...and this is different from techdirt fanbois how exactly?
Currently I am stalked by a troll (he will appear in a few moments, I am sure). He tends to destroy threads and kill discussion. I tolerate it.
While much of what you discuss is Apple related (for Engadget), the reality is that the same thing can be said for almost every discussion area. Call them fanbois, kool aid drinkers, suck ups, syncopates, whatever... it's the nature of the game. Like minded people glom together and pat each other on the back, telling each other how smart they are.
Communities like that need disruptive outside forces, as Mike says those sorts of posts make him think about his views a little bit and sharpen them. Without that, most discussions would just be back slappers. Not entirely useful, and certainly not intellectually challenging.
Actually, it sounds more like he sat down and realizes where a nice chunk of his living and public exposure comes from, and decides to back track.
Keith Urban without a record deal and without easy access to country music radio would pretty much be like 1001 other bums hanging around Nashville, nobody would know who they are. He could join the thousands of other unknown acts cruising around playing local country music bars for beer money.
I think he woke up and discovered which side of the bread his butter is on, and it isn't the side marked "torrents"
Mike, you claim I falsely claimed you ignored the story, but you only saw my comment after you posted - even though I made the comment BEFORE you posted.
I have nothing to get over, I am not in the wrong.
i know full well that wasn't the gist of your statement, but it does suck when someone else twists your seemingly innocent words around no?
Not at all. What is annoying is people who take words out of context and attempt to jam them down your throat. In each case, the items you quote from me are answers to a very annoying troll who just wants to get into a fight, or to people who have called me equivalent things. I don't start it, but I sure don't let them get away with it either.
They aren't disagreeing with me, they are trying to bait me into a misleading discussion, in an attempt for me to say something they will later use to beat me over the head.
it's just troll bait, they have no interest in the discussion, just in the argument.
Actually, there is only one troll on here right now, he posts as anonymous, tracker1, and a few other names that he makes up on the fly. Funnier yet, he answers himself and pats himself on the back.
I suspect it's RD (because he rarely posts when the anon is ragging on me), but what can I do?
It's too bad that people are more interested in debating me as a person, and not at debating ideas.
Mike, considering you ignored it for 72 hours, and then (by your own admission) only wrote about it because I pushed you about it, I don't think I have much to apologize for.
However, I will give you credit for once again coming up with a clever way to try to make me look bad. Too bad it also makes you look petty.
Isn't it great to see how copyright is "promoting the progress" by making it that much more difficult to educate our young leaders of tomorrow?
I always have to laugh when you say something like this, because you are taking a phrase out of context and attempting to make a point, but in the end you fail.
There is nothing in copyright that says "promoting the progress of education", it is only to promote the progress of producing content etc.
I suspect if the university worked on it, and made the video available only to students, locked to the outside, etc, that they would be able to come to an arrangement with the rights holders.
Cutback at that media lab, well, that's the schools problem, not the copyright holders problem, right?
Nowhere else in the article does it present any evidence at all that texting or Twittering has anything to do with the grammar skills of students. Instead, there are a few people who suggest the real problem was that first one listed: the lack of any grammar instruction in high schools.
I am trying to think of where students might have learned smilies and things like LOL@Mike. Do you have any ideas?
First of all, you claimed that American Idol cannot be pirated, which that Google search disproves.
No, sorry Paul, but you miss it. You can torrent the resulting show, but you cannot torrent LIVE. Your torrent file isn't the live event, it's a recording of the event. It's the difference between attending a live event and watching a video of a live event at a later date.
CD's and DVDs of live shows sell well, mostly because the vast majority of fans never actually get to see their favorite bands in concert.
As ever, you make the classic mistake of assuming thsat just because *you* prefer something a particular way, that's how everybody wants it.
Nope, I am making the very good assumption that the 25 or 30 million people who tune in are a significantly larger market than will re-watch it later. There is a market there (the NFL knows it and markets to it), but that market isn't a drop on the live market at all. It isn't that I prefer it one way or the other (the superbowl usually plays at chinese new year, and I am usually out of the country), but rather that I can look at the basic numbers and know who wants what.
If you want to focus on small markets, so be it. But the vast majority of the market isn't in watching days old Superbowl games, it's in watching it live.
You could accomplish the same thing with a PVR. You are thinking in a very short period of time. What happens if you don't watch it for 2 or 3 weeks? How much water cooler chat do you get when you show up with 3 week old idol highlights fresh in your mind? I might be "new to you", but it is pretty much stale bread to everyone else.
There is no need for a torrent when you had access to the original material, just record it, as fair use allows!
The problem always is the same: There are limited ways to capitalize on free content, but the content still costs a fortune to make. That initial fortune has to be recovered, or the content cannot be made again in the future.
It's one of the reasons broadcast television is such a good medium. The costs of adding viewers in an area already served is nil. There is no marginal costs, but there is what I would call "marginal benefits", in that ad rates are charged based on the viewership.
Internet broadcast or distribution is a fail because there is a cost to add every new viewer (trackable). One new stream requires server resources, bandwidth, network center, etc. Essentially, the internet doesn't scale on this stuff very well. What it means is that a large part of your ad income goes to pay only for distribution.
So you go to a free distribution model, but you have no way to know how many people are seeing something, and no way to set ad rates, because there is no way to know how many people are actually seeing something. So for advertisers, it is a little bit of "give it away and pray", as they have no simple way to track viewership levels or response.
I think they keep "patching the hull" because they realize the replacement is like the Emperor's New Clothes. There isn't anything there that they can see, and nobody is doing much that is convincing them that nude is the new business suit. Until that happens, there will be plenty of patches, plenty of bondo, and plenty of bailing.
It is like releasing a new video game on 5 1/4" floppy discs and then complaining at the low volume of sales ... i imagine 95% of the population does not even has the hardware to read that type of disc anymore. People just don't want to buy them.
Amusing, but not entirely relevant. Almost everyone owns a CD player (I suspect the computer you are using has a device that would do the job nicely) and almost every car has one.
Your computer can easily convert your CD to MP3 files at whatever level you want them (from compressed to hell to full quality). You can pick and choose the songs you like, don't like, and all that stuff.
Now, if you were selling music on 8 track tapes, you might have a problem. But a CD doesn't compare to a 20 year old out of date computer disc format, does it?
It is when the recording industry is myopically focused on selling disks.
Again, I think you are wrong here. I think the music (and movie) industries are looking at all possiblities, but are focusing on the sales mediums that are actually making money.
The digital realm is nice, but it is still a very small part of actual dollar sales, although increasing. However, online is a huge part of the "problem" of piracy, which is what came before any online sales.
I don't think they are myopic at all, I just think they are smart enough not to stop selling discs and losing 80% of their income just to satisfy the online early adopters.
Your entire intent is to engage me in some sort of personal flame war. Sorry, I am not biting. If you want to ask questions, and they are valid questions, they get answered. When your questions are meaningless flames, they get ignored.
It doesn't matter how many user names you create or how many anonymous posts you make, the results are the same.
So please get back to debating the issues, and stop debating the people.
All I can say is that you are confusing the rise and fall of technologies (from the vinyl record to the cassette to the CD to the digital medium) with the public's desires.
Pre 1930s or so, recording were very expensive to buy, fragile, and basically the reserve of rich people. The 1940s and 50s were a key time in the music industry, as vinyl records came around that allowed the mass production of discs, and the prices of the players and the discs themselves dropped down to levels people could afford.
Right now if you want to make music, you can make music. No one is stopping you. There are no middle-men/gate-keepers keeping you from having access to the world. If you want to make music for music's sake, you're living in a golden era.
it is a golden era with no gold, no simple way for an artist to support themselves as an artist. Instead, they must be other things, like a t-shirt hawker or a professional mini-putt player to make end meet. That isn't golden, that is just sad.
The media used for the sale isn't relevant, only that the sales don't happen when the music is given away for free. So even the wildly successful Facepalm Palmer has to run friday night flea markets to make a living, rather than writing and recording new music or performing that music live.
In the end, while people claim to value music, they apparently no longer value it enough to pay for it, but save themselves from guilt by buying meaningless trinkets to show their (diminished) appreciation for the music.
Too bad they have forgotten that they could just pay for the music and cut out the trinket middleman. Perhaps Mike is nothing more than shill for the t-shirt printing industry.
On the post: Of Course Most Content Shared On BitTorrent Infringes; But That's Meaningless
Re: Re: Re: Re: "legal" torrent sites
Thanks.
On the post: Engadget Latest To Try Comment Cooling Off Period; I Can't Figure Out Why
Re: Flamebait
Currently I am stalked by a troll (he will appear in a few moments, I am sure). He tends to destroy threads and kill discussion. I tolerate it.
While much of what you discuss is Apple related (for Engadget), the reality is that the same thing can be said for almost every discussion area. Call them fanbois, kool aid drinkers, suck ups, syncopates, whatever... it's the nature of the game. Like minded people glom together and pat each other on the back, telling each other how smart they are.
Communities like that need disruptive outside forces, as Mike says those sorts of posts make him think about his views a little bit and sharpen them. Without that, most discussions would just be back slappers. Not entirely useful, and certainly not intellectually challenging.
On the post: Keith Urban Supports Unauthorized Downloaders... Except When He Doesn't
Keith Urban without a record deal and without easy access to country music radio would pretty much be like 1001 other bums hanging around Nashville, nobody would know who they are. He could join the thousands of other unknown acts cruising around playing local country music bars for beer money.
I think he woke up and discovered which side of the bread his butter is on, and it isn't the side marked "torrents"
On the post: Of Course Most Content Shared On BitTorrent Infringes; But That's Meaningless
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I have nothing to get over, I am not in the wrong.
On the post: Of Course Most Content Shared On BitTorrent Infringes; But That's Meaningless
Re: Re: "legal" torrent sites
Not at all. What is annoying is people who take words out of context and attempt to jam them down your throat. In each case, the items you quote from me are answers to a very annoying troll who just wants to get into a fight, or to people who have called me equivalent things. I don't start it, but I sure don't let them get away with it either.
On the post: Of Course Most Content Shared On BitTorrent Infringes; But That's Meaningless
Re: Re:
I "ignore" anything that doesn't agree with my world view
Case rested.
On the post: But, Wait, Didn't The Entertainment Industry Insist ACTA Wouldn't Change US Law?
Re: Re: Re: Trolls
it's just troll bait, they have no interest in the discussion, just in the argument.
I don't eat stinky troll bait.
On the post: Of Course Most Content Shared On BitTorrent Infringes; But That's Meaningless
Re:
I suspect it's RD (because he rarely posts when the anon is ragging on me), but what can I do?
It's too bad that people are more interested in debating me as a person, and not at debating ideas.
On the post: Of Course Most Content Shared On BitTorrent Infringes; But That's Meaningless
Re: Re:
However, I will give you credit for once again coming up with a clever way to try to make me look bad. Too bad it also makes you look petty.
On the post: Technology Blamed For Bad Grammar Despite Total Lack Of Causal Evidence
Re: Re:
Thanks for playing!
On the post: UCLA Professors Barred From Posting Video Online For Classes
I always have to laugh when you say something like this, because you are taking a phrase out of context and attempting to make a point, but in the end you fail.
There is nothing in copyright that says "promoting the progress of education", it is only to promote the progress of producing content etc.
I suspect if the university worked on it, and made the video available only to students, locked to the outside, etc, that they would be able to come to an arrangement with the rights holders.
Cutback at that media lab, well, that's the schools problem, not the copyright holders problem, right?
WTG Mike, another wild reach!
On the post: Technology Blamed For Bad Grammar Despite Total Lack Of Causal Evidence
I am trying to think of where students might have learned smilies and things like LOL@Mike. Do you have any ideas?
On the post: Reporter, TV Execs (Maybe?) Confused Over Lost Fans Choosing Not To Watch Leaked Episode
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, sorry Paul, but you miss it. You can torrent the resulting show, but you cannot torrent LIVE. Your torrent file isn't the live event, it's a recording of the event. It's the difference between attending a live event and watching a video of a live event at a later date.
CD's and DVDs of live shows sell well, mostly because the vast majority of fans never actually get to see their favorite bands in concert.
As ever, you make the classic mistake of assuming thsat just because *you* prefer something a particular way, that's how everybody wants it.
Nope, I am making the very good assumption that the 25 or 30 million people who tune in are a significantly larger market than will re-watch it later. There is a market there (the NFL knows it and markets to it), but that market isn't a drop on the live market at all. It isn't that I prefer it one way or the other (the superbowl usually plays at chinese new year, and I am usually out of the country), but rather that I can look at the basic numbers and know who wants what.
If you want to focus on small markets, so be it. But the vast majority of the market isn't in watching days old Superbowl games, it's in watching it live.
On the post: Reporter, TV Execs (Maybe?) Confused Over Lost Fans Choosing Not To Watch Leaked Episode
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
There is no need for a torrent when you had access to the original material, just record it, as fair use allows!
On the post: Of Course Most Content Shared On BitTorrent Infringes; But That's Meaningless
Re: Re: Re: Apart from...
It's one of the reasons broadcast television is such a good medium. The costs of adding viewers in an area already served is nil. There is no marginal costs, but there is what I would call "marginal benefits", in that ad rates are charged based on the viewership.
Internet broadcast or distribution is a fail because there is a cost to add every new viewer (trackable). One new stream requires server resources, bandwidth, network center, etc. Essentially, the internet doesn't scale on this stuff very well. What it means is that a large part of your ad income goes to pay only for distribution.
So you go to a free distribution model, but you have no way to know how many people are seeing something, and no way to set ad rates, because there is no way to know how many people are actually seeing something. So for advertisers, it is a little bit of "give it away and pray", as they have no simple way to track viewership levels or response.
I think they keep "patching the hull" because they realize the replacement is like the Emperor's New Clothes. There isn't anything there that they can see, and nobody is doing much that is convincing them that nude is the new business suit. Until that happens, there will be plenty of patches, plenty of bondo, and plenty of bailing.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: RtB
Amusing, but not entirely relevant. Almost everyone owns a CD player (I suspect the computer you are using has a device that would do the job nicely) and almost every car has one.
Your computer can easily convert your CD to MP3 files at whatever level you want them (from compressed to hell to full quality). You can pick and choose the songs you like, don't like, and all that stuff.
Now, if you were selling music on 8 track tapes, you might have a problem. But a CD doesn't compare to a 20 year old out of date computer disc format, does it?
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: RtB
Again, I think you are wrong here. I think the music (and movie) industries are looking at all possiblities, but are focusing on the sales mediums that are actually making money.
The digital realm is nice, but it is still a very small part of actual dollar sales, although increasing. However, online is a huge part of the "problem" of piracy, which is what came before any online sales.
I don't think they are myopic at all, I just think they are smart enough not to stop selling discs and losing 80% of their income just to satisfy the online early adopters.
On the post: But, Wait, Didn't The Entertainment Industry Insist ACTA Wouldn't Change US Law?
Re:
Your entire intent is to engage me in some sort of personal flame war. Sorry, I am not biting. If you want to ask questions, and they are valid questions, they get answered. When your questions are meaningless flames, they get ignored.
It doesn't matter how many user names you create or how many anonymous posts you make, the results are the same.
So please get back to debating the issues, and stop debating the people.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Pre 1930s or so, recording were very expensive to buy, fragile, and basically the reserve of rich people. The 1940s and 50s were a key time in the music industry, as vinyl records came around that allowed the mass production of discs, and the prices of the players and the discs themselves dropped down to levels people could afford.
Right now if you want to make music, you can make music. No one is stopping you. There are no middle-men/gate-keepers keeping you from having access to the world. If you want to make music for music's sake, you're living in a golden era.
it is a golden era with no gold, no simple way for an artist to support themselves as an artist. Instead, they must be other things, like a t-shirt hawker or a professional mini-putt player to make end meet. That isn't golden, that is just sad.
On the post: Yes, If You Don't Do Anything, You Shouldn't Expect People To Just Give You Money
Re: RtB
In the end, while people claim to value music, they apparently no longer value it enough to pay for it, but save themselves from guilt by buying meaningless trinkets to show their (diminished) appreciation for the music.
Too bad they have forgotten that they could just pay for the music and cut out the trinket middleman. Perhaps Mike is nothing more than shill for the t-shirt printing industry.
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