Copyrighted works are rarely directly exported from the US. It usually exported from a shell company in a tax haven abroad.
I think I see what you're saying: If copyrighted works are not being taxed like other exports, then we can't make a direct dollar-to-dollar comparison with, for example, industrial equipment exports which pay a larger tax burden. A dollar worth of industrial equipment export contributes more to the public coffers than a dollar of copyright export.
Interesting. Good point to consider. Do you have any numbers?
I'm not sure if I get the exact point you're making relative to this thread. I like the info, but if I'm not seeing a direct point you were trying to make, could you clarify?
This has the effect of increasing the portion of GDP that is flowing to copyrighted works.
Footnote: Another way to frame this is that it increases the portion of U.S. resources (land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship) that are being dedicated to the production of copyrighted works instead of producing something else.
Preferably ones that don't end up making a *lot* less money than the current system.
Why?
What data did you use to reach the conclusion that our current level of spending on copyrighted works is the right amount?
We have a finite amount of money to spend on things (U.S. GDP, if the "we" we are talking about is the United States). Over the past 100 years, we have continually strengthened copyright. This has the effect of increasing the portion of GDP that is flowing to copyrighted works. Over the past 15 years, we have seen an escalating war between piracy and increased enforcement, and the data on whether this conflict has increased or decreased net proceeds to artists is *extremely* unclear and wildly misrepresented by all sides of the debate.
Seems to me in a data storm like that, it's pretty important to find some solid ground on which to stand. It behooves us to have some way of measuring whether the current approach to funding the production of copyrighted works is consuming too much or too little of our GDP. If we don't know whether we are spending too much or too little, we can't really say whether an alternative solution would do best to result in more or less funding.
Here's one example for spot-checking the situation: Are we more like the decadent side of Rome during the run-up to the decline, awash in circuses of spectacle, or are we more like Sparta in its prime, potent but lacking in culture? If the former, we may be spending too much on copyrighted works. If the latter, it would suggest we are spending too little.
There are other ways to hold a finger up to the wind, and still more to dig into harder data. Do you think we are under-spending or over-spending on the production of copyrighted works, and why?
There are distortions everywhere. Some are more subtle than others. When Kirstoff generically refers to "chemicals", most people recognize that he is either biased or using shorthand for "a compound which I did some research on and found to be risky in the context in question." Deciding which he is doing is an exercise for the reader, and must always be. Using "perfluorooctanoic acid" is certainly better for an educated audience that has the will, time, and ability to do its own research, but it is better for Kirstoff to do the research and shorthanding -- in a truly unbiased fashion, which may not be the case here -- for an audience that either lacks the will, time, or ability to dig deeper on their own. Perhaps ideal is for the article to have hyperlinks for more information.
While we're on the subject of distortion, I recently read a summery that had a couple of strong shorthand distortions in it, which may provide some interesting points of comparison:
"Pulitzer-prize winning science writer Deborah Blum" -- appeal to emotion -- it asserts that the reader should assume that Deborah Blum is an expert on science matters because she won an award for writing. If her article stands on its own, leave that bit out. If it rests on her expertise, this brief note is not enough to establish it. This sentence is fine for an audience that has the time, will, and ability to check on Deborah Blum's actual credentials, but relies upon the author's research and integrity for those audience which lack those criteria.
"decided to call out" -- appeal to emotion -- trying to get the listener to emotionally go along with a rebel who's fighting the power.
"have you found reporting on 'chemicals' to be as poor as Blum alleges or is this no more erroneous than any scare tactic used to move newspapers and garner eyeballs?" -- false dichotomy -- the options are "Kirstoff is wrong because Blum says so" or "Kirstoff is wrong because he uses scare tactics."
Distortions are everywhere, and journalism necessarily calls for using shorthand. Eldavojohn wanted to communicate the essence of Blum's piece without reproducing it verbatim. He used shorthand which he hopes will give a fair image of the underlying work, by using turns of phrase which would -- in isolation -- be clear-cut distortions. The point is elegantly made by Blum herself (though she gets it backward):
But if we, as journalists, are going to demand meticulous standards for the study and oversight of chemical compounds then we should try to be meticulous ourselves in making the case.
No, you are wrong. It is specifically the case that chemical compound oversight should be far more technical than public writing. Public writing, whether from Eldavojohn, Blum, or Kirstoff, is about communicating complex underlying issues in a brief and simplified form. That is its very nature. If such simplification is biased, then there is a very serious problem -- but the mere act of simplification is not a fault in itself.
If you're corruptible and in a position in which your corruption gets people killed
He was never in that position, and could never be in that position. The FBI constructed a months-long distortion of reality, which could not have happened without the FBI, which created the delusion in the fool's mind that this thing was possible. Without that delusion, he never posed a credible threat. He-as-effective-terrorist was entirely a creation of the FBI.
Now, if you want to put him in jail because in his mind he believes that doing this thing is a good idea -- fine, argue that position. But don't pretend he would ever have been anything more than a thinker of foolish thoughts without the FBI fabricating the context in which he acted.
That is the fundamental question: Did the FBI prevent a credible threat? If not, then it can be nothing but theater. If no crime would have happened without the FBI's participation, then he cannot have been a harm and can hardly be considered a criminal unless you want to go down the road of thought-crime.
We're better at this sort of thing than management. By a lot. We're also a damned site more noble. We don't have much to fear, really. They do. Perhaps we should be using semantic analysis to discover cases of consumer fraud, tax fraud, influence trading, and misappropriation of funds.
"When people are comparing what is happening now to those predictions, they can see they fail to match up."
Citation needed. When you are engaging in skeptical analysis, you need to show your work. If the majority of scientists agree, but you have found that they are wrong, you need to show the empirical evidence. Which predictions have you falsified? Using what data?
How about a spot check of your work? Let's see if we can tell whether your way is to use science or subterfuge.
Venice Skepticism: You reference a prediction that observed increases in the rate and severity of floods in Venice will abate over coming years, but do not provide empirical evidence that it has been abating. The paper you reference says on the first page that predicting changes in storm surge levels is inherently uncertain. It provides no significant empirical events that could be a cause for a reversal of the current trend, and relies on a new way of modelling the problem which has not been empirically tested. There is empirical evidence that it has been increasing, as well as empirically tested models that predict the flooding will continue. A claim that the current trend will reverse without empirical evidence -- with nothing more than an untested model that gives the answer you want -- is not science.
Greenland Sea Level Rise: You claim to refute the observation that the accelerating breakup of Greenland's ice sheet may lead to increased sea levels by showing evidence that the sea levels have not risen yet. The fact that levels have not risen in the past does not contradict the prediction that they will rise in the future if the Greenland ice continues to break up.
Those are the first two stories on your "False Alarms" page, not cherry-picked, just the first two. They are completely without rational or scientific merit. They are exactly the sort of thing TFA claims are at the heart of global warming criticism. I love rational skepticism -- but based on the first two examples on your own website, I can reach no other conclusion than that you are a shining example of intentional disinformation with a shoddy veneer of scientific inquiry.
If you write a C++ compiler and I tweak it (tweak your source code) until it is compiling Java, then *I* made a derived work of yours as I transformed *your* work slowly into my work. That is what "derived work" means
That is a derived work in the sense of a compiler, or of any program. Code, like compilers and other programs, is clearly copyrightable and is not what is in question in this case.
Oracle is not saying that Google used a derivative compiler. They are saying Google used a derivative language. They are specifically arguing that the Java syntax is the protected work. That is what makes this case interesting.
Copyright includes the notion of derivative works. Java is an excellent example of a derivative work, borrowing most of its core syntax from C. Oracle is effectively proposing that Dennis Ritchie's estate owns a huge swath of the language space; Objective C, ECMAScript, Java, C++, C# -- a big chunk of commercial programming is done in languages that are not even distant derivations, but nearly direct copies.
The point of a trade representative to another country is to shill, without principle,
Bullshit. This is the first nation founded on a good idea. Having principles is supposed to be the core of our identity. Sacrificing our principles may provide short-term windfalls on occasion, but in the long run it has never been anything but a path to destruction, and should never be a stated objective.
We became the world's superpower in large part because We The People believed. Take away that belief, and we are nothing.
This case centers on Motorola's demands for two FRAND (Free, Reasonable And Non Discriminatory) patents on H.264. The idea behind FRAND is that it allows the use of patent-encumbered technology in public standards, without the fear of lawsuits hobbling creative and technological advancement. FRAND has been championed within standards bodies by companies like Microsoft and Motorola, who promised that FRAND would be just as easy as disallowing patent-encumbered technology. H.264 has been one of the seminal cases of FRAND, with an enormous showdown at W3C between all the heavyweights. Theora was dropped because they promised this would not happen with H.264.
This case makes it very clear that FRAND is a farce. You can have open technology, which anyone can use, or you can have encumbered technology. Pretending that encumbered technology can work like open technology because a corporation makes a vague promise to be "reasonable" to its competitors is absolute folly.
Update 3:31 PM EDT: The Virginian-Pilot points out another grim factoid about the Navy base in question today: There have been more than 25 crashes involving Navy aircraft on or near the base over the past four decades.
That's grim? Less than one crash per year with people flying fighter jets? That seems like an outstanding safety record to me -- those things are twitchy and the pilots take them to the boundaries as a matter of proper training. Calling one crash per year "grim" strikes me as misleading and sensationalistic.
techniques for redistribution of wealth, for example. (Tax and spend versus borrow and spend both have the same net effect, but one causes inflation that reduces your paycheck's buying power, while the other causes your paycheck to look smaller numerically, thus reducing buying power without inflation.)
Well played. An important point, concisely presented. Thanks!
Why would you "assume that Internet piracy had exactly zero effect"?
The purpose is to test the hypothesis that Internet piracy had a net effect on music sales.
It has had a huge effect.
Yes, that is the hypothesis I am testing.
In this case, I did so by observing empirical data, analyzing it quantitatively, and showing my work. It seems your approach is more based on a gut check and appeal to ridicule. I do not believe your way is a beneficial part of a healthy discourse on public policy.
"I used it to compare the industry's revenues in 1999 (when Napster debuted) to 2010 (the most recent available data). Sales plunged from $14.6 billion down to $6.8 billion - a drop that I rounded to $8 billion in my talk."
Let's try a quick run-through on the "switch-to-digital" math:
iTunes sales in 1999 (the first year cited above): $0. iTunes songs sold in 1999: 0. iTunes songs sold in 2010: 6b. Music Industry Sales in 1999: $14.6b Music Industry Sales in 2010: $6.8b Track Cost in 2010: $0.99 Album Cost in 1999: $14.00
Now suppose that people only bought the good tracks, instead of whole albums -- the new iTunes way of buying music. Suppose also that piracy had zero impact on sales. What would the above sales figures imply about the number of good tracks (tracks that sell) per album?
Albums Sold in 1999 = $14.6b / $14 = 1.1b Tracks Sold in 2010 = $6.8b / $0.99 = 6.8b Tracks sold in 2010 per album sold in 1999 = 6.8 / 1.1 = 6/1.
So, what that says is that if all music sales had become digital single tracks, we would now be selling 6 single tracks for every album we used to sell.
Bear in mind that this is an upper bound case, assuming all sales have become digital. That is not realistic, but it gives us our first measurement. Let's see if we can refine it a bit with some estimates from iTunes.
iTunes is the single biggest seller of music and sold 6 billion tracks worldwide in 2010. Suppose iTunes sold 2b of those tracks in the US and all digital vendors other than iTunes sold another 1b combined in the US. In that case:
Album Spending 2010: $6.8b - $3b = $3.8b Album Price in 2010: $16 Albums sold in 2010: $3.8b / $16 = 237m Tracks sold in 2010: 3b Albums sold in 1999: 1.1b Missing Album Sales: 1.1b - 237m = 0.9b Tracks Sold per Lost Album: 3b / 0.9b = 3 / 1.
These numbers are still estimates, but that calculation shows that one reasonable estimate is that we are now selling three digital tracks for every one album we used to sell, if we assume that Internet piracy had exactly zero effect.
It is within the reasonable bounds of the data I could find quickly that the entire reduction in US music sales is due to migration to digital single tracks.
Help a noob out; I'm just poking around on Wikipedia reading about SDRs and software defined antennas. These sound kind of like a magic pill to solve decentralized mesh networking. Stick an SDA on the roof, wire it up to an SDR, seek some marker signal identifying a freenet mesh node, focus in directional point-to-point comm to anyone in range who is running a compatible sda/sdr/router.
Does that about sum it up, or am I just being an over-excited noob?
I think it's usually more helpful, though, for me to make the legal case against the/. conventional wisdom when I can than to just report my own opinion.
I dig what you're saying, but the problem is the logic still is not there. If you're just saying, "This is what they argue", fine. I'm just saying, "This is why they are wrong."
Doesn't matter who says it is right, from a lackluster legal clerk with poor judgment to the SCOTUS, what they say is not necessarily what is right. Lots of case law and legal opinions are based on flawed logic or bluster. When they are not right, they must be challenged. A patriot has a duty neither to accept nor to posit irrational justifications for damaging the principles of this nation.
The government also, of course, has a particular national security interest at the border
That is the same argument as customs, and falls down for the same reason. The proximate event that gives rise to the national security interest at the border is the crossing of the border. Physical things have no choice but to transit the border in the physical realm, this gives the reasonable justification for searching trunks and trailers. The most wily villain in the world still has to move the physical thing across the border in the physical realm. Guns, bombs, bullets -- these things occupy space and have mass. They are easy to discover by checking trunks and trailers.
Data is not the same. Whether related to customs infringement or terror planning, data can cross the border just as easily via the Internet or SD card just as it can on a hard drive. As such, searching hard drives at the border cannot be a significantly effective means of catching credible threats to national security, because people who are credible threats to national security are not that stupid. Therefore national security cannot rationally be the actual motive of the executive, and likewise the act of crossing the border cannot be a sufficient cause to satisfy reasonableness in the fourth amendment.
coupled with the fact that travelers should expect to be searched
A citizen should not expect to be searched if there is no reasonable cause. Since crossing the border does not raise a reasonable cause to search a hard drive, as we have established above, there is no reasonable expectation of search of a hard drive. Without reasonable expectation of a search, there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. "We do it even though we do not have the authority to do it" is not a valid means to pierce the expectation of privacy.
Imagine trying to enforce customs regulations without an ability to search!
Without the ability to search laptop hard drives? OK, I'll try to imagine that... Done. In fact, it was really easy. Here's how it goes:
You search things like trailers and trunks that carry physical things. Physical things that cannot cross the border via the Internet. Then, you don't search the hard drives, because they are not particularly useful for transporting Cuban cigars or Persian rugs.
Hard drives are only good for transporting data, which can travel just as easily through the Internet, or on a micro SD card that the border agents would not be able to find without stripping the vehicle to component parts. The increased probability of catching even a moderately intelligent data trafficker by checking laptop hard drives is vanishingly small, and utterly insufficient to be reasonable cause for avoiding a fourth amendment violation.
Which is to say; customs enforcement is not remotely credible as the actual, underlying justification for searching a hard drive.
Therefore, the objective of the executive in doing such searches must be something other than customs enforcement. Those objectives may be fine and wonderful things, but they are not directly related to crossing the border. The border crossing is the distinguishing event; the proximate source of reasonableness that prevents a violation of the fourth from a warrantless search. If the infraction in question is not directly related to the crossing of the border, the crossing of the border cannot be the means to satisfy the reasonableness requirement in a rational society.
Is this a step too far for an online community? Is it a cash grab or a genuine effort to encourage secure and responsible posting?
It is a symptom of a greater threat. This is a symptom of centralization of social communication. It creates an ecosystem in which defector organizations necessarily emerge and distort communication. Whether any one of the primary centralization actors is actively evil or misguided, the system will necessarily co-evolve entities which exploit the systemic flaw of centralized social communication.
There are benefits to centralization in terms of economies of scale and specialization of labor and capital, but social communication is too vital to the free mind to allow it to be distorted for such trivial benefits. We can decentralize these systems through projects like Diaspora and WebFinger. We (Slashdotters) are the ones who have the ability to make decentralization possible for the masses -- and those who benefit from centralization are not going to do it for us. I am working on it in my own way, and it is rewarding. Consider lending a hand, if you aren't already.
Does this mean we can finally get a review for the patent on swinging sideways on a swing? The patent in question does not merely add "apply it" to suspended mass behavior -- it adds "apply it, but sideways."
A threshold value is not a good measure of a non-normal distribution, and consumer estimated value is a poor measure of the value of privacy foregone.
In a non-normal distribution, a threshold value, like the median, can be very misleading. This case shows that most people do not perceive the value of transaction privacy as being greater than $0.65, but if the people who think it is worth more than $0.65 think it is worth significantly more, then the $0.65 is significantly below the mean perceived value. Due to inherently poor numeracy in public perception, using a non-mean value to represent a measure of a public perception of value is misleading.
Even if that were an accurate measure of mean perceived value, consumer ability to estimate the societal value of transaction privacy is almost certainly downward distorted. Just as most people do not grasp the full value of free speech and freedom of assembly, most people are not capable of properly estimating the societal value of transaction privacy. Free trade is exposed to the same risk of chilling effects as free speech. If every purchase is monitored, recorded, and subject to later scrutiny by anyone with the funds to buy the records, the knowledge of that scrutiny will distort purchasing behavior. Distortions in purchasing behavior cause equilibrium prices to shift, which results in a reduction in total satisfaction of wants ("total satisfaction of wants" is often estimated broadly as "GDP").
That all is to say; as economic models of pricing go, this one either betrays a significant misunderstanding of the difference between total societal value and individual perceived value, or it fully understands that distinction and suggests that corporate actors should sacrifice total societal value in favor of the distorted individual perceived value if they wish to maximize profit. The latter is exactly the sort of market distortion that should be considered in optimizing a well-regulated free market for GDP maximization.
"Fatter" does not mean "healthier". ... The internet has degenerated into a 300Lbs middle-aged white guy huffing and puffing after climbing a flight of stairs.
An excellent post highlighting the costs of the commercialization of the net. Thanks!
Slashdot Mirror
Copyrighted works are rarely directly exported from the US. It usually exported from a shell company in a tax haven abroad.
I think I see what you're saying: If copyrighted works are not being taxed like other exports, then we can't make a direct dollar-to-dollar comparison with, for example, industrial equipment exports which pay a larger tax burden. A dollar worth of industrial equipment export contributes more to the public coffers than a dollar of copyright export.
Interesting. Good point to consider. Do you have any numbers?
I'm not sure if I get the exact point you're making relative to this thread. I like the info, but if I'm not seeing a direct point you were trying to make, could you clarify?
copyrighted works are one of the few things that the United States still successfully exports.
Citation needed. Here's what I found on Wikipedia:
Exports: $1.511 trillion (2011 est.)
Export Goods: agricultural products (soybeans, fruit, corn) 9.2%, industrial supplies (organic chemicals) 26.8%, capital goods (transistors, aircraft, motor vehicle parts, computers, telecommunications equipment) 49.0%, consumer goods (automobiles, medicines) 15.0%
Here's another good source:
1. Civilian aircraft: $74 billion (5.7% of total exports)
2. Semiconductors: $50.6 billion (3.9%)
3. Passenger cars: $49.6 billion (3.9%)
4. Pharmaceutical preparations: $40.4 billion (3.1%)
5. Automotive accessories: $39.9 billion (3.1%)
6. Other industrial machines: $38.1 billion (3%)
7. Fuel oil: $34.9 billion (2.7%)
8. Organic chemicals: $33.4 billion (2.6%)
9. Telecommunications: $32.9 billion (2.6%)
10. Plastic materials: $31.6 billion (2.5%)
So, copyright is not in the top 10, and it's not more than 2.5%.
This has the effect of increasing the portion of GDP that is flowing to copyrighted works.
Footnote: Another way to frame this is that it increases the portion of U.S. resources (land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship) that are being dedicated to the production of copyrighted works instead of producing something else.
Preferably ones that don't end up making a *lot* less money than the current system.
Why?
What data did you use to reach the conclusion that our current level of spending on copyrighted works is the right amount?
We have a finite amount of money to spend on things (U.S. GDP, if the "we" we are talking about is the United States). Over the past 100 years, we have continually strengthened copyright. This has the effect of increasing the portion of GDP that is flowing to copyrighted works. Over the past 15 years, we have seen an escalating war between piracy and increased enforcement, and the data on whether this conflict has increased or decreased net proceeds to artists is *extremely* unclear and wildly misrepresented by all sides of the debate.
Seems to me in a data storm like that, it's pretty important to find some solid ground on which to stand. It behooves us to have some way of measuring whether the current approach to funding the production of copyrighted works is consuming too much or too little of our GDP. If we don't know whether we are spending too much or too little, we can't really say whether an alternative solution would do best to result in more or less funding.
Here's one example for spot-checking the situation: Are we more like the decadent side of Rome during the run-up to the decline, awash in circuses of spectacle, or are we more like Sparta in its prime, potent but lacking in culture? If the former, we may be spending too much on copyrighted works. If the latter, it would suggest we are spending too little.
There are other ways to hold a finger up to the wind, and still more to dig into harder data. Do you think we are under-spending or over-spending on the production of copyrighted works, and why?
There are distortions everywhere. Some are more subtle than others. When Kirstoff generically refers to "chemicals", most people recognize that he is either biased or using shorthand for "a compound which I did some research on and found to be risky in the context in question." Deciding which he is doing is an exercise for the reader, and must always be. Using "perfluorooctanoic acid" is certainly better for an educated audience that has the will, time, and ability to do its own research, but it is better for Kirstoff to do the research and shorthanding -- in a truly unbiased fashion, which may not be the case here -- for an audience that either lacks the will, time, or ability to dig deeper on their own. Perhaps ideal is for the article to have hyperlinks for more information.
While we're on the subject of distortion, I recently read a summery that had a couple of strong shorthand distortions in it, which may provide some interesting points of comparison:
"Pulitzer-prize winning science writer Deborah Blum" -- appeal to emotion -- it asserts that the reader should assume that Deborah Blum is an expert on science matters because she won an award for writing. If her article stands on its own, leave that bit out. If it rests on her expertise, this brief note is not enough to establish it. This sentence is fine for an audience that has the time, will, and ability to check on Deborah Blum's actual credentials, but relies upon the author's research and integrity for those audience which lack those criteria.
"decided to call out" -- appeal to emotion -- trying to get the listener to emotionally go along with a rebel who's fighting the power.
"have you found reporting on 'chemicals' to be as poor as Blum alleges or is this no more erroneous than any scare tactic used to move newspapers and garner eyeballs?" -- false dichotomy -- the options are "Kirstoff is wrong because Blum says so" or "Kirstoff is wrong because he uses scare tactics."
Distortions are everywhere, and journalism necessarily calls for using shorthand. Eldavojohn wanted to communicate the essence of Blum's piece without reproducing it verbatim. He used shorthand which he hopes will give a fair image of the underlying work, by using turns of phrase which would -- in isolation -- be clear-cut distortions. The point is elegantly made by Blum herself (though she gets it backward):
But if we, as journalists, are going to demand meticulous standards for the study and oversight of chemical compounds then we should try to be meticulous ourselves in making the case.
No, you are wrong. It is specifically the case that chemical compound oversight should be far more technical than public writing. Public writing, whether from Eldavojohn, Blum, or Kirstoff, is about communicating complex underlying issues in a brief and simplified form. That is its very nature. If such simplification is biased, then there is a very serious problem -- but the mere act of simplification is not a fault in itself.
Seems like an easy answer to me -- the government has the authority to inhibit free speech any time they declare martial law.
If you're corruptible and in a position in which your corruption gets people killed
He was never in that position, and could never be in that position. The FBI constructed a months-long distortion of reality, which could not have happened without the FBI, which created the delusion in the fool's mind that this thing was possible. Without that delusion, he never posed a credible threat. He-as-effective-terrorist was entirely a creation of the FBI.
Now, if you want to put him in jail because in his mind he believes that doing this thing is a good idea -- fine, argue that position. But don't pretend he would ever have been anything more than a thinker of foolish thoughts without the FBI fabricating the context in which he acted.
That is the fundamental question: Did the FBI prevent a credible threat? If not, then it can be nothing but theater. If no crime would have happened without the FBI's participation, then he cannot have been a harm and can hardly be considered a criminal unless you want to go down the road of thought-crime.
We're better at this sort of thing than management. By a lot. We're also a damned site more noble. We don't have much to fear, really. They do. Perhaps we should be using semantic analysis to discover cases of consumer fraud, tax fraud, influence trading, and misappropriation of funds.
"When people are comparing what is happening now to those predictions, they can see they fail to match up."
Citation needed. When you are engaging in skeptical analysis, you need to show your work. If the majority of scientists agree, but you have found that they are wrong, you need to show the empirical evidence. Which predictions have you falsified? Using what data?
How about a spot check of your work? Let's see if we can tell whether your way is to use science or subterfuge.
Venice Skepticism: You reference a prediction that observed increases in the rate and severity of floods in Venice will abate over coming years, but do not provide empirical evidence that it has been abating. The paper you reference says on the first page that predicting changes in storm surge levels is inherently uncertain. It provides no significant empirical events that could be a cause for a reversal of the current trend, and relies on a new way of modelling the problem which has not been empirically tested. There is empirical evidence that it has been increasing, as well as empirically tested models that predict the flooding will continue. A claim that the current trend will reverse without empirical evidence -- with nothing more than an untested model that gives the answer you want -- is not science.
Greenland Sea Level Rise: You claim to refute the observation that the accelerating breakup of Greenland's ice sheet may lead to increased sea levels by showing evidence that the sea levels have not risen yet. The fact that levels have not risen in the past does not contradict the prediction that they will rise in the future if the Greenland ice continues to break up.
Those are the first two stories on your "False Alarms" page, not cherry-picked, just the first two. They are completely without rational or scientific merit. They are exactly the sort of thing TFA claims are at the heart of global warming criticism. I love rational skepticism -- but based on the first two examples on your own website, I can reach no other conclusion than that you are a shining example of intentional disinformation with a shoddy veneer of scientific inquiry.
If you write a C++ compiler and I tweak it (tweak your source code) until it is compiling Java, then *I* made a derived work of yours as I transformed *your* work slowly into my work. That is what "derived work" means
That is a derived work in the sense of a compiler, or of any program. Code, like compilers and other programs, is clearly copyrightable and is not what is in question in this case.
Oracle is not saying that Google used a derivative compiler. They are saying Google used a derivative language. They are specifically arguing that the Java syntax is the protected work. That is what makes this case interesting.
Copyright includes the notion of derivative works. Java is an excellent example of a derivative work, borrowing most of its core syntax from C. Oracle is effectively proposing that Dennis Ritchie's estate owns a huge swath of the language space; Objective C, ECMAScript, Java, C++, C# -- a big chunk of commercial programming is done in languages that are not even distant derivations, but nearly direct copies.
The point of a trade representative to another country is to shill, without principle,
Bullshit. This is the first nation founded on a good idea. Having principles is supposed to be the core of our identity. Sacrificing our principles may provide short-term windfalls on occasion, but in the long run it has never been anything but a path to destruction, and should never be a stated objective.
We became the world's superpower in large part because We The People believed. Take away that belief, and we are nothing.
This case centers on Motorola's demands for two FRAND (Free, Reasonable And Non Discriminatory) patents on H.264. The idea behind FRAND is that it allows the use of patent-encumbered technology in public standards, without the fear of lawsuits hobbling creative and technological advancement. FRAND has been championed within standards bodies by companies like Microsoft and Motorola, who promised that FRAND would be just as easy as disallowing patent-encumbered technology. H.264 has been one of the seminal cases of FRAND, with an enormous showdown at W3C between all the heavyweights. Theora was dropped because they promised this would not happen with H.264.
This case makes it very clear that FRAND is a farce. You can have open technology, which anyone can use, or you can have encumbered technology. Pretending that encumbered technology can work like open technology because a corporation makes a vague promise to be "reasonable" to its competitors is absolute folly.
FTFA:
Update 3:31 PM EDT: The Virginian-Pilot points out another grim factoid about the Navy base in question today: There have been more than 25 crashes involving Navy aircraft on or near the base over the past four decades.
That's grim? Less than one crash per year with people flying fighter jets? That seems like an outstanding safety record to me -- those things are twitchy and the pilots take them to the boundaries as a matter of proper training. Calling one crash per year "grim" strikes me as misleading and sensationalistic.
techniques for redistribution of wealth, for example. (Tax and spend versus borrow and spend both have the same net effect, but one causes inflation that reduces your paycheck's buying power, while the other causes your paycheck to look smaller numerically, thus reducing buying power without inflation.)
Well played. An important point, concisely presented. Thanks!
Why would you "assume that Internet piracy had exactly zero effect"?
The purpose is to test the hypothesis that Internet piracy had a net effect on music sales.
It has had a huge effect.
Yes, that is the hypothesis I am testing.
In this case, I did so by observing empirical data, analyzing it quantitatively, and showing my work. It seems your approach is more based on a gut check and appeal to ridicule. I do not believe your way is a beneficial part of a healthy discourse on public policy.
From Rob Reid's TED Talk (http://blog.ted.com/2012/03/20/the-numbers-behind-the-copyright-math/):
"I used it to compare the industry's revenues in 1999 (when Napster debuted) to 2010 (the most recent available data). Sales plunged from $14.6 billion down to $6.8 billion - a drop that I rounded to $8 billion in my talk."
Let's try a quick run-through on the "switch-to-digital" math:
iTunes sales in 1999 (the first year cited above): $0.
iTunes songs sold in 1999: 0.
iTunes songs sold in 2010: 6b.
Music Industry Sales in 1999: $14.6b
Music Industry Sales in 2010: $6.8b
Track Cost in 2010: $0.99
Album Cost in 1999: $14.00
Now suppose that people only bought the good tracks, instead of whole albums -- the new iTunes way of buying music. Suppose also that piracy had zero impact on sales. What would the above sales figures imply about the number of good tracks (tracks that sell) per album?
Albums Sold in 1999 = $14.6b / $14 = 1.1b
Tracks Sold in 2010 = $6.8b / $0.99 = 6.8b
Tracks sold in 2010 per album sold in 1999 = 6.8 / 1.1 = 6/1.
So, what that says is that if all music sales had become digital single tracks, we would now be selling 6 single tracks for every album we used to sell.
Bear in mind that this is an upper bound case, assuming all sales have become digital. That is not realistic, but it gives us our first measurement. Let's see if we can refine it a bit with some estimates from iTunes.
iTunes is the single biggest seller of music and sold 6 billion tracks worldwide in 2010. Suppose iTunes sold 2b of those tracks in the US and all digital vendors other than iTunes sold another 1b combined in the US. In that case:
Album Spending 2010: $6.8b - $3b = $3.8b
Album Price in 2010: $16
Albums sold in 2010: $3.8b / $16 = 237m
Tracks sold in 2010: 3b
Albums sold in 1999: 1.1b
Missing Album Sales: 1.1b - 237m = 0.9b
Tracks Sold per Lost Album: 3b / 0.9b = 3 / 1.
These numbers are still estimates, but that calculation shows that one reasonable estimate is that we are now selling three digital tracks for every one album we used to sell, if we assume that Internet piracy had exactly zero effect.
It is within the reasonable bounds of the data I could find quickly that the entire reduction in US music sales is due to migration to digital single tracks.
Help a noob out; I'm just poking around on Wikipedia reading about SDRs and software defined antennas. These sound kind of like a magic pill to solve decentralized mesh networking. Stick an SDA on the roof, wire it up to an SDR, seek some marker signal identifying a freenet mesh node, focus in directional point-to-point comm to anyone in range who is running a compatible sda/sdr/router.
Does that about sum it up, or am I just being an over-excited noob?
I think it's usually more helpful, though, for me to make the legal case against the /. conventional wisdom when I can than to just report my own opinion.
I dig what you're saying, but the problem is the logic still is not there. If you're just saying, "This is what they argue", fine. I'm just saying, "This is why they are wrong."
Doesn't matter who says it is right, from a lackluster legal clerk with poor judgment to the SCOTUS, what they say is not necessarily what is right. Lots of case law and legal opinions are based on flawed logic or bluster. When they are not right, they must be challenged. A patriot has a duty neither to accept nor to posit irrational justifications for damaging the principles of this nation.
The government also, of course, has a particular national security interest at the border
That is the same argument as customs, and falls down for the same reason. The proximate event that gives rise to the national security interest at the border is the crossing of the border. Physical things have no choice but to transit the border in the physical realm, this gives the reasonable justification for searching trunks and trailers. The most wily villain in the world still has to move the physical thing across the border in the physical realm. Guns, bombs, bullets -- these things occupy space and have mass. They are easy to discover by checking trunks and trailers.
Data is not the same. Whether related to customs infringement or terror planning, data can cross the border just as easily via the Internet or SD card just as it can on a hard drive. As such, searching hard drives at the border cannot be a significantly effective means of catching credible threats to national security, because people who are credible threats to national security are not that stupid. Therefore national security cannot rationally be the actual motive of the executive, and likewise the act of crossing the border cannot be a sufficient cause to satisfy reasonableness in the fourth amendment.
coupled with the fact that travelers should expect to be searched
A citizen should not expect to be searched if there is no reasonable cause. Since crossing the border does not raise a reasonable cause to search a hard drive, as we have established above, there is no reasonable expectation of search of a hard drive. Without reasonable expectation of a search, there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. "We do it even though we do not have the authority to do it" is not a valid means to pierce the expectation of privacy.
Imagine trying to enforce customs regulations without an ability to search!
Without the ability to search laptop hard drives? OK, I'll try to imagine that... Done. In fact, it was really easy. Here's how it goes:
You search things like trailers and trunks that carry physical things. Physical things that cannot cross the border via the Internet. Then, you don't search the hard drives, because they are not particularly useful for transporting Cuban cigars or Persian rugs.
Hard drives are only good for transporting data, which can travel just as easily through the Internet, or on a micro SD card that the border agents would not be able to find without stripping the vehicle to component parts. The increased probability of catching even a moderately intelligent data trafficker by checking laptop hard drives is vanishingly small, and utterly insufficient to be reasonable cause for avoiding a fourth amendment violation.
Which is to say; customs enforcement is not remotely credible as the actual, underlying justification for searching a hard drive.
Therefore, the objective of the executive in doing such searches must be something other than customs enforcement. Those objectives may be fine and wonderful things, but they are not directly related to crossing the border. The border crossing is the distinguishing event; the proximate source of reasonableness that prevents a violation of the fourth from a warrantless search. If the infraction in question is not directly related to the crossing of the border, the crossing of the border cannot be the means to satisfy the reasonableness requirement in a rational society.
Is this a step too far for an online community? Is it a cash grab or a genuine effort to encourage secure and responsible posting?
It is a symptom of a greater threat. This is a symptom of centralization of social communication. It creates an ecosystem in which defector organizations necessarily emerge and distort communication. Whether any one of the primary centralization actors is actively evil or misguided, the system will necessarily co-evolve entities which exploit the systemic flaw of centralized social communication.
There are benefits to centralization in terms of economies of scale and specialization of labor and capital, but social communication is too vital to the free mind to allow it to be distorted for such trivial benefits. We can decentralize these systems through projects like Diaspora and WebFinger. We (Slashdotters) are the ones who have the ability to make decentralization possible for the masses -- and those who benefit from centralization are not going to do it for us. I am working on it in my own way, and it is rewarding. Consider lending a hand, if you aren't already.
I know where I'm throwing my money the next time I need such hardware!
I could not have said it better myself. Thanks for the post!
Does this mean we can finally get a review for the patent on swinging sideways on a swing? The patent in question does not merely add "apply it" to suspended mass behavior -- it adds "apply it, but sideways."
A threshold value is not a good measure of a non-normal distribution, and consumer estimated value is a poor measure of the value of privacy foregone.
In a non-normal distribution, a threshold value, like the median, can be very misleading. This case shows that most people do not perceive the value of transaction privacy as being greater than $0.65, but if the people who think it is worth more than $0.65 think it is worth significantly more, then the $0.65 is significantly below the mean perceived value. Due to inherently poor numeracy in public perception, using a non-mean value to represent a measure of a public perception of value is misleading.
Even if that were an accurate measure of mean perceived value, consumer ability to estimate the societal value of transaction privacy is almost certainly downward distorted. Just as most people do not grasp the full value of free speech and freedom of assembly, most people are not capable of properly estimating the societal value of transaction privacy. Free trade is exposed to the same risk of chilling effects as free speech. If every purchase is monitored, recorded, and subject to later scrutiny by anyone with the funds to buy the records, the knowledge of that scrutiny will distort purchasing behavior. Distortions in purchasing behavior cause equilibrium prices to shift, which results in a reduction in total satisfaction of wants ("total satisfaction of wants" is often estimated broadly as "GDP").
That all is to say; as economic models of pricing go, this one either betrays a significant misunderstanding of the difference between total societal value and individual perceived value, or it fully understands that distinction and suggests that corporate actors should sacrifice total societal value in favor of the distorted individual perceived value if they wish to maximize profit. The latter is exactly the sort of market distortion that should be considered in optimizing a well-regulated free market for GDP maximization.
"Fatter" does not mean "healthier".
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The internet has degenerated into a 300Lbs middle-aged white guy huffing and puffing after climbing a flight of stairs.
An excellent post highlighting the costs of the commercialization of the net. Thanks!