"...if people use pieces and bits of something to create something new others shouldn't be able ever to stop anybody from doing it...."
Is changing the title enough to claim it a "derivative art?" How about just the character names in a story other-wise copied word-for-word?
Is "incorporating" a 3 minute "bit" of a 4 minute video legal? How about 3:59? Or is okay claim all 4 minutes as yours? What if I run it backwards and call it "Your video - backwards". Is that a now a distinct piece of art that I can charge for and not give you a dime for your hard work?
I don't know where the limits are. Maybe there are none. Maybe all art should be free and artist should produce Art for nothing more than a free loft, a loaf of bread, and a blanket to make a bed out of.
I know as a software developer I would be ticked off if someone were to sell/give away my code without my permission. That is my livelihood, and unless you're paying me to write the code - then you don't have a right to change the colors and call it your own.
How about this. Take your idea - and screw the record industry. Keep turntable.fm operational, and use the Point-to-Point functionality of the (soon to be "standard") HTML 5 standard (or at least the web-sockets standard).
Google is already planning serverless applications (think Skype implemented in Javascript) - at least that's my understanding. What this means is that if there is a route - there's a way.
Example - Joe has access to Turntable.fm. You have peer-to-peer access to Joe. Now you have a live unblockable proxy to Turntable.fm.
Does it matter who "owns" the electronic "copy" if it is deemed that personal backups on cloud devices are legal (as I suspect they will be)?
In other words can John share his locker with Ben as long as they are not both listening to the music in two different places at the same time? In the same way that physical media can be borrowed?
If that is legal, then note: Why couldn't Pandora do the same? Or your local library for that matter? As long as only one device is receiving the stream at a time, then you could make the argument that if the service purchased the music, and as long as only a single person (device) was listening at a time, then there are no additional licensing that needs to be paid. And if you want to stream the same song to more than one device at a time? Easy - buy multiple copies. Still no need to pay recurring licenses from that point on.
I was the primary developer for the Rhode Island Open Meetings project for the Rhode Island Secretary of State.
The project required all of the governmental and quasi-governmental agencies to post their meeting notices within 24 hours of the meeting being held and voluntary posting of minutes after the fact. Basically if they did not post the notice with our system, then by law, the meeting didn't happen. It was a proud moment when the first constituent complaints started to trickle in, forcing local government boards to start doing a lot of explaining... and having to re-hold meetings until they started following the law.
What was most disturbing, and most predictable, was that the general assembly, probably the one governmental body that generates the most interest..... conveniently wrote themselves out of the law.
Ballsy and unscrupulous. Without resorting to extreme profanity, I have no idea how else to describe politicians.
XS - do you know for fact it's a service vs an app?
From the user perspective the difference is probably immaterial, but from a technology perspective it's key.
A service implies that ZITE is collecting, manipulating, and rebroadcasting content. If the App is reading publicly available web content, there is no law that states that the HTML code (markup) must be respected. Are you under a different impression?
Using the logos is probably the biggest issue here. You can't claim or imply that Time Mag consents, much less contributes to, your app when in fact they do not.
But as long as the App is not reaching behind a paywall (even a "free" paywall) then I would have to agree that this is really just a browser. There is no law that I know of that requires a browser to respect HTML markup. So if the content provider puts their content on the web for free-global consumption, then the content will be consumed by all.
If you don't get that, then you don't get the Internet. That simple.
You don't need to be a farmer to realize that Monsanto is Public Enemy #1.
Suing farmers who are the recipient of wind blown GMO seed? How the hell did that happen? Farmers should be suing Monsanto for polluting their land.
Suing Organic growers for labeling their food "No GMO" or "No GMH" and claiming defamation because it *implies* that having GMO or GMH is bad? How about allowing the public the right to know what is in their food?
If the Tea Party really wants to get Government out of their pockets and saving consumers and tax payers $billions - then attack the farm subsidies, milk subsidies, sugar import bans, sugar quota rules, and ethanol subsidies and let corn, sugar, and milk sell at the real-world levels. Stop paying growers to not grow!
Monsanto is not helping anyone other than themselves. They've polluted our food, they've made it more expensive to grow, and they've all but killed the independent grower. $4.50/lb for cereal my ass!
I wish these farmers much luck. I am willing to contribute to their defense fund. Where do I send the check?
Sure I'll recant. Of course the likelihood of me coming back to this thread is minimal. But it certainly won't be from hiding or being afraid of my past words. Of course you still won't like what I write....it will probably be along the lines of:
"Looks like the NYT finally got their sh!t together - hooray for them - their paywall is rock solid."
Mmmm... So what message are you going to come back here with in a year when the grand experiment is shown to be a failure? I'm fairly confident we won't hear from you.
I can't f*cking believe this. The paid $40M for a javascript-based paywall that can be defeated by simply turing off JS?
Bawwawahhhahahhaahhahhhahhaahhahah
$40 million.....LOLOL
WTF - did they not even consider SERVER side authentication? $40 Million must have included $39.5 million in promotion, $400K in equipment and $50k in "user studies". The intern who wrote that was still overpaid.
That's what I do with Fox News. I avoid their site, and if I happen to click on a news article from them I quickly close my browser, promise myself I'll never do it again, and shower with a scrub brush.
The capital for Mr. Mathers existing catalog has already been paid AND (I suspect) already paid back.
The labels may not like the idea that their profit is going to go to the performer, but too bad. If their position is to receive 25% or nothing - on an investment already made - why would they take *their* music and go home?
What marketing/distribution and hundreds of other jobs are needed to allow iTunes to handle the Marketing/distribution?
There is no distribution cost (iTunes pays them). There is no inventory cost (it's virtual). There can be additional marketing costs - but that's not required to get the music distributed, and in some cases it is already handled by the distributor - because the distributor wants to make money too.
That's the issue here. The major labels can't think past the CD. Distribution channels are so cheap that it really comes down to "click on file upload. check box to agree to let XYZ.com sell your Music. Done."
Yes it's harsh that the Internet is destroying the music business. And by music business I mean the suits. The performers, mixers, song writers, editors, etc.... The place where the money SHOULD be going - they will continue to thrive. Those artist who can't do it themselves will hire it out - but the labels can no longer assume that it will be them doing that - and certainly not by "default".
I would agree that *ultimately* the person/group/business/affilate doing the actual unlawful act should be held liable. BUT...it would be a two-step process.
The business who runs the affiliate program is liable for the paying of the fine levied by the government. If this fine is due to the actions of a 3rd party "contractor" (affiliate) then the company would have grounds for suing the affiliate.
This eliminates the "bogus/shadow" affiliate concern that are really setup by the company themselves.
I don't know if there is a paid editorial team, but they are essentially hand-picking from (I assume) submitted stories and RSS Feeds, including embedding remote video content.
Which really should be an post from Mike (maybe there is a TD article about it, but I missed it) about how two multi-hundred-million dollar mavericks have fun with each rather than suing - and driving more traffic (revenue) to boot.
Has nothing to do wiith writing - just another Union
So they call it a "guild". It's a Union. One of the safest, cushiest, jobs on the planet - for some reason, needs a Union?
We all know what Unions hate. Self-made (wo)men. The person who knows their own value, who can think for themselves, and who are willing to "give" when no one else is giving or hold-back when everyone else is pandering - those are, in the eyes of the Union, the scrounge of the Earth.
The self-made (wo)man can write for the HP and catapult their career to new heights - all for the time it takes to write a couple of damn-good articles.
The unionist can't do this. Won't do this. They will write when told to write, and won't when told not to - all for a common wage. Because the unionist doesn't know how to market themselves, don't know their value, and don't want to take the risk.
In their eyes it's *unfair* that others have more talent - or worse, less talent at writing, but more talent at marketing, and somehow stumble into fame and fortune.
Why was their a guild? To protect the writers from the big-bad newspaper owners. Why was their a guild? Because the writers couldn't - or weren't willing - to walk away from the newspapers. They weren't willing to stand up for what they were worth - they didn't know what they were worth. They had to rely on the Union (guild) to do that for them.
This is true for every Union. When people are willing to work a low wage for a hard/backbreaking/dangerous job - the Union is there to protect them. Because they can't, on their own, walk away.
"...We already have a tiered system that allows people to pay based on how fast of a connection they need/want. So why do we need another tier for how much they can use the connection they want..."
There is really no difference in the two. Either you pay based on what you think you'll use on a system that will limit your max throughput or you pay by the bit. One is an estimate the other is closer to reality - in the end your bill will probably the same.
If this is what we are left with, then all we are really debating is marketing schemes. In which case I ask all my TD brothern: Why the hell do we care how a company markets their Internet Connection. (as long as they're being truthful)
From a Net Neutrality issue, we should only be concerned about how they (if they do) split up the data. Are they packet forming? Do they charge me for text at a different rate than video? Are they trying to double-charge Google or other sites I go to? Are they preventing VOIP? These are real concerns.
Whether AT&T charges me by the bit, nibble, byte, wordlength, packet, estimated usage, time-of-day, MB/week, GB/Month, TB/Month for a 10MB/sec 20MB/sec 100MB/sec connection..... who cares? Sure I care at a individual consumer level - but not from a general "there should be a law against this" policy level.
Dial up didn't fail. On the contrary it was hugely successful. They had to (could) charge different rates based on time of day usage (and data consumption) because it was so successful. The only problem with dial up was that it became obsolete. Copper lines (and the switches behind them) have a max bandwidth (again - not an infinite good).
DSL then Cable eclipsed the technology. It had nothing to do with pricing schemes.
I mean once you're able to get backbone speeds (at the time) direct to your house at a not much higher price, why would you even consider a 56k dialup?
It got to be considered so slow (due to the alternatives being so fast) that it couldn't even be given away ('NetZero anyone?)
On the post: We Need To Let Go Of The Idea That Our Creations Are Utterly Ours
Re: Re: To what limit?
Is changing the title enough to claim it a "derivative art?" How about just the character names in a story other-wise copied word-for-word?
Is "incorporating" a 3 minute "bit" of a 4 minute video legal? How about 3:59? Or is okay claim all 4 minutes as yours? What if I run it backwards and call it "Your video - backwards". Is that a now a distinct piece of art that I can charge for and not give you a dime for your hard work?
I don't know where the limits are. Maybe there are none. Maybe all art should be free and artist should produce Art for nothing more than a free loft, a loaf of bread, and a blanket to make a bed out of.
I know as a software developer I would be ticked off if someone were to sell/give away my code without my permission. That is my livelihood, and unless you're paying me to write the code - then you don't have a right to change the colors and call it your own.
-CF
On the post: How Turntable.fm Could Be Even More Awesome... And Make Everyone Money
HTML 5/web-sockets Rerouter
Google is already planning serverless applications (think Skype implemented in Javascript) - at least that's my understanding. What this means is that if there is a route - there's a way.
Example - Joe has access to Turntable.fm. You have peer-to-peer access to Joe. Now you have a live unblockable proxy to Turntable.fm.
Let the revolution commence!
-CF
On the post: BMI Says A Single Person Listening To His Own Music Via The Cloud Is A Public Performance
Implication RE Internet Radio
Does it matter who "owns" the electronic "copy" if it is deemed that personal backups on cloud devices are legal (as I suspect they will be)?
In other words can John share his locker with Ben as long as they are not both listening to the music in two different places at the same time? In the same way that physical media can be borrowed?
If that is legal, then note: Why couldn't Pandora do the same? Or your local library for that matter? As long as only one device is receiving the stream at a time, then you could make the argument that if the service purchased the music, and as long as only a single person (device) was listening at a time, then there are no additional licensing that needs to be paid. And if you want to stream the same song to more than one device at a time? Easy - buy multiple copies. Still no need to pay recurring licenses from that point on.
Am I missing something?
-CF
On the post: Open Data, Transparency Sites That Helped Gov't Save Billions To Be Shut Down Over $30 Million?
Been there... Done that....
The project required all of the governmental and quasi-governmental agencies to post their meeting notices within 24 hours of the meeting being held and voluntary posting of minutes after the fact. Basically if they did not post the notice with our system, then by law, the meeting didn't happen. It was a proud moment when the first constituent complaints started to trickle in, forcing local government boards to start doing a lot of explaining... and having to re-hold meetings until they started following the law.
What was most disturbing, and most predictable, was that the general assembly, probably the one governmental body that generates the most interest..... conveniently wrote themselves out of the law.
Ballsy and unscrupulous. Without resorting to extreme profanity, I have no idea how else to describe politicians.
-CF
On the post: Big Media To Innovative App Maker: Stop Innovating Without Our Permission!
Re: Sorry Mike, you are wrong on this one
From the user perspective the difference is probably immaterial, but from a technology perspective it's key.
A service implies that ZITE is collecting, manipulating, and rebroadcasting content. If the App is reading publicly available web content, there is no law that states that the HTML code (markup) must be respected. Are you under a different impression?
-CF
On the post: Big Media To Innovative App Maker: Stop Innovating Without Our Permission!
Use of logos to promote app
But as long as the App is not reaching behind a paywall (even a "free" paywall) then I would have to agree that this is really just a browser. There is no law that I know of that requires a browser to respect HTML markup. So if the content provider puts their content on the web for free-global consumption, then the content will be consumed by all.
If you don't get that, then you don't get the Internet. That simple.
-CF
On the post: Big Media To Innovative App Maker: Stop Innovating Without Our Permission!
Re: 10 pages of Lawyers
-CF
On the post: Monsanto Sued By Organic Farmers Who Don't Want To Be Accused Of Patent Infringement
Monsanto is Public Enemy #1
Suing farmers who are the recipient of wind blown GMO seed? How the hell did that happen? Farmers should be suing Monsanto for polluting their land.
Suing Organic growers for labeling their food "No GMO" or "No GMH" and claiming defamation because it *implies* that having GMO or GMH is bad? How about allowing the public the right to know what is in their food?
If the Tea Party really wants to get Government out of their pockets and saving consumers and tax payers $billions - then attack the farm subsidies, milk subsidies, sugar import bans, sugar quota rules, and ethanol subsidies and let corn, sugar, and milk sell at the real-world levels. Stop paying growers to not grow!
Monsanto is not helping anyone other than themselves. They've polluted our food, they've made it more expensive to grow, and they've all but killed the independent grower. $4.50/lb for cereal my ass!
I wish these farmers much luck. I am willing to contribute to their defense fund. Where do I send the check?
Fricken Monsanto.
-CF
On the post: NY Times In Denial: Only Teens & The Unemployed Will Game The Paywall
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Looks like the NYT finally got their sh!t together - hooray for them - their paywall is rock solid."
Mmmm... So what message are you going to come back here with in a year when the grand experiment is shown to be a failure? I'm fairly confident we won't hear from you.
-CF
On the post: NY Times In Denial: Only Teens & The Unemployed Will Game The Paywall
Re: Re: Re: Yeah right ....
-CF
On the post: NY Times In Denial: Only Teens & The Unemployed Will Game The Paywall
Re: Re:
Bawwawahhhahahhaahhahhhahhaahhahah
$40 million.....LOLOL
WTF - did they not even consider SERVER side authentication? $40 Million must have included $39.5 million in promotion, $400K in equipment and $50k in "user studies". The intern who wrote that was still overpaid.
-CF
On the post: NY Times In Denial: Only Teens & The Unemployed Will Game The Paywall
Re:
-CF
On the post: Forget Infringement, Major Labels Should Be Worrying About Having To Pay Much Higher Royalties On Downloads
Re: Re: Re:
The labels may not like the idea that their profit is going to go to the performer, but too bad. If their position is to receive 25% or nothing - on an investment already made - why would they take *their* music and go home?
What marketing/distribution and hundreds of other jobs are needed to allow iTunes to handle the Marketing/distribution?
There is no distribution cost (iTunes pays them). There is no inventory cost (it's virtual). There can be additional marketing costs - but that's not required to get the music distributed, and in some cases it is already handled by the distributor - because the distributor wants to make money too.
That's the issue here. The major labels can't think past the CD. Distribution channels are so cheap that it really comes down to "click on file upload. check box to agree to let XYZ.com sell your Music. Done."
Yes it's harsh that the Internet is destroying the music business. And by music business I mean the suits. The performers, mixers, song writers, editors, etc.... The place where the money SHOULD be going - they will continue to thrive. Those artist who can't do it themselves will hire it out - but the labels can no longer assume that it will be them doing that - and certainly not by "default".
-CF
On the post: Should A Company Be Liable For What Its Affiliates Do?
Re: To a degree
The business who runs the affiliate program is liable for the paying of the fine levied by the government. If this fine is due to the actions of a 3rd party "contractor" (affiliate) then the company would have grounds for suing the affiliate.
This eliminates the "bogus/shadow" affiliate concern that are really setup by the company themselves.
-CF
On the post: If You Think Writing For Free Undermines Your Profession, Just Don't Do It!
Re: Re:
-CF
On the post: If You Think Writing For Free Undermines Your Profession, Just Don't Do It!
Re:
See the Steven Colbert take on the HuffPo
http://www.colbertnation.com/ColbuffingtonRe-post
and their response
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huffbertnation/
Which really should be an post from Mike (maybe there is a TD article about it, but I missed it) about how two multi-hundred-million dollar mavericks have fun with each rather than suing - and driving more traffic (revenue) to boot.
-CF
On the post: If You Think Writing For Free Undermines Your Profession, Just Don't Do It!
Has nothing to do wiith writing - just another Union
We all know what Unions hate. Self-made (wo)men. The person who knows their own value, who can think for themselves, and who are willing to "give" when no one else is giving or hold-back when everyone else is pandering - those are, in the eyes of the Union, the scrounge of the Earth.
The self-made (wo)man can write for the HP and catapult their career to new heights - all for the time it takes to write a couple of damn-good articles.
The unionist can't do this. Won't do this. They will write when told to write, and won't when told not to - all for a common wage. Because the unionist doesn't know how to market themselves, don't know their value, and don't want to take the risk.
In their eyes it's *unfair* that others have more talent - or worse, less talent at writing, but more talent at marketing, and somehow stumble into fame and fortune.
Why was their a guild? To protect the writers from the big-bad newspaper owners. Why was their a guild? Because the writers couldn't - or weren't willing - to walk away from the newspapers. They weren't willing to stand up for what they were worth - they didn't know what they were worth. They had to rely on the Union (guild) to do that for them.
This is true for every Union. When people are willing to work a low wage for a hard/backbreaking/dangerous job - the Union is there to protect them. Because they can't, on their own, walk away.
-CF
On the post: Fantasy Island, Time Warner Style: You WANT To Pay More For Broadband
Re: Re: So 'insiders' do work for techdirt
Nothing left of AC but a pile of steaming...clothes.
On the post: Fantasy Island, Time Warner Style: You WANT To Pay More For Broadband
Re: Re: Re: Re: Economics
There is really no difference in the two. Either you pay based on what you think you'll use on a system that will limit your max throughput or you pay by the bit. One is an estimate the other is closer to reality - in the end your bill will probably the same.
If this is what we are left with, then all we are really debating is marketing schemes. In which case I ask all my TD brothern: Why the hell do we care how a company markets their Internet Connection. (as long as they're being truthful)
From a Net Neutrality issue, we should only be concerned about how they (if they do) split up the data. Are they packet forming? Do they charge me for text at a different rate than video? Are they trying to double-charge Google or other sites I go to? Are they preventing VOIP? These are real concerns.
Whether AT&T charges me by the bit, nibble, byte, wordlength, packet, estimated usage, time-of-day, MB/week, GB/Month, TB/Month for a 10MB/sec 20MB/sec 100MB/sec connection..... who cares? Sure I care at a individual consumer level - but not from a general "there should be a law against this" policy level.
-CF
On the post: Fantasy Island, Time Warner Style: You WANT To Pay More For Broadband
Re: They tried that...
DSL then Cable eclipsed the technology. It had nothing to do with pricing schemes.
I mean once you're able to get backbone speeds (at the time) direct to your house at a not much higher price, why would you even consider a 56k dialup?
It got to be considered so slow (due to the alternatives being so fast) that it couldn't even be given away ('NetZero anyone?)
-CF
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