Well, as I see it, Bertelsmann & Napster have a choice:
1. Offer a "micropayment" service and fail
2. Offer a flat rate service and succeed (think ASCAP as the model)
Maybe, just maybe, they'll choose number 2, and we'll still have our music. If they don't, there will always be someone else trading pirated MP3s (think Gnutella).
Don't be sure. Keep in mind that the candidates did their campaigning based on the Electoral College rules, so Gore's popular majority just means that he was way ahead in big states like California.
If a popular majority were required (and I think that this is long overdue) we would have seen very different campaigning styles. Candidates would have been forced to spend more time in heavily populated areas, such as New York, California, and the other major cities, because there would have been more votes available there than in the artificially created "swing states." Get-out-the-vote efforts in these areas would have increased turnout for both candidates by an unknown amount; given the margin of the (Bush or Gore) victory, we cannot know who the victor would have been.
The internet in 1996 was experiencing growth in traffic that the net couldn't handle. You may recall, back when InfoWorld was a good magazine, that Bob Metcalfe predicted& amp; lt;/a> that the internet would collapse - and then he famously ate his column when it didn't. Why? ISPs were building capacity, which ultimately met demand, and servers were getting bigger and more powerful as well.
Since then, four years have passed, and the amount of capacity and computing power on the net is orders of magnitude more. ISPs that used to run at 45Mbps now run at 5Gbps and more - a hundredfold increase in capacity (and at least 10x more if you count the increase in the number of national backbones). Meanwhile, political news is still mainly statistics, photos, and the occasional video clip - and nobody has shown that there's been a huge increase in interest in politics via the web. So this time the election-driven traffic is very unlikely to have an impact at all.
I don't think my above comment was too extreme. I was simply noting that young, single people never get any "targeted" programs, because (a) we don't vote in sufficient numbers, and (b) we don't do "socially positive" things like have kids. So we are ATMs to pay for everyone else's programs.
Now of course there are programs that benefit everyone. But I challenge you to find even one election-year handout (comparable to Medicare prescription drugs) aimed at young, single people. If they're getting handouts, so should we.
Now I'm voting for Gore in spite of all this, because he's the more fiscally responsible of the bunch. But he'd be even more responsible if he had used that money to pay down the debt.
Dubya's right on this one. A more effective campaign on behald of free trade would have made a huge difference. Instead the radicals won, and we all lose as a result.
Thank you for pointing this out! Single people get massively screwed by all these tax cut plans, particularly Gore's. It's as if we're ATMs to pay for everyone ELSE's programs.
I have come to the tentative conclusion that what Gartner's reports are really for is not to predict the future, but rather to buffer today's news for PHBs.
Definitely. My experience with the analysts, Gartner, Forrester, and the like, is that they take generally available information, make it look pretty and "professional," back it up with some survey data (sometimes), and offer it for very high prices to corporate buyers via a direct sales force that won't stop calling you once they get your name. Fortunately, the news sites are more useful every day, so you really don't need to subscribe, unless you really don't get technology and would rather pay someone else to get it for you.
Remember, the analysts all said "B2B" would be the next big thing...
So I answered the Slashdot Poll and got... a long discussion about Nader's responses to questions and everything else Nader. Where's the discussion on the poll? Bug or feature?
Probably they will develop a subscription-based service that favors in some way SDMI files. However, the users DO NOT need to participate!! We can just keep on making MP3s only available, and that should work fine.
The indie side of Napster may be strengthened here, actually. If a subscription service is developed, then indies (a la MP3.com) will have more incentive to participate. Perhaps they should do that first, so the indies can side with Napster in the inevitable format wars...
Right, but the point still stands. Holmes admitted that he was wrong to apply this to the Sedition Act, which was used against a pamphleteer. My point was that the "fire" argument is always applied too broadly, because people always use it against inflammatory speech of any kind, not just fightin' words.
For example, I can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
Yes, you can - if there's a fire! You just can't falsely shout "fire!" and cause a panic - that might be disorderly conduct, for example.
From the article linked above, emphasis mine:
I was wrong. Justice Holmes was writing for the court in Schenck vs. the United States, when in 1919 he penned the now infamous doctrine: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.... The question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."
So the right of free speech is limited only by its impact on public safety. For example, it wouldn't be protected speech to hijack an air traffic control channel and direct planes into mountainsides, but that's the sort of conduct that should be the exception. Certainly the exceptions that the religious right find to be in this category are not, in my view.
Of course, nobody can prevent you from shouting "Theater!" in a crowded fire!
Well, the trade press is on top of this too. Ed Foster of Infoworld writes this week:
If you combine UCITA -- and its ability to enforce such things as shrinkwrap terms
prohibiting product criticism and reverse engineering -- with the DMCA, what will we have? I
fear it could be a form of censorship that will make the most despotic governments exceedingly
envious.
Do unto the DMCA as was done to the 55-mph speed limit and to Prohibition
This makes a lot of sense, provided that circumvention tools and so on can continue to be made available. Unfortunately we are in a more difficult situation than in the case of 55 mph, though, because that law had very little public support and was ignored by most state troopers, particularly towards the end of its life in the early nineties. The current case is more like a regulation requiring that 55 mph speed governors be installed on all cars, or (as is the case in Japan) overspeed alarms, and forbidding owners from disabling them.
I think our best bet is to do two things:
1. get these provisions overturned by the Supreme Court on the basis of free speech;
2. buy only non-copy-protected content when we have the choice (i.e. stay the fuck away from SDMI encoded digital music and CDs).
It's a pretty gloomy scenario, but I for one will be doubling my annual gift to the EFF.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Offer a "micropayment" service and fail
2. Offer a flat rate service and succeed (think ASCAP as the model)
Maybe, just maybe, they'll choose number 2, and we'll still have our music. If they don't, there will always be someone else trading pirated MP3s (think Gnutella).
If a popular majority were required (and I think that this is long overdue) we would have seen very different campaigning styles. Candidates would have been forced to spend more time in heavily populated areas, such as New York, California, and the other major cities, because there would have been more votes available there than in the artificially created "swing states." Get-out-the-vote efforts in these areas would have increased turnout for both candidates by an unknown amount; given the margin of the (Bush or Gore) victory, we cannot know who the victor would have been.
Of course there is something Lando-ish about this .. were the parodists just invited in for dinner with the Dark Lord himself?
No, they're just learning from Slashdot!
I don't believe anything?
Metcalfe predicted collapse and 1 year later ate his column.
Since then, four years have passed, and the amount of capacity and computing power on the net is orders of magnitude more. ISPs that used to run at 45Mbps now run at 5Gbps and more - a hundredfold increase in capacity (and at least 10x more if you count the increase in the number of national backbones). Meanwhile, political news is still mainly statistics, photos, and the occasional video clip - and nobody has shown that there's been a huge increase in interest in politics via the web. So this time the election-driven traffic is very unlikely to have an impact at all.
Now of course there are programs that benefit everyone. But I challenge you to find even one election-year handout (comparable to Medicare prescription drugs) aimed at young, single people. If they're getting handouts, so should we.
Now I'm voting for Gore in spite of all this, because he's the more fiscally responsible of the bunch. But he'd be even more responsible if he had used that money to pay down the debt.
will it defeat Kramnik?
http://george-w-dance.homepage.com/ ;
Dubya's right on this one. A more effective campaign on behald of free trade would have made a huge difference. Instead the radicals won, and we all lose as a result.
Pisses me off.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/document.cgi?file=/k ron/archive/2000/11/02/dubyaconfess.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/document.cgi?file=/k ron/archive/2000/11/02/dubyaco nfe ss.DTL
Definitely. My experience with the analysts, Gartner, Forrester, and the like, is that they take generally available information, make it look pretty and "professional," back it up with some survey data (sometimes), and offer it for very high prices to corporate buyers via a direct sales force that won't stop calling you once they get your name. Fortunately, the news sites are more useful every day, so you really don't need to subscribe, unless you really don't get technology and would rather pay someone else to get it for you.
Remember, the analysts all said "B2B" would be the next big thing...
No, they've just familiarized themselves with RFC 2324!
for the script kiddies to start submitting huge volumes of random patents.
So I answered the Slashdot Poll and got ... a long discussion about Nader's responses to questions and everything else Nader. Where's the discussion on the poll? Bug or feature?
The indie side of Napster may be strengthened here, actually. If a subscription service is developed, then indies (a la MP3.com) will have more incentive to participate. Perhaps they should do that first, so the indies can side with Napster in the inevitable format wars...
Right, but the point still stands. Holmes admitted that he was wrong to apply this to the Sedition Act, which was used against a pamphleteer. My point was that the "fire" argument is always applied too broadly, because people always use it against inflammatory speech of any kind, not just fightin' words.
Yes, you can - if there's a fire! You just can't falsely shout "fire!" and cause a panic - that might be disorderly conduct, for example.
From the article linked above, emphasis mine:
I was wrong. Justice Holmes was writing for the court in Schenck vs. the United States, when in 1919 he penned the now infamous doctrine: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. ... The question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."
So the right of free speech is limited only by its impact on public safety. For example, it wouldn't be protected speech to hijack an air traffic control channel and direct planes into mountainsides, but that's the sort of conduct that should be the exception. Certainly the exceptions that the religious right find to be in this category are not, in my view.
Of course, nobody can prevent you from shouting "Theater!" in a crowded fire!
If you combine UCITA -- and its ability to enforce such things as shrinkwrap terms prohibiting product criticism and reverse engineering -- with the DMCA, what will we have? I fear it could be a form of censorship that will make the most despotic governments exceedingly envious.
Good article. Send it to your legislator.
Don't forget Speakeasy.net!
A well informed Public, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Technology, shall not be infringed.
This makes a lot of sense, provided that circumvention tools and so on can continue to be made available. Unfortunately we are in a more difficult situation than in the case of 55 mph, though, because that law had very little public support and was ignored by most state troopers, particularly towards the end of its life in the early nineties. The current case is more like a regulation requiring that 55 mph speed governors be installed on all cars, or (as is the case in Japan) overspeed alarms, and forbidding owners from disabling them.
I think our best bet is to do two things:
1. get these provisions overturned by the Supreme Court on the basis of free speech;
2. buy only non-copy-protected content when we have the choice (i.e. stay the fuck away from SDMI encoded digital music and CDs).
It's a pretty gloomy scenario, but I for one will be doubling my annual gift to the EFF.