What I find annoying about this case is the fact that the author of the Harry Potter, JK Rowling (billionaire no less), on multiple occasions in the past has said that she has referred to the online (original) version of this Harry Potter Lexicon when she forgot details here and there. She has also voiced much appreciation and support for her many fans and their fan fiction work.
But then this case happened and she did a 180 and started, literally, crying in the court room about how the publication of this Lexicon in book form not only violated her rights, but also interfered with her own idea of releasing such an Encyclopedia to Harry Potter. Of course her version isn't even a sure thing. She simply said it was something she considered and in not so many words said that she didn't want the competition nor the loss of revenue.
Lets see where do I start on all of that. First of all money should be the last thing on her mind as well off as she is. Secondly the makers of this Lexicon spent years putting together the online version as a dedicated fan of her work. She should be supportive that such a dedicated fan is being reimbursed for all his hard work. Instead she shows that she is two-faced (for turning on her fans), greedy, and and self-important.
I am a fan of the books, but this trial made me lose a lot of respect for the woman.
This is a very complex issue I think. On one hand I have always looked up to Google as a very respectable organization and have come to expect much from them in terms of protecting rights and privacy. On the other hand their history has been more about general rights, not rights for a specific person and it is a lot to expect them to deny court orders in all cases when they are trying to make things better for all.
I personally hate that these people and companies overreact to mouthy bloggers and I really support protecting anonymity just to shut down frivolous lawsuits. I would like to think that if I were in Google's position I would fight tooth and nail to protect this ideology of mine. But I really can't say for sure what I would do because if you go too far then you risk shutting down your business and making your employees lose their jobs and I can't support that results either.
In this case, I think Google did the right thing by notifying the user weeks in advance so that they can take steps to protect their anonymity if they choose to do so. The whole situation is very frustrating. But I would like to see them focus on changing laws to protect all rights instead of protecting a few individuals that started the fight by running their mouths too much.
While I agree with you on some points. I disagree with you when you suggest that raising their monthly fees $10 would make it just as costly to own as an iphone.
I have an iphone and this weekend I looked into the cost of the unlimited Sprint plan versus the not-so-unlimited AT&T plan. At current prices I would save $30-40 per month with Sprint. As much as I hate to say it I am seriously considering switching back to Sprint. I used to have them and left because the prices of the phones, the lack of sim cards, and the horrible customer service.
Sprint seems to have dropped the price of phones (thank goodness), they have immensely improved their customer service, and they offer some phones with sim cards. If they make the Pre or a Google phone with a sim card they will have me sold. AT&T and Apple can kiss my rear-end with their restrictive phone and excessive prices.
Mike, I usually enjoy reading your work, but this time I wonder if it is more about the concern of privacy for the everyday citizen than about the effectiveness of the cameras. While I am certainly no fan of cameras blanketing a city and watching every movement anyone makes, I still see the functional use of such cameras and how they can be highly effective tools in solving crime.
While just 3% of robbery suspects were caught using the cameras, you failed to mention that 70% of murder investigations were solved using the cameras. I would say that seems to justify the cameras outright, while completely disregarding any other crimes solved. How many of those murder investigations would not have been solved without the help of the cameras?
If your real concern is privacy than you should state it. But as it stands now I think that the cameras are a mixed bag of privacy and crime solving tool and neither should be taken lightly.
Ok, so apparently you (Anonymous Coward talking about gauging demand) are missing the truth here. Demand for buying the real thing or the original, in the past, has been shown to actually INCREASE because of free. The presence of free doesn't skew the information, if anything it gives more power to the consumer to demand good products and ignore shitty products.
The case of the original Napster is a great example. For the better part of two decades album sales had been dwindling, then Napster came around and all the sudden the sales of albums in the stores jumped in correlation with the use of Napster. This is because people got a taste of part of an album and decided that it really is worth spending $15 on it. Whereas in the past, unless someone just really loved a band or highly anticipated an album, people generally would choose not to buy it. This is because the sense of risk at wasting money on a terrible album prevented them from even trying it out.
This is what I hate about big companies that have limited competition. They get to abuse their positions and then when a problem comes up they lobby some politician to allow them to do whatever they want. In this case it would be hard to pass a law for something that occurs in more than one country I think, even though they live in one country.
As much as I agree with the court ruling I have to say that I really don't trust nor expect politicians to make the right choice. They will do whatever they are told by those that give them the most money and/or gifts. It is nice to see that the courts still have some decency though. Lets hope enough politicians will have the same decency.
I think this can be filed in the "bending the law for the sake of decency" folder. As much as I like to protect our freedoms I also understand that following the law to the letter can be just as dangerous as ignoring laws altogether. Obviously this brings up questions as to who gets to decide what is decent. I really don't want to start that argument here.
Suffice to say taking gruesome photos of someone else's misery and suffering for personal financial gain is a disgusting abuse of "freedoms". I doubt the intentions of the law were to cover this kind of use and thus I think that potentially bending the law to prevent this abuse was a good thing. Notice I say potentially because it is questionable that law was bent or broken to prevent this action, primarily because we are talking about the freedom of speech, not the freedom to nose into others personal business.
Another concern I see is that free software that is distributed freely on the internet can have a download tax if other "similar" software is sold somewhere else on the net. Like say blogging software (WordPress, Drupal, etc.) or CMSes or e-commerce suites (OSCommerce, Magento).
What is to stop them from making this kind of leap or even using such a law as a basis for wiretaps or other types of surveillance?
On one hand I see this as a great promotional tool for a band and it can be highly successful for them. However, at the same time, if you rely on concert attendance alone for income then you will severely limit your physical reach to your fans and thus your income. So saying that concert attendance and sales at concerts is where the money comes from is very limiting.
That said, there are obviously other ways to make money. Selling merchandise online; Packaging other things with music sold online such as lyrics, album art, autographed covers, and concert coupons along with other things that add value to purchased music can also bring in money. There is also online merchandising.
I think the best thing about this new revolution that the internet has brought about is that it allows artists to cut out the middle men that they relied on for promotion and distribution of their music for so long. This means more money goes to the artists who do all the work and less money goes to RIAA mafia. This leaves the songwriting/performing to the artists, the production and recording to the artists or specialists, and the money gets a more balanced distribution. Another positive side is it removes those contractual obligations and pay advances that create more problems than they solve. I am all for it.
DigitalRAGE, you are a hoot. You honestly think that if they start loosing a ton of money they will get rid of the MPAA. You honestly have not been paying attention over the last few years. No, they won't get rid of it, they will rely on it more to prosecute anyone that they can find to accuse of hurting their business. They will never admit their own mistakes and take full responsibility for it. That is not the way of the Entertainment Industry.
BS from above. The RIAA is just a slimy organization trying to strong arm as much money out of individuals as possible. I would really like to see this type of lobbying stopped, but I am not sure the best approach to stop the bad ones while letting the good ones continue. Granted you could argue that there is no such thing as a good lobbyist.
Why the heck would I WANT tiered broadband? Especially one that is so expensive for the cap given? If they want to offer more reasonable caps for less than I pay right now per month for the more basic users and then say a multimedia tier for the same price I pay now and then a little more for an unlimited tier then I will be all for it. The first two should have a cap that is 5 to 10 GB higher than the average 40-50% of users use so that they have breathing room.
They should also prep everyone by giving us a tool to check to see what we normally use every month and even see a day-to-day breakdown of the data. That way we can pick a plan that won't screw us. They should also remove the bandwidth (speed) limits and just offer the fastest possible for all tiers.
For a web developer I am a bit old fashioned. I still like to read paper books over electronic and I like to hold a magazine or a comic in my hand and I prefer it because I don't have to catalog it on my hard drive and hope it doesn't get lost from some mishap. Seems less risky to have a physical copy over a digital one. Plus in comics and some magazine and book editions they can become collectors items, unlike digital copies (where that is simply not possible).
Don't get me wrong, I use digital media every day and I am all for it. But I do enjoy holding a printed copy in my hand. Plus it is a bit easier on my eyes. Beyond the personal preference and the collectible items thing I don't really see printed as significantly better than digital. When it comes to newspaper it is really not that special at all unless you like to collect newspaper clippings (again, personal preference).
I don't think physical copies are given enough consideration these days for their flexibility in being free of a device and electrical source and still being usable. However, I don't think it is mystically better either.
Seriously Mike, that idea sounds great. But does anyone really know what this strong and stable house should look like? Does anyone know what a strong and stable house normally looks like? Does anyone know how to carefully pull down the old one?
All of this talk is great, but if no one knows how then it is pointless. We can bitch and moan all we want, but unless we have real solutions to the problem all we are doing is griping about the inevitable. I think the real problem is that all the people smart enough to figure out the answers are too enamored or invested in the old system to build a new one. Plus, getting 350 million people across the country to get in line with it would be a miracle. Let alone the 6 billion people across the world.
On the post: Why Do Content Creators Get Control Over Derivative Works?
What I find annoying about this case...
But then this case happened and she did a 180 and started, literally, crying in the court room about how the publication of this Lexicon in book form not only violated her rights, but also interfered with her own idea of releasing such an Encyclopedia to Harry Potter. Of course her version isn't even a sure thing. She simply said it was something she considered and in not so many words said that she didn't want the competition nor the loss of revenue.
Lets see where do I start on all of that. First of all money should be the last thing on her mind as well off as she is. Secondly the makers of this Lexicon spent years putting together the online version as a dedicated fan of her work. She should be supportive that such a dedicated fan is being reimbursed for all his hard work. Instead she shows that she is two-faced (for turning on her fans), greedy, and and self-important.
I am a fan of the books, but this trial made me lose a lot of respect for the woman.
On the post: How Far Should Google Go To Protect User Privacy In Lawsuits?
Very Complex...
I personally hate that these people and companies overreact to mouthy bloggers and I really support protecting anonymity just to shut down frivolous lawsuits. I would like to think that if I were in Google's position I would fight tooth and nail to protect this ideology of mine. But I really can't say for sure what I would do because if you go too far then you risk shutting down your business and making your employees lose their jobs and I can't support that results either.
In this case, I think Google did the right thing by notifying the user weeks in advance so that they can take steps to protect their anonymity if they choose to do so. The whole situation is very frustrating. But I would like to see them focus on changing laws to protect all rights instead of protecting a few individuals that started the fight by running their mouths too much.
On the post: Why Sprint Should Be Giving Away The Palm Pre For Free
Re:
I have an iphone and this weekend I looked into the cost of the unlimited Sprint plan versus the not-so-unlimited AT&T plan. At current prices I would save $30-40 per month with Sprint. As much as I hate to say it I am seriously considering switching back to Sprint. I used to have them and left because the prices of the phones, the lack of sim cards, and the horrible customer service.
Sprint seems to have dropped the price of phones (thank goodness), they have immensely improved their customer service, and they offer some phones with sim cards. If they make the Pre or a Google phone with a sim card they will have me sold. AT&T and Apple can kiss my rear-end with their restrictive phone and excessive prices.
On the post: Surveillance Cameras In London Not Very Effective At Solving Crime
Question of efficacy or question of privacy?
While just 3% of robbery suspects were caught using the cameras, you failed to mention that 70% of murder investigations were solved using the cameras. I would say that seems to justify the cameras outright, while completely disregarding any other crimes solved. How many of those murder investigations would not have been solved without the help of the cameras?
If your real concern is privacy than you should state it. But as it stands now I think that the cameras are a mixed bag of privacy and crime solving tool and neither should be taken lightly.
On the post: Consumer Group Wants ACTA Discussions Stopped Until Consumer Rights Are Represented In Negotiations
Re:
The case of the original Napster is a great example. For the better part of two decades album sales had been dwindling, then Napster came around and all the sudden the sales of albums in the stores jumped in correlation with the use of Napster. This is because people got a taste of part of an album and decided that it really is worth spending $15 on it. Whereas in the past, unless someone just really loved a band or highly anticipated an album, people generally would choose not to buy it. This is because the sense of risk at wasting money on a terrible album prevented them from even trying it out.
On the post: Mythbusters' Adam Savage Discovers Insane Roaming Fees: $11,000 iPhone Bill For A Few Hours Surfing
Abusive telcos suck
On the post: City Requires Job Applicants To Hand Over All Online Usernames And Passwords
Re: TOS Violation
On the post: Canadian Patent Office Rejects Software And Business Model Patents
I don't trust lawmakers
On the post: Right To Free Press Doesn't Mean The Press Gets Unfettered Access
Re: We don't have access to public roads now?
Suffice to say taking gruesome photos of someone else's misery and suffering for personal financial gain is a disgusting abuse of "freedoms". I doubt the intentions of the law were to cover this kind of use and thus I think that potentially bending the law to prevent this abuse was a good thing. Notice I say potentially because it is questionable that law was bent or broken to prevent this action, primarily because we are talking about the freedom of speech, not the freedom to nose into others personal business.
On the post: Can Washington Charge Unauthorized Downloaders With Tax Evasion?
I think they could abuse this even more.
What is to stop them from making this kind of leap or even using such a law as a basis for wiretaps or other types of surveillance?
-Pjerky
On the post: Band Celebrates 'Super Fan' Who Burns Their CD And Gives It Out To Everyone
Making Money via Music
That said, there are obviously other ways to make money. Selling merchandise online; Packaging other things with music sold online such as lyrics, album art, autographed covers, and concert coupons along with other things that add value to purchased music can also bring in money. There is also online merchandising.
I think the best thing about this new revolution that the internet has brought about is that it allows artists to cut out the middle men that they relied on for promotion and distribution of their music for so long. This means more money goes to the artists who do all the work and less money goes to RIAA mafia. This leaves the songwriting/performing to the artists, the production and recording to the artists or specialists, and the money gets a more balanced distribution. Another positive side is it removes those contractual obligations and pay advances that create more problems than they solve. I am all for it.
On the post: RealNetworks Ups The Ante; Wants To Add Antitrust Charges Against The MPAA
Re:
On the post: RIAA Still Filing Lawsuits...
I call this...
On the post: Time Warner Says People Want Metered Billing; Cablevision Says People Hate It
Why the F...
They should also prep everyone by giving us a tool to check to see what we normally use every month and even see a day-to-day breakdown of the data. That way we can pick a plan that won't screw us. They should also remove the bandwidth (speed) limits and just offer the fastest possible for all tiers.
On the post: Is There Something Fundamentally Better About 'Print' Than 'Online'?
Old Fashioned
Don't get me wrong, I use digital media every day and I am all for it. But I do enjoy holding a printed copy in my hand. Plus it is a bit easier on my eyes. Beyond the personal preference and the collectible items thing I don't really see printed as significantly better than digital. When it comes to newspaper it is really not that special at all unless you like to collect newspaper clippings (again, personal preference).
I don't think physical copies are given enough consideration these days for their flexibility in being free of a device and electrical source and still being usable. However, I don't think it is mystically better either.
On the post: Making The Tough Choices To Save The Economy?
Does anyone really have a solution?
All of this talk is great, but if no one knows how then it is pointless. We can bitch and moan all we want, but unless we have real solutions to the problem all we are doing is griping about the inevitable. I think the real problem is that all the people smart enough to figure out the answers are too enamored or invested in the old system to build a new one. Plus, getting 350 million people across the country to get in line with it would be a miracle. Let alone the 6 billion people across the world.
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