As a Canadian, I run into this all the time. Companies have thrown up roadblocks to anyone outside of the US from watching their content online.
Now as a Netflix subscriber, I can say that I am happy to pay a reasonable fee for content. What I don't understand is what is the economical strategy for restrictions across the border? Is it actually costing companies more money to stream content to Canada vs the US? It seems like a simple solution to me: open up licenses to cover Canada and you have immediately increased your potential customer base by millions. As others have pointed out already, if you don't offer the service/content here...are you actually losing money when it is pirated in that country?
I am very interested in how you can bring together what you said above (agreeing that copyright exists as a temporary incentive for the creation of things to benefit the public) with a previous quote from you:
"If I write one good song/painting/book in my youth, beg, crawl and dance to finally get it published, but it only becomes a hit only many decades later, how do I profit from the book sales without IP?"
This is a very different situation. In this case, the person who wrecked your car has deprived you of your car until it is repaired or replaced. In the case of file sharing, they have deprived you of hypothetical income.
Just another thing that is wrong with the current system. It can be incredibly expensive for the average person to defend themselves in court, so lawsuits can become a very powerful tool for lawyers or monied people/corporations to leverage against the average joe.
Good on ya Mike for not backing down, and for posting this for everyone to see. When dealing with bullies, going public can be a great way to shut down their tactics.
Just to be clear, I wouldn't be any happier if I was in one of the photo's taken on the Apple computers vs on a rental laptop, but I don't think the Apple one is violating anyone's rights.
I partially agree that the cases are similar, but i think several points seperate them (at least to me): the Apple incident was being held at a public place, on public computers. The Apple store allowed people to install software onto their computers by potential customers, so i don't think that should constitute hacking.
A company who knows they have a great product or perform a service exceptionally, is not a company that fears competition, but instead thrives on it.
I'm tired of 'form letters' like this. They are basically a bully with authority. I had a high school vice principal pull this crap on me: he pulled me into his office and then said "what did you do wrong?" and repeated that line of questioning for 15 minutes. Waste of time because i didn't actually do anything, and all he taught me is that there are people in this world that will use the full weight of their authority to push you around and make you think you are wrong.
Putting into the letter "we won't tell you what you did wrong" is pretty similar bullshit. It shows that they are afraid of their competition, but are desperate to not show that fear.
"I guess TSA will start employing mediums to read minds and perform psychic-searches on passengers since passengers don't want to be searched or scanned but perfect security must still be provided."
I believe the TSA would be just as effective with this method as they currently are with the 'molest everyone' approach they are currently employing.
If the TSA wants real security without the theatre, they should hire actual security experts and take a look at the level of airport security in places like Tel Aviv. You can't say that they don't have less reason for security, but when was the last time you heard about the level of stupidity in their airports? I saw a documentary on their security and they train their personel to actually identify suspiscious persons, not to grope every person and their 2 year olds.
The point with Google being trivial when it first launched was that it was just another player in the search engine world. At the time, i believe Yahoo! had the largest market share, and it would have been easy to see another search engine being trivial to the market. Years later and everyone now can see that this case was anything but trivial.
Second, i don't consider water to be at all trivial. There are dozens of stages and processes that water goes through from the river to your tap and back to the river. Billions of people have poor access to water. It is hardly trivial.
Re: Don't you know its against the law to say the government is wrong?
This is pretty sickening. If the DA actually thought there was a real, justifiable case, they would have pressed charges. Instead they are using a lawsuit to tie things up and keep letting the clock run out as long as they can.
On the post: Summit Entertainment Commences Criminal Legal Action Against Twilight Fan Who Shared Images From Movie
Who took the photos?
On the post: Writer Explains How Copyright Has Prevented Her From Ever Seeing TV Shows She Wrote
Why is there a need for a cross-border license?
Now as a Netflix subscriber, I can say that I am happy to pay a reasonable fee for content. What I don't understand is what is the economical strategy for restrictions across the border? Is it actually costing companies more money to stream content to Canada vs the US? It seems like a simple solution to me: open up licenses to cover Canada and you have immediately increased your potential customer base by millions. As others have pointed out already, if you don't offer the service/content here...are you actually losing money when it is pirated in that country?
On the post: Swedish Appeals Court Increases File Sharing Fine By A Factor Of Six
Re: Re: Almost 50 posts
"If I write one good song/painting/book in my youth, beg, crawl and dance to finally get it published, but it only becomes a hit only many decades later, how do I profit from the book sales without IP?"
On the post: Swedish Appeals Court Increases File Sharing Fine By A Factor Of Six
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On the post: Celine Dion Shuts Down Blog Of Ridiculous Pictures
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On the post: Man Made Famous Over 2006 Arrest For Videotaping Police... Arrested Again While Videotaping Police
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On the post: Man Made Famous Over 2006 Arrest For Videotaping Police... Arrested Again While Videotaping Police
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On the post: Lawyer Trying To Trademark Bitcoin Threatens Techdirt With Bogus DMCA Takedown
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On the post: Lawyer Trying To Trademark Bitcoin Threatens Techdirt With Bogus DMCA Takedown
On the post: Court Refuses To Issue Injunction Stopping Secret Web Spycams From Running On Rental Laptops
Re: Re: Compare to apple store
On the post: Court Refuses To Issue Injunction Stopping Secret Web Spycams From Running On Rental Laptops
Re: Compare to apple store
On the post: Court Refuses To Issue Injunction Stopping Secret Web Spycams From Running On Rental Laptops
On the post: Facebook Bans User's Ad Campaigns For Displaying Google+ Ad
Re: This isn't news, and it's not just Google+
I'm tired of 'form letters' like this. They are basically a bully with authority. I had a high school vice principal pull this crap on me: he pulled me into his office and then said "what did you do wrong?" and repeated that line of questioning for 15 minutes. Waste of time because i didn't actually do anything, and all he taught me is that there are people in this world that will use the full weight of their authority to push you around and make you think you are wrong.
Putting into the letter "we won't tell you what you did wrong" is pretty similar bullshit. It shows that they are afraid of their competition, but are desperate to not show that fear.
On the post: Woman Faces Felony Charges For Groping A TSA Agent
Re:
On the post: Woman Faces Felony Charges For Groping A TSA Agent
Re: Crime
I believe the TSA would be just as effective with this method as they currently are with the 'molest everyone' approach they are currently employing.
If the TSA wants real security without the theatre, they should hire actual security experts and take a look at the level of airport security in places like Tel Aviv. You can't say that they don't have less reason for security, but when was the last time you heard about the level of stupidity in their airports? I saw a documentary on their security and they train their personel to actually identify suspiscious persons, not to grope every person and their 2 year olds.
On the post: Yes, Silicon Valley Is Filled With Trivial Startups... And That's A Good Thing
Re: Comparing Google and Twitter?
Second, i don't consider water to be at all trivial. There are dozens of stages and processes that water goes through from the river to your tap and back to the river. Billions of people have poor access to water. It is hardly trivial.
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Re: Don't you know its against the law to say the government is wrong?
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