"Religion is that which you cannot compromise over. I think it very aptly describes politics in America today."
Actually religion itself is full of compromises. A quick glance at the margins of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) with commentary is enough to illustrate that. Two or three thousand years of rabbi's arguing about what a particular comma in a particular sentence really means or the continuing animated discussion of whether or not The Song of Solomon is a love song to the church/synagogue/temple or exactly what it appears to be -- biblical soft core porn.
It's orthodoxy that can't be compromised. The given orthodoxy of a given sect/denomination/cult is its identity, at least that's what those dictating such orthodoxy think, Not that it's way to control, that would never happen!
Take, for example, the orhtodoxy of some of those on the right who say that increased taxation is automatically bad. While it may have a glimmer of truth behind it, more than a mere glimmer actually, there comes a time where increased taxation may be or IS the only way out when a country is up to it's eyeballs in debt, for example. Those clinging to said orthodoxy won't even see that much less consider it and prefer bankruptcy to a penny in tax increases. All this accompanied by the ripping and tearing of hair shirts, wailing and gnashing of teeth and other ritual responses which have long since lost all meaning. In the meantime the rest of the religion in question has moved on, compromised, adapted and come to admit that while "no new taxes" is a wonderful slogan there comes a time when there's no choice and that there might, just MIGHT be a way to compromise by making sure they aren't permanent.
Of course, this will run headlong into the orthodoxy of the bureaucratic religion who know only that thier task is ensure that temporary becomes permanent and continues on to, lo, the seventh generation at least but that's a unique species that has existed since humans first settled in cities and for 10,000 years at least we have been unable to rid ourselves of them.
There's a spectacularly good reason that cell phone rates and assorted goodies cost more in North America (Canada and the Unites States) than just about anywhere else in the world. It's that what regulation does exist, minimal as you point out, is expressly designed so that to poor, hard done by carriers can stuff themselves full of badly needed moola to encourage the growth of the cell phone market.
After all Verizon isn't exactly a wealthy company, you know. The same line of reasoning is employed by the alleged regulator when it comes to Internet access which is why we pay more for that than just about anyone else on the planet.
Compare this to the wild west world of European cell phone regulation (mostly lack of it) where there's something called actual competition taking place, lower rates and better services. They pay less for Internet access, too, for much the same reason. (Not completely the same but the same notion that competition is good for the industry and customer.)
it's a sad, sad day when a regulation happy market like the EU, which regulates the curvature of bananas, has something to teach us on this side of the pond about this strange thing called competition.
This dynamic, incidentally, has a name. It's called "regulatory capture" wherein the regulator stops doing the things it is supposed to do. including ensuring protection of subscribers/customers/suckers, and starts to regulate for the exclusive benefit of those it's supposed to be keeping a critical eye on.
All of which is wonderful for the regulated and provides a nice soft landing zone for regulators when they leave "public" service and somehow find themselves working in cushy jobs pulling down 6 figures working for those they formerly regulated.
In there turn the regulated will then, after an exhaustive search, return the favour by filling the vacancy left when one of the regulators left their position.
This is done because the subject is so complex that only those intimately familiar with it are capable of understanding it. And only those who are in the industry being regulated are, therefore, eligible for the job.
All this is done with great thought, consideration and careful deliberation so that the regulator may continue on its true mission of making near monopoly or monopoly carriers insanely wealthy.
The mere act of opening your bill, realizing that you're on a diet of KD and wieners for another month due to this isn't enough for we mere mortals to understand or to fully appreciate the elegant logic involved. Remember, it's for our own good!
If all of this sounds all too familiar it's because it is. It's the same dynamic applied by the entertainment industry and other IP maximalists when they "educate" politicians on the troubles their industry faces when the digital equivalent of Sir Francis Drake sails over the horizon with guns blazing. That said eduction occurs in the form of campaign financing is a mere quibble, a tiny dot on the horizon of how the world is supposed to work something, again, we mere mortals are incapable of comprehending.
After all, we can't comprehend that creativity doesn't JUST happen, you know. That Bower bird over yonder has to know that at the end of the day and all his hard work in creating a beautiful, colourful bower won't just attract a mate but more importantly that he can patent his design so the lazy Bower bird next door won't pirate it.
That's such subtle, elegant logic that mortals (customers) are incapable of comprehending it. Nor appreciate it. And while the priesthood of entertainment will provide enough so that a select group of legislators can put food on their plates the rest of us will just have to get by on what we can scrape up from their food scraps.
{sarcasm off -- maybe}
Actually it's Darryl's hand squeezing your ass in the darkest part of the bar. But don't worry. He doesn't mean anything and even if he does he's incapable of doing anything.
I didn't get Mikes instructions until it was too late as spamassasin insisted he was a spammer, didn't follow the filtering rules it was told to and generally acted like a jerk. So I thought there has been a change of plan. I was looking forward to it, too.
Had I known our favourite troll Darryl would pop up I'd have done the Dr Who thing, gone back in time, grabbed the alleged spam done my story and to hell with any temporal paradox that may have occurred. Though stories by us both would probably have overloaded Darryl's brain circuits and caused him some harm or forced him onto next year's edition of Canada's Worst Driver. He'd fit in nicely there with the worst of the worst.
Great job, by the way, and Darryl's appearance just topped off my weekend Thanks!
(Did you take his ice cream cone from him or laugh at him when a seagull pooped on it? Really, you must have done something! :))
Indeed it will. We'll welcome you back, teach you the secret handshake of all piratedom, award you with your own personal cutlass and a small supply of rum. The rest you'll have to download from that passle of sites so thoughtfully provided by the RIAA and MPAA. Wasn't that nice of them?
If you really are having laser surgery good luck. If not, I do like questions I get to riff on from time to time.
Some things never change...they're always there...like that grapej juice stain on the new white rig... like darryl
Hi ya Darryl! How's it going kiddo? Glad to see you're still around and that your command of the English language is a poor as it ever was though your usage has, marginally, improved.
Nice to see your definition of ad hominim. I never would have known, otherwise. Even if I can't spell it. Pardon my poor Latin. But until OOTB started to use it as an all purpose defence/insult I didn't need to. So I don't really care. Blue's fits here do read as more schizoid and anything else so I'll just leave it at that while you wander off and have one of your own. Seriously, I don't mind. After all I do volunteer work at the regional detox so nothing you do could bother me or be unexpected. Just go for it and them we'll find someone to tuck you in.
Yeah, political religion. Politics become that way when, like modern logical/scientific atheism they adopt an orthodoxy, pledge allegiance and worship to a single figure, declare all those who don't agree with the current orthodoxy to be heretics or worse. Adopt a Satan figure or belief, for example socialism for Republicans most of whom haven't the faintest idea what it is or that it's not the form of communism adopted by Lenin, Stalin, Mao and company.
The Democrats are no better. By the way, Ronald Regan would be horrified at what is being done in his name if interviews with the man and his speeches are anything to go by.
Dunno about you but we've been fighting the "good" fight while you've been off whacking moles. How'd that go? Do they taste good?
In terms of the basics of web site design this one is very well designed for a site based on WordPress. If you want to see a bad one look up Creative America (aka "the enemy") dropping so much flash on their home page that it almost overwhelms a browser and then sits there and does nothing. No bouncing boobies that I could find. Not yet, but this is a Hollywood site there will be some shortly, don't fret. Meanwhile they're taking tips of the design and structure of web sites from Big Porn. So the bouncing boobies gotta come, right?
Back to the design. It does what it's supposed to, nothing more, nothing less and that's what good web site design is all about. Not how many gizmos you can slap onto it and how many 3000bpi photos you slap on it.
Yes, we've forgiven DH for his occasional forays into the literary interstellar regions of taste but I see you aren't interested in doing penance for that as much much worse.
More to the point the biggest thief of the past is Disney surrounding folk and fairy tales with walls of gleefully over enforced copyright claims. Nothing at all creative there but I know you just love it. Oh yeah, and sanitizing them to the point where the lessons they were supposed to teach are lost just so Disney can find a place for Tinkerbell (tm) to soar off when the happy ending comes. They were better off in the public domain.
I'll also suggest to you that the only one dealing in fear and cowering today is YOU. Nothing new there which is why I'm so pleased you've returned. Makes it all feel like old home week somehow. Comfy and warm, in it's own special way.
And what's wrong with 7 year olds that you have to drag them into this? I'm reasonably certain that I can find a 7 year old that can whip up a usable, efficient, well laid out web site in no time at all. Actually I know I can. She's doing it right now for her elementary school.
As for DH's crap, it's well written, well reasoned crap. Kinda special really. And it's compostable after use so it can be used for fertilizer while your post would poison ground water so we can't use it for that.
Actually this site has accomplished a fair bit after piercing through the white noise raised around a number of issues. And like most people who don't like the place you seem to confuse usefulness, progress and creation with money. The former and latter are not mutually exclusive. Never have been never will be and if THAT message gets through to one more person I have to say the site is a success.
Ohhhhhh, and we are intimately familiar with the species known as internetus trolline. They are most comfortable under bridges in the darkest spots possible popping up now and then to threaten people by promising to make a meal of them or take their wonderful selves off to another web site to try it there. They don't accomplish much of either, though like Vampires they avoid direct sunlight and dislike warmth.
Simply not agreeing with the devil Masnick is not enough to be accused of being a troll. First one has to display the other behavioural patterns such as popping up when least welcome and least wanted or invited such as you have here.
Nor do they attack any issue that can be refuted with, too often, there are already mountains of but that they won't look at. Not anyone's fault here. Though they will whinge on about some imaginary $100 million movie or something similar from time to time frequently making no sense other than displaying a clinical allergy to actually working or simply accepting that no unknown ever has or ever will get anyone to invest that kind of coin in them. Just an example, really.
All that keeps Blue, for example, from being classed a troll is the startling reality that he actually addresses issues thoughtfully, intelligently and is prepared to discuss them in a most untrollish way until his next bout occurs. When that happens, agree or not with Mike, he's a pleasure to have around.
The same dynamic is at work with Average Joe. Disargeeing, after all, is one of the best ways humans find to learn. It's absent in internetus trolline who would rather threaten, rant and rave then not listen all the while complaining that no one listens to them. Could it be because we've heard it all before, refuted it so often that we do it in our sleep now and we'd rather be left alone?
"And use your little soap box to play a nasty, purile little shit throwing against another commenter of the site." I think I know what you mean there but the sentence still doesn't make sense so you've just earned yourself a FAIL for grammar and will have to stay after class.
Well, actually, we'd prefer if you returned to your hidey hole underneath the bridge if it comes to that. I understand it's winter down there and a touch cold but trolls have lots of hair and fur and are quite capable of keeping warm in arctic cold and it's not THAT cold down there.
Thing is, Darryl, that you ARE a troll, as you've just proven. Again. You must be as you display the behaviours and attitude of the species. Don't be too upset, you've found your self a home. It's actually quite nice under our bridge and you're welcome to stay there for as long as you wish.
And that's why I'm so pleased to see you've returned. Not only does it confirm my long held opinion that, in all reality, the more things change the more they stay the same and that, at this dark, cold time of year is nice to have confirmed.
Should you want to eat me or call me nasty names do so by all means. First, though, you have to eat a whole haggis while listening to someone play the highland bagpipes poorly and retaining whatever passes for sanity in you.
Then you really must learn the basics of a civilized conversation. Until you do you won't be able to have one.
Finally, as you act like a troll, speak like troll, make as little sense as a troll and spout tantrums like a troll you are, ergo, a troll. Really simple, isn't it.
As I said, be pleased that you've actually found out what you really are and revel in it. We are here to help, above all.
Though she lost her case on merit alone as I can't find a single mention of that email in the ruling. And had that or any other judge been presented with that and allowed it as evidence (for a host of legal reasons shrouded in page after page of legal mumbo jumbo no doubt) it WOULD have been mentioned.
Extortion is a criminal matter and the plantiffs here may not see an upside in pursing criminal charges.
What I find kinda sad here is that the story is making the rounds as something that passes judgement on who is or is not a journalist. I can't see that. He only goes there after dismissing defense after defense as if she is one before the 7 point list comes out and put into play and only to pass judgement on whether or not she and her side qualify as media under Oregon law which he then dismisses. He's built up to that point very carefully as I read it and, as I read it particularly the "suggestive of" statement as meaning that it's one of number of things taken into account for what is about to come and that she fails on all of them. Not just one or two. Only after that does he rule that she and her site are not media and entitled to the protection that would bring. The use of "suggestive of" indicates to me that one must pass one or all of them or any significant combination of them to set the standard of journalism which would trigger the defense of being media. As she passes none of them the definition, loose as it is, of journalism he suggests doesn't come into play any further.
I have to stand by my rather short summation but it's not whether or not she's a journalist, whether or not she's media or much else that lost her the case in whole or in part. It's her statements, actions, lack of ethical standards and, unsaid, the indication that she was pursing a personal vendetta that did her in.
(The judge walks carefully around that one and stops just short of it after pointing the reader in that direction and that direction only as he reviews the evidence.)
Taken together it's everything that came before and then the suggested test that finally sinks her case. And Ms Cox filled up the bomb, put on the fuse, attached it, set it alight and stood back to watch it go off. A few hundred yards too close.
Once the bomb went off it shredded her defense on the grounds of protected speech with, the judge following along to demolish what was left.
Ms Cox is her own worst enemy. That much was clear after looking at her blog this morning. The judgement only clears my specs a bit more and leaves it crystal clear.
Judging from her blog, she hasn't learned a thing.
The world certainly won't be a poorer place when she's gone and I don't think this judgement will affect the wider area of Internet journalism all that much unless a doppelganger of her appears and starts it all up again. Frankly outside of a certain US congresswoman from Minnesota I can't think of a single functional and functioning human being who is quite that dense, full of herself and just plain stupid coming along for a long long time.
Of course she would be stupid enough to send that email which could too too easily be seen as an attempted extortion. So, in addition to ranting about the cruel world she should consider herself lucky that she's not the subject of a criminal investigation.
Yet.
From the judge's ruling, if she'd been able to trigger the Oregon shield law it would have been the plaintiff's responsibility to prove, on balance of probabilities, (civil, not criminal action, remember) she wasn't covered. Given that he rejects that based on the particular wording of the Oregon legislation that was the moment burden of proof on many points "balance of probabilities again" fell to Cox as the defendant.
As the judge then focuses on Cox (defendant) it appears that the plaintiff had at worst a prima face case for defamation.
The ruling then goes on in detail to reject all of Cox's arguments in her defense. Contrary to comments on Ars, here and other places the judge did not rule that she was not a journalist. He rules that she and her blog don't qualify as "media" under the Oregon statue after exploring that in detail prior to this:
Defendant cites no cases indicating that a self-proclaimed "investigative blogger" is considered "media" for the purposes of applying a negligence standard in a defamation claim.
Without any controlling or persuasive authority on the issue, I decline to conclude that defendant
in this case is "media," triggering the negligence standard.
Defendant fails to bring forth any evidence suggestive of her status as a journalist.
For example, there is no evidence of
(1) any education in journalism;
(2) any credentials or proof of
any affiliation with any recognized news entity;
(3) proof of adherence to journalistic standards
such as editing, fact-checking, or disclosures of conflicts of interest;
(4) keeping notes of conversations and interviews conducted;
(5) mutual understanding or agreement of
confidentiality between the defendant and his/her sources; (6) creation of an independent product
rather than assembling writings and postings of others; or (7) contacting "the other side" to get both sides of a story.
Without evidence of this nature, defendant is not "media."
Notice that the ruling on this issue ends with his turning down her defense of being media and that he is very careful to use the phrase "suggestive of" prior to his 7 points, all of which he says she does not adhere to.
That indicates very strongly that the "test" of being a journalist isn't mandatory nor are one or several of the points required to come to a conclusion that she is a journalist. The test is used to determine, in the absence of any other control (precedent), to determine her defense that she's media and that it is not her journalistic qualifications is that he rejects.
The last part of the ruling is his rejection of her defense that what she wrote was, in some way, protected speech which he does what appears to be a good job in completely demolishing. Again, I'll leave that for Americans more fully versed in the First Amendment than I am.
In short, he doesn't create a list or test for what is or isn't journalism but on what qualifies as "media" based on the law and precedence available to him to reject her argument that what was written had to pass the test of negligence for her to be found liable.
If anything all the test, alone, establishes is that she's a shining example of how NOT to be a journalist of any kind be it disinterested reporter, writing what's called reportage, commentator, critic or editorialist.
Taken together with the other findings, in Oregon, at least, that disqualifies her blog from being "media" in law.
Finally, as some of the most well known and respected journalists operating in both the U.S. and Canada never set foot in a journalism school prior to their employment as journalists may be the weakest test of the first point. The Writers here are more than able to pass that test as long as the site and they pass the next 6.
On the second point, almost as weak, taken alone it seems meaningless in these days of syndication by RSS, Tweets, Facebook and many other distribution methods now open. This blog, often followed on the likes of Ars, Slashdot (where I found it) and others would provide the answer to it even if they are not ink and paper publications or agencies though I'd say they are extremely well known away from that world. I'd day this site more than passes the second test even if it's not a part of AP. (Frankly, who would want to be? But that's a story for another day.)
This site passes the remaining tests with flying colours, I'm sure. If nothing, else Mike has better lawyers who would have insisted on it when the blog got started.
Even then the judge's use of the phrase "evidence suggestive of" make it incredibly weak for it to be precedent setting. And that must have had Cox's lawyers ripping their hair out. Unless she was as foolish and ego driven as she sounds and acted for herself. Somehow I don't think so though being a fool to that extent is easier to do in civil and common law cases than it is in criminal cases by several hundred orders of magnitude. So this site would pass the tests the judge sets with more than an aircraft carrier's worth of room to spare.
Given those tests this site can be clearly viewed as journalistic even if those writing for it don't consider themselves to be journalists. One more time, being a journalist doesn't mean being a reporter. It also means commentator (here), critic (here) and editorialist (here though I can only think of one time, off the top of my head where Mike wrote a piece as representing the views of the entire site).
Then again, if you want to set up your own blog, and write news and commentary and so on the example of Ms Cox and the results of that as outlined in the ruling are a textbook case on how NOT to.
And remember. blithering idiots can be and sometimes are journalists. Sadly, after failing at that they far too often move into politics and write up dangerous silliness like SOPA and PROTECT IP. Sometimes, even sadder to say, they become lawyers. (One of the oldest jokes/truisms at universities with law schools is that failures at every other arts program eventually end up graduating from law school.)
As I said, Nigel, she's still doing journalism. Utterly, completely, totally and irretrievably bad and incompetent journalism but still journalism.
More correctly, perhaps, a case study in how it's NOT done. Still, which ought to make Average Joe happy, if a journalist does something that's actionable it's actionable. And where she passes off a rant (incoherent commentary, if you prefer) as a news story (ideally both factual and disinterested but that ideal doesn't exist anywhere that I know of) it's still actionable.
That and she went far beyond the bounds of her horrible, rambling incoherent attempts at other forms of journalism as well as certain acts beyond that that wouldn't be protected anyway, made her actionable and she's paying a price. Well, she doesn't and never will have the award money so the plantiff will never see a penny of it.
Advocacy/Editorialism/Criticism are every much journalistic pursuits as anything the court has cited. Good grief, crack a paper and look inside at the Editorials, op ed and commentary sections not to mention film and stage reviews and criticism not to mention political criticism.
In point of fact, that's exactly where journalism and even the word and concept came from.
Self published broadsheets. Similar to the ones that promoted the cause of those rebelling against British rule prior to the establishment of the United States.
Disinterested reporting is, in fact, an invention of the interwar 20th Century. And up until the end of WW2 wasn't widely practiced. As you correctly point out, it's falling out of favour at the moment. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing but it's happening and it's STILL journalism. Reporting, particularly disinterested reporting (largely a fiction anyway) is only a small part of it.
That said, Techdirt does indulge in journalism. It editorializes, comments on and criticizes on stories relating to a relatively small set of interests which (small or large set of interests) makes it journalism.
IF my citing Fox and MSNBC you are inferring that they are masking the above behind disinterested (aka factual) reporting then you're right. Broadly speaking, though, what Techdirt does is journalism, even if they very rarely do disinterested (factual) reporting which, as I've said is, was and always will be largely a fictional concept.
Hi Nigel, Ms Cox may be strange, of unsound mind and a number of other things but that doesn't affect that what she does there is journalism. Very, very, very very badly but it's still journalism. Of the editorialist/critic variety but none of that means she's not, broadly speaking, a journalist. As it is I've known many, many people in "recognized" journalism who are every bit as unhinged as she appears to be. A bit toned down but just as nutty. Being a nutbar doesn't disqualify you.
Her registering a website in the name of a business she's having a dispute with and adding "sucks" at the end is highly unethical. Then again, it would be unethical if she was a dentist, doctor, lawyer, electrician or ditch digger. (And alone may be actionable and impossible to defend with the claim of "I'm a journalist!".)
Maybe you should go read her site. As long as you can stand it. {big goofy grin}
Her fav this morning seems to be a rant about Forbes and the reporter who leaked the email. She doesn't seem to understand that one you hit the send button you lose all control over what happens to is, just as you would in snail mail. Particularly in a case like this where the email was probably cited even if it wasn't entered as evidence.
If anything, she's a wonderful example of how NOT to do journalism. That doesn't disqualify her but I'm 110% certain that I'd never hire her.
His concern with respect to Oregon's sheild law would be one that I share. Working for or at traditional "media" no more makes one a "journalist" that my sweeping the floor at a hospital makes me a medical practitioner. Now that I've said that, lets go on.
It does appear that the judge in the case had it right when he said that Cox didn't follow journalistic ethics or behave to a standard that one would normally expect of a journalist.
I'll leave the discussion of the First Amendment to the US Constitution to address those questions.
If Ars is right in their "reportage", and you really did want another new word tossed your way, right then her behaviour and posts would be more appropriate to a barroom let's change the world chat we all have had over a beer or two.Looking at her blog, I'd say she indulges in lengthy rants.
All of that said she does provide some supporting evidence of her point(s) of view and that, even though she writes poorly, there is a case to be made for some or a lot of it. At least on the surface.
So she's a commentator not a reporter. And a commentator or editorialist is as much a journalist as a reporter is. Where she may fall into trouble on that is that she labels herself as an "investigative" blogger which most would read as combining the roles of reporter and commentator. Ok, lots of journalists do that too. Though the bar is raised a bit on what makes up the reporter part of it all.
The law in Oregon is where this working for traditional media comes in is written into the shield law there. From what I've read so far, by the way, it would also not apply to a traditional independent broadsheet printer in much the same way it's been applied to Cox which means I don't like it much. The judge did go further in citing journalistic ethics and method of operation and found that she did none of that either which would, it seems, disqualify her as well from claiming to be a journalist, investigative or otherwise. On that point I'd agree with the judge as she has no training or past employment as a journalist so he went to ethics. In that arena he found few. if any. A quick read of her blog and I'd agree.
All that said I'm uneasy with this ruling and the base of it being that someone has to work in or for traditional (print or broadcast) to be able to make a claim to be a journalist without having to convince the guy/gal behind the bench that you are. Cox skates so close to the edge that I can easily see her going over it or just ignore it. To me, however, she's a journalist. A bad and incompetent one but a journalist nonetheless. Reminding me more of the copyright/patent/maximalist/trolls who so often drop in here than a journalist BUT she is still a journalist.
What neither she or Mike are are reporters. They're commentators/editorialists/critics but they aren't reporters. All of those are or may be journalists.
Mike, my friend, like it or not you're a journalist. You're not a reporter though in that you rarely if ever break a story and make no pretense to being disinterested.
The latter is something reporters do all the time. I'm not being critical but for the life of me I can't imagine a single human being working in, say, a war zone and being disinterested or unaffected by it. When they write a story though none of that is supposed to come to the surface.
Mike and other writers here cite sources that may have piqued their interest that support their points. Far more often that not they link to sources supporting another view even if they do so in a critical way. That's the job of a critic/editorialist, however, so complaining that the writers here don't adhere to journalistic standards because the link/source is cited in a critical or even dismissive way are dead wrong.
In the paper and ink world this site is a journal, in the traditional sense, so those who write here are journalists. They're also critics and editorialists but so what?
So, in her strange, ranting way is Cox.
She may still have been found liable for slander or libel even then but the reward to the plaintiff would be smaller or she may just have been slapped on the wrist.
What both the judge and the law in Oregon fail to take into account is that the journals and broadsheets of the 21st Century are on Web sites, not in print and that they may very well not work for a "recognized" news organ. I find that dangerous.
By the way, reportage is an amalgam of reporter/critic/editorialist and that's the output. In the old days you could identify them because they were the only ones who got bylines. Today, the intern who brings the coffee and donuts around after a run to Tim Horton's gets a byline so perhaps that term should go into the same dustbin as Tim's "always fresh" claim has gone.
As long as you follow some basic, simple journalistic standards Nigel, you're a journalist. You may be a reporter, commentator, critic, editorialist or the guy whose output is described as reportage (longer more in depth stuff, very often). You can be as disinterested as you want or can be or be like Mike who is a critic and writes from that perspective.
Oh, and someone needs to tell Creative America that one of the unshakeable design rules is do NOT, NOT EVER load up the landing page of a site with so much Flash that it crashes every known browser. Unless you're a porn site, of course, then go for it. It's a horror show of a site for a number of reasons so that the landing (home) page is full of flash that's never started only goes to show what you can expect inside. Other than propaganda. And there's just gotta be some porn in there somewhere! ;-)
Piracy is a huge issue inside the United States because the entertainment industry has made it one, well at least in DC, by its repeated crying wolf that they're losing something here and, fer gosh sake, it's sales! What about those poor starving artists! (Unsaid is that these artists are the same ones they move heaven and earth NOT to pay.)
The more I consider this, given that the entertainment industry hasn't managed to come up with credible numbers to prove their sales argument is that piracy has more to do with them being afraid of losing something just as important to them, maybe more, which is the distribution channel.
If they lose control of things such as release dates, for movies the sometimes mysterious practice of releasing a movie in, oh, say New York, Los Angeles and Chicago in the the States and Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto in Canada a week or two before comparatively smaller and less influential centres then they lose something valuable. Or control over the release date of an album that they want to time for "anything but a Tuesday or Friday the 13th" or to coincide with a tour, much the same reasons for a book.
In short, copyright has nothing to do with the furor they've stirred up while MARKETING has everything to do with it. (Keeping in mind that recording companies and not the artists themselves almost always hold copyright on the performance expressed in an audio recording which they don't have to share with anyone!)
If that is the case, and I'm coming to that position more and more as I consider this, then perhaps something like the ITC is the place for the entertainment industry's constant whining MAY be justified.
As for no (public) piracy sites being in the States I agree that it's easier for operators to locate offshore in order to avoid the legal restrictions of current law like DCMA but that doesn't mean that none exist.
Again, though, the entertainment industry has yet to PROVE with credible figures that the problem it claims exist does, in fact, exist with respect to it costing them a drop in sales and related income. It could just be that the product is crap. I could be a more complex combination of the two. Or is could be as simple as boomers, as we age, just aren't spending on their product(s) in the volume we once did. Or a complex mix of all that and more. Of which piracy is but a small part.
Eric's statement doesn't deny that there may be a problem. He's saying that there's a definite argument that it's a problem that needs fixing as every indication is that people who download things like "pirated" music tend to buy later and in large numbers at that. The same would apply to movies and video.
That being the case then I'm forced to follow the circle around and come smack dab back onto the distribution channels and related marketing. Neither of which directly touch on copyright but both of which are felt to be important to the entertainment industry's notion of what their projected sales ought to be. And that industry has been able, in the past, to keep those channels locked down and almost totally closed and controlled. They're finding that they can't now and that scares the hell out of them.
Without saying that the idea of a group of voters as individuals or more organized could toss someone from the U.S. Congress would succeed people have been motivated by "less" than this when other issues are on the table.
There are more issues in SOPA and IP Protect than just preventing someone from downloadling a movie, which it most emphatically will not, such as the threat to free speech, the deliberate breaking of the DNS system, the probable unconstitutionality of the exercise and how it will lessen the US government's long held stance that the Internet must remain open. A bat frequently swung at countries like China and Iran, to name but two. Add to that the attempt of both of those to apply US law extra-territorially through payment processors to other states.
Then again, if piracy is as wide spread and rampant as the bill's sponsors claim it is then, despite the other, more important, issues may well take second or third place to those who download from "rogue" sites offshore and make those running for re-election vulnerable at the ballot box.
Then again, if what daveshouse calls for doesn't come to pass and those involved are re-elected with wider margins maybe "piracy" isn't the problem the bills sponsor's claim it is.
Remember that these rogue sites are looking at "customers" in North America not in most other parts of the world to keep them going if they are commercial enterprises.
Keeping in mind that to people offshore both Canada and the United States are "America" and are a single market. From a marketing perspective not a bad bit of confusion as, taken together, they're looking at the wealthiest countries in the world so it makes sense to view them as a single market. Even before NAFTA and moreso after it.
Re: "Al-Qaida" loves the Patriot Act and military detentions.
Stupidity isn't a conspiracy. It appears to be the natural state of some humans. Too many of us. Which is why we're doomed to repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again until we either get it right or we blow up the world after firing enough carbon into the air to turn the planet into a pizza oven.
"Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain."
Stupid works far better than conspiracy, every time. Other than that I agree with damned near every word.
This AC (hi there blue!) has no sense of irony, morality or much else.
(gave your identity away with that "slow with any useful response thing there, buck-o)
Tell me, do you care about anyone or anything beyond yourself? Take your time, I don't want to hurry you. I know "beyond yourself" is an alien concept so just turn it over some and get used to it before loading up your cannon with wet powder so you can get another spectacular misfire.
It's doubly ironic that "people like that" (paraphrase) are more concerned about human rights having lived without them than Americans hare having lived with them and (on the surface at least) celebrated them and then browbeat countries (selectively) who don't have them.
Then again, some of the folks who post here have long since stopped amazing me at the depths they can sink to. My fervent hope is that they don't breed and pass on whatever faulty gene(s) the so obviously possess.
In Russia it's all become a game. The banks rob me in Moscow today so I rob them in St Petersburg tomorrow. And as long as we both donate to Putin's political party we can keep doing this still the next revolution then move to North America and poison them all pretending to sell genuine Russian vodka.
Oh hell, that's starting to sound eerily like the American political system isn't it?
Why bring it up as long as Dodd was fool enough to.
And no the Great Firewall of China does NOT work. It's sprung more leaks than a sieve and only rarely does China even bother slapping someone's wrist for routing around it anymore.
Even at that they're only interested in sites they consider as spreading anti-government propaganda. You want porn? Fill your boots. You want the latest music and movies from the MPAA and RIAA, we'll have it for you a week or two before the official release date. And we'll pirate the CD and DVD covers too so that if you need some extra money you can flog the CDs and DVDs on the streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong with better quality and art work that what you'll get from Hollywood should they ever bother to do a Chinese release.
Actually it's not an attempt to duplicate the Great Firewall of China that worries me. It's not been all that successful to start with. It keeps enough out to make the bureaucrats in Beijing happy while letting more than enough through to keep the populace happy and content and has leaked profusely from Day 1. It's the futility of it all. If there was a finer example that these things don't work I don't know what is except for the proposal to erect a Great Pornwall of Australia to keep all those nasty nudie flicks out of a country that otherwise celebrates just that on its beaches.
On the post: Dark Helmet's Favorite Posts Of The Week, Jerks....
Re: Re: The Mantra !!!!
Actually religion itself is full of compromises. A quick glance at the margins of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) with commentary is enough to illustrate that. Two or three thousand years of rabbi's arguing about what a particular comma in a particular sentence really means or the continuing animated discussion of whether or not The Song of Solomon is a love song to the church/synagogue/temple or exactly what it appears to be -- biblical soft core porn.
It's orthodoxy that can't be compromised. The given orthodoxy of a given sect/denomination/cult is its identity, at least that's what those dictating such orthodoxy think, Not that it's way to control, that would never happen!
Take, for example, the orhtodoxy of some of those on the right who say that increased taxation is automatically bad. While it may have a glimmer of truth behind it, more than a mere glimmer actually, there comes a time where increased taxation may be or IS the only way out when a country is up to it's eyeballs in debt, for example. Those clinging to said orthodoxy won't even see that much less consider it and prefer bankruptcy to a penny in tax increases. All this accompanied by the ripping and tearing of hair shirts, wailing and gnashing of teeth and other ritual responses which have long since lost all meaning. In the meantime the rest of the religion in question has moved on, compromised, adapted and come to admit that while "no new taxes" is a wonderful slogan there comes a time when there's no choice and that there might, just MIGHT be a way to compromise by making sure they aren't permanent.
Of course, this will run headlong into the orthodoxy of the bureaucratic religion who know only that thier task is ensure that temporary becomes permanent and continues on to, lo, the seventh generation at least but that's a unique species that has existed since humans first settled in cities and for 10,000 years at least we have been unable to rid ourselves of them.
On the post: Dark Helmet's Favorite Posts Of The Week, Jerks....
There's a spectacularly good reason that cell phone rates and assorted goodies cost more in North America (Canada and the Unites States) than just about anywhere else in the world. It's that what regulation does exist, minimal as you point out, is expressly designed so that to poor, hard done by carriers can stuff themselves full of badly needed moola to encourage the growth of the cell phone market.
After all Verizon isn't exactly a wealthy company, you know. The same line of reasoning is employed by the alleged regulator when it comes to Internet access which is why we pay more for that than just about anyone else on the planet.
Compare this to the wild west world of European cell phone regulation (mostly lack of it) where there's something called actual competition taking place, lower rates and better services. They pay less for Internet access, too, for much the same reason. (Not completely the same but the same notion that competition is good for the industry and customer.)
it's a sad, sad day when a regulation happy market like the EU, which regulates the curvature of bananas, has something to teach us on this side of the pond about this strange thing called competition.
This dynamic, incidentally, has a name. It's called "regulatory capture" wherein the regulator stops doing the things it is supposed to do. including ensuring protection of subscribers/customers/suckers, and starts to regulate for the exclusive benefit of those it's supposed to be keeping a critical eye on.
All of which is wonderful for the regulated and provides a nice soft landing zone for regulators when they leave "public" service and somehow find themselves working in cushy jobs pulling down 6 figures working for those they formerly regulated.
In there turn the regulated will then, after an exhaustive search, return the favour by filling the vacancy left when one of the regulators left their position.
This is done because the subject is so complex that only those intimately familiar with it are capable of understanding it. And only those who are in the industry being regulated are, therefore, eligible for the job.
All this is done with great thought, consideration and careful deliberation so that the regulator may continue on its true mission of making near monopoly or monopoly carriers insanely wealthy.
The mere act of opening your bill, realizing that you're on a diet of KD and wieners for another month due to this isn't enough for we mere mortals to understand or to fully appreciate the elegant logic involved. Remember, it's for our own good!
If all of this sounds all too familiar it's because it is. It's the same dynamic applied by the entertainment industry and other IP maximalists when they "educate" politicians on the troubles their industry faces when the digital equivalent of Sir Francis Drake sails over the horizon with guns blazing. That said eduction occurs in the form of campaign financing is a mere quibble, a tiny dot on the horizon of how the world is supposed to work something, again, we mere mortals are incapable of comprehending.
After all, we can't comprehend that creativity doesn't JUST happen, you know. That Bower bird over yonder has to know that at the end of the day and all his hard work in creating a beautiful, colourful bower won't just attract a mate but more importantly that he can patent his design so the lazy Bower bird next door won't pirate it.
That's such subtle, elegant logic that mortals (customers) are incapable of comprehending it. Nor appreciate it. And while the priesthood of entertainment will provide enough so that a select group of legislators can put food on their plates the rest of us will just have to get by on what we can scrape up from their food scraps.
{sarcasm off -- maybe}
On the post: Dark Helmet's Favorite Posts Of The Week, Jerks....
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On the post: Dark Helmet's Favorite Posts Of The Week, Jerks....
Re: Re: Re: The Mantra !!!!
Have fun.
On the post: Dark Helmet's Favorite Posts Of The Week, Jerks....
Thanks for picking this up DH
Had I known our favourite troll Darryl would pop up I'd have done the Dr Who thing, gone back in time, grabbed the alleged spam done my story and to hell with any temporal paradox that may have occurred. Though stories by us both would probably have overloaded Darryl's brain circuits and caused him some harm or forced him onto next year's edition of Canada's Worst Driver. He'd fit in nicely there with the worst of the worst.
Great job, by the way, and Darryl's appearance just topped off my weekend Thanks!
(Did you take his ice cream cone from him or laugh at him when a seagull pooped on it? Really, you must have done something! :))
On the post: Dark Helmet's Favorite Posts Of The Week, Jerks....
Re: Question:
If you really are having laser surgery good luck. If not, I do like questions I get to riff on from time to time.
On the post: Dark Helmet's Favorite Posts Of The Week, Jerks....
Some things never change...they're always there...like that grapej juice stain on the new white rig... like darryl
Nice to see your definition of ad hominim. I never would have known, otherwise. Even if I can't spell it. Pardon my poor Latin. But until OOTB started to use it as an all purpose defence/insult I didn't need to. So I don't really care. Blue's fits here do read as more schizoid and anything else so I'll just leave it at that while you wander off and have one of your own. Seriously, I don't mind. After all I do volunteer work at the regional detox so nothing you do could bother me or be unexpected. Just go for it and them we'll find someone to tuck you in.
Yeah, political religion. Politics become that way when, like modern logical/scientific atheism they adopt an orthodoxy, pledge allegiance and worship to a single figure, declare all those who don't agree with the current orthodoxy to be heretics or worse. Adopt a Satan figure or belief, for example socialism for Republicans most of whom haven't the faintest idea what it is or that it's not the form of communism adopted by Lenin, Stalin, Mao and company.
The Democrats are no better. By the way, Ronald Regan would be horrified at what is being done in his name if interviews with the man and his speeches are anything to go by.
Dunno about you but we've been fighting the "good" fight while you've been off whacking moles. How'd that go? Do they taste good?
In terms of the basics of web site design this one is very well designed for a site based on WordPress. If you want to see a bad one look up Creative America (aka "the enemy") dropping so much flash on their home page that it almost overwhelms a browser and then sits there and does nothing. No bouncing boobies that I could find. Not yet, but this is a Hollywood site there will be some shortly, don't fret. Meanwhile they're taking tips of the design and structure of web sites from Big Porn. So the bouncing boobies gotta come, right?
Back to the design. It does what it's supposed to, nothing more, nothing less and that's what good web site design is all about. Not how many gizmos you can slap onto it and how many 3000bpi photos you slap on it.
Yes, we've forgiven DH for his occasional forays into the literary interstellar regions of taste but I see you aren't interested in doing penance for that as much much worse.
More to the point the biggest thief of the past is Disney surrounding folk and fairy tales with walls of gleefully over enforced copyright claims. Nothing at all creative there but I know you just love it. Oh yeah, and sanitizing them to the point where the lessons they were supposed to teach are lost just so Disney can find a place for Tinkerbell (tm) to soar off when the happy ending comes. They were better off in the public domain.
I'll also suggest to you that the only one dealing in fear and cowering today is YOU. Nothing new there which is why I'm so pleased you've returned. Makes it all feel like old home week somehow. Comfy and warm, in it's own special way.
And what's wrong with 7 year olds that you have to drag them into this? I'm reasonably certain that I can find a 7 year old that can whip up a usable, efficient, well laid out web site in no time at all. Actually I know I can. She's doing it right now for her elementary school.
As for DH's crap, it's well written, well reasoned crap. Kinda special really. And it's compostable after use so it can be used for fertilizer while your post would poison ground water so we can't use it for that.
Actually this site has accomplished a fair bit after piercing through the white noise raised around a number of issues. And like most people who don't like the place you seem to confuse usefulness, progress and creation with money. The former and latter are not mutually exclusive. Never have been never will be and if THAT message gets through to one more person I have to say the site is a success.
Ohhhhhh, and we are intimately familiar with the species known as internetus trolline. They are most comfortable under bridges in the darkest spots possible popping up now and then to threaten people by promising to make a meal of them or take their wonderful selves off to another web site to try it there. They don't accomplish much of either, though like Vampires they avoid direct sunlight and dislike warmth.
Simply not agreeing with the devil Masnick is not enough to be accused of being a troll. First one has to display the other behavioural patterns such as popping up when least welcome and least wanted or invited such as you have here.
Nor do they attack any issue that can be refuted with, too often, there are already mountains of but that they won't look at. Not anyone's fault here. Though they will whinge on about some imaginary $100 million movie or something similar from time to time frequently making no sense other than displaying a clinical allergy to actually working or simply accepting that no unknown ever has or ever will get anyone to invest that kind of coin in them. Just an example, really.
All that keeps Blue, for example, from being classed a troll is the startling reality that he actually addresses issues thoughtfully, intelligently and is prepared to discuss them in a most untrollish way until his next bout occurs. When that happens, agree or not with Mike, he's a pleasure to have around.
The same dynamic is at work with Average Joe. Disargeeing, after all, is one of the best ways humans find to learn. It's absent in internetus trolline who would rather threaten, rant and rave then not listen all the while complaining that no one listens to them. Could it be because we've heard it all before, refuted it so often that we do it in our sleep now and we'd rather be left alone?
"And use your little soap box to play a nasty, purile little shit throwing against another commenter of the site." I think I know what you mean there but the sentence still doesn't make sense so you've just earned yourself a FAIL for grammar and will have to stay after class.
Well, actually, we'd prefer if you returned to your hidey hole underneath the bridge if it comes to that. I understand it's winter down there and a touch cold but trolls have lots of hair and fur and are quite capable of keeping warm in arctic cold and it's not THAT cold down there.
Thing is, Darryl, that you ARE a troll, as you've just proven. Again. You must be as you display the behaviours and attitude of the species. Don't be too upset, you've found your self a home. It's actually quite nice under our bridge and you're welcome to stay there for as long as you wish.
And that's why I'm so pleased to see you've returned. Not only does it confirm my long held opinion that, in all reality, the more things change the more they stay the same and that, at this dark, cold time of year is nice to have confirmed.
Should you want to eat me or call me nasty names do so by all means. First, though, you have to eat a whole haggis while listening to someone play the highland bagpipes poorly and retaining whatever passes for sanity in you.
Then you really must learn the basics of a civilized conversation. Until you do you won't be able to have one.
Finally, as you act like a troll, speak like troll, make as little sense as a troll and spout tantrums like a troll you are, ergo, a troll. Really simple, isn't it.
As I said, be pleased that you've actually found out what you really are and revel in it. We are here to help, above all.
Nitey nite.
On the post: Should Shield Laws Protect Journalists? Or Journalism?
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Though she lost her case on merit alone as I can't find a single mention of that email in the ruling. And had that or any other judge been presented with that and allowed it as evidence (for a host of legal reasons shrouded in page after page of legal mumbo jumbo no doubt) it WOULD have been mentioned.
Extortion is a criminal matter and the plantiffs here may not see an upside in pursing criminal charges.
What I find kinda sad here is that the story is making the rounds as something that passes judgement on who is or is not a journalist. I can't see that. He only goes there after dismissing defense after defense as if she is one before the 7 point list comes out and put into play and only to pass judgement on whether or not she and her side qualify as media under Oregon law which he then dismisses. He's built up to that point very carefully as I read it and, as I read it particularly the "suggestive of" statement as meaning that it's one of number of things taken into account for what is about to come and that she fails on all of them. Not just one or two. Only after that does he rule that she and her site are not media and entitled to the protection that would bring. The use of "suggestive of" indicates to me that one must pass one or all of them or any significant combination of them to set the standard of journalism which would trigger the defense of being media. As she passes none of them the definition, loose as it is, of journalism he suggests doesn't come into play any further.
I have to stand by my rather short summation but it's not whether or not she's a journalist, whether or not she's media or much else that lost her the case in whole or in part. It's her statements, actions, lack of ethical standards and, unsaid, the indication that she was pursing a personal vendetta that did her in.
(The judge walks carefully around that one and stops just short of it after pointing the reader in that direction and that direction only as he reviews the evidence.)
Taken together it's everything that came before and then the suggested test that finally sinks her case. And Ms Cox filled up the bomb, put on the fuse, attached it, set it alight and stood back to watch it go off. A few hundred yards too close.
Once the bomb went off it shredded her defense on the grounds of protected speech with, the judge following along to demolish what was left.
Ms Cox is her own worst enemy. That much was clear after looking at her blog this morning. The judgement only clears my specs a bit more and leaves it crystal clear.
Judging from her blog, she hasn't learned a thing.
The world certainly won't be a poorer place when she's gone and I don't think this judgement will affect the wider area of Internet journalism all that much unless a doppelganger of her appears and starts it all up again. Frankly outside of a certain US congresswoman from Minnesota I can't think of a single functional and functioning human being who is quite that dense, full of herself and just plain stupid coming along for a long long time.
Of course she would be stupid enough to send that email which could too too easily be seen as an attempted extortion. So, in addition to ranting about the cruel world she should consider herself lucky that she's not the subject of a criminal investigation.
Yet.
On the post: Should Shield Laws Protect Journalists? Or Journalism?
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As the judge then focuses on Cox (defendant) it appears that the plaintiff had at worst a prima face case for defamation.
The ruling then goes on in detail to reject all of Cox's arguments in her defense. Contrary to comments on Ars, here and other places the judge did not rule that she was not a journalist. He rules that she and her blog don't qualify as "media" under the Oregon statue after exploring that in detail prior to this:
Defendant cites no cases indicating that a self-proclaimed "investigative blogger" is considered "media" for the purposes of applying a negligence standard in a defamation claim.
Without any controlling or persuasive authority on the issue, I decline to conclude that defendant
in this case is "media," triggering the negligence standard.
Defendant fails to bring forth any evidence suggestive of her status as a journalist.
For example, there is no evidence of
(1) any education in journalism;
(2) any credentials or proof of
any affiliation with any recognized news entity;
(3) proof of adherence to journalistic standards
such as editing, fact-checking, or disclosures of conflicts of interest;
(4) keeping notes of conversations and interviews conducted;
(5) mutual understanding or agreement of
confidentiality between the defendant and his/her sources; (6) creation of an independent product
rather than assembling writings and postings of others; or (7) contacting "the other side" to get both sides of a story.
Without evidence of this nature, defendant is not "media."
Notice that the ruling on this issue ends with his turning down her defense of being media and that he is very careful to use the phrase "suggestive of" prior to his 7 points, all of which he says she does not adhere to.
That indicates very strongly that the "test" of being a journalist isn't mandatory nor are one or several of the points required to come to a conclusion that she is a journalist. The test is used to determine, in the absence of any other control (precedent), to determine her defense that she's media and that it is not her journalistic qualifications is that he rejects.
The last part of the ruling is his rejection of her defense that what she wrote was, in some way, protected speech which he does what appears to be a good job in completely demolishing. Again, I'll leave that for Americans more fully versed in the First Amendment than I am.
In short, he doesn't create a list or test for what is or isn't journalism but on what qualifies as "media" based on the law and precedence available to him to reject her argument that what was written had to pass the test of negligence for her to be found liable.
If anything all the test, alone, establishes is that she's a shining example of how NOT to be a journalist of any kind be it disinterested reporter, writing what's called reportage, commentator, critic or editorialist.
Taken together with the other findings, in Oregon, at least, that disqualifies her blog from being "media" in law.
Finally, as some of the most well known and respected journalists operating in both the U.S. and Canada never set foot in a journalism school prior to their employment as journalists may be the weakest test of the first point. The Writers here are more than able to pass that test as long as the site and they pass the next 6.
On the second point, almost as weak, taken alone it seems meaningless in these days of syndication by RSS, Tweets, Facebook and many other distribution methods now open. This blog, often followed on the likes of Ars, Slashdot (where I found it) and others would provide the answer to it even if they are not ink and paper publications or agencies though I'd say they are extremely well known away from that world. I'd day this site more than passes the second test even if it's not a part of AP. (Frankly, who would want to be? But that's a story for another day.)
This site passes the remaining tests with flying colours, I'm sure. If nothing, else Mike has better lawyers who would have insisted on it when the blog got started.
Even then the judge's use of the phrase "evidence suggestive of" make it incredibly weak for it to be precedent setting. And that must have had Cox's lawyers ripping their hair out. Unless she was as foolish and ego driven as she sounds and acted for herself. Somehow I don't think so though being a fool to that extent is easier to do in civil and common law cases than it is in criminal cases by several hundred orders of magnitude. So this site would pass the tests the judge sets with more than an aircraft carrier's worth of room to spare.
Given those tests this site can be clearly viewed as journalistic even if those writing for it don't consider themselves to be journalists. One more time, being a journalist doesn't mean being a reporter. It also means commentator (here), critic (here) and editorialist (here though I can only think of one time, off the top of my head where Mike wrote a piece as representing the views of the entire site).
Then again, if you want to set up your own blog, and write news and commentary and so on the example of Ms Cox and the results of that as outlined in the ruling are a textbook case on how NOT to.
And remember. blithering idiots can be and sometimes are journalists. Sadly, after failing at that they far too often move into politics and write up dangerous silliness like SOPA and PROTECT IP. Sometimes, even sadder to say, they become lawyers. (One of the oldest jokes/truisms at universities with law schools is that failures at every other arts program eventually end up graduating from law school.)
On the post: Should Shield Laws Protect Journalists? Or Journalism?
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More correctly, perhaps, a case study in how it's NOT done. Still, which ought to make Average Joe happy, if a journalist does something that's actionable it's actionable. And where she passes off a rant (incoherent commentary, if you prefer) as a news story (ideally both factual and disinterested but that ideal doesn't exist anywhere that I know of) it's still actionable.
That and she went far beyond the bounds of her horrible, rambling incoherent attempts at other forms of journalism as well as certain acts beyond that that wouldn't be protected anyway, made her actionable and she's paying a price. Well, she doesn't and never will have the award money so the plantiff will never see a penny of it.
And yes, she's a total nutbar.
On the post: Should Shield Laws Protect Journalists? Or Journalism?
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In point of fact, that's exactly where journalism and even the word and concept came from.
Self published broadsheets. Similar to the ones that promoted the cause of those rebelling against British rule prior to the establishment of the United States.
Disinterested reporting is, in fact, an invention of the interwar 20th Century. And up until the end of WW2 wasn't widely practiced. As you correctly point out, it's falling out of favour at the moment. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing but it's happening and it's STILL journalism. Reporting, particularly disinterested reporting (largely a fiction anyway) is only a small part of it.
That said, Techdirt does indulge in journalism. It editorializes, comments on and criticizes on stories relating to a relatively small set of interests which (small or large set of interests) makes it journalism.
IF my citing Fox and MSNBC you are inferring that they are masking the above behind disinterested (aka factual) reporting then you're right. Broadly speaking, though, what Techdirt does is journalism, even if they very rarely do disinterested (factual) reporting which, as I've said is, was and always will be largely a fictional concept.
On the post: Should Shield Laws Protect Journalists? Or Journalism?
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Her registering a website in the name of a business she's having a dispute with and adding "sucks" at the end is highly unethical. Then again, it would be unethical if she was a dentist, doctor, lawyer, electrician or ditch digger. (And alone may be actionable and impossible to defend with the claim of "I'm a journalist!".)
Maybe you should go read her site. As long as you can stand it. {big goofy grin}
http://www.crystalcox.com/
Her fav this morning seems to be a rant about Forbes and the reporter who leaked the email. She doesn't seem to understand that one you hit the send button you lose all control over what happens to is, just as you would in snail mail. Particularly in a case like this where the email was probably cited even if it wasn't entered as evidence.
If anything, she's a wonderful example of how NOT to do journalism. That doesn't disqualify her but I'm 110% certain that I'd never hire her.
On the post: Should Shield Laws Protect Journalists? Or Journalism?
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His concern with respect to Oregon's sheild law would be one that I share. Working for or at traditional "media" no more makes one a "journalist" that my sweeping the floor at a hospital makes me a medical practitioner. Now that I've said that, lets go on.
It does appear that the judge in the case had it right when he said that Cox didn't follow journalistic ethics or behave to a standard that one would normally expect of a journalist.
I'll leave the discussion of the First Amendment to the US Constitution to address those questions.
If Ars is right in their "reportage", and you really did want another new word tossed your way, right then her behaviour and posts would be more appropriate to a barroom let's change the world chat we all have had over a beer or two.Looking at her blog, I'd say she indulges in lengthy rants.
All of that said she does provide some supporting evidence of her point(s) of view and that, even though she writes poorly, there is a case to be made for some or a lot of it. At least on the surface.
So she's a commentator not a reporter. And a commentator or editorialist is as much a journalist as a reporter is. Where she may fall into trouble on that is that she labels herself as an "investigative" blogger which most would read as combining the roles of reporter and commentator. Ok, lots of journalists do that too. Though the bar is raised a bit on what makes up the reporter part of it all.
The law in Oregon is where this working for traditional media comes in is written into the shield law there. From what I've read so far, by the way, it would also not apply to a traditional independent broadsheet printer in much the same way it's been applied to Cox which means I don't like it much. The judge did go further in citing journalistic ethics and method of operation and found that she did none of that either which would, it seems, disqualify her as well from claiming to be a journalist, investigative or otherwise. On that point I'd agree with the judge as she has no training or past employment as a journalist so he went to ethics. In that arena he found few. if any. A quick read of her blog and I'd agree.
All that said I'm uneasy with this ruling and the base of it being that someone has to work in or for traditional (print or broadcast) to be able to make a claim to be a journalist without having to convince the guy/gal behind the bench that you are. Cox skates so close to the edge that I can easily see her going over it or just ignore it. To me, however, she's a journalist. A bad and incompetent one but a journalist nonetheless. Reminding me more of the copyright/patent/maximalist/trolls who so often drop in here than a journalist BUT she is still a journalist.
What neither she or Mike are are reporters. They're commentators/editorialists/critics but they aren't reporters. All of those are or may be journalists.
Mike, my friend, like it or not you're a journalist. You're not a reporter though in that you rarely if ever break a story and make no pretense to being disinterested.
The latter is something reporters do all the time. I'm not being critical but for the life of me I can't imagine a single human being working in, say, a war zone and being disinterested or unaffected by it. When they write a story though none of that is supposed to come to the surface.
Mike and other writers here cite sources that may have piqued their interest that support their points. Far more often that not they link to sources supporting another view even if they do so in a critical way. That's the job of a critic/editorialist, however, so complaining that the writers here don't adhere to journalistic standards because the link/source is cited in a critical or even dismissive way are dead wrong.
In the paper and ink world this site is a journal, in the traditional sense, so those who write here are journalists. They're also critics and editorialists but so what?
So, in her strange, ranting way is Cox.
She may still have been found liable for slander or libel even then but the reward to the plaintiff would be smaller or she may just have been slapped on the wrist.
What both the judge and the law in Oregon fail to take into account is that the journals and broadsheets of the 21st Century are on Web sites, not in print and that they may very well not work for a "recognized" news organ. I find that dangerous.
By the way, reportage is an amalgam of reporter/critic/editorialist and that's the output. In the old days you could identify them because they were the only ones who got bylines. Today, the intern who brings the coffee and donuts around after a run to Tim Horton's gets a byline so perhaps that term should go into the same dustbin as Tim's "always fresh" claim has gone.
As long as you follow some basic, simple journalistic standards Nigel, you're a journalist. You may be a reporter, commentator, critic, editorialist or the guy whose output is described as reportage (longer more in depth stuff, very often). You can be as disinterested as you want or can be or be like Mike who is a critic and writes from that perspective.
Oh, and someone needs to tell Creative America that one of the unshakeable design rules is do NOT, NOT EVER load up the landing page of a site with so much Flash that it crashes every known browser. Unless you're a porn site, of course, then go for it. It's a horror show of a site for a number of reasons so that the landing (home) page is full of flash that's never started only goes to show what you can expect inside. Other than propaganda. And there's just gotta be some porn in there somewhere! ;-)
On the post: The Good And The Bad Of The New OPEN Bill From Wyden And Issa
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The more I consider this, given that the entertainment industry hasn't managed to come up with credible numbers to prove their sales argument is that piracy has more to do with them being afraid of losing something just as important to them, maybe more, which is the distribution channel.
If they lose control of things such as release dates, for movies the sometimes mysterious practice of releasing a movie in, oh, say New York, Los Angeles and Chicago in the the States and Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto in Canada a week or two before comparatively smaller and less influential centres then they lose something valuable. Or control over the release date of an album that they want to time for "anything but a Tuesday or Friday the 13th" or to coincide with a tour, much the same reasons for a book.
In short, copyright has nothing to do with the furor they've stirred up while MARKETING has everything to do with it. (Keeping in mind that recording companies and not the artists themselves almost always hold copyright on the performance expressed in an audio recording which they don't have to share with anyone!)
If that is the case, and I'm coming to that position more and more as I consider this, then perhaps something like the ITC is the place for the entertainment industry's constant whining MAY be justified.
As for no (public) piracy sites being in the States I agree that it's easier for operators to locate offshore in order to avoid the legal restrictions of current law like DCMA but that doesn't mean that none exist.
Again, though, the entertainment industry has yet to PROVE with credible figures that the problem it claims exist does, in fact, exist with respect to it costing them a drop in sales and related income. It could just be that the product is crap. I could be a more complex combination of the two. Or is could be as simple as boomers, as we age, just aren't spending on their product(s) in the volume we once did. Or a complex mix of all that and more. Of which piracy is but a small part.
Eric's statement doesn't deny that there may be a problem. He's saying that there's a definite argument that it's a problem that needs fixing as every indication is that people who download things like "pirated" music tend to buy later and in large numbers at that. The same would apply to movies and video.
That being the case then I'm forced to follow the circle around and come smack dab back onto the distribution channels and related marketing. Neither of which directly touch on copyright but both of which are felt to be important to the entertainment industry's notion of what their projected sales ought to be. And that industry has been able, in the past, to keep those channels locked down and almost totally closed and controlled. They're finding that they can't now and that scares the hell out of them.
On the post: The Good And The Bad Of The New OPEN Bill From Wyden And Issa
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There are more issues in SOPA and IP Protect than just preventing someone from downloadling a movie, which it most emphatically will not, such as the threat to free speech, the deliberate breaking of the DNS system, the probable unconstitutionality of the exercise and how it will lessen the US government's long held stance that the Internet must remain open. A bat frequently swung at countries like China and Iran, to name but two. Add to that the attempt of both of those to apply US law extra-territorially through payment processors to other states.
Then again, if piracy is as wide spread and rampant as the bill's sponsors claim it is then, despite the other, more important, issues may well take second or third place to those who download from "rogue" sites offshore and make those running for re-election vulnerable at the ballot box.
Then again, if what daveshouse calls for doesn't come to pass and those involved are re-elected with wider margins maybe "piracy" isn't the problem the bills sponsor's claim it is.
Remember that these rogue sites are looking at "customers" in North America not in most other parts of the world to keep them going if they are commercial enterprises.
Keeping in mind that to people offshore both Canada and the United States are "America" and are a single market. From a marketing perspective not a bad bit of confusion as, taken together, they're looking at the wealthiest countries in the world so it makes sense to view them as a single market. Even before NAFTA and moreso after it.
On the post: Chinese Internet Users Relish Irony Of SOPA's Great Firewall Of America
Re: "Al-Qaida" loves the Patriot Act and military detentions.
"Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain."
Stupid works far better than conspiracy, every time. Other than that I agree with damned near every word.
On the post: Chinese Internet Users Relish Irony Of SOPA's Great Firewall Of America
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(gave your identity away with that "slow with any useful response thing there, buck-o)
Tell me, do you care about anyone or anything beyond yourself? Take your time, I don't want to hurry you. I know "beyond yourself" is an alien concept so just turn it over some and get used to it before loading up your cannon with wet powder so you can get another spectacular misfire.
On the post: Chinese Internet Users Relish Irony Of SOPA's Great Firewall Of America
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Then again, some of the folks who post here have long since stopped amazing me at the depths they can sink to. My fervent hope is that they don't breed and pass on whatever faulty gene(s) the so obviously possess.
On the post: MPAA Boss: If The Chinese Censor The Internet Without A Problem, Why Can't The US?
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Oh hell, that's starting to sound eerily like the American political system isn't it?
On the post: MPAA Boss: If The Chinese Censor The Internet Without A Problem, Why Can't The US?
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And no the Great Firewall of China does NOT work. It's sprung more leaks than a sieve and only rarely does China even bother slapping someone's wrist for routing around it anymore.
Even at that they're only interested in sites they consider as spreading anti-government propaganda. You want porn? Fill your boots. You want the latest music and movies from the MPAA and RIAA, we'll have it for you a week or two before the official release date. And we'll pirate the CD and DVD covers too so that if you need some extra money you can flog the CDs and DVDs on the streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong with better quality and art work that what you'll get from Hollywood should they ever bother to do a Chinese release.
Actually it's not an attempt to duplicate the Great Firewall of China that worries me. It's not been all that successful to start with. It keeps enough out to make the bureaucrats in Beijing happy while letting more than enough through to keep the populace happy and content and has leaked profusely from Day 1. It's the futility of it all. If there was a finer example that these things don't work I don't know what is except for the proposal to erect a Great Pornwall of Australia to keep all those nasty nudie flicks out of a country that otherwise celebrates just that on its beaches.
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