And if you had RTFP you'd see the first thing I said was "The article states" suggesting that I had read the article. What I hadn't done was follow every link and I didn't fully realize that the COPA is exactly the anti-porn decency law I was talking about.
As I stated before, it was unclear to me FTA whether or not they wanted records of all search terms, specific search terms, or a cross-section of all search results?
And as for the last line, if you are a parent, I hope for your kid(s)' sake that you're not as sarcastic and flippant with them when they have a question you didn't fully read/comprehend.
You missed what I was saying. People searching for porn are not going to search for "breast", you're correct. But people searching for information on Breast Cancer will almost certainly find porn (without the "Family Filter" turned on).
The article makes the good point that all this data collecting is really useless. So the government finds out that millions of searches for porn takes place every 10 minutes. All that really says is that the porn industry is alive and well.
Unless they're planning on using this data to push anti-porn decency laws (which would be an abuse of power to say the least) the data doesn't suggest in the slightest the context in which the searches were made.
It's also unclear as to whether or not they were after information about percent of porn results in a non-porn search (for example: "breast cancer" as two unquoted words) or just the searches explicitly for porn or child pornography. What about people researching child pornography for a class? It's all so useless that this entire exercise is a waste of money and time at every level.
It really looks like we're (unwittingly?) creating a nation of managers whose only goal in life is to have a lot of money, live in luxury, and pawn off all the work to other people.
Students are presumably going for CS/IT degrees to get those "high-paying" jobs by managing their outsourced schoolwork. Imagine a world of Office Space Bill's -- I shudder to think. But sadly, I see this more and more - why do/learn it when you can pay someone else to? Odd no one stops to think about where they'll get the money to pay someone to live their life for them?
We'll call it "Imperil" and it'll take place on Pangea with toops of dinosaurs and other pre-historic species of animals trying to take over the world before it breaks apart.
I suspect you're correct that the bad-but-popular TV will be the majority of channels, but if the quality of TV declines and the selection of channels is reduced to sludge, would you keep watching or just give up on TV and go do something more productive?
I don't mean to troll, but I've found since I cancelled my cable and signed up for Dish Network that not only am I paying a lot less, I'm watching a lot less too. My wife is the TV watcher, I use the TV to watch purchased or rented movies. I might watch TV if the good channels (some of which you mentioned above) were available a la carte, but if they're not there then I'll have a better incentive to save money and just cancel it altogether!
I still don't see this as a bad move. Television *can* be educational -- I fully support PBS, but it doesn't _have_ to be a major part of our lives.
Same way you do in any other market - with proper research and investment capital. It goes without saying that every market has a barrier to entry and some are much harder to penetrate than others. For instance, if I want to start up a video rental store and we already have 3 Blockbusters and 2 Hollywood Videos in a 20 mile radius I'm going to have a very hard time competing.
But in this scenario, we're really talking about a content provider (like Comcast) that wants to introduce a new channel into it's offering. Most likely, it'll promote the new channel on other similar-content channels in order to entice you to add this new one to your list. Right now they simply force the new channel on the broadcasters and charge them more for the entire package and broadcasters don't really have much of a choice - they have to accept the new channel and the new fees. This was demonstrated by Dish Network/Echostar a year or so ago in it's battle with Comcast over new channels being forced into the content package that Dish didn't want to carry.
So, in this instance, the barrier to entry for a new channel is not nearly as high as the barrier to entry for a new distribution company (i.e. something competing with satellite and cable companies). But I agree, for independent channels they won't have the ability to advertise (as cheaply) on other channels to garner attention. But at the same time, a local station would have as much exposure to the customer as any corporate conglomerate content provider in the a la carte setting.
Perhaps a pricing scheme for a la carte that ensures cable/sat companies don't lose money is to simply offer plans that include some number of channels, but the customer chooses which channels will be in their lineup. This implies that channels would be equal in price regardless of popularity.
I don't know if that's economically feasible for the cable/sat companies or not and I'm sure that's not how the content providers want their content priced, but it is similar to how CDs and DVDs are priced. Sure CDs and DVDs vary slightly on how much they cost based on popularity, but for the most part they're all about the same price ($15 for a CD, $20 for a DVD).
This would allow the cable/sat companies to provide "plans" just like they have now ("Choose 60" or "My 120") for $20 - $50 per month, but the customer can now select the channels they want to see and leave out the cruft. Or perhaps, it's not based on a number of channels, but a minimum purchase amount (to make it economical for the cable/sat companies).
Aside from doing it for the "wrong reasons" as already mentioned, this could be a Good Thing(TM).
Right now there's a TON of crap on TV, and I don't mean 'offensive' I just mean crap (every reality show ever created comes to mind). And if a la carte means that some of the crap will go away for lack of interest, that's fine by me.
But just because there's a minority of interest doesn't mean that a channel will necessarily disappear. It just means that the viewers of that channel will be called upon to donate to the content providers to help keep the channel alive (much like PBS' tele-thons). That's where the real interest will be shown by the viewers of the content.
I mean consider for a moment that not everything on TV should remain on TV. When a business starts up, it needs to be able to maintain some market share and operate within its revenue streams. When the revenue stream disappears for lack of customer interest or access, the business dies. In our current situation these "other channels", like the struggling businesses, would be dead or dying if it weren't for subsidization by the giant channel packages. I think that's not necessarily good because anytime someone wants to throw in a niche channel that will have 5 viewers, the cost of support for the whole thing necessarily increases to take on that additional burden. It's TV socialism.
I'm also not saying we shouldn't have any packages at all, just not 600 channels in one bundle (though that could certainly still be an option - as long as it's not the only option). For example, with most cable/sat providers, HBO and others come in packages of 3 to 5 or more channels of that type of content. You get all or nothing, but that's ok because you're paying for movie channels, not for some eclectic mix of different content much of which you're not interested in.
Only time will tell if the FCC tries to take this too far or just leaves well-enough alone by opening the door for a la carte.
I've gotten a few emails and a letter from them (mandated by the FCC) informing me that my 911 service is not E911. Vonage makes it very clear that the 911 operator will not know your location when you call and you'll need to tell them. They've been very straight with their customers and the email that the G*P plastered up is what I received as well.
However there's another bit that I haven't seen mentioned yet and that is Vonage did a test roll-out of E911 in Massachusetts a year or so ago that was successful and they've stated that they would roll out the E911 service to all markets as it became possible. The problem is that the telcos control the E911 network and only with cooperation can they roll out their enhanced service to other markets. So at the moment, some Vonage customers have E911 but most don't.
I think the FCC is being patently unfair at this point and either through it's own ignornace or through more malicious intent it is positioned to cost Vonage any real chance to compete in the telecommunications market. But what about Skype? What about Net2Phone? What about TimeWarner Cable digital phone? (though TWC has cable lines to your house and I don't believe their service is portable)
Is Vonage being highlighted here or is this entire FCC ruling against Vonage in particular? (admittedly, I haven't yet RTFA)
It's not exactly like I'm going to light a fire between the two of you.
That is, of course, your profiles show that you're both pyromaniacs with uncontrollable lust at the sight of an open flame. In that case, we may be able to arrange something...
The scientist who found the jawbone became increasingly irritable while hunching in a corner stroking the jawbone and repeating the words, "My...preciousssssss".
Do you understand why the RIAA is protecting those bits of "intellectual property" (a horrible buzzword by the way)? It's because it belongs to them and it's in their best interest to protect thier investments. When the artists sign up with a major label, they lose the rights to their own songs nearly all the time. That's the cost of getting a chance to become famous - give up your right to make money off your own works.
The RIAA, once they have your creative fruits in their grasp, will then dole out money to the band as advances (not as gifts) and start advertising campaigns and tours and what have you to make sure people find this band, hear their music, and buy lots and lots of merchandise. Of course, the cost of promotion is all put on the band's tab so that they are more or less eternally indebted to the RIAA label while the RIAA sucks up the vast majority of any income.
It used to be tour money was out of the RIAA's reach, but last I heard they were trying to get a (large) cut of that as well. As a fan, you cannot even send them a check because it will be confiscated by the label and put towards their ever-mounting debt (or maybe just into the label's pocket).
Using the RIAA for IP protection is like asking the Mob for help with your business. Sure they'll help you, but you'll be indebted to them for the rest of your life and will be at their mercy. It's much better to hire your own lawyer to protect your rights than to get involved with the RIAA.
If their content is "stolen" and "sold" through other channels than their own site, they lose money.
There's several things wrong with this statement; alone and in the context of this Google case:
Copyright infringement is not equivalent to stealing or it would not have a separate definition and legal implications (civil suit vs. criminal suit)
Google is neither infringing copyright nor selling the content - the sites their bots crawl across may be doing so, but that does not reflect poorly on Google for discovering them
Copyright infringement does not translate directly to loss of money. At best it translates to loss of potential revenue, but most usually it translates to content access and control rights being taken from the content owner without permission. The best example of this is an artist who gives samples of his work away for free (possibly for charity), but retains the copyright to that work such that the recipient cannot duplicate and sell the copies simply because they were given the work at no cost (however they could sell their only copy).
This is not a very tricky question at all. Perfect 10 is simply being lazy, greedy, or both by suing Google with a frivolous lawsuit. No court of law can find Google guilty of copyright infringement when they simply have a service that uncovered some copyrighted works illegally provided by another site. If anything, Perfect 10 should be thanking Google and pursuing the infringing sites directly -- that is if they were really concerned about loss of potential revenue and protection of their content.
This whole thing just reeks of yet another lawyer's (lawyers'?) attempt at clogging our justice system in the pursuit of the almighty dollar; be it through publicity or settlement or court-awarded damages.
I'd contend that the librarian shouldn't be fired because unlike your list above, it's not their job to prevent patrons from viewing porn at a public terminal. Their job description may entail dismissing said person if caught, but not to actively guard each terminal from abuses.
Along the same lines, politicians SHOULD be fired for serving the interests of the people who contributed to their campaigns if it goes against the interests of that politician's constituant majority - it's called accepting a bribe and it's illegal.
But in general, I see your point and agree that people need to own up to their own responsibilities and not simply pass the buck.
Perhaps, but does that mean those that disagree with the president don't deserve any acknowledgement for being in the minority of thinking persons?
I don't know about you, but if you're in the minority and you want something to change you either have to work to change the majority or change yourself (including leaving). Sometimes the latter is not an option and the former takes a long time.
Condemning the entire populous for the actions of the ruling majority is prejudicial, sterotypical, and childish. I know plenty of people here who fit that description when they talk about other nations of the world (or the rest of the world at large) and I think of them as equally idiotic as those who comment as you do.
Well he did have the power to veto such a silly measure, but he really doesn't have many/any critical thinking skills, nor would he want to go against his base in Congress.
Besides, using the Big Blue Pen to mark an 'X' in the signature spot is fun!
Nah, Movies and TV can simply make new content faster this way...they'll just use the video games' stories cause they translate so easily to the big screen.
I recently had a wedding and our photographer while still making his money off prints did offer to see two CDs of the high-quality original digital images that he took with his digital cameras. It went something like this:
pay $600+ for the photo shoot (about 200-300 pictures)
if you purchase $1500 total merchandise (including photo shoot) you can purchase the digital originals on CD for $200 - hi and low res
So he still makes his money to live off of, but you're not required to purchase all your prints from him. He also retains the right to use the photos in other advertising and stuff, but on the CDs themselves the label has a release printed on it that states the CD owner has permission to make unlimited prints.
Then again, he said even he was having Wal-Mart and the like turning him away even though he WAS the copyright holder!
Assuming the 22nd Ammendment was repealed and term limits for the Presidency were removed, the President would now have to concern himself with reelection EVERY term instead of just after the first one.
In other words, President W. Bush (under this repealed ammendment) could not be so reckless and narrow-minded in his endeavors in office during his second term as he can be now because he has no chance for re-election. This is similar to members of Congress who are (generally) kept in line with the fear of losing their position if they go against enough of their constituants.
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And if you had RTFP you'd see the first thing I said was "The article states" suggesting that I had read the article. What I hadn't done was follow every link and I didn't fully realize that the COPA is exactly the anti-porn decency law I was talking about.
As I stated before, it was unclear to me FTA whether or not they wanted records of all search terms, specific search terms, or a cross-section of all search results?
And as for the last line, if you are a parent, I hope for your kid(s)' sake that you're not as sarcastic and flippant with them when they have a question you didn't fully read/comprehend.
You missed what I was saying. People searching for porn are not going to search for "breast", you're correct. But people searching for information on Breast Cancer will almost certainly find porn (without the "Family Filter" turned on).
The article makes the good point that all this data collecting is really useless. So the government finds out that millions of searches for porn takes place every 10 minutes. All that really says is that the porn industry is alive and well.
Unless they're planning on using this data to push anti-porn decency laws (which would be an abuse of power to say the least) the data doesn't suggest in the slightest the context in which the searches were made.
It's also unclear as to whether or not they were after information about percent of porn results in a non-porn search (for example: "breast cancer" as two unquoted words) or just the searches explicitly for porn or child pornography. What about people researching child pornography for a class? It's all so useless that this entire exercise is a waste of money and time at every level.
It really looks like we're (unwittingly?) creating a nation of managers whose only goal in life is to have a lot of money, live in luxury, and pawn off all the work to other people.
Students are presumably going for CS/IT degrees to get those "high-paying" jobs by managing their outsourced schoolwork. Imagine a world of Office Space Bill's -- I shudder to think. But sadly, I see this more and more - why do/learn it when you can pay someone else to? Odd no one stops to think about where they'll get the money to pay someone to live their life for them?
Damn dyslexia my.
We'll call it "Imperil" and it'll take place on Pangea with toops of dinosaurs and other pre-historic species of animals trying to take over the world before it breaks apart.
I don't mean to troll, but I've found since I cancelled my cable and signed up for Dish Network that not only am I paying a lot less, I'm watching a lot less too. My wife is the TV watcher, I use the TV to watch purchased or rented movies. I might watch TV if the good channels (some of which you mentioned above) were available a la carte, but if they're not there then I'll have a better incentive to save money and just cancel it altogether!
I still don't see this as a bad move. Television *can* be educational -- I fully support PBS, but it doesn't _have_ to be a major part of our lives.
But in this scenario, we're really talking about a content provider (like Comcast) that wants to introduce a new channel into it's offering. Most likely, it'll promote the new channel on other similar-content channels in order to entice you to add this new one to your list. Right now they simply force the new channel on the broadcasters and charge them more for the entire package and broadcasters don't really have much of a choice - they have to accept the new channel and the new fees. This was demonstrated by Dish Network/Echostar a year or so ago in it's battle with Comcast over new channels being forced into the content package that Dish didn't want to carry.
So, in this instance, the barrier to entry for a new channel is not nearly as high as the barrier to entry for a new distribution company (i.e. something competing with satellite and cable companies). But I agree, for independent channels they won't have the ability to advertise (as cheaply) on other channels to garner attention. But at the same time, a local station would have as much exposure to the customer as any corporate conglomerate content provider in the a la carte setting.
I don't know if that's economically feasible for the cable/sat companies or not and I'm sure that's not how the content providers want their content priced, but it is similar to how CDs and DVDs are priced. Sure CDs and DVDs vary slightly on how much they cost based on popularity, but for the most part they're all about the same price ($15 for a CD, $20 for a DVD).
This would allow the cable/sat companies to provide "plans" just like they have now ("Choose 60" or "My 120") for $20 - $50 per month, but the customer can now select the channels they want to see and leave out the cruft. Or perhaps, it's not based on a number of channels, but a minimum purchase amount (to make it economical for the cable/sat companies).
Right now there's a TON of crap on TV, and I don't mean 'offensive' I just mean crap (every reality show ever created comes to mind). And if a la carte means that some of the crap will go away for lack of interest, that's fine by me.
But just because there's a minority of interest doesn't mean that a channel will necessarily disappear. It just means that the viewers of that channel will be called upon to donate to the content providers to help keep the channel alive (much like PBS' tele-thons). That's where the real interest will be shown by the viewers of the content.
I mean consider for a moment that not everything on TV should remain on TV. When a business starts up, it needs to be able to maintain some market share and operate within its revenue streams. When the revenue stream disappears for lack of customer interest or access, the business dies. In our current situation these "other channels", like the struggling businesses, would be dead or dying if it weren't for subsidization by the giant channel packages. I think that's not necessarily good because anytime someone wants to throw in a niche channel that will have 5 viewers, the cost of support for the whole thing necessarily increases to take on that additional burden. It's TV socialism.
I'm also not saying we shouldn't have any packages at all, just not 600 channels in one bundle (though that could certainly still be an option - as long as it's not the only option). For example, with most cable/sat providers, HBO and others come in packages of 3 to 5 or more channels of that type of content. You get all or nothing, but that's ok because you're paying for movie channels, not for some eclectic mix of different content much of which you're not interested in.
Only time will tell if the FCC tries to take this too far or just leaves well-enough alone by opening the door for a la carte.
However there's another bit that I haven't seen mentioned yet and that is Vonage did a test roll-out of E911 in Massachusetts a year or so ago that was successful and they've stated that they would roll out the E911 service to all markets as it became possible. The problem is that the telcos control the E911 network and only with cooperation can they roll out their enhanced service to other markets. So at the moment, some Vonage customers have E911 but most don't.
I think the FCC is being patently unfair at this point and either through it's own ignornace or through more malicious intent it is positioned to cost Vonage any real chance to compete in the telecommunications market. But what about Skype? What about Net2Phone? What about TimeWarner Cable digital phone? (though TWC has cable lines to your house and I don't believe their service is portable)
Is Vonage being highlighted here or is this entire FCC ruling against Vonage in particular? (admittedly, I haven't yet RTFA)
Current humidity is 70 perce -- AH CHOO! -- 90 percent.
It's not exactly like I'm going to light a fire between the two of you.
That is, of course, your profiles show that you're both pyromaniacs with uncontrollable lust at the sight of an open flame. In that case, we may be able to arrange something...
The scientist who found the jawbone became increasingly irritable while hunching in a corner stroking the jawbone and repeating the words, "My...preciousssssss".
...factual headlines don't draw crowds.
Do you understand why the RIAA is protecting those bits of "intellectual property" (a horrible buzzword by the way)? It's because it belongs to them and it's in their best interest to protect thier investments. When the artists sign up with a major label, they lose the rights to their own songs nearly all the time. That's the cost of getting a chance to become famous - give up your right to make money off your own works.
The RIAA, once they have your creative fruits in their grasp, will then dole out money to the band as advances (not as gifts) and start advertising campaigns and tours and what have you to make sure people find this band, hear their music, and buy lots and lots of merchandise. Of course, the cost of promotion is all put on the band's tab so that they are more or less eternally indebted to the RIAA label while the RIAA sucks up the vast majority of any income.
It used to be tour money was out of the RIAA's reach, but last I heard they were trying to get a (large) cut of that as well. As a fan, you cannot even send them a check because it will be confiscated by the label and put towards their ever-mounting debt (or maybe just into the label's pocket).
Using the RIAA for IP protection is like asking the Mob for help with your business. Sure they'll help you, but you'll be indebted to them for the rest of your life and will be at their mercy. It's much better to hire your own lawyer to protect your rights than to get involved with the RIAA.
As Jayne (from Firefly) so eloquently put it, "Ten percent of nothin' is, let me do the math here... nothin' and a nothin', carry the nothin'..."
There's several things wrong with this statement; alone and in the context of this Google case:
- Copyright infringement is not equivalent to stealing or it would not have a separate definition and legal implications (civil suit vs. criminal suit)
- Google is neither infringing copyright nor selling the content - the sites their bots crawl across may be doing so, but that does not reflect poorly on Google for discovering them
- Copyright infringement does not translate directly to loss of money. At best it translates to loss of potential revenue, but most usually it translates to content access and control rights being taken from the content owner without permission.
This is not a very tricky question at all. Perfect 10 is simply being lazy, greedy, or both by suing Google with a frivolous lawsuit. No court of law can find Google guilty of copyright infringement when they simply have a service that uncovered some copyrighted works illegally provided by another site. If anything, Perfect 10 should be thanking Google and pursuing the infringing sites directly -- that is if they were really concerned about loss of potential revenue and protection of their content.The best example of this is an artist who gives samples of his work away for free (possibly for charity), but retains the copyright to that work such that the recipient cannot duplicate and sell the copies simply because they were given the work at no cost (however they could sell their only copy).
This whole thing just reeks of yet another lawyer's (lawyers'?) attempt at clogging our justice system in the pursuit of the almighty dollar; be it through publicity or settlement or court-awarded damages.
Along the same lines, politicians SHOULD be fired for serving the interests of the people who contributed to their campaigns if it goes against the interests of that politician's constituant majority - it's called accepting a bribe and it's illegal.
But in general, I see your point and agree that people need to own up to their own responsibilities and not simply pass the buck.
I don't know about you, but if you're in the minority and you want something to change you either have to work to change the majority or change yourself (including leaving). Sometimes the latter is not an option and the former takes a long time.
Condemning the entire populous for the actions of the ruling majority is prejudicial, sterotypical, and childish. I know plenty of people here who fit that description when they talk about other nations of the world (or the rest of the world at large) and I think of them as equally idiotic as those who comment as you do.
Besides, using the Big Blue Pen to mark an 'X' in the signature spot is fun!
Nah, Movies and TV can simply make new content faster this way...they'll just use the video games' stories cause they translate so easily to the big screen.
- pay $600+ for the photo shoot (about 200-300 pictures)
- if you purchase $1500 total merchandise (including photo shoot) you can purchase the digital originals on CD for $200 - hi and low res
So he still makes his money to live off of, but you're not required to purchase all your prints from him. He also retains the right to use the photos in other advertising and stuff, but on the CDs themselves the label has a release printed on it that states the CD owner has permission to make unlimited prints.Then again, he said even he was having Wal-Mart and the like turning him away even though he WAS the copyright holder!
In other words, President W. Bush (under this repealed ammendment) could not be so reckless and narrow-minded in his endeavors in office during his second term as he can be now because he has no chance for re-election. This is similar to members of Congress who are (generally) kept in line with the fear of losing their position if they go against enough of their constituants.