I hate to be modded down for going against this hate-fest, but this issue really boils down to whether a computer voice is a performance. I think most people would agree that Amazon would not be allowed to hire actors to read the eBooks and include those audio versions along with the eBook, without paying an audio book license. Clearly an actor reading a book is a performance. And clearly an unauthorized commercial performance is infringement.
The problem we're having is that we think that because the reading is done by a machine, that it's not a performance. Going way back to the 1800's it was determined that the use of player piano rolls were performances. That's not really much different here. The player piano changed the holes in the paper to sound. (You could make the same argument about the wax cylinder, record, cassette, or CD.)
So yes, the Kindle 2 is violating copyright. Yes it is infringing on the author's right to license audio book copies.
And yes, the analogy between the Kindle 2 and reading a book at home to your kids does not work because a reading of the book at home is not a commercial use. Reading a book to your kids is clearly different from selling audio books without a license.
And the whole argument that this could impact the blind is a red herring because that's not the issue here. The issue is whether Amazon can sell audio books without a license to people with sight.
God, I'm such an idiot. Despite the fact that I used IRC to download MP3s back in the 90s, I forgot that it's not merely a chat program. Bad Anita Coney, go to your room!
"Don't you wonder why broadcast networks are demanding license fees from cable and satellite operators that retransmit their signals?"
For two reasons. First, as the owner of the content, broadcasters sort of have cable companies over a barrel. So they are demanding those fees because they can.
Second, advertising dollars are down across the board, including broadcasters and newspapers. So broadcasters have to get funding somewhere. That's exactly why newspapers have been raising their prices and cutting content. Sort of like drilling holes in a boat to stop it from sinking.
"The broadcast networks and their local affiliates simply don't deliver the depth and breadth of quality journalism that the variety of local newspapers can produce, at least in cities that still have a paper with an investigative journalism team."
That's really nice to know, but it does not change anything. The fact of the matter is that if the Associated Press carries through with its paywall idea, the vast majority of online readers will go to Reuters and UPI sources instead.
And we're not really talking about the "depth and breadth of quality journalism that the variety of local newspapers can produce." We're talking about the run of the mill, formulaic, and generally bland journalism produced by the Associated Press.
And I want to raise something that I think is common knowledge, but unfortunately is not: Newspapers have essentially been free for as long as both of us have been alive. Newspapers have historically charged a token amount to let the advertisers know how many readers they actually have and how many papers to publish. Without sales data, how would advertisers know that anyone was actually reading? And how would newspapers know how many issues to print each day?
The problem is that the newspapers' biggest cash cow, the classified ads, are basically dead. And local advertising is also nearly dead, as even car dealerships are having problems. So for the last decade newspapers have been raising their daily prices just to stay alive.
The only think keeping the AP members from receiving "Very Expensive Ad Revenues" is the fact that the market won't allow it because no one is willing to pay it.
"And by the time people have plagiarized their work they have already done the adds."
Did you read the original article? This decision to charge users has nothing to do with plagiarism.
And I'm not entirely sure why the so called plagiarism of facts is a bad thing. You seem to think that the AP somehow owns a factual story. It does not. Did you go to college and high school? Did you learn stuff? Do you repeat those facts in your day to day live and use them to better yourself? Exactly how is that a bad thing?
"And where do these stories come from? Who pays the reporters? Who keeps the servers running to deliver these stories?"
Who pays for the news broadcasts on NBC, ABC, and CBS?! Who pays the anchors, the journalists, and the cameramen? Who pays for your local news broadcasts?
Let me repeat from an earlier comment I made... Do you seriously think that CBS would make more money on its Evening News with Katie Couric if its stopped broadcasting it for free and made it solely pay-per-view? Think about it.
CBS plans to pull the plug on its free broadcast of the Evening News with Katie Couric and make its nightly newscast available only on pay-per-view. The news organizations of Fox, ABC, and NBC applaud the decision and are anxiously awaiting an increase in their ratings.
If you make your cat click an agreement, you are clicking the agreement. It's no different than putting on a pair of gloves and clicking the agreement. Do you honestly believe that the "It wasn't me, it was the gloves" defense would hold up in court?!
"Bundling isn't the biggest reason IE users switched to IE, it was because IE4 was better than Netscape Navigator."
Damn straight. You'll get modded down for your comment about Ubuntu. But you're absolutely correct about IE. Does anyone here remember the first version of IE? It too was bundled with Windows but no one used it. How about version 2? Still crap. Version 3, interesting, but very buggy and still crap.
However, not only was version 4 of IE a major improvement, Netscape was resting on its laurels and Navigator bloated was going nowhere. By nearly any standard, IE 4 was better than what Netscape offered at the time.
However, like Netscape, Microsoft rested on its laurels and IE became a bloated mess.
I switched to Firefox (actually it was called Phoenix at the time) because it blocked pop-ups, it allowed you to temporarily block flash (with IE you either installed Flash or it harassed you for not installing it), and it allowed you to quickly resize fonts (you could resize fonts in IE after going through several menus and dialog boxes).
Certainly Firefox had other useful features, those were just my main three. To put it simply, when Microsoft stopped working on IE it stopped listening to users. So while the web was evolving anyone stuck using IE was stuck in the dark ages. To this day Firefox is listening and allows users to surf their own way.
"Although, frankly, right now my favorite browser is Google Chrome."
I also love Chrome, it seems so damn fast, but I'm still tied to the plug-ins offered by Firefox. When I use Chrome it seems like an amazing empty shell. I can't wait for someone to fill it up so it's more usable.
"I mean, Paint is bundled with Windows..."
And similarly people still buy Word even though Windows is bundled with WordPad.
"Really, do you think that Ad companies want a sizable chunk of their audience to not watch television?"
Do you really think that the population of people who will actually be affected by the changeover should be considered "sizable." Minuscule, maybe. Tiny, probably. Small, possibly. "sizable".... er nope.
And when you consider the income those people earn, er, don't earn, I highly doubt any advertiser will give a rat's butt about them.
God, is it any wonder why Digg is kicking Slashdot's butt?! Keep this up and the mighty Slashdot will be nothing more than a niche site frequented by sticky men who proudly use pocket protectors.
Let's face it, the very worst thing that could happen if the delay does not occur is that some people won't be able to watch TV. That's it. Not being able to watch TV is in no way an emergency of any sort.
Way before TV, radio, film and even the internet, the most efficient means to distribute news was for each population area to have its own publisher of news print. Cities, towns, burroughs etc. all had their own news papers. Larger areas, such as states, did not. It was not efficient to print a newspaper and deliver it through out the entire state all on the same day.
However, things changed and soon publishers adapted and you could buy the New York times throughout the State and throughout the country. Theater owners started showing news reels, radio started giving out news, and so did TV stations. But newspapers survived all of those because newspapers offered more stories with more depth.
However, the internet has changed the efficiencies for news distribution. Nowadays the internet offers more depth and is updated immediately, plus it offers video and audio, and yet another plus, it offers up to the minute commentary. It's simply asinine for each city/population center to physically publish news on paper and then deliver those papers via gas burning trucks to individuals, to read news articles that were published the day before on the net.
The answer is not to shut down news on the net, it's to accept the fate that newsprint is dead.
... how getting computer users to blindly click through continuous, repetitive, and annoying dialog boxes kept computers more secure in the first place. It would seem under any reasonable analysis to do the opposite.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate to be modded down for going against this hate-fest, but this issue really boils down to whether a computer voice is a performance. I think most people would agree that Amazon would not be allowed to hire actors to read the eBooks and include those audio versions along with the eBook, without paying an audio book license. Clearly an actor reading a book is a performance. And clearly an unauthorized commercial performance is infringement.
The problem we're having is that we think that because the reading is done by a machine, that it's not a performance. Going way back to the 1800's it was determined that the use of player piano rolls were performances. That's not really much different here. The player piano changed the holes in the paper to sound. (You could make the same argument about the wax cylinder, record, cassette, or CD.)
So yes, the Kindle 2 is violating copyright. Yes it is infringing on the author's right to license audio book copies.
And yes, the analogy between the Kindle 2 and reading a book at home to your kids does not work because a reading of the book at home is not a commercial use. Reading a book to your kids is clearly different from selling audio books without a license.
And the whole argument that this could impact the blind is a red herring because that's not the issue here. The issue is whether Amazon can sell audio books without a license to people with sight.
God, I'm such an idiot. Despite the fact that I used IRC to download MP3s back in the 90s, I forgot that it's not merely a chat program. Bad Anita Coney, go to your room!
"I thought in 1996 all we did was idle in IRC channels while we wrote code in other terminals."
Yet another person who does not know he can find porn on the net.
"Don't you wonder why broadcast networks are demanding license fees from cable and satellite operators that retransmit their signals?"
For two reasons. First, as the owner of the content, broadcasters sort of have cable companies over a barrel. So they are demanding those fees because they can.
Second, advertising dollars are down across the board, including broadcasters and newspapers. So broadcasters have to get funding somewhere. That's exactly why newspapers have been raising their prices and cutting content. Sort of like drilling holes in a boat to stop it from sinking.
"The broadcast networks and their local affiliates simply don't deliver the depth and breadth of quality journalism that the variety of local newspapers can produce, at least in cities that still have a paper with an investigative journalism team."
That's really nice to know, but it does not change anything. The fact of the matter is that if the Associated Press carries through with its paywall idea, the vast majority of online readers will go to Reuters and UPI sources instead.
And we're not really talking about the "depth and breadth of quality journalism that the variety of local newspapers can produce." We're talking about the run of the mill, formulaic, and generally bland journalism produced by the Associated Press.
And I want to raise something that I think is common knowledge, but unfortunately is not: Newspapers have essentially been free for as long as both of us have been alive. Newspapers have historically charged a token amount to let the advertisers know how many readers they actually have and how many papers to publish. Without sales data, how would advertisers know that anyone was actually reading? And how would newspapers know how many issues to print each day?
The problem is that the newspapers' biggest cash cow, the classified ads, are basically dead. And local advertising is also nearly dead, as even car dealerships are having problems. So for the last decade newspapers have been raising their daily prices just to stay alive.
"Very Expensive Add Revenue"
The only think keeping the AP members from receiving "Very Expensive Ad Revenues" is the fact that the market won't allow it because no one is willing to pay it.
"And by the time people have plagiarized their work they have already done the adds."
Did you read the original article? This decision to charge users has nothing to do with plagiarism.
And I'm not entirely sure why the so called plagiarism of facts is a bad thing. You seem to think that the AP somehow owns a factual story. It does not. Did you go to college and high school? Did you learn stuff? Do you repeat those facts in your day to day live and use them to better yourself? Exactly how is that a bad thing?
"The AP doesn't have that luxury."
Only because the market does not allow it.
"And where do these stories come from? Who pays the reporters? Who keeps the servers running to deliver these stories?"
Who pays for the news broadcasts on NBC, ABC, and CBS?! Who pays the anchors, the journalists, and the cameramen? Who pays for your local news broadcasts?
Let me repeat from an earlier comment I made... Do you seriously think that CBS would make more money on its Evening News with Katie Couric if its stopped broadcasting it for free and made it solely pay-per-view? Think about it.
CBS plans to pull the plug on its free broadcast of the Evening News with Katie Couric and make its nightly newscast available only on pay-per-view. The news organizations of Fox, ABC, and NBC applaud the decision and are anxiously awaiting an increase in their ratings.
You can find a picture here.
You can find the entire email here.
Agreed. I was about to say the same thing. When child porn is involved nearly all common sense is tossed aside.
... there are no homeless people on Mars.
No apologizes necessary. It needed to be said! ;-)
...but this is simply asinine.
If you make your cat click an agreement, you are clicking the agreement. It's no different than putting on a pair of gloves and clicking the agreement. Do you honestly believe that the "It wasn't me, it was the gloves" defense would hold up in court?!
Yet another company taking the high road of suing their customers for profit!
"Bundling isn't the biggest reason IE users switched to IE, it was because IE4 was better than Netscape Navigator."
Damn straight. You'll get modded down for your comment about Ubuntu. But you're absolutely correct about IE. Does anyone here remember the first version of IE? It too was bundled with Windows but no one used it. How about version 2? Still crap. Version 3, interesting, but very buggy and still crap.
However, not only was version 4 of IE a major improvement, Netscape was resting on its laurels and Navigator bloated was going nowhere. By nearly any standard, IE 4 was better than what Netscape offered at the time.
However, like Netscape, Microsoft rested on its laurels and IE became a bloated mess.
I switched to Firefox (actually it was called Phoenix at the time) because it blocked pop-ups, it allowed you to temporarily block flash (with IE you either installed Flash or it harassed you for not installing it), and it allowed you to quickly resize fonts (you could resize fonts in IE after going through several menus and dialog boxes).
Certainly Firefox had other useful features, those were just my main three. To put it simply, when Microsoft stopped working on IE it stopped listening to users. So while the web was evolving anyone stuck using IE was stuck in the dark ages. To this day Firefox is listening and allows users to surf their own way.
"Although, frankly, right now my favorite browser is Google Chrome."
I also love Chrome, it seems so damn fast, but I'm still tied to the plug-ins offered by Firefox. When I use Chrome it seems like an amazing empty shell. I can't wait for someone to fill it up so it's more usable.
"I mean, Paint is bundled with Windows..."
And similarly people still buy Word even though Windows is bundled with WordPad.
I thought it read,
"Technology Review has an article about a snake-like robotic arm that could soon be used to treat injured soldiers as they die on the battlefield."
Seemed kinda pointless to me.
... I might be tempted to kill the person I thought did it. That does not mean I actually would. In fact, I certainly would not.
"Really, do you think that Ad companies want a sizable chunk of their audience to not watch television?"
Do you really think that the population of people who will actually be affected by the changeover should be considered "sizable." Minuscule, maybe. Tiny, probably. Small, possibly. "sizable".... er nope.
And when you consider the income those people earn, er, don't earn, I highly doubt any advertiser will give a rat's butt about them.
God, is it any wonder why Digg is kicking Slashdot's butt?! Keep this up and the mighty Slashdot will be nothing more than a niche site frequented by sticky men who proudly use pocket protectors.
Let's face it, the very worst thing that could happen if the delay does not occur is that some people won't be able to watch TV. That's it. Not being able to watch TV is in no way an emergency of any sort.
Way before TV, radio, film and even the internet, the most efficient means to distribute news was for each population area to have its own publisher of news print. Cities, towns, burroughs etc. all had their own news papers. Larger areas, such as states, did not. It was not efficient to print a newspaper and deliver it through out the entire state all on the same day.
However, things changed and soon publishers adapted and you could buy the New York times throughout the State and throughout the country. Theater owners started showing news reels, radio started giving out news, and so did TV stations. But newspapers survived all of those because newspapers offered more stories with more depth.
However, the internet has changed the efficiencies for news distribution. Nowadays the internet offers more depth and is updated immediately, plus it offers video and audio, and yet another plus, it offers up to the minute commentary. It's simply asinine for each city/population center to physically publish news on paper and then deliver those papers via gas burning trucks to individuals, to read news articles that were published the day before on the net.
The answer is not to shut down news on the net, it's to accept the fate that newsprint is dead.
... but if I were Obama, Michael Griffin would be so fricken canned.
Today, ebay announced that it obtained a patent on using warehouse-based analytics to increase parallel efficiency in server operations.
... how getting computer users to blindly click through continuous, repetitive, and annoying dialog boxes kept computers more secure in the first place. It would seem under any reasonable analysis to do the opposite.
Thanks, that was highly informative. Like an idiot, because it involved graphics, I ignorantly assumed it involved OpenGL.