We need protectionism now if we want to protect our future.
No, we need truly free trade. Unions and protectionism (tariffs, etc) killed our manufacturing sector.
If labor plus shipping from China is cheaper than labor here, wages need to drop for the now-commodity item. Decades of protecting the steel industry cost the US billions in higher building and vehicle prices.
If we increase our tariffs we'll bankrupt even faster.
Re:MySpace + Blogs = Proof that we need a Holocaus
on
The MySpace Generation
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· Score: 1
I've been trying to write an article about MySpace for about 6 months, with the community changing faster than I can assimilate those changes into the article. MySpace is the ultimate free market in socializing, and it (or a system like it) has potential to being a huge part of every day life.
All my teen employees in my retail stores are on MySpace. Most of my adult employees are, as well. At first, the dame and I thought it was just a hook up scene (it is, though). We were laughing at how we knew some parents of kids on there who thought their kids were 100% puritan, and the messages led us to believe the opposite. The average poster also leads me to reinforce my belief that the laws against non-violent voluntary action between two humans (drug laws, prostitution laws and others) are completely unnecessary.
MySpace's greatest potential is beyond just the ability to moderate other people. MySpace offers everyone this amazing ability to be open about themselves, reduce embarassment, and even become more honest as a person. When I was in high school, cheating on your girlfriend was common, but secret. Today it is called hooking up and generally not frowned upon. Is this the direction society needs to head? I don't know, but I don't think this "freeing" of embarassment is a bad thing -- isn't sex always the leader in a societal change?
MySpace is powerful in many other ways, connecting cliques with one another to create what is one of the most powerful non-corporate marketing forces ever. My brother's band increased downloads of their music almost 100-fold, and their concerts are significantly more populated by people who are friends-of-friends-of-friends. I also have found that kids as young as 11 won't buy Sony because their clique is connected to another clique that is boycotting the company. How awesome is that?
Right now, MySpace is complete anarchy. Guess what? It works. For an anarchocapitalist such as myself, MySpace combined with eBay could be the utopian anarchist paradise we always dream of, at least in electronic form. Copyright is not a concern (have you seen the reckless abandon of music, video and image piracy? I love it). Sharing of information is open and natural. If someone hurts another person in any way, you can be sure that it will get through all the various local cliques and the offender will be castigated and watched more closely. Even peer review of one's actions is instant. One person can post an angry comment about another, and the "jury of one's peers" comes into action, either defending that person or realizing that the person is probably guilty of the action first posted.
I know that when I was a teenager there were numerous things to be embarassed of. If I had known that others existed with similar emotions or thoughts or habits, I think I would have matured at a faster past (although it can be argued that today's teenageres are very immature but I completely disagree).
MySpace is a profitable venture, slowly taking the place of schools, the law, the mall and even e-mail and IM. Parents need to be aware of it, too. I believe that those who think we need more government in our lives should carefully watch as the next generation gets along just fine, pushing together their millions of decisions and beliefs in the free markets trumping of democracy.
The necessary and proper clause (the so-called "elastic" clause) is very troubling to pro-freedom advocates. Hamilton and Jefferson battled over this clause (I believe it was aIs8p18 in the Constitution) but upon reading and re-reading it, you can definitely tell that the clause was only in regard to the government performing the actions enumerated to the federal government, not just any action they want to. I would definitely rewrite it in Constitution v3.0.
I don't know if professional and law enforcement can go hand-in-hand without oversight. Every professional out there has competition, peer review and at the very least a very open disclosure of what they've done. The FBI has none. Not very professional to me.
I don't believe the country will fall into massive crime. People, in general, follow the law (even criminals!). Skipping from town to town committing crimes is a very expensive venture, one that petty thieves generally don't do. Being a full-time criminal is not profitable in the least. If you're talking about other crimes, I'd like to know what crimes the FBI fights that couldn't be covered by local law enforcement, or even a state agency.
Of those laws, 24,997 of them are likely unconstitutional.
Federal crimes that are in the domain of a federal police force are counterfeiting, piracy on the high seas, and treason. The last crime is one we should be using against those making the other 24,997 laws on the books.
The U.S. Constitution has no provision for a federal police force, in fact, it is very against a federal military to be used against the state's citizens.
The FBI has been found to destroy constitutional protections at will, and that is only when we've caught them.
The FBI has historically been used as a fear tactic against the citizen base. They warred against the Black Panthers, and your parents or grandparents might remember the famous "an FBI agent behind every mailbox" line that was often quoted.
What is the solution for "policing" interstate offense? Primarily it should be left to the individual cities. Offer private security companies to create a secondary network to allow police stations to communicate. The systems are there.
The great thing about dumping the FBI's powers into the local level is that every citizen can monitor what their government is spending and doing. The FBI hides behind official securities regulations, and the FOIA doesn't help. We're looking at a grossly overbudgeted organization that isn't even legal or needed by this country. How about putting a few grand back in everyone's pocket and letting the cities decide how badly they want to monitor criminals that decide to move elsewhere.
Far more important than money here is the principle of truth.
Correct. And one slip up isn't going to crucify anyone. Yet if blogger after blogger posts on their site "Hey! The New Arkansas Tribune copied my post from 3 weeks ago verbatim and forgot to mention me" then the New Arkansas Tribune WILL lose credibility. This "award" showing from the "bloggers" is a great idea -- why use the law when you can use the penalty?
People who steal the work of others will lose business. There is no law needed to protect the market.
This is the real crime of plagiarism, and this is the reason why those who willingly put plagiarism into print should be run out of their professions.
Correct! From 1760 to 1990 with the media a difficult to penetrate market, I can understand why copyright was important. With the Internet, it is completely an old school mechanism of force. We now have instant information dispersal, instant peer review and instant moderation. Let your words get copied, and those who decide to copy without giving you props will find themselves unread. The market provides.
For me, just having all the information I have in my head is worthless. Putting it on paper is worthless. Getting 10,000 people to read one article once is worthless. For me, I need a consistent, regular, every day following. That can take YEARS of time to invest. I am not worried if someone copies my work, in fact, I wish they would! Don't credit me for it. Take it as your own. Eventually it will help me, and I am in it for the long run.
One of my employees is a Nielsen viewer. I can't believe those guys are still going to keep ticking.
With video watching moving towards an on-demand basis, will advertisers really need to hire a company to track viewer preferences? The best thing advertisers can do is replac Tivo/MCE/Myth/whatever with completely free tuner/PVR units. Tivo can already tell advertisers what commercials were watched or skipped, what parts of a TV show were paused or reviewed, what channels are bounced between most often, etc. As TV becomes quickly available through iTunes or direct download, IPTV, and other "right now" provisions, we'll see our information traded in exchange for free TV.
I still believe that TV show production companies will find ways to offer advertising and spyware-free shows (a la the DVD format) for those willing to pay extra. Remember, advertising only exists for shows that are being watched in real time. Video taping, downloading, PVR, whatever means ads will likely be skipped or deleted altogether. We will definitely see more product placement as well as more pop-up advertising on top of TV shows as time goes on. Technology is quickly destroying the efficacy of advertising, so advertising will either have to morph or be left in the dust.
Nielsen, IMHO, is already being put into the incinerator. Their services were nice (*pat on head*) but its time for the new kid to play.
I recently finished an article describing how copyright doesn't really affect or help any artist. I think I'll post it to my blog shortly:)
The information itself is worthless without packaging, distribution, marketing and performance support. Bands get nearly $0 from album sales or good reason -- the actual data is worth the least.
Why should bloggers ignore it when newspapers make money by copying their writings?
Because the bloger "profits" by his words getting out there, even without recognition. I'd love to mention on my blog being copied by a powerful paper that forgot to credit me.
Unauthorized copying and distributing of intellectual property is generally a Federal crime... And probably even far worse when done for a profit...
I'm against copyright laws. If a company with ten floors of an office building and ten million dollars of print equipment "steals" my work, I would use it to my advantage to self-promote. The newspaper industry is a dying breed, these maneuvers are just proof of that.
Media companies (of all types) seem to be getting their way that copyright protection is essential to their business model... If they are violating their own laws, then I say let them taste their own medicine!
Copyright may have been important until 1990. The Internet allows instant cutting, pasting, linking and RSS pulls. Information has almost zero cost, infinite supply and low demand. Supply and demands dictating a price of zero. The fact that writers can still make money is proof that the information alone isn't the profit maker -- the layout, consistency and accuracy add just as much.
If the front page of NYT was copied off your blog, you wouldn't sue? Just think of the paper sales, advertisement revenue, and national recongition they they are getting from *your* work.
I think of my overhead versus theirs and would be ecstatic for the added publicity to my readers. There is no value in one article. I sell the package and the future.
As a blogger (I actually started "blogging" almost 15 years ago on my BBS), I believe that the entire idea behind copyright is pretty lame. The income of bloggers comes from 3 mechanisms that really don't make copyright as important, and I think in the future we'll see some interesting google anti-"plagiarism" tools.
Bloggers can make their money from ad revenue (adsense and the like), subscriptions and donations. A good blogger can easily make a low 5-figure income if they're good about consistency. Blogger information tends to be very real-time (even non-editorial pieces). Few bloggers publish book-style information, although this is growing. The audience of a blogger is sometimes one-time visitors, but the goal is repeat visitors. Blogs without repeat visitors in my opinion are failures (but this is disputable).
I believe that google or a competitor is on the verge of "This page is almost identical to" style cross-linking. If an online newspaper posts an exact copy of a blog, or a book author rips off a paragraph from another, the browser toolbars will make short work of noticing it. We are very close with search engine heuristic research to take bigger snapshots than just "completely naked MILF" search tags.
For a blogger to get copied without recognition, I can understand the anger. A newspaper stole their information! So what. The newspaper is dead. All a blogger has to do is mention who is quoted them (verbatim in some cases) and use it to build their following. Sure, being quoted in print might make it hard to find, and if you aren't referenced, then the paper is making income from your work, but NO newspaper could exist for very long strictly on "robbing" content.
Take advantage of the free press even if they don't mention you. Bloggers have something similar to a newspaper in proving they wrote it first: caching search engines and "look backwards" web archives. All you need to do is make sure your blog is getting captured, and you can easily prove to your visitors that you've been quoted in the Floor Avenue Journal.
And the law says that Congress can make no law preventing freedom of expression or speech. As long as the expression does not do direct physical harm to someone or their property, it isn't illegal. A video game IS a form of expression -- art.
These laws (all of them) are merely instruments of governments in order to tell people "We're doing something!" What are they doing? They're replacing parents' responsibility.
Should a 12 year old be able to buy beer? Honestly, leave it up to individual cities (or better yet, the parents) to decide. Should a 12 year old be able to buy porn? Again, it is for the cities (and individuals) to decide. A State is too all-encompassing to allow the trials and tests that a free market offers. In Europe last I went, preteens were able to pick up beer and cigarettes for their parents. Retailers weren't held responsible for carding or anything as rights-infringing as we have in the States.
I live in Illinois and I hope we continue to see these laws shut down. It is just a political ploy to increase government's power while reporting it as positive for the citizen base. Citizens today are too irresponsible and too mentally restricted to understand that we all have responsibilities, parents especially, to monitor what is used in our households. It is not government's problem.
A free market works on the idea that everyone has ready access to the same information. In reality, this is not the case, and insider trading laws fix this to keep the playing field level.
No, a free market works with people making informed decisions and no one disclosing their information.
To buy or sell stock in the stock market with that knowledge is committing an act of fraud because the average investing public has no way whatsoever to access this information until there is a press release or quarterly report.
So? Why anyone would put capital into a business that they control 0.001% of is beyond me.
It would be just as crooked as knowingly selling someone a defective car and hiding the fact that you know it's broken.
Stocks should be sold "as-is" just like cars. If you need guarantees, make a contract.
Because I know better.
You use the force of government to make people talk.
Example:
I had $10,000. I could have:
1. bought 0.001% of some company. I'd make $0 profit annually, only earning when I sell the shares. The other 1M owners might know more or less than me.
2. bought 33% of a new business. I'd likely make 20% profits annually and have real control.
3. I'd loan the company from point 1 the money at 8%.
Nowhere is disclosure needed. People who buy 0.001% shares deserve the beatings they get.
A writer works hard to complete a story or a novel or a picture. A pubisher takes that and produces a book. The publisher sells the physical object for whatever price they can for years and years and years. If there were no copyright, what obligation would the publisher have to pay the writer or the artist any income at all from the on-going sale of the object they were responsible for?
This is completely untrue. Publishers that steal stories from authors would not have authors negotiating with them. Publishers are good at distributing, authors are good at writing. They both need each other, even in a copyright-free world.
There have been publishers who printed more books than the author knew about and the publishers didn't last long.
In a non-law world, we'd still have ways to moderate the actions of people and companies. In fact, in a non-law world the business of action-moderating would be a decent career. You'd pick a company to moderate your transactions, a publisher would do the same. You do a job, you tell your customer "hey, go and moderate me!" Others can see how you handle yourself.
We're seeing moderating systems come into existance already. MySpace has changed the dating life of teenagers (instead of hiding your cheating, it is now considered OK as long as you're honest, which is a good thing). Slashdot has changed the commentary system on the web. Ebay changed the way items are bought and sold. Moderation by private companies for transactions is the future -- why worry about credit checks and the like?
Of course, if you were person had bad moderation, they could theoretically dump their old moderation company and pay for a new one. Now you come across Mr. George Jones, who is 29 years old and has zero moderation. What do you do? Trust him? You come across Mr. John Michaels who is 29 years old and has 910 positives and 14 negatives.
That is how a free market would work. Publishers that cheat get negative moderation. Authors who cheat get negative moderation.
Awesome. Thanks for the info on PCM VHS stuff. I'll forward it on. This guy says that money is no object. Apparently I'm not getting paid enough around here!
You can have him e-mail me and I can probably find him a service that will retrieve the data. I'm sure he can pay per linear foot or megabyte.
I agree, property is all about physical objects. But we're not talking about property, we're talking about copyright. Are you saying that a monopoly on distribution can only apply to physical objects?
No, I am saying that a barter or exchange can only be performed on physical objects and physical actions. IAFM (in a free market), when you go to a concert "for the music" you're actually paying someone to play the music. IAFM, when you buy a CD "for the music" you're actually paying someone for the physical CD.
Even if that's a tenet of anarchocapitalism (which I'm admittedly not familiar with), it seems to be wrong: we currently allow a monopoly on distribution of copyrighted works in a completely non-physical domain. iTMS is a good example of this.
Correct. With iTMS, IAFM, you'd be paying for the bandwidth, processing and search capabilities of the service. The actual content is "non existant ethereal" and really has no value as it is infinitely available. Demand/Supply = Price. X/infinite = 0.
If so, I think this is true, but not limited to monopolies. I believe that the power-hungry will always try to change the law to make it more favorable to themselves.
Which is why I am against public laws and public courts in the first place. The market and society would be far better off with private laws and mutual agreements.
I believe the law WAS needed for thousands of years, but now we have the Internet and we have instant communication. I think the law is no longer valuable or worthy. Horses were replaced by cars, bulbs replaced gaslamps, the Internet replaced morse code. Freedom should replace the law.
so how should writers be compesated for the books they write? By performing readings of their works around the country?
Book signings and question-and-answer session are very lucrative. I just met with one of my favorite authors at a $50 a plate dinner and he did very well with only about 200 people showing up. He said he's going to do more of them as he makes more money than his book selling in borders (all 7 of his books have sold in Borders).
Also, copyright-free books will STILL SELL. The average consumer likes the knowledge that the product they are buying is free of errors, bound in a high quality format, and returnable if there are problems. This is what the retailer does -- they are the middle man between a chaos of producers and a chaos of consumers. Producers don't want to go direct and consumers don't either. The middle man (retailer) does a great job making sure the content quality and form quality is high and makes sure the customer is happy. Nothing would change.
Maybe bootleggers would appear all over Chinatown? Oh wait, they already do.
Maybe works would be available freely for download? Oh wait, they already are.
1. Tell the author to go pound sand. 2. Produce and sell exact duplicates of the author's "official" book. 3. PROFIT!!
No you wouldn't. Retailers who work like this would lose authors. That is a reality. When I submit my writing to a publishing house, I can't copyright it. In fact, if you say "(C) 2005" on your "book" they'll put it in the circular file (trash).
Publishing houses don't steal works, they NEED the works. Retail stores need the authors as well. In fact, if a retail store steals the work, they're accepting way more work than if they just accepted a book and sold it. Can you imagine knocking off 500,000 different books a year? Maybe the top 50 would be stolen, but if they DID get stolen by Borders, that popular author would never offer Borders the first right to sell future best sellers.
The market doesn't work the way you think it does. It works through voluntary exchanges of products and services -- until government comes in and forces unvoluntary exchanges.
The video broadcast companies are probably going to need to do a more interactive form of advertising, and I believe that Tivo/Viiv/MCE and other PVR companies will be the ones to promote it. I think I have a decent solution to the conundrum of advertising.
First, advertisers will need to pick a more specific market ("target").
Second, shows will have to become more a la carte. This probably means significant DRM, but there is no "right" to television, so I don't see a way around this. If you want to watch the show "real time" you can pay for it now, or you can wait for it to be released on DVD (or public domain download).
How can you pay for the show? One of three ways:
A. You can use advertising points to watch it. Advertising points are "earned" by watching targeted ads that are pre-downloaded to your Tivo/MCE. These are communicated back to the producer. Maybe a small questionnaire at the end will earn you more points.
B. You can pay for the show up front -- a la carte.
C. You can pay for a subscription to the show for the season.
I don't see any other way for advertising to work, other than product placement. If advertisers and content producers think Tivo is bad now, just wait another year when vidcasts replace the news, and amateur shows pick up another level of refinement. I've already heard from local actor's studios regarding making "free" TV shows to release to the web to advertise their abilities. All we need is one or two huge popular shows online for every city and town to have a free actor's studio making interesting television.
Advertising will be more direct -- and bidirectional.
The federal gov't can if it can rationalize that drugs are an interstate concern.
The Interstate Commerce clause is the most widely abused clause in the Constitution. It was originally provisioned so that the Federal government had a check on States abusing commerce between them. There was to be no taxation, tariff or other regulations in trade between States.
The clause now extends the federal government numerous powers (DUI laws, speed limits, drug use, porn, Internet controls, telecommunications controls, etc).
Reading up what the founding fathers intended isn't needed if you just read the text of the interstate commerce clause. It is also one clause I'd dump completely if I had a hand in Constitution version 3.0.
Physical objects are all that property is about: your body, your car, your land, your house. I don't see how anything non-physical can be considered property. The short term monopoly encourages manipulation of the power that forces that monopoly, it does not encourage creation.
As for the PCM data recorder on VHS, the hardware to extract it will not be cheap. I messed with these devices in the 80s as a cheap data backup for the PC:
How exactly is an author going to make any money if not from selling his non-continuing work?
I am an author and I have always offered my writing (books, newsletters, e-mails) for free. As the Internet progresses, more and more books and writings will be available illegally (freely), so authors need to now adjust before they miss out as the music industry did.
Authors have many ways to make money on their books. First, authors can co-op (not in the forceway way that the MPAA and the RIAA have) to go to book sellers and agree to not provide their stores if the book sellers sell third party copies of the books. Books can be freely copied, yet MANY readers will want to buy the official author's book, as long as it is reasonably priced. When I see $2 bootleg CDs, I know the original band isn't making jack. When I see $15 official CDs, I know the original band isn't making jack. I won't purchase either copy. Yet when an indie band is offering CDs for $10, I know I am helping the author.
This viewpoint is something we need to work on as a society, yet we won't because the current system (protected by copyright) puts the power of media in the **AA companies, not the bands. The distributors control the radio, MTV and even the rock trades. The Internet is changing all this. Copyright isn't useful for authors, anyway. Most "bestsellers" net their authors very little. You can write a best seller and make less than $30,000.
How do I, as an author, make money? Public speaking engagements. Consulting. Distribution of new text to those who want it first. It is very lucrative, moreso than the actual book sale.
Many of our federal drug laws were founded on discrimination and collusion with the medical boards and prescription narcotic companies. I've researched the enumerated federal powers and nowhere in the Constitution do I see any allotment for the Congress to control, regulate, criminalize or even define drug use. The 9th and 10th Amendments are very clear that the right to use drugs is protected and within the individual States or the People to control.
Illinois could criminalize drugs, but the federal government absolutely cannot. The use of force by the feds to criminalize non-violent drug use is treason and worthy of the ultimate penalty for those enforcing these unconstitutional laws.
The Grateful Dead has been one (big) example of a band that succeeded without the need for coercive copyright protections. One could argue that they did still use trademark, but they are closer to the anarchocapitalist goal than most popular bands.
The Dead made their money the right way -- by performing a service for their customers worthy of continual profits. No job requires copyyright.
I don't believe in copyright as I don't see how anyone can use Congress and the courts to enforce income on non-continuing work. It is ridiculous.
The Dead's backtrack on their standards shows how corrupting law can be. How a band that has made millions over decades could turn is beyond me. The law is culpable -- the temptation to forcibly control what isn't in your possession is that strong.
I think this could be a huge blow to that scene (as well as the aging of the fanbase and the unconstitutional drug laws). I've been supporting (financially) only bands who don't support copyright, and I'm meeting and convincing more bands to forgo the protections in order to command a higher ticket price. Give away 1000 CDs ($215), include your next 4 months concert schedule and ask for $1 more per ticket. If the music is good, you'll profit with no use of force.
The strict anarchocapitalist view hoods that property rights are what sets all other rights. Property is physical, not ethereal. Once the physical item is bartered, you lose control of that particular item. Copyright started as a 7 year protective mechanism solely for the creator. We can see that all legal coercion is bad as there are no checks on the extension of power.
Slashdot Mirror
We need protectionism now if we want to protect our future.
No, we need truly free trade. Unions and protectionism (tariffs, etc) killed our manufacturing sector.
If labor plus shipping from China is cheaper than labor here, wages need to drop for the now-commodity item. Decades of protecting the steel industry cost the US billions in higher building and vehicle prices.
If we increase our tariffs we'll bankrupt even faster.
Goatse.cx alert in that link above.
I've been trying to write an article about MySpace for about 6 months, with the community changing faster than I can assimilate those changes into the article. MySpace is the ultimate free market in socializing, and it (or a system like it) has potential to being a huge part of every day life.
All my teen employees in my retail stores are on MySpace. Most of my adult employees are, as well. At first, the dame and I thought it was just a hook up scene (it is, though). We were laughing at how we knew some parents of kids on there who thought their kids were 100% puritan, and the messages led us to believe the opposite. The average poster also leads me to reinforce my belief that the laws against non-violent voluntary action between two humans (drug laws, prostitution laws and others) are completely unnecessary.
MySpace's greatest potential is beyond just the ability to moderate other people. MySpace offers everyone this amazing ability to be open about themselves, reduce embarassment, and even become more honest as a person. When I was in high school, cheating on your girlfriend was common, but secret. Today it is called hooking up and generally not frowned upon. Is this the direction society needs to head? I don't know, but I don't think this "freeing" of embarassment is a bad thing -- isn't sex always the leader in a societal change?
MySpace is powerful in many other ways, connecting cliques with one another to create what is one of the most powerful non-corporate marketing forces ever. My brother's band increased downloads of their music almost 100-fold, and their concerts are significantly more populated by people who are friends-of-friends-of-friends. I also have found that kids as young as 11 won't buy Sony because their clique is connected to another clique that is boycotting the company. How awesome is that?
Right now, MySpace is complete anarchy. Guess what? It works. For an anarchocapitalist such as myself, MySpace combined with eBay could be the utopian anarchist paradise we always dream of, at least in electronic form. Copyright is not a concern (have you seen the reckless abandon of music, video and image piracy? I love it). Sharing of information is open and natural. If someone hurts another person in any way, you can be sure that it will get through all the various local cliques and the offender will be castigated and watched more closely. Even peer review of one's actions is instant. One person can post an angry comment about another, and the "jury of one's peers" comes into action, either defending that person or realizing that the person is probably guilty of the action first posted.
I know that when I was a teenager there were numerous things to be embarassed of. If I had known that others existed with similar emotions or thoughts or habits, I think I would have matured at a faster past (although it can be argued that today's teenageres are very immature but I completely disagree).
MySpace is a profitable venture, slowly taking the place of schools, the law, the mall and even e-mail and IM. Parents need to be aware of it, too. I believe that those who think we need more government in our lives should carefully watch as the next generation gets along just fine, pushing together their millions of decisions and beliefs in the free markets trumping of democracy.
The necessary and proper clause (the so-called "elastic" clause) is very troubling to pro-freedom advocates. Hamilton and Jefferson battled over this clause (I believe it was aIs8p18 in the Constitution) but upon reading and re-reading it, you can definitely tell that the clause was only in regard to the government performing the actions enumerated to the federal government, not just any action they want to. I would definitely rewrite it in Constitution v3.0.
I don't know if professional and law enforcement can go hand-in-hand without oversight. Every professional out there has competition, peer review and at the very least a very open disclosure of what they've done. The FBI has none. Not very professional to me.
I don't believe the country will fall into massive crime. People, in general, follow the law (even criminals!). Skipping from town to town committing crimes is a very expensive venture, one that petty thieves generally don't do. Being a full-time criminal is not profitable in the least. If you're talking about other crimes, I'd like to know what crimes the FBI fights that couldn't be covered by local law enforcement, or even a state agency.
Of those laws, 24,997 of them are likely unconstitutional.
Federal crimes that are in the domain of a federal police force are counterfeiting, piracy on the high seas, and treason. The last crime is one we should be using against those making the other 24,997 laws on the books.
Disband the FBI.
The U.S. Constitution has no provision for a federal police force, in fact, it is very against a federal military to be used against the state's citizens.
The FBI has been found to destroy constitutional protections at will, and that is only when we've caught them.
The FBI has historically been used as a fear tactic against the citizen base. They warred against the Black Panthers, and your parents or grandparents might remember the famous "an FBI agent behind every mailbox" line that was often quoted.
What is the solution for "policing" interstate offense? Primarily it should be left to the individual cities. Offer private security companies to create a secondary network to allow police stations to communicate. The systems are there.
The great thing about dumping the FBI's powers into the local level is that every citizen can monitor what their government is spending and doing. The FBI hides behind official securities regulations, and the FOIA doesn't help. We're looking at a grossly overbudgeted organization that isn't even legal or needed by this country. How about putting a few grand back in everyone's pocket and letting the cities decide how badly they want to monitor criminals that decide to move elsewhere.
Far more important than money here is the principle of truth.
Correct. And one slip up isn't going to crucify anyone. Yet if blogger after blogger posts on their site "Hey! The New Arkansas Tribune copied my post from 3 weeks ago verbatim and forgot to mention me" then the New Arkansas Tribune WILL lose credibility. This "award" showing from the "bloggers" is a great idea -- why use the law when you can use the penalty?
People who steal the work of others will lose business. There is no law needed to protect the market.
This is the real crime of plagiarism, and this is the reason why those who willingly put plagiarism into print should be run out of their professions.
Correct! From 1760 to 1990 with the media a difficult to penetrate market, I can understand why copyright was important. With the Internet, it is completely an old school mechanism of force. We now have instant information dispersal, instant peer review and instant moderation. Let your words get copied, and those who decide to copy without giving you props will find themselves unread. The market provides.
For me, just having all the information I have in my head is worthless. Putting it on paper is worthless. Getting 10,000 people to read one article once is worthless. For me, I need a consistent, regular, every day following. That can take YEARS of time to invest. I am not worried if someone copies my work, in fact, I wish they would! Don't credit me for it. Take it as your own. Eventually it will help me, and I am in it for the long run.
One of my employees is a Nielsen viewer. I can't believe those guys are still going to keep ticking.
With video watching moving towards an on-demand basis, will advertisers really need to hire a company to track viewer preferences? The best thing advertisers can do is replac Tivo/MCE/Myth/whatever with completely free tuner/PVR units. Tivo can already tell advertisers what commercials were watched or skipped, what parts of a TV show were paused or reviewed, what channels are bounced between most often, etc. As TV becomes quickly available through iTunes or direct download, IPTV, and other "right now" provisions, we'll see our information traded in exchange for free TV.
I still believe that TV show production companies will find ways to offer advertising and spyware-free shows (a la the DVD format) for those willing to pay extra. Remember, advertising only exists for shows that are being watched in real time. Video taping, downloading, PVR, whatever means ads will likely be skipped or deleted altogether. We will definitely see more product placement as well as more pop-up advertising on top of TV shows as time goes on. Technology is quickly destroying the efficacy of advertising, so advertising will either have to morph or be left in the dust.
Nielsen, IMHO, is already being put into the incinerator. Their services were nice (*pat on head*) but its time for the new kid to play.
I recently finished an article describing how copyright doesn't really affect or help any artist. I think I'll post it to my blog shortly :)
The information itself is worthless without packaging, distribution, marketing and performance support. Bands get nearly $0 from album sales or good reason -- the actual data is worth the least.
Why should bloggers ignore it when newspapers make money by copying their writings?
Because the bloger "profits" by his words getting out there, even without recognition. I'd love to mention on my blog being copied by a powerful paper that forgot to credit me.
Unauthorized copying and distributing of intellectual property is generally a Federal crime... And probably even far worse when done for a profit...
I'm against copyright laws. If a company with ten floors of an office building and ten million dollars of print equipment "steals" my work, I would use it to my advantage to self-promote. The newspaper industry is a dying breed, these maneuvers are just proof of that.
Media companies (of all types) seem to be getting their way that copyright protection is essential to their business model... If they are violating their own laws, then I say let them taste their own medicine!
Copyright may have been important until 1990. The Internet allows instant cutting, pasting, linking and RSS pulls. Information has almost zero cost, infinite supply and low demand. Supply and demands dictating a price of zero. The fact that writers can still make money is proof that the information alone isn't the profit maker -- the layout, consistency and accuracy add just as much.
If the front page of NYT was copied off your blog, you wouldn't sue? Just think of the paper sales, advertisement revenue, and national recongition they they are getting from *your* work.
I think of my overhead versus theirs and would be ecstatic for the added publicity to my readers. There is no value in one article. I sell the package and the future.
As a blogger (I actually started "blogging" almost 15 years ago on my BBS), I believe that the entire idea behind copyright is pretty lame. The income of bloggers comes from 3 mechanisms that really don't make copyright as important, and I think in the future we'll see some interesting google anti-"plagiarism" tools.
Bloggers can make their money from ad revenue (adsense and the like), subscriptions and donations. A good blogger can easily make a low 5-figure income if they're good about consistency. Blogger information tends to be very real-time (even non-editorial pieces). Few bloggers publish book-style information, although this is growing. The audience of a blogger is sometimes one-time visitors, but the goal is repeat visitors. Blogs without repeat visitors in my opinion are failures (but this is disputable).
I believe that google or a competitor is on the verge of "This page is almost identical to" style cross-linking. If an online newspaper posts an exact copy of a blog, or a book author rips off a paragraph from another, the browser toolbars will make short work of noticing it. We are very close with search engine heuristic research to take bigger snapshots than just "completely naked MILF" search tags.
For a blogger to get copied without recognition, I can understand the anger. A newspaper stole their information! So what. The newspaper is dead. All a blogger has to do is mention who is quoted them (verbatim in some cases) and use it to build their following. Sure, being quoted in print might make it hard to find, and if you aren't referenced, then the paper is making income from your work, but NO newspaper could exist for very long strictly on "robbing" content.
Take advantage of the free press even if they don't mention you. Bloggers have something similar to a newspaper in proving they wrote it first: caching search engines and "look backwards" web archives. All you need to do is make sure your blog is getting captured, and you can easily prove to your visitors that you've been quoted in the Floor Avenue Journal.
And the law says that Congress can make no law preventing freedom of expression or speech. As long as the expression does not do direct physical harm to someone or their property, it isn't illegal. A video game IS a form of expression -- art.
These laws (all of them) are merely instruments of governments in order to tell people "We're doing something!" What are they doing? They're replacing parents' responsibility.
Should a 12 year old be able to buy beer? Honestly, leave it up to individual cities (or better yet, the parents) to decide. Should a 12 year old be able to buy porn? Again, it is for the cities (and individuals) to decide. A State is too all-encompassing to allow the trials and tests that a free market offers. In Europe last I went, preteens were able to pick up beer and cigarettes for their parents. Retailers weren't held responsible for carding or anything as rights-infringing as we have in the States.
I live in Illinois and I hope we continue to see these laws shut down. It is just a political ploy to increase government's power while reporting it as positive for the citizen base. Citizens today are too irresponsible and too mentally restricted to understand that we all have responsibilities, parents especially, to monitor what is used in our households. It is not government's problem.
This makes me wonder if Ballmer's chair throwing scream was actually "I will f##king end Google Desktop!" instead of "...end Google on the desktop."
Hmm...
A free market works on the idea that everyone has ready access to the same information. In reality, this is not the case, and insider trading laws fix this to keep the playing field level.
No, a free market works with people making informed decisions and no one disclosing their information.
To buy or sell stock in the stock market with that knowledge is committing an act of fraud because the average investing public has no way whatsoever to access this information until there is a press release or quarterly report.
So? Why anyone would put capital into a business that they control 0.001% of is beyond me.
It would be just as crooked as knowingly selling someone a defective car and hiding the fact that you know it's broken.
Stocks should be sold "as-is" just like cars. If you need guarantees, make a contract.
Because I know better.
You use the force of government to make people talk.
Example:
I had $10,000. I could have:
1. bought 0.001% of some company. I'd make $0 profit annually, only earning when I sell the shares. The other 1M owners might know more or less than me.
2. bought 33% of a new business. I'd likely make 20% profits annually and have real control.
3. I'd loan the company from point 1 the money at 8%.
Nowhere is disclosure needed. People who buy 0.001% shares deserve the beatings they get.
A writer works hard to complete a story or a novel or a picture. A pubisher takes that and produces a book. The publisher sells the physical object for whatever price they can for years and years and years. If there were no copyright, what obligation would the publisher have to pay the writer or the artist any income at all from the on-going sale of the object they were responsible for?
This is completely untrue. Publishers that steal stories from authors would not have authors negotiating with them. Publishers are good at distributing, authors are good at writing. They both need each other, even in a copyright-free world.
There have been publishers who printed more books than the author knew about and the publishers didn't last long.
In a non-law world, we'd still have ways to moderate the actions of people and companies. In fact, in a non-law world the business of action-moderating would be a decent career. You'd pick a company to moderate your transactions, a publisher would do the same. You do a job, you tell your customer "hey, go and moderate me!" Others can see how you handle yourself.
We're seeing moderating systems come into existance already. MySpace has changed the dating life of teenagers (instead of hiding your cheating, it is now considered OK as long as you're honest, which is a good thing). Slashdot has changed the commentary system on the web. Ebay changed the way items are bought and sold. Moderation by private companies for transactions is the future -- why worry about credit checks and the like?
Of course, if you were person had bad moderation, they could theoretically dump their old moderation company and pay for a new one. Now you come across Mr. George Jones, who is 29 years old and has zero moderation. What do you do? Trust him? You come across Mr. John Michaels who is 29 years old and has 910 positives and 14 negatives.
That is how a free market would work. Publishers that cheat get negative moderation. Authors who cheat get negative moderation.
Awesome. Thanks for the info on PCM VHS stuff. I'll forward it on. This guy says that money is no object. Apparently I'm not getting paid enough around here!
You can have him e-mail me and I can probably find him a service that will retrieve the data. I'm sure he can pay per linear foot or megabyte.
I agree, property is all about physical objects. But we're not talking about property, we're talking about copyright. Are you saying that a monopoly on distribution can only apply to physical objects?
No, I am saying that a barter or exchange can only be performed on physical objects and physical actions. IAFM (in a free market), when you go to a concert "for the music" you're actually paying someone to play the music. IAFM, when you buy a CD "for the music" you're actually paying someone for the physical CD.
Even if that's a tenet of anarchocapitalism (which I'm admittedly not familiar with), it seems to be wrong: we currently allow a monopoly on distribution of copyrighted works in a completely non-physical domain. iTMS is a good example of this.
Correct. With iTMS, IAFM, you'd be paying for the bandwidth, processing and search capabilities of the service. The actual content is "non existant ethereal" and really has no value as it is infinitely available. Demand/Supply = Price. X/infinite = 0.
If so, I think this is true, but not limited to monopolies. I believe that the power-hungry will always try to change the law to make it more favorable to themselves.
Which is why I am against public laws and public courts in the first place. The market and society would be far better off with private laws and mutual agreements.
I believe the law WAS needed for thousands of years, but now we have the Internet and we have instant communication. I think the law is no longer valuable or worthy. Horses were replaced by cars, bulbs replaced gaslamps, the Internet replaced morse code. Freedom should replace the law.
so how should writers be compesated for the books they write? By performing readings of their works around the country?
Book signings and question-and-answer session are very lucrative. I just met with one of my favorite authors at a $50 a plate dinner and he did very well with only about 200 people showing up. He said he's going to do more of them as he makes more money than his book selling in borders (all 7 of his books have sold in Borders).
Also, copyright-free books will STILL SELL. The average consumer likes the knowledge that the product they are buying is free of errors, bound in a high quality format, and returnable if there are problems. This is what the retailer does -- they are the middle man between a chaos of producers and a chaos of consumers. Producers don't want to go direct and consumers don't either. The middle man (retailer) does a great job making sure the content quality and form quality is high and makes sure the customer is happy. Nothing would change.
Maybe bootleggers would appear all over Chinatown? Oh wait, they already do.
Maybe works would be available freely for download? Oh wait, they already are.
And as a book retailer, I would...
1. Tell the author to go pound sand.
2. Produce and sell exact duplicates of the author's "official" book.
3. PROFIT!!
No you wouldn't. Retailers who work like this would lose authors. That is a reality. When I submit my writing to a publishing house, I can't copyright it. In fact, if you say "(C) 2005" on your "book" they'll put it in the circular file (trash).
Publishing houses don't steal works, they NEED the works. Retail stores need the authors as well. In fact, if a retail store steals the work, they're accepting way more work than if they just accepted a book and sold it. Can you imagine knocking off 500,000 different books a year? Maybe the top 50 would be stolen, but if they DID get stolen by Borders, that popular author would never offer Borders the first right to sell future best sellers.
The market doesn't work the way you think it does. It works through voluntary exchanges of products and services -- until government comes in and forces unvoluntary exchanges.
The video broadcast companies are probably going to need to do a more interactive form of advertising, and I believe that Tivo/Viiv/MCE and other PVR companies will be the ones to promote it. I think I have a decent solution to the conundrum of advertising.
First, advertisers will need to pick a more specific market ("target").
Second, shows will have to become more a la carte. This probably means significant DRM, but there is no "right" to television, so I don't see a way around this. If you want to watch the show "real time" you can pay for it now, or you can wait for it to be released on DVD (or public domain download).
How can you pay for the show? One of three ways:
A. You can use advertising points to watch it. Advertising points are "earned" by watching targeted ads that are pre-downloaded to your Tivo/MCE. These are communicated back to the producer. Maybe a small questionnaire at the end will earn you more points.
B. You can pay for the show up front -- a la carte.
C. You can pay for a subscription to the show for the season.
I don't see any other way for advertising to work, other than product placement. If advertisers and content producers think Tivo is bad now, just wait another year when vidcasts replace the news, and amateur shows pick up another level of refinement. I've already heard from local actor's studios regarding making "free" TV shows to release to the web to advertise their abilities. All we need is one or two huge popular shows online for every city and town to have a free actor's studio making interesting television.
Advertising will be more direct -- and bidirectional.
The federal gov't can if it can rationalize that drugs are an interstate concern.
The Interstate Commerce clause is the most widely abused clause in the Constitution. It was originally provisioned so that the Federal government had a check on States abusing commerce between them. There was to be no taxation, tariff or other regulations in trade between States.
The clause now extends the federal government numerous powers (DUI laws, speed limits, drug use, porn, Internet controls, telecommunications controls, etc).
Reading up what the founding fathers intended isn't needed if you just read the text of the interstate commerce clause. It is also one clause I'd dump completely if I had a hand in Constitution version 3.0.
Physical objects are all that property is about: your body, your car, your land, your house. I don't see how anything non-physical can be considered property. The short term monopoly encourages manipulation of the power that forces that monopoly, it does not encourage creation.
t m
As for the PCM data recorder on VHS, the hardware to extract it will not be cheap. I messed with these devices in the 80s as a cheap data backup for the PC:
http://www.merlineng.com/ME-981_991.html
http://www.gracey.com/descriptions/teac-5000-d1.h
How exactly is an author going to make any money if not from selling his non-continuing work?
I am an author and I have always offered my writing (books, newsletters, e-mails) for free. As the Internet progresses, more and more books and writings will be available illegally (freely), so authors need to now adjust before they miss out as the music industry did.
Authors have many ways to make money on their books. First, authors can co-op (not in the forceway way that the MPAA and the RIAA have) to go to book sellers and agree to not provide their stores if the book sellers sell third party copies of the books. Books can be freely copied, yet MANY readers will want to buy the official author's book, as long as it is reasonably priced. When I see $2 bootleg CDs, I know the original band isn't making jack. When I see $15 official CDs, I know the original band isn't making jack. I won't purchase either copy. Yet when an indie band is offering CDs for $10, I know I am helping the author.
This viewpoint is something we need to work on as a society, yet we won't because the current system (protected by copyright) puts the power of media in the **AA companies, not the bands. The distributors control the radio, MTV and even the rock trades. The Internet is changing all this. Copyright isn't useful for authors, anyway. Most "bestsellers" net their authors very little. You can write a best seller and make less than $30,000.
How do I, as an author, make money? Public speaking engagements. Consulting. Distribution of new text to those who want it first. It is very lucrative, moreso than the actual book sale.
Many of our federal drug laws were founded on discrimination and collusion with the medical boards and prescription narcotic companies. I've researched the enumerated federal powers and nowhere in the Constitution do I see any allotment for the Congress to control, regulate, criminalize or even define drug use. The 9th and 10th Amendments are very clear that the right to use drugs is protected and within the individual States or the People to control.
Illinois could criminalize drugs, but the federal government absolutely cannot. The use of force by the feds to criminalize non-violent drug use is treason and worthy of the ultimate penalty for those enforcing these unconstitutional laws.
I do not use drugs of any kind, FWIW.
The Grateful Dead has been one (big) example of a band that succeeded without the need for coercive copyright protections. One could argue that they did still use trademark, but they are closer to the anarchocapitalist goal than most popular bands.
The Dead made their money the right way -- by performing a service for their customers worthy of continual profits. No job requires copyyright.
I don't believe in copyright as I don't see how anyone can use Congress and the courts to enforce income on non-continuing work. It is ridiculous.
The Dead's backtrack on their standards shows how corrupting law can be. How a band that has made millions over decades could turn is beyond me. The law is culpable -- the temptation to forcibly control what isn't in your possession is that strong.
I think this could be a huge blow to that scene (as well as the aging of the fanbase and the unconstitutional drug laws). I've been supporting (financially) only bands who don't support copyright, and I'm meeting and convincing more bands to forgo the protections in order to command a higher ticket price. Give away 1000 CDs ($215), include your next 4 months concert schedule and ask for $1 more per ticket. If the music is good, you'll profit with no use of force.
The strict anarchocapitalist view hoods that property rights are what sets all other rights. Property is physical, not ethereal. Once the physical item is bartered, you lose control of that particular item. Copyright started as a 7 year protective mechanism solely for the creator. We can see that all legal coercion is bad as there are no checks on the extension of power.
(note I blogged about this today)