This is so annoying. I've stumbelled across so many good news and blogs based on links to old articles. This site included. Often, if the old articles are good, I'll take a look at the more recent articles and if it's any good, I'll subscribe to the feed.
Number of sites that delete old articels, of which I have become a regular or casual reader: 0
Number of sites that don't delete old articels, of which I have become a regular or casual reader: Too many to count.
I think $5.25 is a rather uncomfortable price point. I'd say $4.99 would have been better, since it has all the psychological benefits that come with prices ending with .99. I've heard of studies showing that such prices are more attractive to customers, and it's why such pricing tactics are so common in retail.
I can't see how this video would go viral anyway, regardless of the actions of the label. I don't think the song is particularly great, the singing was terrible, the music was irritating and the American style marching band doesn't seem like it will have much appeal outside the US. I thought it was boring. Honestly, if I'll be happy to never hear this song or watch the video again.
I think that's a real shame though, cause I really liked some of their older songs, especially Here it Goes Again.
This is very different from a ringtone. With a ringtone, the owner of the phone owns a copy of the track being played on their device, to them, and maybe a few people who happen to be in earshot of the phone.
I've not experienced ringback tones before, and until reading this article I had never heard of them. But the idea seems like it has more in common with on-hold music that many companies play when they put you on hold or when you're in a call centre queue. The only difference seems to be that this music is playing to the caller while the phone is ringing, rather than after the call has been answered, and it's being played by the telco, rather than the callee.
I'm fairly sure the companies that do that have to licence the music for use on-hold, at least in Australia (I'm not sure about the US rules, but I'd assume they're similar). But assuming that in the US companies do have to licence it then, then surely those rules would apply to this too.
if they want to test security with planted contraband, why the hell do they have to get legitimate passengers involved at all? Surely, they can afford to buy a few bags and stuff them with clothes or something to make them look normal and send those planted bags along with the planted contraband through the screening process.
Also, why wasn't the package of explosives somehow clearly marked as being for testing purposes, so that the security personal in Ireland, or any other country it could happen in, would have seen that it was a security test, and called up Slovakian security to verify it. That would have at least saved the innocent victim a lot of trouble.
But regardless, planting contraband on a legitimate passenger's bags for testing purposes is just stupidity beyond belief.
There should be some fair rules appied, like there are in Australian retail for mis-labelled prices. There are rules for when the labelled price is higher or lower than the scanned price that specify which price you pay, and how many items you're entitled to at the discounted rate, etc.
Something like, If a price is mistakenly listed lower what it should cost and the customer orders it beliving that's what they'll be charged, but the store charges and ships the item a higher price, then the customer should be entitled to a refund of the difference.
If the store notices the price discrepency before the customer is charged and item shipped, then the store should be able to contact the customer and offer to either cancel the order without penalty or get the customer to agree to the higher price.
In this case, the customer's card transaction would have, at the very least, ended up being declined due to insufficient funds. If you try to purchase any item, even one at a more reasonable price, and your transaction is declined, then the sale just ends up being declined. You usually don't ultimately end up being chased for the money anyway.
I don't have an opinion on cases where the listed price is excessive, but still within the customer's limits, and the customer stupidly agrees to pay that much. This would be like the case of the $999 iPhone app, where I read at least one customer stupidly bought it thinking it was just a joke.
Huh? I don't understand why the company would respond like that to what seemed like a legitmate request to work with them. Although you didn't quote the messages that Jay Anderson had written to them, so it's hard to know for sure, but based on your summary, asking about what affiliate programs they offer in order to use their APIs seems like it would be a legitmate request to work with them legally, rather than simply "stealing" from them.
That's ridiculous. Most people who aren't lawyers wouldn't have the ability to comprehend the legalese included in such agreements even if they did read them. I've tried to read a couple, but most are so long and incomprehensible that there is little point in trying. The fact that these are considered legally enforceable, regardless of their content, is ridiculous.
There needs to be some kind of limits on what can be included in an agreement like that, or at least limits on the possible concequences of breaching it.
How is that a difficult question? Let's say this was a book and the first copy was published and sold 3 years ago, but that same book is still being printed and sold today. If the law is clear on how to apply in that situation, it should be equally clear on how to apply it to the coffee can. Each new can created and sold is just another copy, not a new publication.
Whether you like to admit it or not, regardless of how the copyright law is structured, there are going to be tradeoffs that have to be made, and it is in those tradeoffs that the balance needs to be found.
The founders of copyright in the US knew this, and it seems to be the basis of their limited time monopoly rights structure, so that once the author has had sufficient time to to benefit from the work, it's turned over the the public for everyone to benefit more. Unfortunately, with the current perpetually repeated term extension model being pushed by the lobbyists, any sense of balance has been lost long ago.
I would really love to have a single global currency. It would be so much more convenient, especially for travellers, as there would be no more exchange rates or messing around with currency exchanges if you're left with a lot of foreign cash after a trip.
I think the whole idea of a small local currency, like Ithica Hours, is just absurd. Just imagine having to exchange money just because you happened to drive into the next town to buy something. That would be absolutely crazy.
Paul, you're making a strawman argument. As Yosi said, client/server architecture is not P2P, and no-one ever claimed to want to block that.
Clearly, in context, the USAP are using P2P as a synonym for file sharing applications like BitTorrent, KaZaA, etc. It seems they're just ignorant of the fact that P2P is just a network architecture with many more applications beyond file sharing, like Skype for instance (Yes, I'm aware Skype can share files, but it's different from other file sharing apps because requires the sender to do it manually, rather than allowing the recipient to simply request it).
Now, I can understand the USAP wanting to ban file sharing applications from work machines, which is a reasonable thing for organisations to do, for reasons of security, network congestion and bandwidth costs.
Mike, I'm curious, given how opposed you are to excessivly long copyright terms, like we have now, how long would you consider to be a more reasonable time frame?
Also, I'm wondering if you would choose to limit the copyrights of your own work by voluntarily dedicating them to the public domain after that time?
(I do with my own works, most of which are either dedicated to the public domain immediately or use a very liberal free software licence)
Would you, for example, willingly dedicate all of your techdirt articles to the public domain, say, 20, 30 or 40 years after publication?
Amazon should just take the pro-active approach and not only blatantly refuse to violate their user's personal details, but to immediately cancel any deal they have with NewsCorp and make a deal with a much more much more reasonable competitor.
The problem is not with the AP in this case, the problem is the fact that you and a lot of other news sites and blogs jumped to an unsupported conclusion about the AP wanting to use DRM, when they never actually said that, based on a vague and widely misinterpreted flow chart.
Rather than doing any real investigative reporting before to find out what they were actually doing, someone simply claimed it must be DRM and you ran with it. Now you've finally discovered that it's not DRM at all, it's just a microformat with which there isn't a real problem with, you turn around and start attacking the AP for not really doing what they never actually claimed to be doing in the first place, in order to continue with your propaganda about how the AP is failing at everything they do. While you may have valid points about other issues with the AP, this is simply absurd. This whole article is a strawman argument.
The title of this post is incredibly misleading. While it's impossible to ban stupidity in general, banning specifc stupid acts can be a good thing.
Banning mobile phone use without a hands free kit, for either calling or texting, is a really good thing to do. It's just as dangerous as drunk driving, and I see no problem with imposing fines on people caught in the act. Of course, improved education, and developing safer alternative technological solutions are also good approaches to take in conjunction with the ban. it's not an either/or proposition as the article tries to claim.
I have a patent application for a device, geometrically shaped such that the center is equidistant from any point on the edge and the center point can be mounted on a pivot point allowing for 360 degress of rotation, while the outer edge rolls along a surface I expect this can be used in a wide range of applications, particularly transport, and I'm sure it will revolutionise the whole industry.
From the information I've been able to piece together, I think the reports about the AP using some sort of DRM have been blown way out of proportion. Of course, the AP hasn't helped the situation with their technologically inept explanations by their PR dept, but it's made worse by reporters like yourself jumping the gun and immediately associating words like "protection" and "enforcement" from their press releases with DRM.
Their plans largely involve using the hNews microformat, which is currently still under development. Basically, this will allow them to mark up their news with a lot of metadata. Among this metadata will be licensing information that declares, in a computer readable fashion. Early indications indicate that this is based on and inspired by existing microformats like hAtom and ccREL, along with some new proposed extensions that they are working on developing and standardising. More information about this can be found at valueaddednews.org
On the post: Bad Web Experience: This Article Removed Because Of Copyright?
Number of sites that delete old articels, of which I have become a regular or casual reader: 0
Number of sites that don't delete old articels, of which I have become a regular or casual reader: Too many to count.
On the post: Will Lower Prices Help Sell More Albums?
On the post: Will Rupert Murdoch Pay Me For Making Money Off Links To Techdirt?
On the post: EMI/Capitol Records Works Hard To Make Ok Go's Viral Video Less Viral
I think that's a real shame though, cause I really liked some of their older songs, especially Here it Goes Again.
On the post: BMI Sues T-Mobile, Claims It Needs To Pay Up Over Ringback Tones
"On Hold" Music
I've not experienced ringback tones before, and until reading this article I had never heard of them. But the idea seems like it has more in common with on-hold music that many companies play when they put you on hold or when you're in a call centre queue. The only difference seems to be that this music is playing to the caller while the phone is ringing, rather than after the call has been answered, and it's being played by the telco, rather than the callee.
I'm fairly sure the companies that do that have to licence the music for use on-hold, at least in Australia (I'm not sure about the US rules, but I'd assume they're similar). But assuming that in the US companies do have to licence it then, then surely those rules would apply to this too.
On the post: Slovakian Law Enforcement Secretly Planted Explosives On Travelers
Also, why wasn't the package of explosives somehow clearly marked as being for testing purposes, so that the security personal in Ireland, or any other country it could happen in, would have seen that it was a security test, and called up Slovakian security to verify it. That would have at least saved the innocent victim a lot of trouble.
But regardless, planting contraband on a legitimate passenger's bags for testing purposes is just stupidity beyond belief.
On the post: Guy Buys $3 Billion CD-ROM
Something like, If a price is mistakenly listed lower what it should cost and the customer orders it beliving that's what they'll be charged, but the store charges and ships the item a higher price, then the customer should be entitled to a refund of the difference.
If the store notices the price discrepency before the customer is charged and item shipped, then the store should be able to contact the customer and offer to either cancel the order without penalty or get the customer to agree to the higher price.
In this case, the customer's card transaction would have, at the very least, ended up being declined due to insufficient funds. If you try to purchase any item, even one at a more reasonable price, and your transaction is declined, then the sale just ends up being declined. You usually don't ultimately end up being chased for the money anyway.
I don't have an opinion on cases where the listed price is excessive, but still within the customer's limits, and the customer stupidly agrees to pay that much. This would be like the case of the $999 iPhone app, where I read at least one customer stupidly bought it thinking it was just a joke.
On the post: Can You Copyright Movie Times?
On the post: Hyperlinked Contract Terms Are Enforceable
There needs to be some kind of limits on what can be included in an agreement like that, or at least limits on the possible concequences of breaching it.
On the post: Trying To Apply Rules Designed For Publications To... Coffee Cans?
On the post: Could Evidence-Based Copyright Law Ever Be Put In Place?
On Balance
The founders of copyright in the US knew this, and it seems to be the basis of their limited time monopoly rights structure, so that once the author has had sufficient time to to benefit from the work, it's turned over the the public for everyone to benefit more. Unfortunately, with the current perpetually repeated term extension model being pushed by the lobbyists, any sense of balance has been lost long ago.
On the post: Moving To A Single Currency... Or Lots Of Local Currencies?
I think the whole idea of a small local currency, like Ithica Hours, is just absurd. Just imagine having to exchange money just because you happened to drive into the next town to buy something. That would be absolutely crazy.
On the post: P2P Banned In Antarctica?
Clearly, in context, the USAP are using P2P as a synonym for file sharing applications like BitTorrent, KaZaA, etc. It seems they're just ignorant of the fact that P2P is just a network architecture with many more applications beyond file sharing, like Skype for instance (Yes, I'm aware Skype can share files, but it's different from other file sharing apps because requires the sender to do it manually, rather than allowing the recipient to simply request it).
Now, I can understand the USAP wanting to ban file sharing applications from work machines, which is a reasonable thing for organisations to do, for reasons of security, network congestion and bandwidth costs.
On the post: Copyright Length And The Life Of Mickey Mouse
Also, I'm wondering if you would choose to limit the copyrights of your own work by voluntarily dedicating them to the public domain after that time?
(I do with my own works, most of which are either dedicated to the public domain immediately or use a very liberal free software licence)
Would you, for example, willingly dedicate all of your techdirt articles to the public domain, say, 20, 30 or 40 years after publication?
On the post: Murdoch Now Demanding Names Of Kindle Subscribers
Amazon Should Be More Pro-active
On the post: The 'Creative' Technology Behind The AP's News Registry
Rather than doing any real investigative reporting before to find out what they were actually doing, someone simply claimed it must be DRM and you ran with it. Now you've finally discovered that it's not DRM at all, it's just a microformat with which there isn't a real problem with, you turn around and start attacking the AP for not really doing what they never actually claimed to be doing in the first place, in order to continue with your propaganda about how the AP is failing at everything they do. While you may have valid points about other issues with the AP, this is simply absurd. This whole article is a strawman argument.
On the post: What's Next? Can Senators Ban Stupidity While Driving?
Banning mobile phone use without a hands free kit, for either calling or texting, is a really good thing to do. It's just as dangerous as drunk driving, and I see no problem with imposing fines on people caught in the act. Of course, improved education, and developing safer alternative technological solutions are also good approaches to take in conjunction with the ban. it's not an either/or proposition as the article tries to claim.
On the post: Patents On Common Beans Rejected 10 Years Too Late
On the post: AP Says It's 'Done' Talking About Fair Use And Its DRM
Microformats
Their plans largely involve using the hNews microformat, which is currently still under development. Basically, this will allow them to mark up their news with a lot of metadata. Among this metadata will be licensing information that declares, in a computer readable fashion. Early indications indicate that this is based on and inspired by existing microformats like hAtom and ccREL, along with some new proposed extensions that they are working on developing and standardising. More information about this can be found at valueaddednews.org
On the post: The Fact That A Credit Card Is Patented Is A Selling Point?
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