Imagine this scenario: Bertelsmann doesn't want to write off the company as a total loss so they offer to buy it for a pittance. Hummer Winblad (the VC) has the right to block a deal; this is their only negotiating leverage. They tell Bertelsmann that unless they pay more, the company sinks. Not a bad negotiating strategy; the only problem is if Bertelsmann gets pissed and calls the whole thing off (by, as it seems they did here, lowering the original offer. That's a slap in the face in this sort of negotiation.)
But, no way to really know what happened behind closed doors.
Nobody's asking you to watch the ads if you're not watching TV (as your comments about wishing the TV were not made imply.) Wouldn't society be better off if everyone else got to make their own decision? I generally think having choices is better than not having choices, all else being equal.
There are moral systems where people do not care about the free rider problem. Ayn Rand's objectivism is, arguably, one of them. Her system solves this problem by only caring about the individual... the "Virtue of Selfishness" as she titled one of her books. This isn't the moral system in any country I know of (although it does seem popular among computer geeks for some reason.) I don't believe it is a self-sustaining system, but I'm not really smart enough to argue that point.
My argument is simpler: are the results of your actions (assuming many many people do the same) really what you want? Are they best for society? The networks aren't complaining because you and two of your buddies skip commercials, they are worried that millions of people will. The result of that may be the demise of all but the most profitable TV shows on ad-supported TV. Goodbye ad-supported CNN, goodby ad-supported network news, hello Survivor! It may in fact mean the demise of all ad-supported TV shows, if enough people use ad-skipping. Maybe you don't care, because you prefer pay TV or renting DVDs, but why would you take that choice away from everyone else?
I don't think either of your two examples would make you unethical.
In the first case, rebates, this is the sort of explicit gamble that is more analogous to the advertiser showing you a commercial and hoping you will buy the product. It is also a form of price discrimination (in the economics sense of the word.) Likewise, it is not unethical to buy things at an outlet store rather than at the full-price store even though the company would go out of business if everyone did. If this didn't work for the company, the company has the power to cease doing it.
In the credit card case, this is an explicit contract under the control of the credit card company. If they wanted to charge you 18% on everything you buy, they could. But then you would get a different credit card. Again, the company has some control over the pricing of their product.
For a transaction to be fair, the seller should have some control over whether or not to sell to you at a particular price. And the buyer should have some control over whether or not to buy from them at a particular price. A good subject to the free rider problem is one where the seller does not control whether or not you can buy it or the price. These goods have to be priced by social compact or law.
I noted that the "what if everyone did it" test applied to the free rider problem. It also applies to the tragedy of the commons problem. There are ways besides a social agreement on ethics to solve the free rider problem. They involve making the implied contract explicit and enforceable (ie. the DMCA). Personally, I would rather have a somewhat flexible ethic that is agreed on and followed by most of society than the sort of inflexible and imposed regulations of the DMCA. The third option is, of course, that the resource you free ride on goes away.
I also agree with your second point, that of "grace." I don't think advertisers believe they garner 100% of the attention of the people they are shouting at. There are studies that show that advertising is, in fact, a cost-effective marketing tool (believe it or not) so the prices they are willing to pay to reach people seem to reflect the current reality regarding attention.
Skipping ads entirely, though, seems different. The only argument to make if everyone skips ads is that the people who *want* to see ads watch them (this is essentially the argument that free trade magazines make.)
I agree that the networks may be doomed. But as I mentioned in the above thread, it still doesn't make it right. Does society really want the death of ad-supported television?
You don't pay your cable bill to the networks. The cable company doesn't pay the networks.
The day the networks require payment from the cable companies is the day your cable bill goes up by $5 per month. Personally, I would rather have the choice of not watching network TV and thus not watching ads than being forced to pay for something I don't use.
I did have this conversation already. But, isn't Slashdot the land of inifintely recurring discussions? I think it's an interesting argument (although admittedly less so the more I spend work time making it.)
I think there are good arguments for trying to drive the networks out of business, but I haven't seen them on this board yet. I also don't really think that most of the people who don't want to watch ads really want them going out of business, they really just want to be free riders [?]. It's the (IMHO of course) hypocrisy that bothers me.
For instance, see the above thread where the person argues that he'd be perfectly happy if the networks went out of business, right before calling my understanding of ethics screwed-up. Seems like his ethic is selfishness.
You, OTOH, have some good questions. It is pretty clear that the networks don't expect you to necessarily buy a product to watch their show. They do hope that you watch some commercials and have a good feeling about the products, so just noting who is advertising seems like it is not enough. I don't think there is a bright line, or at least I can't draw one. I think this is like most free rider problems: ask yourself, what would happen if everyone did what I do - would the result be a good one or a bad one? If you are watching network TV and skip all commercials, the result under the previous test is that the networks go bankrupt or make their shows pay-only. Probably not the intended result, and certainly a bad one for at least 90% of the population. Applying this to some of your questions still leaves them questions, thus the lack of the bright line.
Okay, okay, I'll stop arguing the point. I know it's spitting into the wind. Although it's always nice to see someone else who actually thinks about it (as Tom did in the thread you linked) rather than simply tries to rationalize. Probably better that some people have a balanced view that they can articulate than the networks or tech companies get their way entirely, due to lack of critical, informed discussion. Making arguments that are easily shot down (ie. "I don't care if they go bankrupt!", "I paid Time/Warner cable, so NBC should be satisfied!", "I let them use the airwaves in my house!") means that we get tuned out. When someone make a good argument I will trumpet it from the rooftops.
Well yes, you should. You're a free rider, meaning whatever money the networks don't make on you they have to make on the rest of us, increasing our cost for watching television. In most ethical (and economic) systems that's frowned upon.
I'm saying you should recompense the networks for the shows you watch. They factor the fact that you go to the bathroom, go to the fridge, zone out during the commercials into their pricing. They don't, and can't, factor in that you skip them entirely.
You do want to pay your fair share for the shows you watch, don't you?
The only problem is the automatic recording thing... the PVR needs to be able to decide on the channel and if downstream of the cable box it can't, directly. I have seen people with IR emitters taped to the top of the cable box so the PVR can change the channel by pretending its the remote. Not especially elegant, but it works.
- Watch PBS. No ads, no pay (but you should donate money.) - Get HBO. A few decent shows (but you have to pay.) - Rent DVDs. Some good movies out there (but you have to pay.) - Watch the networks. Once in a while something amusing is on (but you should watch the ads.)
Hardly a monopoly, and you can choose whichever model suits you best: pay, donate, watch ads. Isn't that what we want? Choices?
Well, I hadn't thought of using pragmatism as a defense, since it's sort of counter-cultural. You run into the "the door wasn't locked, so I let myself in" type reasoning. Doesn't mean it's not an internally consistent system, but it isn't going to get you very far.
Your second argument goes in the entirely opposite direction: the High Road, Knowledge Should be Free way. I understand Homer didn't charge for his books. Of course, there really weren't many books. The change that brought about the "media" industry was mass replication. This allowed people to make money off their intellectual works in ways other than audience contribution (how I assume Homer made his living.) So, to your key point, I would make the argument that it is the ability to mass produce/distribute that have given rise to the ability and need to profit and that these have spurred the end to the barriers. Homer couldn't get around much and I doubt many people wanted his wretched life. Or, for that matter, Socrates' or Newton's life. Would there have been more Newtons if he could have made a better living (and avoided church censure)? I suppose the first part of that question is in bad taste, but the professionalization of science has certainly become necessary as, for instance, physicists keep pushing the envelope. Hard to imagine any 'gentleman scientist' funding a cyclotron.
There is an argument to be made that better art is made when it is made for art's sake, not money - the government funding cliche that French art has gotten worse the more the French government has subsidized it is one manifestation. This argument seems less true in the productive arts - science, engineering etc. - that require money to progress. I think that the government extension of patent lives and copyright periods is a better example for your argument than TV.
Anyway, my key point, which I should have just made half an hour ago: deciding society's best interests in this regards isn't quite so simple as declaring IP dead and the barriers down. Better TV shows won't be made if there's no revenue model: I know there are some good PBS shows, but there are also excellent HBO shows. There are people who would argue that there are excellent network shows (there's no accounting for matters of taste.) Right now you have a choice which revenue model to support: free, ad supported, pay. What more could you want?
I think your "religious right wants IP fascism" idea has the making of an excellent conspiracy theory. Especially if you could drag in the COS or LDS or the Ashcroft/NSA link. Didja ever play the cardgame Illuminati?
There should be a better board for discussing these things. Know of any? We need other viewpoints because you're right - we are both starting to recycle arguments. Plus this thread will be frozen soon.
I can respect your view that IP is not property. In fact, I agree that it isn't property. The problem from an ethical perspective is that there are established ethical rules for property use, but not for whatever it is you will classify IP as.
This may contribute to what seems to be an inconsistent approach to the ethics on your part. First you state that taking your idea and saying it is mine is unethical. Then you say that taking the TV networks' ideas and doing something they didn't intend for you to do with them isn't unethical.
Claiming your idea as mine and avoiding embedded 'payment' for an idea seem, in a topological sense, equivalent. If you can say that the old deal is no longer valid because one side has unilaterally decided so, why can't I say your idea is mine? What, exactly, is the ethical rule you are applying?
The EULA idea was a strawman, of course.
As for the whining, at least they're not asking for government handouts because their business is disappearing, like the steel industry or farmers. Well, not yet anyway.
Thanks for the argument. These issues are unclear to pretty much anyone, and the only way to sort them out is the back-and-forth. I have to admit that the attribution of immorality to the current media structure annoys me - it is absurd, in this narrow context. The networks can be called many things, doomed is probably the most accurate, but they are large businesses with thousands of employees who depend on a specific business model to survive. They realize their chances of being dominant in a new paradigm are slim. Of course they squawk and perhaps sympathy isn't unwarranted. But why the squawking of the snakeoil salesmen is 'news' escapes me. I would rather have this conversation: what are the ethics of this situation and how do we present them as achieving the greater good for society? That argument will become important as more and more people pay attention to these issues.
You bring up one of the few interesting questions about this whole debate: is intellectual property really property? Does the tangibility of something create its value? Does the fact that the book is a physical object change the ethics here? There are good arguments on both sides. On one side is the argument that if I take something from you and you still have it, I haven't taken something from you. On the other side is the Lockean argument that property is something that you worked to create and so in inalienably yours. Our current system was designed to forge a middle road with respect to intellectual property, letting the creator exploit it for a period of time, then freeing it.
Another question is, do you believe that things that have no marginal cost should have no cost to the consumer? This would mean that software should be free, of course, prescription drugs should be almost free, airline seats and hotel rooms should cost 10% of what they do, etc.
The other defense for destroying their business is that you are fighting for a higher good. I hear that a lot on/. Can't entirely disagree with that argument, but it should be an explicit ethical choice, not rationalized with the argument that you aren't, in effect, stealing something in the first place.
I agree that their business model may have been built on quicksand. What does that have to do with you? Are you free to kick a dying man? Seems specious. I also agree that not watching TV at all is a great choice and one I also have made. Not that it was so hard given the sh*t they show. But I believe that the agreement we all make when we turn on the TV is to watch the commercials. Would you feel differently if the network put a EULA up before every show, prohibiting you from commercial-skipping if you watch the show?
Laws are necessary to protect contracts. How else would you protect them?
I wouldn't expect you to feel sympathy, really, unless you were another television exec (or stockholder) seeing your livelihood disappear. Empathy, perhaps, would be more appropriate: if you were a television exec, wouldn't you squawk too?
We aren't talking about the decisions McDonalds made. We are talking about the decisions you make. Watching a commercial does not obligate you to buy something. In fact, it usually motivates me not to buy something (especially cow flesh.)
I was on vacation and someone walked up to me and told me I would get all sorts of free trinkets if I toured their time-share villas. The quid pro quo, which is obvious to anyone who thinks about it, is that they would give me the hard-sell on buying a time-share. I declined. You can also decline to watch commercial TV, if you don't want to watch commercials.
So, when you turned on the TV and got this thing you seem to think is of value (if you're watching it, you must think it has some value) what did you think you were giving in return? Did you think they were giving you this out of charity?
You say you didn't ask for the stuff. If a bookclub delivers an unwanted book to your house, you write return to sender and drop it back in the mail. You don't keep it and not pay for it, claiming there was no "meeting of the wills." It may be legal to do so, but it's not right. Do you think the networks need to broadcast a EULA before every show saying that if you don't agree to watch the commercials, you can't watch the show? If you think that's the solution, you are the one who has been brainwashed, by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. Not everything you do has to be regulated by a written, signed contract. Some things are regulated by trust and good will.
Things can change, like I said. Things will change, I agree. I disagree that I have been brainwashed by understanding the give and take that has supported TV since its beginning. If you say you don't understand that that is the business model, then I think you're being obtuse. Plenty of people ignore it, and in my mind that's not much worse than double-parking, morally speaking, but you should at least realize that you're in the wrong, not them.
Well, I'm sure the dinosaurs railed against their destruction as well. Why is everyone so annoyed that this man is resisting change? That he doesn't want his livelihood to be destroyed? He's entitled to a little bitterness and hyperbole.
He's also right... I'm sure you understand that it's your watching of commercials that pays for the content. Doesn't mean you have to watch the commercials, but then it isn't really fair that you watch the content either, is it? That, in effect, is the 'contract.' You can always pay more for HBO, or rent movies, and watch no commercials. Do this enough and the content producers will change their model. Skip commercials enough and the content producers will also change their model. The only difference will be how disruptive it will be to the industry. Television isn't especially profitable, averaged over time, but its profits are especially volatile. This leaves the networks vulnerable to cost-cutting and downsizing. So, feel free to take their content without compensating them, there's nothing they can do about it, but remember that you are preventing them from making money.
And don't fool yourselves with the classist arguments that you are simply depriving Courtney Cox of even more money she will misspend. It's a truism that the people who get hurt are the ones who can't afford it.
Looking at their 10-K: On 12/31/01 they had $137 million of cash of which $105 million was accessible (the rest is pledged to someone or other, probably landlords.) Their operating cash burn in 2001 was $238 million. If they were to continue burning cash at that rate, they would run out on about June 10th.
Now, there have been many changes in the company since then, including a merger with Viant which had quite a bit of cash (but quite a few liabilities as well), so their current financial situation is very difficult to divine (oops, I mean figure out.)
Their Q should be released soon and should be very instructive to their remaining employees.
Well, that's pretty back-handed apologism: don't blame the press if they don't want to take the time to fully inform their readers because they are worried their readers will just watch FOX News instead. Maybe the problem is that they underestimate their true audience - those who will pay more to get good news. The WSJ has relatively decent business coverage and the NYT has relatively decent foreign coverage (with a few notable exceptions.) They are both huge sellers, maybe not as big as decades ago, but the answer to that isn't trying to be FOX News on paper. That's just bad strategy.
I know from being on the other side that most newspapers print what they are told without any real critical thinking. I agree that's not control, but a good PR agent can get pretty much anything printed, as long as it's interesting. It doesn't have to be evenhanded, objective or even true.
I want to amend the last paragraph of my above post: it sounds from the article that the employees may have been employees in 2001, not contractors - if so, the directors of the company may be liable for the withheld taxes not paid to the government. This is what you should check with your lawyers.
Using withheld tax money for operations *is* a crime. The penalties are generally particularly severe (as corporate penalties go): the debt can not be discharged in a bankruptcy, and the directors of the company are personally liable for its repayment. Note that this breaks two of the fundamental tenets of corporate law, as businesspeople typically understand it: something that can't be cleansed by a Chapter 11 filing, and something that pierces the corporate veil to the director level (even if the directors had no way of knowing.) Another fundamental understanding that businesspeople should have is: you can't screw the government out of money and get away with it (or "they who makes the laws makes them for their own benefit" which I hereby dub Gwalthny's law unless I unconsciously plagiarized it.)
Of course, in this case they didn't spend withheld taxes, they were making loans in the guise of advances on payroll. Gwalthny's law now works on the employees: personal bankruptcy doesn't usually cleanse tax liabilities (but check with your lawyer!) On the other hand, the IRS is often open to negotiation, just like any other business.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks more like a failed negotiating strategy.
Imagine this scenario: Bertelsmann doesn't want to write off the company as a total loss so they offer to buy it for a pittance. Hummer Winblad (the VC) has the right to block a deal; this is their only negotiating leverage. They tell Bertelsmann that unless they pay more, the company sinks. Not a bad negotiating strategy; the only problem is if Bertelsmann gets pissed and calls the whole thing off (by, as it seems they did here, lowering the original offer. That's a slap in the face in this sort of negotiation.)
But, no way to really know what happened behind closed doors.
Nobody's asking you to watch the ads if you're not watching TV (as your comments about wishing the TV were not made imply.) Wouldn't society be better off if everyone else got to make their own decision? I generally think having choices is better than not having choices, all else being equal.
they could make their shows pay-per-view or put them on cable channels... So maybe ad-supported TV goes away
So, you would rather have only pay TV than the choice you have now, between pay TV, donation supported TV and ad-supported TV?
There are moral systems where people do not care about the free rider problem. Ayn Rand's objectivism is, arguably, one of them. Her system solves this problem by only caring about the individual... the "Virtue of Selfishness" as she titled one of her books. This isn't the moral system in any country I know of (although it does seem popular among computer geeks for some reason.) I don't believe it is a self-sustaining system, but I'm not really smart enough to argue that point.
My argument is simpler: are the results of your actions (assuming many many people do the same) really what you want? Are they best for society? The networks aren't complaining because you and two of your buddies skip commercials, they are worried that millions of people will. The result of that may be the demise of all but the most profitable TV shows on ad-supported TV. Goodbye ad-supported CNN, goodby ad-supported network news, hello Survivor! It may in fact mean the demise of all ad-supported TV shows, if enough people use ad-skipping. Maybe you don't care, because you prefer pay TV or renting DVDs, but why would you take that choice away from everyone else?
I don't think either of your two examples would make you unethical.
In the first case, rebates, this is the sort of explicit gamble that is more analogous to the advertiser showing you a commercial and hoping you will buy the product. It is also a form of price discrimination (in the economics sense of the word.) Likewise, it is not unethical to buy things at an outlet store rather than at the full-price store even though the company would go out of business if everyone did. If this didn't work for the company, the company has the power to cease doing it.
In the credit card case, this is an explicit contract under the control of the credit card company. If they wanted to charge you 18% on everything you buy, they could. But then you would get a different credit card. Again, the company has some control over the pricing of their product.
For a transaction to be fair, the seller should have some control over whether or not to sell to you at a particular price. And the buyer should have some control over whether or not to buy from them at a particular price. A good subject to the free rider problem is one where the seller does not control whether or not you can buy it or the price. These goods have to be priced by social compact or law.
I noted that the "what if everyone did it" test applied to the free rider problem. It also applies to the tragedy of the commons problem. There are ways besides a social agreement on ethics to solve the free rider problem. They involve making the implied contract explicit and enforceable (ie. the DMCA). Personally, I would rather have a somewhat flexible ethic that is agreed on and followed by most of society than the sort of inflexible and imposed regulations of the DMCA. The third option is, of course, that the resource you free ride on goes away.
Is this standard equipment? Thinking of buying a PVR.
I also agree with your second point, that of "grace." I don't think advertisers believe they garner 100% of the attention of the people they are shouting at. There are studies that show that advertising is, in fact, a cost-effective marketing tool (believe it or not) so the prices they are willing to pay to reach people seem to reflect the current reality regarding attention.
Skipping ads entirely, though, seems different. The only argument to make if everyone skips ads is that the people who *want* to see ads watch them (this is essentially the argument that free trade magazines make.)
I agree that the networks may be doomed. But as I mentioned in the above thread, it still doesn't make it right. Does society really want the death of ad-supported television?
You don't pay your cable bill to the networks. The cable company doesn't pay the networks.
The day the networks require payment from the cable companies is the day your cable bill goes up by $5 per month. Personally, I would rather have the choice of not watching network TV and thus not watching ads than being forced to pay for something I don't use.
I did have this conversation already. But, isn't Slashdot the land of inifintely recurring discussions? I think it's an interesting argument (although admittedly less so the more I spend work time making it.)
I think there are good arguments for trying to drive the networks out of business, but I haven't seen them on this board yet. I also don't really think that most of the people who don't want to watch ads really want them going out of business, they really just want to be free riders [?]. It's the (IMHO of course) hypocrisy that bothers me.
For instance, see the above thread where the person argues that he'd be perfectly happy if the networks went out of business, right before calling my understanding of ethics screwed-up. Seems like his ethic is selfishness.
You, OTOH, have some good questions. It is pretty clear that the networks don't expect you to necessarily buy a product to watch their show. They do hope that you watch some commercials and have a good feeling about the products, so just noting who is advertising seems like it is not enough. I don't think there is a bright line, or at least I can't draw one. I think this is like most free rider problems: ask yourself, what would happen if everyone did what I do - would the result be a good one or a bad one? If you are watching network TV and skip all commercials, the result under the previous test is that the networks go bankrupt or make their shows pay-only. Probably not the intended result, and certainly a bad one for at least 90% of the population. Applying this to some of your questions still leaves them questions, thus the lack of the bright line.
Okay, okay, I'll stop arguing the point. I know it's spitting into the wind. Although it's always nice to see someone else who actually thinks about it (as Tom did in the thread you linked) rather than simply tries to rationalize. Probably better that some people have a balanced view that they can articulate than the networks or tech companies get their way entirely, due to lack of critical, informed discussion. Making arguments that are easily shot down (ie. "I don't care if they go bankrupt!", "I paid Time/Warner cable, so NBC should be satisfied!", "I let them use the airwaves in my house!") means that we get tuned out. When someone make a good argument I will trumpet it from the rooftops.
Should I feel guilty about that?
Well yes, you should. You're a free rider, meaning whatever money the networks don't make on you they have to make on the rest of us, increasing our cost for watching television. In most ethical (and economic) systems that's frowned upon.
I'm saying you should recompense the networks for the shows you watch. They factor the fact that you go to the bathroom, go to the fridge, zone out during the commercials into their pricing. They don't, and can't, factor in that you skip them entirely.
You do want to pay your fair share for the shows you watch, don't you?
The only problem is the automatic recording thing... the PVR needs to be able to decide on the channel and if downstream of the cable box it can't, directly. I have seen people with IR emitters taped to the top of the cable box so the PVR can change the channel by pretending its the remote. Not especially elegant, but it works.
You can...
- Watch PBS. No ads, no pay (but you should donate money.)
- Get HBO. A few decent shows (but you have to pay.)
- Rent DVDs. Some good movies out there (but you have to pay.)
- Watch the networks. Once in a while something amusing is on (but you should watch the ads.)
Hardly a monopoly, and you can choose whichever model suits you best: pay, donate, watch ads. Isn't that what we want? Choices?
Can't join a discussion list of lawyers. Have to find one of philosophers.
Looks like the same topic has been reposted as another story. See you there!
Well, I hadn't thought of using pragmatism as a defense, since it's sort of counter-cultural. You run into the "the door wasn't locked, so I let myself in" type reasoning. Doesn't mean it's not an internally consistent system, but it isn't going to get you very far.
Your second argument goes in the entirely opposite direction: the High Road, Knowledge Should be Free way. I understand Homer didn't charge for his books. Of course, there really weren't many books. The change that brought about the "media" industry was mass replication. This allowed people to make money off their intellectual works in ways other than audience contribution (how I assume Homer made his living.) So, to your key point, I would make the argument that it is the ability to mass produce/distribute that have given rise to the ability and need to profit and that these have spurred the end to the barriers. Homer couldn't get around much and I doubt many people wanted his wretched life. Or, for that matter, Socrates' or Newton's life. Would there have been more Newtons if he could have made a better living (and avoided church censure)? I suppose the first part of that question is in bad taste, but the professionalization of science has certainly become necessary as, for instance, physicists keep pushing the envelope. Hard to imagine any 'gentleman scientist' funding a cyclotron.
There is an argument to be made that better art is made when it is made for art's sake, not money - the government funding cliche that French art has gotten worse the more the French government has subsidized it is one manifestation. This argument seems less true in the productive arts - science, engineering etc. - that require money to progress. I think that the government extension of patent lives and copyright periods is a better example for your argument than TV.
Anyway, my key point, which I should have just made half an hour ago: deciding society's best interests in this regards isn't quite so simple as declaring IP dead and the barriers down. Better TV shows won't be made if there's no revenue model: I know there are some good PBS shows, but there are also excellent HBO shows. There are people who would argue that there are excellent network shows (there's no accounting for matters of taste.) Right now you have a choice which revenue model to support: free, ad supported, pay. What more could you want?
I think your "religious right wants IP fascism" idea has the making of an excellent conspiracy theory. Especially if you could drag in the COS or LDS or the Ashcroft/NSA link. Didja ever play the cardgame Illuminati?
There should be a better board for discussing these things. Know of any? We need other viewpoints because you're right - we are both starting to recycle arguments. Plus this thread will be frozen soon.
I can respect your view that IP is not property. In fact, I agree that it isn't property. The problem from an ethical perspective is that there are established ethical rules for property use, but not for whatever it is you will classify IP as.
This may contribute to what seems to be an inconsistent approach to the ethics on your part. First you state that taking your idea and saying it is mine is unethical. Then you say that taking the TV networks' ideas and doing something they didn't intend for you to do with them isn't unethical.
Claiming your idea as mine and avoiding embedded 'payment' for an idea seem, in a topological sense, equivalent. If you can say that the old deal is no longer valid because one side has unilaterally decided so, why can't I say your idea is mine? What, exactly, is the ethical rule you are applying?
The EULA idea was a strawman, of course.
As for the whining, at least they're not asking for government handouts because their business is disappearing, like the steel industry or farmers. Well, not yet anyway.
Thanks for the argument. These issues are unclear to pretty much anyone, and the only way to sort them out is the back-and-forth. I have to admit that the attribution of immorality to the current media structure annoys me - it is absurd, in this narrow context. The networks can be called many things, doomed is probably the most accurate, but they are large businesses with thousands of employees who depend on a specific business model to survive. They realize their chances of being dominant in a new paradigm are slim. Of course they squawk and perhaps sympathy isn't unwarranted. But why the squawking of the snakeoil salesmen is 'news' escapes me. I would rather have this conversation: what are the ethics of this situation and how do we present them as achieving the greater good for society? That argument will become important as more and more people pay attention to these issues.
You bring up one of the few interesting questions about this whole debate: is intellectual property really property? Does the tangibility of something create its value? Does the fact that the book is a physical object change the ethics here? There are good arguments on both sides. On one side is the argument that if I take something from you and you still have it, I haven't taken something from you. On the other side is the Lockean argument that property is something that you worked to create and so in inalienably yours. Our current system was designed to forge a middle road with respect to intellectual property, letting the creator exploit it for a period of time, then freeing it.
/. Can't entirely disagree with that argument, but it should be an explicit ethical choice, not rationalized with the argument that you aren't, in effect, stealing something in the first place.
Another question is, do you believe that things that have no marginal cost should have no cost to the consumer? This would mean that software should be free, of course, prescription drugs should be almost free, airline seats and hotel rooms should cost 10% of what they do, etc.
The other defense for destroying their business is that you are fighting for a higher good. I hear that a lot on
I agree that their business model may have been built on quicksand. What does that have to do with you? Are you free to kick a dying man? Seems specious. I also agree that not watching TV at all is a great choice and one I also have made. Not that it was so hard given the sh*t they show. But I believe that the agreement we all make when we turn on the TV is to watch the commercials. Would you feel differently if the network put a EULA up before every show, prohibiting you from commercial-skipping if you watch the show?
Laws are necessary to protect contracts. How else would you protect them?
I wouldn't expect you to feel sympathy, really, unless you were another television exec (or stockholder) seeing your livelihood disappear. Empathy, perhaps, would be more appropriate: if you were a television exec, wouldn't you squawk too?
We aren't talking about the decisions McDonalds made. We are talking about the decisions you make. Watching a commercial does not obligate you to buy something. In fact, it usually motivates me not to buy something (especially cow flesh.)
I was on vacation and someone walked up to me and told me I would get all sorts of free trinkets if I toured their time-share villas. The quid pro quo, which is obvious to anyone who thinks about it, is that they would give me the hard-sell on buying a time-share. I declined. You can also decline to watch commercial TV, if you don't want to watch commercials.
You say you didn't ask for the stuff. If a bookclub delivers an unwanted book to your house, you write return to sender and drop it back in the mail. You don't keep it and not pay for it, claiming there was no "meeting of the wills." It may be legal to do so, but it's not right. Do you think the networks need to broadcast a EULA before every show saying that if you don't agree to watch the commercials, you can't watch the show? If you think that's the solution, you are the one who has been brainwashed, by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. Not everything you do has to be regulated by a written, signed contract. Some things are regulated by trust and good will.
Things can change, like I said. Things will change, I agree. I disagree that I have been brainwashed by understanding the give and take that has supported TV since its beginning. If you say you don't understand that that is the business model, then I think you're being obtuse. Plenty of people ignore it, and in my mind that's not much worse than double-parking, morally speaking, but you should at least realize that you're in the wrong, not them.
He's also right... I'm sure you understand that it's your watching of commercials that pays for the content. Doesn't mean you have to watch the commercials, but then it isn't really fair that you watch the content either, is it? That, in effect, is the 'contract.' You can always pay more for HBO, or rent movies, and watch no commercials. Do this enough and the content producers will change their model. Skip commercials enough and the content producers will also change their model. The only difference will be how disruptive it will be to the industry. Television isn't especially profitable, averaged over time, but its profits are especially volatile. This leaves the networks vulnerable to cost-cutting and downsizing. So, feel free to take their content without compensating them, there's nothing they can do about it, but remember that you are preventing them from making money.
And don't fool yourselves with the classist arguments that you are simply depriving Courtney Cox of even more money she will misspend. It's a truism that the people who get hurt are the ones who can't afford it.
Looking at their 10-K: On 12/31/01 they had $137 million of cash of which $105 million was accessible (the rest is pledged to someone or other, probably landlords.) Their operating cash burn in 2001 was $238 million. If they were to continue burning cash at that rate, they would run out on about June 10th.
Now, there have been many changes in the company since then, including a merger with Viant which had quite a bit of cash (but quite a few liabilities as well), so their current financial situation is very difficult to divine (oops, I mean figure out.)
Their Q should be released soon and should be very instructive to their remaining employees.
Well, that's pretty back-handed apologism: don't blame the press if they don't want to take the time to fully inform their readers because they are worried their readers will just watch FOX News instead. Maybe the problem is that they underestimate their true audience - those who will pay more to get good news. The WSJ has relatively decent business coverage and the NYT has relatively decent foreign coverage (with a few notable exceptions.) They are both huge sellers, maybe not as big as decades ago, but the answer to that isn't trying to be FOX News on paper. That's just bad strategy.
I know from being on the other side that most newspapers print what they are told without any real critical thinking. I agree that's not control, but a good PR agent can get pretty much anything printed, as long as it's interesting. It doesn't have to be evenhanded, objective or even true.
Of course, in this case they didn't spend withheld taxes, they were making loans in the guise of advances on payroll. Gwalthny's law now works on the employees: personal bankruptcy doesn't usually cleanse tax liabilities (but check with your lawyer!) On the other hand, the IRS is often open to negotiation, just like any other business.
Whenever Radio Shack asks, I tell them to suck eggs. They still sell me stuff.
It is annoying, though.