A big part of the economic benefit for the states and municipalities comes exactly from these crews and other participants coming to the location; a town's revenue goes up via restaurant and hotel bookings
So if you take money from the owner of a hotel through taxes, skim some off the top (for government bureaucrats), and then give the remainder to a third-party who uses it to rent a room from that same hotel owner, how have you stimulated the economy? You've basically just forced the hotel owner to give out a free room.
In the future, try less spittle-flecked ranting and more critical thinking. The internet at large will thank you for it, I'm sure.
You know what works great to build reputation? People reading and sharing your books. You know what can really get people reading and sharing your books? Making sure they as widely distributed as possible.
As always, for a new artist, obscurity is worse than piracy.
Whenever I see people try to justify intellectual property under confused and ridiculous ideas of what constitutes "property", I just mentally substitute "slavery" in for "copyright" and see if the sentence still makes sense.
"Rather, it's because, as a property right, slavery is a critical element within the GOP's market-orientation."
"Further, because the GOP believes in production, slavery is a natural fit, because slavery incentivizes and encourages the creation, harvesting and distribution of cotton."
"The people who house and feed slaves deserve to own them and benefit from them. So do the companies that finance and purchase these slaves for commercial exploitation."
"Slavery is thus an unfortunate necessity, given to slave owners to induce them to provide society what it needs."
Turns out it works pretty well, and ends up with just as ridiculous a result.
So, in a normal business, when you screw something up this badly, people get fired. Lots of them. Who's getting fired for this?
That's not the way government works. This is the proper method:
1. The government completely fails at something.
2. This complete failure is touted as an obvious reason to expand the scope of the government in that area. (See: Banking Regulation)
Does that really mean that the polls are accurate, or does it just mean that some polls randomly happened to be correct this time? A stopped clock is right twice a day, but you can only know if any given stopped clock is correct in retrospect, after you know the actual result.
It's the same reason I don't believe in "intellectual property" of any sort, patents and copyrights included; they violate real property rights.
If I own a pencil and a piece of paper, I should not be restricted from using the pencil on that piece of paper merely because someone else used their own pencil on their own piece of paper in a similar fashion in the past. To attempt to give someone a property right on "content" is to attempt to give them a property right in the real, physical goods, since they then become the deciders of how and when I can use that physical property.
The institution of copyright itself is the real theft in society, and not the violation of copyright.
Since I don't believe "content" is property, and he doesn't own the physical hard drives in question, I have to agree with the justice department here: he has no actual property at stake.
I don't think, however, that this is the kind of argument that an MPAA/RIAA-controlled justice department would like to have on the books.
If they failed it would produce a cascade effect that could have been worse.
And pulling off a band-aid all at once hurts worse in the short-term than dragging it out for several hours.
If we had allowed the banks to collapse, the economy would have nose-dived worse than it did, sure, but we would already have recovered. Now we're stuck with a bunch of zombie banks, and we didn't even fix the problem; we've just ensured the economic downturn will persist for years. Rather than seeing the banksters go bankrupt like they deserved, they're still getting fat bonus checks while the rest of the economy heads into stagflation territory ala Japan.
This "lost decade" of the US is brought to you by "regulation" and "oversight".
for me it is clear that it was a human trait: greed
Saying greed causes economic collapses is like saying gravity causes airline crashes. While strictly true, it doesn't tell us much about what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future.
Which points would you like me to discuss? The one I saw in there was that absent government intervention, we'd get abusive monopolies, so I issued you a challenge on that point.
Show me any abusive monopoly in history and I'll show you an industry supported by government interference.
The progression is clear. Corporations use the government to pass laws to benefit them. Any regulation or rule that you can get passed by congress is going to be one that works to their benefit.
"Corporations like McDonald's are selling people shitty fast-food that contributes to the obesity epidemic! We need to give the government the power to mandate where citizens must buy their food from to prevent this catastrophe!" *Government uses its new-found power to pass a law mandating that everyone eat at McDonald's at least three times a week*
"Damn this free market and its monopoly creation!!" *shakes fist*
Lambs to the slaughter, every time. No really, maybe the next regulation they pass will be in your interests instead of the corporations! Keeping crossing your fingers and wishing real hard!
On the post: State Subsidies To Hollywood: Almost Every Program Has Been A Dismal Failure, Costing Taxpayers
Re:
In the future, try less spittle-flecked ranting and more critical thinking. The internet at large will thank you for it, I'm sure.
On the post: NYC Artist Satirizes Law Enforcement Drone Program; Gets Book Thrown At Him By NYPD
What I Want To Know
On the post: BitTorrent Book Promotion Drives 40% Of Downloaders To Book's Amazon Page
Re: Wrong as usual, Mike.
As always, for a new artist, obscurity is worse than piracy.
On the post: Copyright Maximalists Attempt To Downplay Significance Of RSC Report By Chanting Their Mantra: Copyright Is Property
Mental Substitution
Turns out it works pretty well, and ends up with just as ridiculous a result.
On the post: Homeland Security Spent $430-Million To Tune Its Radios To A New Frequency, And Failed
Not the Way It Works
1. The government completely fails at something.
2. This complete failure is touted as an obvious reason to expand the scope of the government in that area. (See: Banking Regulation)
On the post: In Ruling Over DISH's Autohopper, Details Show Fox Lost On Nearly All Important Issues
Re: Re: Here's how the item should be written up:
On the post: The Cake Copyright Is A Lie; Safeway Just Doesn't Want To Be Mocked
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Maybe Internet Polls Aren't So Bad After All
Hmm
On the post: Wisconsin Warns: If You Tweet Photos Of Your Completed Ballot, You Can Go To Jail
Court Cases
On the post: Amazon Freaks Out About Sock Puppet Reviews And Deletes A Bunch Of Real Reviews
Re: Well, Amazon is now big enough that it doesn't have to care:
On the post: Amazon Freaks Out About Sock Puppet Reviews And Deletes A Bunch Of Real Reviews
Re:
A++
On the post: Justice Department Continues Handwaving To Avoid Facing Up To Its Questionable Behavior In Taking Down Megaupload
Re: Re: To Be Consistent
If I own a pencil and a piece of paper, I should not be restricted from using the pencil on that piece of paper merely because someone else used their own pencil on their own piece of paper in a similar fashion in the past. To attempt to give someone a property right on "content" is to attempt to give them a property right in the real, physical goods, since they then become the deciders of how and when I can use that physical property.
The institution of copyright itself is the real theft in society, and not the violation of copyright.
On the post: Justice Department Continues Handwaving To Avoid Facing Up To Its Questionable Behavior In Taking Down Megaupload
Re: Re: To Be Consistent
On the post: Justice Department Continues Handwaving To Avoid Facing Up To Its Questionable Behavior In Taking Down Megaupload
To Be Consistent
I don't think, however, that this is the kind of argument that an MPAA/RIAA-controlled justice department would like to have on the books.
On the post: Comcast Lobbyist Admits To Holding Internet Service For The Poor Hostage To Get NBC Takeover Approved
Re:
*boggle*
On the post: Why DC And Silicon Valley Don't Mix Well
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FTFY
On the post: Why DC And Silicon Valley Don't Mix Well
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FTFY
If we had allowed the banks to collapse, the economy would have nose-dived worse than it did, sure, but we would already have recovered. Now we're stuck with a bunch of zombie banks, and we didn't even fix the problem; we've just ensured the economic downturn will persist for years. Rather than seeing the banksters go bankrupt like they deserved, they're still getting fat bonus checks while the rest of the economy heads into stagflation territory ala Japan.
This "lost decade" of the US is brought to you by "regulation" and "oversight".
On the post: Why DC And Silicon Valley Don't Mix Well
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FTFY
On the post: Why DC And Silicon Valley Don't Mix Well
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: FTFY
On the post: Why DC And Silicon Valley Don't Mix Well
Re: Re: Re: Re: FTFY
The progression is clear. Corporations use the government to pass laws to benefit them. Any regulation or rule that you can get passed by congress is going to be one that works to their benefit.
"Corporations like McDonald's are selling people shitty fast-food that contributes to the obesity epidemic! We need to give the government the power to mandate where citizens must buy their food from to prevent this catastrophe!"
*Government uses its new-found power to pass a law mandating that everyone eat at McDonald's at least three times a week*
"Damn this free market and its monopoly creation!!" *shakes fist*
Lambs to the slaughter, every time. No really, maybe the next regulation they pass will be in your interests instead of the corporations! Keeping crossing your fingers and wishing real hard!
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