Oops. I was reading the wrong part of the graphs. The figures are 45-50% for average looking / average looking, but I still wouldn't want to spend 15 minutes composing a message about how much I too like Madonna's oeuvre or our joint love for ukulele music.
I'm inclined to agree with previous comments that they would (hopefully) only put up the profiles of people who reveal their ages and availability, together with (again hopefully) a photo, but even so - and ignoring the legal and ethical issues here - would anyone really want to trawl through so many dead profiles to find someone who may be interested?
People who join dating sites are presumptively actively looking for a partner (or maybe just sex :) and OkCupid suggests the chance of getting a reply to a first message is only 25-30% for an average-looking guy or girl. The percentage for this model must be tiny.
Certainly at the low level, this isn't true. I ran a campaign on Facebook recently that was initially rejected because the picture I used was deemed to be too racy. Someone checks the ads before they go out.
Of course they may have different arrangements with larger ad providers, but I'd like to think that they had a pretty good idea who they are already.
I note that this post is already coming up at position 10 in Google for 'academic advantage' (admittedly in the news section, but still). I'm sure BoingBoing's post will feature prominently too, thanks to the links it's bound to generate. Hello Streisand Effect...?
Not necessarily. The photos may be derivative works of the artwork. It's also possible that the pictures would not be sufficiently transformative of the original artwork to be covered by copyright if, for example, Hawk had taken shots of paintings that showed just the paintings head on. (Or at least I believe so, if I remember this correctly. Though of course this doesn't confer any additional copyrights to the museum and so isn't very relevant here.)
You may want to be careful about clicking on those links - PrepFlight counted each visit to RunwayFinder as a lost sale of $149 to reach $3.2m. I believe they got this from Compete.
Quite apart from the unreliability of these statistics for low traffic websites like RunwayFinder's, if PrefFlight's lawyers do actually know how to get a 100% conversion rate from general web traffic (possibly greater than that if they didn't use the unique visitors figure) then they are clearly in the wrong line of business.
Supporting Wikileaks and showing Amazon's hypocrisy by getting the leaked cables on your Kindle? That's priceless. And for everything else, there's MasterCard.
Absolutely. And I think that, as Nina Paley has associated herself closely with this idea, she should also sue for infringement of her publicity rights.
A newer post from the same guy discusses the huge number of hits Wikileaks has taken over the past few days (kicked off Amazon, bank account suspended, MasterCard & Visa revoked, DDOSed, etc.) - the sorts of protections and sanctions that the copyright lobby can, thankfully, only dream of - and points out that they're still around and more prominent than ever.
This is a response truly worthy of shock and of our awe. It is raw power being put to work, largely extra-legally. The exercise of this power has been extremely effective, remarkably quick and unburdened by judicial oversight – it is the sort of response a copyright ideologue dreams of.
How can anyone take the copyright proposition seriously anymore? This is raw power, exercised by not just any old government, but by a very motivated Superpower – and one which is aided by other governments large and small who also have a joint interest is keeping diplomatic cables secret. If this raw power can’t contain this information how could copyright holders backed only by a Copyright Act possibly do so? How is it possible to argue for extensions to the Act other than on the basis of vengeance?
If the US can critisize other countries for stifling free speach while doing the same, why can't the Russians? When Pravda start writing about the heavy handed, authoritarian Russian regime as well, THEN I'll take them seriously.
Well sure they can, and sure they have an agenda, but that doesn't mean that Pravda is wrong. The point, I presume, of highlighting this article, and of the other posts recently here on Techdirt and elsewhere about this topic, is that these developments are deeply worrying.
The US, and other countries in the "liberal West", seem to be moving increasingly away from a presumption of innocence and towards a requirement to prove you're not doing anything wrong - the war on the unexpected. It needs to be discussed so, hopefully, we can start to effect change.
Also, I love how the guy representing them has a website title StopCellphoneTrafficking...as though it were as serious as human trafficking or something. "Those poor cellphones, those poor, poor cellphones."
I was really confused by this at first - what do they mean by cellphone trafficking? Are Tracfone worried that their phones will be tightly packed into a lorry (maybe even without proper sanitation facilities) and taken to be sold abroad? Are they concerned that their products will be brutally jailbroken without anyone asking the phones what *they* want?
Maybe Tracfone should instigate a proper 6 month vetting procedure before selling anyone a new phone, checking applicants' health, marital status and family circumstances. That way they can ensure, as much as possible, that their phones only end up in loving families that will cherish them for years to come.
It's a similar style, I guess, but I hate to think how much of the work produced by the design industry would also be infringing if this lawsuit succeeds.
Design follows trends: it's inspired by previous work and influences following work. It's not created in vacuo, and is much better, in terms of both aesthetics and usability, as a result. (None of this is news to anyone who reads Techdirt of course.)
As a side note, I would have thought that Telegraph Media Group and DC Comics (Batman) would have much stronger claims against Anheuser-Busch...
Even if it was not published, you can still cite yourself.
This isn't necessarily true. For my thesis, I was only able to cite my published papers.
And I'm not sure I buy your taking credit twice argument. The context of the article is different (getting marks twice for the same work), but in your example I have only proved that thing once, no matter how often I talk about it. To me, it seems more like self-promotion than appropriation.
"The court ruling took issue with that line of argument, stating that 'algorithms or software begin in the human mind before they are implemented,' and noting that Google presented no actual evidence that its search suggestions were generated solely from previous related searches, without human intervention."
Doesn't this come a little too close to questioning safe harbour provisions? I can't address the second part of this statement (though it would surprise me greatly if more than a handful of possible suggestions had been subject to human intervention), but this blog's comment system, for example, was conceived in the human mind too. Yet if I were to write something libellous here, Techdirt would rightly not be held liable despite republishing my comments to the world.
There's some interesting comment on this from danah boyd that takes a similar position to that here and on ReadWriteWeb.
“[Schmidt] predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.â€
This is ludicrous on many accounts. First, it completely contradicts historical legal trajectories where name changes have become increasingly more difficult. Second, it fails to account for the tensions between positive and negative reputation. Third, it would be so exceedingly ineffective as to be just outright absurd.
Does anyone using the dispenser actually care about the brand of paper towels? From the end user's perspective they are basically commodities, provided at the same (free) price and performing the same hand-drying function. And I can assure you I wouldn't choose a different restroom based on the brand of paper towels provided.
Has GP (or any rival manufacturer) ever run a consumer campaign to raise brand awareness of their paper towels? GP is implying that end users care deeply about this, so presumably such campaigns could be very profitable.
So if I prohibit people from saving the photos on my site locally with my TOS and then 'enforce' this by disabling the right click menu with JavaScript, does this mean anyone running a browser without JavaScript enabled, or who has chosen to stop the right click menu being disabled through JavaScript (an option in Firefox and probably other browsers too), is potentially breaking the law? Yikes.
On the post: Dating Site's Plans To Create Profiles By Scraping Social Networks: Publicity Stunt Or Just Dumb?
Re:
On the post: Dating Site's Plans To Create Profiles By Scraping Social Networks: Publicity Stunt Or Just Dumb?
People who join dating sites are presumptively actively looking for a partner (or maybe just sex :) and OkCupid suggests the chance of getting a reply to a first message is only 25-30% for an average-looking guy or girl. The percentage for this model must be tiny.
On the post: Facebook's 3rd Biggest Advertiser Accused Of Being Affiliate Toolbar Scam; Facebook Says It's Never Heard Of The Company
Re: Well
Of course they may have different arrangements with larger ad providers, but I'd like to think that they had a pretty good idea who they are already.
On the post: No, Just Because A Site Contains 'Academic' 'Advantage' & 'Scam' On The Same Page, It Is Not Defamation Against Academic Advantage
Result!
On the post: Erotic Art Museum Comes Up With Bizarre Justification For Suing Photographer For $2 Million
Re: Re: Everything but copyright
On the post: Winklevoss Twins Still Trying To Get More Of Facebook
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Homeland Security Presents 'Evidence' For Domain Seizures; Proves It Knows Little About The Internet - Or The Law
Re: Re:
On the post: Creating Flight Plans Online? Patented! Small Company Sued Out Of Business For Not Wanting To Pay $3.2 Million Per Month
Quite apart from the unreliability of these statistics for low traffic websites like RunwayFinder's, if PrefFlight's lawyers do actually know how to get a 100% conversion rate from general web traffic (possibly greater than that if they didn't use the unique visitors figure) then they are clearly in the wrong line of business.
On the post: Amazon Won't Host Wikileaks... But Will Sell The Leaked Cables For Your Kindle?
Oh come on, someone had to say it...
On the post: Copyheart: Encouraging People To Copy
Re: ALERT!
On the post: How US Copyright Expansionism Created The Infrastructure That Now Stymies US Gov't In Stopping Wikileaks
Dreams of further expansionism
This is a response truly worthy of shock and of our awe. It is raw power being put to work, largely extra-legally. The exercise of this power has been extremely effective, remarkably quick and unburdened by judicial oversight – it is the sort of response a copyright ideologue dreams of.
How can anyone take the copyright proposition seriously anymore? This is raw power, exercised by not just any old government, but by a very motivated Superpower – and one which is aided by other governments large and small who also have a joint interest is keeping diplomatic cables secret. If this raw power can’t contain this information how could copyright holders backed only by a Copyright Act possibly do so? How is it possible to argue for extensions to the Act other than on the basis of vengeance?
On the post: Russian Press And Pakistani Courts Apparently Have More Respect For Free Speech Than Joe Lieberman
Re: Pravda? Truth? Give me a break...
If the US can critisize other countries for stifling free speach while doing the same, why can't the Russians? When Pravda start writing about the heavy handed, authoritarian Russian regime as well, THEN I'll take them seriously.
Well sure they can, and sure they have an agenda, but that doesn't mean that Pravda is wrong. The point, I presume, of highlighting this article, and of the other posts recently here on Techdirt and elsewhere about this topic, is that these developments are deeply worrying.
The US, and other countries in the "liberal West", seem to be moving increasingly away from a presumption of innocence and towards a requirement to prove you're not doing anything wrong - the war on the unexpected. It needs to be discussed so, hopefully, we can start to effect change.
On the post: Jailbreaking Phones Lands A Guy In... Jail!
Re:
I was really confused by this at first - what do they mean by cellphone trafficking? Are Tracfone worried that their phones will be tightly packed into a lorry (maybe even without proper sanitation facilities) and taken to be sold abroad? Are they concerned that their products will be brutally jailbroken without anyone asking the phones what *they* want?
Maybe Tracfone should instigate a proper 6 month vetting procedure before selling anyone a new phone, checking applicants' health, marital status and family circumstances. That way they can ensure, as much as possible, that their phones only end up in loving families that will cherish them for years to come.
On the post: Beverage Company Sues Anheuser-Busch Over Totally Different Looking Can Design
Design follows trends: it's inspired by previous work and influences following work. It's not created in vacuo, and is much better, in terms of both aesthetics and usability, as a result. (None of this is news to anyone who reads Techdirt of course.)
As a side note, I would have thought that Telegraph Media Group and DC Comics (Batman) would have much stronger claims against Anheuser-Busch...
On the post: What's Wrong With Students Reusing Papers?
Re: You 'can' plagurize yourself... sort of
This isn't necessarily true. For my thesis, I was only able to cite my published papers.
And I'm not sure I buy your taking credit twice argument. The context of the article is different (getting marks twice for the same work), but in your example I have only proved that thing once, no matter how often I talk about it. To me, it seems more like self-promotion than appropriation.
On the post: Boy Scout Magazine Says Don't Listen To Legally Burned CDs, As They're Too Similar To Piracy
Re: Re:
I was going to say something similar, but it would have been less funny.
Though maybe they shouldn't be advising parents to haul scouts around in their cars either, as it's just a few small steps away from child abduction.
On the post: Was A French Court Correct In Blaming Google For Its Google Suggest Suggestions?
Doesn't this come a little too close to questioning safe harbour provisions? I can't address the second part of this statement (though it would surprise me greatly if more than a handful of possible suggestions had been subject to human intervention), but this blog's comment system, for example, was conceived in the human mind too. Yet if I were to write something libellous here, Techdirt would rightly not be held liable despite republishing my comments to the world.
On the post: Will Kids Change Their Names As They Become Adults To Hide From Their Google Permanent Record?
On the post: If You Don't Get The Matching Brand Paper Towel Out Of A Dispenser In A Restroom... Is That Trademark Infringement?
End users?
Has GP (or any rival manufacturer) ever run a consumer campaign to raise brand awareness of their paper towels? GP is implying that end users care deeply about this, so presumably such campaigns could be very profitable.
On the post: Good News: Violating Terms Of Service Is Not Hacking; Bad News: Circumventing Weak Tech Blocks Might Be
Good news on the other part of the ruling though.
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