This Wired article has some great insight into the difficulty of licensing the music that occurs, even fleetingly, in TV shows. David Pogue also commented on this in his NY Times blog recently. He was told by a TV producer that segments that air only once, such as news shows, couldn't be offered for download because of the licensing nightmare to clear every visual and audio element of the broadcast that may have licensing restrictions. These issues might not be insurmountable but they sure represent a huge hurdle for an industry that's not inclined to embrace the Internet as a distribution method in the first place.
"Generally, the main differences between the Dishnetwork 921/942 HD DVRs and the HD Tivo models is that the Tivo has better auto-recording features for picking stuff you want to set a timer for, while the Dish DVRs are much, much faster to use in terms of the program guide, etc..."
Actually the difference is that Dish Network is a content provider and TiVo isn't. Content providers offer DVRs primarily to have control over your recordings. TiVo would love to allow you to record pay-per-view events and watch them at any time. Dish Network (or insert any other cable or satellite provider offering their own DVR) would love to do the same thing but make you pay each time you watch it. Or simply disallow recording when they feel like it. I am not at all sure that TiVo won't cave in to broadcasters' pressure or simply be forced to, but I am sure that getting a DVR from my cable company to save a few bucks over TiVo's monthly fee is a decision I would regret down the line when I find features disabled for "premium content."
Prof. Lessig has put his money where his mouth is, so to speak. He is offering his latest book, Free culture, as a free download. You can get it as a 2.4MB PDF, a bittorrent, or a in a bunch of other formats. Enjoy.
"A woman is arrested on murder charges. After hours of police interrogation without Miranda warnings, she confesses. They then read her rights to her and then ask her to confess again. The Supreme Court rules that in such a case the confession was to be allowed in court despite the fact that the Miranda warnings were simply done essentailly after the fact and that it was then difficult to face the police pressure after that point."
You seem to be asserting that the police were in the wrong to extract an additional confession since they only read the suspect her rights after her initial inadmissible (pre-Miranda) confession. I disagree. Your statement that it occurred "[a]fter hours of police interrogation without Miranda warnings" makes the police look like bullies who should have their case thrown out. But think of the dangerous precedent. It's difficult to legislate a "reasonable" amount of time so we usually get laws that specify an occurrence as a demarcation point. That is, anything a suspect says to police before getting Mirandized is inadmissible as evidence. If we follow your logic that the police in the above case were only reading the woman her rights to get an admissible confession after she volunteered (or was coerced into) the first one, then what do you want to disallow? Anything already said pre-Miranda reading?
In that case, as a criminal your best defense would be to confess immediately before being read your rights. Think about it - if you immediately confess to the first officer that approaches you then your case is almost identical to the one you cite except for the "hours of police interrogation." But time frames are a gray area anyway. You could claim intimidation, or some other cumulative effect of multiple officers, a crime scene, etc. Should you then avoid prosecution simply because the officers had to read you your rights to get you to confess again?
"They completely misjudged the market, which is driven by the perception that bottled water is purer and more natural and better for you."
That perception is mostly wrong. Dasani may in fact be purified tap water and thus considered less "natural" than spring water, but at least in the U.S. is subject to higher standards of purity than the much less regulated spring water market. In addition I just read a bottled water taste test (in think in a wine-related publication) that ranked Dasani the second best tasting water behind a brand I had never heard of. There's a lot of perception and subjectivity at work here and Coke applied their knowledge of image-building to make Dasani appear to be more than it is, but none of that means that it cannot well be the superior product. I don't have an opinion on Dasani but the masses can just as easily be swayed by a groundswell of media-induced backlash as they can by the best marketing campaign.
"iTunes is not essential to use the iPod. iPod by itself provides the value/service to the owner. That explains the high margins on iPod."
Actually, iTunes is pretty essential to using an iPod. Downloading music at $0.99 per song from the iTunes Music Store is is not required, you're right about that, but the iTunes software client is the way to organize and put music on the iPod. That's probably what you meant though.
Re:AT&T Wireless and the rest of AT&T...
on
SBC Might Buy AT&T
·
· Score: 1
"I do wonder if this will mean SBC can sell local service beyond the 13 state region they are currently in?"
Actually they can already. SBC has a CLEC license which means that they can buy local lines at wholesale prices from the other ILECs (the incumbents that own the lines). This was previously through the "unbundled network element" provision of the Telecom Act of 1996. But that is no longer in force which is the reason AT&T is leaving the consumer CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier) business. Now rates will have to be individually negotiated, a process that will be watched closely by the FCC and state regulators for abuses. A CLEC can provide services by having their own facilities (central offices and switching equipment) and then just buying access to the local loop (the copper wires leading into the home or premises. SBC is currently doing that within the territories of the other RBOCs. That is for large business customers though. I guess it's possible that AT&Ts long distance switching equipment, and the pre-divestiture facilities they still own within Baby Bell central offices, could be used to provide nationwide local service for a combined SBC-ATT. But that would be an expensive upgrade for a dying local wireline market. The future is elsewhere.
"SBC contains more than one Baby Bell. It already has at least SW Bell, Pacific Telephone and Bell of Nevada in it's belly."
Actually Southwestern Bell bought two peers, Pacific Telesys (PacTel) and Ameritech. Then they bought SNET to stretch from coast to coast - southeast to northeast. I believe they are the biggest by geography, but Verizon is larger by users and revenue. BellSouth is the only remaining Baby Bell in its original form. The others merged with themselves and other independent phone companies to create the current SBC, Verizon, and Qwest.
Before we get into it about rebuilding the hated Ma Bell of yesteryear, keep this in perspective. SBC is right now one of the four remaining RBOCs, or Baby Bells, formed from the divestiture of AT&T (the original national phone monopoly) in 1984. The RBOCs already provide national long distance service (opened to them following the Telecommunications Act of 1996). AT&T is mostly a pure long distance and data network (WAN) player these days. The Bells have to have network-sharing agreements to provide national LD service. Qwest has an extensive fiber LD network though. So this potential acquisition would add a national long distance and data network to an incumbent local service provider and give it a huge presence in the enterprise market. It would not create a new national phone monopoly or be the Son of Ma Bell. They would be a formidable competitor though.
"I would agree only that certain software makes sense as a subscription service. I think that something like web-mail might be a valid candidate for this, as are things like MMORPGs, news, etc."
It's not clear to me from the linked article, but it does look like they are including the client Outlook application in the subscription model. But what I really think they should be doing is giving home users (or the target Hotmail market) the benefits(*) that corporate users get of the backend Exchange server. For example, shared calendar access with permissions, delegation of tasks, synchronization with mobile devices, etc. I've long thought that Microsoft should offer a virtual Exchange server so individuals could use a stand alone Outlook client and do the things within small groups or organizations that corporate users can do.
"Because the true terrorists are kids sharing music, games and movies. Way to prioritize AG Ashcroft!"
I'm no fan of John Ashcroft, but the job of the Attorney General of the United States is not to fight terrorism. The AG is the chief law enforcement officer and his office has decided to aggressively pursue copyright violators. I agree with you that this should certainly not be the top priority but just because it appears on Slashdot does not mean it is the only thing happening.
"This would be the same Research In Motion that tried to gouge Palm and HandSpring for patent licensing fees on the idea of a PDA with a keyboard, right?"
Not so much the idea of a PDA with a keyboard, but the specific design of such keyboard. A look and feel (and function) lawsuit. Blackberry's keyboard design includes keys on each half slanted down toward the center creating a wider surface perpendicular to the direction of the thumb - assuming a two-thumb tapping style. That's their patented innovation. It works well. I find my Blackberry quite comfortable to type on. You might notice that when Palm (or was it Handspring?) came out with a PDA incorporating a keyboard that all the keys slanted the same direction. That is because of RIM's patent.
"The only worrying part about moving to VOIP is losing the emergency services."
Your local telco probably doesn't want you to know this, but there are regulations requiring 911 emergency services be available on every phone in their service area. There are undoubtedly many variables involved here so do your own due diligence before relying on this, but you will probably still get access to the E911 system even on a phone line where the service has been disconnected. In other words you can cancel all your service from the "phone company" and you should still be able to dial 911 on that otherwise inactive phone line.
The one thing I remember about the original series, besides the Cylons' cool oscillating red eyes, was that they had to hold down the "Turbo" button in their spacecraft to go fast. Perhaps if the Cylons catch up so quickly and frequently it is because they have a better understanding of Newtonian physics.
"Welcome to the Apple business model. As soon as you consumate your lust, they have a new model for you to lust after."
You do have a point as far as technolust is fueled on the Mac side by Apple's desire to introduce new models in dramatic fashion. What's interesting, at least to me, is that since I switched to the Mac about five years ago I have become so much less desirous of new hardware. Sure I eagerly devour every detail of every Apple product announcement, but then I go back to my iMac and just enjoy it. It's far from the cutting edge to be sure. But I have become comfortable that the user experience is what I appreciate, not the raw power. My iMac G4 1GHz was superceded a little over a month after I bought it by a model with a 25% faster processor and a larger HD. But I didn't really care. I'm just... happy with it.
"All I want to know is, why can't we meta-mod moderations...."
Um, that's what meta-moderation is. You moderate previous moderation. Actually, you are shown a series of posts along with how they were moderated and you get to judge whether you believe that particular moderation is fair or unfair. Give it a try sometime. You can't pick who you get to meta-moderate, but it's some measure of justice anyway.
"I assumed that the DRM obligation was imposed by the major labels on a grudging Apple."
There's no grudging involved. It's a business relationship. And in a business relationship it is not beneficial to say, We would screw over the other party in a second if we could. Apple should not say that they would love to remove all DRM since that would place them in an antagonistic position with the record labels they have to rely on for content. I suspect they would indeed eliminate the DRM if they could since it would make sales from iTMS more attractive. The contrary argument would be that the DRM enables lock-in to the iPod and perpetuates usage of the iTunes Music Store from current iPod owners. It becomes a decision between generating goodwill to drive future iPod and music sales vs. squeezing current users and burning goodwill.
I just sent an SMS to 46645 ("GOOGL") containing the word "pizza" and my ZIP code and got listings for the three closest pizza joints. I could even highlight the phone number shown and call them with a click. Seems pretty convenient to me. I wonder how much better MSN intends to make that experience and how far I will have to dig through a cascading Start Menu on a Windows Mobile Smartphone to do the same thing.
"Would be especially nice to read more about Burell Smith."
I heard Andy interviewed about the book recently and he had a lot to say about Burell Smith as an unsung hero of the Mac's development. I think (memory is fading) that he said that Smith is reclusive and that they hadn't talked in years. He dropped of a pre-release copy of the book on Smith's door and also took one over to Steve Jobs. He told Jobs that there were some things in the book that were unflattering to him but that he wanted to be truthful. Jobs told him that the truth was OK and that he could accept it. (Being on top of the world must help one to be at peace with one's legacy.)
Andy also mentioned that he resisted for years talking about the people involved in the development of the Mac, despite the incredible interest in its history, because he respected their privacy. Despite his admitted discomfort in speaking ill of others he did not have anything nice to say about Jef Raskin.
I hope I am remembering this correctly. It was an interview on an NPR show so there may be an audio link. I'll post it if I recall which show it was.
Slashdot Mirror
This Wired article has some great insight into the difficulty of licensing the music that occurs, even fleetingly, in TV shows. David Pogue also commented on this in his NY Times blog recently. He was told by a TV producer that segments that air only once, such as news shows, couldn't be offered for download because of the licensing nightmare to clear every visual and audio element of the broadcast that may have licensing restrictions. These issues might not be insurmountable but they sure represent a huge hurdle for an industry that's not inclined to embrace the Internet as a distribution method in the first place.
"Generally, the main differences between the Dishnetwork 921/942 HD DVRs and the HD Tivo models is that the Tivo has better auto-recording features for picking stuff you want to set a timer for, while the Dish DVRs are much, much faster to use in terms of the program guide, etc..."
Actually the difference is that Dish Network is a content provider and TiVo isn't. Content providers offer DVRs primarily to have control over your recordings. TiVo would love to allow you to record pay-per-view events and watch them at any time. Dish Network (or insert any other cable or satellite provider offering their own DVR) would love to do the same thing but make you pay each time you watch it. Or simply disallow recording when they feel like it. I am not at all sure that TiVo won't cave in to broadcasters' pressure or simply be forced to, but I am sure that getting a DVR from my cable company to save a few bucks over TiVo's monthly fee is a decision I would regret down the line when I find features disabled for "premium content."
Prof. Lessig has put his money where his mouth is, so to speak. He is offering his latest book, Free culture, as a free download. You can get it as a 2.4MB PDF, a bittorrent, or a in a bunch of other formats. Enjoy.
"A woman is arrested on murder charges. After hours of police interrogation without Miranda warnings, she confesses. They then read her rights to her and then ask her to confess again. The Supreme Court rules that in such a case the confession was to be allowed in court despite the fact that the Miranda warnings were simply done essentailly after the fact and that it was then difficult to face the police pressure after that point."
You seem to be asserting that the police were in the wrong to extract an additional confession since they only read the suspect her rights after her initial inadmissible (pre-Miranda) confession. I disagree. Your statement that it occurred "[a]fter hours of police interrogation without Miranda warnings" makes the police look like bullies who should have their case thrown out. But think of the dangerous precedent. It's difficult to legislate a "reasonable" amount of time so we usually get laws that specify an occurrence as a demarcation point. That is, anything a suspect says to police before getting Mirandized is inadmissible as evidence. If we follow your logic that the police in the above case were only reading the woman her rights to get an admissible confession after she volunteered (or was coerced into) the first one, then what do you want to disallow? Anything already said pre-Miranda reading?
In that case, as a criminal your best defense would be to confess immediately before being read your rights. Think about it - if you immediately confess to the first officer that approaches you then your case is almost identical to the one you cite except for the "hours of police interrogation." But time frames are a gray area anyway. You could claim intimidation, or some other cumulative effect of multiple officers, a crime scene, etc. Should you then avoid prosecution simply because the officers had to read you your rights to get you to confess again?
Sorry, I couldn't hear you. I was cleaning my ears. What was the question?
"They completely misjudged the market, which is driven by the perception that bottled water is purer and more natural and better for you."
That perception is mostly wrong. Dasani may in fact be purified tap water and thus considered less "natural" than spring water, but at least in the U.S. is subject to higher standards of purity than the much less regulated spring water market. In addition I just read a bottled water taste test (in think in a wine-related publication) that ranked Dasani the second best tasting water behind a brand I had never heard of. There's a lot of perception and subjectivity at work here and Coke applied their knowledge of image-building to make Dasani appear to be more than it is, but none of that means that it cannot well be the superior product. I don't have an opinion on Dasani but the masses can just as easily be swayed by a groundswell of media-induced backlash as they can by the best marketing campaign.
"iTunes is not essential to use the iPod. iPod by itself provides the value/service to the owner. That explains the high margins on iPod."
Actually, iTunes is pretty essential to using an iPod. Downloading music at $0.99 per song from the iTunes Music Store is is not required, you're right about that, but the iTunes software client is the way to organize and put music on the iPod. That's probably what you meant though.
"I do wonder if this will mean SBC can sell local service beyond the 13 state region they are currently in?"
Actually they can already. SBC has a CLEC license which means that they can buy local lines at wholesale prices from the other ILECs (the incumbents that own the lines). This was previously through the "unbundled network element" provision of the Telecom Act of 1996. But that is no longer in force which is the reason AT&T is leaving the consumer CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier) business. Now rates will have to be individually negotiated, a process that will be watched closely by the FCC and state regulators for abuses. A CLEC can provide services by having their own facilities (central offices and switching equipment) and then just buying access to the local loop (the copper wires leading into the home or premises. SBC is currently doing that within the territories of the other RBOCs. That is for large business customers though. I guess it's possible that AT&Ts long distance switching equipment, and the pre-divestiture facilities they still own within Baby Bell central offices, could be used to provide nationwide local service for a combined SBC-ATT. But that would be an expensive upgrade for a dying local wireline market. The future is elsewhere.
"SBC contains more than one Baby Bell. It already has at least SW Bell, Pacific Telephone and Bell of Nevada in it's belly."
Actually Southwestern Bell bought two peers, Pacific Telesys (PacTel) and Ameritech. Then they bought SNET to stretch from coast to coast - southeast to northeast. I believe they are the biggest by geography, but Verizon is larger by users and revenue. BellSouth is the only remaining Baby Bell in its original form. The others merged with themselves and other independent phone companies to create the current SBC, Verizon, and Qwest.
Before we get into it about rebuilding the hated Ma Bell of yesteryear, keep this in perspective. SBC is right now one of the four remaining RBOCs, or Baby Bells, formed from the divestiture of AT&T (the original national phone monopoly) in 1984. The RBOCs already provide national long distance service (opened to them following the Telecommunications Act of 1996). AT&T is mostly a pure long distance and data network (WAN) player these days. The Bells have to have network-sharing agreements to provide national LD service. Qwest has an extensive fiber LD network though. So this potential acquisition would add a national long distance and data network to an incumbent local service provider and give it a huge presence in the enterprise market. It would not create a new national phone monopoly or be the Son of Ma Bell. They would be a formidable competitor though.
"I would agree only that certain software makes sense as a subscription service. I think that something like web-mail might be a valid candidate for this, as are things like MMORPGs, news, etc."
It's not clear to me from the linked article, but it does look like they are including the client Outlook application in the subscription model. But what I really think they should be doing is giving home users (or the target Hotmail market) the benefits(*) that corporate users get of the backend Exchange server. For example, shared calendar access with permissions, delegation of tasks, synchronization with mobile devices, etc. I've long thought that Microsoft should offer a virtual Exchange server so individuals could use a stand alone Outlook client and do the things within small groups or organizations that corporate users can do.
* Yes I see the obvious joke here.
"Because the true terrorists are kids sharing music, games and movies. Way to prioritize AG Ashcroft!"
I'm no fan of John Ashcroft, but the job of the Attorney General of the United States is not to fight terrorism. The AG is the chief law enforcement officer and his office has decided to aggressively pursue copyright violators. I agree with you that this should certainly not be the top priority but just because it appears on Slashdot does not mean it is the only thing happening.
"This would be the same Research In Motion that tried to gouge Palm and HandSpring for patent licensing fees on the idea of a PDA with a keyboard, right?"
Not so much the idea of a PDA with a keyboard, but the specific design of such keyboard. A look and feel (and function) lawsuit. Blackberry's keyboard design includes keys on each half slanted down toward the center creating a wider surface perpendicular to the direction of the thumb - assuming a two-thumb tapping style. That's their patented innovation. It works well. I find my Blackberry quite comfortable to type on. You might notice that when Palm (or was it Handspring?) came out with a PDA incorporating a keyboard that all the keys slanted the same direction. That is because of RIM's patent.
"The only worrying part about moving to VOIP is losing the emergency services."
Your local telco probably doesn't want you to know this, but there are regulations requiring 911 emergency services be available on every phone in their service area. There are undoubtedly many variables involved here so do your own due diligence before relying on this, but you will probably still get access to the E911 system even on a phone line where the service has been disconnected. In other words you can cancel all your service from the "phone company" and you should still be able to dial 911 on that otherwise inactive phone line.
The one thing I remember about the original series, besides the Cylons' cool oscillating red eyes, was that they had to hold down the "Turbo" button in their spacecraft to go fast. Perhaps if the Cylons catch up so quickly and frequently it is because they have a better understanding of Newtonian physics.
"Welcome to the Apple business model. As soon as you consumate your lust, they have a new model for you to lust after."
... happy with it.
You do have a point as far as technolust is fueled on the Mac side by Apple's desire to introduce new models in dramatic fashion. What's interesting, at least to me, is that since I switched to the Mac about five years ago I have become so much less desirous of new hardware. Sure I eagerly devour every detail of every Apple product announcement, but then I go back to my iMac and just enjoy it. It's far from the cutting edge to be sure. But I have become comfortable that the user experience is what I appreciate, not the raw power. My iMac G4 1GHz was superceded a little over a month after I bought it by a model with a 25% faster processor and a larger HD. But I didn't really care. I'm just
A different perspective than most here I imagine.
I remember when I thought Anonymous Coward was one person. Damn, he was funny with that hot grits stuff. Ah, karmaless and naive, those were the days.
"All I want to know is, why can't we meta-mod moderations...."
Um, that's what meta-moderation is. You moderate previous moderation. Actually, you are shown a series of posts along with how they were moderated and you get to judge whether you believe that particular moderation is fair or unfair. Give it a try sometime. You can't pick who you get to meta-moderate, but it's some measure of justice anyway.
"I assumed that the DRM obligation was imposed by the major labels on a grudging Apple."
There's no grudging involved. It's a business relationship. And in a business relationship it is not beneficial to say, We would screw over the other party in a second if we could. Apple should not say that they would love to remove all DRM since that would place them in an antagonistic position with the record labels they have to rely on for content. I suspect they would indeed eliminate the DRM if they could since it would make sales from iTMS more attractive. The contrary argument would be that the DRM enables lock-in to the iPod and perpetuates usage of the iTunes Music Store from current iPod owners. It becomes a decision between generating goodwill to drive future iPod and music sales vs. squeezing current users and burning goodwill.
I just sent an SMS to 46645 ("GOOGL") containing the word "pizza" and my ZIP code and got listings for the three closest pizza joints. I could even highlight the phone number shown and call them with a click. Seems pretty convenient to me. I wonder how much better MSN intends to make that experience and how far I will have to dig through a cascading Start Menu on a Windows Mobile Smartphone to do the same thing.
"It is comforting to know that I'm not the only one who puts pen to paper when subtracting 44 from 128!"
I checked it on my old Pentium/90 box and got 83.999999999997426.
"Would be especially nice to read more about Burell Smith."
I heard Andy interviewed about the book recently and he had a lot to say about Burell Smith as an unsung hero of the Mac's development. I think (memory is fading) that he said that Smith is reclusive and that they hadn't talked in years. He dropped of a pre-release copy of the book on Smith's door and also took one over to Steve Jobs. He told Jobs that there were some things in the book that were unflattering to him but that he wanted to be truthful. Jobs told him that the truth was OK and that he could accept it. (Being on top of the world must help one to be at peace with one's legacy.)
Andy also mentioned that he resisted for years talking about the people involved in the development of the Mac, despite the incredible interest in its history, because he respected their privacy. Despite his admitted discomfort in speaking ill of others he did not have anything nice to say about Jef Raskin.
I hope I am remembering this correctly. It was an interview on an NPR show so there may be an audio link. I'll post it if I recall which show it was.
"Almost seems suited as a competitor to the iPod and iTunes. As seen by the 3GB hard drive, name, and online music service (whatever that means)."
We currently refer to any such device as an "iPod Killer." Maybe you didn't get the memo.
"I've had it for years and it's rock solid 24/7/365. (About once every 4-6 months, I have to reboot the DSL modem, however.)"
So it's rock solid for somewhere between 24/7/121 and 24/7/182 then?
"eating, sleeping, and drinking Java" for 8 years
I'm getting the shakes even thinking about that.