The comments on Michael Geist's blog indicate that the polling went rather like you expected.
Interestingly, just prior to the release of the survey, one of the people who was called over the weekend (the survey was conducted July 9 - 12th) contacted me to report:
I took a Harris-Decima phone poll over the weekend and their questions about traffic shaping could be roughly summed up as "Did you know that your neighbour's movie downloading is slowing down your Internet?".
Card is missing the point here. This isn't about reuse. Rowling certainly doesn't have problems with reuse... How many HP companion/related type books are there out there?
So obviously there's something going on in this case that's different than the others. This is even more obvious when you consider that Rowling was quite happy to have the text in question available on the Internet.
It's that there's a possibility that the Lexicon may use far too much of the original text to be considered an original work for publishing purposes. Apparently Rowling considers this to be the case.
So it comes down to the old, "it's all right with me if it's up for free, but when you want to start charging for it, I'm going to have to come down on you."
You may be joking, but there appears to have been a considerable amount of concern about this when SUP first got involved with LJ -- Alexander Mamut, one of SUP's main investors (or possibly its owner -- I've seen both descriptions in articles), apparently has some ties to Putin. Brad had tried to assuage fears about it at the time, but I unfortunately don't really know how the situation stands on the Russian side after those initial reactions.
As a longtime LJ user, I'm encouraged that Brad's still optimistic about SUP today, and I don't think Six Apart ever really knew exactly what to make of LJ, but I'm still having a hard time getting over a vaguely uneasy feeling about the whole thing.
I believe one of the main reasons the lawsuit exists is that Rowling has stated her intention to put out a HP encyclopedia. And from what I've read in various places, it sounds like the owner of the HP Lexicon site felt slighted by that announcement (as he had been hoping to be included in any official encyclopedia), and decided to put out his own book. Thus prompting the lawsuit.
It's worth pointing out though that if you want to go the skilled worker route, you've pretty much got to start applying NOW to be able to get in by election time.
This was when the band was still on contract to Warner/Elektra/etc. They've since fulfilled that, and since then all their statements have been essentially the opposite.
The press release names Steven Page (the other lead singer of BNL) as the contact, so I think this is actually their baby.
It's actually more columnist goes overboard and puts words in someone's mouth.
From the guy himself (with typical sarcasm): All right, now I have to jump in and set the record straight. EW is a fine rag, but they do take things out of context. Obviously when I said I had 'closure', what I meant was "I hate Serenity, I hated Firefly, I think my fans are stupid and Nathan Fillion smells like turnips." But EW's always got to put some weird negative spin on it. But so we're clear once and for all: If you read a quote saying "I'd love to do more in this 'verse with these actors in any medium" all I'm saying is that Nathan has a turnipy odor. It's not his fault, he doesn't eat a lot of them but everyone else in the cast noticed it and tht's not really something I'm prepared to deal with any more. And Jewel said outright she wouldn't do scenes with him except stuff like the SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER funeral scene which was outside in a high SPOILER wind. So if I do manage to find another incarnation for my beloved creation, it will have been totally against my will.
I hope that clears everything up. Oh, and when I say I want to do a Spike movie, it means I have a bunion on my toe.
If you want something more verifiably him, I posted a couple of quotes from newspaper interviews a couple of hours ago and quite a bit farther down the page.
This is a fairly misleading headline/summary/article stub. In (numerous) interviews over the past week or so, Joss says in most of them that any future Firefly/Serenity-age would depend on the DVD sales being particularly big.
"It would depend on huge numbers from the DVD," writer/director Whedon allows. "Obviously, we are still shy of making our money back from the box office. But we are within shouting distance. Still, it would have to blow up pretty huge for a sequel to be called for.
"Mind you, stranger things have happened. And they do seem to happen to me. So it's not like I'm shutting the door." -- Toronto Star interview
"The, um, the movie is finished. And the story is told. The world is not finished. There's more to tell, but that's always the case with everything I do and whether I get the chance to tell [it] or not it is up to somebody else. So I made sure that this movie had completion and didn't feel like a glorified prequel. It's its own piece and it wraps everything up. I have a sense of closure that I never had, and I can walk away satisfied. But if somebody tells me not to walk away, I'll turn right back around." -- Comcast Movies interview
This EW article seems to take the stance that since Whedon is working on projects other than Firefly/Serenity and is taking a realistic view towards their finances, he clearly has abandoned them, despite the fact that his other projects have been in the pipe for some time.
More pedantically detailed:
$13.99 - Barenaked for the Holidays CD on Amazon - (Not BNL's new CD, by the way. It's been out for over a year.)
$14.99 - Show from last year's holiday tour in FLAC format (songs may vary from tracks on USB stick, but you also get quite a bit more live stuff)
----
Total = $28.98, with perfect audio quality, and a few extra live songs
So, for a dollar, you get a USB stick, a couple of extra songs, fewer live songs, some video, and an unspecified cut in audio quality (likely negligible to most). (Source: Packaging.)
The stick's not necessarily interesting for fans who have most of this stuff already or for audiophiles, but it's good if you'd be somewhat interested in the album and also want a USB stick. <shrug>
Re:If I had a million dollars...
on
Barenaked USB Drive
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The summary is actually wrong -- this isn't a new album. It's been out on CD for over a year. The concert recordings are likely from last year's holiday tour, which has been available in mp3, FLAC, or on CD, basically since the shows happened.
So, you can get most of the music, but it'd cost ~$30, and you don't get the extra stuff or a USB stick out of the deal. (Buying on your own though, you get a CD and a full show in perfect quality, so I guess it's a tossup which you prefer.)
Well, I certainly wasn't expecting to see this pop up on Slashdot... I had actually downloaded this a couple of days ago since I already love the band's other two albums, but this isn't a massively new idea. I certainly won't begrudge them the publicity though.
But for those of you who'd like a geek tie-in, I've been poking through the websites of one of the band members and come across some interesting commentary about getting things set up on the technical side, from choosing a webserver to making sure the files are tagged properly.
Well, there's going to be at least one getting worked on over the summer.
I think it's a good idea in general.... there are still a lot of people who don't understand how to use BT, and if an in-browser client is implemented well, they may not understand the technology any better, but they'd be able to use it.
I don't remember anything like that mentioned at the Austin screening (which was where he was last week), but I may be misremembering.
In any case, he *did* say something along the lines of "The TV show is over. We have the movie now."
It was fairly obvious from everything else related said that Joss has no love for Fox, and I have a feeling that even if they offered the show back at this point, he wouldn't take it, since that's kind of how their mistreatment of the show began -- they got him for a show because he was hot, and Fox wanted him to do *something*, and they (obviously) had no idea what to do with what they got. It sounds like he's had such free rein at Universal and they actually seem to appreciate what they've got (whether they see it as $$$ or genuinely like it on its own merits) that probably the idea of throwing the characters back to Fox to be badly micromanaged is painful.
It's actually a bit more impressive than that even as far as the DVD sales go.
One of the fansites has an Amazon tracker. From it, we get:
-- The show sold out of preorders on Amazon in three days in July 2003, never falling out of the top ten the whole time.
-- When it came available again in September, it went straight to number 1.
-- Excepting two days, it didn't fall out of the top 100 through the next July.
-- It's never been below 400 in the rankings.
Slashdot Mirror
Er... I think it's more surprise that that a Lego User Group exists, rather than surprise that people in Hong Kong have heard of Lego.
But that is the logo for the lander though...
Card is missing the point here. This isn't about reuse. Rowling certainly doesn't have problems with reuse... How many HP companion/related type books are there out there?
So obviously there's something going on in this case that's different than the others. This is even more obvious when you consider that Rowling was quite happy to have the text in question available on the Internet.
It's that there's a possibility that the Lexicon may use far too much of the original text to be considered an original work for publishing purposes. Apparently Rowling considers this to be the case.
So it comes down to the old, "it's all right with me if it's up for free, but when you want to start charging for it, I'm going to have to come down on you."
Or you can just click "continue" and it'll let you go on. The browser check is dumb, but it doesn't actually lock anyone out.
Gears is available for Linux too.
You may be joking, but there appears to have been a considerable amount of concern about this when SUP first got involved with LJ -- Alexander Mamut, one of SUP's main investors (or possibly its owner -- I've seen both descriptions in articles), apparently has some ties to Putin. Brad had tried to assuage fears about it at the time, but I unfortunately don't really know how the situation stands on the Russian side after those initial reactions.
As a longtime LJ user, I'm encouraged that Brad's still optimistic about SUP today, and I don't think Six Apart ever really knew exactly what to make of LJ, but I'm still having a hard time getting over a vaguely uneasy feeling about the whole thing.
I believe one of the main reasons the lawsuit exists is that Rowling has stated her intention to put out a HP encyclopedia. And from what I've read in various places, it sounds like the owner of the HP Lexicon site felt slighted by that announcement (as he had been hoping to be included in any official encyclopedia), and decided to put out his own book. Thus prompting the lawsuit.
Um, care to read the article you linked? That exchange never happened.
They're even worse than that -- they seem to be buddy-buddy with a lot of hard right wing Christian dominionist type groups. The same community has a bit of peeking through records in an attempt to get some info about the site's servers (and thus location), but it looks like all they came up with is that they're hosted through GoDaddy.
It's worth pointing out though that if you want to go the skilled worker route, you've pretty much got to start applying NOW to be able to get in by election time.
According to Lessig's blog, John Edwards has also written a letter supporting this idea.
This was when the band was still on contract to Warner/Elektra/etc. They've since fulfilled that, and since then all their statements have been essentially the opposite.
The press release names Steven Page (the other lead singer of BNL) as the contact, so I think this is actually their baby.
It's actually more columnist goes overboard and puts words in someone's mouth.
From the guy himself (with typical sarcasm):
All right, now I have to jump in and set the record straight. EW is a fine rag, but they do take things out of context. Obviously when I said I had 'closure', what I meant was "I hate Serenity, I hated Firefly, I think my fans are stupid and Nathan Fillion smells like turnips." But EW's always got to put some weird negative spin on it. But so we're clear once and for all: If you read a quote saying "I'd love to do more in this 'verse with these actors in any medium" all I'm saying is that Nathan has a turnipy odor. It's not his fault, he doesn't eat a lot of them but everyone else in the cast noticed it and tht's not really something I'm prepared to deal with any more. And Jewel said outright she wouldn't do scenes with him except stuff like the SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER funeral scene which was outside in a high SPOILER wind. So if I do manage to find another incarnation for my beloved creation, it will have been totally against my will.
I hope that clears everything up. Oh, and when I say I want to do a Spike movie, it means I have a bunion on my toe.
-joss (by which I mean Tim)
(no, actually me.)
@whedonesque
If you want something more verifiably him, I posted a couple of quotes from newspaper interviews a couple of hours ago and quite a bit farther down the page.
This is a fairly misleading headline/summary/article stub. In (numerous) interviews over the past week or so, Joss says in most of them that any future Firefly/Serenity-age would depend on the DVD sales being particularly big.
"It would depend on huge numbers from the DVD," writer/director Whedon allows. "Obviously, we are still shy of making our money back from the box office. But we are within shouting distance. Still, it would have to blow up pretty huge for a sequel to be called for.
"Mind you, stranger things have happened. And they do seem to happen to me. So it's not like I'm shutting the door." -- Toronto Star interview
"The, um, the movie is finished. And the story is told. The world is not finished. There's more to tell, but that's always the case with everything I do and whether I get the chance to tell [it] or not it is up to somebody else. So I made sure that this movie had completion and didn't feel like a glorified prequel. It's its own piece and it wraps everything up. I have a sense of closure that I never had, and I can walk away satisfied. But if somebody tells me not to walk away, I'll turn right back around." -- Comcast Movies interview
This EW article seems to take the stance that since Whedon is working on projects other than Firefly/Serenity and is taking a realistic view towards their finances, he clearly has abandoned them, despite the fact that his other projects have been in the pipe for some time.
More pedantically detailed:
$13.99 - Barenaked for the Holidays CD on Amazon - (Not BNL's new CD, by the way. It's been out for over a year.)
$14.99 - Show from last year's holiday tour in FLAC format (songs may vary from tracks on USB stick, but you also get quite a bit more live stuff)
----
Total = $28.98, with perfect audio quality, and a few extra live songs
So, for a dollar, you get a USB stick, a couple of extra songs, fewer live songs, some video, and an unspecified cut in audio quality (likely negligible to most). (Source: Packaging.)
The stick's not necessarily interesting for fans who have most of this stuff already or for audiophiles, but it's good if you'd be somewhat interested in the album and also want a USB stick. <shrug>
The summary is actually wrong -- this isn't a new album. It's been out on CD for over a year. The concert recordings are likely from last year's holiday tour, which has been available in mp3, FLAC, or on CD, basically since the shows happened.
So, you can get most of the music, but it'd cost ~$30, and you don't get the extra stuff or a USB stick out of the deal. (Buying on your own though, you get a CD and a full show in perfect quality, so I guess it's a tossup which you prefer.)
They do have the album artwork on the USB stick. :)
This album's self-distributed. I'm pretty sure they'll be happy to take your money in any way you'd like to give it to them.
Well, I certainly wasn't expecting to see this pop up on Slashdot... I had actually downloaded this a couple of days ago since I already love the band's other two albums, but this isn't a massively new idea. I certainly won't begrudge them the publicity though.
But for those of you who'd like a geek tie-in, I've been poking through the websites of one of the band members and come across some interesting commentary about getting things set up on the technical side, from choosing a webserver to making sure the files are tagged properly.
Well, there's going to be at least one getting worked on over the summer.
I think it's a good idea in general.... there are still a lot of people who don't understand how to use BT, and if an in-browser client is implemented well, they may not understand the technology any better, but they'd be able to use it.
I don't remember anything like that mentioned at the Austin screening (which was where he was last week), but I may be misremembering.
In any case, he *did* say something along the lines of "The TV show is over. We have the movie now."
It was fairly obvious from everything else related said that Joss has no love for Fox, and I have a feeling that even if they offered the show back at this point, he wouldn't take it, since that's kind of how their mistreatment of the show began -- they got him for a show because he was hot, and Fox wanted him to do *something*, and they (obviously) had no idea what to do with what they got. It sounds like he's had such free rein at Universal and they actually seem to appreciate what they've got (whether they see it as $$$ or genuinely like it on its own merits) that probably the idea of throwing the characters back to Fox to be badly micromanaged is painful.
It's actually a bit more impressive than that even as far as the DVD sales go.
One of the fansites has an Amazon tracker. From it, we get:
-- The show sold out of preorders on Amazon in three days in July 2003, never falling out of the top ten the whole time.
-- When it came available again in September, it went straight to number 1.
-- Excepting two days, it didn't fall out of the top 100 through the next July.
-- It's never been below 400 in the rankings.
Not bad for a show which only got half a season.
Firefly isn't trying to be 'intelligent', if by intelligent you actually mean 'philosophical'.
Buh? What about Objects in Space (aka "Joss Whedon Presents Existentialism On Ice")?
Other than that though, I do agree with you.
That's what I'm wondering... there are still hundreds of thousands of ballots (in Ohio and other semi-close states) that haven't been counted yet.
It's certainly classy to not want to drag us through recounts, but we haven't even finished the count itself!