Well, hello, The Anti-Mike! Glad you brought your straw men back with you!
"About $200" is the price the Verizon Wireless sales rep quoted me for a Droid X. My last contract expired, so they want to retain my business. They're offering a slight discount for a Droid X with a 2 year contract. I didn't make that up.
I did, in fact, make up $20. But it's true: if Droid X's were $20, I'd already have one. And I wouldn't have brought my wife's Droid Whatever back to the store for a fix - I'd have bought a new one and thrown out the broken one. I stand by that statement. You can call it "made up" all you want, but that doesn't make it less true.
Weird that you're focusing on a $20 price point that really doesn't make any difference, except that it's arguably untrue. I think you're just trying to pick fights and divert attention from the real problem(s).
Re: But can you get ongoing hardware support or software updates?
Can you get ongoing hardware support or software updates?
What, from Verizon or Sprint or AT&T? Sometimes, but not very often.
Ha ha, I kill myself. But seriously folks, if the hardware is super cheap do you expect support? The only reason that I took my wife's malfunctioning "Droid" to the Verizon storefront the other day is because it costs $200 at least. If it cost $20, I'd probably just have gotten a new, improved phone (Droid X anyone?) rather than a replacement.
If we have no "IP" in the phone, then software updates probably end up more-or-less free too. Once a week I type "pacman -Syu" into my Arch linux computer, and it goes out and plucks the latest and greatest packages.
Or maybe, if someone chose to sell support, hardware and/or software, for the supercheap mashups, they could make a go of it in that market. I like Arch linux *because* I get to decide what to do as far as upgrades, not in spite of that.
Shouldn't we (US society as a whole) be most worried about the restricted or non-existent learning?
Even those markets (like recorded music, or the US defence contractors) that don't want or need innovation surely want lots of cheap, intelligent, well-educated labor.
Denver's now-defunct newspaper "Rocy Mountain News" carried an editorial by the chairman of Lockheed-Martin's space launch systems group claiming that the US "needs more spacey kids". His point was that LockMart couldn't find anymore ex-farmboys to do engineering cheap, and that the public education system was failing his company by not supplying it with an endless supply of clever, intuitive engineers.
Sort of the same as the Otellini editorial of a few weeks ago, and the "creativity crisis" of a few months ago, right?
I don't think you're entirely correct. As I understand it, copyright law is such that putting something "in the public domain" is very difficult, and on the flip side, difficult to verify for those that would use the material said to be "in the public domain".
That's a large part of the problem with current copyright law.
I think the article referred to is a few years too late.
Doesn't anybody remember Usenet? Lots of people used to post all kinds of crazy confessional stuff to Usenet. And rumor had it that the NSA and at least one private company archived it all.
And the heyday of usenet was about 1985 - 1995. We should have heard about someone, some politician either getting in trouble because of Usenet activity, or voting a particular way for fear of having his/her past as a "furry" on usenet revealed,
Mr/Ms Crade hits the nail exactly on the head. "There are hundreds of others lined up behind you for the chance to make a living playing music ..."
And why is that? "... you are trying to make a living doing what most people do for fun".
If it was fun, they wouldn't call it a job. They'd call it a hobby, and charge you to do it.
There's an almost infinite supply of people willing to do music. Therefore the price of music comes down to the marginal cost of production, nearly zero dollars per unit (MP3 file). Anything about copyrights & etc is just distorting the market.
I kind of doubt that body scans will show up on porn sites. I mean, for all the fooforah about Celebrity X's "sex tape", we really don't see "Best of Laguna Hills Mall" mall-cop leering voyeur tapes. The only thing along those lines I can think of is the famed "Splash Mountain" images that showed up on Usenet in the mid-90s.
I'm noting that your analogies don't even come close to the situation.
You wrote:
Let's say you create a beautiful piece of furniture. Once you create the furniture, does it belong to the world? Nope.
I'd have to agree: "belong to the world" amounts to theft, if I understand.
But what if someone else uses the design elements (color combos, methods of joining, techniques used in woodworking) and produces a different piece of furniture (chair as opposed to table) that's beautiful in the same way as mine?
Deliberately or not, you're confusing the work involved in making something physical, and the physical object itself, and the appearance of the object. Copyright suits are rarely about total copying, but rather about the details, just like your "Average Joe" tee shirt re-use.
You're also confusing "theft", as in taking away the newly created furniture, with "copying". Copying a piece of furniture, even exactly, doesn't deprive the owner of the original of the use of the furniture. Copying a digital song doesn't deprive anyone of the use use of the original.
You need to make a better analogy, one that models all the relevant facts, before you claim some moral or ethical underpinngs. You haven't been clear about what "belongs to the world" means here either.
It's certainly possible to independently invent something that violates a copyright. Yet current law gives The Copyright to only one of the two people.
I know I'm risking it with this example, as it's a patent issue, not a copyright issue, but... the telphone was something like that.
Elisha Gray seems to have invented something very, very much like Bell's telephone. Independently.
We (computer programmers) see this all the time. Someone writes a program, comes up with some new idea, but thinks it's obvious, so doesn't bother even claiming the idea publicly. Someone else comes along, bothers to patent (or register) it, and blammo! Lawsuits galore.
Doesn't the likelihood of independent invention render "copyright" into something that doesn't qualify as a "Natural Right"?
Re: hold back progress at the behest of corporations?
I heartily endorse this viewpoint and line of reasoning.
Why indeed do governments try to hold back change at the behest of corporations? Maybe a more interesting research question would be why sometimes we allow massive changes (land lines -> cell phones) and others we don't. What factors cause these differences?
If you're not a troll, Mr Grumpyflakes, why do you keep threatening (a.k.a. "wishing for") RIAA and/or MPAA reprisals for people who disagree with you?
I see two different icons, Grouchyflakes. The one for Jul 17th, 2010 @ 1:14pm has quite a different appearance than the one for Jul 18th, 2010 @ 3:29am. So it's *not* confirmed. Further, my recollection of the 1:14pm Snowflake, viewed on Friday, is different that it's appearance today. Color was a sort of pea-soup green, now it's brownish, and much sparser.
So, BTN it is not confirmed now.
Furthermore, Crabbyflakes, I haven't referred to a non-anonymous-coward as a "troll" at all. On TechDirt, I believe (although I can't confirm, they are "anonymous" cowards, after all, despite the flakes) I have only told two different on-line identities they're trolls.
But I will admit to asking some leading questions. The usual complaints about "how will the starving artists get paid!" when price of a copy of music drops to almost zero seem a bit odd when considered in the usual way that Free Market Economics considers this sort of thing. Innovations leading to drops in marginal cost of production are generally applauded as Good For Society. And competition usually drops the price of a good to the marginal cost of production. We, as a society, generally don't prop up firms that refuse to adapt to a changed market. Heck, we even let American Motors get bought by Chrysler a few years ago, didn't we?
Call me a troll all you want, but asking questions, even questions that are difficult to answer honestly without resorting to propagandistic usagges, doesn't really constitut "trolling" in many people's books.
Does some connection exist between all these "national" bodies? To the uninformed, it would appear that quite a bit of collusion goes on, as the USA, UK, Dutch, Swedish and Italian (at least) versions of the RIAA seem to all have adopted close variants of the "sue everybody" stratigy.
It's hard for me to believe that at least one national recording industry body wouldn't do something other than try to maintain an extra-tight grip on popular culture. So, I'd have to say that I suspect that a lot of the "national" bodies of recording lables are actual puppets of the US' RIAA or some variant.
Temper, temper, The Anti-Mike. Swearing breaks the facade of well-mannered reasonableness that The Anti-Mike sock-puppet depends on for verasimilitude.
I'll certainly confirm it with you if the RIAA (or any bar sinister sock-puppets thereof) attempts a reprisal by suing me.
If you really really wanted to remain anonymous, you would adopt a less distinctive writing and (lack of) punctuation style.
If your point against snowflakes was to allow you to do something where anonymity helps (whistleblowing), I'd have to agree. But your continued stylistic affections seem to contraindicate that.
If the point of your anonymity is to allow you to entertain us with sock-puppetry, I have little sympathy. Go Snowflakes!
If I were Google, Microsoft and/or Yahoo, I'd rabidly support having a "Search Neutrality Compliant" version, and a good, free-market version. I'd want the Search Neutrality Compliance Regulations as convoluted and obtuse as possible, without seeming too obvious.
Why, you might ask?
The cost of creating, certifying (and regularly re-certifying) and running the "Search Neutrality Compliant" monstrosity would raise a substantial barrier to entry into the web search market, just like other such consumer-protection mandates have done (Sarbanes Oxley, anyone?).
You're confusing trademarks (Taco Bell logo) and copyrights or patents on the food.
Trademarks are essentially consumer protection. Copyrights and trademarks are a government-enforced monopoly, as you've pointed out.
I'm not sure about "unfair competition". I see the emotional appeal, but I don't know that there's a distinct, logical place to draw the line, any more than a logical place to draw the "this is IP and this isn't" line exists.
One person's "unfair competition" is another's arbitrage. We as a society need to consider all the issues involved with "IP" and "unfair competition" without the simple straw man you posit.
That's a bit of straw man, given that we know that investors don't really want to invest in something with just a good idea, but rather in a concern that has people with a history of *executing* ideas well, theirs or others. The taco truck company should present itself as a successful business, with efficient processes and procedures and methods and people, who can give a return on the loan.
Secondly, isn't that sort of decision exactly what a lender should make? Your script leaves that part out. Perhaps a patent or copyright ownership could make some deal a bit more certain for a lender, but shouldn't a lender look at everything before making a decision?
Third, why should I be unhappy about Taco Bell competing with J. Random Taco Truck? Isn't that what the Sacred Free Market is all about? Korean Taco Trucks can compete on price, quality, convenience or some other factor. The price that both Tack Bell and Korean Taco Truck Co. put on their products has to come closer to the marginal cost of production, they're more efficient, I spend less money for lunch, and we're all happy, at least the consumers are.
Gene Cavanaugh writes:With food and fashion, etc., we take something inherently cheap and simple. It may (probably does) take many years to have the knowledge of how to throw something fabulous together, but you throw simple items together.
You wrote a very polite article, but I fear I must disagree vehemently. One man's "cheap and simple" is another man's lifetime of labor to understand. Let's take another contentious (in terms of copyright) area, computer programming. Programs are very simple in theory, consisting of instructions, sequences of instructions, loops of constructions and if-then decisions. Simple things like "Combinatory Logic" or "lambda Calculus" can emulate programming, at least on a theoretical level.
Suppose I point at a human, say, Donald Knuth, who has devoted a lifetime to these simple, simple constructs. Is his composition of simple items not worth protecting?
I'm not at all certain it's a good idea to judge some activity "simple", and deny it government protection. Are Alexander Calder's "simple" mobiles less deserving of artistic protection than Rowland Emmet's fiendishly complex contraptions?
Sam I Am (are you authorized by the Dr Suess Estate?) says:And conversely, should the time come when a couple mouseclicks can make indistinguishable replicas of a signature dish, especially one that underpins a restaurant and a culinary career, then distributes them all over the world essentially eliminating the need to go to a specific place and pay for that experience, we can reasonably expect chef's will equally lobby for and receive similar protections,
When that time comes, those of us of a Free Market persuasion should applaud the innovations that reduce the marginal cost of preparing such a dish to nearly zero. Because at that point, competition and the Invisible Hand of the market place will reduce the price of such a dish to the marginal cost of production.
I'm sorry, I just can't believe that we as a society should protect particular ways or methods of making a living with artificial monopolies. The burden of enforcement of these laws alone would be enormous.
It's a good thing that the Fabled Buggy-Whip Industry Association of America, The BWIAA, didn't have effective lobbyists at the introduction of the auto, otherwise we'd all still be driving horses in our ethnic ghettos.
On the post: If There Were No IP Restrictions, What Kind Of Mobile Devices Could You Build?
Glory Be! The Anti-Mike Is Back!
"About $200" is the price the Verizon Wireless sales rep quoted me for a Droid X. My last contract expired, so they want to retain my business. They're offering a slight discount for a Droid X with a 2 year contract. I didn't make that up.
I did, in fact, make up $20. But it's true: if Droid X's were $20, I'd already have one. And I wouldn't have brought my wife's Droid Whatever back to the store for a fix - I'd have bought a new one and thrown out the broken one. I stand by that statement. You can call it "made up" all you want, but that doesn't make it less true.
Weird that you're focusing on a $20 price point that really doesn't make any difference, except that it's arguably untrue. I think you're just trying to pick fights and divert attention from the real problem(s).
On the post: If There Were No IP Restrictions, What Kind Of Mobile Devices Could You Build?
Re: But can you get ongoing hardware support or software updates?
What, from Verizon or Sprint or AT&T? Sometimes, but not very often.
Ha ha, I kill myself. But seriously folks, if the hardware is super cheap do you expect support? The only reason that I took my wife's malfunctioning "Droid" to the Verizon storefront the other day is because it costs $200 at least. If it cost $20, I'd probably just have gotten a new, improved phone (Droid X anyone?) rather than a replacement.
If we have no "IP" in the phone, then software updates probably end up more-or-less free too. Once a week I type "pacman -Syu" into my Arch linux computer, and it goes out and plucks the latest and greatest packages.
Or maybe, if someone chose to sell support, hardware and/or software, for the supercheap mashups, they could make a go of it in that market. I like Arch linux *because* I get to decide what to do as far as upgrades, not in spite of that.
I don't think you've made valid points at all.
On the post: If There Were No IP Restrictions, What Kind Of Mobile Devices Could You Build?
Restrictions on learning
Even those markets (like recorded music, or the US defence contractors) that don't want or need innovation surely want lots of cheap, intelligent, well-educated labor.
Denver's now-defunct newspaper "Rocy Mountain News" carried an editorial by the chairman of Lockheed-Martin's space launch systems group claiming that the US "needs more spacey kids". His point was that LockMart couldn't find anymore ex-farmboys to do engineering cheap, and that the public education system was failing his company by not supplying it with an endless supply of clever, intuitive engineers.
Sort of the same as the Otellini editorial of a few weeks ago, and the "creativity crisis" of a few months ago, right?
On the post: New Book Shows How Our Common Culture Has Been Locked Up Via Copyright
Re: Re: Re:
That's a large part of the problem with current copyright law.
On the post: Will Kids Change Their Names As They Become Adults To Hide From Their Google Permanent Record?
Crazy Usenet Stuff
Doesn't anybody remember Usenet? Lots of people used to post all kinds of crazy confessional stuff to Usenet. And rumor had it that the NSA and at least one private company archived it all.
And the heyday of usenet was about 1985 - 1995. We should have heard about someone, some politician either getting in trouble because of Usenet activity, or voting a particular way for fear of having his/her past as a "furry" on usenet revealed,
On the post: U2 Manager Blames 'Free' And Anonymous Internet Bloggers For Industry Troubles
Re: Hard to be a musician - Yes!
And why is that? "... you are trying to make a living doing what most people do for fun".
If it was fun, they wouldn't call it a job. They'd call it a hobby, and charge you to do it.
There's an almost infinite supply of people willing to do music. Therefore the price of music comes down to the marginal cost of production, nearly zero dollars per unit (MP3 file). Anything about copyrights & etc is just distorting the market.
On the post: And, Of Course, Gov't Agencies Recorded And Stored Body Scan Images
Re: Whole Body Scan on Porn Site
On the post: Deutsche Bank Report Notes That It's Time To Rethink Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You wrote:
Let's say you create a beautiful piece of furniture. Once you create the furniture, does it belong to the world? Nope.
I'd have to agree: "belong to the world" amounts to theft, if I understand.
But what if someone else uses the design elements (color combos, methods of joining, techniques used in woodworking) and produces a different piece of furniture (chair as opposed to table) that's beautiful in the same way as mine?
Deliberately or not, you're confusing the work involved in making something physical, and the physical object itself, and the appearance of the object. Copyright suits are rarely about total copying, but rather about the details, just like your "Average Joe" tee shirt re-use.
You're also confusing "theft", as in taking away the newly created furniture, with "copying". Copying a piece of furniture, even exactly, doesn't deprive the owner of the original of the use of the furniture. Copying a digital song doesn't deprive anyone of the use use of the original.
You need to make a better analogy, one that models all the relevant facts, before you claim some moral or ethical underpinngs. You haven't been clear about what "belongs to the world" means here either.
On the post: Deutsche Bank Report Notes That It's Time To Rethink Copyright
Re:
It's certainly possible to independently invent something that violates a copyright. Yet current law gives The Copyright to only one of the two people.
I know I'm risking it with this example, as it's a patent issue, not a copyright issue, but... the telphone was something like that.
Elisha Gray seems to have invented something very, very much like Bell's telephone. Independently.
We (computer programmers) see this all the time. Someone writes a program, comes up with some new idea, but thinks it's obvious, so doesn't bother even claiming the idea publicly. Someone else comes along, bothers to patent (or register) it, and blammo! Lawsuits galore.
Doesn't the likelihood of independent invention render "copyright" into something that doesn't qualify as a "Natural Right"?
On the post: Get Ready For The Next Entertainment Industry 'Solution' To Content Distribution: Kinder, Gentler DRM
Re: hold back progress at the behest of corporations?
Why indeed do governments try to hold back change at the behest of corporations? Maybe a more interesting research question would be why sometimes we allow massive changes (land lines -> cell phones) and others we don't. What factors cause these differences?
On the post: File Sharing Is Not Pollution, And You Don't Need An ISP 'Tax' To Deal With It
Re:
I see two different icons, Grouchyflakes. The one for Jul 17th, 2010 @ 1:14pm has quite a different appearance than the one for Jul 18th, 2010 @ 3:29am. So it's *not* confirmed. Further, my recollection of the 1:14pm Snowflake, viewed on Friday, is different that it's appearance today. Color was a sort of pea-soup green, now it's brownish, and much sparser.
So, BTN it is not confirmed now.
Furthermore, Crabbyflakes, I haven't referred to a non-anonymous-coward as a "troll" at all. On TechDirt, I believe (although I can't confirm, they are "anonymous" cowards, after all, despite the flakes) I have only told two different on-line identities they're trolls.
But I will admit to asking some leading questions. The usual complaints about "how will the starving artists get paid!" when price of a copy of music drops to almost zero seem a bit odd when considered in the usual way that Free Market Economics considers this sort of thing. Innovations leading to drops in marginal cost of production are generally applauded as Good For Society. And competition usually drops the price of a good to the marginal cost of production. We, as a society, generally don't prop up firms that refuse to adapt to a changed market. Heck, we even let American Motors get bought by Chrysler a few years ago, didn't we?
Call me a troll all you want, but asking questions, even questions that are difficult to answer honestly without resorting to propagandistic usagges, doesn't really constitut "trolling" in many people's books.
On the post: File Sharing Is Not Pollution, And You Don't Need An ISP 'Tax' To Deal With It
Re:
It's hard for me to believe that at least one national recording industry body wouldn't do something other than try to maintain an extra-tight grip on popular culture. So, I'd have to say that I suspect that a lot of the "national" bodies of recording lables are actual puppets of the US' RIAA or some variant.
On the post: File Sharing Is Not Pollution, And You Don't Need An ISP 'Tax' To Deal With It
Re:
I'll certainly confirm it with you if the RIAA (or any bar sinister sock-puppets thereof) attempts a reprisal by suing me.
Go Snowflakes! Cover all the trolls!
On the post: File Sharing Is Not Pollution, And You Don't Need An ISP 'Tax' To Deal With It
Re:
If you really really wanted to remain anonymous, you would adopt a less distinctive writing and (lack of) punctuation style.
If your point against snowflakes was to allow you to do something where anonymity helps (whistleblowing), I'd have to agree. But your continued stylistic affections seem to contraindicate that.
If the point of your anonymity is to allow you to entertain us with sock-puppetry, I have little sympathy. Go Snowflakes!
On the post: Journalism Neutrality Now! Why The Government Needs To Oversee The NY Times' Editorial Neutrality
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Why, you might ask?
The cost of creating, certifying (and regularly re-certifying) and running the "Search Neutrality Compliant" monstrosity would raise a substantial barrier to entry into the web search market, just like other such consumer-protection mandates have done (Sarbanes Oxley, anyone?).
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Re: Re: no incentive to create
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: growing your business
Trademarks are essentially consumer protection. Copyrights and trademarks are a government-enforced monopoly, as you've pointed out.
I'm not sure about "unfair competition". I see the emotional appeal, but I don't know that there's a distinct, logical place to draw the line, any more than a logical place to draw the "this is IP and this isn't" line exists.
One person's "unfair competition" is another's arbitrage. We as a society need to consider all the issues involved with "IP" and "unfair competition" without the simple straw man you posit.
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: growing your business
Secondly, isn't that sort of decision exactly what a lender should make? Your script leaves that part out. Perhaps a patent or copyright ownership could make some deal a bit more certain for a lender, but shouldn't a lender look at everything before making a decision?
Third, why should I be unhappy about Taco Bell competing with J. Random Taco Truck? Isn't that what the Sacred Free Market is all about? Korean Taco Trucks can compete on price, quality, convenience or some other factor. The price that both Tack Bell and Korean Taco Truck Co. put on their products has to come closer to the marginal cost of production, they're more efficient, I spend less money for lunch, and we're all happy, at least the consumers are.
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: Copyright and the food and fashion industries
You wrote a very polite article, but I fear I must disagree vehemently. One man's "cheap and simple" is another man's lifetime of labor to understand. Let's take another contentious (in terms of copyright) area, computer programming. Programs are very simple in theory, consisting of instructions, sequences of instructions, loops of constructions and if-then decisions. Simple things like "Combinatory Logic" or "lambda Calculus" can emulate programming, at least on a theoretical level.
Suppose I point at a human, say, Donald Knuth, who has devoted a lifetime to these simple, simple constructs. Is his composition of simple items not worth protecting?
I'm not at all certain it's a good idea to judge some activity "simple", and deny it government protection. Are Alexander Calder's "simple" mobiles less deserving of artistic protection than Rowland Emmet's fiendishly complex contraptions?
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Re: signature meals
Sam I Am (are you authorized by the Dr Suess Estate?) says:And conversely, should the time come when a couple mouseclicks can make indistinguishable replicas of a signature dish, especially one that underpins a restaurant and a culinary career, then distributes them all over the world essentially eliminating the need to go to a specific place and pay for that experience, we can reasonably expect chef's will equally lobby for and receive similar protections,
When that time comes, those of us of a Free Market persuasion should applaud the innovations that reduce the marginal cost of preparing such a dish to nearly zero. Because at that point, competition and the Invisible Hand of the market place will reduce the price of such a dish to the marginal cost of production.
I'm sorry, I just can't believe that we as a society should protect particular ways or methods of making a living with artificial monopolies. The burden of enforcement of these laws alone would be enormous.
It's a good thing that the Fabled Buggy-Whip Industry Association of America, The BWIAA, didn't have effective lobbyists at the introduction of the auto, otherwise we'd all still be driving horses in our ethnic ghettos.
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