Isn't this study missing the fact that cell phone technology AND usage is changing way faster than the sample period? For example: text messages. The use of text messages throws a wrench in to mix from the start. Without properly controlling for even (non-constant) rates of use other than zero there can be no statistical measure for relative use, making the entire study a waste of money.
At some point these people really must have decided to follow the Catbert philosophy of following one's own policy to cruelly toy with perceived underlings, in this case the electorate. The only alternative is they really are as stupid as they are presuming those reading their site to be. I still don't understand how anyone could defend this (link above) so called "fact sheet," especially in light of the recent leak. It is a bulleted list of blatant lies. This is EXACTLY why there is so much controversy over ACTA transparency and, unfortunately, why there is so little being done in response. Its business as usual with the caveat of leaving out any accountability to the people it affects most.
For the record, AT&T already implements a form of metering. My house is connected via Bellsouth.net (AT&T) and hidden in their help site under the mess of interlinked pages they call a terms of service there is a fun section describing a limit beyond which you pay per gigabyte. I did some calculations and it seems that a connection is arbitrarily (maybe not, but no answer from customer service speaks volumes) limited to combined upload/download transfer of 1/15 of what would be possible if maxing out the connection 24/7. I'll have to find the exact link again, but suffice to say the metering has been there all along and this "new" trend toward metered broadband is only their way of lowering the limit to make more people pay for "excessive use."
Don't forget the redirection of funding to legal fees probably weighed heavily on Veoh's advertising budget. As is a risk in many markets, Veoh suffered from obscurity in that a lack of traffic directly impacted its lack of income.
The University of Florida actively blocks P2P applications and protocol use on its residence network. Its appalling that this is done while also claiming its a benefit to the students on the network.
Part of the problem with the MPAA and "give it away and pray" models is the lack of understanding of the audience. We don't just want to download, and we don't want to be forced to watch exceedingly horrid movies for the same cost as good movies in theaters without the ability to try before buying (and, no, commercials DO NOT count as trying the movie out). Theaters do not make money on the tickets but they do on concessions and they also provide the venue for social events. Obviously there is room for improvement on the concept, such as tiered contribution and other connecting monetizing opportunities, but the point is the consumers are trying to look out for their personal investment as well as enjoy a movie. The current models only satisfy one of those criteria on occasion.
Note: I did not have the time to read through the comments made before me and apologize in advance for any redundancy.
In my opinion, any given member of a torrent swarm, such as myself, is indeed at a heightened risk. As most downloaders of music, authorized or not, are avid fans of music and are also the more ravenous consumers of the industry's market, they are at higher risk of industry blunders (remember Sony's brilliant rootkit fun) than ever downloading an infected file that is later allowed to infect their computers. Of course, that statistic is blatantly made up (as are 80% of them...) but should serve as an important reminder that the music recording industry, specifically, has done more harm in one fell swoop than most creators of lucrative malware ever hoped to do. While Sony eventually paid for its mistake, no organized effort could reliably poison a torrent swarm with such high yield. Torrent swarms are two fold protected in general. There is protection via file hash and check sum comparisons and then there is the vastly superior communication capacity of the torrent community itself. It would take a borderline conspiracy of the torrent community as a whole to actually allow such a massive attack utilizing the torrent protocol to work. This is, of course, excluding the more advanced malware out there that actually are capable of loading a custom torrent client as part of a trojan process and downloading more components before continuing infection. I guess the point I'm making is that beyond the hefty grain of salt we currently take this execrable abuse with, there should be some light shed on the perpetrator assuming role of a victim in more than one of the many accusations the recording industry is making.
(The hyperbolic extreme of my opinion...)
And finally, the recording industry is still ahead of the game in unpunished extortion when compared to malware crime given the chance of being caught (5% chance as of 2006 for malware, 0% for recording music). Malware is indeed attractive as you never have to deal with people, but you may get caught. Recording music only requires that you lie to the musician on occasion and then let your legal team supplement the high profit margin of sales with unabashed abuse of the legal system. But this leads to a whole new diatribe, and I have (potentially more productive) work to do.
While reading just the snippets included in the article, and regrettably I'm going to massively generalize here, I noticed that Helprin's writing style seems to carry more flare than content. I realize he is attempting to draw a line in the intellectual dirt but he drowns his point in muddled sentences. The only person who speaks remotely like that is Dennis Miller. It seems he is going more for a compendium of proof he is an intellectual saint and therefore his opinions should count more. When everyone else lets him in on the big secret (he can't communicate even wrong information well) he cries about it, for 2400 words. As was proved by the Mythbusters, you CAN polish poop but it still stinks!
(Helprin should repeat their experiment.)
On the post: Why Does The Press Still Blindly Believe 'Studies' Put Out By The Entertainment Industry?
Re: Because...
On the post: Finally, A Definitive Answer On Whether Cell Phones Cause Cancer -- In 20 Or 30 Years
Since we still use analog...
On the post: USTR Wants People To Know That At Least Someone Likes ACTA
"Fact Sheet"
At some point these people really must have decided to follow the Catbert philosophy of following one's own policy to cruelly toy with perceived underlings, in this case the electorate. The only alternative is they really are as stupid as they are presuming those reading their site to be. I still don't understand how anyone could defend this (link above) so called "fact sheet," especially in light of the recent leak. It is a bulleted list of blatant lies. This is EXACTLY why there is so much controversy over ACTA transparency and, unfortunately, why there is so little being done in response. Its business as usual with the caveat of leaving out any accountability to the people it affects most.
On the post: Bad Publicity, BBB Complaints Causing AT&T To Reconsider Metered Broadband?
Metering for the rest of us...
On the post: Veoh Shuts Down; What Happens To The Lawsuit?
Resource Drain
On the post: Oxford University Bans Spotify, Apparently Prefers Students To Get Music Secretly, Rather Than Legally
Oxford is not the only one...
On the post: Nasty Old People, Give It Away And Pray And Releasing Movies For File Sharing
Listening to the Market
On the post: Anti-File Sharing Propaganda Back To Focusing On That Horrible Malware You'll Get
Relative Chances
In my opinion, any given member of a torrent swarm, such as myself, is indeed at a heightened risk. As most downloaders of music, authorized or not, are avid fans of music and are also the more ravenous consumers of the industry's market, they are at higher risk of industry blunders (remember Sony's brilliant rootkit fun) than ever downloading an infected file that is later allowed to infect their computers. Of course, that statistic is blatantly made up (as are 80% of them...) but should serve as an important reminder that the music recording industry, specifically, has done more harm in one fell swoop than most creators of lucrative malware ever hoped to do. While Sony eventually paid for its mistake, no organized effort could reliably poison a torrent swarm with such high yield. Torrent swarms are two fold protected in general. There is protection via file hash and check sum comparisons and then there is the vastly superior communication capacity of the torrent community itself. It would take a borderline conspiracy of the torrent community as a whole to actually allow such a massive attack utilizing the torrent protocol to work. This is, of course, excluding the more advanced malware out there that actually are capable of loading a custom torrent client as part of a trojan process and downloading more components before continuing infection. I guess the point I'm making is that beyond the hefty grain of salt we currently take this execrable abuse with, there should be some light shed on the perpetrator assuming role of a victim in more than one of the many accusations the recording industry is making.
(The hyperbolic extreme of my opinion...)
And finally, the recording industry is still ahead of the game in unpunished extortion when compared to malware crime given the chance of being caught (5% chance as of 2006 for malware, 0% for recording music). Malware is indeed attractive as you never have to deal with people, but you may get caught. Recording music only requires that you lie to the musician on occasion and then let your legal team supplement the high profit margin of sales with unabashed abuse of the legal system. But this leads to a whole new diatribe, and I have (potentially more productive) work to do.
On the post: Mark Helprin: All The Reviews Of My Book Sucked Because Publishers Assigned The People I Insult To Review It
Writing Style Observation
(Helprin should repeat their experiment.)
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