Anyone can report the news these days. Once the first article is published, it's just a copy/paste cycle from the rest of the internet. What keeps sites valuable, and people returning (in my opinion) is the particular spin an author adds [if she bothers to] and the tenor of the comments.
Reddit, Stackoverflow, heck even Slashdot are all about the comments. While a headline or a good story may bring users to a site, it's the comments that keeps them there.
Personally, I don't do Facebook. I am more likely to post comments at sites where I can post anonymously, or pseudo-anonymously without registering [ like here on Techdirt ;) ]. Occasionally I'll bother to create an account on a site, but that's typically a comment heavy site like Slashdot.
Sites that don't allow anonymous posting, or worse ones that require you to use your Facebook or Discus credentials (I really detest forcing you to log in with an account that facilitates cross site tracking.) are like magazines you flip through at the dentists office while waiting for your appointment. If you are bored, you flip through a few pages now and again. There's no brand affinity or loyalty.
If a website operator can't be bothered to maintain a comments section he's saying that he can't be bothered with maintaining a clientele. That website is telling their readers they just don't care enough to bother.
It's like the republican party having told women they belong in the kitchen, latinos they belong back in Mexico, and calling all african-americans stupid, poor, and criminals and yet still then expecting them to vote for the republican presidential candidate. You don't think it could happen? Then you weren't paying attention to the 2012 presidential election.
News is cheap to reproduce and your competitor is just a click away. If you don't care enough about your audience to at least allow comments, then you shouldn't expect your audience to care about you.
"Finally, contrary to what Google has stated, this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the CNIL to apply French law extraterritorially [emphasis mine]. It simply requests full observance of European legislation by non European players offering their services in Europe."
What France is really saying is that they want their pre-internet borders back. It's understandable, pretty much every country wants the internet to respect their borders. Governments really hate it when they can't control the world. At least in the pre-internet age, they could at least control their citizens.
Google wants to have one system to serve them all. The problem with Google's solution, is that all of Google is accessible from the EU. Google is being somewhat snarky by just delisting the .fr domain. At the very least they should have delisted all of the EU domains. (Not that it would have actually helped, but it would have looked a little less snarky.)
The only way to satisfy the French, along with the Chinese, the Turkish, the ...... (you get the idea) is to create a version of Google for each political area that gets served to everyone from that area regardless of what they type into their web browser. Google.fr, Google.es, Google...., Google.com should all point to the version approved for the location of the user. If a user is in France then they should get Google results that comply with French laws first, then EU laws.
The problem with that is just how does Google know the location of the user making the browser request in real time? Physically track the location of the connection? Look up the registered user's internet-license?, anything coming from a particular block of IP addresses?
The first isn't very reliable, the second doesn't actually exist (in most western countries at least), and the third is easily defeated by using a VPN.
Realistically, the best Google can do is #3. France/EU can give them a list of IP blocks (good luck with IPv6 self assigned blocks) that Google can redirect to the French approved Google results. Realizing of course that they will have to shortly thereafter expand that to the rest of the EU. Soon to be followed by China, India, Myramar, etc.
If the internet user utilizes a VPN to disguise their location, that's not Google's fault.
Should Google suggest to do the above, and France balks, then the world would know that they really do want to apply French law extraterritorially.
So, if the New Zealand courts accept Lessig's arguments...
So, if the New Zealand courts accept Lessig's arguments, then what?
Kim doesn't get extradited. U.S. government just keeps any assets that currently reside in the U.S. and Hollywood butchers his character in a badly made movie?
Kim get's apprehended by the local police in a daring midnight raid, complete with assault weapons, killer attack dogs, and black helicopters. He is handed over to U.S. forces in international waters where he takes the long way back to the states. Stopping over at CIA black sites in Turkey, Afghanistan, and Cuba where he is held as a material supporter of terrorism, since you know Lessig completely dismantled their criminal case.
After all, it wouldn't be right to deny Hollywood campaign contributors justice and terrorists use the internet too......
Re: Do You Really Want Cheaters Building Bridges and Practicing Medicine?
I guess it depends on what you are actually testing on the tests that you are worried about people cheating on.
I once knew a physics professors who always gave open book tests, at least at the upper levels, and I believe his reasoning was sound.
His position was that he couldn't really test a student's knowledge in 40 minutes. So a traditional closed book test was useless. Combine that with his belief that it didn't matter how many books, websites, calculators, or computer programs you had access to, if you didn't know the subject you wouldn't be able to pass the test.
What are you really testing in most traditional tests? How much the student has memorized? How fast they can answer the problem?
You need to know how well they know the subject. As long as you can tell that they actually did the work, it doesn't really matter how many web sites, other people, they consulted. That knowledge is thesis/practicum/performance testable, not sitting in front of a computer answering questions on a form while an electronic nanny makes sure you don't talk to anyone, or look at any other web pages.
Personally, I wouldn't want surgeons operating on anyone if all they could do was pass a fill in the form computer proctored test. I would expect that they would have to prove that they could, you know, actually handle a scalpel competently. But perhaps that's just me.....
Actually employer based health insurance was first offered in one form back in the late 1800's. Large numbers of employers started offering it during WWII as a way to attract employees as the government froze wages. So it's been around long before television or other talking heads.
As I see it there are three fundamental problems with the current health insurance system (probably more, but these are the big three):
Fee for service provides perverse incentives
It's literally you money or your life, or at least health
Insurance is the wrong model for health services
1. Providers aren't paid based on getting people healthy, but on how many times they are seen. So, if you mess up (don't cure/correct) or cause a complication, the health care provider will make more money than if they successfully cured the patient.
A corollary is the pharmaceutical industry. You make the least amount of money for a vaccine and the most for a treatment.
2. Once the government stepped out of the way, health care providers know that health care isn't like a trip to the ballpark or a new car, not paying for healthcare will leave you in pain, or perhaps dead. So they will charge whatever they want.
3.Insurance works when the thing you are insuring occurs infrequently and the risk can be spread out among a large pool of people. Car insurance; every one gets it, but it's exceedingly rare that a sizable number of cars will make a claim at the same time (or at all). House insurance; everyone gets it, few people make claims. There's a reason that flood insurance isn't generally offered by private companies. Few people usually need it, but when claims are made there are usually a large number of them at the same time.
Health care on the other hand is something everyone is going to use, some more often than others. The people who really need it, will need it a lot, and everyone else will need it at least occasionally.
Combine that with #2 [when you need it, you really need it] and without careful price controls it's going to cost much more than it should. What's human lives and suffering when there's profit to maximize?
Add in #1 and we are incentivizing the health industry to to make people require more health services than they should. Mistakes aren't a problem, they're an opportunity.
The solution is as simple as it's unpalatable [to some], Universal Health Care. A free market/capitalistic solution is great at maximizing the profits of a select few. Unfortunately it does so by externalizing the costs to the rest of the economy and causing needless suffering and death.
Here's the simple three step plan to universal health coverage in the United States:
Everyone's covered with the same plan
All health care providers are required to accept it
Everyone* contributes to paying for it
You can argue about the details until the cows come home, but those are the basics. Ideally prices would be set based on cost to deliver plus reasonable profit. Providers would be rewarded for successful treatments and penalized for mistakes. Treatments that weren't successful through no fault of the provider would be treated neutrally. Pharma would be under the same rubric as other providers (cost plus reasonable profit) with the addition that patents for treatments are shorter than those for cures. Patents for immunizations longer than those for cures. To reflect the savings (in money and suffering) that each provides as an example.
The private health insurance industry may wither and die, but that's probably a good thing. If your dog's flee treatment doesn't kill off the flees, it's not an effective flee treatment. Any health care plan that doesn't kill off the health insurance industry [and their perverse not paying for coverage, profit taking] isn't an effective health care plan.
There are probably a few ways this could be accomplished. I would suggest we start by expanding Medicare/Medicaid to cover all services, for all people, accepted by all health care providers. Call it USA Care.
Replace government health care plans from the president on down with USA Care. Roll Medicare, Medicaid, TriCare, VA Care into USA Care. Require everyone to contribute to USA Care (lots of us are currently paying for Medicare even though we can't actually use it). You can keep the VA health system to handle the unique requirements of service men and women, just pay for it via USA Care.
Phase it in over a few years. First convert all the existing government plans to it. Then expand it to all the poor, and then everyone without coverage. Mandate that private insurance provide the same benefits at the same price points. Employers will have to pay for equivalent private insurance until they switch and start paying the USA Care equivalent (think SS). They will clamor to drop their private coverage for the more affordable USA Care amounts.
In less than ten years, we will have a much more sane and sustainable health care system. Sure, Pharma, some hospitals, some doctors, and the now extinct health insurance industry (among others) will be making a lot less money than they are under the current system. But less of the GDP will be eaten up by health care costs, employees (and everyone else) will be healthier and more productive, companies will be better able to compete with their over seas competition (who are already operating under universal health care systems).
What's not to like?
[*Everyone means everyone with money. Those too poor don't have any to contribute. At the same time those too rich don't get a pass.]
Re: "permission culture dilemma" -- HA, HA! You mean the culture in which the people who pay for production want to profit for work and risk? That PESKY CULTURE?
"In fact and in common law besides statute, those who make content are THEREBY entitled to grant permission to consumers. It's not a "permission" it's a PRODUCTION CULTURE."
Wow.... just wow.....
statute, unfortunately, common law, not bloody likely.
People used to need permission to print copies of selected works [that were fixed in a tangible medium] for a limited time. This was seen as an acceptable limitation on the _common_law_ right to do what you wanted with what you own. The hope was that it would encourage more content to be created and that more people would be able to benefit.
Unfortunately this has been perverted into a belief (often backed by law) that every utterance, word, thought, sight, and sound can be owned and that people require permission to do what they want with things that they own, or look at, or even think..
It's this absurd belief, and the laws that back it, that are referred to as a Permission Culture.
Whenever I want to watch something relatively new, I add it to my DVD queue. Netflix may have an ever changing line up of streaming content, but most everything will show up in your mail box eventually.
If it's streamable, great, otherwise I'll watch it when it comes in.
As long as Netflix has the fallback of physical media [backed by the first sale doctrine], keeps their prices down, and avoids ads, they will have a lot of wiggle room to try new things regarding streaming.
[TorrentFreak's top 10 pirated movies list is a good place to look for new movies to add to your Netflix DVD/Blu-ray queue.]
It'll keep getting worse.... until it doesn't (or implodes)
It'll keep getting worse.... until it doesn't (or implodes, whichever comes first).
(Near) eternal copyright terms are BS, and counter productive. Default copyright on everything, see above. Individual licensing deals in the age of digital media and near zero duplication costs, unsustainable.
All the above does is fracture the legal landscape and drive people to side step the increasingly insane copyright restrictions.
It's telling when:
watching a non-corporate approved copy of a movie is simpler, faster, and more enjoyable than an official DVD or Blu-Ray. streaming via Popcorn Time is simpler and less restrictive than Hulu, or Netflix, or Amazon. what content a commercial service carries depends on what piece of land the system thinks you are standing on at the time.
What prohibition (in the US) should have taught us by now, is that when faced with a nonsensical law and legal landscape, people will just ignore it [even grandma had a pint, just for medicinal purposes of course]. The crazier copyright related laws get, the less people will support/worry/comply with them.
The solution (short of just doing away with the obviously unneeded copyright regime):
Return copyright to requiring formalities
Reduce copyright to it's original 12 + 12 year term
Expand and make universal, Fair Use of works
Open/standard/compulsory licensing on all performance/streaming applications
Let companies focus on providing the best service, user interface, novel application instead of crippling them at the whim of whomever happens to hold a copyright on a particular work.
As the internet age has clearly demonstrated, copyright isn't really needed as an incentive to create creative works. It just allows short sighted greed to hinder innovation and actually often reduces the availability of protected works.
If the system actually is designed to use end-to-end encryption, with the keys handled by the client directly, then Apple isn't being obstinate.
No court can order someone to do something they can't actually do. It's a fruitless as demanding Apple produce voice recordings of , or turn over a mated pair of unicorns to the DOJ. Not possible (probably).
The best the government could do is to outlaw further production of the communications network, or in the extreme force Apple to turn off the existing system.
Just another represive government not wanting accountability
This is just another case of a repressive government not wanting anyone contradicting the 'official view'.
The dominant Turkish party recently lost it's parliamentary majority in the last election, when a number of Kurdish parliament members were voted in. That party is calling for another election (a do over) to correct this aberration.
At the same time the Turkish government has been stepping up their attacks on the 'PKK' [Kurdistan Workers' Party in English ]. Some speculate that in predominately Kurdish areas, it will be impossible for a truly free/open election to be held. Other speculate that this is the purpose for the crack down.
Initially the Turkish government claimed the arrested reporters were working for both the PKK and ISIS/ISIL. Which on it's face it just silly.
This was then changed to they had video of 'PKK' activity (such as fighters making munitions) and one of the reporters notebook has notes including the names and abbreviations used by/ describing terrorist organizations. Of course, most of the Western nations expect a reporter to have that sort of information, because that's what they are reporting on.
Now they are apparently trying to run the scary encryption flag up the pole. What's next? The reporters were using the same brand of laptop as the terrorists were known to use. Perhaps the same brand of toilet paper?
The Turkish government says they respect 'freedom of the press', but these particular reports broke their anti-terrorist laws. Conveniently their anti-terrorist laws make it a crime to contradict the official government line.
Of course our (U.S. of A. for any non-USA readers) Pentagon has a policy that says that reporters often do the same things as spies and so it's O.K. to treat reporters acting without local government approval as potential terrorists/spies. So I'm waiting for the Turkish government to respond with; "We are just following the same guidelines as the U.S. military..."
So much for the United States having any claim to a moral high ground.
Heck, back in 1998 RFC 2324 was published. For those out there who aren't intimately familiar with RFC's it's the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0) [ https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2324.txt ]
So it's not just obvious, it's actually been published for _deities_ sake.
Freedom doesn't include the freedom to exploit people.
It's a mixed bag, this twenty-first century economy. Sure there are successes like NetFlix, Google, and Amazon. I'm not sure I would include Pandora, Snapchat or Twitter. While they may be household names, have any of them actually made a profit?
Unfortunately you have included some arguably bad actors in your list; Lyft, Uber. I would have added Homejoy, but they're shutting/shut down.
The 'on demand economy' isn't a license to exploit workers.
"Ride hailing companies continue to face pressure from courts and politicians who say drivers should be treated as employees rather than independent contractors."
They should, they are. FedEx is facing similar issues for many of the same reasons.
"...many ride hailing drivers are drawn to the flexibility of being independent contractors."
More like many drivers are trying to make a living wage in an economy that offers a multitude of low wage, part time, benefitless, overly flexible [for the employer] job opportunities.
"The government should only impose itself on industry if there's a compelling public interest"
There is, the protection of working Americans. The same compelling public interest that gave us, the minimum wage, the 40 hour work week, overtime, safer workplaces, social security, workman compensation, and protection from discrimination and exploitation. Unless you think that those are things that shouldn't apply to the demand economy.
Employers are free to try to utilize the new economy to find inventive and imaginative ways to make money. You have listed some that have succeeded (Google, Facebook, Amazon) and some that are giving it a good try (Twitter, Pandora, and I would add Spotify). Protectionist laws and regulations should be challenged and changed.
Just like with patents, you shouldn't be able to take an otherwise unpatentable idea and get a patent by adding: ...on the internet.
Some of these companies (the Uber and HomeJoys) are trying to take an exploitative and illegal business plan and think they all they need to make it legal is to add ...on the internet.
Your article does us all a disservice by conflating the two.
Re: Re: Re: Re: What else do you expect them to do?
Wow, are you truly this obtuse, or do you have to take lessons at a special school?
Stealing (a.k.a. theft) is that process where there is some physical object, that I don't have legal rights to, which is taken thereby depriving it's rightful owner of the use of that physical object.
ex: Someone steals your bicycle forcing you to find some other way to get around.
Someone steals your lunch, forcing you to buy another one or go hungry.
Copyright infringement is violating an enumerated right granted to an author or designated copyright holder in a manner not allowed for under fair use or some other statutory exception.
ex: Uploading a copyrighted movie, that you don't have the rights to, and have not otherwise gotten permission from the copyright holder, to a web site or torrent.
Making copies of Tupac's latest posthumous album and selling them on the corner.
Photocopying the entire copy of Twilight from the library for your own use.
When you infringe upon copyright, the original is unimpaired. When you steal something, the owner is deprived of that copy.
If I steal your copy of "Copyright for Dummies" you can no longer read all about copyright. If I commit copyright infringement by making a copy of your book, you are still able to read up on the difference between copyright infringement and stealing.
Drop it before a more widly applicable precedent is set
It's all S.O.P. for the DOJ.
Never appeal a case where some judge calls out their obviously illegal actions. In this way they can try to minimize the precedent setting and limit the damage to as small an area as possible.
With a single judge, maybe that town/county/state. If they're lucky it'll only be limited to that particular judge. With an appellate loss, they loose the ability to successfully engage in those shenanigans across an entire appellate circuit.
Everyone knows (or should be this point) that copyright infringement != stealing.
Most people realize that people acquiring less than legal copies are doing so because (choose one or more as fits):
official copies are too expensive official copies are too limited (can't do what you want) official copies are unavailable (in format or location)
People who shout back that other people should just stop consuming if they don't agree, don't understand human nature, or the hundreds of years of precedent that have gotten us to where we are.
People have always been free to listen, to sing along, to perform. In the United States at least, for more than fifty years, anyone could listen to the radio, or watch broadcast television, simply by using the right equipment (and they didn't even have to buy one themselves, as they could watch/listen with their neighbors, in their homes, in bars, etc.). No additional charges required. It wasn't until 1997 when the No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act) was passed that made recording and trading music without payment illegal.
In 1996, and before, you could trade bootleg copies of music, mp3 files, VHS tapes, completely _legally_.
Now we have people busted for playing music to horses without a license. Schools dragged through court for compiling study packs. Streaming music and video that can't be saved, heck isn't even available if you are in the wrong country. DVDs that were purchased legally, that can't be played legally because the _region_ it was purchased in differs from the one that it's attempting to be played in. Buy a bunch of media (say from Amazon), legally, in Norway, watch it all get deleted when you vacation to Great Briton.
So _of_course_ the powers that be (including the RIAA, MPAA, etc.) are focusing on education. What are their other alternatives?
Take a massive pay cut. Treat artists with respect. Give customers what they want. Join the frakking twenty-first century.
On the post: The Trend Of Killing News Comment Sections Because You 'Just Really Value Conversation' Stupidly Continues
Those were heavilly moderated comments...[Re: Re: ]
You only have to publish favorably letters and you don't have to be bothered by any inconvenient opinions.
On the post: The Trend Of Killing News Comment Sections Because You 'Just Really Value Conversation' Stupidly Continues
Anyone can 'report' the news these days....
Reddit, Stackoverflow, heck even Slashdot are all about the comments. While a headline or a good story may bring users to a site, it's the comments that keeps them there.
Personally, I don't do Facebook. I am more likely to post comments at sites where I can post anonymously, or pseudo-anonymously without registering [ like here on Techdirt ;) ]. Occasionally I'll bother to create an account on a site, but that's typically a comment heavy site like Slashdot.
Sites that don't allow anonymous posting, or worse ones that require you to use your Facebook or Discus credentials (I really detest forcing you to log in with an account that facilitates cross site tracking.) are like magazines you flip through at the dentists office while waiting for your appointment. If you are bored, you flip through a few pages now and again. There's no brand affinity or loyalty.
If a website operator can't be bothered to maintain a comments section he's saying that he can't be bothered with maintaining a clientele. That website is telling their readers they just don't care enough to bother.
It's like the republican party having told women they belong in the kitchen, latinos they belong back in Mexico, and calling all african-americans stupid, poor, and criminals and yet still then expecting them to vote for the republican presidential candidate. You don't think it could happen? Then you weren't paying attention to the 2012 presidential election.
News is cheap to reproduce and your competitor is just a click away. If you don't care enough about your audience to at least allow comments, then you shouldn't expect your audience to care about you.
On the post: French Regulating Body Says Google Must Honor Right To Be Forgotten Across All Of Its Domains
France wants its borders back.
What France is really saying is that they want their pre-internet borders back. It's understandable, pretty much every country wants the internet to respect their borders. Governments really hate it when they can't control the world. At least in the pre-internet age, they could at least control their citizens.
Google wants to have one system to serve them all. The problem with Google's solution, is that all of Google is accessible from the EU. Google is being somewhat snarky by just delisting the .fr domain. At the very least they should have delisted all of the EU domains. (Not that it would have actually helped, but it would have looked a little less snarky.)
The only way to satisfy the French, along with the Chinese, the Turkish, the ...... (you get the idea) is to create a version of Google for each political area that gets served to everyone from that area regardless of what they type into their web browser. Google.fr, Google.es, Google...., Google.com should all point to the version approved for the location of the user. If a user is in France then they should get Google results that comply with French laws first, then EU laws.
The problem with that is just how does Google know the location of the user making the browser request in real time? Physically track the location of the connection? Look up the registered user's internet-license?, anything coming from a particular block of IP addresses?
The first isn't very reliable, the second doesn't actually exist (in most western countries at least), and the third is easily defeated by using a VPN.
Realistically, the best Google can do is #3. France/EU can give them a list of IP blocks (good luck with IPv6 self assigned blocks) that Google can redirect to the French approved Google results. Realizing of course that they will have to shortly thereafter expand that to the rest of the EU. Soon to be followed by China, India, Myramar, etc.
If the internet user utilizes a VPN to disguise their location, that's not Google's fault.
Should Google suggest to do the above, and France balks, then the world would know that they really do want to apply French law extraterritorially.
On the post: Wired Releases A Story Early To Apple News Users; Wired Readers Not Happy
It works so good for music and television right?
Music:
TV:
So why would you want to settle for just plain old Wired (web edition) when you can have:
I mean it's not like anyone can get their news somewhere else now can they? /s
On the post: Larry Lessig Tells New Zealand Court That DOJ's Case Against Kim Dotcom Is A Sham
So, if the New Zealand courts accept Lessig's arguments...
After all, it wouldn't be right to deny Hollywood campaign contributors justice and terrorists use the internet too......
On the post: Anti-Cheat Software Company Contracted By Rutgers Fails To Live Up To Privacy Agreement With Students
Re: Do You Really Want Cheaters Building Bridges and Practicing Medicine?
I once knew a physics professors who always gave open book tests, at least at the upper levels, and I believe his reasoning was sound.
His position was that he couldn't really test a student's knowledge in 40 minutes. So a traditional closed book test was useless. Combine that with his belief that it didn't matter how many books, websites, calculators, or computer programs you had access to, if you didn't know the subject you wouldn't be able to pass the test.
What are you really testing in most traditional tests? How much the student has memorized? How fast they can answer the problem?
You need to know how well they know the subject. As long as you can tell that they actually did the work, it doesn't really matter how many web sites, other people, they consulted. That knowledge is thesis/practicum/performance testable, not sitting in front of a computer answering questions on a form while an electronic nanny makes sure you don't talk to anyone, or look at any other web pages.
Personally, I wouldn't want surgeons operating on anyone if all they could do was pass a fill in the form computer proctored test. I would expect that they would have to prove that they could, you know, actually handle a scalpel competently. But perhaps that's just me.....
On the post: Blue Cross Threatens To End Coverage For Patients At Christian Hospital Group Over Blue Cross Logo
Re:
As I see it there are three fundamental problems with the current health insurance system (probably more, but these are the big three):
1. Providers aren't paid based on getting people healthy, but on how many times they are seen. So, if you mess up (don't cure/correct) or cause a complication, the health care provider will make more money than if they successfully cured the patient.
A corollary is the pharmaceutical industry. You make the least amount of money for a vaccine and the most for a treatment.
2. Once the government stepped out of the way, health care providers know that health care isn't like a trip to the ballpark or a new car, not paying for healthcare will leave you in pain, or perhaps dead. So they will charge whatever they want.
3.Insurance works when the thing you are insuring occurs infrequently and the risk can be spread out among a large pool of people. Car insurance; every one gets it, but it's exceedingly rare that a sizable number of cars will make a claim at the same time (or at all). House insurance; everyone gets it, few people make claims. There's a reason that flood insurance isn't generally offered by private companies. Few people usually need it, but when claims are made there are usually a large number of them at the same time.
Health care on the other hand is something everyone is going to use, some more often than others. The people who really need it, will need it a lot, and everyone else will need it at least occasionally.
Combine that with #2 [when you need it, you really need it] and without careful price controls it's going to cost much more than it should. What's human lives and suffering when there's profit to maximize?
Add in #1 and we are incentivizing the health industry to to make people require more health services than they should. Mistakes aren't a problem, they're an opportunity.
The solution is as simple as it's unpalatable [to some], Universal Health Care. A free market/capitalistic solution is great at maximizing the profits of a select few. Unfortunately it does so by externalizing the costs to the rest of the economy and causing needless suffering and death.
Here's the simple three step plan to universal health coverage in the United States:
You can argue about the details until the cows come home, but those are the basics. Ideally prices would be set based on cost to deliver plus reasonable profit. Providers would be rewarded for successful treatments and penalized for mistakes. Treatments that weren't successful through no fault of the provider would be treated neutrally. Pharma would be under the same rubric as other providers (cost plus reasonable profit) with the addition that patents for treatments are shorter than those for cures. Patents for immunizations longer than those for cures. To reflect the savings (in money and suffering) that each provides as an example.
The private health insurance industry may wither and die, but that's probably a good thing. If your dog's flee treatment doesn't kill off the flees, it's not an effective flee treatment. Any health care plan that doesn't kill off the health insurance industry [and their perverse not paying for coverage, profit taking] isn't an effective health care plan.
There are probably a few ways this could be accomplished. I would suggest we start by expanding Medicare/Medicaid to cover all services, for all people, accepted by all health care providers. Call it USA Care.
Replace government health care plans from the president on down with USA Care. Roll Medicare, Medicaid, TriCare, VA Care into USA Care. Require everyone to contribute to USA Care (lots of us are currently paying for Medicare even though we can't actually use it). You can keep the VA health system to handle the unique requirements of service men and women, just pay for it via USA Care.
Phase it in over a few years. First convert all the existing government plans to it. Then expand it to all the poor, and then everyone without coverage. Mandate that private insurance provide the same benefits at the same price points. Employers will have to pay for equivalent private insurance until they switch and start paying the USA Care equivalent (think SS). They will clamor to drop their private coverage for the more affordable USA Care amounts.
In less than ten years, we will have a much more sane and sustainable health care system. Sure, Pharma, some hospitals, some doctors, and the now extinct health insurance industry (among others) will be making a lot less money than they are under the current system. But less of the GDP will be eaten up by health care costs, employees (and everyone else) will be healthier and more productive, companies will be better able to compete with their over seas competition (who are already operating under universal health care systems).
What's not to like?
[*Everyone means everyone with money. Those too poor don't have any to contribute. At the same time those too rich don't get a pass.]
On the post: Blue Cross Threatens To End Coverage For Patients At Christian Hospital Group Over Blue Cross Logo
Taking a page from the television playbook....[Re:]
Of course a blackout of coverage has an entirely different meaning when it's surgery as opposed to the latest basketball game.
On the post: Netflix Keeps Losing Mainstream Movies, Informs Users They Should Be Ok With That Because Of Adam Sandler
Re: "permission culture dilemma" -- HA, HA! You mean the culture in which the people who pay for production want to profit for work and risk? That PESKY CULTURE?
Wow.... just wow.....
statute, unfortunately, common law, not bloody likely.
People used to need permission to print copies of selected works [that were fixed in a tangible medium] for a limited time. This was seen as an acceptable limitation on the _common_law_ right to do what you wanted with what you own. The hope was that it would encourage more content to be created and that more people would be able to benefit.
Unfortunately this has been perverted into a belief (often backed by law) that every utterance, word, thought, sight, and sound can be owned and that people require permission to do what they want with things that they own, or look at, or even think..
It's this absurd belief, and the laws that back it, that are referred to as a Permission Culture.
[but then you probably already knew that....]
On the post: Netflix Keeps Losing Mainstream Movies, Informs Users They Should Be Ok With That Because Of Adam Sandler
Re: [Netflix supports DVD/BLu-Ray]
If it's streamable, great, otherwise I'll watch it when it comes in.
As long as Netflix has the fallback of physical media [backed by the first sale doctrine], keeps their prices down, and avoids ads, they will have a lot of wiggle room to try new things regarding streaming.
[TorrentFreak's top 10 pirated movies list is a good place to look for new movies to add to your Netflix DVD/Blu-ray queue.]
On the post: Netflix Keeps Losing Mainstream Movies, Informs Users They Should Be Ok With That Because Of Adam Sandler
It'll keep getting worse.... until it doesn't (or implodes)
(Near) eternal copyright terms are BS, and counter productive.
Default copyright on everything, see above.
Individual licensing deals in the age of digital media and near zero duplication costs, unsustainable.
All the above does is fracture the legal landscape and drive people to side step the increasingly insane copyright restrictions.
It's telling when:
watching a non-corporate approved copy of a movie is simpler, faster, and more enjoyable than an official DVD or Blu-Ray.
streaming via Popcorn Time is simpler and less restrictive than Hulu, or Netflix, or Amazon.
what content a commercial service carries depends on what piece of land the system thinks you are standing on at the time.
What prohibition (in the US) should have taught us by now, is that when faced with a nonsensical law and legal landscape, people will just ignore it [even grandma had a pint, just for medicinal purposes of course]. The crazier copyright related laws get, the less people will support/worry/comply with them.
The solution (short of just doing away with the obviously unneeded copyright regime):
Let companies focus on providing the best service, user interface, novel application instead of crippling them at the whim of whomever happens to hold a copyright on a particular work.
As the internet age has clearly demonstrated, copyright isn't really needed as an incentive to create creative works. It just allows short sighted greed to hinder innovation and actually often reduces the availability of protected works.
On the post: Apple Refused Court Order To Decrypt iMessages For DOJ; DOJ Debates What To Do
Here's the beauty of the situation.
If the system actually is designed to use end-to-end encryption, with the keys handled by the client directly, then Apple isn't being obstinate.
No court can order someone to do something they can't actually do. It's a fruitless as demanding Apple produce voice recordings of , or turn over a mated pair of unicorns to the DOJ. Not possible (probably).
The best the government could do is to outlaw further production of the communications network, or in the extreme force Apple to turn off the existing system.
On the post: Vice News Employees Charged With Terrorism In Turkey... Because They Used Encryption
Just another represive government not wanting accountability
The dominant Turkish party recently lost it's parliamentary majority in the last election, when a number of Kurdish parliament members were voted in. That party is calling for another election (a do over) to correct this aberration.
At the same time the Turkish government has been stepping up their attacks on the 'PKK' [Kurdistan Workers' Party in English ]. Some speculate that in predominately Kurdish areas, it will be impossible for a truly free/open election to be held. Other speculate that this is the purpose for the crack down.
Initially the Turkish government claimed the arrested reporters were working for both the PKK and ISIS/ISIL. Which on it's face it just silly.
This was then changed to they had video of 'PKK' activity (such as fighters making munitions) and one of the reporters notebook has notes including the names and abbreviations used by/ describing terrorist organizations. Of course, most of the Western nations expect a reporter to have that sort of information, because that's what they are reporting on.
Now they are apparently trying to run the scary encryption flag up the pole. What's next? The reporters were using the same brand of laptop as the terrorists were known to use. Perhaps the same brand of toilet paper?
The Turkish government says they respect 'freedom of the press', but these particular reports broke their anti-terrorist laws. Conveniently their anti-terrorist laws make it a crime to contradict the official government line.
Of course our (U.S. of A. for any non-USA readers) Pentagon has a policy that says that reporters often do the same things as spies and so it's O.K. to treat reporters acting without local government approval as potential terrorists/spies. So I'm waiting for the Turkish government to respond with; "We are just following the same guidelines as the U.S. military..."
So much for the United States having any claim to a moral high ground.
On the post: From Internet Connected Drink Mixer To Any Remote Configuration On The Internet: August's Stupid Patent Of The Month
Hasn't this been done.... a long time ago...?
From Carnegie Mellon University back in 1982, when you could finger an internet connected Coke machine [ https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt ] and by 1995 MIT was doing it [ http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/internet-coke-machine ].
Heck, back in 1998 RFC 2324 was published. For those out there who aren't intimately familiar with RFC's it's the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0) [ https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2324.txt ]
So it's not just obvious, it's actually been published for _deities_ sake.
On the post: How The Heavy Hand Of Government Stifles The On Demand Economy
Freedom doesn't include the freedom to exploit people.
Unfortunately you have included some arguably bad actors in your list; Lyft, Uber. I would have added Homejoy, but they're shutting/shut down.
The 'on demand economy' isn't a license to exploit workers.
They should, they are. FedEx is facing similar issues for many of the same reasons.
More like many drivers are trying to make a living wage in an economy that offers a multitude of low wage, part time, benefitless, overly flexible [for the employer] job opportunities.
There is, the protection of working Americans. The same compelling public interest that gave us, the minimum wage, the 40 hour work week, overtime, safer workplaces, social security, workman compensation, and protection from discrimination and exploitation. Unless you think that those are things that shouldn't apply to the demand economy.
Employers are free to try to utilize the new economy to find inventive and imaginative ways to make money. You have listed some that have succeeded (Google, Facebook, Amazon) and some that are giving it a good try (Twitter, Pandora, and I would add Spotify). Protectionist laws and regulations should be challenged and changed.
Just like with patents, you shouldn't be able to take an otherwise unpatentable idea and get a patent by adding: ...on the internet.
Some of these companies (the Uber and HomeJoys) are trying to take an exploitative and illegal business plan and think they all they need to make it legal is to add
...on the internet.
Your article does us all a disservice by conflating the two.
On the post: Recording Industry Thinks Famous Dead Musicians And Their Personal Struggles Will Get People To Stop Pirating
Re: Re: Re: Re: What else do you expect them to do?
Stealing (a.k.a. theft) is that process where there is some physical object, that I don't have legal rights to, which is taken thereby depriving it's rightful owner of the use of that physical object.
ex: Someone steals your bicycle forcing you to find some other way to get around.
Someone steals your lunch, forcing you to buy another one or go hungry.
Copyright infringement is violating an enumerated right granted to an author or designated copyright holder in a manner not allowed for under fair use or some other statutory exception.
ex: Uploading a copyrighted movie, that you don't have the rights to, and have not otherwise gotten permission from the copyright holder, to a web site or torrent.
Making copies of Tupac's latest posthumous album and selling them on the corner.
Photocopying the entire copy of Twilight from the library for your own use.
When you infringe upon copyright, the original is unimpaired. When you steal something, the owner is deprived of that copy.
If I steal your copy of "Copyright for Dummies" you can no longer read all about copyright. If I commit copyright infringement by making a copy of your book, you are still able to read up on the difference between copyright infringement and stealing.
On the post: DOJ Dismisses Case After Court Explains That Feds Can't Just Grab Someone's Laptop At The Border
Drop it before a more widly applicable precedent is set
Never appeal a case where some judge calls out their obviously illegal actions. In this way they can try to minimize the precedent setting and limit the damage to as small an area as possible.
With a single judge, maybe that town/county/state. If they're lucky it'll only be limited to that particular judge. With an appellate loss, they loose the ability to successfully engage in those shenanigans across an entire appellate circuit.
On the post: Recording Industry Thinks Famous Dead Musicians And Their Personal Struggles Will Get People To Stop Pirating
Re:
There, fixed it for you.
On the post: Recording Industry Thinks Famous Dead Musicians And Their Personal Struggles Will Get People To Stop Pirating
Re: Sadder than dead?
Being dead hasn't stopped Tupac Shakur from releasing more albums......
On the post: Recording Industry Thinks Famous Dead Musicians And Their Personal Struggles Will Get People To Stop Pirating
What else do you expect them to do?
Most people realize that people acquiring less than legal copies are doing so because (choose one or more as fits):
official copies are too expensive
official copies are too limited (can't do what you want)
official copies are unavailable (in format or location)
People who shout back that other people should just stop consuming if they don't agree, don't understand human nature, or the hundreds of years of precedent that have gotten us to where we are.
People have always been free to listen, to sing along, to perform. In the United States at least, for more than fifty years, anyone could listen to the radio, or watch broadcast television, simply by using the right equipment (and they didn't even have to buy one themselves, as they could watch/listen with their neighbors, in their homes, in bars, etc.). No additional charges required. It wasn't until 1997 when the No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act) was passed that made recording and trading music without payment illegal.
In 1996, and before, you could trade bootleg copies of music, mp3 files, VHS tapes, completely _legally_.
Now we have people busted for playing music to horses without a license. Schools dragged through court for compiling study packs. Streaming music and video that can't be saved, heck isn't even available if you are in the wrong country. DVDs that were purchased legally, that can't be played legally because the _region_ it was purchased in differs from the one that it's attempting to be played in. Buy a bunch of media (say from Amazon), legally, in Norway, watch it all get deleted when you vacation to Great Briton.
So _of_course_ the powers that be (including the RIAA, MPAA, etc.) are focusing on education. What are their other alternatives?
Take a massive pay cut.
Treat artists with respect.
Give customers what they want.
Join the frakking twenty-first century.
.... yea, education that's the ticket.
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