Am I the only one who finds it kind of annoying that Hold'Em is the only kind of poker anyone wants to play these days? I mean, it's a fun set of rules in some ways, and I get why it's the game of choice if you're a serious gambler/competitor... but it used to be that when friends were just playing poker for fun, they would mix it up a bit -- play some draw hands, some stud hands, throw in a house rule here and there, etc. Not to mention other card games. But now it just seems like everyone wants to pretend they are in the poker world series every time.
Your argument is becoming very confused. We know that news organizations often fail to live up to the ideals of journalism, and the reason we criticize them for it is because we think those ideals are good, and because many (i'd say most) people involved in the actual editorial side of journalism, especially at an organization like AFP, think so too. There's no contradiction here... I support the ideals, and am critical when news agencies fail to live up to them.
Your position seems to be that because mistakes get made, we should give up on the ideals altogether... and yet you're the one accusing us of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think it's time for you to sit back and think about the side you've taken on this issue.
News agencies take responsibility for all that goes out under their banner. When the story is wrong, the news organization responsible is the one that gets criticized. Doubly so with a wirefeed story that does not even carry the byline of an individual author, and is attributed to the agency as a whole.
Nothing in this post claims AFP is entirely in shambles -- it's just deservedly harsh criticism over a specific major error. And yes, a factual error in report is precisely "a systemic failure of the entire enterprise" because accurate reporting of the news is, explicitly and exactly, what the system of a news enterprise is set up to do.
Have you ever been anywhere close to a working editor or journalist, or set foot in a respectable newsroom? If not, it would be a real eye-opener for you. The culture of journalism is not at all what you picture, and you'd be laughed out of the building for your "total accuracy is impossible and mistakes are no big deal" philosophy.
Yes, mistakes get made. And then they get pointed out. And the journalists who make the fewest mistakes rise to the top over time. There's no room for your laissez-faire attitude towards facts, and you'll find very little support for it among the very people you think you're defending.
Do you know the technical difference between burglary and robbery? Between murder and manslaughter? Which illegal actions are crimes and torts? Even if you do, do most people? Do they use those distinctions all the time?
In some cases yes. In other cases, I think I do, but there's an excellent chance that my knowledge is imperfect or wrong. In other cases, nope.
In all cases, I expect the damn newspaper to be using the correct terms.
You clearly have a very low standard for accuracy.
Also, I wonder what it is exactly that you read news for, if not to educate yourself. The issue is not how many people catch the error, it's how many people walk away misinformed. Copyright and patents are a specialty but hardly one that is cut off from the general public -- the idea that you "patent an invention" is common knowledge and many individuals apply for patents; billions of people see large prominent copyright notices displayed every time they post a photo on Facebook; things like the Pinterest copyright dispute, or the patent clashes between large tech companies, make it onto the evening news regularly these days. The majority of people now have a passing familiarity, at least, with these concepts.
The fact that you think it's not a big deal for the world's third-largest news agency to leave them so badly misinformed about a major distinction of law just shows that you have very low standards for knowledge and comprehension. Anyone familiar with the basics of copyright or even a skewed version thereof -- which these days includes anyone who has *gone to high school* -- now has a completely incorrect understanding of Dotcom's actions, such that any who are interested and attempt to research more are going to find themselves immediately confused, and any who attempted to express even simple opinions about what's happening or might happen is going to sound like a fool.
OK, but I have an experiment for you. Apply for a job at a major news agency and tell the editor interviewing you that you don't think factual errors about points of law are a big deal. Then berate him for not hiring you.
If I made an offhand comment about flotsam in an unrelated post and it turned out I meant jetsam, I'd call that a minor mistake. If I was writing a news article specifically about an international dispute over abandoned shipping cargo, I'd look up the damn words. And the distinction between copyright and patents is far less nuanced than that.
This is like writing an article about baseball and referring to runs as touchdowns. Hey, not everyone is obsessed with every minute detail of sports, right?
I've often wondered... Would it be illegal to tell a cop that your cellphone is live-streaming and cloud-saving the footage, even if it wasn't? (Occurred to me after a scene in Cory Doctorow's Makers, when a journalist whose phone actually is doing that puts a cop on the spot -- "you're being watched live right now" -- and gets him to back down)
Re: Obama says he can kill Mike or YOU with a drone,
So with all those bigger problems in the world, why do you choose to spend your time objecting to every single post on Techdirt? Talk about narrowly obsessed.
Re: Techdirt continually mistakes "loss leader" with "FREE".
Blue, it's not a zero sum game.
By your logic, Craigslist doesn't work. Way more than 70% of the ads are free -- it's probably about 99%, or more. All those damn freeloaders. And yet the company makes millions off of that small group of people that pay... fancy that!
Do you think it is fair that an artist who paints a picture can sell the picture (or charge admission to see it, if they want), but a musician, computer programmer, movie actor, or writer should somehow be denied that right because their works are more easily put in a digital format?
Um, what? That makes zero sense.
It's just as easy for a painter to put their work into a digital format as a musician. And it's just as easy for a musician to charge admission or sell a song by not putting it out there in a digital format.
I'm all for the system you describe: if you want control over your work, you must control every copy personally, as property. But if you put your work into an infinitely copiable digital format and release it to the public, you shouldn't whine and complain when people help themselves to copies.
Of course not. This is a question of the best approach to achieving the ends (promoting the progress) which means separating it from the means to look for other means that could do a better job.
Nobody would argue that rights protection is more effective at promoting the progress than, say, shooting every artist in the head. Less hyperbolically, most people here wouldn't argue that rights protection is more effective at promoting the progress than, say, a government Ministry Of Art that regulates all creativity and artistic funding. Those would both be inferior to the copyright system. But none of that means that rights protection is synonymous with promoting the progress, nor does it mean that it's the best approach, and any honest approach to the question requires giving up the assumption that it is.
On the post: Awesome Stuff: Dealer's Choice
On the post: Copyright... Patent... It's All The Same To The World's Third-Largest News Agency
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Law is for Lawyers
Your position seems to be that because mistakes get made, we should give up on the ideals altogether... and yet you're the one accusing us of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think it's time for you to sit back and think about the side you've taken on this issue.
On the post: Copyright... Patent... It's All The Same To The World's Third-Largest News Agency
Re: Re: Re: Re: Law is for Lawyers
Nothing in this post claims AFP is entirely in shambles -- it's just deservedly harsh criticism over a specific major error. And yes, a factual error in report is precisely "a systemic failure of the entire enterprise" because accurate reporting of the news is, explicitly and exactly, what the system of a news enterprise is set up to do.
On the post: Copyright... Patent... It's All The Same To The World's Third-Largest News Agency
Re: Re: Re: Re: Law is for Lawyers
Yes, mistakes get made. And then they get pointed out. And the journalists who make the fewest mistakes rise to the top over time. There's no room for your laissez-faire attitude towards facts, and you'll find very little support for it among the very people you think you're defending.
On the post: Copyright... Patent... It's All The Same To The World's Third-Largest News Agency
Re: Re: Law is for Lawyers
In some cases yes. In other cases, I think I do, but there's an excellent chance that my knowledge is imperfect or wrong. In other cases, nope.
In all cases, I expect the damn newspaper to be using the correct terms.
On the post: Copyright... Patent... It's All The Same To The World's Third-Largest News Agency
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Also, I wonder what it is exactly that you read news for, if not to educate yourself. The issue is not how many people catch the error, it's how many people walk away misinformed. Copyright and patents are a specialty but hardly one that is cut off from the general public -- the idea that you "patent an invention" is common knowledge and many individuals apply for patents; billions of people see large prominent copyright notices displayed every time they post a photo on Facebook; things like the Pinterest copyright dispute, or the patent clashes between large tech companies, make it onto the evening news regularly these days. The majority of people now have a passing familiarity, at least, with these concepts.
The fact that you think it's not a big deal for the world's third-largest news agency to leave them so badly misinformed about a major distinction of law just shows that you have very low standards for knowledge and comprehension. Anyone familiar with the basics of copyright or even a skewed version thereof -- which these days includes anyone who has *gone to high school* -- now has a completely incorrect understanding of Dotcom's actions, such that any who are interested and attempt to research more are going to find themselves immediately confused, and any who attempted to express even simple opinions about what's happening or might happen is going to sound like a fool.
That's the opposite of what the news is for.
On the post: Copyright... Patent... It's All The Same To The World's Third-Largest News Agency
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Copyright... Patent... It's All The Same To The World's Third-Largest News Agency
Re:
This is like writing an article about baseball and referring to runs as touchdowns. Hey, not everyone is obsessed with every minute detail of sports, right?
On the post: Another CA Cop Thinks A Cell Phone Might Be A Dangerous Weapon
Re:
On the post: President Obama Is 'Troubled' About Chilling Effects His Own Administration Is Causing To Journalism?
Re: Obama says he can kill Mike or YOU with a drone,
On the post: RIAA: The Copyright Reform We Need Is To Make Everyone Else Copyright Cops
Re: Re: Turnabout is fair play
Guvera
iMesh
Mog
Moontaxi
On the post: Magic Hat Brewery Sues West Sixth Brewing, Claiming 6 Looks Too Much Like 9
Re:
On the post: First Hand Account Of Judicial Smackdown Of Prenda In Minnesota
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: First Hand Account Of Judicial Smackdown Of Prenda In Minnesota
Re: Re: Re: Re: just love you command of english
Don't. Just... don't.
(p.s. your "corrected" version is a comma splice)
On the post: The War On Journalists: DOJ Claimed Fox News Reporter Was An 'Aider, Abettor, Co-Conspirator' With Leaker
Re: So, anyone who still believes that "1984" is fiction?
On the post: A New Hope: How Going Free To Play Brought Redemption To Star Wars MMO
Re: Techdirt continually mistakes "loss leader" with "FREE".
By your logic, Craigslist doesn't work. Way more than 70% of the ads are free -- it's probably about 99%, or more. All those damn freeloaders. And yet the company makes millions off of that small group of people that pay... fancy that!
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Actually...
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WHOA! Stop at: "everyone just wants stuff for free".
The main difference is that in court, unlike here, he can't just disappear once he's been caught in an obvious error.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: A sad misunderstanding
Um, what? That makes zero sense.
It's just as easy for a painter to put their work into a digital format as a musician. And it's just as easy for a musician to charge admission or sell a song by not putting it out there in a digital format.
I'm all for the system you describe: if you want control over your work, you must control every copy personally, as property. But if you put your work into an infinitely copiable digital format and release it to the public, you shouldn't whine and complain when people help themselves to copies.
On the post: A Framework For Copyright Reform
Re: A sad misunderstanding
Of course not. This is a question of the best approach to achieving the ends (promoting the progress) which means separating it from the means to look for other means that could do a better job.
Nobody would argue that rights protection is more effective at promoting the progress than, say, shooting every artist in the head. Less hyperbolically, most people here wouldn't argue that rights protection is more effective at promoting the progress than, say, a government Ministry Of Art that regulates all creativity and artistic funding. Those would both be inferior to the copyright system. But none of that means that rights protection is synonymous with promoting the progress, nor does it mean that it's the best approach, and any honest approach to the question requires giving up the assumption that it is.
Next >>