Re: Re: If we're talking huge disruption (Google) the incumbants miss it.
A lot of the business models of that time period were known to be kinda out to lunch even during the dot-com bubble. Some of those were adopted by news organizations who felt a need to get on line before there was an on line audience.
There's even a problem with cherry picking because you'd better pick from the right cherry tree or you fail again. That's what the stories are pointing at. Organization A may realize the change barreling down on them, look to find someone successful in the same field, buy them then change the very culture that made Organization B successful to start with. Organization A is left holding a worthless asset and probably an increased debt load.
The problem with disruption is that it's disruptive. Organization A may want into the on line world and may, desperately, want to make a profit on it while they completely fail to understand that what works for Organization A (a newspaper, say) in print does not and cannot work on line. They may even say they'd tried before when they cherry picked Organization B (an on line news site, let's say) but that Organization B's culture wasn't the same as theirs and they couldn't get Organization B to recognize that Organization A had been doing this for over a century and making a handsome profit so Organization B should adapt to what they do. The people that worked for an in Organization B leave and in short order are back to doing what they did before just as successfully but willing to live with the reality that the profit margins on line are much lower than in print. (Most of the technical and journalistic staff of the Huffington Post comes to mind.) And the dance starts again.
At least newspapers are trying. I'll give them that. The fact that television news has found it easier to make the transition, though not as profitably in the news area, simply because the technical and presentation of Web 2.0 is more television than newspaper like. And then there's the HuffPo's and Politico's who are native web creations and do it better but not better enough to batter television web sites (yet) as they and television have newspapers.
For better or worse, the day of massively profitable newspapers and chains is over. Most may disappear as they're currently structured screaming and yelling as the disrupted always have about unfair competition. Some will survive but will have lost the political and social sway they once had. I, for one, won't miss it.
The fourth estate will continue but differently. Journalism will survive, if for no other reason, because humans love gossip and telling stories and are quite in love with "when it bleeds it leads" they'll just be getting all that in a different form. Those adapting will make a profit, perhaps not a big one initially but a profit.
And. after it really gets going the shakeout will start, massive consolidation will begin again, people will complain again. Then the next disruption will roll on down the line and the cycle starts again.
The difference in the entertainment industry, on the other hand, has cried foul and the sky is falling for as long as I can remember. First it was reel-to-reel recording, then it was cassettes, then the CD, then this strange thing called the Internet and it's web and then they discovered file sharing. (Nothing new, as I've pointed out.) Then they go trotting off to government seeking welfare for themselves all the while yelling at the top of their lungs that they're really interested in "the artist" or "the creator" to avoid the disruption faced by newspapers that the disruptive change has brought on. That way they can resume "business as usual" going back to their usual treatment of artists, musicians, screenwriters, and so on which has been anything but stellar.
In the preparation for the next war by fighting the last one this is analogous to the Iraqi army running to someone to get the Americans to stand down while someone quickly gets them the weaponry and training they need to at least fight the hated Yanks to a standstill.
Western nations are doing something similar in Afghanistan with the insurgency there loudly yelling that the Taliban and others are not following the rules (Afgans have a long history of that) after between 1939 and 1945 the West normalized such things with the Resistance and the tactics and strategies of the SAS among others. The Taliban aren't going to dress in snappy uniforms and form neat predictable skirmish lines just because we'd like them to.
For all of the entertainment industry's screaming about "free culture" and how it cannot work for artists, ok well the industry's benefit because artists are less than pawns in this game, because they (the industry) isn't getting paid. The problem there is that the self-same industry normalized "free culture" by helping to enable a few generations to get their music for "free" from radio. What's changed is that instead of needing radio, suddenly those generations now can do it on their own without annoying ads from used car dealerships on top of the fade out of their favourite songs.
They're not only being disrupted they've done their level best to enable the disruption to occur the very moment the technological stars aligned to make the disruption happen on the scale it is now.
That genie is not going back in the bottle again. Ever.
It's not that they didn't see it coming. Instead of preparing for it they've whined about it. They've run off to governments to get their legal protections expanded far beyond the intent of them (copyright) so that they can live off corporate welfare should the whole house of cards collapses on them.
To give the devil his due, at least the motion picture industry has reacted. They've rediscovered that movie theatres need to be an experience rather than stuffing people like sardines into a multiplex. So now theatres are appearing again that resemble those of 50, 60 70 years ago where there were places people wanted to go. Not just for the movie but because they were, in themselves, places where people felt comfortable and wanted to socialize. I've even heard vicious rumours that they've discovered real butter for real popcorn again! And, gee, they're starting to turn out real product again that people are willing to go and see. They're back to making a bundle at the box office again, too. Who'da thunk?
I doubt the recording industry has that option. It's a one trick team of ponies, fat, out of shape and filled with the feeling they are ENTITLED.
Suzanne, I'm not saying disruption is or ever has been easy. Those that suffer the most are those at the bottom of the food chain. I'd far rather expend my energies on them rather that the fat, overpaid, disconnected execs of the recording industry.
They may get all the extensions they are drooling over from the US Congress and the Canadian Parliament and sneak in more from ACTA.
At the end of the day they've treated their workers (artists) and customers so poorly that the sea change happening on and off line won't stop.
They can tell the tide in the Bay of Fundy stop but it won't. It'll cover them instead.
If we're talking huge disruption (Google) the incumbants miss it.
Suzanne's well reasoned observations aside disruption on a Google scale is rare but it does happen.
In smaller spaces as well. Sports goods and beverages are both highly competitive even if only two dominate the space in soft drinks and juices now. And their markets are notoriously fickle. No other example be given than "New Coke".
The iPod and iPhone much as I detest both were disruptive products which changed entire markets. Certainly the newest iPhone has forced Blackberry into a response that may have been a premature release of their newest phone.
The reality that this reveals in stark detail is that CEOs, in common with Generals, always prepare to fight the last war. The disruptive technology of World War I was, relatively, recoilless field cannon.
The end of that war brought the foreshadowing of the next two disruptive technologies that burst on the scene in World War II namely tanks and aircraft. The end of World War II saw a foreshadowing of the recent spate of current wars fought in ways embraced by Allies to defeat Germany and Japan with the examples being the French resistance and the small, lightly armed, well trained well led units larger armies face today and are often ground down by that appeared in Special Air Service, Special Boat Service and the US Navy Seals and other special ops units. The Germans, of course, called the Resistance terrorists while the Japanese found they couldn't handle an enemy that was there one moment and gone the next.
Large incumbents such as Microsoft can't be attacked head on any more than the US Army, well equipped, trained and motivated can be taken on by lesser armies something clearly illustrated in Iraq. Yet the lessons learned from the Resistance, SAS and others pinned down the Americans and the British for years and continue to pin down the Americans, Canadians and others in Afganistan.
Google caught Microsoft and Yahoo on the flanks in a position neither thought strategic enough to investigate much less defend.
The Blackberry and iPhone smashed Microsoft's dominance in mobile space which was also crumbling from open source "attacks" until Google came along with its Linux based mobile based OS. Microsoft is learning what monopolists have learned before (and Empires) that you can't defend everywhere, all time and win. Something will give and often, when it does, it'll collapse completely. By the time you respond it's too little, too late and the ground that was once yours is gone forever.
This is why truly disruptive innovation is ignored or missed or both by incumbents as much as anything. They're too busy defending their hard won turf, particularly after the market has reduced itself to a few players who all agree, more or less to play by the same rules. They remain convinced that the game will be played by the same rules forever until they're outflanked by an innovative and motivated newcomer. That newcomer doesn't go after the whole market the incumbents dominate, just a part of it and then expand once they're established as Google has done.
The entertainment industry missed, in order, the World Wide Web writing it off as a fad (a mistake Microsoft came perilously close to making as well), ignored and abused their market after consolidating down to a few well connected companies, ignored the reality of falling CD sales long before what came next, then the mp3 format (as terrible sonically then as it is now), then for a while Napster, then Bittorrent which they have discovered isn't a product or company as much as it is a protocol, rediscovered P2P which has been around since Unix and other mainframe and mini computer platforms allowed it and which Hollywood has made great use of for its own purposes for years. It was one of the early adopters of bittorrent as well and was fine with it as long as it was used their way and they could clearly profit from it.
The entertainment industry and it's legislative supporters has run headlong into something more than a company and less than it at the same time. It's run into a paradigm shift in its customer market that is no longer prepared to accept the abuse of the past, the plastic popcorn, the theatres with seats that would break the back of a cat, CDs with 13 cuts and only 3 of them any good. That little genie isn't going to be put back in it's bottle regardless of legislation or secretive treaties like ACTA.
Nor will the United States keep it's IP lead by grabbing ACTA and running with it. Emerging economies such as the BRIC ones will enact ACTA but in such a way as they can ignore it when it's convenient to do so.
In that sense they'll have learned from the United States who refused to honour copyrights attained in other nations until they finally signed on to the Berne Convention when it was in the US's advantage to do so and not one moment before.
The United States is preparing for the last war in the IP area rather than the next one. It's not really the next one as I noted above it's an old one they used to lead.
Disruption can come from the past as much as it does from the future and present.
You also miss the point that, in part, criminal proceedings take place in front of a jury of one's peers to protect the subject/citizen from abuse by the monarch/state as does the requirement of "beyond a reasonable doubt".
Civil law is different in that beyond a reasonable doubt doesn't enter into it the test is balance of probability. Also civil actions are between persons not the state vs a person. A jury may be the most effective way of dealing with most actions though with some it's troublesome in the extreme. In most jurisdictions that's why there's the option of judge/jury or judge alone often at the election of the defendant in the suit.
Mind you the second option often doesn't yield gazillions for lawyers on either side to the first is often preferred because juries are infamous in civil actions for granting penalties far, far in excess of any damage done.
Should, however, the governing law and regulation(s) pursuant to that law insist the a patent is granted by a person(s) with expertise in the field that the patent is in makes having a law degree or not totally irrelevant.
It also calls into doubt the ability of a group of twelve upright and honest citizens to come to an intelligent and informed finding on balance of probabilities, the point of civil law, you know, as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt, highly unlikely no matter how diligently they may try to reach a fair and impartial decision.
Mind you, it's a perfect lawyer's answer in that it deflects from the issue at hand while attempting to cement the lawyer's ability to make a killing in acting for the plaintiff in these cases. Thar's gold in them thar hills, isn't there? The law be damned.
It's been said, with some justification that law students are those who cannot get through the first year or two of arts studies in any other field including basket weaving 101 and 102.
darryl is simply an illustration of that principle who has yet to gain a coherent grasp of the English language and who, by all appearances wasn't capable of successfully completing the remedial writing and comprehension courses that too many universities have to put on because high schools don't do their jobs properly. So, he's turned to study of the law. Rather, he claims he has. No verifiable confirmation of that claim as far as I know. Kinda like so many bogus patents.
BTW darryl, where the option is available only a patent idiot of a defendant would elect judge and jury in these cases preferring judge alone as, one hopes, the judge is perceptive enough to understand things, ask for help when he/she doesn't and highly skilled in the art of separating the truth from well spun bullshit. Judgements tend to be far more reasonable that way.
What the hell does music or artists have do with it. Dammit these are record companies we're talking about. Anyway, I'm sure they own the rights to the muzak used in the background to the wall to wall ads!
Still, it rather does smell of bureaucratic rules overriding reality. Still, if they need the cert they need the cert and they ought to have gotten one.
First off let me apologize for inadvertantly confusing you and our not very average_joe. (And how's that for a recording and movie industry shill nick? :))
And you're right. The IP address only gives them the name and address of someone they suspect and are ready to accuse of being an infringer without much, if any, evidence to back up the suspicion or accusation.
One example, you and your partner are foster parents and are currently fostering, say, 5 children all of whom have access to one or another computing device.
I'm average_joe and I feel you've infringed on my world renowned dissertation about how to legally flatten copyright infringers by running them over with the tracks of a D-9 cat and a M-1 tank. (Don't take that too seriously average_joe, if you can manage it.) Not only has someone at that address with that ISP done that but they must have somehow gotten the bound, full colour version of the dissertation complete with appendix, supporting case law back to Pliny the Elder and illustrations of his proposed device which he as also submitted to the USPTO. It's been posted on Techdirty of all places! Smarmy blogger Mike!
Now there are 7 people having access to machines at that IP and at that address not counting war divers who land on the WiFi all day long.
Now, this has to be a reasonable inference that you are the sole and only "guilty" party at that location because, in his world, he needs nothing else to slap you across the face with a lawsuit. And, somehow, having assumed that he further assumes that somewhere along the line the English presumption of innocence has become the Continental presumption of guilt in the United States. The lawsuit doesn't even have to include any detail on just what the heck it is you are presumed to have violated.
One small problem. No one was home that day and the wifi was turned off though the modem was left running with all the computing devices save one, attached to the alarm system, were turned off. You even have clear cut evidence that no one was there because you and the family were at an event where one of the foster children was being honoured for the fact that her scholastic achievement has skyrocketed from perennial F student to the honour roll in one year. You know. Photos, a couple of hundred eye witnesses and so on.
Thing is that in filing for the subpeona he reversed two characters in the last octet of the IP address. Totally inadverently of course.
And as you discovered when you returned home someone had tried to break in and the alarm had gone off sending grainy still and video shots of the alleged B&E "artist" who tried to jimmy the shop door thereby attracting the attention of the territorial great dane you have who angrily took exception to his presence on the dog's property.
The person with the real IP address turns out to be someone one state over with the same ISP. He and average_joe, both now articling at the RIAA, had gotten into a bar room brawl over one of the finer points of intellectual property law so this is the guy that downloaded and spread the stuff in a fit of rage after he was released from hospital with a broken nose and shattered gold tooth.
Remember, though, that he had a reasonable inference even after he received the information back again to have the barest of slightest of suspected "evidence" that it was you and insisted on taking you to court. Moments before the case was called average_joe is suddenly confronted with the screw up and drops the case though for months he and his employer have been having a field day at your (so far unnamed) expense all over the Interwebs.
It may make sense to average_joe and a court clerk or magistrate who will sign any subpeona request that comes their way late in the afternoon before heading off the the Jolly Barrister's Bar and Grille for a burger and beer for supper.
No harm done. Right? All quite reasonable. Right? All very real world, right?
Well no, because in the REAL real world that's not how the Internet works or has ever worked or is likely to ever work, average_joe's fevered imagining or not.
Again, I deeply apologize for the mix up and the insult it must have been for you.
I strongly suspect that because the issuing of John Doe subpoenas hasn't been well tested in these cases that, in the end, a court will understand and rule that an IP address doesn't create any sort of reasonable inference other than and address. Maybe. It certainly, in the real world, doesn't point it's finger at the responsible individual.
At times the real world doesn't agree with the legal world about how the real world works. It takes time but eventually it's an argument the REAL real world wins all the time.
Unless, of course, it's a third rate student, apparently, who does nothing more that spout off expressions and spin of the recording and movie industry as you do. Not very well, either.
Something lost in AJ's attempts to divert the discussion is that the ISP has done exactly that. They are questioning, quite properly, the jurisdiction of a court located in another jurisdiction the right to enforce the subpoena.
AJ never lets reality get in the way of his first term, first year understanding of law.
I'll admit to not researching US law on the matter but as privacy is a guaranteed right under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada, part of our constitution that was tried exactly once in Canada and tossed due to the circumstances I described. That it was never appealed tells me volumes.
That hasn't stopped copyright holders from trying to go after suspected infringers it's just forced them to do a little more research on the subject before they waste the courts time. Thankfully in civil law "John Doe" subpoenas in Canada aren't allowed. The closest you get is "John Smith et al" and as the plaintiff you had better have the "et al" sorted out before John Smith ends up in court or you've lost.
I seem to have had more experience in the civil legal system in my life than you have even if it's in a different country. In many ways our systems are parallel so it's damned good chance that a law company fighting an infringer would have a hard time getting a judge to enforce based on suspicion given the evidence is an IP address and less than that if it's an address inhabited by more than one person.
Even on suspicion alone without corroborating evidence of date, time, which files and so on you have nothing that trumps the right to privacy.
As I said before the merits of the subpoena are dubious at best as they rest on mere suspicion rather than the most basic information.
The fact that refusing to provide the information doesn't seem to have resulted in further action in cases it has been refused tells me that the subpoena is based on legally dubious merits. Mostly they appear to have been dropped.
Oh, as you don't sound like any average_joe or average_josephine I've ever met may I inquire as to who you're employed by and your relationship to this issue?
I ask only to clarify as I've seen these sorts of arguments in the past from people who are, later, clearly linked to organizations and/or corporate entities clearly interested in nothing more than maximizing copyright "protection" for their own good and rarely for the group that are loosely called "creators" by such institutions.
I won't hold my breath waiting for a response as, when challenged, like those I reference in the previous two paragraphs you fall silent or try change the subject.
As has been demanded from you before please cite court cases where the copyright holder (who, more often than not, is not the creator) has won a case where privacy rights have been raised. Preferably to the US Supreme Court.
You seem quite convinced that a copyright holder's suspicions of infringement, a civil not criminal act, trump the right to privacy. Based, mostly on that an IP address is assigned to household A and was assigned to that household when the suspected infringement took place. I'm kinda sure that such a claim wouldn't hold water in a civil or criminal court. Suspicion is not admissible evidence. Given the weakness of IP assignment tracing at the best of times there is little more than suspicion at play here based on very flimsy information.
Let's see how that stands up against a claim of legally protected privacy.
On the post: Ancient Online Shopping Cart Patent Still Biting Retailers
Re: Re: This thread needs RJR!
On the post: How Microsoft Missed The Disruptive Innovation In Paid Search
Re: Re: If we're talking huge disruption (Google) the incumbants miss it.
There's even a problem with cherry picking because you'd better pick from the right cherry tree or you fail again. That's what the stories are pointing at. Organization A may realize the change barreling down on them, look to find someone successful in the same field, buy them then change the very culture that made Organization B successful to start with. Organization A is left holding a worthless asset and probably an increased debt load.
The problem with disruption is that it's disruptive. Organization A may want into the on line world and may, desperately, want to make a profit on it while they completely fail to understand that what works for Organization A (a newspaper, say) in print does not and cannot work on line. They may even say they'd tried before when they cherry picked Organization B (an on line news site, let's say) but that Organization B's culture wasn't the same as theirs and they couldn't get Organization B to recognize that Organization A had been doing this for over a century and making a handsome profit so Organization B should adapt to what they do. The people that worked for an in Organization B leave and in short order are back to doing what they did before just as successfully but willing to live with the reality that the profit margins on line are much lower than in print. (Most of the technical and journalistic staff of the Huffington Post comes to mind.) And the dance starts again.
At least newspapers are trying. I'll give them that. The fact that television news has found it easier to make the transition, though not as profitably in the news area, simply because the technical and presentation of Web 2.0 is more television than newspaper like. And then there's the HuffPo's and Politico's who are native web creations and do it better but not better enough to batter television web sites (yet) as they and television have newspapers.
For better or worse, the day of massively profitable newspapers and chains is over. Most may disappear as they're currently structured screaming and yelling as the disrupted always have about unfair competition. Some will survive but will have lost the political and social sway they once had. I, for one, won't miss it.
The fourth estate will continue but differently. Journalism will survive, if for no other reason, because humans love gossip and telling stories and are quite in love with "when it bleeds it leads" they'll just be getting all that in a different form. Those adapting will make a profit, perhaps not a big one initially but a profit.
And. after it really gets going the shakeout will start, massive consolidation will begin again, people will complain again. Then the next disruption will roll on down the line and the cycle starts again.
The difference in the entertainment industry, on the other hand, has cried foul and the sky is falling for as long as I can remember. First it was reel-to-reel recording, then it was cassettes, then the CD, then this strange thing called the Internet and it's web and then they discovered file sharing. (Nothing new, as I've pointed out.) Then they go trotting off to government seeking welfare for themselves all the while yelling at the top of their lungs that they're really interested in "the artist" or "the creator" to avoid the disruption faced by newspapers that the disruptive change has brought on. That way they can resume "business as usual" going back to their usual treatment of artists, musicians, screenwriters, and so on which has been anything but stellar.
In the preparation for the next war by fighting the last one this is analogous to the Iraqi army running to someone to get the Americans to stand down while someone quickly gets them the weaponry and training they need to at least fight the hated Yanks to a standstill.
Western nations are doing something similar in Afghanistan with the insurgency there loudly yelling that the Taliban and others are not following the rules (Afgans have a long history of that) after between 1939 and 1945 the West normalized such things with the Resistance and the tactics and strategies of the SAS among others. The Taliban aren't going to dress in snappy uniforms and form neat predictable skirmish lines just because we'd like them to.
For all of the entertainment industry's screaming about "free culture" and how it cannot work for artists, ok well the industry's benefit because artists are less than pawns in this game, because they (the industry) isn't getting paid. The problem there is that the self-same industry normalized "free culture" by helping to enable a few generations to get their music for "free" from radio. What's changed is that instead of needing radio, suddenly those generations now can do it on their own without annoying ads from used car dealerships on top of the fade out of their favourite songs.
They're not only being disrupted they've done their level best to enable the disruption to occur the very moment the technological stars aligned to make the disruption happen on the scale it is now.
That genie is not going back in the bottle again. Ever.
It's not that they didn't see it coming. Instead of preparing for it they've whined about it. They've run off to governments to get their legal protections expanded far beyond the intent of them (copyright) so that they can live off corporate welfare should the whole house of cards collapses on them.
To give the devil his due, at least the motion picture industry has reacted. They've rediscovered that movie theatres need to be an experience rather than stuffing people like sardines into a multiplex. So now theatres are appearing again that resemble those of 50, 60 70 years ago where there were places people wanted to go. Not just for the movie but because they were, in themselves, places where people felt comfortable and wanted to socialize. I've even heard vicious rumours that they've discovered real butter for real popcorn again! And, gee, they're starting to turn out real product again that people are willing to go and see. They're back to making a bundle at the box office again, too. Who'da thunk?
I doubt the recording industry has that option. It's a one trick team of ponies, fat, out of shape and filled with the feeling they are ENTITLED.
Suzanne, I'm not saying disruption is or ever has been easy. Those that suffer the most are those at the bottom of the food chain. I'd far rather expend my energies on them rather that the fat, overpaid, disconnected execs of the recording industry.
They may get all the extensions they are drooling over from the US Congress and the Canadian Parliament and sneak in more from ACTA.
At the end of the day they've treated their workers (artists) and customers so poorly that the sea change happening on and off line won't stop.
They can tell the tide in the Bay of Fundy stop but it won't. It'll cover them instead.
On the post: How Microsoft Missed The Disruptive Innovation In Paid Search
If we're talking huge disruption (Google) the incumbants miss it.
In smaller spaces as well. Sports goods and beverages are both highly competitive even if only two dominate the space in soft drinks and juices now. And their markets are notoriously fickle. No other example be given than "New Coke".
The iPod and iPhone much as I detest both were disruptive products which changed entire markets. Certainly the newest iPhone has forced Blackberry into a response that may have been a premature release of their newest phone.
The reality that this reveals in stark detail is that CEOs, in common with Generals, always prepare to fight the last war. The disruptive technology of World War I was, relatively, recoilless field cannon.
The end of that war brought the foreshadowing of the next two disruptive technologies that burst on the scene in World War II namely tanks and aircraft. The end of World War II saw a foreshadowing of the recent spate of current wars fought in ways embraced by Allies to defeat Germany and Japan with the examples being the French resistance and the small, lightly armed, well trained well led units larger armies face today and are often ground down by that appeared in Special Air Service, Special Boat Service and the US Navy Seals and other special ops units. The Germans, of course, called the Resistance terrorists while the Japanese found they couldn't handle an enemy that was there one moment and gone the next.
Large incumbents such as Microsoft can't be attacked head on any more than the US Army, well equipped, trained and motivated can be taken on by lesser armies something clearly illustrated in Iraq. Yet the lessons learned from the Resistance, SAS and others pinned down the Americans and the British for years and continue to pin down the Americans, Canadians and others in Afganistan.
Google caught Microsoft and Yahoo on the flanks in a position neither thought strategic enough to investigate much less defend.
The Blackberry and iPhone smashed Microsoft's dominance in mobile space which was also crumbling from open source "attacks" until Google came along with its Linux based mobile based OS. Microsoft is learning what monopolists have learned before (and Empires) that you can't defend everywhere, all time and win. Something will give and often, when it does, it'll collapse completely. By the time you respond it's too little, too late and the ground that was once yours is gone forever.
This is why truly disruptive innovation is ignored or missed or both by incumbents as much as anything. They're too busy defending their hard won turf, particularly after the market has reduced itself to a few players who all agree, more or less to play by the same rules. They remain convinced that the game will be played by the same rules forever until they're outflanked by an innovative and motivated newcomer. That newcomer doesn't go after the whole market the incumbents dominate, just a part of it and then expand once they're established as Google has done.
The entertainment industry missed, in order, the World Wide Web writing it off as a fad (a mistake Microsoft came perilously close to making as well), ignored and abused their market after consolidating down to a few well connected companies, ignored the reality of falling CD sales long before what came next, then the mp3 format (as terrible sonically then as it is now), then for a while Napster, then Bittorrent which they have discovered isn't a product or company as much as it is a protocol, rediscovered P2P which has been around since Unix and other mainframe and mini computer platforms allowed it and which Hollywood has made great use of for its own purposes for years. It was one of the early adopters of bittorrent as well and was fine with it as long as it was used their way and they could clearly profit from it.
The entertainment industry and it's legislative supporters has run headlong into something more than a company and less than it at the same time. It's run into a paradigm shift in its customer market that is no longer prepared to accept the abuse of the past, the plastic popcorn, the theatres with seats that would break the back of a cat, CDs with 13 cuts and only 3 of them any good. That little genie isn't going to be put back in it's bottle regardless of legislation or secretive treaties like ACTA.
Nor will the United States keep it's IP lead by grabbing ACTA and running with it. Emerging economies such as the BRIC ones will enact ACTA but in such a way as they can ignore it when it's convenient to do so.
In that sense they'll have learned from the United States who refused to honour copyrights attained in other nations until they finally signed on to the Berne Convention when it was in the US's advantage to do so and not one moment before.
The United States is preparing for the last war in the IP area rather than the next one. It's not really the next one as I noted above it's an old one they used to lead.
Disruption can come from the past as much as it does from the future and present.
On the post: How The Patent Office Outsourced Its Job To Non-Expert Jurors
Re:
Civil law is different in that beyond a reasonable doubt doesn't enter into it the test is balance of probability. Also civil actions are between persons not the state vs a person. A jury may be the most effective way of dealing with most actions though with some it's troublesome in the extreme. In most jurisdictions that's why there's the option of judge/jury or judge alone often at the election of the defendant in the suit.
Mind you the second option often doesn't yield gazillions for lawyers on either side to the first is often preferred because juries are infamous in civil actions for granting penalties far, far in excess of any damage done.
On the post: How The Patent Office Outsourced Its Job To Non-Expert Jurors
Re: Re: Re:
It also calls into doubt the ability of a group of twelve upright and honest citizens to come to an intelligent and informed finding on balance of probabilities, the point of civil law, you know, as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt, highly unlikely no matter how diligently they may try to reach a fair and impartial decision.
Mind you, it's a perfect lawyer's answer in that it deflects from the issue at hand while attempting to cement the lawyer's ability to make a killing in acting for the plaintiff in these cases. Thar's gold in them thar hills, isn't there? The law be damned.
On the post: How The Patent Office Outsourced Its Job To Non-Expert Jurors
Re: Re: "Just created" ?
It's been said, with some justification that law students are those who cannot get through the first year or two of arts studies in any other field including basket weaving 101 and 102.
darryl is simply an illustration of that principle who has yet to gain a coherent grasp of the English language and who, by all appearances wasn't capable of successfully completing the remedial writing and comprehension courses that too many universities have to put on because high schools don't do their jobs properly. So, he's turned to study of the law. Rather, he claims he has. No verifiable confirmation of that claim as far as I know. Kinda like so many bogus patents.
BTW darryl, where the option is available only a patent idiot of a defendant would elect judge and jury in these cases preferring judge alone as, one hopes, the judge is perceptive enough to understand things, ask for help when he/she doesn't and highly skilled in the art of separating the truth from well spun bullshit. Judgements tend to be far more reasonable that way.
Just ask SCO.
On the post: Record Labels Flip Out After Indian Copyright Board Massively Lowers Radio Royalties
Re: title should read
On the post: Record Labels Flip Out After Indian Copyright Board Massively Lowers Radio Royalties
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: In unrelated news....
Better start infringing, ahh pirating, ahhh, stealing, oh what the hell, do it anway, Pink Floyd's Have A Cigar. :)
On the post: Tesla Motors Pays Fine For Lacking Emissions Certificate Of Conformity... Even Though It Lacks Emissions
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And are you suggesting that some bureaucrat attach some kind of meter to MY tailpipe? :)
On the post: Tesla Motors Pays Fine For Lacking Emissions Certificate Of Conformity... Even Though It Lacks Emissions
Re: Re: Re: Read the Article
On the post: Questionable Site Claims To Legally Offer Unlimited MP3 Downloads... Record Label Lawyers Already Springing Into Action
Yeah, I snitched that from an old canned fish commercial with overtones of, well you guess!
But it fits so perfectly here.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
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And you're right. The IP address only gives them the name and address of someone they suspect and are ready to accuse of being an infringer without much, if any, evidence to back up the suspicion or accusation.
One example, you and your partner are foster parents and are currently fostering, say, 5 children all of whom have access to one or another computing device.
I'm average_joe and I feel you've infringed on my world renowned dissertation about how to legally flatten copyright infringers by running them over with the tracks of a D-9 cat and a M-1 tank. (Don't take that too seriously average_joe, if you can manage it.) Not only has someone at that address with that ISP done that but they must have somehow gotten the bound, full colour version of the dissertation complete with appendix, supporting case law back to Pliny the Elder and illustrations of his proposed device which he as also submitted to the USPTO. It's been posted on Techdirty of all places! Smarmy blogger Mike!
Now there are 7 people having access to machines at that IP and at that address not counting war divers who land on the WiFi all day long.
Now, this has to be a reasonable inference that you are the sole and only "guilty" party at that location because, in his world, he needs nothing else to slap you across the face with a lawsuit. And, somehow, having assumed that he further assumes that somewhere along the line the English presumption of innocence has become the Continental presumption of guilt in the United States. The lawsuit doesn't even have to include any detail on just what the heck it is you are presumed to have violated.
One small problem. No one was home that day and the wifi was turned off though the modem was left running with all the computing devices save one, attached to the alarm system, were turned off. You even have clear cut evidence that no one was there because you and the family were at an event where one of the foster children was being honoured for the fact that her scholastic achievement has skyrocketed from perennial F student to the honour roll in one year. You know. Photos, a couple of hundred eye witnesses and so on.
Thing is that in filing for the subpeona he reversed two characters in the last octet of the IP address. Totally inadverently of course.
And as you discovered when you returned home someone had tried to break in and the alarm had gone off sending grainy still and video shots of the alleged B&E "artist" who tried to jimmy the shop door thereby attracting the attention of the territorial great dane you have who angrily took exception to his presence on the dog's property.
The person with the real IP address turns out to be someone one state over with the same ISP. He and average_joe, both now articling at the RIAA, had gotten into a bar room brawl over one of the finer points of intellectual property law so this is the guy that downloaded and spread the stuff in a fit of rage after he was released from hospital with a broken nose and shattered gold tooth.
Remember, though, that he had a reasonable inference even after he received the information back again to have the barest of slightest of suspected "evidence" that it was you and insisted on taking you to court. Moments before the case was called average_joe is suddenly confronted with the screw up and drops the case though for months he and his employer have been having a field day at your (so far unnamed) expense all over the Interwebs.
It may make sense to average_joe and a court clerk or magistrate who will sign any subpeona request that comes their way late in the afternoon before heading off the the Jolly Barrister's Bar and Grille for a burger and beer for supper.
No harm done. Right? All quite reasonable. Right? All very real world, right?
Well no, because in the REAL real world that's not how the Internet works or has ever worked or is likely to ever work, average_joe's fevered imagining or not.
Again, I deeply apologize for the mix up and the insult it must have been for you.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
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I strongly suspect that because the issuing of John Doe subpoenas hasn't been well tested in these cases that, in the end, a court will understand and rule that an IP address doesn't create any sort of reasonable inference other than and address. Maybe. It certainly, in the real world, doesn't point it's finger at the responsible individual.
At times the real world doesn't agree with the legal world about how the real world works. It takes time but eventually it's an argument the REAL real world wins all the time.
Unless, of course, it's a third rate student, apparently, who does nothing more that spout off expressions and spin of the recording and movie industry as you do. Not very well, either.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
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See how silly it gets? And how quickly it gets there?
Maybe it makes sense to AJ but I daresay it doesn't to anyone else.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
Re: ISP and Subpoena
AJ never lets reality get in the way of his first term, first year understanding of law.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
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That hasn't stopped copyright holders from trying to go after suspected infringers it's just forced them to do a little more research on the subject before they waste the courts time. Thankfully in civil law "John Doe" subpoenas in Canada aren't allowed. The closest you get is "John Smith et al" and as the plaintiff you had better have the "et al" sorted out before John Smith ends up in court or you've lost.
I seem to have had more experience in the civil legal system in my life than you have even if it's in a different country. In many ways our systems are parallel so it's damned good chance that a law company fighting an infringer would have a hard time getting a judge to enforce based on suspicion given the evidence is an IP address and less than that if it's an address inhabited by more than one person.
Even on suspicion alone without corroborating evidence of date, time, which files and so on you have nothing that trumps the right to privacy.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
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The fact that refusing to provide the information doesn't seem to have resulted in further action in cases it has been refused tells me that the subpoena is based on legally dubious merits. Mostly they appear to have been dropped.
Oh, as you don't sound like any average_joe or average_josephine I've ever met may I inquire as to who you're employed by and your relationship to this issue?
I ask only to clarify as I've seen these sorts of arguments in the past from people who are, later, clearly linked to organizations and/or corporate entities clearly interested in nothing more than maximizing copyright "protection" for their own good and rarely for the group that are loosely called "creators" by such institutions.
I won't hold my breath waiting for a response as, when challenged, like those I reference in the previous two paragraphs you fall silent or try change the subject.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
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On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
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You seem quite convinced that a copyright holder's suspicions of infringement, a civil not criminal act, trump the right to privacy. Based, mostly on that an IP address is assigned to household A and was assigned to that household when the suspected infringement took place. I'm kinda sure that such a claim wouldn't hold water in a civil or criminal court. Suspicion is not admissible evidence. Given the weakness of IP assignment tracing at the best of times there is little more than suspicion at play here based on very flimsy information.
Let's see how that stands up against a claim of legally protected privacy.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
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Even with an IP number doesn't identify an individual only a location. Hell, it doesn't identify a human being!
How else would they know? They don't even with that.
Got a better way? Sure, how about a little (more expensive) research before unleashing the legal hounds of war?
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