I have fought our campus adopting Kindle. Actually, all the tech people did. Administrators were the ones who wanted to jump on the Amazon bandwagon.
Nook is definitely a step in the right direction because it is somewhat open. I made the TV analogy to administrators. TV grew up as an open platform. Anyone could build a TV that would pick up anyone's broadcasts, and broadcasters could have their programming played on any standard hardware. The approach taken by Amazon and Sony is an attempt to control the entire platform and get some profit from the hardware all the way through the user purchasing (and possibly repurchasing if their unit goes bad) their books. We would still be listening to the radio if Sony and Amazon had invented TV.
I just hope that Barnes and Nobles doesn't get cold feet like the last time they released an ebook device.
One reason the traffic flow in the video works is that the actual traffic flow is rather low for the size of the street.
Another significant factor in the video is the mix of vehicles. Many of them are non-motorized, and even many of the motorized ones are underpowered moped types of bikes. Trying to impose any type of traffic control system in that type of environment would be a nightmare.
They didn't like "antipiracy" and they are not fond of "content protection." How about if they go with something like "long-term profit minimization." At least that would be more accurate.
Some suggestions that people have made will not successfully get radio stations around the tax:
1) Using non-RIAA artists. The way it works is that the collection societies are collecting in the name of ALL musicians, whether the musicians want it or not. If it is music, then you pay.
2)Radio Stations form their own labels. Again, they would have to pay the tax. Some of the money would come back to them, but you can bet that a large percentage would still disappear to the collection societies and the traditional labels.
3)Talk-radio only. Most talk radio stations do play some music. Political commentators often want to play some parody song, for example. It is hard to do a talk show about the entertainment industry without playing at least snippets. The buy-in for the program is fairly steep, and most stations will at least have to do that. Plus, if a lot of stations go talk radio, then you can bet we will see the RIAA back in Congress complaining that talk radio is stealing the airtime they are entitled to, and therefor should compensate them. Because, you know, that is piracy. And it will damage your radio. And it's for the children.
I know it technically isn't a tax because the RIAA isn't technically the government. However, it is getting to be very hard to tell where the RIAA stops and government starts, so ....
If I make a product or run a store, and a new product comes along that is cheaper and better than mine, why do I have an entitlement to continue running my business? Granted, if I go out of business people won't be able to buy my product, and my suppliers will be hurt. But the public will have a different product that they prefer. It might not have as much polish or other features as my product, but once the public declares another product better then I only have two choices: innovate or become extinct. If I wait too long to innovate, then that option disappears.
Corporate culture tends to promote Luddites and control freaks to the decision-making positions, even in IT. IT Luddites are only different from other Luddites because they accept the technology that was dominant when they started their careers; they only reject and fail to understand stuff like Twitter that has come along since then.
This strikes me as a significant act of Jeffersonian principles. It amounts to individuals taking responsibility for protecting freedom when the government fails to do so. I wish them the best of luck and a good defense team.
I think The Economist is different than Techdirt because The Economist is sometimes referenced in research papers and annotated bibliographies. Some traffic might come from people doing follow-on research, and they might have a budget to cover the cost. Research libraries would also be willing to pay for a subscription to archived issues.
This probably isn't aimed at individual customers. It seems aimed at news organizations and services like Google News.
It might be worth a try as long as they don't anger their regular customers. If it doesn't work and they don't loose too many customers in the process they can always roll back to the old system.
It will be interesting to watch what other news organizations do. Will Reuters or CNN hop in and provide a comparable real-time feed, relegating AP to the "old news" wire?
Their job is collecting money, not producing content.
The job of the collection societies is to collect money. They do a lot of hand-waving about compensating artists, but mainly they collect money, keeping as much as possible and passing on what they have to to the big name acts that have been anointed by the record labels.
Their efforts are raising the cost of using music and videos, so the logical result is that less music and video will be used in this way. In the long run it hurts those who are creating music and video in ways that far outstrip the pittance they get back from the collection societies.
Letting go of full control is one of the hardest things a company can do. It is also one of the things that is necessary for a product to be successful.
Textbooks are one area where open source ebooks could be a huge threat to the industry. Textbook publishers are charging insane prices for textbooks. I have been using free and open source books every chance I get.
Epub versions of most commercial textbooks are not hard for students to find, and the high price of original work makes illegal copying a very attractive option.
It will be interesting to see how textbook publishers react to this. I think they are pretty well addicted to their large margins at this point, and it will be interesting to see if they can give them up to protect their market share.
It looks to me like the NFL is in a no-win situation on this. They either have to back down or try to shut this guy down. If they try to shut him down it may work because of the cost of defending himself, but he would be replaced by a hundred others who do it just to make a point.
And after all, what is the damage to the NFL? It builds interest in the game. It build community. They might argue that it will hurt the broadcast revenue, but this type of presentation is so different from a broadcast that I doubt it is actually competition.
Someone probably figured out what it would cost them.
Someone at the MTA probably sat down and figured out what it would cost them to produce and maintain their own app, and then quickly realized how attractive it was to get the work done for free. A large system could expect several people to develop the app, and the best one will probably win out.
I hope they don't mess it up with their policies now. A policy that said there must be a disclaimer about the MTA not being responsible for the app would be reasonable. I hope they don't decide that people should not be allowed to make money on their work and prohibit things like ads. The big question is whether they will permit any type of twitter-like or blog-like activities with the apps that might be critical of the MTA.
It sounds like the student got a good lawyer. Let's hope this is another case where someone who files false IP claims gets that tables turned and has to cough up legal fees for the the defendant.
I have been shopping for a new jacket, and I just scratched the North Face one off my list. I wonder if South Butt makes one in my size?
There is an urban legend about a guy that advertised "free kittens" and never gave away any. He changed the ad to "kittens, $50 each" and sold them all. Sometimes consumers do think that a higher price means better value, but that is based on people being fools. No matter how cynical we like to be, people are not fools on that kind of things forever. If a product is something that people consume every day, then they are pretty quickly going to find the most economical ways to do get the product.
It amazes me that so many business executives are completely ignorant of basic economics.
There is an urban legend about a guy that advertised "free kittens" and never gave away any. He changed the ad to "kittens, $50 each" and sold them all. Sometimes consumers do think that a higher price means better value, but that is based on people being fools. No matter how cynical we like to be, people are not fools on that kind of things forever. If a product is something that people consume every day, then they are pretty quickly going to find the most economical ways to do get the product.
It amazes me that so many business executives are completely ignorant of basic economics.
Ebooks definitely have a place in higher ed. The current crop of college students have grown up reading screens rather than books, and a lot of them actually prefer to read on a screen rather than on paper. I have even had students who scan handouts to pdf files so they can read them on the computer.
Our campus has been looking at ebooks, but I doubt that we adopt anything until there is an open platform. Personally, I think the Kindle is a fantastic piece of hardware. However, the DRM-lockdown and the account cancellation shenanigans Amazon has pulled is more than enough to keep it out of our classrooms. One of the big appeals of ebooks is the ability to let students with vision impairments listen to their books. Unfortunately, that ability is sometimes taken away with Kindles, so that is one more strike against them.
On the post: eBook Market Gets More Crowded... But... Still Many Limitations
Much better
Nook is definitely a step in the right direction because it is somewhat open. I made the TV analogy to administrators. TV grew up as an open platform. Anyone could build a TV that would pick up anyone's broadcasts, and broadcasters could have their programming played on any standard hardware. The approach taken by Amazon and Sony is an attempt to control the entire platform and get some profit from the hardware all the way through the user purchasing (and possibly repurchasing if their unit goes bad) their books. We would still be listening to the radio if Sony and Amazon had invented TV.
I just hope that Barnes and Nobles doesn't get cold feet like the last time they released an ebook device.
On the post: Want To Design Smarter Intersections? Use Less Control, Not More.
congestion
Another significant factor in the video is the mix of vehicles. Many of them are non-motorized, and even many of the motorized ones are underpowered moped types of bikes. Trying to impose any type of traffic control system in that type of environment would be a nightmare.
On the post: What Kind Of Industry Sets Up A Group To Purposely Limit What Consumers Want? Apparently Hollywood
New terms
On the post: Senate Judiciary Committee Approves RIAA Bailout Radio Tax
Things that won't work to get around the tax
1) Using non-RIAA artists. The way it works is that the collection societies are collecting in the name of ALL musicians, whether the musicians want it or not. If it is music, then you pay.
2)Radio Stations form their own labels. Again, they would have to pay the tax. Some of the money would come back to them, but you can bet that a large percentage would still disappear to the collection societies and the traditional labels.
3)Talk-radio only. Most talk radio stations do play some music. Political commentators often want to play some parody song, for example. It is hard to do a talk show about the entertainment industry without playing at least snippets. The buy-in for the program is fairly steep, and most stations will at least have to do that. Plus, if a lot of stations go talk radio, then you can bet we will see the RIAA back in Congress complaining that talk radio is stealing the airtime they are entitled to, and therefor should compensate them. Because, you know, that is piracy. And it will damage your radio. And it's for the children.
I know it technically isn't a tax because the RIAA isn't technically the government. However, it is getting to be very hard to tell where the RIAA stops and government starts, so ....
On the post: No, The Music Industry Outlook Isn't Grim... Just For Selling Recorded Music
Why is the CD industry entitled to exist?
On the post: On The Uselessness Of Blocking Social Networks At Work
Luddites and Control Freaks
On the post: Wikileaks Decides: If The US Gov't Won't Create A Real Shield Law, We'll Shield Journalists Instead
Defending democracy
On the post: NBC Sued For Over $2 Million... For Infringing On A Font
On the post: The AP and News Corp DEMAND To Be Paid For Their Content
Less Fox News
On the post: The Economist Brings Back Its Paywall... Perhaps It Should Hire An Economist
Research
On the post: AP Wants To Charge For Scoops
Not for retail
It might be worth a try as long as they don't anger their regular customers. If it doesn't work and they don't loose too many customers in the process they can always roll back to the old system.
It will be interesting to watch what other news organizations do. Will Reuters or CNN hop in and provide a comparable real-time feed, relegating AP to the "old news" wire?
On the post: Dutch Collection Society Looks To Charge Bloggers For Embedding YouTube Videos
Their job is collecting money, not producing content.
Their efforts are raising the cost of using music and videos, so the logical result is that less music and video will be used in this way. In the long run it hurts those who are creating music and video in ways that far outstrip the pittance they get back from the collection societies.
On the post: Palm Finally Realizes It Needs To Help, Not Hinder Developers
Letting go is hard to do.
On the post: Oh No! Book Piracy Is Coming! Run And Hide!
Textbooks
Epub versions of most commercial textbooks are not hard for students to find, and the high price of original work makes illegal copying a very attractive option.
It will be interesting to see how textbook publishers react to this. I think they are pretty well addicted to their large margins at this point, and it will be interesting to see if they can give them up to protect their market share.
On the post: WSJ Defies NFL's Restriction On Live Blogging
No Win
It looks to me like the NFL is in a no-win situation on this. They either have to back down or try to shut this guy down. If they try to shut him down it may work because of the cost of defending himself, but he would be replaced by a hundred others who do it just to make a point.
And after all, what is the damage to the NFL? It builds interest in the game. It build community. They might argue that it will hurt the broadcast revenue, but this type of presentation is so different from a broadcast that I doubt it is actually competition.
On the post: NY MTA Realizing That Having People Create Apps For You Isn't Such A Bad Thing
Someone probably figured out what it would cost them.
Someone at the MTA probably sat down and figured out what it would cost them to produce and maintain their own app, and then quickly realized how attractive it was to get the work done for free. A large system could expect several people to develop the app, and the best one will probably win out.
I hope they don't mess it up with their policies now. A policy that said there must be a disclaimer about the MTA not being responsible for the app would be reasonable. I hope they don't decide that people should not be allowed to make money on their work and prohibit things like ads. The big question is whether they will permit any type of twitter-like or blog-like activities with the apps that might be critical of the MTA.
On the post: North Face Goes After South Butt Over Trademark Infringement
Let's hope
It sounds like the student got a good lawyer. Let's hope this is another case where someone who files false IP claims gets that tables turned and has to cough up legal fees for the the defendant.
I have been shopping for a new jacket, and I just scratched the North Face one off my list. I wonder if South Butt makes one in my size?
On the post: Dean Singleton: Please Explain How Charging For Something Magically Gives It Value
Well, it worked for kittens
There is an urban legend about a guy that advertised "free kittens" and never gave away any. He changed the ad to "kittens, $50 each" and sold them all. Sometimes consumers do think that a higher price means better value, but that is based on people being fools. No matter how cynical we like to be, people are not fools on that kind of things forever. If a product is something that people consume every day, then they are pretty quickly going to find the most economical ways to do get the product.
It amazes me that so many business executives are completely ignorant of basic economics.
On the post: Dean Singleton: Please Explain How Charging For Something Magically Gives It Value
Well, it worked for kittens
There is an urban legend about a guy that advertised "free kittens" and never gave away any. He changed the ad to "kittens, $50 each" and sold them all. Sometimes consumers do think that a higher price means better value, but that is based on people being fools. No matter how cynical we like to be, people are not fools on that kind of things forever. If a product is something that people consume every day, then they are pretty quickly going to find the most economical ways to do get the product.
It amazes me that so many business executives are completely ignorant of basic economics.
On the post: Kindle Flunking Out Of Princeton?
ebooks have a place
Ebooks definitely have a place in higher ed. The current crop of college students have grown up reading screens rather than books, and a lot of them actually prefer to read on a screen rather than on paper. I have even had students who scan handouts to pdf files so they can read them on the computer.
Our campus has been looking at ebooks, but I doubt that we adopt anything until there is an open platform. Personally, I think the Kindle is a fantastic piece of hardware. However, the DRM-lockdown and the account cancellation shenanigans Amazon has pulled is more than enough to keep it out of our classrooms. One of the big appeals of ebooks is the ability to let students with vision impairments listen to their books. Unfortunately, that ability is sometimes taken away with Kindles, so that is one more strike against them.
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