Also, if you give people a second DVD, they'll just give it away and *think* it's legal. That's a worse solution that just letting those who know how do what they like!
if they gave away a single copy, that was never again copied, it would be much less than the effects of a someone file sharing. File sharing creates an infinite number of copies, over an infinite amount of time going forward.
The extra disk is cheap, certainly not a bottom line breaker. Do you not think that the public considers getting two (or something three!) copies of a movie as a better deal?
Most of the DRM detractors complain about not being able to play on more than one device or not being able to have a backup. This sort of thing addresses both issues, yet the whining goes on. Perhaps you would like the actors to make a personal appearance with each copy? Maybe they can play mini-putt with you.
I have had people who I consider to be the most modern and connected (and exactly in that target demographic of facebook, university students) come to me and refer to the changes made on Facebooks very unfavorably.
One of the them calls it "stalk book", because there is really no simple way to hide yourself without hiding so much that nobody can find you.
What I am find in the last few months is that more and more people are NOT putting their lives out there on facebook, at least in my circle of friends, and now the site is defined mostly be game playing and witty but inane status updates. Fewer images, fewer real updates, etc.
People appear to be voting with their actions, and that seems to be a move away from discussing their lives on Facebook, because it no longer feels private.
I think you are chasing a little jackalope called "100% perfect compliance". You will never actually catch him, but some people talk about him in mythical terms.
But the algorithms necessary to implement a CSS-decoder are so widely spread that any programmer that wants to implement it can do so (the source code to deCSS would be sufficient). Stopping Real from selling a backup-solution won't make a difference one way or the other.
The vast majority of consumers are not experienced computer programmers capable of handling higher level languages. For the small percentage that can write it for themselves, well, more power to them. The point of DRM (or the lock on your door or the alarm on your car) isn't to 100% stop all illegal activity, but rather to stop the less determined from doing what they want.
The logic offered here is similar to saying that we should leave our cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition, because some people can steal a car without them - so why bother locking the car? I can make it pretty easily so that 99% of all people won't even consider stealing my car. In DRM terms, that would be beyond the perfect score.
There is no way, no ability to stop very clever end users from finding and circumventing DRM at this point. Nobody is suggesting it is the perfect solution. But for most of the people, most of the time, it does what it is intended to do, protect the content creators rights while allowing the general public to enjoy the product.
The 127 million is a very good number, Green Bay is certainly an exception case in many ways. I can't help but wondering though what their net profits are each year on merchandising. I wonder if that has anything to do with at least some of that 127 million, as GB gear is pretty darn popular all over the place (especially from the time of Favre being there).
In the end, exclusive licensing deals are often the best way to profit from this sort of situation. It allows the merchandise maker to sell a higher end product (quality wise), and to sell it for a price in line with quality and desirablity. It allows them to take the risk without worrying about a flood of cheap knockoffs in the market place that would hurt their ability to invest in product and inventory. There is no reason that the teams should not be allowed to enter into such an agreement.
It also brings to mind a very good question: How many of the buggy whip company owners went on to have other successful businesses? Just because "Bob's Buggy Whips" didn't become "Bob's Horseless Carriage Hood Ornaments" doesn't mean that they all went broke and turned to panhandling.
I think you are correct, their skill set wasn't at all something that would be in demand for the new fangled automobile, there is nothing to whip. Perhaps they moves to other businesses (like say seat covers or similar) under other company names and guises, maybe selling out their whip companies before moving on.
I know where Mike is going when he does his "buggy whip" thing, but there is little proof that the owners of these companies didn't move on to other successful businesses.
AdamR, your logic is wonderful, I wish that it was applied here on Techdirt more often in relation to ever expanding ticket prices.
They are pricing the scarcities to the levels that concert ticket prices are reaching, and you feel locked out an angry. How long before you feel the same about concerts?
even if it's for a legal backup that can't be copied again (i.e., like RealDVD, it puts new DRM on top of it), suddenly it's "infringing" thanks to the DRM.
Mike, you don't think for a second that the RealDVD DRM would be easily enough undone, perhaps by RealRealDVD or similar?
DRM is a meanginless concept if they methods and software is made available to anyone and everyone. Real's attempt to get a license for DVD DRM would in turn imply that anyone wanting to get a license to underdo Real's DRM could do so. That would just be creating a simple (and apparently legal) way to make as many copies of a product as you like.
Anti-trust would only apply if Real was stopped from using it's own DRM to circulate DVDs, which is not the case. There is no basis for assuming that a DRM should be exposed and the methods to disable it given away to anyone.
many users are simply using the underground technology that doesn't cost them anything and gives them much more value
Why do you think these users feel the need to break DRM on the products they buy? How many of them do you think are creating huge backup libraries of all of their content?
If you consider horrible home produced music, crappy home movies, and meaningless blog posts as content, then yes, you are right. We have entered an era of content masturbation, where we do it by ourselves, for ourselves, and pretty much all of it fails to accomplish anything except giving the "creator" a warm feeling.
On the other sides, magazines are getting thinner, online news sources run the same stories for days, and we are left to get informed by bloggers and muck rakers.
So if you are looking at it as "how big is the mound of pooh", then you are right, the pooh pile is getting higher. If you are trying to find the gold in the pooh, I would say that it's getting rarer and rarer every day.
However, as a commenter below the article notes, "The Packers' operating profit was $20.1 million, but after deducting their investment loss and taxes, their net income was only $4 million, for a profit margin (net income divided by gross sales) of 1.61%, which is minuscule."
The Packers are the only publically owned franchise, which makes it hard to find solid numbers. Their profits dropped 50% year over year. Pretty much every set of numbers I could find that estimated pre-tax profits, there was always at least one team below 10 million.
However, Mr Brees would still like to be paid an exorbitant wage to play a child's game, in a league where some teams won't even make a net profit equal to his yearly take home pay.
I think he better check out which hand is feeding him again.
To understand modern innovation, you have to understand "masnick innovation". It doesn't involve creating anything truly new, it involves taking something someone else made, putting it in a new box, painting it a different color, and calling it "innovation".
Oh, you can add an mp3 player, a digital camera, or a wifi connection to almost anything and you are innovating.
Actually, where we are right now is the reaping what was sowed 40 years ago. In the same manner that past generation profited from the major changes of the train, the industrial revolution, radio, television, etc... we are currently in the position to reap the benefits of ICs and computer technology. We aren't in an innovation phase as much as a narrow refining stage.
I afree with you, most of what is innovation right now are unsupportable business models or new ideas that work only if you stop paying all the other participants in the deal.
IMHO, the next dot bomb with be the folding of much of the dot advertising business, and the unsupportable models that created internet page views but little actual benefit for anyone. Think of it as the dot adbomb. Much of it will happen because the people who create the content are not getting paid enough to keep creating it, leaving many of these sites with no content to work with. If they actually had to pay for content, most of them would be broke.
We have long since stopped trading dollars for quarters, most of them aren't even getting nickles anymore.
There is more to this, and it's the reason why blaming a data backlog is just smoke and mirrors, it doesn't address the more simple failures.
It appears he got on the plane without a valid passport, but with a valid US visa.
Nobody twigged onto the concept of someone travelling from Africa to America on a one way ticket for an extended stay without any baggage.
It is possible that in Amsterdam, authorities accepted the security check in Africa as acceptable, and didn't re-screen the guy as an in transit flyer.
There is little data required here. Someone flying on a dud passport on a one way ticket without luggage should never have been on a plane without some serious questions being asked.
No, the third world country I referred to is where his trip started, in Africa. It is not clear that Amsterdam would have checked his passport, as he was an in-transit flier who may not have left the passenger side of the terminal.
I know in the US that no matter what, you need to officially enter the US, even as a transit passenger. I am not sure that Amsterdam does the same thing. So his passport may not have been checked after his intial bordering in Africa. If they failed to do that check (or allowed a well dressed man to escort him past security), that would be where the security breakdown occurred.
"Did you see what happened at Newark the other day?"
- Apparently, they are not capable of handling their present tasks
Actually, it is only given to show proof that even minor human error can make the system fail. All the technology in the world is still run by people.
"I didn't suggest more security, where the $%&^ did you get that from?"
- It is the topic being discussed - no ?
No, it would appear that the main story is in fact the opposite, suggesting there should be less oversight, less data collection, and thus less effort on security.
Nothing like attempting to make my position sound like a bizarre absolute rather than a realistic view of what is actually in the world. I didn't make it, it is what it is.
The usual "think of a song" or "whistle a tune" thing is such a load of crap as to be beyond understanding. It sounds like a 4 year old complaining about not getting to play with favorite toy. It's whiny horsecrap at it's finest.
I have to say, if that is where the discussion goes, I'm done, because it is clear you have no desire to get a grip on reality.
Sorry, the system I describe would probably move the rights from pennies a song to dollars a song, with most of that money going to lawyers. Can you imagine rights going up 1000% and payouts to artists remaining flat or maybe even dropping?
Anyway, in the end, I sort of object to this post because Mike seems to think that renting space to Buskers at about $1 a day is a "huge fee". I would hate to think of what he would think of a hotel room price in New York.
On the post: Responding To SoundExchange... By Their Numbers
On the post: Judge Says No Antitrust Violation In Hollywood Killing RealDVD
Re: Re: Re: Re: DVDs are already dual-layer
if they gave away a single copy, that was never again copied, it would be much less than the effects of a someone file sharing. File sharing creates an infinite number of copies, over an infinite amount of time going forward.
It's not quite the same thing, is it?
On the post: Judge Says No Antitrust Violation In Hollywood Killing RealDVD
Re: Re: DVDs are already dual-layer
The extra disk is cheap, certainly not a bottom line breaker. Do you not think that the public considers getting two (or something three!) copies of a movie as a better deal?
Most of the DRM detractors complain about not being able to play on more than one device or not being able to have a backup. This sort of thing addresses both issues, yet the whining goes on. Perhaps you would like the actors to make a personal appearance with each copy? Maybe they can play mini-putt with you.
On the post: Zuckerberg: People Are Comfortable Without Privacy, So We Threw Them All Over The Cliff
One of the them calls it "stalk book", because there is really no simple way to hide yourself without hiding so much that nobody can find you.
What I am find in the last few months is that more and more people are NOT putting their lives out there on facebook, at least in my circle of friends, and now the site is defined mostly be game playing and witty but inane status updates. Fewer images, fewer real updates, etc.
People appear to be voting with their actions, and that seems to be a move away from discussing their lives on Facebook, because it no longer feels private.
On the post: Judge Says No Antitrust Violation In Hollywood Killing RealDVD
Re:
But the algorithms necessary to implement a CSS-decoder are so widely spread that any programmer that wants to implement it can do so (the source code to deCSS would be sufficient). Stopping Real from selling a backup-solution won't make a difference one way or the other.
The vast majority of consumers are not experienced computer programmers capable of handling higher level languages. For the small percentage that can write it for themselves, well, more power to them. The point of DRM (or the lock on your door or the alarm on your car) isn't to 100% stop all illegal activity, but rather to stop the less determined from doing what they want.
The logic offered here is similar to saying that we should leave our cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition, because some people can steal a car without them - so why bother locking the car? I can make it pretty easily so that 99% of all people won't even consider stealing my car. In DRM terms, that would be beyond the perfect score.
There is no way, no ability to stop very clever end users from finding and circumventing DRM at this point. Nobody is suggesting it is the perfect solution. But for most of the people, most of the time, it does what it is intended to do, protect the content creators rights while allowing the general public to enjoy the product.
On the post: Quarterback Drew Brees Explains Why Supreme Court Should Block NFL From Having Exclusive Licensing Deals
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The 127 million is a very good number, Green Bay is certainly an exception case in many ways. I can't help but wondering though what their net profits are each year on merchandising. I wonder if that has anything to do with at least some of that 127 million, as GB gear is pretty darn popular all over the place (especially from the time of Favre being there).
In the end, exclusive licensing deals are often the best way to profit from this sort of situation. It allows the merchandise maker to sell a higher end product (quality wise), and to sell it for a price in line with quality and desirablity. It allows them to take the risk without worrying about a flood of cheap knockoffs in the market place that would hurt their ability to invest in product and inventory. There is no reason that the teams should not be allowed to enter into such an agreement.
On the post: Buggy Whips Not The Perfect Analogy Of Businesses Disrupted By Innovation?
Re: There's some good in the article
I think you are correct, their skill set wasn't at all something that would be in demand for the new fangled automobile, there is nothing to whip. Perhaps they moves to other businesses (like say seat covers or similar) under other company names and guises, maybe selling out their whip companies before moving on.
I know where Mike is going when he does his "buggy whip" thing, but there is little proof that the owners of these companies didn't move on to other successful businesses.
On the post: Quarterback Drew Brees Explains Why Supreme Court Should Block NFL From Having Exclusive Licensing Deals
Re:
They are pricing the scarcities to the levels that concert ticket prices are reaching, and you feel locked out an angry. How long before you feel the same about concerts?
On the post: Quarterback Drew Brees Explains Why Supreme Court Should Block NFL From Having Exclusive Licensing Deals
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Judge Says No Antitrust Violation In Hollywood Killing RealDVD
Mike, you don't think for a second that the RealDVD DRM would be easily enough undone, perhaps by RealRealDVD or similar?
DRM is a meanginless concept if they methods and software is made available to anyone and everyone. Real's attempt to get a license for DVD DRM would in turn imply that anyone wanting to get a license to underdo Real's DRM could do so. That would just be creating a simple (and apparently legal) way to make as many copies of a product as you like.
Anti-trust would only apply if Real was stopped from using it's own DRM to circulate DVDs, which is not the case. There is no basis for assuming that a DRM should be exposed and the methods to disable it given away to anyone.
many users are simply using the underground technology that doesn't cost them anything and gives them much more value
Why do you think these users feel the need to break DRM on the products they buy? How many of them do you think are creating huge backup libraries of all of their content?
On the post: Can The US Continue To Innovate At A Necessary Rate Without Causing Complete Social Upheaval?
Re: Re: Re: Innovation is not the answer
If you consider horrible home produced music, crappy home movies, and meaningless blog posts as content, then yes, you are right. We have entered an era of content masturbation, where we do it by ourselves, for ourselves, and pretty much all of it fails to accomplish anything except giving the "creator" a warm feeling.
On the other sides, magazines are getting thinner, online news sources run the same stories for days, and we are left to get informed by bloggers and muck rakers.
So if you are looking at it as "how big is the mound of pooh", then you are right, the pooh pile is getting higher. If you are trying to find the gold in the pooh, I would say that it's getting rarer and rarer every day.
On the post: Quarterback Drew Brees Explains Why Supreme Court Should Block NFL From Having Exclusive Licensing Deals
Re: Re:
GreenBay's pretax profits for the year are 20 million:
http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d810ec974&template=without-video-with-commen ts&confirm=true
However, as a commenter below the article notes, "The Packers' operating profit was $20.1 million, but after deducting their investment loss and taxes, their net income was only $4 million, for a profit margin (net income divided by gross sales) of 1.61%, which is minuscule."
The Packers are the only publically owned franchise, which makes it hard to find solid numbers. Their profits dropped 50% year over year. Pretty much every set of numbers I could find that estimated pre-tax profits, there was always at least one team below 10 million.
Please, carry on.
On the post: Quarterback Drew Brees Explains Why Supreme Court Should Block NFL From Having Exclusive Licensing Deals
I think he better check out which hand is feeding him again.
On the post: Can The US Continue To Innovate At A Necessary Rate Without Causing Complete Social Upheaval?
Re: Innovation is not the answer
Oh, you can add an mp3 player, a digital camera, or a wifi connection to almost anything and you are innovating.
Actually, where we are right now is the reaping what was sowed 40 years ago. In the same manner that past generation profited from the major changes of the train, the industrial revolution, radio, television, etc... we are currently in the position to reap the benefits of ICs and computer technology. We aren't in an innovation phase as much as a narrow refining stage.
I afree with you, most of what is innovation right now are unsupportable business models or new ideas that work only if you stop paying all the other participants in the deal.
IMHO, the next dot bomb with be the folding of much of the dot advertising business, and the unsupportable models that created internet page views but little actual benefit for anyone. Think of it as the dot adbomb. Much of it will happen because the people who create the content are not getting paid enough to keep creating it, leaving many of these sites with no content to work with. If they actually had to pay for content, most of them would be broke.
We have long since stopped trading dollars for quarters, most of them aren't even getting nickles anymore.
On the post: More Surveillance Can Make Us Less Safe
Re:
It appears he got on the plane without a valid passport, but with a valid US visa.
Nobody twigged onto the concept of someone travelling from Africa to America on a one way ticket for an extended stay without any baggage.
It is possible that in Amsterdam, authorities accepted the security check in Africa as acceptable, and didn't re-screen the guy as an in transit flyer.
There is little data required here. Someone flying on a dud passport on a one way ticket without luggage should never have been on a plane without some serious questions being asked.
Data has nothing to do with it.
On the post: More Surveillance Can Make Us Less Safe
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I know in the US that no matter what, you need to officially enter the US, even as a transit passenger. I am not sure that Amsterdam does the same thing. So his passport may not have been checked after his intial bordering in Africa. If they failed to do that check (or allowed a well dressed man to escort him past security), that would be where the security breakdown occurred.
"Did you see what happened at Newark the other day?"
- Apparently, they are not capable of handling their present tasks
Actually, it is only given to show proof that even minor human error can make the system fail. All the technology in the world is still run by people.
"I didn't suggest more security, where the $%&^ did you get that from?"
- It is the topic being discussed - no ?
No, it would appear that the main story is in fact the opposite, suggesting there should be less oversight, less data collection, and thus less effort on security.
On the post: Viacom: Court Should Grant Summary Judgment Over YouTube, But It's A Secret Why
Re: Re:
The usual "think of a song" or "whistle a tune" thing is such a load of crap as to be beyond understanding. It sounds like a 4 year old complaining about not getting to play with favorite toy. It's whiny horsecrap at it's finest.
I have to say, if that is where the discussion goes, I'm done, because it is clear you have no desire to get a grip on reality.
On the post: Court Notices That The FCC Appears To Have No Legal Mandate To Enforce Net Neutrality
Re: Not a ruling - just oral arguments
Nothing like opinion based "near facts" to cloud a discussion.
On the post: Vancouver Train System To Charge Buskers Huge Fees To Play In Stations
Re: Re: Re: @compgeek
Anyway, in the end, I sort of object to this post because Mike seems to think that renting space to Buskers at about $1 a day is a "huge fee". I would hate to think of what he would think of a hotel room price in New York.
On the post: Viacom: Court Should Grant Summary Judgment Over YouTube, But It's A Secret Why
Re: Re:
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