Personally, I think it would be a wasted effort to invest (what would almost certainly amount to *way more than it should be*) amounts of public funds towards something that the private sector appears to already have well under control.
Most of the advocates of decentralization don't want governments to do it, either. The goal would be to find ways to decentralize government along with decentralizing private property concentration.
There would still be government, but it would function more locally. And there were be more use of cooperatives, collectives, and commons rather than top-down corporations.
There are some things that do require international cooperation, like preserving the environment, but if it can be accomplished through decentralized control, most sustainability people would be all for it.
Localization, decentralized energy generation, "small is beautiful." These are all traditionally viewed as left of center concepts, but there is a lot there which the right of center "small government" folks could embrace. However, some of the money supporting the "small government" groups comes from big corporations and wealthy individuals who don't want their own power bases threatened.
Personally, I don't think micromanaging google and telling them they must have human customer service reps is neccessary :)
True, we don't need to tell Google what to do.
But what I think has happened is that Google has worked its way into people's lives to such an extent it is now viewed more like a utility.
What I would like to see, and I think more people are exploring the idea, is to make more services available to people without using the structure of a for-profit business. As networking capability expands, we might be able to facilitate more decentralization of ownership. The Internet hasn't been "owned" by anyone, and if we use that model to reduce everyone's dependence on specific companies, that might be quite revolutionary. I'd like to see a day when there isn't a Google as such because the system self-organizes and works well as a collection of independent units rather than being processed through anything as big as Google.
public businesses by definition do not have social motives. They are specialized entities whose only motive is to make money for their shareholders. It's up to our societies laws to ensure that the ways that they work towards that goal is beneficial to society rather than harmful.
We agree. And that's one reason I don't consider myself a libertarian. I don't believe the businesses unfettered by societal rules would necessarily do what is best for people, especially those who have no money and/or who don't have the ability to look out for themselves.
Yes, it annoys me that they have changed the system. You used to be able to separate out the federal from the state. That way you could get the free or discounted rate for federal, and then file the state on your own without charge. Last year Turbotax wouldn't let you file the federal unless you paid for the state filing at the same time. And you didn't find that out until you had already done all the work.
THe problem with taxes is not that they are complicated. It is that they are high.
The fact that that they are complicated IS a problem. Far too much time is wasted on the paperwork involved in keeping track of what needs to keep track of. Simplify the tax system and you'll save people a lot of time, and for most of them time is money.
Think of all the accounting that goes on in relation to taxes. Streamline that and you may end up putting a lot of accountants out of work, but that would be an improvement for most people and companies.
Part of the process back then was working with a literary agent. The agent understood the contracts and got around 10-15% of the advance and future payments. The agent wasn't going to let you sign a contract without an advance because the agent wouldn't get paid.
For many writers the hard part was finding an agent. But if you had a good idea, you'd get the agent and the agent would get you an advance worth signing for.
Fiction was harder to pitch than non-fiction and those writers usually needed to have completed the book first. But if an agent liked it and knew editors would like it, that agent could still get you a substantial advance. Sometimes that was done by holding bidding wars, where editors at different publishing houses fought each other to land the deal.
Book publishing has never been run like music publishing. The contracts have always been much better.
And as I said, generally writers didn't sign contracts if they weren't going to get much from the deal. There aren't a lot of stories (none that I can recall) about writers being screwed by publishers, signing contracts that took away their rights without any compensation, leaving them to die penniless. I think the reason writers have fared better than musicians is that writers can actually read and usually know what they are signing. And if they make a mistake, it's only for one book, not their entire careers.
Unfortunately those numbers are very misleading. They represent only a very few high-profile writers.
I got an advance of $30,000 30+ years ago. It was my first book. The writers I knew wouldn't do a book without a decent advance. If the publishers didn't want you, they didn't sign a contract with you.
More recently, maybe 10 years ago, I've known agents working with unknown writers getting them $100,000 to $500,000 advances.
In the pre-Internet days if you were a professional writer, you pitched to a publishing house with the understanding that they would provide an advance. If they weren't interested in you, they didn't bother to give you a contract. If you knew what you were doing, you didn't sign away your copyright without money upfront.
There have always been people who self-publish. The main hassle was storing the books once you had them printed.
Another way to look at it is, if you have a great need for customer service, you screwed up somewhere. Put your resources towards fixing the root cause of the problem, and the need for customer service reps goes away, plus your service gets better all in one swoop.
That's what I said: "... maybe the solution is to create online resources so understandable that the number of people actually trying to get hold of you is minimal. If you are giving people what they want and show them how to use it and are as transparent as possible about everything you do, maybe they won't bug you."
Yes, and the fact that google has lots of money would suggest it has been making good business decisions.
But it doesn't reassure me that Google has good social motives. Google as a business is one thing. Google lobbying politicians as a way to influence laws could be another. So how Google conducts its business may be a clue to how it will use its influence. A ruthless company, for example, may make lots of money but be a lousy corporate citizen. The same can be said for Apple. What has been good for Apple may not be good for other companies.
We've had our share of economic problems when money becomes the standard upon which everything is judged.
Not for it's free products. You know how many stupid stupid calls they would get for things that they have no control over if they had a public 1-800 number?
That's one way to look at it. But other companies offering free products do provide great customer service.
And maybe the solution is to create online resources so understandable that the number of people actually trying to get hold of you is minimal. If you are giving people what they want and show them how to use it and are as transparent as possible about everything you do, maybe they won't bug you.
I've been reading these sorts of comments coming from other big tech companies or their defenders. What I think people in the middle of this culture miss is that they are now sounding like previous generations in other big industries. It seems to go with the territory, so I have continually warned that just because a company is a tech company, don't assume it is somehow more pure than those who used to work for the auto industry, or the steel industry, or the coal industry, or or more recently the entertainment industry.
Where are the trolls screaming about how this one case is just a fluke and doesn't mean anything in the great scheme of copyright?
Probably because it doesn't mean anything. As I mentioned, for a company to buy rights, that means the company assumes copyright will continue as usual and the rights are worth something. If copyright goes away, those rights are worthless.
So this is really just more of the old view of copyright: that there's actually something to purchase. In the new view, no one will buy rights.
If you eliminate copyright, the creators can't sell "rights" to their content. And the music labels, book publishers, movie studios, toy companies, and others won't buy "rights" because those rights won't be worth anything. Without copyright, "rights" are worthless.
Let me explain a bit more about how publishing used to work. A promising or successful author could often get between $100,000 to $1 million in advance. This was for a one book deal. After that the author was free to go to a different publisher the next time. It was like movie studios. It was for a single project deal, not a long-term deal like music labels asked for.
That advance was payment for the author's content. The publishing house covered the printing, marketing, and other costs out of its own pocket and didn't take it out of the author's advance. And if the publishing house didn't sell many copies, it didn't come after the author to recoup the advance. (Recouping the advance happened only in rare instances, like when the author failed to deliver the promised manuscript.)
So the advance more or less worked like a salary. If the book turned out to be a huge success, the author would get more money based on royalties and deals made with foreign publishers, movie deals, magazine deals, etc.
Writers didn't bitch about publishing deals. If the first book was huge, they could then ask for even bigger advances on the next book.
If a company buys "rights" to content, most are going to want to protect those rights. Hence, the long discussions around copyright. Companies that have historically bought rights assumed they bought the ownership of something which they could then commercialize.
If it turns out that we eliminate copyright, there won't be any "rights" to sell because everyone will be free to copy and use whatever they want in what form they want.
As for the value of publishers, they did have their place because they often paid out significant advances that the writers didn't need to pay back. That's how book writers made their living. They were given enough money to live on, wrote a book, gave it to the publisher, and then went on to the next book. A good deal was to get a big advance and not worry about whether the publisher ever made enough money from the book sales because your advance was yours to keep. Book royalties didn't matter to most authors because the advance paid them sufficient funds upfront (in "advance') that they weren't worried if the funds were recouped. Unlike music, authors weren't forced to cover the publisher's costs out of their advances. It was theirs to do as they wished.
If companies are really concerned about privacy, engineer everything so that no data is collected and that people have to opt-in for it to be collected. Let Facebook, Google, cellphone companies, etc. operate without saving data and especially without data identifiable to individual people. They won't, of course.
Usually the argument goes that if you don't want to be monitored, don't use these services. But how about we change the nature of online usage so that no monitoring happens in the first place? Now, wouldn't that be revolutionary?
Ultimately we're either going toward a world where everything is viewable by everyone and there will be no need for government to be singled out because they will have the same access as everyone else. Or we'll find ways to live our lives as anonymously as possible and everything will be engineered to hide whatever we don't want known.
If some companies/the US government are barely attempting to pay lipservice to the concept of privacy anymore, then companies are going to want to move to places that have more respect for privacy.
But some countries have much stricter privacy laws than the US. They have laws that limit what companies can collect and monitor in the first place.
What I complain about are companies that want to collect all the data they want and to sell it to whomever they want, but then they yell "privacy" about the government. They don't really believe in privacy because they are making money by invading it. It's a double standard for profit.
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Most of the advocates of decentralization don't want governments to do it, either. The goal would be to find ways to decentralize government along with decentralizing private property concentration.
There would still be government, but it would function more locally. And there were be more use of cooperatives, collectives, and commons rather than top-down corporations.
There are some things that do require international cooperation, like preserving the environment, but if it can be accomplished through decentralized control, most sustainability people would be all for it.
Localization, decentralized energy generation, "small is beautiful." These are all traditionally viewed as left of center concepts, but there is a lot there which the right of center "small government" folks could embrace. However, some of the money supporting the "small government" groups comes from big corporations and wealthy individuals who don't want their own power bases threatened.
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
True, we don't need to tell Google what to do.
But what I think has happened is that Google has worked its way into people's lives to such an extent it is now viewed more like a utility.
What I would like to see, and I think more people are exploring the idea, is to make more services available to people without using the structure of a for-profit business. As networking capability expands, we might be able to facilitate more decentralization of ownership. The Internet hasn't been "owned" by anyone, and if we use that model to reduce everyone's dependence on specific companies, that might be quite revolutionary. I'd like to see a day when there isn't a Google as such because the system self-organizes and works well as a collection of independent units rather than being processed through anything as big as Google.
On the post: Intuit Continues To Make Sure Filing Taxes Is Complicated
Re: Re: Re: Slimy, but tax simplification is not good
Also, a complicated system facilitates hiding loopholes, and allows those with more financial/legal resources to better game the system.
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
We agree. And that's one reason I don't consider myself a libertarian. I don't believe the businesses unfettered by societal rules would necessarily do what is best for people, especially those who have no money and/or who don't have the ability to look out for themselves.
On the post: Intuit Continues To Make Sure Filing Taxes Is Complicated
Re: Count me as an ex-TurboTax user
On the post: Intuit Continues To Make Sure Filing Taxes Is Complicated
Re: Slimy, but tax simplification is not good
The fact that that they are complicated IS a problem. Far too much time is wasted on the paperwork involved in keeping track of what needs to keep track of. Simplify the tax system and you'll save people a lot of time, and for most of them time is money.
Think of all the accounting that goes on in relation to taxes. Streamline that and you may end up putting a lot of accountants out of work, but that would be an improvement for most people and companies.
On the post: Successful Self-Published Ebook Authors Sells Print & Movie Rights For $1 Million, But Keeps Digital Rights To Himself
Re: Re: Re: Re: The issue with selling rights
For many writers the hard part was finding an agent. But if you had a good idea, you'd get the agent and the agent would get you an advance worth signing for.
Fiction was harder to pitch than non-fiction and those writers usually needed to have completed the book first. But if an agent liked it and knew editors would like it, that agent could still get you a substantial advance. Sometimes that was done by holding bidding wars, where editors at different publishing houses fought each other to land the deal.
Book publishing has never been run like music publishing. The contracts have always been much better.
And as I said, generally writers didn't sign contracts if they weren't going to get much from the deal. There aren't a lot of stories (none that I can recall) about writers being screwed by publishers, signing contracts that took away their rights without any compensation, leaving them to die penniless. I think the reason writers have fared better than musicians is that writers can actually read and usually know what they are signing. And if they make a mistake, it's only for one book, not their entire careers.
On the post: Successful Self-Published Ebook Authors Sells Print & Movie Rights For $1 Million, But Keeps Digital Rights To Himself
Re: Re: Re: The issue with selling rights
I got an advance of $30,000 30+ years ago. It was my first book. The writers I knew wouldn't do a book without a decent advance. If the publishers didn't want you, they didn't sign a contract with you.
More recently, maybe 10 years ago, I've known agents working with unknown writers getting them $100,000 to $500,000 advances.
In the pre-Internet days if you were a professional writer, you pitched to a publishing house with the understanding that they would provide an advance. If they weren't interested in you, they didn't bother to give you a contract. If you knew what you were doing, you didn't sign away your copyright without money upfront.
There have always been people who self-publish. The main hassle was storing the books once you had them printed.
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's what I said: "... maybe the solution is to create online resources so understandable that the number of people actually trying to get hold of you is minimal. If you are giving people what they want and show them how to use it and are as transparent as possible about everything you do, maybe they won't bug you."
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
Re: Re: Re: Re:
But it doesn't reassure me that Google has good social motives. Google as a business is one thing. Google lobbying politicians as a way to influence laws could be another. So how Google conducts its business may be a clue to how it will use its influence. A ruthless company, for example, may make lots of money but be a lousy corporate citizen. The same can be said for Apple. What has been good for Apple may not be good for other companies.
We've had our share of economic problems when money becomes the standard upon which everything is judged.
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's one way to look at it. But other companies offering free products do provide great customer service.
And maybe the solution is to create online resources so understandable that the number of people actually trying to get hold of you is minimal. If you are giving people what they want and show them how to use it and are as transparent as possible about everything you do, maybe they won't bug you.
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
Re: Re: What happened
BBC - Newsbeat - Musicians accused of 'buying virtual fans' on YouTube
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
Re: Re:
Seriously? Google has lots of money. Customer service isn't worth spending some of that on?
On the post: YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
Re: Re: Re:
http://gawker.com/5491756/
Thanks for posting the link. I hadn't seen it.
I've been reading these sorts of comments coming from other big tech companies or their defenders. What I think people in the middle of this culture miss is that they are now sounding like previous generations in other big industries. It seems to go with the territory, so I have continually warned that just because a company is a tech company, don't assume it is somehow more pure than those who used to work for the auto industry, or the steel industry, or the coal industry, or or more recently the entertainment industry.
On the post: Successful Self-Published Ebook Authors Sells Print & Movie Rights For $1 Million, But Keeps Digital Rights To Himself
Re:
Probably because it doesn't mean anything. As I mentioned, for a company to buy rights, that means the company assumes copyright will continue as usual and the rights are worth something. If copyright goes away, those rights are worthless.
So this is really just more of the old view of copyright: that there's actually something to purchase. In the new view, no one will buy rights.
On the post: Successful Self-Published Ebook Authors Sells Print & Movie Rights For $1 Million, But Keeps Digital Rights To Himself
Re: The issue with selling rights
If you eliminate copyright, the creators can't sell "rights" to their content. And the music labels, book publishers, movie studios, toy companies, and others won't buy "rights" because those rights won't be worth anything. Without copyright, "rights" are worthless.
On the post: Successful Self-Published Ebook Authors Sells Print & Movie Rights For $1 Million, But Keeps Digital Rights To Himself
Re: The issue with selling rights
That advance was payment for the author's content. The publishing house covered the printing, marketing, and other costs out of its own pocket and didn't take it out of the author's advance. And if the publishing house didn't sell many copies, it didn't come after the author to recoup the advance. (Recouping the advance happened only in rare instances, like when the author failed to deliver the promised manuscript.)
So the advance more or less worked like a salary. If the book turned out to be a huge success, the author would get more money based on royalties and deals made with foreign publishers, movie deals, magazine deals, etc.
Writers didn't bitch about publishing deals. If the first book was huge, they could then ask for even bigger advances on the next book.
On the post: Successful Self-Published Ebook Authors Sells Print & Movie Rights For $1 Million, But Keeps Digital Rights To Himself
The issue with selling rights
If it turns out that we eliminate copyright, there won't be any "rights" to sell because everyone will be free to copy and use whatever they want in what form they want.
As for the value of publishers, they did have their place because they often paid out significant advances that the writers didn't need to pay back. That's how book writers made their living. They were given enough money to live on, wrote a book, gave it to the publisher, and then went on to the next book. A good deal was to get a big advance and not worry about whether the publisher ever made enough money from the book sales because your advance was yours to keep. Book royalties didn't matter to most authors because the advance paid them sufficient funds upfront (in "advance') that they weren't worried if the funds were recouped. Unlike music, authors weren't forced to cover the publisher's costs out of their advances. It was theirs to do as they wished.
On the post: US Government's Failure To Protect Public Privacy Is Driving Business Overseas
Make privacy the default standard
Usually the argument goes that if you don't want to be monitored, don't use these services. But how about we change the nature of online usage so that no monitoring happens in the first place? Now, wouldn't that be revolutionary?
Ultimately we're either going toward a world where everything is viewable by everyone and there will be no need for government to be singled out because they will have the same access as everyone else. Or we'll find ways to live our lives as anonymously as possible and everything will be engineered to hide whatever we don't want known.
On the post: US Government's Failure To Protect Public Privacy Is Driving Business Overseas
Re: Gee, I wonder why
But some countries have much stricter privacy laws than the US. They have laws that limit what companies can collect and monitor in the first place.
What I complain about are companies that want to collect all the data they want and to sell it to whomever they want, but then they yell "privacy" about the government. They don't really believe in privacy because they are making money by invading it. It's a double standard for profit.
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