Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 12 Mar 2018 @ 9:37am
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Once again you get it wrong. The Constitution allows for the creation of IP legislation. It does not require or demand it. Congress is free to revoke all IP legislation, or parts thereof, as they see fit. Of course so long as we have the current ridiculous funding system they will continue to take advantage of the bribes paid (in the form of campaign contributions and promises of employment after government service) and that will likely prevent them from doing anything in the interest of the public, as apposed to the corporations.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 12 Mar 2018 @ 8:23am
Equity
I was going to suggest that Big Music invest in those companies, but it appears they already have stakes in those companies. What I cannot get around is that they have equity, but are still willing to destroy the company (and whatever equity they have) to get more off the top. All in the name of control?
Further, as was pointed out in the article, despite plenty of opportunity to create their own services, Big Music has failed to do so. Do they really see a relatively small investment in creating a service such a burden? Or is it more their intent to bottleneck the entire music industry so long as they might have some leverage to increase the 'rent'? What happens when that lever breaks?
We come back to that obscurity question. If their goal was more traffic (less obscurity) rather than more margin (likely more obscurity) they could embrace all these service companies, invest in them, help them to become profitable and spread music further than it currently is spread, which in turn creates larger revenues with fairly fixed costs. The other choice, more margin, will induce lower traffic which means likely less income, but even lower fixed costs, but would also make creating their 'new superstars' more difficult. It appears that they think margin rather than traffic is the answer, and likely because of shorter term, left effort intensive profits.
Can anyone help them to spell blind? Forrest, trees...nope can't see anything but sand.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 12 Mar 2018 @ 8:04am
Preempting whiners some more
"But it certainly demonstrates how the copyright system is so weighted to favor the copyright holder..."
Holders, not authors or artists. They use their income to get those creative juices flowing. The creative ways they use to subsume the copyrights of others with a promise to make them 'BIG'.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Mar 2018 @ 3:47pm
Re: Re: Re: Re: Yet another question
I'm not so sure. Other countries have guns, though not at the same level as us. Yet they don't have the same rate of irrational shootings as us. That leaves us with the dilemma of what the actual difference is. There are some irrational shootings in other countries (leaving out those places that have sustained conflicts for a variety of irrational reasons) but the rate per population seems significantly different.
I find it hard to place the blame on an inanimate object (the gun) rather than something psychological. Do guns contribute? No argument there, but the gun isn't the instigator.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Mar 2018 @ 3:33pm
Re: Re: Reporters took time to document this
It is probably both newsworthy and titillating. A win win for the newsies.
Now if they only had the right of first reporting so that no other news outlet could report their 'breaking' news and capture ALL the income from that report. A report that is politically important, but belongs in the Sunday edition of a British newspaper in the section where they show some naked breasts.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Mar 2018 @ 3:11pm
Re: Re: Yet another question
Oh, of course. The entire diatribe is to place blame. Someplace other than where the blame belongs. I have some ideas about where the blame belongs (parenting for one, but not only) but I am willing to state that I am not sufficient an expert to place any kind of absolute blame. I seriously doubt anyone is. I think it might take multiple experts to properly diagnose an individual. How do we get them that opportunity?
That does not mean that the issue cannot be resolved. To do so would take years, if not decades. The resolve question comes into what to do over those years and decades. Banning or controlling video games probably isn't one of them. Controlling what one watches on TV/cable probably also is not one of them. Getting parents and other adults who are involved with young people looking for signs, then doing something appropriate about those signs (sending them for more professional evaluation and counseling would certainly be a start, which then brings up cost and what to do about that?).
Training people what signs to look for, and how to respond is the first issue. Well maybe the second, who to train might be the first.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Mar 2018 @ 2:49pm
Re: Re: Reporters took time to document this
I think his point is that the press should be critical of whatever any government person says. Should that criticism be negative? Not always. But the other position is to be a mouthpiece for government rhetoric, and that is not the job of the Fourth Estate. They should analyze, and give voice to a variety of points of view, not just regurgitate.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Mar 2018 @ 2:49pm
Re: Re: Reporters took time to document this
I think his point is that the press should be critical of whatever any government person says. Should that criticism be negative? Not always. But the other position is to be a mouthpiece for government rhetoric, and that is not the job of the Fourth Estate. They should analyze, and give voice to a variety of points of view, not just regurgitate.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Mar 2018 @ 2:43pm
When Wikipedia (now Wikimedia) started...
...there were many claims that they should not be taken seriously. In the meantime, the Wiki has been working hard to present more facts and less presumption. I think they are doing a good job at that, and refer to them often. I think their articles should be taken seriously, today, and if there is still some discord about a certain article, make your edit. If that edit is believable and verifiable it will be accepted. If it isn't...go suck an egg.
I would imagine that there are competing online encyclopedias that would take some issue with what Wikimedia posts, but then those articles are written by (usually) a single subject matter 'expert'. When only one person is involved with the description of some subject matter, there is an opportunity for bias. With many persons involved with a particular subject, that bias has a tendency to be minimized, except of course when Internet 'Public Relations' firms (or whatever they call themselves) become involved. Or, when employees of some company try to sway the narrative about their employers.
As to the 'right to be forgotten' thingy, let them forget in the EU. The rest of us have a right to know the actual history of some persons actions, and there is (at least today) not one damn thing the EU can do about it.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Mar 2018 @ 2:14pm
Yet another question
They keep picking on video games. Maybe those are the current venue. But what happened to picking on Hollywood for their everyday depictions of violence? Don't give me drivel about ratings and how young people aren't allowed to see violence in the movies. I'm talking about TV and cable. To a large degree that stuff is out there. And, I bet, there are a lot more teenage (and younger) eyeballs focused on violent videos broadcast by our preeminent, socially responsible, Hollywood impacted, TV and cable networks.
The answer might be found in how much Hollywood, and Hollywood related individuals, contribute to certain PAC's and directly to certain candidates. Those, of course, who support Hollywood doing whatever it wants, and pointing fingers at Silicon Valley, which is just a target that is easy to describe.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Mar 2018 @ 8:48am
I can't see past the end of my pointy nose.
It certainly boggles the mind that some people (companies) just don't understand that 'Whoops, there's a problem, let us fix that.' is a better response (from a PR standpoint, which would probably overcome any profit standpoint in the long run) than 'You point out an error/issue? Defamation!'.
The notion that short term (quarterly) profits are more important than long term (years) profits requires that any stock involved has to be sold in order to realize those profits. If the stock is that volatile, why would any investor buy it in the first place? OK, that volatility might offer opportunities in the buying and selling on market swings (which points out the issue of micro profits obtained in computerized trading), but there is a cost in every sale/buy. Otherwise the 'profit' is just on paper. If the investor is just looking for dividends, then aren't they looking longer term?
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Mar 2018 @ 8:22am
That device is doing illegal things, arrest it...
...Read it it's Miranda rights, get it a lawyer and prosecute the hell out of it. What do you mean it has the right to not testify?
I still have a problem with Wray's assertion that the 7800 devices he cannot decrypt are a public safety issue. What does he think those devices are going to do? Since the devices are presumably in the possession of law enforcement, just lock them up, or better still put them in a Faraday cage so that they cannot do anything on their own. Or, they could come to understand that devices don't do anything, but the people using those devices do things, or cause devices to do something. It's the people he needs to go after, not the devices.
So, he will come back with, we need the information on those devices to investigate and prosecute those people who do things with devices. And, as mentioned ad nauseum, there are other methods of investigation that do not require access to devices. It does take more work, and probably more time. It sure seems like the hurry he is in is more like he has a party to go to rather than the end of the world would be exposed if the devices were decrypted. Does he think he's the head of a union or something?
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 8 Mar 2018 @ 6:19pm
Making sense, who knew?
Would that the various trade representatives exhibit as much sense as this court does. Not terribly likely as they have coerced (aka paid for) positions to posit, and their corporate masters would not like it much, and might turn off the tap.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2018 @ 7:45pm
Re: Re: Re: THREE out of three is accurate because Torrrent Freak is pro-piracy.
Or maybe Atlantis.
Thought crimes relate to the imagination, and who knows what anyone elses imaginations are imagining? Then if the thought crime cop gets caught up in someones imagining, who's to say that that thought crime cop didn't commit a crime by thinking about what the target of the thought crime was thinking about?
Does this make the perpetrators of thought crime crimes laws complicit in thinking about thought crimes?
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2018 @ 7:34pm
Re: These States Clearly Have No Respect For States’ Rights
Oh, and the Second Amendment takes precedence over any other part of the Constitution, OK?
I certainly hope you neglected the /s sarc mark at the end of that.
There is a Constitution. All parts are equal. Some interpretations may be argued over time, but the basic document remains in tact, and there is no one Amendment that precludes any other. If there was, it would be stated in the document itself. Can you point to such a statement? Or was that statement sarcastic?
To be sure:
Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The piece that many fail to reiterate when refering to this Amendment is that part about 'A well regulated Militia'. Who regulates this militia? Well, who makes regulations? But in the view of Thomas Jefferson's November 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith:
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."
There may, at some time be a need for the Second Amendment to take some precedence over other Amendments, but only if in fact that precedence is in fact in support of the other Amendments. Not something else. Otherwise, it would just be anarchy.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2018 @ 6:41pm
Re: Re: Re:
Sorry, I am having a hard time discerning the difference between your examples of right wing and left wing factions. Is it because they claim to be for one thing or another? Or is is in their behavior? Should we really be labeling one group or another by their rhetoric, or their behavior?
Actually, labeling is in itself a bad thing. Who really knows what lurks in the hearts of people? If some behavior is bad, then the law has cures for that (though the law and their application needs some serious contemplation), but if some thought is bad, then there needs to be some serious discussion. Discuss until illegal actions are precluded. The thought is not necessarily wrong (though at some point might be indicative of underlying psychotic issues), action taken thereof is.
Because some who claim to be members of a 'left wing' faction do some bad things does not make the 'left wing' bad, or violent. When the 'left wing' becomes violent, then their whole raisons d'être goes nil.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2018 @ 6:21pm
There is a claim that 'Millennials' have only one perspective on everything. There will be a claim that the 'next' generation will have one perspective on everything.
This brings two (or at least two) questions to mind. What will they call the next generation And what will 'they' claim their one perspective is?
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Mar 2018 @ 5:49pm
Re:
Are there any left wing groups that are violent? I haven't heard of any, though I might have missed some assertions.
Right wing groups, however, have been closely associated with violence, though I cannot claim with any factual assertion that they are.
The problem is, left wing...probably non violent...right wing, maybe violent. What is a droid walking down the street to believe? Whomever is loudest?
No. They should believe that whatever action is proposed, by whomever is speaking, if applied to 'their own faction' is also perceived as correct. If both consequences are the same, then they need to resolve the quandary. Observers should be wary of brain farts during this process.
On the post: Killing The Golden Goose (Again); How The Copyright Stranglehold Dooms Spotify
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Once again you get it wrong. The Constitution allows for the creation of IP legislation. It does not require or demand it. Congress is free to revoke all IP legislation, or parts thereof, as they see fit. Of course so long as we have the current ridiculous funding system they will continue to take advantage of the bribes paid (in the form of campaign contributions and promises of employment after government service) and that will likely prevent them from doing anything in the interest of the public, as apposed to the corporations.
On the post: Killing The Golden Goose (Again); How The Copyright Stranglehold Dooms Spotify
Equity
Further, as was pointed out in the article, despite plenty of opportunity to create their own services, Big Music has failed to do so. Do they really see a relatively small investment in creating a service such a burden? Or is it more their intent to bottleneck the entire music industry so long as they might have some leverage to increase the 'rent'? What happens when that lever breaks?
We come back to that obscurity question. If their goal was more traffic (less obscurity) rather than more margin (likely more obscurity) they could embrace all these service companies, invest in them, help them to become profitable and spread music further than it currently is spread, which in turn creates larger revenues with fairly fixed costs. The other choice, more margin, will induce lower traffic which means likely less income, but even lower fixed costs, but would also make creating their 'new superstars' more difficult. It appears that they think margin rather than traffic is the answer, and likely because of shorter term, left effort intensive profits.
Can anyone help them to spell blind? Forrest, trees...nope can't see anything but sand.
On the post: Killing The Golden Goose (Again); How The Copyright Stranglehold Dooms Spotify
Preempting whiners some more
Holders, not authors or artists. They use their income to get those creative juices flowing. The creative ways they use to subsume the copyrights of others with a promise to make them 'BIG'.
On the post: Trump's Video Game Summit: Developers On One Side, Partisan Hack Puritan Cosplayers On The Other
Re: Re: Re: Re: Yet another question
I find it hard to place the blame on an inanimate object (the gun) rather than something psychological. Do guns contribute? No argument there, but the gun isn't the instigator.
On the post: Trump's Video Game Summit: Developers On One Side, Partisan Hack Puritan Cosplayers On The Other
Re: Re: Reporters took time to document this
Now if they only had the right of first reporting so that no other news outlet could report their 'breaking' news and capture ALL the income from that report. A report that is politically important, but belongs in the Sunday edition of a British newspaper in the section where they show some naked breasts.
On the post: Trump's Video Game Summit: Developers On One Side, Partisan Hack Puritan Cosplayers On The Other
Re: Re: Yet another question
That does not mean that the issue cannot be resolved. To do so would take years, if not decades. The resolve question comes into what to do over those years and decades. Banning or controlling video games probably isn't one of them. Controlling what one watches on TV/cable probably also is not one of them. Getting parents and other adults who are involved with young people looking for signs, then doing something appropriate about those signs (sending them for more professional evaluation and counseling would certainly be a start, which then brings up cost and what to do about that?).
Training people what signs to look for, and how to respond is the first issue. Well maybe the second, who to train might be the first.
On the post: Trump's Video Game Summit: Developers On One Side, Partisan Hack Puritan Cosplayers On The Other
Re: Re: Re: Reporters took time to document this
On the post: Trump's Video Game Summit: Developers On One Side, Partisan Hack Puritan Cosplayers On The Other
Re: Re: Re: Reporters took time to document this
On the post: Trump's Video Game Summit: Developers On One Side, Partisan Hack Puritan Cosplayers On The Other
Re: Re: Reporters took time to document this
On the post: Trump's Video Game Summit: Developers On One Side, Partisan Hack Puritan Cosplayers On The Other
Re: Re: Reporters took time to document this
On the post: Wikimedia's Transparency Report: Guys, We're A Wiki, Don't Demand We Take Stuff Down
When Wikipedia (now Wikimedia) started...
I would imagine that there are competing online encyclopedias that would take some issue with what Wikimedia posts, but then those articles are written by (usually) a single subject matter 'expert'. When only one person is involved with the description of some subject matter, there is an opportunity for bias. With many persons involved with a particular subject, that bias has a tendency to be minimized, except of course when Internet 'Public Relations' firms (or whatever they call themselves) become involved. Or, when employees of some company try to sway the narrative about their employers.
As to the 'right to be forgotten' thingy, let them forget in the EU. The rest of us have a right to know the actual history of some persons actions, and there is (at least today) not one damn thing the EU can do about it.
On the post: Trump's Video Game Summit: Developers On One Side, Partisan Hack Puritan Cosplayers On The Other
Yet another question
The answer might be found in how much Hollywood, and Hollywood related individuals, contribute to certain PAC's and directly to certain candidates. Those, of course, who support Hollywood doing whatever it wants, and pointing fingers at Silicon Valley, which is just a target that is easy to describe.
On the post: Keeper Security Reminds Everyone Why You Shouldn't Use It; Doubles Down On Suing Journalist
I can't see past the end of my pointy nose.
The notion that short term (quarterly) profits are more important than long term (years) profits requires that any stock involved has to be sold in order to realize those profits. If the stock is that volatile, why would any investor buy it in the first place? OK, that volatility might offer opportunities in the buying and selling on market swings (which points out the issue of micro profits obtained in computerized trading), but there is a cost in every sale/buy. Otherwise the 'profit' is just on paper. If the investor is just looking for dividends, then aren't they looking longer term?
On the post: FBI Director Says It's 'Not Impossible' To Create Compromised Encryption That's Still Secure
That device is doing illegal things, arrest it...
I still have a problem with Wray's assertion that the 7800 devices he cannot decrypt are a public safety issue. What does he think those devices are going to do? Since the devices are presumably in the possession of law enforcement, just lock them up, or better still put them in a Faraday cage so that they cannot do anything on their own. Or, they could come to understand that devices don't do anything, but the people using those devices do things, or cause devices to do something. It's the people he needs to go after, not the devices.
So, he will come back with, we need the information on those devices to investigate and prosecute those people who do things with devices. And, as mentioned ad nauseum, there are other methods of investigation that do not require access to devices. It does take more work, and probably more time. It sure seems like the hurry he is in is more like he has a party to go to rather than the end of the world would be exposed if the devices were decrypted. Does he think he's the head of a union or something?
On the post: Top Court Throws Out Corporate Sovereignty For All Trade Deals Within EU; Those Involving Other Nations Likely To Suffer Same Fate
Making sense, who knew?
On the post: Comcast Protected Browsing Blocks TorrentFreak, Showing Why Site-Blocking Sucks Out Loud Always
Re: Re: Re: THREE out of three is accurate because Torrrent Freak is pro-piracy.
Thought crimes relate to the imagination, and who knows what anyone elses imaginations are imagining? Then if the thought crime cop gets caught up in someones imagining, who's to say that that thought crime cop didn't commit a crime by thinking about what the target of the thought crime was thinking about?
Does this make the perpetrators of thought crime crimes laws complicit in thinking about thought crimes?
On the post: Middle Schoolers Cheer As Oregon Passes A Net Neutrality Law
Re: These States Clearly Have No Respect For States’ Rights
I certainly hope you neglected the /s sarc mark at the end of that.
There is a Constitution. All parts are equal. Some interpretations may be argued over time, but the basic document remains in tact, and there is no one Amendment that precludes any other. If there was, it would be stated in the document itself. Can you point to such a statement? Or was that statement sarcastic?
To be sure:
The piece that many fail to reiterate when refering to this Amendment is that part about 'A well regulated Militia'. Who regulates this militia? Well, who makes regulations? But in the view of Thomas Jefferson's November 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith:
There may, at some time be a need for the Second Amendment to take some precedence over other Amendments, but only if in fact that precedence is in fact in support of the other Amendments. Not something else. Otherwise, it would just be anarchy.
On the post: Famous Racist Sues Twitter Claiming It Violates His Civil Rights As A Racist To Be Kicked Off The Platform
Re: Re: Re:
Actually, labeling is in itself a bad thing. Who really knows what lurks in the hearts of people? If some behavior is bad, then the law has cures for that (though the law and their application needs some serious contemplation), but if some thought is bad, then there needs to be some serious discussion. Discuss until illegal actions are precluded. The thought is not necessarily wrong (though at some point might be indicative of underlying psychotic issues), action taken thereof is.
Because some who claim to be members of a 'left wing' faction do some bad things does not make the 'left wing' bad, or violent. When the 'left wing' becomes violent, then their whole raisons d'être goes nil.
On the post: Middle Schoolers Cheer As Oregon Passes A Net Neutrality Law
There is a claim that 'Millennials' have only one perspective on everything. There will be a claim that the 'next' generation will have one perspective on everything.
This brings two (or at least two) questions to mind. What will they call the next generation And what will 'they' claim their one perspective is?
Also: Who is THEY?
On the post: Famous Racist Sues Twitter Claiming It Violates His Civil Rights As A Racist To Be Kicked Off The Platform
Re:
Right wing groups, however, have been closely associated with violence, though I cannot claim with any factual assertion that they are.
The problem is, left wing...probably non violent...right wing, maybe violent. What is a droid walking down the street to believe? Whomever is loudest?
No. They should believe that whatever action is proposed, by whomever is speaking, if applied to 'their own faction' is also perceived as correct. If both consequences are the same, then they need to resolve the quandary. Observers should be wary of brain farts during this process.
This hardly seems the case...most times.
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