Ignore any complaints from anyone referring to the Internet and hacking or the Internet and porn as something to do with some Information Superhighway.
Send a reply email from such persons that says nothing but has, attached, our complementary copy of "The Technopeasant Survival Manual".
Just doesn't have quite the same feel to it, does it? And for the panickers in the human race like those who detect dangerous radiation from smart meters while sitting happily next to their wi-fi router all day. Certainly they'll start to scream over the danger of getting deadly electrical shock from Nooks left in the bathroom while showering or, worse yet, reading your Nook while lazing in the bath :)
As a Scot I'd mention that we have known for centuries that the English are morons and mongrels. But please don't include us by generalizing Brits which would bring us Scots and the Welsh into it too. ;-)
The reaction has been a combination of Streisand Effect and Reverse Slashdotting. If the High Court's intention was to censor TPB not only hasn't it worked but they've managed to educate millions more about the way to defeat the blockage.
Not only does the combination of Streisand Effect and Reverse Slashdotting amount to a Web equivalent of obscene gestures combined with teachable moments but it has now been shown that the combination has had an unexpected effect on the space time continuum illustrated by Leigh's sudden failure at basic arithmetic.
The world obviously needs more lawyers. Not so much to practice law but to find holes in the laws of physics. when they rule on or write legislation about the Web and Internet.
That strange sound you hear is God guffawing with laughter.
Bubba has decided to temporarily stop dropping soap in his two person cell and rest from blogging in order to have the time to make a YouTube video with some friends in LA. This is his examination of getting closer to his kinder, gentler side where he is now more comfortable than his previous persona.
Upon his return he will increase his fees for this sort of activity will accordingly to his newly found distaste for it. As for Mr Dodd Bubba wishes it to be known that he will not perform such a service at any price due to the brain wasting disease Mr Dodd so obviously suffers from which Bubba has no intention of being exposed to. Bubba will remind you such services are freely available from either Mr Dodd's current employer or from the current inhabitor of the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives though the price is rising daily.
Bubba thanks you for your interest in his services and that his rates and services may be found at iambubba.com.
Now lets keep in mind that that, by and large, quality and Hollywood movies are polar opposites most of the time. James Cameron had a track record dating back before Titanic of directing and/or producing hits and even his less well received films made money rather than losing it. That translates into it was easier for Cameron and the studio to raise the money and, more importantly to you, spend the money that went into Avatar. Result? Megahit that by anyone's standard and measurement repaid what went into it very early in it's release. You'll notice that fixed costs had nothing whatever to do with it.
MPAA members may be dumber than a bag of hammers when it comes to understanding how the Internet works but they're not stupid enough to use their own money to make movies. They rely on loans, investors and so on. In the time honoured tradition they use other people's money. Cameron's reputation made it easy to raise the money for the film. Keep in mind that the amount was enough to keep the bean counters from sleeping while it was being made but it's Cameron's reputation that allowed the studio to raise the money needed to make it.
George Lucas had a reputation for creating hits and making money prior to Star Wars which, similarly, made it easier for the studio to raise the money needed to make the film "using other people's money" than it would have otherwise. Certainly easier that it would ever have been if the film had been in the hands of Anonymous Cowards, such as yourself to raise it. And like Avatar it recovered every penny spent early into its general North American release.
For another example let's look at Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson, another director with a sterling track record and an enormous built in, if hypercritical, audience For all that there's much to be critical about in LoTR Jackson came through with a freely flowing elegant film trilogy which introduced LoTR to the uninitiated and did much to keep those of us who are now into triple digit readings of the trilogy satisfied. Again, a film made with "other people's money" rather than the studio's.
The movie making world will continue to operate in this fashion whether or not someone, somewhere, wants to price into it the fixed costs of making it or not. Not every movie makes money. Some bomb spectacularly like Waterworld. Some have a long shelf life, others a very short one. Nowhere do the fixed costs have any influence or not on any of this. The market does. And, yes, the market does have the right to make these decisions. In short, consumers have the right to make the decision about whether or not a movie makes money. Or a recording makes money or a book makes money. The market never has and never will take the fixed costs of a movie, record or book into account. The market, not the producers, decides if the price is worth paying and acts accordingly. As individuals and the collective we call The Market.
Guarantees of fixed cost recovery in motion picture making, publishing or any other endeavour will remain what they are now which is zero. Unless you're in a price regulated business such as telecom or cable where regulators make sure the companies they regulate do recover their costs and then some.
Should the market decide that $10 is too much for a DRM encumbered ebook is too much that's what the market has decided. Publishers be damned. After all, they have no guarantee that their fixed price costs per unit can be recovered now in the physical book world so why should they get it in the ebook world.
Movies like Avatar, Star Wars and LoTR will continue to be made because there will still be avenues to raise funds as there are now. In short, movies will continue to be made with "other people's money". Producers may have more of an incentive to control what will end up as fixed costs and they may end up doing it. The movies will continue to be made.
And the market will continue to decide which ones do recover their fixed costs and more. It's called making a profit, last time I looked.
Less than zero of this has to do with infringement or "piracy". (Like it or not "piracy" is part of the market response to certain situations and will continue to exist while those conditions persist.)
Just why is it that some people react with such emotionalism to perceived changes to business models which aren't really changes but simply an underlining of what existed pre-Amazon, pre-Web, pre-Internet days is puzzling. It's not even an attack on copyright which was never a license to change whatever the hell a publisher wished but simply a publisher's right to copy the book and make copies of it. Copyright has never been about price fixing to recover fixed costs or any other costs related to a book, film, tv show or computer program.
I don't expect that you'll change your opinions on this irrational though they are. Though perhaps you could try to visit the real world for once instead of that rather odd one you seem to inhabit.
As many high end video cameras go straight to a memory card these days instead of tape I guess shoot is the right word now. Then again, you shoot a movie, too.
People are used to saying film a "something" so I don't see the big deal in it. Technially you're right and no one in the biz would confuse the two many other people do out of sheer laziness or just brain connecting film to video before the correction portion of the brain kicks in and says "it's tape, dammit!!!" Though as I've mentioned it's often "card" I guess these days.
People hold onto expressions long after technology has made the expressions obsolete. It's not a big deal.
OK, so they're worried about piracy. They're always worried about that. They have been since player pianos, audio and video tape recorders landing in the hands of "consumers". Not customers, that would elevate humanity into something important and finally acknowledge that there's a market here.
Coming from an industry that has radio, tv and print ads down to a fine art which shows they can be great at marketing when they choose to be it's amazing they can't figure out that selling direct to "consumers" at a reasonable price and DRM free (ok, on DRM I'm dreaming but it takes less than a day for a new DRM scheme to be broken so have at it.).
It might, one day, occur to the MPAA that doing that would reduce "piracy" as noting will eliminate it completely but it would reduce it to the point where the movie studios could make money again. As if they don't now, even with all the tripe they release.
I know it's hard to see the forest for the trees but, by now, you'd think, even the MPAA could figure it out.
And then they could get back to the business of NOT paying artists which is one of the things they do best.
Spider silks are becoming something of a holy grail in some scientific and commercial realms for nanotech uses, human armour and for their sheer strength alone. That spiders make an array of silks for different purposes is fascinating all by itself and how it affects their webs, egg sacs, each of which seems to have a different but highly useful task in the web.
While I admit that I don't understand this at any level that could be called "in depth" it has changed my outlook on spiders and admiration at what evolution has come up with to answer a myriad set of issues in web construction beyond it sticking to my face! And all of this while creating one of the strongest materials we've ever come across.
Fascinating creatures are spiders.
I wonder if we ever will find a way to harvest spider silk(s) commercially?
Yeah, Hollywood has been at this nearly forever in LA and area but not in the "outlands" of the globe or most of the United States for that matter.
What this has to do with copyright is puzzling other than you just HAD to toss that in there. The linkage to anything to do with DRM is puzzling but the MPAA didn't think of DRM first. Lotus, at least, had it a long, long time ago complete with annoying dongle that didn't work all the time any more than modern DRM works all the time either.
Free screenings are a device to build up some excitement about a film that isn't filtered through the lenses of those mean ole critics. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Because people oppose the length of copyright, Hollywood's constant attempts to marginalize fair use/fair dealing and paranoid need to control every aspect of a movie results in being creator hating. Dunno where you got that from.
Of course, you and Hollywood are convinced that the people being enticed to actually go see the film or to buy the DVD at some time in the future are, automatically, criminals or at best infringers which is something people might find objectionable. Can't see why they wouldn't.
Put another way 38% of Radiohead fans paid up on the initial download. We have no way of quantifing what the number who paid after the download and listening to the album paid which would then bring that number up.
All in all your argument is pointless unless you can do a direct comparison between what Radiohead made of sales of that record even using your numbers and what they would have been paid by EMI for moving a similar number of records. Until you can do that your figures and arguments mean nothing.
Keep in mind that Radiohead isn't universally loved or liked and that a significant number of people who weren't fans downloaded for nothing, listened to it then deleted it, found that they really did like the band and paid later. How many of those downloads were people who just heard about what they were doing said "why not, I've got nothing to lose" and made up a large proportion of that 62%. The curiosity factor. Let's posit 20% of that number and now you're approaching a different situation where nearly half the downloads were paid for up front. Remembering that Radiohead took that into account with the option to buy now pay later built into the offer.
If I take the number of records I never bought but had access to, one way or another, compared to what I did buy in the days before the Internet I'd say it's more than half of them I listened to so, in effect, I pirated that music because the owner of the LP/CD/Whatever let me listen more than once or loaned it to me because I said I was curious about the artists. A fairly common practice back in those dark ages. Actually it still is commonplace. Therefore I MUST be a pirate by your definition in that the artist never got paid for what I temporarily had in my possession and listened to before returning it.
On the other hand I did buy more than 40% of the recordings I was loaned before returning them. Which must mean I became a FAN by your definition because they were loaned to me.
This was long before the wasteland of the 1990's and early part of this century where it was commonplace to slap down money on a CD and end up with something that had one decent song on it. Not at all unusual there either.
(Tangential question...was it the label or the artist trying to rip me off?)
Acts that I know and that I'm a FAN of I always buy, often before any listen. Fan, of course, is the short form of Fanatic so that does mean I'll support them even if "free" is available. I'm not alone there either.
The OC, as you call him is actually right. FANS will support him. The curious might after listening to the cut or CD as a whole but those who have no interest will never pay for his stuff no matter what. They can download from pirate sites, borrow the CD from a friend burn their own copy but they will never pay. The same way it's always been.
The only FAIL here is you and your black and white (and angry) world.
The artist who guest posted here will SUCCEED. Just because you claim to be a musician doesn't mean you'll succeed or make a living off music. That never was or ever will be the case. Like everyone else in this would you're gonna have to work at it. Recording contract or not.
Let me see for a moment. "Cyber" security is suddenly an issue though the Brits were kinds doing "cyber" stuff when they broke the Engima code and were reading orders to German generals before those generals even got them. Americans were doing it too with the Japanese shortly after Pearl Harbour because the Japanese were co-operative enough to use a coding box similar to Engima and the Brits showed the Americans how they did it.
Or any "signals" establishment (read code breaking) can be classed as "cyber" criminals or "cyber" terrorists because they break code their "enemies" using, gosh!, computers to do it.
And with this bill American law enforcement will now be doing "legally" what they've been doing for years which is "cyber" intercepting messages and stuff on the Internet and drowning in all the data. Privacy? What's that got to do with anything when there are "cyber" terrorists to catch?! And how all this "cyber" piracy stuff is working cause we're sure China is behind it all somehow!
Who cares about the openness of the Internet and Web and the economic impact of both for the better when there are "cyber" threats to be countered?
Excuse us while we watch some reruns of Dr Who so we can be taught about all things "cyber" and get envious of 20ft long scarves!
Fearmongering is always a good excuse not to do anything while passing legislation that appears to do something while not really doing much of anything at all. Other than, as Mike correctly says, endanger some of what makes the Internet and Web so valuable in so many ways.
Please excuse me now while I get a mug of "cyber" coffee and bemoan the day the expression "cyber" became so meaningless and such a joke.
Just as soon as I press the "Submit" button and "cyber" post this "cyber" comment.
While it's a pleasant thought that a partnership with MS will move Nooks at a lower price than existing tablets that's just NOT Microsoft's history. They see themselves as a premier provider of software and hardware and price accordingly. Even if they can't reach their ideal situation which is vendor and customer lock in that's how they see themselves.
The smartphone market has been one failure after another for MS even while Gates was keeping watch so forgive me if I'm skeptical that a MS/Nook marriage will change anything in the pad/smart phone market.
Nor do I see a lower price because, as I said, MS wants to think of itself as a premier/Tier 1 supplier of hardware and software. And, can MS sustain another division bleeding losses like the X-Box does?
Law enforcement agencies such as the FBI have a long record of entrapment or inventing a potential crime and then trumpeting it. In the FBI's case this goes all the way back to J Edgar Hoover.
It's just so much easier to do it that way and then sponsor programs and movies such as The Untouchables to raise their public profile to the demigod status.
Just remember, folks, Elvis is alive and well and working as a FBI agent!
I doubt most countries take the 301 list seriously. Some even consider it a badge of honour to find themselves there.
The original idea was to embarrass the countries that end up there. It doesn't even do that now. In most of the world it's not even news. It certainly reaffirms that Hollywood sets US foreign policy these days.
On the post: B&N Removes Magazine From Nook Store Due To Feature Article On 'Hacking'
Re: Re:
Ignore any complaints from anyone referring to the Internet and hacking or the Internet and porn as something to do with some Information Superhighway.
Send a reply email from such persons that says nothing but has, attached, our complementary copy of "The Technopeasant Survival Manual".
On the post: B&N Removes Magazine From Nook Store Due To Feature Article On 'Hacking'
Re: Re: Fuck them - they're gonna die anyway.
On the post: Pirate Bay Block Initiates Streisand Cascade, Drives Record Traffic
Re: Re:
On the post: Pirate Bay Block Initiates Streisand Cascade, Drives Record Traffic
Re: Official reaction?
Not only does the combination of Streisand Effect and Reverse Slashdotting amount to a Web equivalent of obscene gestures combined with teachable moments but it has now been shown that the combination has had an unexpected effect on the space time continuum illustrated by Leigh's sudden failure at basic arithmetic.
The world obviously needs more lawyers. Not so much to practice law but to find holes in the laws of physics. when they rule on or write legislation about the Web and Internet.
That strange sound you hear is God guffawing with laughter.
On the post: Copyright Office Seeks Help In Fixing The Culture-Stifling Copyright Records Problem
Re:
Upon his return he will increase his fees for this sort of activity will accordingly to his newly found distaste for it. As for Mr Dodd Bubba wishes it to be known that he will not perform such a service at any price due to the brain wasting disease Mr Dodd so obviously suffers from which Bubba has no intention of being exposed to. Bubba will remind you such services are freely available from either Mr Dodd's current employer or from the current inhabitor of the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives though the price is rising daily.
Bubba thanks you for your interest in his services and that his rates and services may be found at iambubba.com.
On the post: Nobody Cares About The Fixed Costs Of Your Book, Movie, Whatever
Re:
Thanks for your permission.
Now lets keep in mind that that, by and large, quality and Hollywood movies are polar opposites most of the time. James Cameron had a track record dating back before Titanic of directing and/or producing hits and even his less well received films made money rather than losing it. That translates into it was easier for Cameron and the studio to raise the money and, more importantly to you, spend the money that went into Avatar. Result? Megahit that by anyone's standard and measurement repaid what went into it very early in it's release. You'll notice that fixed costs had nothing whatever to do with it.
MPAA members may be dumber than a bag of hammers when it comes to understanding how the Internet works but they're not stupid enough to use their own money to make movies. They rely on loans, investors and so on. In the time honoured tradition they use other people's money. Cameron's reputation made it easy to raise the money for the film. Keep in mind that the amount was enough to keep the bean counters from sleeping while it was being made but it's Cameron's reputation that allowed the studio to raise the money needed to make it.
George Lucas had a reputation for creating hits and making money prior to Star Wars which, similarly, made it easier for the studio to raise the money needed to make the film "using other people's money" than it would have otherwise. Certainly easier that it would ever have been if the film had been in the hands of Anonymous Cowards, such as yourself to raise it. And like Avatar it recovered every penny spent early into its general North American release.
For another example let's look at Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson, another director with a sterling track record and an enormous built in, if hypercritical, audience For all that there's much to be critical about in LoTR Jackson came through with a freely flowing elegant film trilogy which introduced LoTR to the uninitiated and did much to keep those of us who are now into triple digit readings of the trilogy satisfied. Again, a film made with "other people's money" rather than the studio's.
The movie making world will continue to operate in this fashion whether or not someone, somewhere, wants to price into it the fixed costs of making it or not. Not every movie makes money. Some bomb spectacularly like Waterworld. Some have a long shelf life, others a very short one. Nowhere do the fixed costs have any influence or not on any of this. The market does. And, yes, the market does have the right to make these decisions. In short, consumers have the right to make the decision about whether or not a movie makes money. Or a recording makes money or a book makes money. The market never has and never will take the fixed costs of a movie, record or book into account. The market, not the producers, decides if the price is worth paying and acts accordingly. As individuals and the collective we call The Market.
Guarantees of fixed cost recovery in motion picture making, publishing or any other endeavour will remain what they are now which is zero. Unless you're in a price regulated business such as telecom or cable where regulators make sure the companies they regulate do recover their costs and then some.
Should the market decide that $10 is too much for a DRM encumbered ebook is too much that's what the market has decided. Publishers be damned. After all, they have no guarantee that their fixed price costs per unit can be recovered now in the physical book world so why should they get it in the ebook world.
Movies like Avatar, Star Wars and LoTR will continue to be made because there will still be avenues to raise funds as there are now. In short, movies will continue to be made with "other people's money". Producers may have more of an incentive to control what will end up as fixed costs and they may end up doing it. The movies will continue to be made.
And the market will continue to decide which ones do recover their fixed costs and more. It's called making a profit, last time I looked.
Less than zero of this has to do with infringement or "piracy". (Like it or not "piracy" is part of the market response to certain situations and will continue to exist while those conditions persist.)
Just why is it that some people react with such emotionalism to perceived changes to business models which aren't really changes but simply an underlining of what existed pre-Amazon, pre-Web, pre-Internet days is puzzling. It's not even an attack on copyright which was never a license to change whatever the hell a publisher wished but simply a publisher's right to copy the book and make copies of it. Copyright has never been about price fixing to recover fixed costs or any other costs related to a book, film, tv show or computer program.
I don't expect that you'll change your opinions on this irrational though they are. Though perhaps you could try to visit the real world for once instead of that rather odd one you seem to inhabit.
On the post: Blog Fight Devolves Into Legal Nastygrams
Re:
People are used to saying film a "something" so I don't see the big deal in it. Technially you're right and no one in the biz would confuse the two many other people do out of sheer laziness or just brain connecting film to video before the correction portion of the brain kicks in and says "it's tape, dammit!!!" Though as I've mentioned it's often "card" I guess these days.
People hold onto expressions long after technology has made the expressions obsolete. It's not a big deal.
On the post: Google's Fiber Makes MPAA Skittish. Why Does Hollywood See All Technology In Terms Of Piracy?
Coming from an industry that has radio, tv and print ads down to a fine art which shows they can be great at marketing when they choose to be it's amazing they can't figure out that selling direct to "consumers" at a reasonable price and DRM free (ok, on DRM I'm dreaming but it takes less than a day for a new DRM scheme to be broken so have at it.).
It might, one day, occur to the MPAA that doing that would reduce "piracy" as noting will eliminate it completely but it would reduce it to the point where the movie studios could make money again. As if they don't now, even with all the tripe they release.
I know it's hard to see the forest for the trees but, by now, you'd think, even the MPAA could figure it out.
And then they could get back to the business of NOT paying artists which is one of the things they do best.
On the post: DailyDirt: Doing Whatever A Spider Can...
While I admit that I don't understand this at any level that could be called "in depth" it has changed my outlook on spiders and admiration at what evolution has come up with to answer a myriad set of issues in web construction beyond it sticking to my face! And all of this while creating one of the strongest materials we've ever come across.
Fascinating creatures are spiders.
I wonder if we ever will find a way to harvest spider silk(s) commercially?
On the post: How A Free Movie Made $1 Million In 14 Days
Re: Once again, the studios were there first...
And anyone can do the screening, right?
Nope
Yeah, Hollywood has been at this nearly forever in LA and area but not in the "outlands" of the globe or most of the United States for that matter.
What this has to do with copyright is puzzling other than you just HAD to toss that in there. The linkage to anything to do with DRM is puzzling but the MPAA didn't think of DRM first. Lotus, at least, had it a long, long time ago complete with annoying dongle that didn't work all the time any more than modern DRM works all the time either.
Free screenings are a device to build up some excitement about a film that isn't filtered through the lenses of those mean ole critics. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Because people oppose the length of copyright, Hollywood's constant attempts to marginalize fair use/fair dealing and paranoid need to control every aspect of a movie results in being creator hating. Dunno where you got that from.
Of course, you and Hollywood are convinced that the people being enticed to actually go see the film or to buy the DVD at some time in the future are, automatically, criminals or at best infringers which is something people might find objectionable. Can't see why they wouldn't.
Enjoy you're sitting there.
On the post: Asking Fans For Support Isn't Begging, It's Solidifying Our Relationship
Re: Re: Re: Re: honesty
All in all your argument is pointless unless you can do a direct comparison between what Radiohead made of sales of that record even using your numbers and what they would have been paid by EMI for moving a similar number of records. Until you can do that your figures and arguments mean nothing.
Keep in mind that Radiohead isn't universally loved or liked and that a significant number of people who weren't fans downloaded for nothing, listened to it then deleted it, found that they really did like the band and paid later. How many of those downloads were people who just heard about what they were doing said "why not, I've got nothing to lose" and made up a large proportion of that 62%. The curiosity factor. Let's posit 20% of that number and now you're approaching a different situation where nearly half the downloads were paid for up front. Remembering that Radiohead took that into account with the option to buy now pay later built into the offer.
If I take the number of records I never bought but had access to, one way or another, compared to what I did buy in the days before the Internet I'd say it's more than half of them I listened to so, in effect, I pirated that music because the owner of the LP/CD/Whatever let me listen more than once or loaned it to me because I said I was curious about the artists. A fairly common practice back in those dark ages. Actually it still is commonplace. Therefore I MUST be a pirate by your definition in that the artist never got paid for what I temporarily had in my possession and listened to before returning it.
On the other hand I did buy more than 40% of the recordings I was loaned before returning them. Which must mean I became a FAN by your definition because they were loaned to me.
This was long before the wasteland of the 1990's and early part of this century where it was commonplace to slap down money on a CD and end up with something that had one decent song on it. Not at all unusual there either.
(Tangential question...was it the label or the artist trying to rip me off?)
Acts that I know and that I'm a FAN of I always buy, often before any listen. Fan, of course, is the short form of Fanatic so that does mean I'll support them even if "free" is available. I'm not alone there either.
The OC, as you call him is actually right. FANS will support him. The curious might after listening to the cut or CD as a whole but those who have no interest will never pay for his stuff no matter what. They can download from pirate sites, borrow the CD from a friend burn their own copy but they will never pay. The same way it's always been.
The only FAIL here is you and your black and white (and angry) world.
The artist who guest posted here will SUCCEED. Just because you claim to be a musician doesn't mean you'll succeed or make a living off music. That never was or ever will be the case. Like everyone else in this would you're gonna have to work at it. Recording contract or not.
On the post: Fearmongering Around 'Cyber' Threats Puts Internet Openness At Risk
Cyber--what???
Or any "signals" establishment (read code breaking) can be classed as "cyber" criminals or "cyber" terrorists because they break code their "enemies" using, gosh!, computers to do it.
And with this bill American law enforcement will now be doing "legally" what they've been doing for years which is "cyber" intercepting messages and stuff on the Internet and drowning in all the data. Privacy? What's that got to do with anything when there are "cyber" terrorists to catch?! And how all this "cyber" piracy stuff is working cause we're sure China is behind it all somehow!
Who cares about the openness of the Internet and Web and the economic impact of both for the better when there are "cyber" threats to be countered?
Excuse us while we watch some reruns of Dr Who so we can be taught about all things "cyber" and get envious of 20ft long scarves!
Fearmongering is always a good excuse not to do anything while passing legislation that appears to do something while not really doing much of anything at all. Other than, as Mike correctly says, endanger some of what makes the Internet and Web so valuable in so many ways.
Please excuse me now while I get a mug of "cyber" coffee and bemoan the day the expression "cyber" became so meaningless and such a joke.
Just as soon as I press the "Submit" button and "cyber" post this "cyber" comment.
Sheesh!
On the post: Fearmongering Around 'Cyber' Threats Puts Internet Openness At Risk
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Google Sued Because Some People Wonder If Jon Hamm Is Jewish
On the post: Google Sued Because Some People Wonder If Jon Hamm Is Jewish
Re:
One or two ACs who will take that bait and run with it notwithstanding.
On the post: USTR Releases Ridiculous 'Naughty' Special 301 List For Countries Who Don't Pass Silly Laws Hollywood Wants
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You don't live in an area with a significant (large to you) Indian or Pakistani population, do you?
If you did, you would see those lines.
On the post: Excitement Over B&N/Microsoft Teamup Is A Bit Premature
Re: Re: Re: Half Price -- Nope
The smartphone market has been one failure after another for MS even while Gates was keeping watch so forgive me if I'm skeptical that a MS/Nook marriage will change anything in the pad/smart phone market.
Nor do I see a lower price because, as I said, MS wants to think of itself as a premier/Tier 1 supplier of hardware and software. And, can MS sustain another division bleeding losses like the X-Box does?
On the post: NYTimes Realizes That The FBI Keeps Celebrating Breaking Up Its Own Terrorist Plots
It's just so much easier to do it that way and then sponsor programs and movies such as The Untouchables to raise their public profile to the demigod status.
Just remember, folks, Elvis is alive and well and working as a FBI agent!
On the post: Social Reader Apps: Better Than Paywalls, But Still Walls
On the post: USTR Releases Ridiculous 'Naughty' Special 301 List For Countries Who Don't Pass Silly Laws Hollywood Wants
Re: Diplomatic Capture
The original idea was to embarrass the countries that end up there. It doesn't even do that now. In most of the world it's not even news. It certainly reaffirms that Hollywood sets US foreign policy these days.
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