I'm not entirely sure that new laws are the answer here. So far as I am aware, if someone commits a reckless act that they knew or should have known would cause injury or death to someone, isn't that already actionable?
An AC writes: "So, the guy is anathema. His good feedback offends me (not far to the definition). But anathema to the issue isn't quite right. Perhaps extraneous, immaterial, irrelevant, or just unrelated."
I actually chose that word very purposefully. Because this is Slashdot, and because I was bringing up something that could be viewed as 'hostile' (by way of being intentionally misleading) to a debate, I felt 'anathema' was appropriate.
So when I said "I realize it is anathema to the issue" I was referring to my reference to the comment about the person's feedback, not the person himself.
bcrowell writes: "Yes, that's the guy. However, I intentionally didn't say who he was when I submitted the story, because I figured it would just be free publicity for him."
I'm not saying this as a flame or a "piss off" or whatever, honest, but I think if anyone was interested in this sort of thing, given that the title of the work in question was specified (and the subject of the work obvious), they would have simply looked at it anyway.
I can't imagine posting a link drove people to buy from him that otherwise wouldn't. I did wonder why the link wasn't posted in the first place and figured something along your lines was the reason, but...well, see my line of thinking above.
Here is the guy doing it on eBay and here is an example of the activity. His feedback is pretty good, though I realize it is anathema to the issue. I only mention it for those who don't have an eBay account and are curious.
gurps_npc writes: "The Business does not promise to give everybody all the videos they want with no waiting. Everybody KNOWS they have a finite supply of the movies, and you have to wait for the right one."
I agree. Waiting is an expected factor when a movie is in high demand. That is expected. But the key problem is that they are giving movies to people not in the order they were requested but instead by preferring new customers.
Frankly, if you don't (a) see that this is the case and (b) that this is fundamentally dishonest then I don't see any point in continuing the debate. The last word is yours if you wish to take it.
gurps_npc writes: "Here is a FAIR comparison. The gym charges people $100 a year, regardless of how often you come, but you must call and get an apointment.
If you have not called yet that period you get an apointment of your choice, using any equiptment. If you last called 7 days ago, you get an apointment during a prime hour, but not your choice, or your get your time, but not with the prime equiptment. Called 6 days ago, you get an "off hour" that day with your equiptment, or a prime hour of their choice with non- prime equiptment 5 days ago, you get your choice tomorrow with the good equiptment, or non-prime equpitpemt today at an off hour. etc. etc. etc. That sounds fair to me. "
I quoted your whole synopsis just so nobody cried foul.
The problem with your synopsis is that you weren't told this is how it works when you signed up. I don't have to pick it apart any further, it is that flawed.
" What does NOT sound fair to me are the hogs that take all the Prime Membership benefits and use them up, preventing any other members from getting their fair share. By using the plan they have, it stops abusive behavior."
How can you hog something that is part of the deal? I'm told that I can rent three movies at any one time. I cannot exceed that no matter what I do. You believe that if I utilize the service 100% as represented to me I am "hogging it?"
If I order a burger and frieds from McDonalds and eat the whole thing, is that hogging too? Maybe when I get popcorn from the theatre I should leave the bag half full for the next guy? What? You say that I bought it and therefore it is mine and not really available to the next guy so not only using one half doesn't really make a lot of sense?
Rent All You Want With Netflix you can rent as many DVDs as you want for just $20 a month. You keep a revolving library of up to 3 DVDs at a time and can exchange them for new available DVDs as often as you like. The number of DVDs you rent depends on how quickly you watch and return each of your DVDs.
Does it not occur to you that it is the business' job to fulfill what it promises and not the customer's job to cut off their own access -- access that was touted and sold to them specifically as a benefit -- in order to not inconvenience the company?
(Reuters) In other news, NASA unveiled plans today to hit Geraldo Rivera over the noggin with a ball-peen hammer to see if any brains could be detected in the ensuing plume. Critics claim that the odds of success are too small to warrant the effort.
gurps_npc writes [format changed by me, original here]:
There are two ways to look at this buiseness model: 1) They are "punishing" the people that make the most use of their service, rewarding those that make the least use. Considering they charge the same amount of money either way, it sounds like a good idea to me. 2) They are catering to two entirely different clientel: Set A) that watch a ton of movies, Set B) That watch only a few movies. Set A pays the same as set B but gets more quantity at the cost of less quality. Either way, it sounds like a GOOD, FAIR, business plan to me."
It does?
Suppose you go to a new gym in town. The rooms are well-lit, the machines are well-maintained, there is plenty of availability on the equipment and the price is good. So you sign up.
The gym has an interesting way of letting you know when your equipment is available for you to use. When you arrive, you check in and provide a list of equipment you wish to use.
Now when your membership begins, you get the equipment you want with no wait. But over time you notice that the wait for the machines is getting longer and longer and longer. This is a sort of Boiling Frog issue. The change is slight over time and annoying but not so jolting as to make you go "what the hell?" Not a big deal. The gym is getting busy, you can understand, right?
Well suppose you checked in at 6:00pm and you start noticing that people who arrived at 6:30pm are getting on the same equipment you requested before you do? And then 7:00pm. Then the 8:00pm folks are getting on before you and you start to see a correlation here -- people with new memberships are allowed to cut in line in front of you.
You're telling me that you think this is a perfectly legit and an above-board way to do business? You're telling me that if you encountered this problem you wouldn't mind in the least, or think the gym unfair?
I'm not sure you can link clean needle programs with the War against Drugs. People who run clean needle programs think the so-called war is a disaster and the drug war people think the needle people are unmitigated lunatics.
It's TELEVISION. It's a goddamn scripted version of what someone -- a someone with a vested interest in not upsetting you about anything whatsoever so their advertisers stick around -- thinks life should look like.
Your finger pointing at the moon isn't the moon and excited phosphor choreographed to look like life isn't life! PUT THE FUCKING TIVO, REMOTE, DVD, INSERT-YOUR-FAVORITE-OPIATE-HERE DOWN AND EXIST.
Jesus H. Christ on a greased up pogo stick... Isn't this the crowd that is so anti-1984? Yet you welcome...hell, you pay through the nose for your doublespeak.
Overly Critical Guy writes: "At least you used your karma bonus modifier to reply."
Karma? Oh, right. The fatwah-of-disagreement on Slashdot. Oh dear. Gotta save my precious karma. *sigh
NOTE TO MODERATORS: PLEASE MOD THE SNOT OUT OF THIS POST. NOTE TO METAMODERATORS: I ASKED FOR IT.
"You adhere to the random-humor category, attempting to be as randomly goofy as you can and hopeing it's funny."
I encourage you to run -- not walk, run -- to your preferences and add me as a foe.
What is it with you people? About every 6 months I wind up attracting someone agitated and spiteful and they insist on trying to one-up the sarcasm. Makes me wonder who they are trying to convince...
Overly Critical Guy writes: "Another example of Slashbot knee-jerk mindlessness is demonstrated by how many times people keep mistakenly mentioning the RIAA in these discussions."
Relax, you anal retentive slut. It was a damned typo.
Overly Critical Guy writes: "Are those people who go around checking tickets "thugs" too? Honestly, the propaganda used on Slashdot amazes even me. Thugs. Haha."
Fair point. I guess I just think of the RIAA as thugs en masse. *shrug
shepd writes: "You go there and see a movie that's 2, maybe 3 months old and just about ready to be released to VHS/DVD. The copy they have is usually worn beyond recognition, and while the theater has stereo sound it usually drops to mono because the iron ferrite is mostly scratched off. The seats feel like you're sitting in a Lada, and everyone in the theater is loud and boorish, and there's usually an annoying hole in the screen where a 13 year-old threw their milk dud."
I didn't specify the opportunity because I wanted people to come to the conclusion on their own, but this definitely isn't what I had in mind! =)
To be explicit, why not release all movies straight to DVD and the theatres simultaneously? Why not let people decide whether they'd like to pay $15 to own a movie the whole family can watch anytime they want on their sub-theatre home-setup experience or pay $40 to take the whole family once?
If the reply is "then theatres will go out of business," then I'd suggest that it is the theatres that are outmoded, not the distribution schema. If consumers, when given a choice between the two, and the revenue that results does not provide enough incentive to run a fully-staffed theatre, then all the MPAA is doing is artificially propping up an industry by bottlenecking the viewing mechanism. That's a sign of a dead industry.
Sounds like another four-letter industry voicebox, doesn't it? Lather, rinse, repeat.
Rabid Cougar writes: "Actors are overpaid. They think their profession is more important than everyone else's. They think they are so important that a terrorist attack on them is emminent. They think their opinions are more important than anyone else's."
If you take the view that "worth" is merely a function of perception (for instance, paper money is only worth as much as people percieve it to be worth), then their opinion does matter more than anyone else because people give them that seat. They don't simply take it and abscond with it. Frankly, most Americans would rather listen to what an actor has to say about, say, the environment over an environmental scientist who had devoted a decade of their life to becoming fluent with how it works.
It is sort of like blaming the drug lords. They didn't create the craving. They just feed it.
I'm not saying this doesn't suck. I just think you're blaming the wrong group. Actors have no power that isn't handed to them.
And they can just shut their yaps while they're at it. I don't want to hear them telling me stupid crap like, "War should be avoided at all costs." --Nicholas Cage. I thank God that Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington weren't that utterly freakin' stupid.
It's funny you should use this example. It is the same one I employ vs. all of the pro-war people when they tell me to "love it or leave it."
But for the most part I agree with your whole post. I'm just making some points about specifics.
Re:I wonder if they really can make this 'invisibl
on
Foiling Cinema Pirates
·
· Score: 4, Funny
k-zed writes: "I agree. Also I wonder when people start complaining about all the headaches, experiencing random nausea and such after a movie screening, will the MPAA blame this on the pirates too in some roundabout way?"
Are you kidding? This is America. Someone will watch the pirated copy and sue the RIAA.... And WIN.
I don't mind if they hire thugs to guard the doors or pay good money to render the screens unrecordable so long as they keep shipping perfect copies in the form of DVDs (screeners) to people who vote in awards shows a few weeks or months prior to the actual theatrical release.
This is what my grandmother would have referred to as "closing the barn doors after the horses have already left."
Hmmm. $50 to take four children (and myself) to go see Ice Age or invite over every neighborhood kid on the block to watch it on our HD for free before it hit the theatres. That's a tough call. Well, "free" isn't strictly true. $5 for a metric ton of popcorn.
I don't know what is wrong with the RIAA. If people are willing to watch a shitty copy (Cam/Telesync sucks) of a film instead of shelling out the loot for the full whiz-bang of a theatre experience...what does that tell you?
The truly stupid would say "it tells me we need to hire thugs to guard doors."
The moderately stupid would say "this means we need to lower prices."
michael writes:
"How can a responsible thinker so easily shrug off the need to protect oneself from the unknown abuses of the future just because one may think things are relatively agreeable at present?"
PryoMosh asks: "What do you mean "deserves what they get"?"
The reason I have that sig is to promote discussion. People tend to take it as "don't mod me down because I'm a karma whore." But I can probably dispel that with a nice, big, fat link to goatse.cx.
Note to Pyro: Don't click that. Note to Moderators: Please mod me down.
When I say "deserves what they get" I mean that if a person prefers death-by-disagreement responses then the lack of dialogue is their own fault.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not entirely sure that new laws are the answer here. So far as I am aware, if someone commits a reckless act that they knew or should have known would cause injury or death to someone, isn't that already actionable?
An AC writes:
"So, the guy is anathema. His good feedback offends me (not far to the definition). But anathema to the issue isn't quite right. Perhaps extraneous, immaterial, irrelevant, or just unrelated."
I actually chose that word very purposefully. Because this is Slashdot, and because I was bringing up something that could be viewed as 'hostile' (by way of being intentionally misleading) to a debate, I felt 'anathema' was appropriate.
So when I said "I realize it is anathema to the issue" I was referring to my reference to the comment about the person's feedback, not the person himself.
bcrowell writes:
...well, see my line of thinking above.
"Yes, that's the guy. However, I intentionally didn't say who he was when I submitted the story, because I figured it would just be free publicity for him."
I'm not saying this as a flame or a "piss off" or whatever, honest, but I think if anyone was interested in this sort of thing, given that the title of the work in question was specified (and the subject of the work obvious), they would have simply looked at it anyway.
I can't imagine posting a link drove people to buy from him that otherwise wouldn't. I did wonder why the link wasn't posted in the first place and figured something along your lines was the reason, but
Here is the guy doing it on eBay and here is an example of the activity. His feedback is pretty good, though I realize it is anathema to the issue. I only mention it for those who don't have an eBay account and are curious.
gurps_npc writes:
"The Business does not promise to give everybody all the videos they want with no waiting. Everybody KNOWS they have a finite supply of the movies, and you have to wait for the right one."
I agree. Waiting is an expected factor when a movie is in high demand. That is expected. But the key problem is that they are giving movies to people not in the order they were requested but instead by preferring new customers.
Frankly, if you don't (a) see that this is the case and (b) that this is fundamentally dishonest then I don't see any point in continuing the debate. The last word is yours if you wish to take it.
No, George, there really isn't a man on the moon. Ari is just teasing you.
No, George, he isn't laughing at you. He's winking. Relax. We'll get you a telescope for Christmas, we promise.
No, George, I don't suppose that we could convince the world that he's hiding J. Lo's talent up there.
GEORGE, WOULD YOU STOP GETTING COLON AND JPL ON A THREE-WAY CONFERENCE CALL AND MAKING BANG! BANG! NOISES DURING DINNER!
gurps_npc writes:
"Here is a FAIR comparison. The gym charges people $100 a year, regardless of how often you come, but you must call and get an apointment.
If you have not called yet that period you get an apointment of your choice, using any equiptment. If you last called 7 days ago, you get an apointment during a prime hour, but not your choice, or your get your time, but not with the prime equiptment. Called 6 days ago, you get an "off hour" that day with your equiptment, or a prime hour of their choice with non- prime equiptment 5 days ago, you get your choice tomorrow with the good equiptment, or non-prime equpitpemt today at an off hour. etc. etc. etc. That sounds fair to me. "
I quoted your whole synopsis just so nobody cried foul.
The problem with your synopsis is that you weren't told this is how it works when you signed up. I don't have to pick it apart any further, it is that flawed.
" What does NOT sound fair to me are the hogs that take all the Prime Membership benefits and use them up, preventing any other members from getting their fair share. By using the plan they have, it stops abusive behavior."
How can you hog something that is part of the deal? I'm told that I can rent three movies at any one time. I cannot exceed that no matter what I do. You believe that if I utilize the service 100% as represented to me I am "hogging it?"
If I order a burger and frieds from McDonalds and eat the whole thing, is that hogging too? Maybe when I get popcorn from the theatre I should leave the bag half full for the next guy? What? You say that I bought it and therefore it is mine and not really available to the next guy so not only using one half doesn't really make a lot of sense?
Exactly.
From the site:
Rent All You Want
With Netflix you can rent as many DVDs as you want for just $20 a month. You keep a revolving library of up to 3 DVDs at a time and can exchange them for new available DVDs as often as you like. The number of DVDs you rent depends on how quickly you watch and return each of your DVDs.
Does it not occur to you that it is the business' job to fulfill what it promises and not the customer's job to cut off their own access -- access that was touted and sold to them specifically as a benefit -- in order to not inconvenience the company?
(Reuters) In other news, NASA unveiled plans today to hit Geraldo Rivera over the noggin with a ball-peen hammer to see if any brains could be detected in the ensuing plume. Critics claim that the odds of success are too small to warrant the effort.
timothy writes:
"Now you can post all those tales of late-night dumpster diving, without fear of being branded a terrorist!"
No, timothy, we'll still be labeled terrorits. Encryption will simply be chalked up as one of ou^M^M their tools.
gurps_npc writes [format changed by me, original here]:
There are two ways to look at this buiseness model: 1) They are "punishing" the people that make the most use of their service, rewarding those that make the least use. Considering they charge the same amount of money either way, it sounds like a good idea to me. 2) They are catering to two entirely different clientel: Set A) that watch a ton of movies, Set B) That watch only a few movies. Set A pays the same as set B but gets more quantity at the cost of less quality. Either way, it sounds like a GOOD, FAIR, business plan to me. "
It does?
Suppose you go to a new gym in town. The rooms are well-lit, the machines are well-maintained, there is plenty of availability on the equipment and the price is good. So you sign up.
The gym has an interesting way of letting you know when your equipment is available for you to use. When you arrive, you check in and provide a list of equipment you wish to use.
Now when your membership begins, you get the equipment you want with no wait. But over time you notice that the wait for the machines is getting longer and longer and longer. This is a sort of Boiling Frog issue. The change is slight over time and annoying but not so jolting as to make you go "what the hell?" Not a big deal. The gym is getting busy, you can understand, right?
Well suppose you checked in at 6:00pm and you start noticing that people who arrived at 6:30pm are getting on the same equipment you requested before you do? And then 7:00pm. Then the 8:00pm folks are getting on before you and you start to see a correlation here -- people with new memberships are allowed to cut in line in front of you.
You're telling me that you think this is a perfectly legit and an above-board way to do business? You're telling me that if you encountered this problem you wouldn't mind in the least, or think the gym unfair?
I'm not sure you can link clean needle programs with the War against Drugs. People who run clean needle programs think the so-called war is a disaster and the drug war people think the needle people are unmitigated lunatics.
WAKE UP YOU BLIND FUCKING IDIOTS!
...hell, you pay through the nose for your doublespeak.
It's TELEVISION. It's a goddamn scripted version of what someone -- a someone with a vested interest in not upsetting you about anything whatsoever so their advertisers stick around -- thinks life should look like.
Your finger pointing at the moon isn't the moon and excited phosphor choreographed to look like life isn't life! PUT THE FUCKING TIVO, REMOTE, DVD, INSERT-YOUR-FAVORITE-OPIATE-HERE DOWN AND EXIST.
Jesus H. Christ on a greased up pogo stick... Isn't this the crowd that is so anti-1984? Yet you welcome
Overly Critical Guy writes:
"At least you used your karma bonus modifier to reply."
Karma? Oh, right. The fatwah-of-disagreement on Slashdot. Oh dear. Gotta save my precious karma. *sigh
NOTE TO MODERATORS: PLEASE MOD THE SNOT OUT OF THIS POST.
NOTE TO METAMODERATORS: I ASKED FOR IT.
"You adhere to the random-humor category, attempting to be as randomly goofy as you can and hopeing it's funny."
I encourage you to run -- not walk, run -- to your preferences and add me as a foe.
What is it with you people? About every 6 months I wind up attracting someone agitated and spiteful and they insist on trying to one-up the sarcasm. Makes me wonder who they are trying to convince...
Good luck. I mean that.
Overly Critical Guy writes:
"A simple scan of my sentence reveals I use the word "mistakenly.""
Is there a complex version?
"It's clear my point whooshed straight over your head, so you resorted to childishness."
I prefer to fight the Stupid Gambit with the under-appreciated French Childesness Counter.
"Next."
If you insist. You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny.
Overly Critical Guy writes:
"Another example of Slashbot knee-jerk mindlessness is demonstrated by how many times people keep mistakenly mentioning the RIAA in these discussions."
Relax, you anal retentive slut. It was a damned typo.
Yeesh.
Overly Critical Guy writes:
"Are those people who go around checking tickets "thugs" too? Honestly, the propaganda used on Slashdot amazes even me. Thugs. Haha."
Fair point. I guess I just think of the RIAA as thugs en masse. *shrug
shepd writes:
"You go there and see a movie that's 2, maybe 3 months old and just about ready to be released to VHS/DVD. The copy they have is usually worn beyond recognition, and while the theater has stereo sound it usually drops to mono because the iron ferrite is mostly scratched off. The seats feel like you're sitting in a Lada, and everyone in the theater is loud and boorish, and there's usually an annoying hole in the screen where a 13 year-old threw their milk dud."
I didn't specify the opportunity because I wanted people to come to the conclusion on their own, but this definitely isn't what I had in mind! =)
To be explicit, why not release all movies straight to DVD and the theatres simultaneously? Why not let people decide whether they'd like to pay $15 to own a movie the whole family can watch anytime they want on their sub-theatre home-setup experience or pay $40 to take the whole family once?
If the reply is "then theatres will go out of business," then I'd suggest that it is the theatres that are outmoded, not the distribution schema. If consumers, when given a choice between the two, and the revenue that results does not provide enough incentive to run a fully-staffed theatre, then all the MPAA is doing is artificially propping up an industry by bottlenecking the viewing mechanism. That's a sign of a dead industry.
Sounds like another four-letter industry voicebox, doesn't it? Lather, rinse, repeat.
Rabid Cougar writes:
"Actors are overpaid. They think their profession is more important than everyone else's. They think they are so important that a terrorist attack on them is emminent. They think their opinions are more important than anyone else's."
If you take the view that "worth" is merely a function of perception (for instance, paper money is only worth as much as people percieve it to be worth), then their opinion does matter more than anyone else because people give them that seat. They don't simply take it and abscond with it. Frankly, most Americans would rather listen to what an actor has to say about, say, the environment over an environmental scientist who had devoted a decade of their life to becoming fluent with how it works.
It is sort of like blaming the drug lords. They didn't create the craving. They just feed it.
I'm not saying this doesn't suck. I just think you're blaming the wrong group. Actors have no power that isn't handed to them.
And they can just shut their yaps while they're at it. I don't want to hear them telling me stupid crap like, "War should be avoided at all costs." --Nicholas Cage. I thank God that Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington weren't that utterly freakin' stupid.
It's funny you should use this example. It is the same one I employ vs. all of the pro-war people when they tell me to "love it or leave it."
But for the most part I agree with your whole post. I'm just making some points about specifics.
k-zed writes:
... And WIN.
"I agree. Also I wonder when people start complaining about all the headaches, experiencing random nausea and such after a movie screening, will the MPAA blame this on the pirates too in some roundabout way?"
Are you kidding? This is America. Someone will watch the pirated copy and sue the RIAA.
I don't mind if they hire thugs to guard the doors or pay good money to render the screens unrecordable so long as they keep shipping perfect copies in the form of DVDs (screeners) to people who vote in awards shows a few weeks or months prior to the actual theatrical release.
...what does that tell you?
This is what my grandmother would have referred to as "closing the barn doors after the horses have already left."
Hmmm. $50 to take four children (and myself) to go see Ice Age or invite over every neighborhood kid on the block to watch it on our HD for free before it hit the theatres. That's a tough call. Well, "free" isn't strictly true. $5 for a metric ton of popcorn.
I don't know what is wrong with the RIAA. If people are willing to watch a shitty copy (Cam/Telesync sucks) of a film instead of shelling out the loot for the full whiz-bang of a theatre experience
The truly stupid would say "it tells me we need to hire thugs to guard doors."
The moderately stupid would say "this means we need to lower prices."
The bright would do nothing.
The enlightened would see an untapped market.
"How can a responsible thinker so easily shrug off the need to protect oneself from the unknown abuses of the future just because one may think things are relatively agreeable at present?"
A lethal combination of:
- Bread & circuses.
- Those that do not know history are condemned to repeat it.
- Current Question == Unpatriotic perception.
Any of these suck, alone. Together it could get nasty.I don't know if I should hire a hacker but I do know that Slashdot should hire a copy editor.
Interesting. Thanks, looks like I was wrong. Learn something new every day. =)
stratjakt writes:
"anti-whatsperant? huh? Help me out here. I'm a linux user and have absolutely no idea what that is."
The stuff some/most people put under their armpits to stop from sweating (and, presumably, stinking). It works by clogging the pores with zinc.
PryoMosh asks:
"What do you mean "deserves what they get"?"
The reason I have that sig is to promote discussion. People tend to take it as "don't mod me down because I'm a karma whore." But I can probably dispel that with a nice, big, fat link to goatse.cx.
Note to Pyro: Don't click that.
Note to Moderators: Please mod me down.
When I say "deserves what they get" I mean that if a person prefers death-by-disagreement responses then the lack of dialogue is their own fault.