Half a century ago Marshall McLuhan said "the medium is the message" which, essentially, is the same as "content as advertising". McLuhan painted with broad brushes, mind, and he'd have loved the Internet and the Web.
I'd thought I'd heard it all from the copyright extremists but I was wrong.
What, in the name of heaven, are they thinking? (Rhetorical question, the answers are largely greed and a level of stupidity exceeding that of cattle and sheep.)
Evil doesn't explain it. Evil is usually smarter than that. Evil wants to deflect blame not take it.
My only advice to the libraries in Belgium is to tell SABAM to stick it where the sun don't shine and read to the kids anyway. And to be loud about it. Then wait of them to sue. I'm sure there'd be two or three top level human rights, copyright and other specialty lawyers around who'd work pro bono for the libraries.
This action has shown precisely why copyright law and precedents need to be scrapped and started over. It no longer serves the purpose that it was intended to serve. It's now a haven for scoundrels, liars, frauds, pirates and cold hearted monsters. It certainly doesn't help artists to get paid for their work or anyone or anything else.
I've been sympathetic to the concept of copyright (and patents).
If there was the slightest question about why Yahoo is going down the drain fast this has certainly answered that.
If they want Flickr to continue to be the success it has been they'd better fix this because "word of mouth" is so fast across the interwebs that half the planet knows about this by now and the other half will know tomorrow morning.
Just blanking the allegedly "offending" photo out ought to be enough for everyone as it allows restoral of the customer's material, comments and so on very quickly and easily no matter what Flickr and Yahoo say. Plainly dumb and stupid.
While the Tories will be blasted for going as far as they did over digital locks and the possibility that someone may face jail time down the road as a result.
I'd like to remind Leah that the Liberals, in the past, when in a majority have rolled over and played dead to the demands of the "content" industry and U.S. diplomats and asking how high to demands of "jump" in every other issue outside of Canadian content. The NDP have done the same "for the artist" which is why we have a tax on blank media now as if we're all pirates.
Yes, it's bad law. It will probably sail through the Senate so we'll have to see what the courts say down the road when the inevitable happens.
Of course, the reality is that digital locks will continue to be broken with tiring regularity for the simple fact that consumers don't like them. Exactly the same situation as currently exists in the States.
I'd be curious to find out if the committee votes were whipped which may mean that buried in the background there IS some partisanship if for no other reason that the "content" industry for all its complaining goes nowhere without bags full of money.
I have to admit that I'm attracted to the idea of Matter.
If, for no other reason, than mass media science coverage is so pathetic whether or not they hide behind a pay wall.
The pay per article idea is fascinating in that Matter is setting themselves a very high bar to bring people back week after week which is an incentive in and of itself to perform, I'd think.
In many respects it's like the fact that I pay more at the till for the likes of Scientific American, The Economist, Psychology Today and other publications than most magazines because I know the quality of the content before I crack the cover. It used to be that way for National Geographic but their standards seem to have slipped and sometimes slide into the sensationalism of their Discovery channel despite the fantastic photography.
It'll be interesting to see if they clear the bar they've set themselves. As long as they allow some cut and paste capabilities without the usual "content creator" whine I might actually be able to discuss the content with friends while pointing them at Matter so word of mouth is possible here.
I wish them luck. It'll be interesting when they go live.
Note that this is a more "concise" one than the one that takes up an entire bookshelf before breaking it under the weight.
For the Americans here the OED is globally considered to be the definitive English dictionary though by no means does it fulfill any authoritative role like that of the Acadamie Francais
Let's put it this way, shall we, it's not stealing because the infringement in no way shape or form makes it impossible for the "rights holder" to crank out as many more perfectly precise copies as they wish.
Stealing would be running off with the master and that person starting to issue copies either in their own name or just to make money themselves. All while denying the "rights holder" to do the same.
See? No weasel words just a real life comparison of the two words. At best infringement MAY deny the "rights holder" a bit of income. Though studies to show that the reverse is the case more often than not.
Most code bases do enjoy copyright protection. The trick there is with licensing when and if you can get it.
Various forms of open source licensing exist including the GPL, Apache License, Free BSD license and others which allow expressly for copying and actually encourage it. Something Daryl McBride at SCO failed to understand and probably still doesn't. Hell even Microsoft issued two, the Ms-PL and Ms-RL. The most complete list is here: http://www.opensource.org/
What our trolls don't understand in the discussion of strengthened copyright is that , like the "content" industry the tech sector depends on copyright, too, sees no need to lock everything down in walled gardens when something changes. The big problem with walled gardens, of course, is that they don't get enough sunlight so not much grows well in them if at all. Which might go a long way to explaining Hollywood's tendency to constantly copy itself.
Perhaps it's hard to engage the tech community or individuals when the lobbyist is constantly wanting baby talk. The problem I see here is that the lobbyist and, by extension, the tech industry speak two different languages. If one or the other is speaking the jargon of their trade then the other is left wondering what these people are talking about.
For example tech jargon will leave most "outsiders" dreadfully cold and the uneducated completely frozen out. I suspect that the lobbyist (and politician) aren't at all educated in the technology of the Internet or the World Wide Web so acronyms that slip off the tongue of the techies such as DNS, FTP, Server, IIS vs Apache and many others just don't mean a thing to the lobbyist or politician.
Then again, it's about time the lobbyists and politicians figured all this stuff out. Even at the most basic level.
The MPAA and RIAA have an advantage these days in that given the basic tools on Windows, Apple and most Linux distros you can make a half way passable move of you and your grandkids day at the beach and a half way passage sound recording if you have a half decent microphone or two hanging around. The politicians, even if they can't or have never done it before, are their heart of hearts that they can do these things. So what's not to understand? Even if they don't know the difference between a cut and a swipe.
Add all the spare cash that the RIAA and MPAA have around as they shriek about poverty and you find yourself with a deal clincher quite often.
Very few, if any, congress critters have installed Windows from scratch with the what seems like half a million reboots along the way, Even fewer have installed a Linux distro which, for most of them, these days is a walk in the park compared to Windows.
If the need any of that it's a call to the grandkids, again, to do it for them. The Web Kids.
Tech may need to simplify things for these people without talking down to them even if it's a 10 minute crash course. The lobbyists and politicians need to take these sorts of things seriously enough to learn some "small" things like computers and networks spend of their time copying or nothing will come out in the end.
But the tech industry has to be invited to the talks and discussions as a bill ABOUT technology is being discussed. Not just the Apple's, Microsft's and GoDaddys of the world but also the Apache Foundation, Red Hat, Debians and even Ubuntu's of the world just to start. Perhaps individuals like Linus Torvalds, Tim Berners-Lee and Bill Gates as well.
And precious little these days when talking or legislating isn't, in one form or another, talking about technology. And, to an increasing extent, about the Internet.
It's long past time or the great divide of the recent past to end.
What you're missing is that the tech industry, as reliant on copyright as "big content" is is used to sharing.
What we have today is built on nerds, if you must, sharing concepts AND code to build and improve on what came before. The entire open source segment of tech comes from that ethic. A great deal of closed source also comes from there as well. As do things like advancement in chip design and coding.
There is little or no common ground between the the tech industry and the "content" industry in that regard. So a bill that benefits both is highly unlikely.
In many ways this reminds me of the widespread reaction against Disco in the 70s as in Disco Sucks!!!!
(I was one of those!)
People, mostly straight males, justified this reaction by saying it wasn't live and would be the death of live music. Of course it wasn't. And we all knew that. But there was a lot of truth to that in that disco was infected by a larger than usual amount of pure crap because all you really needed was the dance beat. Not that the rock music of the period was infected with a ton of pure crap too.
Live music is still here, dance music is still here and so are alleged singers who lip synch their songs "live".
The more things change the more they stay the same. ;-)
If you listen carefully, you'll notice that George Martin, when he produced The Beatles, often spliced bits of background/sweetener music into their songs. Not large amounts but enough the get the sound the Martin and the band wanted to get.
On the post: Harper's Publisher Presents The Platonic Ideal Specimen Of The 'I'm An Old Fogey Elitist Anti-Internet Luddite' Columns
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Collection Society To Libraries: No Story Time For Kids Unless You Pay To Read Aloud
What, in the name of heaven, are they thinking? (Rhetorical question, the answers are largely greed and a level of stupidity exceeding that of cattle and sheep.)
Evil doesn't explain it. Evil is usually smarter than that. Evil wants to deflect blame not take it.
My only advice to the libraries in Belgium is to tell SABAM to stick it where the sun don't shine and read to the kids anyway. And to be loud about it. Then wait of them to sue. I'm sure there'd be two or three top level human rights, copyright and other specialty lawyers around who'd work pro bono for the libraries.
This action has shown precisely why copyright law and precedents need to be scrapped and started over. It no longer serves the purpose that it was intended to serve. It's now a haven for scoundrels, liars, frauds, pirates and cold hearted monsters. It certainly doesn't help artists to get paid for their work or anyone or anything else.
I've been sympathetic to the concept of copyright (and patents).
UNTIL NOW
On the post: Dave Gorman, Victim Of A Bogus DMCA Takedown, Highlights Flickr's Horrible DMCA Takedown Policy
If they want Flickr to continue to be the success it has been they'd better fix this because "word of mouth" is so fast across the interwebs that half the planet knows about this by now and the other half will know tomorrow morning.
Just blanking the allegedly "offending" photo out ought to be enough for everyone as it allows restoral of the customer's material, comments and so on very quickly and easily no matter what Flickr and Yahoo say. Plainly dumb and stupid.
On the post: Review Of Canada's Copyright Bill Concludes, Digital Locks Survive
Sigh....
While the Tories will be blasted for going as far as they did over digital locks and the possibility that someone may face jail time down the road as a result.
I'd like to remind Leah that the Liberals, in the past, when in a majority have rolled over and played dead to the demands of the "content" industry and U.S. diplomats and asking how high to demands of "jump" in every other issue outside of Canadian content. The NDP have done the same "for the artist" which is why we have a tax on blank media now as if we're all pirates.
Yes, it's bad law. It will probably sail through the Senate so we'll have to see what the courts say down the road when the inevitable happens.
Of course, the reality is that digital locks will continue to be broken with tiring regularity for the simple fact that consumers don't like them. Exactly the same situation as currently exists in the States.
I'd be curious to find out if the committee votes were whipped which may mean that buried in the background there IS some partisanship if for no other reason that the "content" industry for all its complaining goes nowhere without bags full of money.
On the post: Will 'Matter' Matter? Startup Proposes New Model For Long-Form Journalism
If, for no other reason, than mass media science coverage is so pathetic whether or not they hide behind a pay wall.
The pay per article idea is fascinating in that Matter is setting themselves a very high bar to bring people back week after week which is an incentive in and of itself to perform, I'd think.
In many respects it's like the fact that I pay more at the till for the likes of Scientific American, The Economist, Psychology Today and other publications than most magazines because I know the quality of the content before I crack the cover. It used to be that way for National Geographic but their standards seem to have slipped and sometimes slide into the sensationalism of their Discovery channel despite the fantastic photography.
It'll be interesting to see if they clear the bar they've set themselves. As long as they allow some cut and paste capabilities without the usual "content creator" whine I might actually be able to discuss the content with friends while pointing them at Matter so word of mouth is possible here.
I wish them luck. It'll be interesting when they go live.
On the post: Guess What? Copying Still Isn't Stealing
Re: Re: Re: Re: It can be.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/steal
Note that this is a more "concise" one than the one that takes up an entire bookshelf before breaking it under the weight.
For the Americans here the OED is globally considered to be the definitive English dictionary though by no means does it fulfill any authoritative role like that of the Acadamie Francais
On the post: Guess What? Copying Still Isn't Stealing
Re: Re: Re: Re: It can be.
Stealing would be running off with the master and that person starting to issue copies either in their own name or just to make money themselves. All while denying the "rights holder" to do the same.
See? No weasel words just a real life comparison of the two words. At best infringement MAY deny the "rights holder" a bit of income. Though studies to show that the reverse is the case more often than not.
The only weasel words being used here are yours.
On the post: Delusions Of Grandeur: Yahoo Officially Sues Facebook, Laughably Argues That Facebook's Entire Model Is Based On Yahoo
Code base copyright
Various forms of open source licensing exist including the GPL, Apache License, Free BSD license and others which allow expressly for copying and actually encourage it. Something Daryl McBride at SCO failed to understand and probably still doesn't. Hell even Microsoft issued two, the Ms-PL and Ms-RL. The most complete list is here: http://www.opensource.org/
The ones compatible with the GPL can be found here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses You have to scroll down to find the incompatible ones.
What our trolls don't understand in the discussion of strengthened copyright is that , like the "content" industry the tech sector depends on copyright, too, sees no need to lock everything down in walled gardens when something changes. The big problem with walled gardens, of course, is that they don't get enough sunlight so not much grows well in them if at all. Which might go a long way to explaining Hollywood's tendency to constantly copy itself.
On the post: Delusions Of Grandeur: Yahoo Officially Sues Facebook, Laughably Argues That Facebook's Entire Model Is Based On Yahoo
Re:
On the post: Delusions Of Grandeur: Yahoo Officially Sues Facebook, Laughably Argues That Facebook's Entire Model Is Based On Yahoo
Re: php
I'm surprised they didn't go after HTML, DHTML and a long list of others.
On the post: NYT Pays Former CEO $24 Million To Go Away; The Paper Made $3 Million Total Over The Last 4 Years
Re: Re:
On the post: 'Don't Get SOPA'd' Is The New Mantra On Capitol Hill
Re: Nearly impossible?
For example tech jargon will leave most "outsiders" dreadfully cold and the uneducated completely frozen out. I suspect that the lobbyist (and politician) aren't at all educated in the technology of the Internet or the World Wide Web so acronyms that slip off the tongue of the techies such as DNS, FTP, Server, IIS vs Apache and many others just don't mean a thing to the lobbyist or politician.
Then again, it's about time the lobbyists and politicians figured all this stuff out. Even at the most basic level.
The MPAA and RIAA have an advantage these days in that given the basic tools on Windows, Apple and most Linux distros you can make a half way passable move of you and your grandkids day at the beach and a half way passage sound recording if you have a half decent microphone or two hanging around. The politicians, even if they can't or have never done it before, are their heart of hearts that they can do these things. So what's not to understand? Even if they don't know the difference between a cut and a swipe.
Add all the spare cash that the RIAA and MPAA have around as they shriek about poverty and you find yourself with a deal clincher quite often.
Very few, if any, congress critters have installed Windows from scratch with the what seems like half a million reboots along the way, Even fewer have installed a Linux distro which, for most of them, these days is a walk in the park compared to Windows.
If the need any of that it's a call to the grandkids, again, to do it for them. The Web Kids.
Tech may need to simplify things for these people without talking down to them even if it's a 10 minute crash course. The lobbyists and politicians need to take these sorts of things seriously enough to learn some "small" things like computers and networks spend of their time copying or nothing will come out in the end.
But the tech industry has to be invited to the talks and discussions as a bill ABOUT technology is being discussed. Not just the Apple's, Microsft's and GoDaddys of the world but also the Apache Foundation, Red Hat, Debians and even Ubuntu's of the world just to start. Perhaps individuals like Linus Torvalds, Tim Berners-Lee and Bill Gates as well.
And precious little these days when talking or legislating isn't, in one form or another, talking about technology. And, to an increasing extent, about the Internet.
It's long past time or the great divide of the recent past to end.
On the post: 'Don't Get SOPA'd' Is The New Mantra On Capitol Hill
Re:
What we have today is built on nerds, if you must, sharing concepts AND code to build and improve on what came before. The entire open source segment of tech comes from that ethic. A great deal of closed source also comes from there as well. As do things like advancement in chip design and coding.
There is little or no common ground between the the tech industry and the "content" industry in that regard. So a bill that benefits both is highly unlikely.
On the post: 'Don't Get SOPA'd' Is The New Mantra On Capitol Hill
Re: Re: Remarkable
On the post: 'Don't Get SOPA'd' Is The New Mantra On Capitol Hill
Re: Dealing with netroots isn't as profitable
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Addition to Rich's assessment
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re:
On the post: Forget Home Taping: Evil Robots Are Killing Music!
Disco Duck
(I was one of those!)
People, mostly straight males, justified this reaction by saying it wasn't live and would be the death of live music. Of course it wasn't. And we all knew that. But there was a lot of truth to that in that disco was infected by a larger than usual amount of pure crap because all you really needed was the dance beat. Not that the rock music of the period was infected with a ton of pure crap too.
Live music is still here, dance music is still here and so are alleged singers who lip synch their songs "live".
The more things change the more they stay the same. ;-)
On the post: Michael Jackson, Pirate Remixer
Re: Just imagine
On the post: Michael Jackson, Pirate Remixer
Re: Re: Mech v. Authorship?
And that in the days of open reel and tape!
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