do you have some examples to the patents you claim he will be trolling with?
Well, you could have tried reading the linked article. Here it is again in case you missed it the first time: http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-01/billion-dollar-lawyer-quits-firm-buys-patents-to -troll-for-license-fees.html
The article goes into very good detail about how he started up this new company solely for the purpose of pursuing licensing fees and lawsuits for the patents he purchased. The article also talks about the fact that Micron retained a royalty-free licence to continue using the patents, implying that they are not "... lying in microns drawer".
Here you go. Quoted straight from Habbo Hotel's Terms of Service:
You have no property interest in Habbo® Coins, Premium Subscriptions, your avatar, virtual items (e.g., Habbo® Furni or rares), which remain the exclusive property of Sulake subject only to your limited, non-transferable revocable license to use such for in-game play subject to these Terms and Conditions of Sale and the Terms of Use. Any attempt to sell or transfer same will result in an automatic termination of such license. Further, as these are merely licensed game play activities, they are deemed consumed upon purchase like putting a quarter in an arcade game and terminate upon any termination of your account.
See that? Habbo specifically states that users actually have ZERO property rights on virtual items. They also state that the items are "licensed game play activities" and have no actual value. So by Habbo's own words these "stolen" virtual items are completely valueless.
More than anything, I think the e-mail itself is a very sad commentary on the type of mentality that's created by a permanent entitlement state - "If the government doesn't take money from someone else by force and give it to me, my children and I are going to die."
This sounds like it came from someone who doesn't understand a very basic part of unemployment benefits: You pay into the unemployment system with every paycheck you receive while employed. Utilizing those benefits when you become unemployed is not "taking money from someone else", it is utilizing money that you put into the system for specifically that purpose.
Of course the true intent of unemployment benefits is to hold you over while you search for another job, and some people do take advantage of the system. aguywhoneedstenbucks statement is spot on: It all depends on the facts of the individual situation. Most who utilize the unemployment benefits are not crooks.
Lower Case Idiot: I refer you to Dilbert.com. Anyone can go and look at every single Dilbert comic ever made, absolutely free. Yet Adams still makes money selling books, T-shirts, Mugs, keychains etc. He also makes money from the ads on the website too.
You see that there, lower case idiot? The content is given away for free, yet he still makes money. There are quite few other comics who use this same model.
Ever hear of a webcomic called Penny Arcade? They were never distributed by newspapers, yet they make a very significant income, giving content away for free, and have been doing so for the last 12 years.
TAM is you, lower case idiot. I would have thought that you would have figured that out by now, since everyone calls you TAM. But I guess it's not that surprising that you haven't figured it out, since it appears that your reasoning skills are quite lacking.
Lower Case Coward: You make it sound so simple, yet it is not. He can't just say "prior art" and be done with it. There are legal proceedings that now must be gone through, and as stated in the article the hospital has shifted his funding to the lawyers to deal with the issue. So he now doesn't have the funding to do his research.
Since you apparently completely missed my last post where I specifically stated my problems with your calculation I will simply copy and paste it again for you:
First off, you make an assumption that some percentage of those who downloaded it illegally would have paid for it otherwise. That could be a couple percent, a couple tenths of a percent, or a couple thousandths of a percent, or even less. You don't state what percentage you are using or how you obtained that percentage, besides just pulling out of the air based only on your opinion.
Secondly, you assign some dollar amount that this unknown percentage of people would have paid if it wasn't available as an unauthorized download. It might have been $10, it might have been $5 from the bargain bin, or they might have bought a used copy (which does not result in any additional income for the producer). You don't state the amount you are using and you don't state the logic that you used to arrive at that number, besides just pulling it out of the air based only on your opinion.
So you take three pieces of information (Number of unauthorized Downloads, % of downloaders who would have paid, Amount they would have paid) to arrive at your "multi-million dollar" figure. This would be a fine calculation if those three pieces of information were true, but they are not. Only one of the figures (Number of downloads) has real data associated with it. The other two figures you completely pulled out of the air based on your opinion.
If it is a simple "Napkin-type" calculation, then could you please show us the formula and figures you used to arrive at your result?
I'll sleep much better at night knowing that you get to decide what constitutes a major crime and that loss of millions of dollars in revenue doesn't count.
If there actually was a real loss of millions it might be a crime. But this situation isn't even a real loss. You are basing your loss estimate on nothing but opinion.
By the way, if you think it's less than millions of dollars, tell me how much you think it is and why.
You've said that you think it is millions, but you haven't said why. You simply pulled that number out of thin air, so I'll just respond the exact same way you do:
I think that he made millions of extra dollars due to the free publicity from the unauthorized downloads. If you think additional income due to the publicity is less than this, please state how much and why.
The arbitrary value I assigned is "greater than zero" and based on the number of illegal copies, the timing when they became available, and overall popularity of the movie, I suggested that the amount was in the 'millions.' If you think this reasoning is flawed or you have a better estimate that you want to share, I'm wide open to reading it.
Yes, I find your reasoning to be quite flawed for the following reasons:
First off, you make an assumption that some percentage of those who downloaded it illegally would have paid for it otherwise. That could be a couple percent, a couple tenths of a percent, or a couple thousandths of a percent, or even less. You don't state what percentage you are using or how you obtained that percentage, besides just pulling out of the air based only on your opinion.
Secondly, you assign some dollar amount that this unknown percentage of people would have paid if it wasn't available as an unauthorized download. It might have been $10, it might have been $5 from the bargain bin, or they might have bought a used copy (which does not result in any additional income for the producer). You don't state the amount you are using and you don't state the logic that you used to arrive at that number, besides just pulling it out of the air based only on your opinion.
So you take three pieces of information (Number of unauthorized Downloads, % of downloaders who would have paid, Amount they would have paid) to arrive at your "multi-million dollar" figure. This would be a fine calculation if those three pieces of information were true, but they are not. Only one of the figures (Number of downloads) has real data associated with it. The other two figures you completely pulled out of the air based on your opinion.
True, but there is more evidence to indicate that some of these people might have purchased the movie than there is evidence to indicate that they would not have done so.
Please cite some of this supposed evidence. You haven't done so yet. You just keep saying things Like "...I think my assumption is more reasonable..." without actually offering any proof.
I understand your point about proof, but assuming that NONE of these people who took the trouble to do so would have purchased the movie if it were not available for free is illogical, in my opinion.
No one was saying that. They were saying that you are only looking at one side of it, and you are assigning a completely arbitrary value to these supposed "lost sales". There very well may have been many people who became aware of and ended up paying for the movie because of the availability of unauthorized copies. But, again there is very little actual data, and obtaining such data would be quite difficult.
I also love that sentence. You say that you understand the need for proof, but that your opinion relieves you of the need to present any proof.
Why do you think of Chartier as the bad guy here? He's the victim of a multi-million dollar crime and you don't even afford him the latitude to feel wronged?
Multi-million dollar crime? Do you have any proof of that? You are simply making that up. You don't any sort of proof of how much (if any) economic damage he experienced due to people downloading his movie. How do you know that he wouldn't have made less if people weren't downloading it and spreading word of mount about it?
We can all argue business models all we want, but according to the laws of our land, this guy is a victim of a major crime.
Major Crime? I consider Major crime to be things like Murder, Rape, Serious Corporate Negligence resulting in Death(BP). Copyright infringement is very far from what I would call a Major Crime.
He runs a business that puts food on the table for many people based on those laws.
Again, this line of argument is completely irrelevant. I'm sure makers of Horse Carriages were running a business that was putting food on the table, but as times changed those people had to change in order to keep putting food on the table.
When the laws change or when people choose to not buy his product, he'll need to change his business. In the meantime, he has every right to insist that the laws in place to protect his business be enforced.
And the public has every right to protest and violate laws that are unjust, and were put into place at the behest of the large corporate interests.
Except that they are deleting the logs in response the the IPRED law, which was written to allow the handing over of users' private info based on only accusations, no actual proof needed. You state that they are dumping the logs rather than following the law. I am curious how dumping or not keeping logs is not following the law. There is no law that says they have to keep logs.
You say "they are aiding and abetting those who need to stay hidden in order to continue to file share." It looks to me like they are protecting the privacy of their users against invasion of privacy based only on accusations.
It's not about ISPs capitulating to lawbreakers. It's about ISPs protecting their users right to privacy. ISPs are not "more willing to help their users evade the law than anything else". That is absolutely ridiculous. ISPs are in the business of providing internet service, just as phone companies are in the business of selling phone service.
Most ISPs fully cooperate with law enforcement when due process is followed. But when MPAA/RIAA goons simply come up with a list of IP addresses and ask for personal user data, the typical ISP response is "go the cops and come back with a warrant or court order".
I would love to know why you put "profiting from file sharing no matter what" in quotes as if you were actually quoting somebody, instead of just pulling an asinine statement out of the air.
On the post: Big Time Patent Attorney Jumps Into The Patent Trolling Game By Buying 4,500 Patents From Micron
Re:
Well, you could have tried reading the linked article. Here it is again in case you missed it the first time:
http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-01/billion-dollar-lawyer-quits-firm-buys-patents-to -troll-for-license-fees.html
The article goes into very good detail about how he started up this new company solely for the purpose of pursuing licensing fees and lawsuits for the patents he purchased. The article also talks about the fact that Micron retained a royalty-free licence to continue using the patents, implying that they are not "... lying in microns drawer".
On the post: You're So Vain... I Bet You Think Starbucks' Decision To Get Out Of The Music Biz Was All About You
Re: Re: Re:
Maybe you should stick with the comedy instead of your usual stuff.
On the post: You're So Vain... I Bet You Think Starbucks' Decision To Get Out Of The Music Biz Was All About You
Re:
You have degenerated into a worthless troll.
On the post: Yet Again, Real Police Called Into Virtual World Over (Not Really) Theft Of Virtual Items
Maybe this will clear it up
You have no property interest in Habbo® Coins, Premium Subscriptions, your avatar, virtual items (e.g., Habbo® Furni or rares), which remain the exclusive property of Sulake subject only to your limited, non-transferable revocable license to use such for in-game play subject to these Terms and Conditions of Sale and the Terms of Use. Any attempt to sell or transfer same will result in an automatic termination of such license. Further, as these are merely licensed game play activities, they are deemed consumed upon purchase like putting a quarter in an arcade game and terminate upon any termination of your account.
See that? Habbo specifically states that users actually have ZERO property rights on virtual items. They also state that the items are "licensed game play activities" and have no actual value. So by Habbo's own words these "stolen" virtual items are completely valueless.
On the post: Guy Charged With Harassment For Sending Email Complaint To Senator Jim Bunning
Re:
This sounds like it came from someone who doesn't understand a very basic part of unemployment benefits: You pay into the unemployment system with every paycheck you receive while employed. Utilizing those benefits when you become unemployed is not "taking money from someone else", it is utilizing money that you put into the system for specifically that purpose.
Of course the true intent of unemployment benefits is to hold you over while you search for another job, and some people do take advantage of the system. aguywhoneedstenbucks statement is spot on: It all depends on the facts of the individual situation. Most who utilize the unemployment benefits are not crooks.
On the post: Scott Adams: The Economic Value Of Content Is Going To Zero, But Maybe It's Okay
Re: Re:
You see that there, lower case idiot? The content is given away for free, yet he still makes money. There are quite few other comics who use this same model.
Ever hear of a webcomic called Penny Arcade? They were never distributed by newspapers, yet they make a very significant income, giving content away for free, and have been doing so for the last 12 years.
On the post: Blizzard Says DRM Is A Losing Battle, Better To Focus On Positive Value
Re: Re: Re:
TAM is you, lower case idiot. I would have thought that you would have figured that out by now, since everyone calls you TAM. But I guess it's not that surprising that you haven't figured it out, since it appears that your reasoning skills are quite lacking.
On the post: Amanda Palmer And OK Go Get Together To Celebrate Being Dropped From Their Record Labels
Re: Profound ....
On the post: Patents Now Getting In The Way Of Important Brain Research
Re:
This just shows how broken the system is.
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Been There, Done That
First off, you make an assumption that some percentage of those who downloaded it illegally would have paid for it otherwise. That could be a couple percent, a couple tenths of a percent, or a couple thousandths of a percent, or even less. You don't state what percentage you are using or how you obtained that percentage, besides just pulling out of the air based only on your opinion.
Secondly, you assign some dollar amount that this unknown percentage of people would have paid if it wasn't available as an unauthorized download. It might have been $10, it might have been $5 from the bargain bin, or they might have bought a used copy (which does not result in any additional income for the producer). You don't state the amount you are using and you don't state the logic that you used to arrive at that number, besides just pulling it out of the air based only on your opinion.
So you take three pieces of information (Number of unauthorized Downloads, % of downloaders who would have paid, Amount they would have paid) to arrive at your "multi-million dollar" figure. This would be a fine calculation if those three pieces of information were true, but they are not. Only one of the figures (Number of downloads) has real data associated with it. The other two figures you completely pulled out of the air based on your opinion.
If it is a simple "Napkin-type" calculation, then could you please show us the formula and figures you used to arrive at your result?
On the post: Pennsylvania AG Tom Corbett Can't Take Anonymous Twitter Criticism; Issues Subpoenas For IDs
Re: re
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Re: Re: Been There, Done That
If there actually was a real loss of millions it might be a crime. But this situation isn't even a real loss. You are basing your loss estimate on nothing but opinion.
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Re: Re: Been There, Done That
You've said that you think it is millions, but you haven't said why. You simply pulled that number out of thin air, so I'll just respond the exact same way you do:
I think that he made millions of extra dollars due to the free publicity from the unauthorized downloads. If you think additional income due to the publicity is less than this, please state how much and why.
(See how I flipped that around.)
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You're Missing a Point...
Yes, I find your reasoning to be quite flawed for the following reasons:
First off, you make an assumption that some percentage of those who downloaded it illegally would have paid for it otherwise. That could be a couple percent, a couple tenths of a percent, or a couple thousandths of a percent, or even less. You don't state what percentage you are using or how you obtained that percentage, besides just pulling out of the air based only on your opinion.
Secondly, you assign some dollar amount that this unknown percentage of people would have paid if it wasn't available as an unauthorized download. It might have been $10, it might have been $5 from the bargain bin, or they might have bought a used copy (which does not result in any additional income for the producer). You don't state the amount you are using and you don't state the logic that you used to arrive at that number, besides just pulling it out of the air based only on your opinion.
So you take three pieces of information (Number of unauthorized Downloads, % of downloaders who would have paid, Amount they would have paid) to arrive at your "multi-million dollar" figure. This would be a fine calculation if those three pieces of information were true, but they are not. Only one of the figures (Number of downloads) has real data associated with it. The other two figures you completely pulled out of the air based on your opinion.
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You're Missing a Point...
Please cite some of this supposed evidence. You haven't done so yet. You just keep saying things Like "...I think my assumption is more reasonable..." without actually offering any proof.
I understand your point about proof, but assuming that NONE of these people who took the trouble to do so would have purchased the movie if it were not available for free is illogical, in my opinion.
No one was saying that. They were saying that you are only looking at one side of it, and you are assigning a completely arbitrary value to these supposed "lost sales". There very well may have been many people who became aware of and ended up paying for the movie because of the availability of unauthorized copies. But, again there is very little actual data, and obtaining such data would be quite difficult.
I also love that sentence. You say that you understand the need for proof, but that your opinion relieves you of the need to present any proof.
On the post: Pennsylvania AG Tom Corbett Can't Take Anonymous Twitter Criticism; Issues Subpoenas For IDs
Re:
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Been There, Done That
Multi-million dollar crime? Do you have any proof of that? You are simply making that up. You don't any sort of proof of how much (if any) economic damage he experienced due to people downloading his movie. How do you know that he wouldn't have made less if people weren't downloading it and spreading word of mount about it?
We can all argue business models all we want, but according to the laws of our land, this guy is a victim of a major crime.
Major Crime? I consider Major crime to be things like Murder, Rape, Serious Corporate Negligence resulting in Death(BP). Copyright infringement is very far from what I would call a Major Crime.
He runs a business that puts food on the table for many people based on those laws.
Again, this line of argument is completely irrelevant. I'm sure makers of Horse Carriages were running a business that was putting food on the table, but as times changed those people had to change in order to keep putting food on the table.
When the laws change or when people choose to not buy his product, he'll need to change his business. In the meantime, he has every right to insist that the laws in place to protect his business be enforced.
And the public has every right to protest and violate laws that are unjust, and were put into place at the behest of the large corporate interests.
On the post: The Increasing Irrelevance Of The Major Record Labels
Re: Re: Intersting tactic
On the post: Swedish Police Say Anti-Piracy Law Has Harmed Ability To Catch Criminals
Re: Re: Re:
You say "they are aiding and abetting those who need to stay hidden in order to continue to file share." It looks to me like they are protecting the privacy of their users against invasion of privacy based only on accusations.
On the post: Swedish Police Say Anti-Piracy Law Has Harmed Ability To Catch Criminals
Re:
Most ISPs fully cooperate with law enforcement when due process is followed. But when MPAA/RIAA goons simply come up with a list of IP addresses and ask for personal user data, the typical ISP response is "go the cops and come back with a warrant or court order".
I would love to know why you put "profiting from file sharing no matter what" in quotes as if you were actually quoting somebody, instead of just pulling an asinine statement out of the air.
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