Even if you magically overnight fix all the regulatory problems, WV (and a number of other US states) face a bigger problem - it's called population density.
The state is 29th or 30th in population density overall, but has a significant portion of the state with under 10 people per square mile which is very, very low in terms of trying to get broadband to people.
99% can get 3 meg, 93% get 10 meg, but only 44% can get 25 meg.
Bringing in new competition isn't going to change the numbers much, because newcomers are going to show up and cherry pick, wiring the highest density and ignoring the very low density land that makes up most of the state.
Did you see Google Fiber lining up to wire up rural Wyoming? Nope. They went to where there is 5000 and more people per square mile. It's the only way they had a hope of making money, and they still have pretty much tapped out.
If the state is in the right, then deal with the lawsuit like big boys and get it settled. it does look like the state would have more success if they stepped up and removed any ambiguity and took full control of the process as per the federal law. At that point, the ISPs would no longer be able to hold them hostage in any way.
My guess is 10 years from now, WV will still be near last in overall connectivity. You can't fix empty space and excessive distances to cable.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
Seriously, you have made yourself the fool. The document is the one attached to the story, it's not some random piece of unchecked web dreck you often come up with. It's Tim's fault, he put it in the story because it's relevant (ie, the judgement, in detail).
It's seriously there in as many words. If you can't find it, you are an idiot, plain and simple. You have proven it so solidly in this thread that it's beyond understanding. Stop digging that hole, old man!
Next time I blow off one of your long winded answers because I do a major TL;dr and pretty much ignore you, you will know why.
You still end up down the same path, which is "is it a parody?". The smirk on your face is breast related, not because of the use of the Titlist trademark to get there.
As for full of BS, consider this: These are the sorts of things that would be argued in court. I am sure that a judge would be more than willing to hear both sides of the argument, after all of the other bases have been touched on the way to the court room. Landing in court, it would still be a crap shoot, with the legal wait of the system generally sitting on the side of the trademark holder. Would you want to be the defendant here? Do you really think the defendant is in a 100% secure position, such that any and all costs related to going to court are assured to be covered?
I don't think so. I think it would be a risk because it's not a slam dunk legally. No BS, just asking the obvious questions rather than just swallowing the story whole without digesting it.
Well, you are the smart one - so what EXACTLY do you think they are making a parody of? Converting a trademark into a semi-offence name for a body part is truly saying a lot, I know, but I think you can come up with some narrow form of parody for this.
Go ahead. Just sit down over here and talk clearly for the cameras and microphones.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
Umm, Paul, the 58 pages are the judgement attached to the story. if you can't be bothered to read, stop talking, you are just making a fool of yourself.
...and no it's not parody, it's an attack site, a vengeful sites operated by someone with an ax to grind. Oh, and in Canadian law, there is no particular provision for parody in relation to trademarks.
For me, the problem here is that the parody (and I would air quote it normally) is not obvious. That is one of the really key questions when it comes to parody of a trademark, it's making sure that the fact that it's not real is plain and obvious. If you saw the hat only from the right, you could easily mistake that it's a real Titlist product and not a parody.
I also think it also shows a desire for enrichment from the original trademark more than to make any grand parody statement. The same hat without the Titlist trademark branding wouldn't be much more than another semi-smutty piece of Americana. With the Trademark, it appears to be mostly an infringing piece of semi-smutty Americana.
I also think Mr Stone is right for once, Titlist likely has very deep pockets and can litigate this one into the ground and then 6 feet further under. There can't be enough money in making novelty smutty hats to pay for that.
Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
Paul, ready the story. By the defendant's own admissions, consumers were confused, and his choices to follow the United site designs closely were there to foster that confusion.
Parody in one thing. This is not parody. This is an upset consumer who decided to try to do as much harm as possible to an airline for (and I kid you not) apparently not telling him personally about a gate change, not sitting him next to his wife on a flight, and crumpling his suits by putting a baby cart or something on top of his suit bag. Oh, in 1996.
Read the judgement, you will see. The defendants actions caused consumer confusion. It caused harm. Consumers posted complaints on his site that were clearly intended for United to resolve and not as just bitching to fill a site. The defendant admits that he knew there was consumer confusion. We won't even get into the whole discussion of doxxing employees and posting personal information online (which had already been orders stopped by the courts, this isn't a new case)
As for representing himself, I don't think that a seasoned lawyer would have done better - except to tell the guy he should have settled more than a decade ago.
"I do find it amusing that someone who spends so much time obsessing over this site is criticising others for obsessing over another site, though."
The same could be said of you Paul. Is anyone who regularly visits and contributed to a lively debate obsessed in your book? It would suggest that most of the writers on Techdirt (who posted comments before joining staff) are obsessed, not normal people.
Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
I am not confused by it.
I am confused why you refuse to read the ruling or the citation in it, or consider the bad acts and bad faith moves made by the site owner.
You can try Mike's "you don't know anything" speech now if it will make you feel better, but it still will mean you didn't bother to read the full story.
"If someone can see that, and/or even visit a site that makes it very clear that it's focused on mocking a particular company and still think that it's run by the company in question I think it's pretty clear that they're either incredibly gullible or not paying the slightest bit of attention, neither of which are worth an injunction."
It's easy to just go "people are stupid, next" (after all PaulT has posted, and he's clearly stupid). However, that doesn't make much sense.
If you got wayback the site, you will see that over time they have moved towards a site that looks remarkably like an airline or travel site. While to goal is parody, the other effect is to create confusion.
That the defendants have updated their site repeatedly to try to keep up with the site designs of United shows a desire to mislead, not just to provide information.
Oh, and about that information. It appears that a good part of the site was used to distribute United's employee's personal information, even after the courts had long held UNTIED to stop doing so.
It should be noted that Untied is not an airline, but representing itself as one is in itself misleading.
For what it's worth, the case really resolves itself in point 62 - actual consumer confusion. The defendant himself admitted the the consumers are clearly confused.
You also need to read a little more about the whole story. His entire deal (20 years of obsessing over an airline he flew once) revolves around not sitting next to his wife, not hearing a gate change notice, and having his suit crumpled. Yup, that's it - that is what triggered this guy to spend 20 years of his life on this.
Oh, and the only witness called by the defendant (who represented himself) was himself. He failed all down the line without end.
Perhaps rather than slamming me, you might want to take the time to read the judgement (58 pages is a lot for those with ADD, I guess) and come to understand why Canadian law is in some respects different from US law, and the citations and cases referenced can tell you a whole bunch about how the court came to it's judgement.
For what it's worth, the domain itself has some value (it's a valid english word, 6 letters, dot com). he can perhaps extract a few thousand dollars for the domain and consolation for wasting half his adult life over a wrinkled suit.
The court got it right. The potential for consumer confusion through a typo domain is actually fairly high, especially if they were being presented with a look alike site.
Dropping the look-alike part would fix part of it, but it for me shows intent by the defendants to confuse or mislead the public. As such, allowing them to continue to use a type domain to protest United is taking too big of a risk of ongoing customer confusion. The defendants were trying to use customer confusion and typos to benefit their campaign against United, which is really an unfair practice.
Get a domain like "wehateunited.com" or whatever and run your bitch session there. No chance of confusion there.
- you share it with everyone via social media - you share it every day via social media - you share it every day via social media - you share that on social media - you share that on social media - you share that on social media - you share that on social media - you share that on social media
The govenrment should not be restricted from collecting any and all information made public or willing given to third party as part of business records. Nor should the be restricted from using that data in any legal manner they see fit.
If you don't want the government to know, stop telling everyone else, and stop yelling it in the town square through a megaphone.
Alas, Paul, if all you are paying for is a horse track, don't complain that your 2 inches from the ground Ferrari won't go down it at full speed. The expectation that a user's internet connection can somehow magically just up and change and be 10 times the speed it is an odd concept.
Netflix has created a demand, that is for sure. But they are not to dictate when and where ISPs will spend money to invest in their networks. Netflix has over promised and is leaving the ISPs to eat shit when they under deliver.
"A decade, so about the same amount of time that the ISPs have had to invest in their infrastructure to handle the predictable rise in streaming video since it was launched in 2007"
You still have selective memory. Actually, streaming video was a novelty, and often limited to VERY small windows with insanely low resolution (320x240, if I remember correctly, with about a refresh of 5 frames a second). What Netflix is offering is up to 4K video - and streaming that is about 20 meg a second constant for the 2 hours of the movie.
We have already discussed content ratios and the way networks are built. Netflix wants your ISP to entirely change their network to support promises made by Netflix.
Sort of like me telling you that you can't use the letter E anymore, because my business model doesn't include you using E anymore.
The free market tends to generate monopolies, especially when the monopoly player can offer the service or product for significantly less than a new player could.
Google proved it. their fiber product is essentially dead because without economy of scale, without infrastructure that is already paid for, without a long built up customer list, they are unable to crack the markets and make enough money to make it worth doing.
Google has a bag full of cash and they aren't willing to waste any more of it trying to get into a marginal business.
So when you complain about monopolies, just remember that the cost of creating new competition is likely beyond what the marketplace is willing to pay in the long run. Google only got marketshare by pretty much giving away their product at what appears to be below cost, considering the reports of how much money their "special projects" have been losing. If their tried to charge the public what it cost to sets up and run a full fiber network with a reasonable return on investment, it's unlikely anyone would sign up.
All the arm waving, bitching, and lawsuits in the world won't change anything until your change the entire paradigm of the last mile.
Of course, there is always the question of sanity when it comes to someone who has "crossed over" as it were... especially a recent one where there are likely plenty of medicating going on to keep things "right".
But do you not thing that it would be more fair also to say ISPs shouldn't be forced to do massive network upgrades only to support Netflix and other major bandwidth users?
It's sort of on par with telling stores that they have to add 50% more floor space because some lazy person wants to drive their car through the aisles instead of walking.
Unlimited generally isn't "unlimited to the detriment of other customers". There is a point (just like free speech) that your unlimited access ends where my access gets limited.
Netflix uses an insane amount of bandwidth and network resources, well beyond what most networks were built for. When everyone comes home from work, sits down at 8PM, and all want to stream 4k at the same time, the network can't handle it. WoS and network traffic shaping is generally the best way to handle the situation.
Netflix is in the exact same position that P2P was a decade or so ago: A huge percentage of the total traffic, so it's likely to get "shaped" as as not to harm other customers who are just trying to access facebook or read an email from their mom.
Re: Re: Is Techdirt ever going to grasp what inTRAnet verus inTERnet means in practical terms?
Actually, it's more like Google figured out that the costs related to operating as a true ISP (including customer service, something they truly despise) was high enough that they had little or no chance to ever make the process profitable. Physically installing network (yes, including dealing with pole related issues) and actually getting the fiber into people's home is just rather expensive.
Even when they consider the added searches and users for their products, it just isn't worth it. They stopped doing fiber, and unless they can find a way to do commodity wifi for a low fixed cost, they won't be back.
Unless you have bags of money and no need to turn a profit, then netowrking at any scale is still not a very good business.
On the post: West Virginia Tries To Improve Broadband Competition, Incumbent ISPs Immediately Sue
https://landacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Virginia_population_map.png
The state is 29th or 30th in population density overall, but has a significant portion of the state with under 10 people per square mile which is very, very low in terms of trying to get broadband to people.
It shows when you look at thing like this:
https://www.highspeedinternet.com/wv
99% can get 3 meg, 93% get 10 meg, but only 44% can get 25 meg.
Bringing in new competition isn't going to change the numbers much, because newcomers are going to show up and cherry pick, wiring the highest density and ignoring the very low density land that makes up most of the state.
Did you see Google Fiber lining up to wire up rural Wyoming? Nope. They went to where there is 5000 and more people per square mile. It's the only way they had a hope of making money, and they still have pretty much tapped out.
If the state is in the right, then deal with the lawsuit like big boys and get it settled. it does look like the state would have more success if they stepped up and removed any ambiguity and took full control of the process as per the federal law. At that point, the ISPs would no longer be able to hold them hostage in any way.
My guess is 10 years from now, WV will still be near last in overall connectivity. You can't fix empty space and excessive distances to cable.
On the post: Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
It's seriously there in as many words. If you can't find it, you are an idiot, plain and simple. You have proven it so solidly in this thread that it's beyond understanding. Stop digging that hole, old man!
Next time I blow off one of your long winded answers because I do a major TL;dr and pretty much ignore you, you will know why.
On the post: Titleist Tees Up Lawsuit Against Parody Clothier Because Golf Doesn't Have A Sense Of Humor
Re: Re:
As for full of BS, consider this: These are the sorts of things that would be argued in court. I am sure that a judge would be more than willing to hear both sides of the argument, after all of the other bases have been touched on the way to the court room. Landing in court, it would still be a crap shoot, with the legal wait of the system generally sitting on the side of the trademark holder. Would you want to be the defendant here? Do you really think the defendant is in a 100% secure position, such that any and all costs related to going to court are assured to be covered?
I don't think so. I think it would be a risk because it's not a slam dunk legally. No BS, just asking the obvious questions rather than just swallowing the story whole without digesting it.
On the post: Titleist Tees Up Lawsuit Against Parody Clothier Because Golf Doesn't Have A Sense Of Humor
Re: Re:
Go ahead. Just sit down over here and talk clearly for the cameras and microphones.
On the post: Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
...and no it's not parody, it's an attack site, a vengeful sites operated by someone with an ax to grind. Oh, and in Canadian law, there is no particular provision for parody in relation to trademarks.
Game, set Match. Now be quiet!
On the post: Titleist Tees Up Lawsuit Against Parody Clothier Because Golf Doesn't Have A Sense Of Humor
I also think it also shows a desire for enrichment from the original trademark more than to make any grand parody statement. The same hat without the Titlist trademark branding wouldn't be much more than another semi-smutty piece of Americana. With the Trademark, it appears to be mostly an infringing piece of semi-smutty Americana.
I also think Mr Stone is right for once, Titlist likely has very deep pockets and can litigate this one into the ground and then 6 feet further under. There can't be enough money in making novelty smutty hats to pay for that.
On the post: Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul
Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
Parody in one thing. This is not parody. This is an upset consumer who decided to try to do as much harm as possible to an airline for (and I kid you not) apparently not telling him personally about a gate change, not sitting him next to his wife on a flight, and crumpling his suits by putting a baby cart or something on top of his suit bag. Oh, in 1996.
Read the judgement, you will see. The defendants actions caused consumer confusion. It caused harm. Consumers posted complaints on his site that were clearly intended for United to resolve and not as just bitching to fill a site. The defendant admits that he knew there was consumer confusion. We won't even get into the whole discussion of doxxing employees and posting personal information online (which had already been orders stopped by the courts, this isn't a new case)
As for representing himself, I don't think that a seasoned lawyer would have done better - except to tell the guy he should have settled more than a decade ago.
"I do find it amusing that someone who spends so much time obsessing over this site is criticising others for obsessing over another site, though."
The same could be said of you Paul. Is anyone who regularly visits and contributed to a lively debate obsessed in your book? It would suggest that most of the writers on Techdirt (who posted comments before joining staff) are obsessed, not normal people.
You failed. Stop before you make it worse.
On the post: Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul
Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
I am confused why you refuse to read the ruling or the citation in it, or consider the bad acts and bad faith moves made by the site owner.
You can try Mike's "you don't know anything" speech now if it will make you feel better, but it still will mean you didn't bother to read the full story.
On the post: Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul
Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
It's easy to just go "people are stupid, next" (after all PaulT has posted, and he's clearly stupid). However, that doesn't make much sense.
If you got wayback the site, you will see that over time they have moved towards a site that looks remarkably like an airline or travel site. While to goal is parody, the other effect is to create confusion.
That the defendants have updated their site repeatedly to try to keep up with the site designs of United shows a desire to mislead, not just to provide information.
Oh, and about that information. It appears that a good part of the site was used to distribute United's employee's personal information, even after the courts had long held UNTIED to stop doing so.
It should be noted that Untied is not an airline, but representing itself as one is in itself misleading.
For what it's worth, the case really resolves itself in point 62 - actual consumer confusion. The defendant himself admitted the the consumers are clearly confused.
You also need to read a little more about the whole story. His entire deal (20 years of obsessing over an airline he flew once) revolves around not sitting next to his wife, not hearing a gate change notice, and having his suit crumpled. Yup, that's it - that is what triggered this guy to spend 20 years of his life on this.
http://business.financialpost.com/transportation/montreal-professors-feud-with-united-airlines- heads-to-court-over-complaint-website/wcm/9b45f817-13c7-4eca-9d52-a2eaf052ae54
Oh, and the only witness called by the defendant (who represented himself) was himself. He failed all down the line without end.
Perhaps rather than slamming me, you might want to take the time to read the judgement (58 pages is a lot for those with ADD, I guess) and come to understand why Canadian law is in some respects different from US law, and the citations and cases referenced can tell you a whole bunch about how the court came to it's judgement.
For what it's worth, the domain itself has some value (it's a valid english word, 6 letters, dot com). he can perhaps extract a few thousand dollars for the domain and consolation for wasting half his adult life over a wrinkled suit.
On the post: Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul
Solid ruling
Dropping the look-alike part would fix part of it, but it for me shows intent by the defendants to confuse or mislead the public. As such, allowing them to continue to use a type domain to protest United is taking too big of a risk of ongoing customer confusion. The defendants were trying to use customer confusion and typos to benefit their campaign against United, which is really an unfair practice.
Get a domain like "wehateunited.com" or whatever and run your bitch session there. No chance of confusion there.
On the post: Senator Wyden Wants To Know How Many Times Americans Have Been Targeted By Executive Order 12333
Re: Re:
Let's do your list:
- you share it with everyone via social media
- you share it every day via social media
- you share it every day via social media
- you share that on social media
- you share that on social media
- you share that on social media
- you share that on social media
- you share that on social media
The govenrment should not be restricted from collecting any and all information made public or willing given to third party as part of business records. Nor should the be restricted from using that data in any legal manner they see fit.
If you don't want the government to know, stop telling everyone else, and stop yelling it in the town square through a megaphone.
On the post: Verizon Throttles Netflix Subscribers In 'Test' It Doesn't Inform Customers About
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Not Correct....
Netflix has created a demand, that is for sure. But they are not to dictate when and where ISPs will spend money to invest in their networks. Netflix has over promised and is leaving the ISPs to eat shit when they under deliver.
"A decade, so about the same amount of time that the ISPs have had to invest in their infrastructure to handle the predictable rise in streaming video since it was launched in 2007"
You still have selective memory. Actually, streaming video was a novelty, and often limited to VERY small windows with insanely low resolution (320x240, if I remember correctly, with about a refresh of 5 frames a second). What Netflix is offering is up to 4K video - and streaming that is about 20 meg a second constant for the 2 hours of the movie.
We have already discussed content ratios and the way networks are built. Netflix wants your ISP to entirely change their network to support promises made by Netflix.
Sort of like me telling you that you can't use the letter E anymore, because my business model doesn't include you using E anymore.
On the post: Senator Wyden Wants To Know How Many Times Americans Have Been Targeted By Executive Order 12333
On the post: Lawsuits Pile Up For CenturyLink After Years Of Bogus Fees, Fraudulent Billing
Economy of scale and the free market
Google proved it. their fiber product is essentially dead because without economy of scale, without infrastructure that is already paid for, without a long built up customer list, they are unable to crack the markets and make enough money to make it worth doing.
Google has a bag full of cash and they aren't willing to waste any more of it trying to get into a marginal business.
So when you complain about monopolies, just remember that the cost of creating new competition is likely beyond what the marketplace is willing to pay in the long run. Google only got marketshare by pretty much giving away their product at what appears to be below cost, considering the reports of how much money their "special projects" have been losing. If their tried to charge the public what it cost to sets up and run a full fiber network with a reasonable return on investment, it's unlikely anyone would sign up.
All the arm waving, bitching, and lawsuits in the world won't change anything until your change the entire paradigm of the last mile.
On the post: Game Music Composer Goes On DMCA Blitz Against Innocent YouTubers Over Contract Dispute With Game Publisher
Re: Pass the Popcorn
On the post: Verizon Throttles Netflix Subscribers In 'Test' It Doesn't Inform Customers About
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It's sort of on par with telling stores that they have to add 50% more floor space because some lazy person wants to drive their car through the aisles instead of walking.
On the post: Verizon Throttles Netflix Subscribers In 'Test' It Doesn't Inform Customers About
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Not Correct....
Netflix uses an insane amount of bandwidth and network resources, well beyond what most networks were built for. When everyone comes home from work, sits down at 8PM, and all want to stream 4k at the same time, the network can't handle it. WoS and network traffic shaping is generally the best way to handle the situation.
Netflix is in the exact same position that P2P was a decade or so ago: A huge percentage of the total traffic, so it's likely to get "shaped" as as not to harm other customers who are just trying to access facebook or read an email from their mom.
On the post: Verizon Throttles Netflix Subscribers In 'Test' It Doesn't Inform Customers About
Re: Re: Not Correct....
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/21/16010766/verizon-netflix-throttling-statement-net-neutrality -title-ii
Even they changed the title of their piece because the realized that it was just plain wrong.
Netflix just happens to be a huge bandwidth hog with a speed meter in it's software, so people know exactly what it's doing.
For the record, my Netflix speed is 310. Then again, I live in a civilized place.
On the post: Verizon Throttles Netflix Subscribers In 'Test' It Doesn't Inform Customers About
Re: Re: Is Techdirt ever going to grasp what inTRAnet verus inTERnet means in practical terms?
Even when they consider the added searches and users for their products, it just isn't worth it. They stopped doing fiber, and unless they can find a way to do commodity wifi for a low fixed cost, they won't be back.
Unless you have bags of money and no need to turn a profit, then netowrking at any scale is still not a very good business.
On the post: Verizon Throttles Netflix Subscribers In 'Test' It Doesn't Inform Customers About
Not Correct....
Once you remove the scary "one company is getting attacked" it starts to just sound like regular network management.
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