Following on the heels of the News of the World scandal and the previous run at cracking paycards for DISH this doesn't surprise me at all.
Murdock's empire, as far back as its beginnings in Australia has been accused of paranoia when confronted with competition. And that Murdock has been a take-no-prisoners competitor.
The Murdock empire's paranoia around piracy does show that he believes that piracy will be then end of the world as he knows it. That his business would enable it to try to destroy and competitor isn't surprising. I wouldn't have to matter if SkyTV would do any better as a result all that matters in Murdock's world is that there's one less competitor out there. It doesn't need to be rational.
(When I say Murdock I'm not talking about the old man himself but the culture he's created in his empire that allows such things to flourish.)
As far as I know they haven't stopped their actions at all and I was trying to say that "Speak for Yourself" IS the superior product or, at least, gives every indication of being. That's why the lawsuit arrived on the doorstep.
They're doing a fine job is following the Big Pharma tradition, after all why not?
As I've already pointed out there are natural places where this movie could have been shown and would have reached a potentially large market.
If university students liked or loved it then word of mouth would carry it to the 35 year olds who are also gamers, though with disposable income and the female gamers.
Those places existed three years ago, you know.
It seems more like the distributor didn't even do any cursory market research and always intended to sit on it after the fee was paid, after all they had their money already.
I wonder what will happen when the market does what the creator wants and download it.
Probably yell "piracy". Industry shills either excuse this kind of thing or yell piracy. It's about all you know how to do.
As far as we can see "Speak For Yourself" could be a clean room implementation which didn't refer to the patent or the code used in the patent holder's devices.
What it seems has happened is that the patent holder(s) have dropped the lawsuit to stop competition from a superior, less expensive, more effective product. Just how that encourages invention/innovation baffles me.
It sickens me that in things like this the medical needs of actual human beings take second place to the income needs of private corporations. Take care of the people and the income will come.
Yes, the movie is old, yes the title sequence is all 8 bit glory and yes it makes fun of video games which may limit the audience.
It does seem that it was well received on the festival circuit so it can't be a total dog.
All that you say about distributors is true though he seems versed enough in Hollywood hijinks to know to read the contract so I'm doubting that he was expecting the get rich quick scenario or wide distribution for that matter.
Though I can immediately think of where the "target" audience would exist who may love this film and that would be theatres near or on university campus's which are often showplaces for indie film to start with and would be very receptive to a film that takes the mickey out of games and gaming given that a significant part of the student body are likely to be gamers to start with.
More likely this distributor just chose to sit on it because the couldn't think of anything else to do with it or never intended to distribute it in the first place.
It's so common for AC's to "blame the victim" when, as in this case, the "victim" is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. He can't get his movie distributed without a distribution deal and, in this case, he can't get it distributed with one.
Very similar to the games played by the recording and publishing industries which more or less force authors and musicians/composers to sign over their copyrights to them before publication or recording. Another damned of you do, damned if you don't if they want their work distributed. At least pre-Web days.
So now he's turned to the web to distribute a film the distributor seems to have had no intention of doing across the internet. Instead of "Steal This Book" it's "Steal This Movie". Unlike Abby Hoffman, Thomas seems to have given up the idea of profit on this he just wants to get something he's proud of seen. (No knock on Hoffman, BTW)
Nothing wrong with that. Creators don't create to have what they create gather cobwebs in a basement somewhere. They want to share it. That's why the sign publishing, recording and distribution deals that are loaded against them from the start.
Actually, after getting around the abstract of what the patent encompasses the rest of it is very specific, contains product drawings, logic charts and so on. Much better than the vast majority of software patents I've had the displeasure of slogging through.
In this case the abstract says system and methods which they go on to define in some detail.
Now, if it's expansive enough to cover an iPad when the patent specifies things like a keyboard and what appears to be a laptop as the "apparatus" is an interesting question.
Still, after all of that the suit may appear to be immoral from many perspectives in this case I'd rather say amoral.
Either way the patent holders have done a hell of a job highlighting themselves as greedy "big corporations" at the expense of Maya and other children. Way to go, guys!
You obviously missed the bit where they said the equipment and software sold by the patent holders didn't work for Maya right?
And that "Speak For Yourself" isn't a knock off but was designed from the ground up by the people selling it for $300 on iTunes. If anything it's a refinement and improvement over the existing software and hardware.
The problem isn't the 7 grand. The problem is that for all of that money the apps being sold by the patent holder(s) didn't work for the parents or Maya -- the most important person here. Or, it seems, many others though that's unclear.
The one that does "Speak for Yourself" is now threatened by a software patent lawsuit which will tie it up for years if contested and children like Maya (and adults) will suffer.
Nothing I can find indicates that the patent holder(s) tried to negotiate with the people who came up with "Speak for Yourself" before dropping the lawsuit so this all seems to be exactly what Mike says it is an attempt to continue to extract monopoly rents while blocking an arguably superior product from being on the market at a considerably lower price.
That and their position that being able to communicate is a basic human right is hard to disagree with. To that I'd add affordable.
"If there's any evidence he assisted any specific people in pirating for cash, he's fucked."
If and only IF it can be shown he directly assisted those people and did it deliberately. As for accepting memberships from people I've yet to be asked by any site what forums I frequent nor would I answer the question. If it was mandatory I'd lie.
Will he get off completely? I doubt it too. But not for the reasons you state. He's already paid a price and will continue to do so found innocent or guilty.
I wish I was as certain as you are about things. I'm not.
About the only way I can see that a judge could seal evidence in this case would be a claim of "national security" by the prosecution that the judge agrees with. Or to take the proceedings into voir dire (sp) which boots out the media to protect testimony and the person who gives it.
Part of the reason criminal trials are held in public is that the barons who forced King John to sign Magna Charta didn't trust government either. Not that it stopped secret trails altogether for a few hundred years.
Not that anything I said above would lock away all of the evidence just that directly relating to something as important as "national security". I'd not be surprised to see that come up as just about everything these days seems related to that, even a traffic ticket, but even then that wouldn't result in sealing ALL the evidence.
As for the conspiracy angle any doubt Dotcom and his lawyers can sew prior to the trail beginning is useful provided they don't go overboard with it. There is the minor detail in criminal law that guilt has be be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt" and showing that they have a bit of something that does just that makes conspiracy a whole lot harder to get to that test and pass it. Doubt is clearly shown when the defendant can show that the people who complained about the allegedly infringing content on Megaupload were, in fact, uploading some of that content themselves. There story on Torrent Freak indicates other damning documentation to the US government's case itself.
I wonder how much of this is actually intended to sew doubt in the legality of the raid that took Megaupload down in New Zealand and the quality of the evidence the US Government used to act as the MPAA's bounty hunter in NZ using items presented to the court being asked to extradite him to the United States and has already been presented there.
I doubt very much that Dotcom's legal team is going to do much of anything that would endanger his case and they're keeping him on a short leash. And I suspect they're a top flight legal team both in NZ and the USA.
I don't personally care if Dotcom is a scumbag, con man or a Saint. If the United States and New Zealand were legally wrong in what they did and Dotcom's legal team can sew enough doubt during the case to make it impossible to convict then they're doing their job.
If the United States can get him out of New Zealand and if the quality of the evidence they've presented to extradite him is any indication I'd not be surprised if the rest of the case is as leaky as the extradition evidence has been.
Aside from the ethical questions surrounding a government acting as Hollwood's bounty hunter this is going to be a very interesting case for the future of the Internet, the promise of cloud computing and a raft of other things.
As for sealing evidence heard in open court, I'd say "best of luck" to any judge who tries that one or any prosecutor that even asks for it.
I hate to say it but rational justification isn't part of the control freak aspect of some school admins.
Then again, perhaps the guy that was expelled has just learned a lesson a lot of people have learned to their horror at work. Never be logged into the work/school network and be on a social networking site and using it at the same time. You're just asking for trouble.
As far as this instance is concerned I can't think of a rational reason to expel this kid for using profanity at all. Most of the juvenile sentence sounds cleaner that what you can often hear on the school yard or in the halls.
While there is considerable truth in your assertions about Nigeria you don't tell the whole story particularly as it relates to the middle classes in large cities such as Lagos to whom the next meal isn't an immediate concern but the search for entertainment is which is normal in any large city on this planet.
That and Nollywood, as a new industry, is video based not celluloid which older film industries tend to be. As copyright enforcement is next to non existent in Nigeria Nollywood films have been spread around Africa, where they are extremely popular, and to the Nigerian diaspora in Europe and North America by "piracy" which, oddly, has made it very profitable.
Yes, hunger and poverty are issues in Nigeria as they are in most of South Saharan Africa but you're leaving aside the fact that during the Great Depression when many North Americans were hungry and poverty stricken movie attendance actually increased.
China, you're going to lose that one too. Long before Hong Kong was returned to China by the British it had a long record of film production ranging from the cheap martial arts stuff we're so familiar with to high end films. All that's really happened is that as China's big industrial cities have become wealthier is that production and the skill in producing movies has come from Hong Kong and migrated into other parts of China as the market developed. As for piracy China's record on the protection of copyright is, by North American and European "standards" next to non existent so as the movie biz has grown so has piracy. And, again, by means fair and foul this has serviced the huge Chinese diaspora around the world.
You really reach some for India. Hunger there, while still fairly widespread is not as chronic as it was in the 1950s and India's economy is rapidly expanding which, particularly in the large cities, is reducing poverty. In a country of nearly a billion people or more as the middle class grows so does the audience for Bollywood, not to mention that Bollywood also produces a great deal of Indian television programming. Once again, as the Great Depression illustrated, poor people often attend movies just to escape from the realities of day to day life. Bollywood is nothing if not largely escapist. Piracy there has also served the Indian diaspora well and theatres in North America, for example, who have chosen their films from the most pirated ones to show in theatres.
While you make some valid points for each country you ignore a lot of the realities of each which is simply that the entire population of these countries aren't the rural, hungry poor but that each has thriving, growing middle classes in their largest cities who are a large part of the market for movies though the poor often make up a good part of that market as well.
On the post: News Corp. Accused Of Hacking Competitors Smartcards To Increase 'Piracy' Of Satellite TV Rivals
Murdock's empire, as far back as its beginnings in Australia has been accused of paranoia when confronted with competition. And that Murdock has been a take-no-prisoners competitor.
The Murdock empire's paranoia around piracy does show that he believes that piracy will be then end of the world as he knows it. That his business would enable it to try to destroy and competitor isn't surprising. I wouldn't have to matter if SkyTV would do any better as a result all that matters in Murdock's world is that there's one less competitor out there. It doesn't need to be rational.
(When I say Murdock I'm not talking about the old man himself but the culture he's created in his empire that allows such things to flourish.)
On the post: Patents Threaten To Silence A Little Girl, Literally
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On the post: Patents Threaten To Silence A Little Girl, Literally
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They're doing a fine job is following the Big Pharma tradition, after all why not?
On the post: Hollywood Up And Comers Recognizing That The Big Gatekeepers May Be More Of A Threat Than Silicon Valley
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On the post: Hollywood Up And Comers Recognizing That The Big Gatekeepers May Be More Of A Threat Than Silicon Valley
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Young Hollywood filmmakers have to start somewhere, you know, and like the rest of is it's almost always on the bottom rung.
I don't see snapping up going on here as much as the beginning of a long overdue rational discussion.
As both rational and discussion are not qualities you've shown around here I doubt you're interested in either of both combined.
On the post: Distributor Neglects Indie Filmmaker's Movie, So He Asks Fans To Pirate It
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If university students liked or loved it then word of mouth would carry it to the 35 year olds who are also gamers, though with disposable income and the female gamers.
Those places existed three years ago, you know.
It seems more like the distributor didn't even do any cursory market research and always intended to sit on it after the fee was paid, after all they had their money already.
I wonder what will happen when the market does what the creator wants and download it.
Probably yell "piracy". Industry shills either excuse this kind of thing or yell piracy. It's about all you know how to do.
On the post: Patents Threaten To Silence A Little Girl, Literally
Re: Re: Re:
As far as we can see "Speak For Yourself" could be a clean room implementation which didn't refer to the patent or the code used in the patent holder's devices.
What it seems has happened is that the patent holder(s) have dropped the lawsuit to stop competition from a superior, less expensive, more effective product. Just how that encourages invention/innovation baffles me.
It sickens me that in things like this the medical needs of actual human beings take second place to the income needs of private corporations. Take care of the people and the income will come.
On the post: Distributor Neglects Indie Filmmaker's Movie, So He Asks Fans To Pirate It
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It does seem that it was well received on the festival circuit so it can't be a total dog.
All that you say about distributors is true though he seems versed enough in Hollywood hijinks to know to read the contract so I'm doubting that he was expecting the get rich quick scenario or wide distribution for that matter.
Though I can immediately think of where the "target" audience would exist who may love this film and that would be theatres near or on university campus's which are often showplaces for indie film to start with and would be very receptive to a film that takes the mickey out of games and gaming given that a significant part of the student body are likely to be gamers to start with.
More likely this distributor just chose to sit on it because the couldn't think of anything else to do with it or never intended to distribute it in the first place.
It's so common for AC's to "blame the victim" when, as in this case, the "victim" is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. He can't get his movie distributed without a distribution deal and, in this case, he can't get it distributed with one.
Very similar to the games played by the recording and publishing industries which more or less force authors and musicians/composers to sign over their copyrights to them before publication or recording. Another damned of you do, damned if you don't if they want their work distributed. At least pre-Web days.
So now he's turned to the web to distribute a film the distributor seems to have had no intention of doing across the internet. Instead of "Steal This Book" it's "Steal This Movie". Unlike Abby Hoffman, Thomas seems to have given up the idea of profit on this he just wants to get something he's proud of seen. (No knock on Hoffman, BTW)
Nothing wrong with that. Creators don't create to have what they create gather cobwebs in a basement somewhere. They want to share it. That's why the sign publishing, recording and distribution deals that are loaded against them from the start.
You seem be be missing that critical point.
On the post: Patents Threaten To Silence A Little Girl, Literally
Re: Patent in question appears to be solid?
In this case the abstract says system and methods which they go on to define in some detail.
Now, if it's expansive enough to cover an iPad when the patent specifies things like a keyboard and what appears to be a laptop as the "apparatus" is an interesting question.
Still, after all of that the suit may appear to be immoral from many perspectives in this case I'd rather say amoral.
Either way the patent holders have done a hell of a job highlighting themselves as greedy "big corporations" at the expense of Maya and other children. Way to go, guys!
On the post: Patents Threaten To Silence A Little Girl, Literally
Re:
And that "Speak For Yourself" isn't a knock off but was designed from the ground up by the people selling it for $300 on iTunes. If anything it's a refinement and improvement over the existing software and hardware.
On the post: Patents Threaten To Silence A Little Girl, Literally
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The one that does "Speak for Yourself" is now threatened by a software patent lawsuit which will tie it up for years if contested and children like Maya (and adults) will suffer.
Nothing I can find indicates that the patent holder(s) tried to negotiate with the people who came up with "Speak for Yourself" before dropping the lawsuit so this all seems to be exactly what Mike says it is an attempt to continue to extract monopoly rents while blocking an arguably superior product from being on the market at a considerably lower price.
That and their position that being able to communicate is a basic human right is hard to disagree with. To that I'd add affordable.
On the post: TSA Freaks Out, Gets Longtime Critic Bruce Schneier Kicked Off Of Oversight Hearing
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On the post: Kim Dotcom Fires Back: Raises Questions About US's Evidence, Shows Studios Were Eager To Work With Megaupload
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Un huh.
On the post: Kim Dotcom Fires Back: Raises Questions About US's Evidence, Shows Studios Were Eager To Work With Megaupload
Re: And What About The MU Affiliate Program???
If and only IF it can be shown he directly assisted those people and did it deliberately. As for accepting memberships from people I've yet to be asked by any site what forums I frequent nor would I answer the question. If it was mandatory I'd lie.
Will he get off completely? I doubt it too. But not for the reasons you state. He's already paid a price and will continue to do so found innocent or guilty.
I wish I was as certain as you are about things. I'm not.
The fat lady ain't sung yet.
On the post: Kim Dotcom Fires Back: Raises Questions About US's Evidence, Shows Studios Were Eager To Work With Megaupload
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Part of the reason criminal trials are held in public is that the barons who forced King John to sign Magna Charta didn't trust government either. Not that it stopped secret trails altogether for a few hundred years.
Not that anything I said above would lock away all of the evidence just that directly relating to something as important as "national security". I'd not be surprised to see that come up as just about everything these days seems related to that, even a traffic ticket, but even then that wouldn't result in sealing ALL the evidence.
As for the conspiracy angle any doubt Dotcom and his lawyers can sew prior to the trail beginning is useful provided they don't go overboard with it. There is the minor detail in criminal law that guilt has be be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt" and showing that they have a bit of something that does just that makes conspiracy a whole lot harder to get to that test and pass it. Doubt is clearly shown when the defendant can show that the people who complained about the allegedly infringing content on Megaupload were, in fact, uploading some of that content themselves. There story on Torrent Freak indicates other damning documentation to the US government's case itself.
I wonder how much of this is actually intended to sew doubt in the legality of the raid that took Megaupload down in New Zealand and the quality of the evidence the US Government used to act as the MPAA's bounty hunter in NZ using items presented to the court being asked to extradite him to the United States and has already been presented there.
I doubt very much that Dotcom's legal team is going to do much of anything that would endanger his case and they're keeping him on a short leash. And I suspect they're a top flight legal team both in NZ and the USA.
I don't personally care if Dotcom is a scumbag, con man or a Saint. If the United States and New Zealand were legally wrong in what they did and Dotcom's legal team can sew enough doubt during the case to make it impossible to convict then they're doing their job.
If the United States can get him out of New Zealand and if the quality of the evidence they've presented to extradite him is any indication I'd not be surprised if the rest of the case is as leaky as the extradition evidence has been.
Aside from the ethical questions surrounding a government acting as Hollwood's bounty hunter this is going to be a very interesting case for the future of the Internet, the promise of cloud computing and a raft of other things.
As for sealing evidence heard in open court, I'd say "best of luck" to any judge who tries that one or any prosecutor that even asks for it.
On the post: Content Creators: Control Is An Illusion And That's A Good Thing
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On the post: High School Student Expelled For Tweeting Profanity; Principal Admits School Tracks All Tweets
Re: Re: Re: Correct
On the post: High School Student Expelled For Tweeting Profanity; Principal Admits School Tracks All Tweets
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Then again, perhaps the guy that was expelled has just learned a lesson a lot of people have learned to their horror at work. Never be logged into the work/school network and be on a social networking site and using it at the same time. You're just asking for trouble.
As far as this instance is concerned I can't think of a rational reason to expel this kid for using profanity at all. Most of the juvenile sentence sounds cleaner that what you can often hear on the school yard or in the halls.
On the post: How Piracy Created The Massive Movie Industry Success Of Nollywood
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That and Nollywood, as a new industry, is video based not celluloid which older film industries tend to be. As copyright enforcement is next to non existent in Nigeria Nollywood films have been spread around Africa, where they are extremely popular, and to the Nigerian diaspora in Europe and North America by "piracy" which, oddly, has made it very profitable.
Yes, hunger and poverty are issues in Nigeria as they are in most of South Saharan Africa but you're leaving aside the fact that during the Great Depression when many North Americans were hungry and poverty stricken movie attendance actually increased.
China, you're going to lose that one too. Long before Hong Kong was returned to China by the British it had a long record of film production ranging from the cheap martial arts stuff we're so familiar with to high end films. All that's really happened is that as China's big industrial cities have become wealthier is that production and the skill in producing movies has come from Hong Kong and migrated into other parts of China as the market developed. As for piracy China's record on the protection of copyright is, by North American and European "standards" next to non existent so as the movie biz has grown so has piracy. And, again, by means fair and foul this has serviced the huge Chinese diaspora around the world.
You really reach some for India. Hunger there, while still fairly widespread is not as chronic as it was in the 1950s and India's economy is rapidly expanding which, particularly in the large cities, is reducing poverty. In a country of nearly a billion people or more as the middle class grows so does the audience for Bollywood, not to mention that Bollywood also produces a great deal of Indian television programming. Once again, as the Great Depression illustrated, poor people often attend movies just to escape from the realities of day to day life. Bollywood is nothing if not largely escapist. Piracy there has also served the Indian diaspora well and theatres in North America, for example, who have chosen their films from the most pirated ones to show in theatres.
While you make some valid points for each country you ignore a lot of the realities of each which is simply that the entire population of these countries aren't the rural, hungry poor but that each has thriving, growing middle classes in their largest cities who are a large part of the market for movies though the poor often make up a good part of that market as well.
The only 3/3 fail here is yours.
On the post: Righthaven Completely Stops Showing Up In Court, Loses Key Case, Key Appeals And 'Big Name' Lawyer Who It Still Owes Money To
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