Sure it's possible, but in that case the person/people doing those searches are the ones at fault (and there could be a claim for defamation there, I guess), not Google for reporting the fact that those searches are happening.
Ultimately, it would be a statement of fact - "a significant number of people have been searching for this combination of words". What more is there to say ? It really shouldn't matter whether I like the particular fact or not, I shouldn't have any way to prevent others from stating it.
What Google should have done when the RIAA+MPAA came along insisting that they filter autocomplete is to instead put a hefty disclaimer/explanation of exactly what autocomplete *is*. Of course they'd sue anyway, but they'd have a tough time getting a court to say "No, Google, you cannot legally state that fact".
At some point, some of these people surely have to realise that if they just make enough exceptions and exemptions that copyright moves back out of our living rooms and returns to being a law that only affects businesses (including, of course, people who want to make a living creating content), then they can go back to the world where the general public won't care about copyright law.
Having followed the copyright reform process in Canada for over a decade, though, it's pretty clear that the "user-friendly" parts of the law that eventually got passed are mostly there because the government was afraid that without them they wouldn't get re-elected, and the "DRM uber alles" part makes them meaningless anyway.
Sales dropping "like 90% or so" isn't customer feedback ?
Personally, I'll wait to see whether the actions match up with the words before they get more of my money. As somebody above said, I hope they realise that it's going to take a while for their customers to start to trust them again, even if this really does signal a major change in policy.
Damn. I wondered as I was adding those parts whether it would detract from the important part of my argument, and sure enough, you ignored my second, third and fourth paras to attack the parenthetical part.
And yes you *are* competing with people selling exactly the same thing - the bitstreams are indistinguishable. If you choose to (try to) recoup your investment by selling copies, you're going to compete with other people selling copies. Who invested to make copy #1 is irrelevant. That's why "selling copies" is stupid (except for copy #1, where you have a natural monopoly). The key question is why should we distort our free market system to allow you to have a profitable business selling copies ?
As far as I can see, nobody *had to* invest in the creation of the original content. They made a business decision to do so or not.
So essentially you want to grant people creating content a competition-free window wherein they can sell copies at an inflated price and not worry about competition. That's not an unreasonable argument in itself (although it would be really nice to actually hear it phrased that way by its proponents once in a while). It does run into an awful lot of practical problems, though - how long should the window be ? and how do we prevent people from competing anyway ? being the two biggies.
In practice, there doesn't seem to be any answer to the second of those, and apparently we're supposed to accept "essentially forever" as the answer to the first.
So this is the point at which people like me start to say that this "copyright" scheme of granting monopolies seems to cause more problems than it solves, so is it really necessary to distort the free market by granting these monopolies in the first place ?
Any argument that relies on "sell for what they [the content producers] feel is fair" is not a free-market argument - in a free market, you don't get to pick the price you feel is fair without everyone else having the ability to also sell for less.
(if I was selling that first copy to a TV network or billionaire, the deal would be along the lines of "pay me $gazillions, and I won't give anyone else a copy for a month", so its being legal to show it for free on the Internet is irrelevant).
Really, his mistake was getting caught.
If he'd gotten away with it, he'd be fine.
And no doubt if he'd convinced the laundrette that the only reason he'd tried the stunt was because he was so desperately poor, and really it's good for society as a whole for him to have clean clothes, and so they'd ended up giving him free laundry service for life, *then* he'd certainly not be a lowly call center guy...
Sure, if they want to *try to* sell a copy for $100, that certainly is their choice, but why should everyone else be *prevented* from selling copies for $10, or $1, or $0.01, or free ? As I understand it, the answer is "because then the person trying to sell for $100 can't compete". Well, so what ?
Of course until they sell that *first* copy, they have a natural (non-government-granted) monopoly, and I bet they could get certain people (the owners of movie theaters, for example, or TV networks, or billionaires wanting to impress their friends) to pay way *more* than $100 for that *first* copy, and likely even for the second, third, fourth and fifth copes. Which would tend to indicate that there are still plenty of business models that would work, even without any government-granted monopolies. Now if only somebody would write a blog with ideas on possible business models that don't rely on these government-granted monopolies...
Have to admit that my experience has been the same. I always opt for the pat-down rather than the scary machines. I've had to wait for a few minutes once or twice, and I've had to respond to some questions along the lines of "you know that it's not an x-ray machine, right ?" but the whole process has generally been quite painless - obviously unusual for the people doing the job, but not so unusual that they don't know how they're supposed to do it.
Having said that, I have made the conscious decision not to travel to the USA a number of times in the last few years, just because the benefits of the trip didn't seem worth the hassles of flying in and out of the USA.
If all the people who don't like the way the US has changed over the last couple of decades leave, what does that leave ? A bunch of idiots, the people who enjoy subjugating them, and NUCLEAR WEAPONS. That's a bad, bad combo.
Those of us who don't live there can't fix it - it's up to you.
But they don't want "fair (to the customer)", they want "what we consider fair". Hence, DRM, which filters out all the people who don't want to pay what they're asking, don't want to jump through the hurdles they decide to put in the way, are in the wrong country, etc, leaving just the obedient customers who will pay what they ask, how they ask, and will "go without" when they decide that they should.
The fact that the rest of them are still getting the product, but are now not paying *anything* is, of course, then pointed out to politicians as justification to turn the Internet into Cable TV.
When you look at it correctly, DRM makes perfect sense.
"opportunists would one day use his name and image to promote stuff he'd never want to be associated with"
A moment's thought would show that what "he'd want to be associated with" can only actually be determined while he's still alive (and able to make those sort of decisions), making the whole idea self-contradictory.
And here's me thinking that because the FBI doesn't have jurisdiction in Canada, I could ignore those FBI warnings at the start of DVDs! Now I see why they make them unskippable.
"Elmo never tries to stop people recording him. Elmo never tries to take their cameras. Elmo just remembers to smile and to be polite, so the person gets great pictures of Elmo"
"I fully expect that the State Department will now seek to tapdance its way around this -- or (more likely) not answer until after the cybersecurity debate is over."
At which point they say "Yep, that's right. Thank you", right ? Isn't that the ideal result from their point of view ?
On the post: Google's Autocomplete Dilemma: Every Concession Makes It Easier For The Next Person To Complain
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Google's Autocomplete Dilemma: Every Concession Makes It Easier For The Next Person To Complain
Re:
What Google should have done when the RIAA+MPAA came along insisting that they filter autocomplete is to instead put a hefty disclaimer/explanation of exactly what autocomplete *is*. Of course they'd sue anyway, but they'd have a tough time getting a court to say "No, Google, you cannot legally state that fact".
On the post: Yet Another Study Says First Person Shooters Are Good For Your Eyesight
Great
On the post: Is The Tide Turning On Bad Copyright Laws?
Perhaps
Having followed the copyright reform process in Canada for over a decade, though, it's pretty clear that the "user-friendly" parts of the law that eventually got passed are mostly there because the government was afraid that without them they wouldn't get re-elected, and the "DRM uber alles" part makes them meaningless anyway.
On the post: Ubisoft Learns Hitting Customers Over The Head And Calling Them Thieves Is Not Good Policy
Re:
Personally, I'll wait to see whether the actions match up with the words before they get more of my money. As somebody above said, I hope they realise that it's going to take a while for their customers to start to trust them again, even if this really does signal a major change in policy.
On the post: The Legacy Entertainment Industry's Business Model: Charge A Ridiculous Markup On The 'Copy File' Command
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
And yes you *are* competing with people selling exactly the same thing - the bitstreams are indistinguishable. If you choose to (try to) recoup your investment by selling copies, you're going to compete with other people selling copies. Who invested to make copy #1 is irrelevant. That's why "selling copies" is stupid (except for copy #1, where you have a natural monopoly). The key question is why should we distort our free market system to allow you to have a profitable business selling copies ?
On the post: The Legacy Entertainment Industry's Business Model: Charge A Ridiculous Markup On The 'Copy File' Command
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So essentially you want to grant people creating content a competition-free window wherein they can sell copies at an inflated price and not worry about competition. That's not an unreasonable argument in itself (although it would be really nice to actually hear it phrased that way by its proponents once in a while). It does run into an awful lot of practical problems, though - how long should the window be ? and how do we prevent people from competing anyway ? being the two biggies.
In practice, there doesn't seem to be any answer to the second of those, and apparently we're supposed to accept "essentially forever" as the answer to the first.
So this is the point at which people like me start to say that this "copyright" scheme of granting monopolies seems to cause more problems than it solves, so is it really necessary to distort the free market by granting these monopolies in the first place ?
Any argument that relies on "sell for what they [the content producers] feel is fair" is not a free-market argument - in a free market, you don't get to pick the price you feel is fair without everyone else having the ability to also sell for less.
(if I was selling that first copy to a TV network or billionaire, the deal would be along the lines of "pay me $gazillions, and I won't give anyone else a copy for a month", so its being legal to show it for free on the Internet is irrelevant).
On the post: Big Banks Finally Punishing Employees For Fraud... Like The Call Center Guy Who Used A Fake Dime 50 Years Ago
Re: His Mistake
If he'd gotten away with it, he'd be fine.
And no doubt if he'd convinced the laundrette that the only reason he'd tried the stunt was because he was so desperately poor, and really it's good for society as a whole for him to have clean clothes, and so they'd ended up giving him free laundry service for life, *then* he'd certainly not be a lowly call center guy...
On the post: The Legacy Entertainment Industry's Business Model: Charge A Ridiculous Markup On The 'Copy File' Command
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Of course until they sell that *first* copy, they have a natural (non-government-granted) monopoly, and I bet they could get certain people (the owners of movie theaters, for example, or TV networks, or billionaires wanting to impress their friends) to pay way *more* than $100 for that *first* copy, and likely even for the second, third, fourth and fifth copes. Which would tend to indicate that there are still plenty of business models that would work, even without any government-granted monopolies. Now if only somebody would write a blog with ideas on possible business models that don't rely on these government-granted monopolies...
On the post: HBO Go Goes Everywhere... Except Your TV Set
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: TSA Declares Themselves Fashion & Funny Police
Re: Re: In defense of the TSA
Having said that, I have made the conscious decision not to travel to the USA a number of times in the last few years, just because the benefits of the trip didn't seem worth the hassles of flying in and out of the USA.
On the post: TSA Declares Themselves Fashion & Funny Police
Re: Re:
If all the people who don't like the way the US has changed over the last couple of decades leave, what does that leave ? A bunch of idiots, the people who enjoy subjugating them, and NUCLEAR WEAPONS. That's a bad, bad combo.
Those of us who don't live there can't fix it - it's up to you.
On the post: HBO Go Goes Everywhere... Except Your TV Set
Re: Re:
The fact that the rest of them are still getting the product, but are now not paying *anything* is, of course, then pointed out to politicians as justification to turn the Internet into Cable TV.
When you look at it correctly, DRM makes perfect sense.
On the post: Guilty Until Proven Licensed: FACT Shuts Down Torrent Tracker Despite Cooperation
Re: Re:
On the post: The Return Of The Living Dead: Publicity Rights Legislation Continues To Grant Protection To Famous Corpses
A bit of logic, please ?
A moment's thought would show that what "he'd want to be associated with" can only actually be determined while he's still alive (and able to make those sort of decisions), making the whole idea self-contradictory.
On the post: Video Of Dotcom Raid Revealed, As NZ Police Admit It Was 'Over The Top'
Re:
On the post: Did You Know That Professional Writing Is Dying And Only Taxing The Public To Pay Writers Can Save It
In short
On the post: New Patent Reform Bill Defines Software Patents; Targets Trolls
Defining software patents
On the post: One Day After DC Police Told Not To Interfere With Citizens Recording Them... Police Seize Man's Phone
Re: Read the memo? Really?
On the post: Wyden Traps Feds In Their Own Words: ACTA Explanation Opens Up Big Hole In Cybersecurity Bill
At which point they say "Yep, that's right. Thank you", right ? Isn't that the ideal result from their point of view ?
Next >>