They kept winning every lawsuit. But eventually the legal bills bankrupted them and they folded up shop. TiVo survived only because they cozied up to the networks and avoided lawsuits. That's why features like 30 second skip are hidden behind undocumented codes, so as to avoid legal hassle. None of it founded, but all of it costly.
Percent increases really aren't the right way to report gains after 100%... too many folks are confused. A 100% increase is a 2x gain, 1000% is a 11x gain, 4000% is a 41x gain.
That's damn impressive. Given that the marginal cost is 30%, this translates to a 41x sales increase at 1/10 the price. That's a 4x increase in revenue. Not a bad experiment... real test is to see if it holds form for a few weeks.
Most reporters aren't that smart. They aren't that clever. They can write well. But critical thinking skills are sorely lacking, but they have total confidence in their ability to examine an issue for minutes and understand just as well as experts who have studied the issue for years. They don't.
Reporters are uniformly wrong in every story they write, I would guess 99% of newspaper stories contain at least one factual error of significance. The quotes are cherry picked to pick the pre-defined narrative determined by the writer within 5 minutes of crossing the story. There is no reflection, no reexamination. And given the general lack of critical thinking ability, the problem only escalates. They use the power of the pen & their strong writing ability to distort reality to fit their own biases.
They are so often wrong, so many concerned with being first instead of write, and writing for their peers instead of the public. Of course, there are many good writers. But in print (and in many blogs), what passes for "journalism" is simply pasting together a few quotes and sprinkling in some analysis that exists solely in the writer's imagination. That two writers get into a pissing contest about who reprinted a press release faster tells you all you need to know.
The web has exacerbated the issue, not so much because of the short attention span of the readers but because of the false belief of formerly reliable news outlets that every item of news must be updated every second.
There is STILL great investigative journalism, maybe as much as ever. But the middle ground-- small investigative pieces, solidly researched news stories-- seem all but gone.
You just proved her point! Right there, you just used one of these so-called "exceptions" in such a way as to WHOLLY destroy the value of the publication. By printing MULTIPLE sentences from the publication WITHOUT PERMISSION you have greatly harmed the PROPRIETARY RIGHTS of the ABA. Just imagine how many Techdirt readers will now decline to make their regular purchase of Landslide by instead relying on your rewriting (hot news anyone?) of the interview.
Remember, Maria Pallante's job isn't to serve the public, her job is to serve the content industry first and citizens maybe later.
"It is my strong view that exceptions and limitations are just that -- they are important but they must be applied narrowly so as not to harm the proprietary rights of the songwriter, book author, or artist. Copyright is for the author first and the nation second."
At $5, I'd buy the book in case I decided to read it. At $15, I'll only buy the book after a strong if I'm certain I'm about to start reading it.
My guess is there are 3 times as many people in the first group as the second. The sooner the publishers realize the folly of their pricing, the sooner their profits will increase.
Long for the days when every Techdirt post was one paragraph? FFS, I don't have time to read & form my own opinion, that's what I used The Masnick for!
Step 1. Make great music
Step 2. Find an audience & give fans a reason to buy
Step 3. Profit
-------------
If the musician isn't profiting, it's not because of internet piracy. My money is on either crappy music or failure to find an audience. Fact is, it's easier than ever to create great music, no longer do you have to win the backing of gatekeepers to churn out studio-quality albums. Never been easier to find an audience. There is absolutely no questioning those 2 claims.
The old reason to buy was "it's the only way to listen to the music you want when you want." OK, that's out the window. No law is going to change that, as the law is routinely ignored because real people recognize that copying is not stealing, and routinely ignoring the law. Dozens of times a day for the average citizen. Laws don't change ingrained societal behavior, and the musicians decrying the new state of the music industry need to realize that.
So provide your fans a better reason to buy besides "I'll sue you if you don't."
The venture is more interesting than the advice here
It is innovative & new. Maybe it will succeed. Maybe it won't. So I'd rather see an outlet try something new and either succeed or fail, thus providing insight into that model. But the advice here is to forget about trying something new, and instead rely on practice that has been industry standard for more than a century. Sponsored journalism sounds great, but that's nothing new either.
For a site always promoting new ideas and innovative business models, it's a bit surprising and disappointing to see Techdirt instead recommending that the business abandon much of what is making them innovative (selling content to readers) and relying on tired models that have been stretched too far (selling readers to advertisers).
The fucktarded part of this whole mess is that the staturory damages are wholly out of line with reality. By all means, Maisel should be able to sue for damages, even treble damages with lawyer fees awarded. With total sales in the thousands and less than 10% of that attributable to the photo, a payment in mid hundreds would seem quite reasonable.
But no, we’ve allowed Mickey Mouse corporations to extend copyright assignments to last decades and sometimes centuries instead of 14 years. We’ve allowed them to set statutory damages at such an obscenely high level that whole business models are now built around suing for infringing registered works where the underlying works never had commercial value even approaching 1/10 that assigned by the inane copyright regime. We’ve allowed and encouraged industry cartels to band together to sue citizens for tens of thousands of dollars for listening to a $1 song without jumping through the right hoops.
We’ve allowed the corporatists to squeeze the life out of artists such that commercial productions will refuse to quote 20 words of song lyrics in a 20,000 word book without obtaining proper clearances. We’ve allowed whole genres of art to be destroyed, as rap artists and music mashers can no longer create without begging for permission first to modify music in the same way as has been done for millenniums. We’ve gone lifetimes without a single work of art entering the public domain, instead allowing 4th generation descendents to distort their great grandparents work by schilling great works to the Disney or the other high bidder such that these layabouts can profit off the work that belongs to all of society.
And the photogs supporting these laws are the most fucktarded of all, because if they don’t realize that we’re the next target for “permission based” copyright maximalists, then you haven’t been paying attention.
I hope their employees read this. Nothing demonstrates how supremely out of touch the MPAA & the studio executives are than this sentence, "Instead, the studios believe Google's real agenda was protecting revenue from advertising on illegal sites."
Yes, that's what this was all about. Adsense on illegal sites. Adsense to start is what, 10-30% of Google revenue? That includes most major web outlets. I can't imagine that even on the high end more than 1% of ads are on sites that the MPAA would deem "rogue." Maybe 1/10 of those are actual rogue sites dedicated to piracy. So 0.1% of Google revenue, at best, is from pirate sites.
So stay out of touch with reality MPAA. Live in denial, convince yourselves it was a single company manipulating the entire internet into supporting wholesome legislation, with only the valiant MPAA fighting the hordes of Google Zombies in order to preserve Hollywood, nay, society itself from being destroyed by the Evil Masterminds at Google. Sounds like a plot from...
Wait a second! It all makes sense now. The whole self-serving narrative that the MPAA has constructed is as transparent as a Hollywood storyline. And just as fantastical. That's why they're so into it, they think they're actors in their own adventure. My goodness, it's worse than I thought!
But it needs to be better written than the Dodd petition, which was broad and imprecise. A petition that calls out the specific instances of his lying, misuse of language, operating as the enforcement wing of the MPAA/RIAA and so on. But using neutral tone, unemotional. 100% factual.
Another horse that's past due and time to be put out to pasture. Feinstein is another one. These folks long ago stopped representing citizens, forgot that people vote for them, and measured their success by dollars raised. Corporate pawns just about right.
Mind you, on classic right/left issues, the Leahy's & Feinsteins will vote so as to coincide with those little checkboxes on the candidate position things. But if it's not a left-right issue, if it's below the radar, then they have shown time & again that their vote is simply for sale to the highest bidder.
Shameful. Mostly its cognitive dissonance, but there's also some true greed in there as well. Washington is broken because of this at-any-cost attitude & only I can fix it. Which I'll do at any cost!
"Maybe next time, actually learn what you're talking about, Bill."
That would be a first for Maher!
While Jon "Stewart" is well known for devouring the books of his guests that appear on his program (which distinguishes from real journalists), ignorance & gut has always been at the core of Maher's persona.
Such a big story it merited 2 minutes on the news!
Watched NBC Nightly News. 2 minute segment about the blackout. All about how the bill aims to stop $135 Billion of piracy in the US each year, although opponents claim this could "somehow" lead to censorship. Absolutely no discussion of what the bill actually does.
Is the mainstream media biased? You betchya! Not sure I'd blame the corporate bias (#2) or the conflict bias (#3) and definitely not the liberal bias (#4). Nope, I'm going to go with the bias towards laziness, as it appeared the news segment producer couldn't bother spending the couple hours it would have taken to learn about the issue before ill informing millions.
On the post: EMI Kills Off More Innovation: MP3Tunes Declares Bankruptcy Due To 'Withering' Legal Costs
See also ReplayTV
On the post: Homeland Security Admits That TSA Scanners Have 'Vulnerabilities'
One Paragraph!
On the post: Paulo Coelho Ebook Sales Jump Way Up Thanks To $0.99 Sale
Just a reminder...
That's damn impressive. Given that the marginal cost is 30%, this translates to a 41x sales increase at 1/10 the price. That's a 4x increase in revenue. Not a bad experiment... real test is to see if it holds form for a few weeks.
On the post: Pointless Journalist Fight: Who Gets Credit For Tweeting A Story First?
*dons flame-resistant suit*
Most reporters aren't that smart. They aren't that clever. They can write well. But critical thinking skills are sorely lacking, but they have total confidence in their ability to examine an issue for minutes and understand just as well as experts who have studied the issue for years. They don't.
Reporters are uniformly wrong in every story they write, I would guess 99% of newspaper stories contain at least one factual error of significance. The quotes are cherry picked to pick the pre-defined narrative determined by the writer within 5 minutes of crossing the story. There is no reflection, no reexamination. And given the general lack of critical thinking ability, the problem only escalates. They use the power of the pen & their strong writing ability to distort reality to fit their own biases.
They are so often wrong, so many concerned with being first instead of write, and writing for their peers instead of the public. Of course, there are many good writers. But in print (and in many blogs), what passes for "journalism" is simply pasting together a few quotes and sprinkling in some analysis that exists solely in the writer's imagination. That two writers get into a pissing contest about who reprinted a press release faster tells you all you need to know.
The web has exacerbated the issue, not so much because of the short attention span of the readers but because of the false belief of formerly reliable news outlets that every item of news must be updated every second.
There is STILL great investigative journalism, maybe as much as ever. But the middle ground-- small investigative pieces, solidly researched news stories-- seem all but gone.
On the post: Jakerome's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem.
On the post: How Can You Be Register Of Copyrights If You Don't Even Understand Copyright's Most Basic Purpose?
And boom!
Remember, Maria Pallante's job isn't to serve the public, her job is to serve the content industry first and citizens maybe later.
"It is my strong view that exceptions and limitations are just that -- they are important but they must be applied narrowly so as not to harm the proprietary rights of the songwriter, book author, or artist. Copyright is for the author first and the nation second."
On the post: Copyfraud: Techdirt Book Club Selection For April
At $5, I'd buy the book in case I decided to read it. At $15, I'll only buy the book after a strong if I'm certain I'm about to start reading it.
My guess is there are 3 times as many people in the first group as the second. The sooner the publishers realize the folly of their pricing, the sooner their profits will increase.
On the post: Harper's Publisher Presents The Platonic Ideal Specimen Of The 'I'm An Old Fogey Elitist Anti-Internet Luddite' Columns
Re: Re: Does anybody else...
On the post: Harper's Publisher Presents The Platonic Ideal Specimen Of The 'I'm An Old Fogey Elitist Anti-Internet Luddite' Columns
Does anybody else...
On the post: Guess What? Copying Still Isn't Stealing
Step 2?
Step 2. Find an audience & give fans a reason to buy
Step 3. Profit
-------------
If the musician isn't profiting, it's not because of internet piracy. My money is on either crappy music or failure to find an audience. Fact is, it's easier than ever to create great music, no longer do you have to win the backing of gatekeepers to churn out studio-quality albums. Never been easier to find an audience. There is absolutely no questioning those 2 claims.
The old reason to buy was "it's the only way to listen to the music you want when you want." OK, that's out the window. No law is going to change that, as the law is routinely ignored because real people recognize that copying is not stealing, and routinely ignoring the law. Dozens of times a day for the average citizen. Laws don't change ingrained societal behavior, and the musicians decrying the new state of the music industry need to realize that.
So provide your fans a better reason to buy besides "I'll sue you if you don't."
On the post: Will 'Matter' Matter? Startup Proposes New Model For Long-Form Journalism
The venture is more interesting than the advice here
For a site always promoting new ideas and innovative business models, it's a bit surprising and disappointing to see Techdirt instead recommending that the business abandon much of what is making them innovative (selling content to readers) and relying on tired models that have been stretched too far (selling readers to advertisers).
On the post: The SOPA/PIPA Protests Were Not Pro-Piracy... They Were Anti-Crony Capitalism
Mr. Masnick, go to Washington!
On the post: UK Court Says You Can Copyright The Basic Idea Of A Photograph
Photographers are the next target
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110625/01030814852/if-jay-maisels-photograph-is-original- artwork-then-so-is-pixelated-cover-kind-bloop.shtml#c68
----------------------------------
The fucktarded part of this whole mess is that the staturory damages are wholly out of line with reality. By all means, Maisel should be able to sue for damages, even treble damages with lawyer fees awarded. With total sales in the thousands and less than 10% of that attributable to the photo, a payment in mid hundreds would seem quite reasonable.
But no, we’ve allowed Mickey Mouse corporations to extend copyright assignments to last decades and sometimes centuries instead of 14 years. We’ve allowed them to set statutory damages at such an obscenely high level that whole business models are now built around suing for infringing registered works where the underlying works never had commercial value even approaching 1/10 that assigned by the inane copyright regime. We’ve allowed and encouraged industry cartels to band together to sue citizens for tens of thousands of dollars for listening to a $1 song without jumping through the right hoops.
We’ve allowed the corporatists to squeeze the life out of artists such that commercial productions will refuse to quote 20 words of song lyrics in a 20,000 word book without obtaining proper clearances. We’ve allowed whole genres of art to be destroyed, as rap artists and music mashers can no longer create without begging for permission first to modify music in the same way as has been done for millenniums. We’ve gone lifetimes without a single work of art entering the public domain, instead allowing 4th generation descendents to distort their great grandparents work by schilling great works to the Disney or the other high bidder such that these layabouts can profit off the work that belongs to all of society.
And the photogs supporting these laws are the most fucktarded of all, because if they don’t realize that we’re the next target for “permission based” copyright maximalists, then you haven’t been paying attention.
On the post: MPAA Exec Admits: 'We're Not Comfortable With The Internet'
MPAA in denial
Yes, that's what this was all about. Adsense on illegal sites. Adsense to start is what, 10-30% of Google revenue? That includes most major web outlets. I can't imagine that even on the high end more than 1% of ads are on sites that the MPAA would deem "rogue." Maybe 1/10 of those are actual rogue sites dedicated to piracy. So 0.1% of Google revenue, at best, is from pirate sites.
So stay out of touch with reality MPAA. Live in denial, convince yourselves it was a single company manipulating the entire internet into supporting wholesome legislation, with only the valiant MPAA fighting the hordes of Google Zombies in order to preserve Hollywood, nay, society itself from being destroyed by the Evil Masterminds at Google. Sounds like a plot from...
Wait a second! It all makes sense now. The whole self-serving narrative that the MPAA has constructed is as transparent as a Hollywood storyline. And just as fantastical. That's why they're so into it, they think they're actors in their own adventure. My goodness, it's worse than I thought!
Get me rewrite!
On the post: Hollywood Astroturf Group Releases Ad Saying It Needs SOPA To Shut Down Megaupload... Five Days After Megaupload Is Shut Down
Re:
On the post: Hollywood Astroturf Group Releases Ad Saying It Needs SOPA To Shut Down Megaupload... Five Days After Megaupload Is Shut Down
Time for a petition to investigate Barnett
Who's up for it?
On the post: Senator Leahy Hands Republicans A Gift By Giving Them Credit For Delaying Vote On PIPA/SOPA
Leahy is irrelevant
Mind you, on classic right/left issues, the Leahy's & Feinsteins will vote so as to coincide with those little checkboxes on the candidate position things. But if it's not a left-right issue, if it's below the radar, then they have shown time & again that their vote is simply for sale to the highest bidder.
Shameful. Mostly its cognitive dissonance, but there's also some true greed in there as well. Washington is broken because of this at-any-cost attitude & only I can fix it. Which I'll do at any cost!
On the post: Bill Maher Comes Out In Support Of SOPA/PIPA Despite Knowing Nothing About The Bills
His shtick is he's clueless
That would be a first for Maher!
While Jon "Stewart" is well known for devouring the books of his guests that appear on his program (which distinguishes from real journalists), ignorance & gut has always been at the core of Maher's persona.
On the post: 8 Million People Looked Up Their Elected Officials' Contact Info During Wikipedia Blackout
Such a big story it merited 2 minutes on the news!
Is the mainstream media biased? You betchya! Not sure I'd blame the corporate bias (#2) or the conflict bias (#3) and definitely not the liberal bias (#4). Nope, I'm going to go with the bias towards laziness, as it appeared the news segment producer couldn't bother spending the couple hours it would have taken to learn about the issue before ill informing millions.
I wouldn't expect anything more.
On the post: SOPA/PIPA: How Far We've Come; How Far We Need To Go
Re: Freetards taking undue credit!
http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2012/01/18/sopa-and-protect-ippipa-an-update/
I think they really believe their own BS.
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