Google Buys YouTube even though everyone under the sun knows that makes them a target for litigation.
Why would they do it? Because this case will dictate and set precedent for the future of this business model. Google was already going in the direction of online video, but YouTube had a better userbase. Google couldn't afford to let YouTube to get sued into oblivion by some huge multinational media giant. It was in Google's best interest to buy the company and fight this fight with their resources instead of letting an underfunded (relatively) startup set the precedent.
Hell, look for "Will it blend." Those are probably some of the best marketing videos I have ever seen. They're funny, demonstrate the products resilience, and are really unobtrusive.
That is not google's function as it relates to the internet, or to me. That is its purpose in with respect to its shareholders and its executives.
Sorry, that was its designed purpose from the get go. Your use of a tool does not dictate its purpose. I can use a screwdriver to stab you, that is not a screw drivers purpose. You may me able to argue as far as function, but thats it. Google's business model (its purpose) was to build an awesome search engine so it could advertise to the searchers. Your use of the search engine is merely a function of that purpose.
As far as the web is concerned, Google has no purpose, it is an element. If you remove Google's search engine from the web, its functionality becomes moot - it won't do anything. It relies on the web for its content, its users, and its interface. In this state, it has no purpose - only a function. This function was dictated to it by its creators to serve a purpose.
Firstly, Google should know what I'm search for; that's what it's there for.
Its there as a honeypot for your eyes so they can sell them to advertisers.
It is unreasonable to expect google to know exactly what I'm thinking every time but the way I read the OP was that google should get as near as possible.
My problem with this mentality is that near as possible is dependent on the person searching and these reference points (peoples preconception of results) are distancing themselves from each other pretty quickly on a growing number of topics. The one world view definition is inaccurate.
Maybe I'm not communicating my point accurately either. I was really trying to focus on the ridiculous statement "Google should know what I'm looking for" (or something to that effect). Google has a pretty decent idea of what you may be looking for, and that's about as good as it's going to get. A search engine has cultural and social hurdles that it just cannot address with pure logic. Personal perspective can really distort whether or not your search results are "relevant".
To a large degree you can assume that what the majority report back as accurate is what the majority will continue to want fed to them. OK, fine - but for the minority who don't know how to refine their search it makes the search engine inaccurate. I can fully accept this as a reality and personally have no real issue with Google results.
What I do have an issue with is people removing themselves from the equation of inaccurate results and placing it squarely on the shoulders of the search engine.
Googlebombing is just a scratch on the surface of this subject. Do I think that the first result for French Military Victories is accurate in the sense of actual French Military Victories? Hells no. But, from a social and web culture perspective, it is. Web jokes and memes rely on this sort of relationship to exist. By altering the search term to include "in History" you get a more accurate result. True,the first result is still from the same website, but it does at least have text dealing with the subject and the second result is to Wikipedia.
As the content of the web broadens, and its userbase begins to straddle more demographics - Google's goal of indexing the worlds information become more complex. While initial uses of search engines can be attributed to research functions, user studies have shown that Search engines are being used as navigation tools to a greater degree. Navigation to relevant subject matter becomes more subjective and harder to accomplish with satisfaction to these differing factions.
My whole point is that eventually, we are going to have to stop blaming a search engine for giving us crap results on the onset and perhaps evaluate our search parameters before we go pointing the finger.
Yeah, it wouldn't be anything like this part of my post would it?
Google doesn't know everything about everything. So this "sad bunch of geeks" that are out "manipulating" the search results are actually the backbone of google's original ontological analysis. If there is a huge spike in term to concept linkage, Google (in theory) recognizes it and begins to retroactively evaluate their previously indexed relationships.
My problem isn't with Google, or the googlebomb for that matter, its the kid thinking that a system should automatically know what he wants no matter what he put into it.
Google should know what I'm looking for, and by and large it succeeds.
You have no idea how completely ignorant and idiotic that statement is do you? You expect a computer to understand your personal ontology for concepts and terminology? How about its ability to understand what you consider the most important term of your query?
Lets say you put in a three word term to search for something. Lets say "Spicy Spaghetti Sauce". One person may feel that spicy is the most important aspect of his search. Another person may feel consistency that is proper for spaghetti is the most important search focus. Another person may feel that any pasta sauce will do. Please, tell me how Google is supposed to be able to tell the difference? One method of doing this is to assign a value to the terms in order of their appearance. So person who cares about Spaghetti first should theoretically input "Spaghetti Spicy Sauce", the problem with that is people don't think like that.
Your "Divine Map" is not the standard definition of relationships between ideas. If Google returns results you think are relevant, great. If not, the problem is with you - not Google.
Here's another issue. Google doesn't know everything about everything. So this "sad bunch of geeks" that are out "manipulating" the search results are actually the backbone of google's original ontological analysis. If there is a huge spike in term to concept linkage, Google (in theory) recognizes it and begins to retroactively evaluate their previously indexed relationships. This is helpful for keeping constantly evolving social language connected to the correct information on the web.
Second, traffic patterns. You can try to make your porn site the first link on Google for "baby wipes" all day. But if every person who clicks that link clicks back out immediately - then the term is irrelevant. Google recognizes this. And their automated algo deals with it.
Going back to your original gripe, "baby wipes" may be a very relevant term for some very special porn (think adult babies). Now who is right? You? The Mob? The people who are bitching about "google not knowing what they want"?
Finally, another voice who recognizes what a board really is legally bound to do. There is no law stating that officers of a public company have to maximize profits. They have a legal responsibility to act in the manner directed to them by the majority of voting shareholders. As you stated, this is most often a directive of "maximize profits", but not always.
Every time someone states that Milton Friedman quote as a law, the trader loses his license.
From TFA: "Staton said the bill does not tell the companies exactly how to ensure that minors don't log on without parental permission. The companies can figure that out on their own, he said."
There is no real way to do that. Who is liable if the minor works around the security and makes a page? What if said minor created a page and NOTHING happened aside from a parent finding out the page exists? What is an acceptable form of verifying parental consent?
This proposal is a prime example of people who don't know jack about how the technology works trying to legislate it.
You make a large assumption that the US armed forces will fire on its own population unquestioningly.
These aren't the children of WW2 vets who fired on Kent State students. These are the children of Korean and Vietnam vets who know their country's leaders lied to them. These are the children of hippies and Civil Rights activists who taught their children not to trust the government.
I don't think the army would respond well to being ordered to attack its civilian population. Hell, I'd like to see a general today that would do such a thing.
Do you think some accountants with handguns and no training will be able to do a single paltry thing? You fail to recognize the geopolitics of the situation. You think fighting in Iraq is bad? Try house to house fighting in America. It would be a fucking nightmare. We have youth gangs that shoot each other as rites of passage. We have "militia" groups that play weekend warrior. We have a large police force that wouldn't be so down with getting fired upon by armed forces. We also have a large contingent of people who participate in IDPA type competitions. The US armed forces do not have enough personnel trained in Urban combat to subdue an uprising AND maintain their foreign economic interests.
The US may maintain a force level capable of fighting a 2 front war on foreign soil, but they couldn't maintain it if one front was the home front.
If my exgf is a slut, and every time I get back with her she cheats on me, I know that her behavior is predictable and she has one primary goal. She is predictable, but definitely not trustworthy.
She's completely trustworthy, you have just misplaced your trust. If you trust in her to be faithful, you made the mistake of mis-evaluating her actions. If you trust she is gonna cheat on you, you have accurately nailed the behavior and can develop contingencies for dealing with that behavior.
Trust is just a projection of your expectations in relation to your perceptions.
While I agree with the core sentiment of what I believe you are saying, there are some things that need to be realized.
Our society and governments and laws say otherwise. You have to follow the laws,
True, unless the laws cannot be enforced upon you. Law enforcement by its very function requires the ability to exert force of some sort to manipulate an entity to comply with the law when they don't choose to. If you have unbelievable resources, no physical entity to imprison, and the possible fallout of a negative impact on the local economy due to severe punishment - you become effectively ungovernable.
You ARE accountable to the rest of society! Get that through your perverted thieving head!
Well, they are supposed to be, but we are seeing more and more that they actually aren't. The consumer body has not chosen as a whole to respond uniformly to unethical business practices. As long as the consumer keeps passing the resources to these companies, they will continue to be empowered to exhibit this behavior.
I don't know what economic idiot taught you hallucination you uttered, but it is WRONG. It's not only wrong, it is wrong because it is universally recognized by honest and civilized people as being evil, stupid, counter productive.
Economics is what is keeping the flow of money going the way it is going. Wrong or not, the money is doing what is is doing. While terms like ethics and morals are often introduced into economic discussions at different points, they quit being relevant when the source of economic power is being supplied by those who don't care about such things. Share holders push for maximum profits and consumers willingly hand over their money in exchange for the supplied goods or services.
We may have to contend with the fact that "honest and civilized" either doesn't exist in the numbers it once did or has a different meaning altogether now.
Here's a hint number two-don't even approach that level. Stop being a greedy pig. Stop putting accumulation of monetary profit at the top of your list of what is important. Break the cycle of greed.
You're right. Don't let greed lead you. But people are strange things and money makes life easier. Its real easy to fall into the pit of greed with perfectly noble intentions.
A perfect case of smart people arguing stupid shit.
All of your conspiracies revolve around much larger elements than preventing someone from speaking. Do you even realize the culture we exist in? It's so much easier to discredit than silence.
As for the CIA, I love how your explanations escalate to cover the large leaps in logic. Now the CIA has to be involved to forge the document. If you thought about what you were saying you would realize there are easier methods to accomplish the same thing.
Your assertions are ridiculous, and you make assumptions that are a little to far on the side of paranoid for me to take seriously.
Really? What if the government sues the author that you want to read and they don't want you to, finds him in violation of some law, and fines him all his property, requiring him to sell the copyrights to the work to the highest bidder? Which the government makes sure is some rich crony of theirs who doesn't actually sell it to anyone, and, as the legal owner of the copyright, can make all the DRM players not play it anyone. (We're talking about mythological DRM that can magically follow 'the law', remember.)
You're kidding, right? Do you see how far down your list of events DRM comes into play? Before that you had an overt government action, a financial power play conspiracy, and the activation of a DRM scheme that doesn't exist.
If that won't work, some extra-legal threats of their family should get them to stop distribution and lock up all existing copies.
RIAA tactics aren't censorship, they're shock and awe.
Or, easier still, find the original work a violation of copyright. Perhaps they were under a employment contract that said everything belonged to their employer. If they weren't, well, that's easy enough to forge.
For work contracts are a legitimate practice. You don't have to sign one.
Forgeries of this document are a little harder to produce. Notarized? No. Well, um - have fun losing on that deal. Still a little paranoid to assume as the general practice.
Copyright is censorship. It's the government preventing people from distributing information. It, in theory, only does so at the author's request, but don't assume there's no way around that.
The government doesn't create or enforce DRM, private companies do. Don't confuse copyright issues with DRM. The government also isn't controlling the distribution of information - they are being asked to preside over cases where these companies have a grievance and pass a judgment.
Implementing a vast system that could magically connect to the Library of Congress and check the status of the copyright of every single work, and decide if you were 'allowed' to view it is just asking for government censorship.
There's that imaginary boogeyman DRM you mentioned last time. Will this DRM work on REAL books? Will it prevent a person from presenting the content in spoken format? If so, thats some kick ass DRM! In order to do what you speak of you would actually have to CENSOR the content. Your problem is with that - not the digital puppet that could be used to facilitate it.
DRM is about taking control of what you can read or listen to out of your hands.
No, DRM is about controlling the distribution of those material's delivery vehicle. I have yet to run across a paperback DRM scheme. Unfortunately this system has to function at the point of playback or copying instead of the point of transaction. Some DRM allows only a certain number of hops in an attempt to referee the transactions. What you can read or listen too is still intact, the method has been altered.
DRM only makes the process of enforcing censorship easier on a logistical level, it's not censorship.
There is A LOT of money in porn. I don't know this for sure, but I assume that if the porn demographic was small, they wouldn't be able to generate this much revenue off of them. I also understand the sentiment that porn isn't a favorite for everyone - so EVERYBODY can't be enjoying porn on a regular basis.
This leads me to conclude that people choose to "graze" for porn. There just happens to be enough people consuming porn simultaneously, in a business sense, so that revenues stay constant. A constant revenue stream is never a bad thing when you're looking for evidence of consumer behavior.
Constant is the key term here. The consumer pool never dries up. The revenue stays even or grows as the population grows. Also, there are a ridiculous amount of titles catering to a plethora of tastes, but it doesn't seem to suffer from the effects of a diluted marketplace.
IANAEconomist, so I don't know the proper terminology here, but the product is a constant thing. When you purchase it it never goes away unless it is destroyed, lost, or sold. Yet, since it is consumed in such small quantities, from a temporal perspective, you market it like a cheap impulse consumable - think chewing gum at a checkout lane.
This also leads me to believe that it is consumed in a "grazing" pattern.
You may not think a lot of people are buying porn, and maybe you're right - but I know enough people are buying it to influence the war.
The biggest defender of freedom stands up for the right of somebody he doesn't like to utilize those freedoms in a manner that he doesn't agree with.
I cannot tell you how exhausting that is. I am frequently accused of being a racist, a communist, a stupid liberal, an arrogant fascist republican, a profiteer, and best of all - ignorant. All because I want the system to work the way it was supposed to and choose to self regulate and protect myself from the dangers that these freedoms bring. That is the cost of these freedoms.
People don't want these freedoms. People want to live free from being offended, free from possibly being harmed, free from feeling inadequate, free being financially self sufficient, and free from criticism. It's like some weird ass self sustained Harrison Bergeron environment.
He never attempts to rationalize their actions. He never attempts to absolve them of blame either. They are never portrayed as heroes. He does state on that page that we should look at some surrounding factors to see what motivates people to behave in such a drastic manner.
Slashdot Mirror
That's like citing the bible as proof of God. :P
Why would they do it? Because this case will dictate and set precedent for the future of this business model. Google was already going in the direction of online video, but YouTube had a better userbase. Google couldn't afford to let YouTube to get sued into oblivion by some huge multinational media giant. It was in Google's best interest to buy the company and fight this fight with their resources instead of letting an underfunded (relatively) startup set the precedent.
Now, can they pull it off?
The only thing we can do is educate our children and retrain our workers to perform the jobs that Americans actually do better
Don't say that. It actually makes sense.
Hell, look for "Will it blend." Those are probably some of the best marketing videos I have ever seen. They're funny, demonstrate the products resilience, and are really unobtrusive.
That is not google's function as it relates to the internet, or to me. That is its purpose in with respect to its shareholders and its executives.
Sorry, that was its designed purpose from the get go. Your use of a tool does not dictate its purpose. I can use a screwdriver to stab you, that is not a screw drivers purpose. You may me able to argue as far as function, but thats it. Google's business model (its purpose) was to build an awesome search engine so it could advertise to the searchers. Your use of the search engine is merely a function of that purpose.
As far as the web is concerned, Google has no purpose, it is an element. If you remove Google's search engine from the web, its functionality becomes moot - it won't do anything. It relies on the web for its content, its users, and its interface. In this state, it has no purpose - only a function. This function was dictated to it by its creators to serve a purpose.
Firstly, Google should know what I'm search for; that's what it's there for.
Its there as a honeypot for your eyes so they can sell them to advertisers.
It is unreasonable to expect google to know exactly what I'm thinking every time but the way I read the OP was that google should get as near as possible.
My problem with this mentality is that near as possible is dependent on the person searching and these reference points (peoples preconception of results) are distancing themselves from each other pretty quickly on a growing number of topics. The one world view definition is inaccurate.
Yeah, I misquoted - my fault entirely.
Maybe I'm not communicating my point accurately either. I was really trying to focus on the ridiculous statement "Google should know what I'm looking for" (or something to that effect). Google has a pretty decent idea of what you may be looking for, and that's about as good as it's going to get. A search engine has cultural and social hurdles that it just cannot address with pure logic. Personal perspective can really distort whether or not your search results are "relevant".
To a large degree you can assume that what the majority report back as accurate is what the majority will continue to want fed to them. OK, fine - but for the minority who don't know how to refine their search it makes the search engine inaccurate. I can fully accept this as a reality and personally have no real issue with Google results.
What I do have an issue with is people removing themselves from the equation of inaccurate results and placing it squarely on the shoulders of the search engine.
Googlebombing is just a scratch on the surface of this subject. Do I think that the first result for French Military Victories is accurate in the sense of actual French Military Victories? Hells no. But, from a social and web culture perspective, it is. Web jokes and memes rely on this sort of relationship to exist. By altering the search term to include "in History" you get a more accurate result. True,the first result is still from the same website, but it does at least have text dealing with the subject and the second result is to Wikipedia.
As the content of the web broadens, and its userbase begins to straddle more demographics - Google's goal of indexing the worlds information become more complex. While initial uses of search engines can be attributed to research functions, user studies have shown that Search engines are being used as navigation tools to a greater degree. Navigation to relevant subject matter becomes more subjective and harder to accomplish with satisfaction to these differing factions.
My whole point is that eventually, we are going to have to stop blaming a search engine for giving us crap results on the onset and perhaps evaluate our search parameters before we go pointing the finger.
Do you understand how Bayesian statistics work?
Yeah, it wouldn't be anything like this part of my post would it?
Google doesn't know everything about everything. So this "sad bunch of geeks" that are out "manipulating" the search results are actually the backbone of google's original ontological analysis. If there is a huge spike in term to concept linkage, Google (in theory) recognizes it and begins to retroactively evaluate their previously indexed relationships.
My problem isn't with Google, or the googlebomb for that matter, its the kid thinking that a system should automatically know what he wants no matter what he put into it.
Google should know what I'm looking for, and by and large it succeeds.
You have no idea how completely ignorant and idiotic that statement is do you? You expect a computer to understand your personal ontology for concepts and terminology? How about its ability to understand what you consider the most important term of your query?
Lets say you put in a three word term to search for something. Lets say "Spicy Spaghetti Sauce". One person may feel that spicy is the most important aspect of his search. Another person may feel consistency that is proper for spaghetti is the most important search focus. Another person may feel that any pasta sauce will do. Please, tell me how Google is supposed to be able to tell the difference? One method of doing this is to assign a value to the terms in order of their appearance. So person who cares about Spaghetti first should theoretically input "Spaghetti Spicy Sauce", the problem with that is people don't think like that.
Your "Divine Map" is not the standard definition of relationships between ideas. If Google returns results you think are relevant, great. If not, the problem is with you - not Google.
Here's another issue. Google doesn't know everything about everything. So this "sad bunch of geeks" that are out "manipulating" the search results are actually the backbone of google's original ontological analysis. If there is a huge spike in term to concept linkage, Google (in theory) recognizes it and begins to retroactively evaluate their previously indexed relationships. This is helpful for keeping constantly evolving social language connected to the correct information on the web.
Second, traffic patterns. You can try to make your porn site the first link on Google for "baby wipes" all day. But if every person who clicks that link clicks back out immediately - then the term is irrelevant. Google recognizes this. And their automated algo deals with it.
Going back to your original gripe, "baby wipes" may be a very relevant term for some very special porn (think adult babies). Now who is right? You? The Mob? The people who are bitching about "google not knowing what they want"?
Finally, another voice who recognizes what a board really is legally bound to do. There is no law stating that officers of a public company have to maximize profits. They have a legal responsibility to act in the manner directed to them by the majority of voting shareholders. As you stated, this is most often a directive of "maximize profits", but not always.
Every time someone states that Milton Friedman quote as a law, the trader loses his license.
From TFA:
"Staton said the bill does not tell the companies exactly how to ensure that minors don't log on without parental permission. The companies can figure that out on their own, he said."
There is no real way to do that. Who is liable if the minor works around the security and makes a page? What if said minor created a page and NOTHING happened aside from a parent finding out the page exists? What is an acceptable form of verifying parental consent?
This proposal is a prime example of people who don't know jack about how the technology works trying to legislate it.
It's a great starting point, but you can't trust the information completely. Use it to get you aimed in the right direction and then go from there.
My kingdom for a mod point.
Preach brother, preach.
You make a large assumption that the US armed forces will fire on its own population unquestioningly.
These aren't the children of WW2 vets who fired on Kent State students. These are the children of Korean and Vietnam vets who know their country's leaders lied to them. These are the children of hippies and Civil Rights activists who taught their children not to trust the government.
I don't think the army would respond well to being ordered to attack its civilian population. Hell, I'd like to see a general today that would do such a thing.
Do you think some accountants with handguns and no training will be able to do a single paltry thing?
You fail to recognize the geopolitics of the situation. You think fighting in Iraq is bad? Try house to house fighting in America. It would be a fucking nightmare. We have youth gangs that shoot each other as rites of passage. We have "militia" groups that play weekend warrior. We have a large police force that wouldn't be so down with getting fired upon by armed forces. We also have a large contingent of people who participate in IDPA type competitions. The US armed forces do not have enough personnel trained in Urban combat to subdue an uprising AND maintain their foreign economic interests.
The US may maintain a force level capable of fighting a 2 front war on foreign soil, but they couldn't maintain it if one front was the home front.
If my exgf is a slut, and every time I get back with her she cheats on me, I know that her behavior is predictable and she has one primary goal. She is predictable, but definitely not trustworthy.
She's completely trustworthy, you have just misplaced your trust. If you trust in her to be faithful, you made the mistake of mis-evaluating her actions. If you trust she is gonna cheat on you, you have accurately nailed the behavior and can develop contingencies for dealing with that behavior.
Trust is just a projection of your expectations in relation to your perceptions.
While I agree with the core sentiment of what I believe you are saying, there are some things that need to be realized.
Our society and governments and laws say otherwise. You have to follow the laws,
True, unless the laws cannot be enforced upon you. Law enforcement by its very function requires the ability to exert force of some sort to manipulate an entity to comply with the law when they don't choose to. If you have unbelievable resources, no physical entity to imprison, and the possible fallout of a negative impact on the local economy due to severe punishment - you become effectively ungovernable.
You ARE accountable to the rest of society! Get that through your perverted thieving head!
Well, they are supposed to be, but we are seeing more and more that they actually aren't. The consumer body has not chosen as a whole to respond uniformly to unethical business practices. As long as the consumer keeps passing the resources to these companies, they will continue to be empowered to exhibit this behavior.
I don't know what economic idiot taught you hallucination you uttered, but it is WRONG. It's not only wrong, it is wrong because it is universally recognized by honest and civilized people as being evil, stupid, counter productive.
Economics is what is keeping the flow of money going the way it is going. Wrong or not, the money is doing what is is doing. While terms like ethics and morals are often introduced into economic discussions at different points, they quit being relevant when the source of economic power is being supplied by those who don't care about such things. Share holders push for maximum profits and consumers willingly hand over their money in exchange for the supplied goods or services.
We may have to contend with the fact that "honest and civilized" either doesn't exist in the numbers it once did or has a different meaning altogether now.
Here's a hint number two-don't even approach that level. Stop being a greedy pig. Stop putting accumulation of monetary profit at the top of your list of what is important. Break the cycle of greed.
You're right. Don't let greed lead you. But people are strange things and money makes life easier. Its real easy to fall into the pit of greed with perfectly noble intentions.
here are companies now that require you to have an RFID chip emplanted in you in order to work for them.
You don't need the implant in order to work for them, just to access the data center.
A perfect case of smart people arguing stupid shit.
All of your conspiracies revolve around much larger elements than preventing someone from speaking. Do you even realize the culture we exist in? It's so much easier to discredit than silence.
As for the CIA, I love how your explanations escalate to cover the large leaps in logic. Now the CIA has to be involved to forge the document. If you thought about what you were saying you would realize there are easier methods to accomplish the same thing.
Your assertions are ridiculous, and you make assumptions that are a little to far on the side of paranoid for me to take seriously.
Really? What if the government sues the author that you want to read and they don't want you to, finds him in violation of some law, and fines him all his property, requiring him to sell the copyrights to the work to the highest bidder? Which the government makes sure is some rich crony of theirs who doesn't actually sell it to anyone, and, as the legal owner of the copyright, can make all the DRM players not play it anyone. (We're talking about mythological DRM that can magically follow 'the law', remember.)
You're kidding, right? Do you see how far down your list of events DRM comes into play? Before that you had an overt government action, a financial power play conspiracy, and the activation of a DRM scheme that doesn't exist.
If that won't work, some extra-legal threats of their family should get them to stop distribution and lock up all existing copies.
RIAA tactics aren't censorship, they're shock and awe.
Or, easier still, find the original work a violation of copyright. Perhaps they were under a employment contract that said everything belonged to their employer. If they weren't, well, that's easy enough to forge.
For work contracts are a legitimate practice. You don't have to sign one.
Forgeries of this document are a little harder to produce. Notarized? No. Well, um - have fun losing on that deal. Still a little paranoid to assume as the general practice.
Copyright is censorship. It's the government preventing people from distributing information. It, in theory, only does so at the author's request, but don't assume there's no way around that.
The government doesn't create or enforce DRM, private companies do. Don't confuse copyright issues with DRM. The government also isn't controlling the distribution of information - they are being asked to preside over cases where these companies have a grievance and pass a judgment.
Implementing a vast system that could magically connect to the Library of Congress and check the status of the copyright of every single work, and decide if you were 'allowed' to view it is just asking for government censorship.
There's that imaginary boogeyman DRM you mentioned last time. Will this DRM work on REAL books? Will it prevent a person from presenting the content in spoken format? If so, thats some kick ass DRM! In order to do what you speak of you would actually have to CENSOR the content. Your problem is with that - not the digital puppet that could be used to facilitate it.
DRM is about taking control of what you can read or listen to out of your hands.
No, DRM is about controlling the distribution of those material's delivery vehicle. I have yet to run across a paperback DRM scheme. Unfortunately this system has to function at the point of playback or copying instead of the point of transaction. Some DRM allows only a certain number of hops in an attempt to referee the transactions. What you can read or listen too is still intact, the method has been altered.
DRM only makes the process of enforcing censorship easier on a logistical level, it's not censorship.
Exhibit b) Not an OS.
That's not DRM, that's censorship. Way to confuse the issue.
I choose to follow the dollar.
There is A LOT of money in porn. I don't know this for sure, but I assume that if the porn demographic was small, they wouldn't be able to generate this much revenue off of them. I also understand the sentiment that porn isn't a favorite for everyone - so EVERYBODY can't be enjoying porn on a regular basis.
This leads me to conclude that people choose to "graze" for porn. There just happens to be enough people consuming porn simultaneously, in a business sense, so that revenues stay constant. A constant revenue stream is never a bad thing when you're looking for evidence of consumer behavior.
Constant is the key term here. The consumer pool never dries up. The revenue stays even or grows as the population grows. Also, there are a ridiculous amount of titles catering to a plethora of tastes, but it doesn't seem to suffer from the effects of a diluted marketplace.
IANAEconomist, so I don't know the proper terminology here, but the product is a constant thing. When you purchase it it never goes away unless it is destroyed, lost, or sold. Yet, since it is consumed in such small quantities, from a temporal perspective, you market it like a cheap impulse consumable - think chewing gum at a checkout lane.
This also leads me to believe that it is consumed in a "grazing" pattern.
You may not think a lot of people are buying porn, and maybe you're right - but I know enough people are buying it to influence the war.
The biggest defender of freedom stands up for the right of somebody he doesn't like to utilize those freedoms in a manner that he doesn't agree with.
I cannot tell you how exhausting that is. I am frequently accused of being a racist, a communist, a stupid liberal, an arrogant fascist republican, a profiteer, and best of all - ignorant. All because I want the system to work the way it was supposed to and choose to self regulate and protect myself from the dangers that these freedoms bring. That is the cost of these freedoms.
People don't want these freedoms. People want to live free from being offended, free from possibly being harmed, free from feeling inadequate, free being financially self sufficient, and free from criticism. It's like some weird ass self sustained Harrison Bergeron environment.
He never attempts to rationalize their actions. He never attempts to absolve them of blame either. They are never portrayed as heroes. He does state on that page that we should look at some surrounding factors to see what motivates people to behave in such a drastic manner.
You need a reading comprehension course.