2. To say that "Creative works incur over 90 percent of their economic reward within almost a few years of their release, often less" is just rubbish. A clue to the statement's status as rubbish lies in continuing demand. It's more likely he has noticed only the falloff of big-business marketing - kinda ironic.
No, this is an accurate statement and can be empirically proven using various studies and even independently proven using basic math. As any basic economics or statistics course will teach you, the value of a dollar today is worth considerably more than a dollar tommorrow according to the relationship PV=FV/(1+i)^P (where PV is the present value, FV is the future value, i is the discount rate, and P is the number of periods).
Even if you expect a work to continue earning thousands of dollars a year 100 years out (highly unlikely), the future value (using a low discount rate equivalent to a low risk investment) will amount to only a few dollars. This basically tells you that if you'd like to support your grandchildren, you would be better to put a few dollars in a low term government bond today than to depend on your copyright to support them years down the road. Fifty years out, the equivalent investment might need to be a couple of hundred dollars and twenty years out a couple of thousand.
This simple analysis was performed in the amicus brief signed by all the famous economists but should be apparent to any business, stats, math, or economics undergrad. It was used to cleary demonstrate that recent copyright extensions add no further economic incentive to authors at the time of creation, even for the most valuable and timeless works. Only copyrights up to about 50 years or so have any reasonable value unless they are applied retroactively. And a work that has no value until many years down the road or until after an author's death has essentially no value today - the author would probably be better to put a few dollars in savings account if the motivation was truly economic. Regardless of their eventual decision, the court seemed to understand these facts very well.
...it would be very nice if they only existed for perhaps 20 or 30 years.
I think Lessig did a great job, but I'm a little worried that the case will fail for being too conservative by limiting the challenge to the CTEA alone. The constitution can easily be read to be even more restrictive if you understand "...securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right..." to mean that the time is to be limited from the relative perspective of the creator, not an absolute term.
This is in keeping with the original limits which were well within an average lifespan (granted, a work produced less than 14 years before an authors death might seem unlimited but in most practical cases copyright would expire during their lifetime). Today, copyright is extended exclusively (and transferably) to an author for an unlimited time from their perspective (as long as they live), to their children for a nearly unlimited time (most if not their entire life) and, barring further extensions, only their grandchildren are likely to hold copyright for long but limited time. From another perspective, anything produced during my lifetime will never enter the public domain before I die. As far as I'm concerned, to me this is an unlimited term.
Now I highly doubt that the supreme court would role back all of the earlier laws, even if they prove to be unconstitutional, but Lessig's argument can be thought of as providing a welcome compromise that limits the need to meddle with the less recent past. My worry is that they will accept the Lessig argument as the most extreme case and seek a lesser comprimise such as limiting future extensions without repealing CTEA.
While I agree that the free speech argument seemed to have less resonance with the supreme court and is probably the weaker argument in general, note well the broad wording of the second question under consideration:
"2. Is a law that extends the term of existing and future copyrights "categorically immune from challenge[] under the First Amendment"?"
Even just one example of a possible exception to categorical immunity (no matter how contrived, farfetched, or unlikely) would have made the answer to this question "No" and could have opened further challenges to copyright, although probably on a case by case basis. From what I've read, no such example was offered during court. Even if it made sense to focus on the first question, was this a missed opportunity?
What these cases really need is a judge to say, "sorry McDonald's, this one's easy. You lose."
You're right, but few of these cases actually make it to a judge. The heavy handed tactics usually lead to out of court settlements and altered consumer behavior. Sometimes the threats might not hold up in court but the process is too expensive and the outcomes are too uncertain for many people to risk a battle.
Sometimes the companies are even technically in the right but are just overbearing in their behavior. I don't reward sloppy service, and even if the customer isn't always right I don't want to deal with companies that are abusive with their customers or anyone else. I'm not actually going to go out and organize a boycott, but this consideration is definitely a part of my decision making process and I'm simply encouraging others to make it part of theirs. I think market forces are an appropriate avenue for exercising this opinion but I feel it's also important to let companies know why you're not buying their products because the real decision makers probably often have no clue that their reputation is being tarnished by overzealous lawyers.
Similarly, if you agree with me, it's even more important to reward companies that are respectful of their customers, fans, and even third parties, and again, it's important to tell them why. Hopefully they'll keep it up and eventually put the bad guys out of business.
Does society really benefit from a given legal entity (Disney Corp., for example) holding the rights to a cartoon mouse for eternity? Call me a socialist...
Actually, I'll call you a capitalist...
There's good reason so many economists from across the political spectrum signed onto the amicus brief. The monopoly of copyright is contrary to the ideals of the free market system, and a simple NPV analysis proves that extending terms beyond fifty years does nothing to provide incentive for authors and ONLY serves to benefit a few existing monopoly holders by preventing competition. This is not a conservative vs. liberal issue, it's about lobbyists and their money influencing people on the left and the right to sacrifice their ideals. This is why nearly every politician supports strong copyright while so many academics of both stripes side with Eldred.
While plenty of web sites, blogs, and usenet discussions informatively describe and criticize the heavy handed tactics of companies like Nissan, Molson Canadian, and Gateway (2000), these companies need to start hearing vocally from consumers who will not buy their brands based on their overbearing legal tactics and we should compile and distribute a list of companies to target. More important than a boycott itself, the average joe and especially these company's dealers, sales, and marketing people need to know WHY we're upset.
Whenever these cases come up we read the lawyers and spokespeople telling us they have to do this to "protect the brand", or to "prevent consumers from being confused". Real squatters aside, this is generally total crap. Consumers in any demographic able to buy a car will quickly realize Nissan Computer != Nissan Motors and while brands need to be protected to a certain extent in order to avoid becoming generic (like kleenex, or xerox) the chance of "nissan" becoming a generic term is slim to none (and not just because it doesn't have an 'x'). Trademarks apply to specific categories only, and this limitation should help to prevent dilution happening from unrelated uses of the same mark. Companies that try to over extend their marks should do so only at their own risk, and I bet that willy nilly suing other users probably does more to imply dilution than just leaving things be (Ob.IANAL but this should be true even if it's not the actual law).
Actually, I doubt any of these cases stem from the marketing department, more likely the lawyers are trying to justify their salaries and budgets. But if the sales and marketing people thought these tactics were hurting their brand they could override legal in a second. Enough slashdotters are young professionals with a well paying job and interest in new products to present a very attractive demographic to these people. Let them know you're pissed!
Don't imagine it can't be done. It's technologically feasible, if the right laws got into place. I'd certainly hope the tech industry would fight this tooth and nail, and that WE would fight it tooth and nail, but it's certainly not outside the realm of imagination, or possibility.
Maybe theoretically it can be done, and practically it might even be legislated, but this will never work, and it better be more than the technology industry fighting it.
"If you can see it or hear it, then you can copy it perfectly" needs to become a common mantra. To express the futility of any of these copy measures to someone who doesn't understand digital technology, use a good analogy. For instance, some of these proposed laws are roughly equivalent to mandating that all sharp edges (or potentially sharp edges) must have built in safety guards and require a license to carry, whether it's a steak knife, a plate glass window, or a block of iron.
People don't seem to realize that digital components are as ubiquitous and cheap as many raw materials. Outlawing or restricting their use according to the whims of the RIAA makes about as impractical and stupid as outlawing or taxing water to prevent drowning.
You're probably right, if my comment was worth wasting any points on it should have been modded as a cry for help. After this second useless (and even more off-topic) comment, I've gotta start reminding myself that the old "preview" button isn't just for checking spelling...
While I thank you for your efforts and agree that the quotes themselves are certainly funny (and I agree with your sig) I'm not sure if the moderation is accurate. Since you've compiled funny film related Simpsons quotes I originally thought that "Informative" would be a better mod. However, on further reflection, "Redundant" is always the most accurate mod for any Simpsons references on Slashdot since most of us geeks could probably recite them in our sleep.
Great example of some prior art! Now if only we can find some published articles or European examples then we can really nail these... Oh wait a minute, it's not that kind of story...
I really applaud the spirit in which MIT is releasing this. But I also wonder whether it's good for education and science in the long run.
I think there may be too much of a tendency by professors to reuse educational materials. This may lead to a degree of standardization and uniformity of the educational experience that could harm progress.
With OpenCourseWare MIT is boldly forcing universities to realize that higher education is not about educational *materials* but rather about the educational *experience*. Universities are *very* competitive these days and if professors choose to uncritically recycle MIT course materials without at least adding any personal insight, hands-on labs, and offering advice and office hours, then their university's reputation will quickly suffer.
You're right that too many profs overly recycle their material but I think this initiative will actually decrease such reliance on educational materials as a crutch by making students and educators realize there's much more to an education than reading notes (the best profs and schools already do). Not to mention the social and real-life aspects offered by a residential experience...
...on www.musicunited.org which is the website of the RIAA backed organization behind the recent ads and TV spots. If you check out their page of quotes you'll notice that some of the quotes like "artists should get paid" have apparently been taken out of context. And their list of 80 names really isn't very impressive considering the numbers they could have gotten.
For instance, they quote Neil Young as being against file-sharing by using a quote from Yahoo! Entertainment News: "I don't like to have a record out and have people hear versions that we don't want them to hear. With the Internet, there is no more privacy and not even the chance to express yourself in front of your audience in the intimacy of a concert that lets songs evolve. You can't do this because they immediately get circulated."
For enough, but this doesn't necessary mean he's against file-sharing, only that he's frustrated when unauthorized songs are released. Maybe they did get his permission, but since he isn't listed on the actual ads I sincerely doubt it. He's also on the record as talking to BusinessWeek about Napster: "It's great. Whatever gets the music around. The record labels will worry about that, and I'll worry about the music." I wonder how many of these other artists have similar views and if they realize they are the being represented as the poster children for anti-piracy.
I would LOVE to see someone make a parody of the these ads with a list of equally prominent artists that have come out in favour of file-sharing. You could change the tag-line to "we don't care about file sharing" or something, and maybe take a dig at the RIAA for mispresenting certain artist's views ("libel is wrong").
Did I miss something? I thought the Bon Jovi thing was just like printing a unique serial on the booklet or a piece of paper that comes with the thing, or something.
How the hell is that technology, or more to the point, patentable?
I think it's because companies finally ran out of existing ideas that they could patent by tacking on "with a computer". The next round of bad patents will take obvious ideas and tack on "by an 80's hair band".
For instance, DownloadCard has the rights to "a means of using and distributing unique serial identifiers to provide redeemable incentives to discourage the online theft of intellectual property where said intellectual property is audio or video media content by an 80's hair band". The Dave Matthews Band and the Crystal Method were able to get around this patent by not being an 80's hair band, but Universal finally got busted for trying it with Bon Jovi.
In related news, Jeff Bezos has just invented and patented a one-click combination CD player power-on/play button to allow quick and efficient listening of any of his favorite music by an 80's hair band.
Re:Promoting progress through copyright extension
on
Eldred vs. Ashcroft
·
· Score: 2
Actually the best argument I've heard is that this law encourages those who have created works in the past that are protected under trade secret law to publish those works.
You're right, this seems to be the only argument that might hold any merit, even though (at best) any impact on progress is probably very marginal (if there is any at all). But it also depends on the legal interpretation of "promoting progress". If something was invented or created by a company 70 years ago but never released it might be argued that extending copyright will encourage the owner to publish this material rather than letting it sit in a vault forever. However, isn't this really just dissemination of the work, not actual progress? While extending the copyright might give the owner economic encouragement to share the work and thus arguably promote the state of the art available to the public, I would argue that any progress took place 70 years ago but was just never released. Also, from a practical point of view, anything sitting in the vault for so long likely has such a limited value that they may be more inclined to give it away. Companies may even be hesitant to bother releasing these things to the public right now because they fall into a bit of a grey area - not worth supporting, but also not worth making public domain before their time because users may find it complicated to tell whether it really is public domain or not. They may even have liability issues in some cases.
As an aside, the argument that extended copyrights add no incentive to create is strongly supported in the official court documents by a number of leading economists, including just about every notable living American Nobel prize winner. Everyone with an interest in IP should read these documents as this case is probably the most significant copyright/IP case ever. Even if they lose (which will only mean that is the language of the law is found to be consistent with recent interpretation) I hope this case will bring awareness to the fact that our modern interpretation of IP as a right is in absolute contridiction to the original intentions of the US founding fathers.
I saw this exchange (on CNBC) as well. I generally agree with your assessment of the EFF spokesperson - she seemed like a very reasonable, well spoken person, but was not as well groomed for quick public debate as she could have been. To be fair, she may be too used to always being on the defensive about issues like file sharing. Until now, just to be heard the EFF has had to spend much of their time trying not to sound too radical. However, in this case at least, she could have taken the offensive because the arguments against the RIAA are clearly on her side and the media are begining to count on the EFF for their perspective as an important consumer interest group.
Surprisingly, the interviewer and Tyler Mathison seemed to pick up on this as well and really did a great job of grilling Hilary. Whether they were playing devil's advocate I'm not sure, but the EFF and others have done a really good job of setting the tone for this debate. For example, the interviewers asked Hilary about the ramifications of legalized hacking etc. Hilary's responses were quite laughable and she came off as being computer illiterate and very naive for selling a "just trust us" approach that doesn't play well with the media these days. They basically ignored her sometimes rambling remarks and continued to use language that framed the RIAA and the bill as being vigilante measures and they expressed concern about the RIAA impeding technical innovation and progress. Actually, because of the EFF spokesperson's almost passive stance, I think a casual viewer would have come away from the discussion as thinking that the journalists themselves believed that the bill was bad and that the industry lobbyist was probably flat-out lying about its consequences.
This was the first time I had ever seen Hilary Rosen on TV and I was expecting to see some very impressive arguments from her and cowtowing from the press. But from my point of view, the EFF clearly won the debate before it even started, even if their spokesperson didn't go in for the kill. Hilary also made a complete fool of herself by calling the EFF names - the interviewer made a point of this at the end that didn't paint her in a good light at all and she seemed flabbergasted.
Just use one of the standard ones. I've been logged in as slashdotuser/slashdotuser (I think) for about as long as I can remember using slashdot and reading NYT online. A company that consistently provides excellent content gets to know how often a bunch of people from a similar demographic use their site while my privacy is protected about as much as I care. Kind of a win-win if you ask me. Less sifting through meaningless random data for them, and hopefully more scientific/technical/rights articles for me.
In my opinion, they provide most of the best mainstream content for slashdot links. If you don't agree, then just move along to the next story and don't bother complaining/commenting on the NYT posts. Or just post without reading the article like everyone else, but enough with the anti-NYT rants.
(Moderators: sorry about the OT/troll-feeding/flamebait/rant, but its sad when the RIAA is eroding our freedoms to make up for their inability to handle the web, but people continue to nitpick about a company that actually seems to understand internet economics and is playing reasonably fair)
If we all email info@archive.org or wayback@archive.org and register our dissatisfaction...
If you do, one point you might want to make is just how useless the Wayback Machine will quickly and inevitably become as long as third parties have such broad power to remove archived pages. We've already seen far too many examples of people's whole internet existance being removed from the Wayback Machine against their will, simply because of a reference to Scientology and similar censorship.
Also, while I appreciate the need for actual copyright owners to protect and control their IP, there should be (and probably is) special exceptions for historical records, especially publically available content that is transmitted over public infrastructure. As it is, I use archive.org to access several formerly popular and very informative sites but I'm afraid to publicize them (on usenet for instance, where I've seen posts from people looking for these sites) because frankly I'm afraid that as more people use it, the more likely someone (original owner or third party) will shut down my access.
I love the idea of archive.org, but I'm hesitant to become too fond of it (or too dependent on linking to its archived URL's which would otherwise be great for persistant bibliographies and citations) since I'm afraid that its removal policy encourages the entropy of its records to rapidly increase. I hope the people donating records and supporting the Wayback Machine keep some back-ups just in case the Wayback Machine continues to erase history and someone else needs to come along to start a better-and-more-complete-and-authoritative-archive.org to fill the gap oneday.
I hope the Wayback Machine people can convince me that I'm wrong, but today's story really doesn't give me much hope in their ability to provide and maintain such a potentially great resource...
Here's Roger Ebert's review of the dubbed version, as well an essay he wrote that includes an interview with Miyazaki and gives some good background on the dubbed version produced by John Lasseter ("Toy Story") and Disney.
This may be a little off topic, but perhaps relevant to the discussion of trust: Have you noticed the NASDAQ 100 commercials with Steve Ballmer etc. Not bad ads but they finish with the words "NASDAQ 100: Trust Companies". Very big brother sounding and rather poorly timed with all the scandals. There needs to be some level of trust in order to implement a universal roaming profile and I wish companies would try the approach of earning trust rather than expecting to convince people with half-assed and rather condescending slogans like this.
"Patent It Yourself" is great, not only because it explains the whole patent application process in detail, but (more importantly) it helps you decide WHEN and WHETHER you should even file. And although he gives you detailed DIY information, he's also honest by recommending a patent attorney whenever possible.
Pressman uses flowcharts to explain the advantages of not patenting at all (like the Coke formula) and how to protect your idea while doing the market research to find out if a patent is worthwhile. He also spends a lot of time giving advice on how and to whom to sell your idea and to figure out how much it might be worth, patent or no.
For instance, you should always begin by documenting your invention (getting a notebook witnessed and notarized - mailing it to yourself DOES NOT WORK). Then, after a little preliminary research, you could apply for a provisional patent yourself (couple hundred bucks and you don't need claims) or with the advice of a lawyer(only a bit more if you do most of the work). Then you generally have up to a year to speak with potential customers and do further research to see if your "patent pending" idea is worth pursuing yourself, worth selling to someone, or if you should just give up. If you find out its a REALLY good idea, you're probably stupid not to get the full application professionally done. If it has limited potential, then maybe you could just do it yourself.
He also provides a lot of information on how and whether to foreign file. He'd be a great subject for a Slashdot interview and I know he's done on-line chats before.
What about Slashdot in the role of the Guide? Sure, the Web itself was born to play the part, with entries on everything and plenty of erroneous information, but it's probably too pricey and prone to litigation.
Actually, I wonder if the average movie fan might mistake the Guide for a cheesy and obviously fabricated Hollywood analogy for the internet. I can just imagine an uninformed movie critic discussing the symbolism of the Guide as a social commentary on the web. Even worse would be if a director or studio exec decided to intentionally play that angle (or the movie was rejected on those grounds). Sounds silly, but I could see it happening.
Those little guys AREN'T going to make it big if they can't get on the raido. They will get a following, but the mass public finds new music through the radio, not anywhere else.
First off, part of my point is that the term "making it big" will become increasingly relative. Under a label-free system it might be nearly impossible for any band to ever reach a Beatles or U2 level of success and even harder to earn that type of money (although both points are debatable). What I'd suggest is that if an independent band ever achieves even a fraction of the following of a Radiohead or Grateful Dead expect that to make waves through the industry and popular culture.
Unless your music is pre-packaged garbage and you don't want to tour, you certainly don't need the radio to survive as a musician or even to make it relatively big. Many of the best remembered classic rockers of the sixties struggled to get on the air while mostly out of print bands like the Dave Clark Five consistently topped the charts.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, "future value" in my second paragraph should obviously read "present value".
2. To say that "Creative works incur over 90 percent of their economic reward within almost a few years of their release, often less" is just rubbish. A clue to the statement's status as rubbish lies in continuing demand. It's more likely he has noticed only the falloff of big-business marketing - kinda ironic.
No, this is an accurate statement and can be empirically proven using various studies and even independently proven using basic math. As any basic economics or statistics course will teach you, the value of a dollar today is worth considerably more than a dollar tommorrow according to the relationship PV=FV/(1+i)^P (where PV is the present value, FV is the future value, i is the discount rate, and P is the number of periods).
Even if you expect a work to continue earning thousands of dollars a year 100 years out (highly unlikely), the future value (using a low discount rate equivalent to a low risk investment) will amount to only a few dollars. This basically tells you that if you'd like to support your grandchildren, you would be better to put a few dollars in a low term government bond today than to depend on your copyright to support them years down the road. Fifty years out, the equivalent investment might need to be a couple of hundred dollars and twenty years out a couple of thousand.
This simple analysis was performed in the amicus brief signed by all the famous economists but should be apparent to any business, stats, math, or economics undergrad. It was used to cleary demonstrate that recent copyright extensions add no further economic incentive to authors at the time of creation, even for the most valuable and timeless works. Only copyrights up to about 50 years or so have any reasonable value unless they are applied retroactively. And a work that has no value until many years down the road or until after an author's death has essentially no value today - the author would probably be better to put a few dollars in savings account if the motivation was truly economic. Regardless of their eventual decision, the court seemed to understand these facts very well.
...it would be very nice if they only existed for perhaps 20 or 30 years.
I think Lessig did a great job, but I'm a little worried that the case will fail for being too conservative by limiting the challenge to the CTEA alone. The constitution can easily be read to be even more restrictive if you understand "...securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right..." to mean that the time is to be limited from the relative perspective of the creator, not an absolute term.
This is in keeping with the original limits which were well within an average lifespan (granted, a work produced less than 14 years before an authors death might seem unlimited but in most practical cases copyright would expire during their lifetime). Today, copyright is extended exclusively (and transferably) to an author for an unlimited time from their perspective (as long as they live), to their children for a nearly unlimited time (most if not their entire life) and, barring further extensions, only their grandchildren are likely to hold copyright for long but limited time. From another perspective, anything produced during my lifetime will never enter the public domain before I die. As far as I'm concerned, to me this is an unlimited term.
Now I highly doubt that the supreme court would role back all of the earlier laws, even if they prove to be unconstitutional, but Lessig's argument can be thought of as providing a welcome compromise that limits the need to meddle with the less recent past. My worry is that they will accept the Lessig argument as the most extreme case and seek a lesser comprimise such as limiting future extensions without repealing CTEA.
Even just one example of a possible exception to categorical immunity (no matter how contrived, farfetched, or unlikely) would have made the answer to this question "No" and could have opened further challenges to copyright, although probably on a case by case basis. From what I've read, no such example was offered during court. Even if it made sense to focus on the first question, was this a missed opportunity?
What these cases really need is a judge to say, "sorry McDonald's, this one's easy. You lose."
You're right, but few of these cases actually make it to a judge. The heavy handed tactics usually lead to out of court settlements and altered consumer behavior. Sometimes the threats might not hold up in court but the process is too expensive and the outcomes are too uncertain for many people to risk a battle.
Sometimes the companies are even technically in the right but are just overbearing in their behavior. I don't reward sloppy service, and even if the customer isn't always right I don't want to deal with companies that are abusive with their customers or anyone else. I'm not actually going to go out and organize a boycott, but this consideration is definitely a part of my decision making process and I'm simply encouraging others to make it part of theirs. I think market forces are an appropriate avenue for exercising this opinion but I feel it's also important to let companies know why you're not buying their products because the real decision makers probably often have no clue that their reputation is being tarnished by overzealous lawyers.
Similarly, if you agree with me, it's even more important to reward companies that are respectful of their customers, fans, and even third parties, and again, it's important to tell them why. Hopefully they'll keep it up and eventually put the bad guys out of business.
Does society really benefit from a given legal entity (Disney Corp., for example) holding the rights to a cartoon mouse for eternity? Call me a socialist...
Actually, I'll call you a capitalist...
There's good reason so many economists from across the political spectrum signed onto the amicus brief. The monopoly of copyright is contrary to the ideals of the free market system, and a simple NPV analysis proves that extending terms beyond fifty years does nothing to provide incentive for authors and ONLY serves to benefit a few existing monopoly holders by preventing competition. This is not a conservative vs. liberal issue, it's about lobbyists and their money influencing people on the left and the right to sacrifice their ideals. This is why nearly every politician supports strong copyright while so many academics of both stripes side with Eldred.
While plenty of web sites, blogs, and usenet discussions informatively describe and criticize the heavy handed tactics of companies like Nissan, Molson Canadian, and Gateway (2000), these companies need to start hearing vocally from consumers who will not buy their brands based on their overbearing legal tactics and we should compile and distribute a list of companies to target. More important than a boycott itself, the average joe and especially these company's dealers, sales, and marketing people need to know WHY we're upset.
Whenever these cases come up we read the lawyers and spokespeople telling us they have to do this to "protect the brand", or to "prevent consumers from being confused". Real squatters aside, this is generally total crap. Consumers in any demographic able to buy a car will quickly realize Nissan Computer != Nissan Motors and while brands need to be protected to a certain extent in order to avoid becoming generic (like kleenex, or xerox) the chance of "nissan" becoming a generic term is slim to none (and not just because it doesn't have an 'x'). Trademarks apply to specific categories only, and this limitation should help to prevent dilution happening from unrelated uses of the same mark. Companies that try to over extend their marks should do so only at their own risk, and I bet that willy nilly suing other users probably does more to imply dilution than just leaving things be (Ob.IANAL but this should be true even if it's not the actual law).
Actually, I doubt any of these cases stem from the marketing department, more likely the lawyers are trying to justify their salaries and budgets. But if the sales and marketing people thought these tactics were hurting their brand they could override legal in a second. Enough slashdotters are young professionals with a well paying job and interest in new products to present a very attractive demographic to these people. Let them know you're pissed!
Don't imagine it can't be done. It's technologically feasible, if the right laws got into place. I'd certainly hope the tech industry would fight this tooth and nail, and that WE would fight it tooth and nail, but it's certainly not outside the realm of imagination, or possibility.
Maybe theoretically it can be done, and practically it might even be legislated, but this will never work, and it better be more than the technology industry fighting it.
"If you can see it or hear it, then you can copy it perfectly" needs to become a common mantra. To express the futility of any of these copy measures to someone who doesn't understand digital technology, use a good analogy. For instance, some of these proposed laws are roughly equivalent to mandating that all sharp edges (or potentially sharp edges) must have built in safety guards and require a license to carry, whether it's a steak knife, a plate glass window, or a block of iron.
People don't seem to realize that digital components are as ubiquitous and cheap as many raw materials. Outlawing or restricting their use according to the whims of the RIAA makes about as impractical and stupid as outlawing or taxing water to prevent drowning.
... You need a hobby.
You're probably right, if my comment was worth wasting any points on it should have been modded as a cry for help. After this second useless (and even more off-topic) comment, I've gotta start reminding myself that the old "preview" button isn't just for checking spelling...
While I thank you for your efforts and agree that the quotes themselves are certainly funny (and I agree with your sig) I'm not sure if the moderation is accurate. Since you've compiled funny film related Simpsons quotes I originally thought that "Informative" would be a better mod. However, on further reflection, "Redundant" is always the most accurate mod for any Simpsons references on Slashdot since most of us geeks could probably recite them in our sleep.
Great example of some prior art! Now if only we can find some published articles or European examples then we can really nail these... Oh wait a minute, it's not that kind of story...
I really applaud the spirit in which MIT is releasing this. But I also wonder whether it's good for education and science in the long run.
I think there may be too much of a tendency by professors to reuse educational materials. This may lead to a degree of standardization and uniformity of the educational experience that could harm progress.
With OpenCourseWare MIT is boldly forcing universities to realize that higher education is not about educational *materials* but rather about the educational *experience*. Universities are *very* competitive these days and if professors choose to uncritically recycle MIT course materials without at least adding any personal insight, hands-on labs, and offering advice and office hours, then their university's reputation will quickly suffer.
You're right that too many profs overly recycle their material but I think this initiative will actually decrease such reliance on educational materials as a crutch by making students and educators realize there's much more to an education than reading notes (the best profs and schools already do). Not to mention the social and real-life aspects offered by a residential experience...
...on www.musicunited.org which is the website of the RIAA backed organization behind the recent ads and TV spots. If you check out their page of quotes you'll notice that some of the quotes like "artists should get paid" have apparently been taken out of context. And their list of 80 names really isn't very impressive considering the numbers they could have gotten.
For instance, they quote Neil Young as being against file-sharing by using a quote from Yahoo! Entertainment News: "I don't like to have a record out and have people hear versions that we don't want them to hear. With the Internet, there is no more privacy and not even the chance to express yourself in front of your audience in the intimacy of a concert that lets songs evolve. You can't do this because they immediately get circulated."
For enough, but this doesn't necessary mean he's against file-sharing, only that he's frustrated when unauthorized songs are released. Maybe they did get his permission, but since he isn't listed on the actual ads I sincerely doubt it. He's also on the record as talking to BusinessWeek about Napster: "It's great. Whatever gets the music around. The record labels will worry about that, and I'll worry about the music." I wonder how many of these other artists have similar views and if they realize they are the being represented as the poster children for anti-piracy.
I would LOVE to see someone make a parody of the these ads with a list of equally prominent artists that have come out in favour of file-sharing. You could change the tag-line to "we don't care about file sharing" or something, and maybe take a dig at the RIAA for mispresenting certain artist's views ("libel is wrong").
Did I miss something? I thought the Bon Jovi thing was just like printing a unique serial on the booklet or a piece of paper that comes with the thing, or something.
How the hell is that technology, or more to the point, patentable?
I think it's because companies finally ran out of existing ideas that they could patent by tacking on "with a computer". The next round of bad patents will take obvious ideas and tack on "by an 80's hair band".
For instance, DownloadCard has the rights to "a means of using and distributing unique serial identifiers to provide redeemable incentives to discourage the online theft of intellectual property where said intellectual property is audio or video media content by an 80's hair band". The Dave Matthews Band and the Crystal Method were able to get around this patent by not being an 80's hair band, but Universal finally got busted for trying it with Bon Jovi.
In related news, Jeff Bezos has just invented and patented a one-click combination CD player power-on/play button to allow quick and efficient listening of any of his favorite music by an 80's hair band.
Actually the best argument I've heard is that this law encourages those who have created works in the past that are protected under trade secret law to publish those works.
You're right, this seems to be the only argument that might hold any merit, even though (at best) any impact on progress is probably very marginal (if there is any at all). But it also depends on the legal interpretation of "promoting progress". If something was invented or created by a company 70 years ago but never released it might be argued that extending copyright will encourage the owner to publish this material rather than letting it sit in a vault forever. However, isn't this really just dissemination of the work, not actual progress? While extending the copyright might give the owner economic encouragement to share the work and thus arguably promote the state of the art available to the public, I would argue that any progress took place 70 years ago but was just never released. Also, from a practical point of view, anything sitting in the vault for so long likely has such a limited value that they may be more inclined to give it away. Companies may even be hesitant to bother releasing these things to the public right now because they fall into a bit of a grey area - not worth supporting, but also not worth making public domain before their time because users may find it complicated to tell whether it really is public domain or not. They may even have liability issues in some cases.
As an aside, the argument that extended copyrights add no incentive to create is strongly supported in the official court documents by a number of leading economists, including just about every notable living American Nobel prize winner. Everyone with an interest in IP should read these documents as this case is probably the most significant copyright/IP case ever. Even if they lose (which will only mean that is the language of the law is found to be consistent with recent interpretation) I hope this case will bring awareness to the fact that our modern interpretation of IP as a right is in absolute contridiction to the original intentions of the US founding fathers.
I saw this exchange (on CNBC) as well. I generally agree with your assessment of the EFF spokesperson - she seemed like a very reasonable, well spoken person, but was not as well groomed for quick public debate as she could have been. To be fair, she may be too used to always being on the defensive about issues like file sharing. Until now, just to be heard the EFF has had to spend much of their time trying not to sound too radical. However, in this case at least, she could have taken the offensive because the arguments against the RIAA are clearly on her side and the media are begining to count on the EFF for their perspective as an important consumer interest group.
Surprisingly, the interviewer and Tyler Mathison seemed to pick up on this as well and really did a great job of grilling Hilary. Whether they were playing devil's advocate I'm not sure, but the EFF and others have done a really good job of setting the tone for this debate. For example, the interviewers asked Hilary about the ramifications of legalized hacking etc. Hilary's responses were quite laughable and she came off as being computer illiterate and very naive for selling a "just trust us" approach that doesn't play well with the media these days. They basically ignored her sometimes rambling remarks and continued to use language that framed the RIAA and the bill as being vigilante measures and they expressed concern about the RIAA impeding technical innovation and progress. Actually, because of the EFF spokesperson's almost passive stance, I think a casual viewer would have come away from the discussion as thinking that the journalists themselves believed that the bill was bad and that the industry lobbyist was probably flat-out lying about its consequences.
This was the first time I had ever seen Hilary Rosen on TV and I was expecting to see some very impressive arguments from her and cowtowing from the press. But from my point of view, the EFF clearly won the debate before it even started, even if their spokesperson didn't go in for the kill. Hilary also made a complete fool of herself by calling the EFF names - the interviewer made a point of this at the end that didn't paint her in a good light at all and she seemed flabbergasted.
Just use one of the standard ones. I've been logged in as slashdotuser/slashdotuser (I think) for about as long as I can remember using slashdot and reading NYT online. A company that consistently provides excellent content gets to know how often a bunch of people from a similar demographic use their site while my privacy is protected about as much as I care. Kind of a win-win if you ask me. Less sifting through meaningless random data for them, and hopefully more scientific/technical/rights articles for me.
In my opinion, they provide most of the best mainstream content for slashdot links. If you don't agree, then just move along to the next story and don't bother complaining/commenting on the NYT posts. Or just post without reading the article like everyone else, but enough with the anti-NYT rants.
(Moderators: sorry about the OT/troll-feeding/flamebait/rant, but its sad when the RIAA is eroding our freedoms to make up for their inability to handle the web, but people continue to nitpick about a company that actually seems to understand internet economics and is playing reasonably fair)
If we all email info@archive.org or wayback@archive.org and register our dissatisfaction...
e .org to fill the gap oneday.
If you do, one point you might want to make is just how useless the Wayback Machine will quickly and inevitably become as long as third parties have such broad power to remove archived pages. We've already seen far too many examples of people's whole internet existance being removed from the Wayback Machine against their will, simply because of a reference to Scientology and similar censorship.
Also, while I appreciate the need for actual copyright owners to protect and control their IP, there should be (and probably is) special exceptions for historical records, especially publically available content that is transmitted over public infrastructure. As it is, I use archive.org to access several formerly popular and very informative sites but I'm afraid to publicize them (on usenet for instance, where I've seen posts from people looking for these sites) because frankly I'm afraid that as more people use it, the more likely someone (original owner or third party) will shut down my access.
I love the idea of archive.org, but I'm hesitant to become too fond of it (or too dependent on linking to its archived URL's which would otherwise be great for persistant bibliographies and citations) since I'm afraid that its removal policy encourages the entropy of its records to rapidly increase. I hope the people donating records and supporting the Wayback Machine keep some back-ups just in case the Wayback Machine continues to erase history and someone else needs to come along to start a better-and-more-complete-and-authoritative-archiv
I hope the Wayback Machine people can convince me that I'm wrong, but today's story really doesn't give me much hope in their ability to provide and maintain such a potentially great resource...
Here's Roger Ebert's review of the dubbed version, as well an essay he wrote that includes an interview with Miyazaki and gives some good background on the dubbed version produced by John Lasseter ("Toy Story") and Disney.
'Cept for the 'Trust Microsoft' part.
This may be a little off topic, but perhaps relevant to the discussion of trust: Have you noticed the NASDAQ 100 commercials with Steve Ballmer etc. Not bad ads but they finish with the words "NASDAQ 100: Trust Companies". Very big brother sounding and rather poorly timed with all the scandals. There needs to be some level of trust in order to implement a universal roaming profile and I wish companies would try the approach of earning trust rather than expecting to convince people with half-assed and rather condescending slogans like this.
R the wordz of Prince xcellently timed 4 the NPG 2B 2gether B4 the youth of 2day?
"Patent It Yourself" is great, not only because it explains the whole patent application process in detail, but (more importantly) it helps you decide WHEN and WHETHER you should even file. And although he gives you detailed DIY information, he's also honest by recommending a patent attorney whenever possible.
Pressman uses flowcharts to explain the advantages of not patenting at all (like the Coke formula) and how to protect your idea while doing the market research to find out if a patent is worthwhile. He also spends a lot of time giving advice on how and to whom to sell your idea and to figure out how much it might be worth, patent or no.
For instance, you should always begin by documenting your invention (getting a notebook witnessed and notarized - mailing it to yourself DOES NOT WORK). Then, after a little preliminary research, you could apply for a provisional patent yourself (couple hundred bucks and you don't need claims) or with the advice of a lawyer(only a bit more if you do most of the work). Then you generally have up to a year to speak with potential customers and do further research to see if your "patent pending" idea is worth pursuing yourself, worth selling to someone, or if you should just give up. If you find out its a REALLY good idea, you're probably stupid not to get the full application professionally done. If it has limited potential, then maybe you could just do it yourself.
He also provides a lot of information on how and whether to foreign file. He'd be a great subject for a Slashdot interview and I know he's done on-line chats before.
What about Slashdot in the role of the Guide? Sure, the Web itself was born to play the part, with entries on everything and plenty of erroneous information, but it's probably too pricey and prone to litigation.
Actually, I wonder if the average movie fan might mistake the Guide for a cheesy and obviously fabricated Hollywood analogy for the internet. I can just imagine an uninformed movie critic discussing the symbolism of the Guide as a social commentary on the web. Even worse would be if a director or studio exec decided to intentionally play that angle (or the movie was rejected on those grounds). Sounds silly, but I could see it happening.
Coming Attractions has a very detailed and up-to-date listing for HHGTTG.
The write-up is obviously by a fan; includes this little known tidbit under "Rumors":
"Word has it the ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is asking for a cameo or else he'll eat one of the associate producers."
Those little guys AREN'T going to make it big if they can't get on the raido. They will get a following, but the mass public finds new music through the radio, not anywhere else.
First off, part of my point is that the term "making it big" will become increasingly relative. Under a label-free system it might be nearly impossible for any band to ever reach a Beatles or U2 level of success and even harder to earn that type of money (although both points are debatable). What I'd suggest is that if an independent band ever achieves even a fraction of the following of a Radiohead or Grateful Dead expect that to make waves through the industry and popular culture.
Unless your music is pre-packaged garbage and you don't want to tour, you certainly don't need the radio to survive as a musician or even to make it relatively big. Many of the best remembered classic rockers of the sixties struggled to get on the air while mostly out of print bands like the Dave Clark Five consistently topped the charts.