How many people get turned onto the Daily Show because someone sends them a link to a clip? Quite a few, I would be willing to bet.
A lot of The Daily Show's appeal is to the young generation. I work with them every day, and that group has very negative reactions to this kind of stupidity and hypocrisy. In addition, a lot of these students don't even bring TV's to campus anymore; they rely mostly on services like Hulu.
I like The Daily Show. I am really sorry to hear this announcement that the show will be going off the air. I know know that isn't actually what the announcement said, but it might have well been included because Viacom announced that it is hurting its own program very badly. The really bad part of this is that they will probably blame the show's failure on Piracy, not the incompetence of network executives.
One surprise I found in this is that only 1 in 4 chiropractors were making false claims on their websites. I wonder if a lot of their web sites were very simple and didn't make any claims at all.
This reminds me of back in the '70's when people were trying to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified. Someone in the legislature proposed a bill that would have prohibited travel to any state that had not ratified the ERA. Another Senator felt this was entirely too limiting, and proposed an amendment that would prohibit travel to any COUNTRY that had not ratified the ERA. Of course, since the ERA was an amendment to the US constitution, no other country would have any reason to ratify it. To add to the idiocy, the original law was proposed because the US itself had not ratified the ERA.
As a budget cutting measure it would have been great because it would have shut down all junkets to anywhere.
If free/ad supported is doomed to fail, then I suppose radio and TV have been big failures. After all, they are free in exactly the same sense that most internet news sites are free. Does that mean that they are unnatural? Should I send CBS a check for all those decades that I pirated their news programs?
Re: Re: @jerk i mean Grammah Correction Specialist
>>I miss TAM.
Never underestimate the value of a good critic (not saying he was a GOOD critic, but moving along...). Knowing there is a critic out there who will jump on your every mistake has a great effect. When you know your work will be dissected by the opposition and every logic flaw exposed it make you a lot more careful and forces you to tighten up your arguments before putting them on paper.
I had a feminist friend back in the late 70's who gave me a reading list of feminist literature and dared me to read it. My conclusion was that the main thing the women's movement needed was a good critic. Books like "Against Our Will" typically had a few good, well thought out pages at the beginning and then fell into circular arguments and worse. Of course, no man could accepted as a critic of the women's movement, and any woman who pointed out the flaws in a hallowed piece of feminist literature would be branded a traitor and dismissed.
Never underestimate the importance of your critics. Good critics force you to make your case stronger.
>>It's even more ridiculous when you consider that all of the accusations of such personal attacks seem to come from tiny companies -- hardly any kind of threat to Google, anyway.
This statement is completely inaccurate. IBM didn't think a tiny company named Microsoft would be a threat to them. And in turn, I am sure that execs at Microsoft giggled the first time they heard that someone had named their tiny company a silly name like Google. The biggest threat to Google is probably a small company that no one ever heard of that figures out a better way to do something that is one of Google's core businesses.
Eventually all companies get fat and happy and assume they can't be replaced. That is never the case. Companies like the record labels have delayed the inevitable, but once any company assumes that the current market conditions will keep them in power forever, that company is doomed to fail, and to fail with amazing speed in some cases.
ACTA seems like a juggernaut that can't be stopped. Ironically, if anything derails ACTA it is likely to be the shroud of secrecy and the lies that are being used to deny and defend the secrecy.
I wish you guys would stop giving the various industries ideas. It has been pretty obvious for a long time that a total ignorance of economics and marketing was a prerequisite for becoming a modern CEO. However, a lesser know qualification is being totally humor challenged. CEO's are not likely to recognize sarcasm unless you are using the $1.99 sarcasm flag.
The various industries you mentioned are at this very moment buying another congressman and preparing press releases that will be published without question in prestigious newspapers around the country.
If they are going to window movies, they should at least sell the movies to people as they leave. There would be so many benefits to that. People who really want the movie would effectively be paying double -- to see the movie and then to buy the DVD. They would show it to their friends and say "But it is even better in the theatre." Well, they would say it if the movie was better in the theatre, but that is another problem.
There is nothing wrong with being "just middle-men." Middle-men can provide essential services. The problem that the music industry has now is that the middle-men are presenting themselves as the industry, and saying what is good for them is good for musicians.
In the free market, failure is always an option. In fact, the potential for failure is essential for the system to work correctly. Things that are unsuccessful should fail.
Unfortunately, we don't have a free market. Apparently you can get so big that the government considers you "too big to fail." The second best option is to get big enough to be able afford to buy politicians dedicated to protecting your antiquated and inefficient business model.
The problem is that some channels effectively subsidize other channels. Shopping channels give a cut of all their sales to the cable company which explains why there are so many of them. There are also some channels that give a lot of advertising slots to the cable company, so those tend to be highly profitable. In effect the "trashy" channels support the channels people say they really want.
People who want true a la carte are generally going to find that the really good channels are going to be very expensive if that is all they want. Of course, that is a legitimate thing, too. If you don't want to wade through 10 shopping channels between your good channels, then you should be able to have that option. Of course, you can probably program your TV to skip those channels, but if you don't even want to do that you can pay the luxury tax and just get what you want.
The thing that is funny in all of this is that the home shopping and other trash channels are only profitable because people actually watch them. It makes me wonder if people really want a la carte.
The big unanswered question is "How much would they pay?" And a second question is, "Under what terms?" As often noted before, content providers often overvalue their products, and current management practices often try to impose very restrictive terms and a lot of fine print.
On top of that, too many online services have turned into scams eventually, or provided really bad customer service. The last time I signed up for a paid online service they renewed me twice despite multiple efforts on my part to cancel. That alone makes me hesitant to sign up for any type of online subscription service.
If businesses expect to get people to subscribe to services, the business community should get a law passed guaranteeing online rights. It should include the right to cancel online (no need to talk to a sales rep who will try to talk you out of canceling, and then hit the "renew" button instead of the "cancel" button anyway) as well as severe penalties for failure to do so. In fact, automatic renewals should be prohibited; there should be at least an annual "opt in" requirement.
>>but they know that your game won't sell unless you get SOME recognizeable music on it,
I question whether that was ever the case, but it certainly didn't apply once the GH franchise got established. I still wonder why we are not hearing the labels whining about how much they have to pay to get their songs placed in the games.
On the post: Viacom Warns Bloggers: Post Clips Of The Daily Show And We'll Sue [Update: Or Not!]
Clueless
A lot of The Daily Show's appeal is to the young generation. I work with them every day, and that group has very negative reactions to this kind of stupidity and hypocrisy. In addition, a lot of these students don't even bring TV's to campus anymore; they rely mostly on services like Hulu.
I like The Daily Show. I am really sorry to hear this announcement that the show will be going off the air. I know know that isn't actually what the announcement said, but it might have well been included because Viacom announced that it is hurting its own program very badly. The really bad part of this is that they will probably blame the show's failure on Piracy, not the incompetence of network executives.
On the post: How UK Chiropractors' Attempt To Silence One Critic Created The Backlash That May Change Chiropractics In The UK
One surprise
On the post: Sen. Durbin To Introduce Bill Sanctioning Companies That Don't Protect Human Rights Abroad; But What About At Home?
ERA Memories
As a budget cutting measure it would have been great because it would have shut down all junkets to anywhere.
On the post: Danish Politicians Questioning Why Denmark Is So Against ACTA Transparency
3 inches of lead
On the post: Intellectual Ventures Lending Its Patents To Members To Sue Others
Nice way to prevent competition
On the post: Free Is Not An Aberration; It's Basic Economics
TV and Radio news
On the post: Two Different Approaches Rockers Can Take To Musical Leaks
Re: Re: @jerk i mean Grammah Correction Specialist
Never underestimate the value of a good critic (not saying he was a GOOD critic, but moving along...). Knowing there is a critic out there who will jump on your every mistake has a great effect. When you know your work will be dissected by the opposition and every logic flaw exposed it make you a lot more careful and forces you to tighten up your arguments before putting them on paper.
I had a feminist friend back in the late 70's who gave me a reading list of feminist literature and dared me to read it. My conclusion was that the main thing the women's movement needed was a good critic. Books like "Against Our Will" typically had a few good, well thought out pages at the beginning and then fell into circular arguments and worse. Of course, no man could accepted as a critic of the women's movement, and any woman who pointed out the flaws in a hallowed piece of feminist literature would be branded a traitor and dismissed.
Never underestimate the importance of your critics. Good critics force you to make your case stronger.
On the post: Yes, Google Will Even Delete Its Own Employees' Sites From Google Index If They Screw Up
Small companies are a big threat
This statement is completely inaccurate. IBM didn't think a tiny company named Microsoft would be a threat to them. And in turn, I am sure that execs at Microsoft giggled the first time they heard that someone had named their tiny company a silly name like Google. The biggest threat to Google is probably a small company that no one ever heard of that figures out a better way to do something that is one of Google's core businesses.
Eventually all companies get fat and happy and assume they can't be replaced. That is never the case. Companies like the record labels have delayed the inevitable, but once any company assumes that the current market conditions will keep them in power forever, that company is doomed to fail, and to fail with amazing speed in some cases.
On the post: U.S., Korea, Singapore, Denmark, Germany, Belgium And Portugal: Against ACTA Transparency
Secrecy is our friend on this
On the post: Home Cooking Is Killing The Restaurant Industry!
The various industries you mentioned are at this very moment buying another congressman and preparing press releases that will be published without question in prestigious newspapers around the country.
On the post: Odeon Cinemas Admit The Experience At Their Theaters Is So Bad It Can't Compete With Your Home Theater
If they are going to window it...
On the post: Confused Musician Threatens Google, Blog Because Her Works Are Found Elsewhere On The Internet
Re:
Actually, I think his fans are just people who remember stuff they learned in Econ 101.
On the post: SellaBand Bankruptcy Shows Poor Execution; Not A Condemnation Of Fan Funding
Re: Re: CwF & Then DIY
On the post: SellaBand Bankruptcy Shows Poor Execution; Not A Condemnation Of Fan Funding
Failure is always an option
Unfortunately, we don't have a free market. Apparently you can get so big that the government considers you "too big to fail." The second best option is to get big enough to be able afford to buy politicians dedicated to protecting your antiquated and inefficient business model.
On the post: Bell Canada Will Give You A La Carte Cable Channels... But Only If There's Real Competition
The problem is the subsidies
People who want true a la carte are generally going to find that the really good channels are going to be very expensive if that is all they want. Of course, that is a legitimate thing, too. If you don't want to wade through 10 shopping channels between your good channels, then you should be able to have that option. Of course, you can probably program your TV to skip those channels, but if you don't even want to do that you can pay the luxury tax and just get what you want.
The thing that is funny in all of this is that the home shopping and other trash channels are only profitable because people actually watch them. It makes me wonder if people really want a la carte.
On the post: Will People Pay For Content Online?
But how much would they pay?
On top of that, too many online services have turned into scams eventually, or provided really bad customer service. The last time I signed up for a paid online service they renewed me twice despite multiple efforts on my part to cancel. That alone makes me hesitant to sign up for any type of online subscription service.
If businesses expect to get people to subscribe to services, the business community should get a law passed guaranteeing online rights. It should include the right to cancel online (no need to talk to a sales rep who will try to talk you out of canceling, and then hit the "renew" button instead of the "cancel" button anyway) as well as severe penalties for failure to do so. In fact, automatic renewals should be prohibited; there should be at least an annual "opt in" requirement.
On the post: My Comments To The USTR On Special 301 Report On Foreign Copyright Issues
Getting your letter read
On the post: Confusing Economic Factors With Moral Ones; Explaining Economics Is Not Anti-Intellectual
Re: Illumination
Yes, but my great-grandfather made that pot, so when you sell it you owe me half.
On the post: Viacom To Record Labels: If You Want More Money For Music In Video Games, We'll Find Other Music
Re:
I question whether that was ever the case, but it certainly didn't apply once the GH franchise got established. I still wonder why we are not hearing the labels whining about how much they have to pay to get their songs placed in the games.
On the post: Viacom To Record Labels: If You Want More Money For Music In Video Games, We'll Find Other Music
How much should Guitar Hero charge the labels?
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