It really does look like Comcast is generating these DMCA notices itself, which is just... bizarre. I'd laugh if they weren't completely without competition in so many markets, meaning for some people this sort of bullshit is effectively inescapable. I'm not a libertarian, but can we get a LITTLE help from the free market here, people?
Courts could help more than the free market. I'm not a lawyer, but I really don't think you can issue a DMCA takedown on behalf of another party. Seems to me that unless the content owner is involved, Comcast shouldn't have legal standing with regard to that.
And if you're big enough, wild fluctuations in the cash flow from one small segment of your business don't matter if the average is high enough over time.
Only if they have heavy cash reserves to absorb the fluctuation, and the segment is small relative to other pursuits. I don't think that was true for the old ownership. Also, they apparently built a rather successful subscription model, one of very few to do so. So it's not like they were hurting from the lessened ad revenue, really.
With the acquisition, of course, Murdoch does in fact have the cash and diversification to help balance fluctuations. He also has the ability to use MSJ as a loss-leader if he so chooses.
In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only. Security updates not being made available for XP anymore. (Look at how the support for Win2k went downhill once WinXP was released. For NT 4.0, they stopped giving patches before the official end-of-line) Believe me, it will happen, eventually. Give it another year or two. I didn't switch to WinXP before SP2 was very mature (Fall 2005). Before I was Win2k all the way, and before that NT 4.0....
But with each of those steps, it's taking longer and longer for MS to displace the incumbent OS. Also, it's important to distinguish between vendor support and MS support. MS has a vested interest in maintaining the upgrade chase; vendors have an interest in selling stuff to people. So as long as an OS has a strong established base, it will get vendor support.
It will take time. I'm guessing it will be about 8 years until it actually becomes difficult to get 3rd-party support for XP.
the companies who would like to see their ad in myspace would pale in comparison to the ones that would put their ads on wsj. if they had done it long ago, they would have dwarfed that $50 mil buck a month for long now.
This hasn't always been the case. Recall what happened to online ad rates 5 years ago. A steady subscription model can be quite preferable to wildly fluctuating internet ad rates. Kind of like how a CD making 5% can be better than junk bonds that might make 15%...or lose a ton.
Presumably the ad rates have risen enough to make the risk worth it. But I don't think this was simply incompetence on their part. I look forward to it, as I like reading the journal but am too cheap to subscribe.
Also knowing that, in theory at least, that money does get distributed to the artists.
Does it or not? The difference between theory and reality is that in reality, theory doesn't mean shit.
Having said that, it's a meager token, one that I happily pay as it allows our government to tell the **AA to take a flying leap on our behalf.
Since when does giving someone money tell them to take a flying leap?
I really don't have a problem with an artist getting paid a pittance when a copy of their work is made.
I'd have a probelm with any tax designed to reimburse a private entity for illegal actions I'm not committing.
Point being, this is not even remotely the same thing. Please refrain from throwing our government under the bus with that of the US;)
My point is, don't throw rocks from your glass house. The condescending crap from foreigners who evidently are bored enough to criticize the US gets old. Deal with your own problems, we don't need your 'advice.'
How can anyone in your country sit by and watch this sort of thing?
This isn't simply an American problem. This sort of private co-opting of government is a big problem, but it's not just *our* problem as Americans. You appear to be Canadian - your government saw fit some time ago to provide a subsidy to your recording associations for all blank media sold in your country. That's just one example. So please - we don't need the condescending bit, it's a problem pretty much everywhere.
or some kind of line about how Libya is in charge of the UN council on human rights, whatever that has to do with it.
Not to degrade into that selfsame flame war, but here's the explanation on that: There is no way in hell the US should be willing to cede control of something as important as the internet to any organization that would put Libya in charge of human rights. It would be akin to walking over and handing the keys to your Porsche to some guy staggering out of a bar. You'd be an idiot.
Unless my moral basics conincide with the law...:-) And you haven't shown that they don't.
I'd suggest actually reading some law rather than concluding that the law somehow mirrors your opinion. There is a wealth of established case law on this matter.
Regarding sequels: yes I can write a sequel to H.P., as long as I don't use the same names, which may be trademarked.
Then it's not a sequel, is it? Nor is it relevant to the current matter, since the proposed book does, in fact, use the names.
So while it is surely not possible to have Hairy Porter himself in such a sequel (except if it is clearly a parody),
Correct.
I may not be permitted to mention the name of the school or of the now-famous teachers, but there is no way anybody can prevent me from telling a story about a kid at a sorcerer-school...
Who ever said otherwise? You've provided a rebuttal to a strawman of your own creation.
(IANAL, so my information about and interpretation of copyright law may be wrong, but my moral basics tell me that this is the way it should be)
Unfortunately your 'moral basics' don't count for much in court.
So while it has been common courtesy to ask an author before you write novels set in his or her universe, it is not required by law.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong. This is why the estate of Margaret Mitchell allowed an authorized sequel to "Gone with the wind" near the end of the copyright period of the original book. They felt it was likely someone would do so after the copyright ended, and preferred it be authorized.
Put it this way - if it were legal at all for Potter sequels to be published, we'd be swimming in them. Which, incidentally, is the case in China, where copyright laws aren't generally enforced.
In general, wanting something to be law based on your own definition of morality doesn't work really well.
I think it is legitimate to ask how a person in their position can be so far gone that they see no practical difference between suing a single-mother-with-part time job into oblivion (and by extension, her children) and suing some fairly privileged college kid with no assets and no dependents.
See, that's the part I take issue with. While one could certainly (and easily) make the contention that the punishment for filesharing doesn't fit the crime, I do take issue with the general notion that if you can paint yourself as a martyr that you should get off. As they say, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Or put another way, equal protection under the law.
Not to mention which, college hasn't been simply for the priveleged for a long time. I know I wasn't rich when I was in school.
I do wonder, though, what process a human soul must go through to file lawsuits against single mom's and 80-yr old grandmothers (and the occasional dead person) and not even blink. RIAA lawyers must be getting paid a lot of money.
I think that's the point - in many of them, no human soul, brain, or eyes are doing so becuase they automate this stuff and don't do anything I'd call due diligence.
One thing I don't get - the whole 'single mom' thing gets a lot of play - but I don't see any reason why she'd get a pass where a 19-year-old kid wouldn't, *if* there's actually evidence she actually did what she was accused of. Probably still dumb to sue her though simply on PR grounds. I often wonder if their PR department hasn't been infiltrated by people whose goal is to bring down the organization from the inside. They're that bad.
Does bear shit in the woods? Isn't google almost the richest company in the world? Advertising is their #1 business. Of course its profitable. So much i cant even imagine how much.
Either that or Google is a multi-billion dollar money laundering scheme. You know, one or the other. =)
Heck, even the dimmest rural Chinese citizen knows well the failings of the system (probably from bitter personal experience).
That requires them to have a basis for comparison (ie, what it's like elsewhere). Additionally, not knowing all of the things happening to other people across the country also helps the establishment.
The Chinese have historically done a very good job of censorship. When I was an undergrad I worked in a research group that was 80% Chinese, including a number of visiting scholars who were educated entirely in China. A bunch of us started talking about our respective countries once, and Tienman (sp?) Square came up. One of the Chinese scholars had never heard of it, and didn't believe it could have possibly occurred (understandably). A few of us found some articles on it, which he read. He was visibly shaken as he realized the things his country did while lying to the people. So believe me, they're very good propagandists.
I really don't think this is a case of corruption, so much as one of protectionism.
If it weren't for the jail term and fine, I'd agree. Simple protectionism would be banning overseas gambling (which they try in vain to do). In my opinion, using the criminal justice system to effectively guarantee a monopoly for a private business is square in the 'corruption' category.
It's not overt corruption, unless of course some of the new MA casino money makes its way into the pockets of the governor.
I haven't done the research, but if I were into internet gambling I'd place a friendly wager with you. Namely that this casino group has made significant campaign donations to the sponsors of this bill, likely including the governor.;) That definitely counts as corruption in my book.
This is just another "think of the children" moment and will continue to inflame the debate over social networking services. There will be the chorus of "if you don't like it, don't use it" followed by "about time someone makes them clean up their act", concluded with "someone has to be held accountable".
Yep. Also, remember that many of the parents bitching are the same ones that will think nothing of dropping off their kids at the mall and leave them for 8 hours. This is another one of those 'fear of the unknown' things in which the actual risk incurred is probably far less than believed. Not that the kids shouldn't be supervised - but if parents are afraid of facebook, then there are a lot of things they should be far more scared of.
In a sudden outbreak of reason and common sense, a government has decided that its own people are not "the enemy"
The usual fallacious argument. I'm not a fan of the RIAA's *tactics*, but the fact that a whole lot of people break the law doesn't make it OK, and that seems to be the crux of your argument. Basically, people have found a way to get for free what they used to pay for. The fact that they have little chance of being caught have empowered people to break the law, but that's about it.
And please don't make a lame ass 'civil disobediance' arguement next. If you feel that strongly about it, don't listen to the RIAA's tripe *at all,* pirated or not.
While that is the right thing to do, why on earth would you tell your current employer where you are going next?
In this case, either A) a two-week paid vacation, or B) two weeks of double paychecks. Also the opportunity to twist the knife a bit as you jump ship to their biggest competitor (as of now).
I hadn't checked for a while, but GOOG's market cap is now 2/3s of MSFTs. No wonder they're getting cranky.
Yes, they would, because in the real world technical merits are not the only factor that can be used to determine the best product to support. In particular, Paramount has a risk cost associated with a switch to HD-DVD: at the time they decided to switch, it was Blu-ray that clearly had the commercial lead. If Paramount were to back HD-DVD, and HD-DVD were to flop, then they'd lose hundreds of millions in lost sales in the process.
So they made a risky decision, huh? They went with the format that was a market loser? Why? Money. There is no way in hell they would decide, on their own, to stop developing for the market-leading format, if money weren't the reason. These guys are making *movies*, not *players*. Doesn't matter to them which one is technically superior; if consumers don't have the 'better' player, they won't buy the movies for it. Market share is all that should matter to them; if they do anything else, it's about the money.
Both factors almost certainly contributed to Paramount's decision. There's little reason in switching if the sole reason is a large bribe. You also have to believe in the viability of the product to begin with.
No, it just establishes the necessary size of the bribe. To paraphrase, we've already determined Paramount is a whore. Now we're just haggling on price.
It's usual Slashbot paranoia that leads people to conclude that bribes are the only reason businesses make the decisions they make.
I didn't make that contention, should you care to actually read before the kneejerk. Hell, I'm not even saying there's anything *wrong* with making the decision based solely on the money. They are a business, after all. I'm simply pointing out that you have no evidence as to the role that any technical merit played into the decision, if at all. Your 'evidence' is an interview with a Paramount officer, who will *say* it's not about the money even if it is.
You can't back what you believe to be the superior product if there's a high risk it will flop, and no amount of bribery are going to persuade you to back a clearly inferior technology that has no other merits.
Like I said, technical merit isn't as big a deal as market share to a media company. Additionally, if there's effectively no clear distinction between them technically, money will go a long way to helping you make a decision. Particularly since there's no reason they couldn't just switch back if in fact HD-DVD does happen to go tits up. It's not like Paramount would ever go down with the HD-DVD ship.
Bottom line? It's the money. If it weren't about the money, they'd develop for both platforms. And it's not like there's anything wrong with taking the cash in any event.
Google came right out and said it will be up to carriers and device makers how much they want to lock the devices down. They hope that they won't lock them down, but they're not going to do anything to stop them.
I'll go out on a limb and guess that *doesn't* apply to Google's own apps.
Slashdot Mirror
It really does look like Comcast is generating these DMCA notices itself, which is just... bizarre. I'd laugh if they weren't completely without competition in so many markets, meaning for some people this sort of bullshit is effectively inescapable. I'm not a libertarian, but can we get a LITTLE help from the free market here, people?
Courts could help more than the free market. I'm not a lawyer, but I really don't think you can issue a DMCA takedown on behalf of another party. Seems to me that unless the content owner is involved, Comcast shouldn't have legal standing with regard to that.
And if you're big enough, wild fluctuations in the cash flow from one small segment of your business don't matter if the average is high enough over time.
Only if they have heavy cash reserves to absorb the fluctuation, and the segment is small relative to other pursuits. I don't think that was true for the old ownership. Also, they apparently built a rather successful subscription model, one of very few to do so. So it's not like they were hurting from the lessened ad revenue, really.
With the acquisition, of course, Murdoch does in fact have the cash and diversification to help balance fluctuations. He also has the ability to use MSJ as a loss-leader if he so chooses.
In the end Vista will be inevitable. Drivers not available anymore except for Vista, important programs that are Vista-only. Security updates not being made available for XP anymore. (Look at how the support for Win2k went downhill once WinXP was released. For NT 4.0, they stopped giving patches before the official end-of-line) Believe me, it will happen, eventually. Give it another year or two. I didn't switch to WinXP before SP2 was very mature (Fall 2005). Before I was Win2k all the way, and before that NT 4.0....
But with each of those steps, it's taking longer and longer for MS to displace the incumbent OS. Also, it's important to distinguish between vendor support and MS support. MS has a vested interest in maintaining the upgrade chase; vendors have an interest in selling stuff to people. So as long as an OS has a strong established base, it will get vendor support.
It will take time. I'm guessing it will be about 8 years until it actually becomes difficult to get 3rd-party support for XP.
the companies who would like to see their ad in myspace would pale in comparison to the ones that would put their ads on wsj. if they had done it long ago, they would have dwarfed that $50 mil buck a month for long now.
This hasn't always been the case. Recall what happened to online ad rates 5 years ago. A steady subscription model can be quite preferable to wildly fluctuating internet ad rates. Kind of like how a CD making 5% can be better than junk bonds that might make 15%...or lose a ton.
Presumably the ad rates have risen enough to make the risk worth it. But I don't think this was simply incompetence on their part. I look forward to it, as I like reading the journal but am too cheap to subscribe.
I can see this one being a Godwin-magnet
I don't know why you say that. What, are you the resident slashdot meme-fascist...
...SHIT!
Also knowing that, in theory at least, that money does get distributed to the artists.
Does it or not? The difference between theory and reality is that in reality, theory doesn't mean shit.
Having said that, it's a meager token, one that I happily pay as it allows our government to tell the **AA to take a flying leap on our behalf.
Since when does giving someone money tell them to take a flying leap?
I really don't have a problem with an artist getting paid a pittance when a copy of their work is made.
I'd have a probelm with any tax designed to reimburse a private entity for illegal actions I'm not committing.
Point being, this is not even remotely the same thing. Please refrain from throwing our government under the bus with that of the US ;)
My point is, don't throw rocks from your glass house. The condescending crap from foreigners who evidently are bored enough to criticize the US gets old. Deal with your own problems, we don't need your 'advice.'
How can anyone in your country sit by and watch this sort of thing?
This isn't simply an American problem. This sort of private co-opting of government is a big problem, but it's not just *our* problem as Americans. You appear to be Canadian - your government saw fit some time ago to provide a subsidy to your recording associations for all blank media sold in your country. That's just one example. So please - we don't need the condescending bit, it's a problem pretty much everywhere.
or some kind of line about how Libya is in charge of the UN council on human rights, whatever that has to do with it.
Not to degrade into that selfsame flame war, but here's the explanation on that: There is no way in hell the US should be willing to cede control of something as important as the internet to any organization that would put Libya in charge of human rights. It would be akin to walking over and handing the keys to your Porsche to some guy staggering out of a bar. You'd be an idiot.
Oh, and you forgot Syria on the security council.
Unless my moral basics conincide with the law... :-) And you haven't shown that they don't.
I'd suggest actually reading some law rather than concluding that the law somehow mirrors your opinion. There is a wealth of established case law on this matter.
Regarding sequels: yes I can write a sequel to H.P., as long as I don't use the same names, which may be trademarked.
Then it's not a sequel, is it? Nor is it relevant to the current matter, since the proposed book does, in fact, use the names.
So while it is surely not possible to have Hairy Porter himself in such a sequel (except if it is clearly a parody),
Correct.
I may not be permitted to mention the name of the school or of the now-famous teachers, but there is no way anybody can prevent me from telling a story about a kid at a sorcerer-school...
Who ever said otherwise? You've provided a rebuttal to a strawman of your own creation.
(IANAL, so my information about and interpretation of copyright law may be wrong, but my moral basics tell me that this is the way it should be)
Unfortunately your 'moral basics' don't count for much in court.
So while it has been common courtesy to ask an author before you write novels set in his or her universe, it is not required by law.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong. This is why the estate of Margaret Mitchell allowed an authorized sequel to "Gone with the wind" near the end of the copyright period of the original book. They felt it was likely someone would do so after the copyright ended, and preferred it be authorized.
Put it this way - if it were legal at all for Potter sequels to be published, we'd be swimming in them. Which, incidentally, is the case in China, where copyright laws aren't generally enforced.
In general, wanting something to be law based on your own definition of morality doesn't work really well.
Since lawyers are (nominally) human beings
See, there's where your premise breaks down. =)
I think it is legitimate to ask how a person in their position can be so far gone that they see no practical difference between suing a single-mother-with-part time job into oblivion (and by extension, her children) and suing some fairly privileged college kid with no assets and no dependents.
See, that's the part I take issue with. While one could certainly (and easily) make the contention that the punishment for filesharing doesn't fit the crime, I do take issue with the general notion that if you can paint yourself as a martyr that you should get off. As they say, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Or put another way, equal protection under the law.
Not to mention which, college hasn't been simply for the priveleged for a long time. I know I wasn't rich when I was in school.
I do wonder, though, what process a human soul must go through to file lawsuits against single mom's and 80-yr old grandmothers (and the occasional dead person) and not even blink. RIAA lawyers must be getting paid a lot of money.
I think that's the point - in many of them, no human soul, brain, or eyes are doing so becuase they automate this stuff and don't do anything I'd call due diligence.
One thing I don't get - the whole 'single mom' thing gets a lot of play - but I don't see any reason why she'd get a pass where a 19-year-old kid wouldn't, *if* there's actually evidence she actually did what she was accused of. Probably still dumb to sue her though simply on PR grounds. I often wonder if their PR department hasn't been infiltrated by people whose goal is to bring down the organization from the inside. They're that bad.
Yeah, but my IPhone has gotten me laid, can you say that about your blackberry?
I'm sure that blackberries can also be used to place calls to escort services.
Does bear shit in the woods? Isn't google almost the richest company in the world? Advertising is their #1 business. Of course its profitable. So much i cant even imagine how much.
Either that or Google is a multi-billion dollar money laundering scheme. You know, one or the other. =)
A bicycle has an engine?
Go on...go get your coffee and re-read in 20 minutes. ;)
Heck, even the dimmest rural Chinese citizen knows well the failings of the system (probably from bitter personal experience).
That requires them to have a basis for comparison (ie, what it's like elsewhere). Additionally, not knowing all of the things happening to other people across the country also helps the establishment.
The Chinese have historically done a very good job of censorship. When I was an undergrad I worked in a research group that was 80% Chinese, including a number of visiting scholars who were educated entirely in China. A bunch of us started talking about our respective countries once, and Tienman (sp?) Square came up. One of the Chinese scholars had never heard of it, and didn't believe it could have possibly occurred (understandably). A few of us found some articles on it, which he read. He was visibly shaken as he realized the things his country did while lying to the people. So believe me, they're very good propagandists.
Is that a polite way of saying "you're going to hell?"
I said PR, not marketing. ;)
I really don't think this is a case of corruption, so much as one of protectionism.
If it weren't for the jail term and fine, I'd agree. Simple protectionism would be banning overseas gambling (which they try in vain to do). In my opinion, using the criminal justice system to effectively guarantee a monopoly for a private business is square in the 'corruption' category.
It's not overt corruption, unless of course some of the new MA casino money makes its way into the pockets of the governor.
I haven't done the research, but if I were into internet gambling I'd place a friendly wager with you. Namely that this casino group has made significant campaign donations to the sponsors of this bill, likely including the governor. ;) That definitely counts as corruption in my book.
Don't be so damn cynical! Obviously Northeastern just wants to play fair by moving the disupute to a neutral venue.
You, sir, have a future in PR.
well at least not for any judge in texas... wait northeastern is in ma, google is in ca, why is this case in texas?
That particular court is renowned (notorious?) for being very patent-troll-friendly. Another case of jurisdiction shopping.
This is just another "think of the children" moment and will continue to inflame the debate over social networking services. There will be the chorus of "if you don't like it, don't use it" followed by "about time someone makes them clean up their act", concluded with "someone has to be held accountable".
Yep. Also, remember that many of the parents bitching are the same ones that will think nothing of dropping off their kids at the mall and leave them for 8 hours. This is another one of those 'fear of the unknown' things in which the actual risk incurred is probably far less than believed. Not that the kids shouldn't be supervised - but if parents are afraid of facebook, then there are a lot of things they should be far more scared of.
In a sudden outbreak of reason and common sense, a government has decided that its own people are not "the enemy"
The usual fallacious argument. I'm not a fan of the RIAA's *tactics*, but the fact that a whole lot of people break the law doesn't make it OK, and that seems to be the crux of your argument. Basically, people have found a way to get for free what they used to pay for. The fact that they have little chance of being caught have empowered people to break the law, but that's about it.
And please don't make a lame ass 'civil disobediance' arguement next. If you feel that strongly about it, don't listen to the RIAA's tripe *at all,* pirated or not.
While that is the right thing to do, why on earth would you tell your current employer where you are going next?
In this case, either A) a two-week paid vacation, or B) two weeks of double paychecks. Also the opportunity to twist the knife a bit as you jump ship to their biggest competitor (as of now).
I hadn't checked for a while, but GOOG's market cap is now 2/3s of MSFTs. No wonder they're getting cranky.
Yes, they would, because in the real world technical merits are not the only factor that can be used to determine the best product to support. In particular, Paramount has a risk cost associated with a switch to HD-DVD: at the time they decided to switch, it was Blu-ray that clearly had the commercial lead. If Paramount were to back HD-DVD, and HD-DVD were to flop, then they'd lose hundreds of millions in lost sales in the process.
So they made a risky decision, huh? They went with the format that was a market loser? Why? Money. There is no way in hell they would decide, on their own, to stop developing for the market-leading format, if money weren't the reason. These guys are making *movies*, not *players*. Doesn't matter to them which one is technically superior; if consumers don't have the 'better' player, they won't buy the movies for it. Market share is all that should matter to them; if they do anything else, it's about the money.
Both factors almost certainly contributed to Paramount's decision. There's little reason in switching if the sole reason is a large bribe. You also have to believe in the viability of the product to begin with.
No, it just establishes the necessary size of the bribe. To paraphrase, we've already determined Paramount is a whore. Now we're just haggling on price.
It's usual Slashbot paranoia that leads people to conclude that bribes are the only reason businesses make the decisions they make.
I didn't make that contention, should you care to actually read before the kneejerk. Hell, I'm not even saying there's anything *wrong* with making the decision based solely on the money. They are a business, after all. I'm simply pointing out that you have no evidence as to the role that any technical merit played into the decision, if at all. Your 'evidence' is an interview with a Paramount officer, who will *say* it's not about the money even if it is.
You can't back what you believe to be the superior product if there's a high risk it will flop, and no amount of bribery are going to persuade you to back a clearly inferior technology that has no other merits.
Like I said, technical merit isn't as big a deal as market share to a media company. Additionally, if there's effectively no clear distinction between them technically, money will go a long way to helping you make a decision. Particularly since there's no reason they couldn't just switch back if in fact HD-DVD does happen to go tits up. It's not like Paramount would ever go down with the HD-DVD ship.
Bottom line? It's the money. If it weren't about the money, they'd develop for both platforms. And it's not like there's anything wrong with taking the cash in any event.
Google came right out and said it will be up to carriers and device makers how much they want to lock the devices down. They hope that they won't lock them down, but they're not going to do anything to stop them.
I'll go out on a limb and guess that *doesn't* apply to Google's own apps.