Well Mike, it's not that simple. Let's take the 67 cents per song as the goal here. Now, the record labels aren't really needing to make 67 cents per song downloaded. They just need to make as much money as with iTunes. Now, if instead of 67 cents per song, they get 67/1000 cents per song from advertising (or $0.67 CPM which is quite reasonable) all they need is 1000 downloads to replace every iTunes download. Now, I don't know if that is possible or not, but it does not seem impossible at all given how the downloads are free. It's not guaranteed to work, but nothing is.
A second thing to think about is that piracy does have a heavy cost for the pirate. There is always the risk of getting caught. That requires taking elaborate counter-measures and still fearing getting caught and getting slapped with ridiculous fines. I know quite a few people who would be willing to sit through an ad for the peace of mind of not risking getting caught.
I think a more important point is that jurors have NEVER depended solely upon what jurors tell them. I follow a number of legal blogs (while not being a legal professional myself) and so I have an informed (somewhat) opinion on a number of controversial legal issues that could come up during a trial. If a lawyer is working against that opinion, (s)he will have to do a lot more work to convince me than if I did not have previous access to those blogs etc... Furthermore, at this point, I have started considering that my personal knowledge is not limited to what is stored in my head, but also includes anything I can Google or Wiki in under 2 minutes. (Though that may mean that I am mostly knowledgeable about pornography) As a result, I find being cut from those artificially to be quite ludicrous. Some adaptation is necessary, but banning looking up the case is probably not the answer. Allowing jurors to ask questions, or bring up points that could then later be addressed according to the rules of evidence seems to be the most logical choice.
I'm sorry Mike, but I'm fairly certain that freedom of speech and freedom of the press were never meant to cover publishing naked/sex pictures of people who did not consent to having those pictures published. It makes a lot of sense that privacy laws would enable you to prevent rag-sheets from publishing your private information.
And, publishing random tidbits of Tiger Woods' personal life is NOT just an expression of the right of the public to know. The "public" does not have a right to know about who sleeps with whom and who is flirting with whom and whose marriage is going how. I'm endlessly surprised and disappointed by the extent to which even supposedly reputable news channels such as CNN report on such stories. It is NOT news that you should talk about. It's gossip on someone's private life. If you absolutely MUST talk about it, 10-30 seconds is plenty of time to tell people that he had a mild car crash and suffered a minor injury. Bringing up the story day after day after day is just disgusting in my opinion.
And honestly Mike, do you really think that there would have been less of a buzz if instead of such pictures being covered by a gag order, they had appeared on the front page of whatever tabloid got their hands on them? (if they exist)
OK, I think people here should relax a bit. The response by that artist is I think perfectly fair. He did launch an iPhone app to compete with others and he does not look like he is going to sue. Instead, he is basically just telling his fans: People who use my work without as much as the courtesy of asking are jerks and if you want to support this comic, you'll send us money instead of sending it to them.
I think what this artist is doing is exactly what is talked about here: He is monetizing his connection with his fans by encouraging them to prefer stuff he sells.
I'm fairly certain that pornography (including pedopornography) is defined in such a way that nudity is not sufficient. I mean, it is fairly common to take pictures of your own naked children during the phase when they don't wear cloths very often. I have personal knowledge of a case where someone invited a friend over in Canada. The friend noticed that her host had naked pictures of her child and so went and filed a police report under child porn laws. The prosecutor just laughed the case off as ridiculous. I'm fairly certain the two women are no longer friends...
I think the concept that artists should "just be artists" is misguided at best but it feels insulting. Nobody can be "just" anything and expect to be money off it. I'm a computer programmer. I do not find clients who need custom software I can't expect to make any money. I need to market myself or hire someone to do so. I need to connect with my clients and work to figure out what they need and how that need can be best serve. If I just live in a cave, code stuff and then post it online, I can expect to make zero money. And the same can be said for any profession. Nobody cares about the best plumber in town if he can't be bothered to show up on time and give you a minimum of courtesy when he does show up. Nobody hires an electrician who tells you to shut up and let him be "just an electrician" when you ask what he's doing. You can be "just" a whatever in the privacy of your own home with your hobbies. Nothing wrong with that, but don't expect any money from it.
You know who wrote a book? Hitler! Do you know who owned and were proud to own books? The NAZIS! You know who else occupied the space-time continuum? Hitler! Please! I want to get more Godwin points than that guy but I can't do it! More seriously, I would not be caught dead with a Kindle. I buys my books so that I can always have them available. So I will be buy a Kindle when they actually give me the file for the books so I can back it up and especially when I can take my legally obtained textbooks and reference books in pdf form and put them on the device.
I think it could reasonably be argued that SQL queries are all so similar to what is found in the SQL documentation that they are derived works of that documentation or any number of tutorials out there. Writing a SQL query can be a pain but it is not in my books (and I have been writing SQL queries for close to a decade) a process which involves the slightest amount of creativity. An exception could be made I suppose for queries that create functions etc... I would like to add, that I will write that query and license it to the school under the BSD or MIT license for $100 if they want. Though I'm sure there are plenty of people out there willing to do it for free...
I think it would be amusing to point out that his personal belief that he is not gay is original research and therefore does not meet standards for inclusion in his article...
Sorry about the imperfect translation... I realized after writing it that my blog post did not translate very well using Google's engine (I suggested alternative translations, but obviously, Google can't take into account my suggestions immediately) and I am too busy to offer a complete translation. But what I wrote to Mike sums up the whole thing quite well in my opinion: (FCC disclaimer: I have a personal and financial relationship with the person who wrote to Mike. That relationship can mathematically be defined as identity.) The government has decided to focus on distributing value instead of creating it and that distributing value is somehow best done by cutting people's Internet connection and this schoolyard approach to intellectual products. (you can't have it because it's mine!)
I think that as sad as it is, the problem might not directly stem from Google. They are getting sued from every corner for being connected in the most vague and distant of ways to all sorts of illegal activities. I mean, when you become the information clearinghouse, you are going to get connected to a LOT of illegal activity. Now the problem is that if they deny AdSense to somebody, they are unlikely to get sued by that person. On the other hand, if they allow someone to make money off their website which is holding infringing copyrighted work, there will again be a huge scandal about Google "parasiting" someone and "destroying the world as we know it" etc... (not to mention a possible lawsuit which they might eventually win but would probably just settle to avoid the headache) It must be a PR nightmare to be linked to everything bad on the Internet. I think the solution is to start relaxing copyright laws. Until that happens, Google is probably going to try to be overly careful.
I think Mike that while I agree that we are better off taking the moral argument out of it, it is not a choice which we can meaningfully make. The content industry is not actually trying to make the best choice possible. Therefore, whether the moral argument should be in the debate or not, they will include it in their sell to law makers and citizens because it is seductive. Of course, you cannot reply to a moral argument by using an economic argument. If something is "wrong" then it does not matter that it is also mutually beneficial. So those of us opposing copyright maximalists have to be willing to fight them on every front if there is to be any hope of winning. I for one am not willing to wait until the market has eradicated them. They have a lot of government support which will keep them alive well beyond their natural life-span.
I think that the argument that SteelWolf makes applies recursively to all consumers... Discovery and innovation as you have mentioned on a number of occasions Mike is not exclusively creation ab nihilo. In a very real way, the person who receives a piece of information has always "discovered" it. As such, they do have the same moral imperative as that of the "first" discoverer: They must share their infinite good for the benefit of humanity at zero cost for them. That being said, laws are meant to be followed as they represent (theoretically at least) the will of the democratic majority. And so you should not file share, though you should encourage file sharing to be legalized.
Honestly Mike I'm disappointed in your lack of research here. "Moral rights" are not about morality. It is simply the name given to non-economic intellectual property rights. Most importantly in my opinion, moral rights include the right to have your work not be plagiarized. Think about all the business models you have talked about Mike. Would any of them worked if people can just come along and claim your creation as their own? All of them depend on connecting with fans and at some point establishing a relationship between you, your creation and your fans. This is the kind of thing that moral rights protect. They recognize that content creators are more closely connected to the content they create than other products.
Let's see. I typed webmail in google and gmail was the fifth result. Google Map's API specifically directs you towards several geocoding services that directly compete with Google. Googling "Web Browser" you only get Google Chrome as the 5th result again this time with Opera an Firefox higher up. Google "Search Engine" and google is not on the first page. Bing, Yahoo, Altavista and Lycos are. I don't like what google is doing with Google voice but the guy at AT&T is just wrong.
"If people do things for a non-monetary reason, it's because they're receiving marginal benefits in some other manner, whether it's attention, pride, happiness, joy or "just because I want to." Those are all marginal benefits."
As much as I am a big fan of that line of reasoning Mike, I think there is a problem here which can lead to a lack of predictive power and if we go too far, the end of economics. Economics usually provides for exogenous preferences which honestly means it is easy to give in to temptation and just say: "they must like/dislike it that way" to account for any behavior. The problem is that when we do that, nothing comes of it. All we have done is repeated our assumption (actors are self-interested) in the context of a specific case. Pretty soon, we are going to have to start digging into preference formation and evolutionary game theory is where it's going to be at for heuristic research.
I think it's mostly going to be useless. I mean, the result is going to most likely be a standard disclaimer for all blogs. "We may or may not have received stuff/money from that company to tell you this." The end result is that everyone will ignore the disclaimer as with all standard disclaimers... The FCC will feel good though...
Well, a big issue of the studies on multitasking is that they only take into account your productivity given that you are working on something and that you are or not multitasking. I know that multitasking makes me more efficient because it makes it significantly easier for me to get to work. While without the option to multi-task I might procrastinate for extended periods of time, if I multi-task, I will reduce my procrastination time significantly. Of course if you keep a single task in the buffer and work on it constantly without adding the extra cost of task switching each task will be completed faster. But it misses the real point. The useful data is not how long it take you to finish a task from the moment you start it. The important data is how long it takes for you to finish a task from the moment you receive the task. And I agree that multitasking makes me a much happier person. Which most likely in the long run will make me more productive.
On the post: Yet Another Attempt At Ad Supported Music
A second thing to think about is that piracy does have a heavy cost for the pirate. There is always the risk of getting caught. That requires taking elaborate counter-measures and still fearing getting caught and getting slapped with ridiculous fines. I know quite a few people who would be willing to sit through an ad for the peace of mind of not risking getting caught.
On the post: Jurors Cause Trouble By Friending Each Other On Facebook, Using Wikipedia For Research
On the post: Tiger Woods Gags UK Media; Alerts World To Nude Photos
And, publishing random tidbits of Tiger Woods' personal life is NOT just an expression of the right of the public to know. The "public" does not have a right to know about who sleeps with whom and who is flirting with whom and whose marriage is going how. I'm endlessly surprised and disappointed by the extent to which even supposedly reputable news channels such as CNN report on such stories. It is NOT news that you should talk about. It's gossip on someone's private life. If you absolutely MUST talk about it, 10-30 seconds is plenty of time to tell people that he had a mild car crash and suffered a minor injury. Bringing up the story day after day after day is just disgusting in my opinion.
And honestly Mike, do you really think that there would have been less of a buzz if instead of such pictures being covered by a gag order, they had appeared on the front page of whatever tabloid got their hands on them? (if they exist)
On the post: The Creator's Dilemma On Others Making Money Off Your Content
I think what this artist is doing is exactly what is talked about here: He is monetizing his connection with his fans by encouraging them to prefer stuff he sells.
On the post: Is Everyone Who Received Monday's Metro Toronto Guilty Of Child Porn Possession?
On the post: Getting Past The 'But Artists Should Just Be Artists' Myth
On the post: Novelist And Poet Says Google Books And The Kindle Are 'Nazi' Technology
On the post: Can You Copyright An SQL Query?
On the post: Actor Ron Livingston Sues Wikipedia; He Should Use The Site To Look Up Section 230
On the post: French Government's Plan To Help Book Publishers Adapt: Have Them Embrace Three Strikes Plan
On the post: Is Google Banning AdSense On Sites It Thinks Have Infringing Content?
On the post: The Moral Argument In Favor Of File Sharing?
I think that the argument that SteelWolf makes applies recursively to all consumers... Discovery and innovation as you have mentioned on a number of occasions Mike is not exclusively creation ab nihilo. In a very real way, the person who receives a piece of information has always "discovered" it. As such, they do have the same moral imperative as that of the "first" discoverer: They must share their infinite good for the benefit of humanity at zero cost for them. That being said, laws are meant to be followed as they represent (theoretically at least) the will of the democratic majority. And so you should not file share, though you should encourage file sharing to be legalized.
On the post: Looking At The Redbox Antitrust Fight
On the post: Weird Priorities: Europeans Want To Digitize Books As Quickly As Possible... Just As Long As It's Not Google Doing It
On the post: AT&T's Ridiculous Argument Against Google Voice
On the post: iPhone To Be Offered From Multiple Carriers, eh
On the post: Why Fining People Can Actually Increase That Activity... An Economics Lesson
As much as I am a big fan of that line of reasoning Mike, I think there is a problem here which can lead to a lack of predictive power and if we go too far, the end of economics. Economics usually provides for exogenous preferences which honestly means it is easy to give in to temptation and just say: "they must like/dislike it that way" to account for any behavior. The problem is that when we do that, nothing comes of it. All we have done is repeated our assumption (actors are self-interested) in the context of a specific case. Pretty soon, we are going to have to start digging into preference formation and evolutionary game theory is where it's going to be at for heuristic research.
On the post: Could Doonesbury Learn Anything From XKCD?
On the post: Did The FTC's New 'Blogger' Guidelines Just Change The Way All Book/Music Reviews Must Be Conducted?
On the post: Is The Inefficiency Of Multitasking A Bug Or A Feature?
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