books in quantity at the costs it took to produce them. Only once that became possible did you see laws start to pop up around them.
Remember laws don't have to follow their purposes or original intents. However the concepts and issues they are built around can be used to rebuild them in a way that does.
If you first though is hypocrisy, you've missed the point.
If you believe a tool or process is broken, and have advocated about how it needs to change, then using said tool to directly illustrate how broken something is is far from hypocrisy. In this case they are using it to highlight the hypocrisy of the groups promoting high levels/draconian enforcement of copyright.
There is also the issue of actual content theft. Not the MPAA/RIAA's so called theft, where a distribution control is being breached, but taking content developed by another and claiming it as your own. You know, the thing copyright was actually invented for.
Remember, even the Pirate Party doesn't call for a total abolition of copyright, just a reform to more reasonable terms instead of multiple lifetimes.
Uh, Apple has 4 hours left to give any of their arguments. They gave her a list of 75! witness that she had to read and familiarize herself with overnight. Even apple themselves said they would only get 20 of the witnesses on the stand in 4 hours.
To recap.
4 hours
20 planned witnesses
75 objections to review.
That's straight up bullshit.
They are being unprofessional, she is simply taking them down a peg.
Should journalists understand what they write?
I mean really, what possible purpose could understanding the topic of conversation possibly contribute?
I did not realize that 8 minutes was a long time to prepare for a full grid shutdown.
Sound Exchange doesn't just collect for members, they collect royalties for non-members as well.
AKA even if you play only PD and CC licensed music, you still have to pay Sound Exchange royalties.
To some people $0.99 for one song is not reasonable at all.
Then they are not living in the demographic to which I was specifically referring. Which ultimately means, what are we talking about - as its not addressing my statement.
Ah here is the problem with your line of reasoning. ALL people live within one demographic when it comes to digital sales, that demographic is called the "Internet" Its this network that allows access to information and content from all other the world no matter where you live or who you are.
When someone finds a product they want that they feel is not priced reasonably, they have the option of getting it for free. This option may not be legal, but is available nonetheless.
You can either set your pricing so its attractive to that customer or lose the sale.
On the other hand, if that is truly not the demographic you are perusing, then following the logic inferred from your statement - Any sales lost due to piracy are not lost at all because you were never trying to sell to them in the first place and were not deprived of any manufactured goods.
"Rights" have nothing to do with market behavior. The point of the anecdote is that regardless of the legality of the procedure she had 4 options:
1. Get content now, for free, at DVD quality or higher.
2. Get content now, for free, at less to higher than DVD quality (not available)
3. Get content now, at treble cost of DVD, less than DVD quality
4. Get content later, DVD
The problem exists in that the content owner are trying to sit on content to sell it later at a higher price. zero cost reproduction makes this impossible, as the illicit market will always be there to provide the content that is being withheld. Until they shift their business model to reflect this it will continue to be a problem.
Reality seems to agree with me just fine here. My working hours have been reduced recently so I've had to live on a small amount of money. Between canned foods, low cost starches and the local farmers market I can make due on about 20 dollars a week. A CD at retail goes for 14.95 (yes this varies, but a new releases go for $15-20, while most others are around $10) That is cold hard reality that I and thousands of others deal with on a daily basis. Do not attempt to tell me its a delusion. Music is affordable to people who are making $40K+ a year or people who do not have to provide a home for themselves. A full 50% of the nation makes less than $44K. This means at current pricing nearly half of the US(western society prime example #1) can not afford to regularly buy music. Since the actual cost of reproducing music is near zero, an illicit market has sprung up to cater to those 150 million (in the US only) allowing free access to said music. More often than not, said illicit market can provide better quality, better quantity, and better selection than the legitimate market. And no law changes or legislative work will fix this, because its already illegal. Add in the fact that the industry went nearly a decade before trying to compete in the digital marketplace, allowing the illicit market place to become entrenched, and you have the current situation.
When you have to start changing laws and restricting the rights of others tell sell your product, you are no longer selling the product for what it can sell for. It also makes you the less ethical person in this situation. You have no right to make profit, you have a right to do business. If that business fails to make money because of how they do business(pricing,customer relations, etc) or makes a profit but not "enough", then you must change your business.
'Even in those jurisdictions where there are legal distribution channels, pricing renders many products unaffordable for the vast majority of the population.
Most, if not all, Western nations completely invalidate such studies given that music is extremely affordable and reasonably priced - and much cheaper than capitalistic pricing would otherwise allow.
Its a societal failure, not an economic failure. Period.
I'm sorry but what!? Music in western society is priced way outside its actual value. Even more so now that the Label are trying to sell you a limited use license instead of a personal copy. Remember, a music CD at retail is roughly the equivalent of a weeks worth of food.
It won't be the PRC government that prevents them from getting money, it will be the USA government that stops them. The hostages held by Iran for 444 days tried to sue (there were substantial Iranian assets in the US that had been frozen and could be used to pay damages), but they lost their lawsuit not because of any defence put on by Iran but rather by the US government.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/01/national/main561274.shtml
If the USA government does that to protect a state which it considers an enemy (Iran), imagine what they will do to protect the PRC to which they owe a trillion dollars or so.
Those hostages are alive and free today because of an agreement known as the Algiers Accords (wikipedia). Part of the aggreement that freed them stated that they could not sue Iran. If we reneged after making the accord we would forever lose the option to recover hostages through such an aggreement. This type of action is down to protect US interests and its citizens abroad.