telco deregulation was a huge success: it recreated the bell monopoly in the form of the verizon/AT&T duopoly. it also created the time warner/comcast duopolies. it also created a wonderful debt structure that has to be passed on to consumers in order to keep these companies profitable.
you need caps and tiers if you want to create an internet slow lane, and i think we can all agree that we need slower speeds with fewer features and higher prices. how else are these companies going to afford to buy up all of their competitors?
you need an internet slow lane so you can force companies like netflix or vonage to pay twice for speedy delivery of their content.
you need an internet slow lane to make telco and cable co video and phone services competitive with third party, pure play services. especially free/cheap ones like hulu and skype.
using hulu or skype will burn up your monthly ration of transfer. you better encourage them to pay your ISP for a "partnership" so traffic to those sites don't count against your cap, or you should pay your ISP to use their voice or video service, which of course already doesn't apply to your cap.
without tiers and caps, what other incentive is there for consumers to overpay for voice and video services?
please won't someone think of these poor monopolies? they just want to crush innovation and competition, is that so wrong?
Unless the studios have something to offer the distributors as an incentive to renegotiate, I don't see how a workout is possible. Distributors have no reason to renegotiate if doing so puts them in a worse-off position than before.
once the studios go under there will be no contracts left and negotiations can begin anew.
the studios have two choices: they can go under the hard way, by running out of money and going out of business for real, or they can go under the easy way and just go out of business on paper and re-incorporate in a new country under new legal entities.
right now they have the power to choose, they may not have that power for much longer.
the first amendment problem comes up sometimes in the net neutrality debate as a possible abuse by ISPs. if the ISP can control what you do online either by blocking or degrading access or through selective application of transfer caps, then the ISP has the potential to abuse that control, either for financial or political gain.
ISP's want to limit or block certain traffic to ease the strain on their networks, but once they are able to discriminate against one type of traffic over another, say based on data type (giving streaming video preference over p2p traffic for example) what's to stop ISP's from discriminating against traffic based on vendor or some other non-technical criteria such as political or religious affiliation?
with the selective application of broadband caps, a similar scenario emerges, where some sites and services are "free" from applying to the cap while others do. mobile carriers already do this by providing unlimited calls to other subscribers, while charging you minutes for calls to a competitor's subscriber.
if a cable company wants to sell video services over its data service, and it does not want to compete with hulu or youtube, then having the cable company's service not apply to the users' broadband cap gives the cable company's service a huge advantage thanks to the captive audience. by using the competitive service, you run the risk of going over your cap and losing access or incurring a higher bill for service.
i will admit that is seems far fetched right now, but ISPs have deliberately degraded or blocked access to competitive services in the past, what's to stop them from doing so in the future? what's to stop them from letting politics or religion from entering into the equation as well?
if the application of caps is subjective, then what's to stop a liberal ISP from providing unrestricted access to The Nation, while counting (or double counting) traffic from fox news? what's to stop an ISP that is sympathetic to scientology from applying caps to the websites of psychologists and scientology critics?
if there were more competition in the residential broadband space, there would be significant pressure on ISPs to not engage in these kinds of activities. but since the broadband market has failed, perhaps legislation at the state level will be enough to scare ISPs into abandoning their pursuit of caps.
Why the hell Coupons.com thinks they are entitled to a DCMA infringement is beyond me. It just makes people not want to use Coupons.com or any online coupon site.
i think it's an emotional reaction to being outsmarted. if you put a digital protection in place and some guy on the internet circumvents it, you feel foolish and your investors and board members start wondering what it is they are paying you to do.
These arguments don't even take into account other things like XBL, PSN, whatever Nintendo is using, Netflix, VOiP, MySpace, Flicker, and however many thousands more.
the caps are in place to prevent those services. why use vonage and max out your cap when you can use their phone service which doesn't have a cap?
once the caps are in place, the companies will roll out their own services (gaming, video, phone, etc.) where the use doesn't apply to the caps.
I love the idea of a la carte cable channels. I even like the idea of metered billing as well, but only as long as the internet provider is willing to cap thier price for unlimited use at an acceptable rate. If they were willing to offer basic connectivity of high speed internet at a starting price of $10 a month for up to 250MB of transfer a month, then prorate it up to a capped $75 for unlimited (within reason, say 50GB transfer/month?)I think people would find that reasonable. But only if they adopted this in lieu of thier current internet tiers based on speed. I think they would have to offer this at the fastest throughput possible and base it upon monthly traffic instead speed.
no no no no no no no.
you start with your current cable bill, only now there is a cap on your usage, and you pay more if you go over the cap. they make more and provide less. that's cable company 101.
cable companies don't charge *less*, they always charge MORE. when have you ever seen a cable bill go down? maybe when switching to a competitor or canceling services, or temporarily as a promotion, but never as a general practice has a cable company actually lowered prices.
What happens if the pledges aren't honored? The band needs $8k; $8k gets pledged. $7k actually gets donated. What happens then? The band should not be obligated to do the release they said they'd do for $8k, and the users who paid have _paid_; who has their money? Can they get it back?
the video doesn't say, but i would imagine there is a system for determining who is good for it, and who is not. perhaps if you have paid out in the past, then your pledges count when you pledge them. if you are new to the system, perhaps your pledges don't count, yet.
also there is a time limit, so i would imagine that prevents the "WTF is this charge?" problem that is bound to come up when the site collects a year after you pledged and have since forgotten.
why can't the content industries just offer up some competition?
i have suggested in the past that i would gladly pay for a "piracy pass" that let me keep doing what i am doing without all the hassle of tunneling, ip blocking, and whatnot.
being legal or at least guaranteeing no litigation has to be a competitive edge when competing with piracy. especially if the fee was reasonable.
So it went on to Kazaa, Gnutilla, Grokster, etc... Then they got shut down.
Now on to Torrent.. same thing.
napster was one central location to look for infringers and to collect market research. shutting it down created 4 services to watch. shutting down each of those 4 created 4 new gnutella services. now there are hundreds of torrent trackers. soon this will all be done through anonymous proxies or encrypted tunnels. good luck capturing any data then.
every move you make against downloading makes downloading that much harder to control. every time you fail to stop the pirate bay, your cause looks more and more ridiculous.
You are wrong. Our group uses Pirate bay to distribute our game mods, and video's all of which are legal and actually boost legitimate sales of the games we mod, and MANY companies do the same. While its true that illegal materials hit the top 100 (because its full of the newest torrents) it is a complete fabrication that they are all illegal.
you misunderstood me. i mean that the only thing that TPB hosts are links to materials, rather than hosting any materials itself. i do not mean that TPB only links to infringing materials, but rather that the purpose of the site is to host aggregate pointers to and comments about materials that are not hosted by the pirate bay.
Furthermore a link should not be considered infringing by itself. No copyright is infringed by a link alone.
TPB only posts links to infringing content. that is why their site is legal in sweden.
so facebook is blocking links to links to infringing content, which is double unnecessary. that makes my head hurt.
in about five minutes, a site called TPB-book.com (or something similar) will emerge, providing links to TPB torrents and a facebook app that makes sharing links to TPB-book super easy and accomplishing the super human feat of being triple unnecessary.
i haven't seen an anti-piracy ad or fbi warning in at least a couple of years. yet another reason that ripz from BT are better products.
one of my favorite TV shows, "the IT crowd" (which i steal from the internet because it's not on TV in the states where i live) has one of the best mockeries of piracy ads i have ever seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wRxfz_6E7o
it presupposes, as immutable natural law, a reality in which every transaction, indeed, every action, requires the services of a lawyer. A sort of mirror reality wherein, if the artist's act of creation failed register a ripple in the legal ether, his creation must be deemed to have never happened!
that's a scary thought.
the idea that you need a lawyer to bless your idea before you can create or do anything is precisely what's wrong with concept of intellectual property. this new requirement for due diligence BEFORE the creative process is going to really hurt the creative process.
the idea that all creativity and innovation require some sort of corporate and/or government authorization and that failure to obtain that authorization leads to some sort of punishment is positively orwellian.
i am surprised there isn't some sort of doublespeak term for it, like createcrime:
the problem with that line of thinking is that it creates a notion that anything you do that might prevent an incumbent corporation (or the legal team of said corporation) from profiting is somehow criminal. i see that in the "that's stealing!" meme that comes from posters here and from the corporations themselves when a new work or idea threatens what has already been established.
listen to anything except CD's you purchased? "that's STEALING music!" let's call that earcrime.
read news and events anywhere but in the newspaper that you have paid to subscribe to? "that's stealing news!" let's call that readcrime.
watch anything except network tv with the commercials or DVD purchased at the full retail price? "that's STEALING television!" let's call that eyecrime.
use VOIP or your cell phone instead of purchasing a landline? "that's STEALING phone service!" let's call that phonecrime.
carpool with friends or take the bus instead of leasing a new car every two years? "that's STEALING transportation!" let's call that wheelcrime.
which is goes nicely with this quote from cory doctorow's someone comes to town, someone leaves town where a phone company exec is talking to a couple of guys about their municipal wifi project:
"Yeah, we're the phone company. Big lumbering dinosaur that is thrashing in the tarpit. The spazz dinosaur that's so embarrassed all the other dinosaurs that none of them want to rescue us."
On the post: No Evidence To Support The Need For Broadband Tiers Or Caps
Re: Broadband/Cable
you need caps and tiers if you want to create an internet slow lane, and i think we can all agree that we need slower speeds with fewer features and higher prices. how else are these companies going to afford to buy up all of their competitors?
you need an internet slow lane so you can force companies like netflix or vonage to pay twice for speedy delivery of their content.
you need an internet slow lane to make telco and cable co video and phone services competitive with third party, pure play services. especially free/cheap ones like hulu and skype.
using hulu or skype will burn up your monthly ration of transfer. you better encourage them to pay your ISP for a "partnership" so traffic to those sites don't count against your cap, or you should pay your ISP to use their voice or video service, which of course already doesn't apply to your cap.
without tiers and caps, what other incentive is there for consumers to overpay for voice and video services?
please won't someone think of these poor monopolies? they just want to crush innovation and competition, is that so wrong?
On the post: New Consortium Says If Others Can Monetize Better Than We Can... We Deserve Their Money?
Re: "automagically"
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/A/automagically.html
On the post: Good News: Using A Proxy Server Isn't A Sign That You're More Of A Criminal (Yet)
proxies are sooooo sophisticated
and using a firefox add-on like foxy proxy that handles proxies for you... that is beyond sophisticated.
and going to a website and typing a URL into a blank and hitting the submit button, that's practically rocket science.
On the post: Would You Rather Renegotiate Your Contracts... Or See Your Business Collapse?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Can't Unilaterally Renegotiate
which is the case for things that have already been made, but not necessarily for the things that have yet to be made.
On the post: Would You Rather Renegotiate Your Contracts... Or See Your Business Collapse?
Re: Re: Can't Unilaterally Renegotiate
once the studios go under there will be no contracts left and negotiations can begin anew.
the studios have two choices: they can go under the hard way, by running out of money and going out of business for real, or they can go under the easy way and just go out of business on paper and re-incorporate in a new country under new legal entities.
right now they have the power to choose, they may not have that power for much longer.
On the post: Law To Ban Broadband Caps Moves Forward
the first amendment problem
ISP's want to limit or block certain traffic to ease the strain on their networks, but once they are able to discriminate against one type of traffic over another, say based on data type (giving streaming video preference over p2p traffic for example) what's to stop ISP's from discriminating against traffic based on vendor or some other non-technical criteria such as political or religious affiliation?
with the selective application of broadband caps, a similar scenario emerges, where some sites and services are "free" from applying to the cap while others do. mobile carriers already do this by providing unlimited calls to other subscribers, while charging you minutes for calls to a competitor's subscriber.
if a cable company wants to sell video services over its data service, and it does not want to compete with hulu or youtube, then having the cable company's service not apply to the users' broadband cap gives the cable company's service a huge advantage thanks to the captive audience. by using the competitive service, you run the risk of going over your cap and losing access or incurring a higher bill for service.
i will admit that is seems far fetched right now, but ISPs have deliberately degraded or blocked access to competitive services in the past, what's to stop them from doing so in the future? what's to stop them from letting politics or religion from entering into the equation as well?
if the application of caps is subjective, then what's to stop a liberal ISP from providing unrestricted access to The Nation, while counting (or double counting) traffic from fox news? what's to stop an ISP that is sympathetic to scientology from applying caps to the websites of psychologists and scientology critics?
if there were more competition in the residential broadband space, there would be significant pressure on ISPs to not engage in these kinds of activities. but since the broadband market has failed, perhaps legislation at the state level will be enough to scare ISPs into abandoning their pursuit of caps.
On the post: Going Too Far In Kowtowing To Copyright Holders
Re: Re:
riiiight. fair use is always a consideration, which is why the EFF and others have to get involved on behalf of so many.
On the post: Coupons.com DMCA Fight Over... Again
Re:
i think it's an emotional reaction to being outsmarted. if you put a digital protection in place and some guy on the internet circumvents it, you feel foolish and your investors and board members start wondering what it is they are paying you to do.
On the post: Time Warner Says People Want Metered Billing; Cablevision Says People Hate It
Re: Re:
the caps are in place to prevent those services. why use vonage and max out your cap when you can use their phone service which doesn't have a cap?
once the caps are in place, the companies will roll out their own services (gaming, video, phone, etc.) where the use doesn't apply to the caps.
On the post: Time Warner Says People Want Metered Billing; Cablevision Says People Hate It
Re:
no no no no no no no.
you start with your current cable bill, only now there is a cap on your usage, and you pay more if you go over the cap. they make more and provide less. that's cable company 101.
cable companies don't charge *less*, they always charge MORE. when have you ever seen a cable bill go down? maybe when switching to a competitor or canceling services, or temporarily as a promotion, but never as a general practice has a cable company actually lowered prices.
On the post: New Service Helps Musicians Pre-Fund Releases From Fans
Re: and then what happens?
the video doesn't say, but i would imagine there is a system for determining who is good for it, and who is not. perhaps if you have paid out in the past, then your pledges count when you pledge them. if you are new to the system, perhaps your pledges don't count, yet.
also there is a time limit, so i would imagine that prevents the "WTF is this charge?" problem that is bound to come up when the site collects a year after you pledged and have since forgotten.
On the post: The Pirate Bay's New Business Model Apparently Working Wonders
if there is so much money being made...
i have suggested in the past that i would gladly pay for a "piracy pass" that let me keep doing what i am doing without all the hassle of tunneling, ip blocking, and whatnot.
being legal or at least guaranteeing no litigation has to be a competitive edge when competing with piracy. especially if the fee was reasonable.
On the post: Facebook Overreacts: Decides All Of The Pirate Bay Is Illegal
Re:
So it went on to Kazaa, Gnutilla, Grokster, etc... Then they got shut down.
Now on to Torrent.. same thing.
napster was one central location to look for infringers and to collect market research. shutting it down created 4 services to watch. shutting down each of those 4 created 4 new gnutella services. now there are hundreds of torrent trackers. soon this will all be done through anonymous proxies or encrypted tunnels. good luck capturing any data then.
every move you make against downloading makes downloading that much harder to control. every time you fail to stop the pirate bay, your cause looks more and more ridiculous.
On the post: Facebook Overreacts: Decides All Of The Pirate Bay Is Illegal
Re: Re:
i agree. google is a publicly traded company with it's headquarters in california.
the pirate bay's logo is a pirate ship. i mean the evidence is irrefutable.
C.T.: your argument is invalid.
On the post: Facebook Overreacts: Decides All Of The Pirate Bay Is Illegal
Re: Re: going about it wrong
you misunderstood me. i mean that the only thing that TPB hosts are links to materials, rather than hosting any materials itself. i do not mean that TPB only links to infringing materials, but rather that the purpose of the site is to host aggregate pointers to and comments about materials that are not hosted by the pirate bay.
On the post: Facebook Overreacts: Decides All Of The Pirate Bay Is Illegal
going about it wrong
TPB only posts links to infringing content. that is why their site is legal in sweden.
so facebook is blocking links to links to infringing content, which is double unnecessary. that makes my head hurt.
in about five minutes, a site called TPB-book.com (or something similar) will emerge, providing links to TPB torrents and a facebook app that makes sharing links to TPB-book super easy and accomplishing the super human feat of being triple unnecessary.
On the post: 15 Years Of Anti-Piracy Commercials...
funny
one of my favorite TV shows, "the IT crowd" (which i steal from the internet because it's not on TV in the states where i live) has one of the best mockeries of piracy ads i have ever seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wRxfz_6E7o
On the post: 97 Of The Top 100 Online Classified Sites Are Craigslist
Re: Re: That said, craigslist is a freaking joke
On the post: Designer Threatened With Copyright Infringement Claims... On His Own Work
Re: The problem with WH's view...
that's a scary thought.
the idea that you need a lawyer to bless your idea before you can create or do anything is precisely what's wrong with concept of intellectual property. this new requirement for due diligence BEFORE the creative process is going to really hurt the creative process.
the idea that all creativity and innovation require some sort of corporate and/or government authorization and that failure to obtain that authorization leads to some sort of punishment is positively orwellian.
i am surprised there isn't some sort of doublespeak term for it, like createcrime:
"In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..."
the problem with that line of thinking is that it creates a notion that anything you do that might prevent an incumbent corporation (or the legal team of said corporation) from profiting is somehow criminal. i see that in the "that's stealing!" meme that comes from posters here and from the corporations themselves when a new work or idea threatens what has already been established.
listen to anything except CD's you purchased? "that's STEALING music!" let's call that earcrime.
read news and events anywhere but in the newspaper that you have paid to subscribe to? "that's stealing news!" let's call that readcrime.
watch anything except network tv with the commercials or DVD purchased at the full retail price? "that's STEALING television!" let's call that eyecrime.
use VOIP or your cell phone instead of purchasing a landline? "that's STEALING phone service!" let's call that phonecrime.
carpool with friends or take the bus instead of leasing a new car every two years? "that's STEALING transportation!" let's call that wheelcrime.
On the post: Ad Exec: Let's Save Newspapers By Throwing More Money At Newspapers
today's penny arcade pretty much sums it up
which is goes nicely with this quote from cory doctorow's someone comes to town, someone leaves town where a phone company exec is talking to a couple of guys about their municipal wifi project:
"Yeah, we're the phone company. Big lumbering dinosaur that is thrashing in the tarpit. The spazz dinosaur that's so embarrassed all the other dinosaurs that none of them want to rescue us."
http://craphound.com/someone/Cory_Doctorow_-_Someone_Comes_to_Town_Someone_Leaves_Town.txt
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