Actually, I thought the point of the story was that if you visit India make sure you arrange for a relative to join the Defence Academy and accompany you whenever you are in public. But I could be wrong.
I put the address of my childhood home in and it worked perfectly. Even more amazing was that the satellite view showed the house before my parents added a garage/extension, which was back in the late 70s. I have no idea how Google could do that, but it was amazing for me to see my old house from when I was a child.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it isn't really George's page. Call me crazy, but after looking at the content of that Facebook page, I'm going to go with "obsessed fan". (Or fans).
I'm sorry - I can't let this one go. In what way did America "build" the internet? What does that even mean? Did America single-handedly create the system of interconnected computer networks which constitute the "Internet"? Granted, America (along with the Brits) developed the first computer networks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet - in particular, note the work of Donald Davies at the UK National Physical Laboratory). But the Internet as most people experience it - the World Wide Web - was invented by another Pom - Tim Berners-Lee; and was "built" by dozens of countries and corporations. I'm not sure it is even valid to say that anyone "built" the Internet - I think it is more appropriate to say it grew or evolved, almost organically.
This comment reminds me of a comment I heard made by another American a number of years ago that WW2 didn't start until December 1941 when America declared war on Japan.
An ad-supported model is using the content - which is an unlimited resource because it can be copied - and turning the attention of the viewers it attracts into something that can be sold to advertisers. Sell physical goods by attracting people with virtual goods - that business model works.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Sure, in the past this is how it worked. And for the most part it still works this way now (or else advertisers would have given up on TV completely). I don't have the stats to back this up (and I don't know how you would even measure this), but my gut feel is that TV ads are less effective now than they used to be, and will be even less effective in the future. Once DVRs become as ubiquitous as DVD players, TV viewing habits will start to change. I know when I got my TiVo that my viewing patterns changed dramatically - I rarely watch "live" TV anymore. I record what I want, watch it when it is convenient, and fast fwd through the ads.
In Australia we have a system called FreeView - this is basically all the free-to-air channels along with an EPG. DVR manufacturers are only FreeView compliant if their devices are limited to a maximum fast forward speed of 32x. As long as they comply with this restriction, they can display the FreeView logo, and they have access to the EPG. Personally, I have no issue with 32x - it is fast enough that I can zip through 3 minutes of ads in a few seconds.
I think we are still a few years off yet, but the day is coming (IMHO) when advertisers will decide that TV no longer offers a good ROI. I would say that gimmicks like the one CNN is experimenting with are no more than re-arranging deckchairs.
In principle I agree with you that if a supply is infinite, the price will drop. But I'm not convinced it is always like that. One example might be bottled water. Pretty much everyone (where I live anyway) has access to clean, drinkable water, straight from the tap. And for all intents and purposes, it is an infinite supply. Yet people still buy massive amounts of bottled water, despite the fact that it is more expensive than petrol and offers no advantages over tap water.
I don't like Apple (the company or their products), but my business partner and I have decided that we should invest in an iPhone so we can demo our products/services as an iPhone app. Basically it comes down to wank value. Anyway, our new iPhone arrived yesterday - very nice looking phone, easy to use, etc - I can completely understand why lots of people buy them. But as part of the process of setting it up (just last night), I discovered something interesting. On iTunes I can buy an entire season of a TV series for $9.99. I never knew this was possible. As much as I can't stand Apple, this is pretty much what I have been looking for. I don't know if I can buy TV shows (from iTunes) here in Australia - it seems like many of the products that are available in the US are not available here. But it is nice to know that it is happening.
Maybe my idea above (actually, it isn't really my idea) won't work. Maybe people won't pay for TV shows, even if the price of goods and services drops as a result of lower advertising costs. But if I was CNN (or NBC or FOX or whoever) - I would still be exploring ways of being able to pay for the development of TV shows without relying on advertising dollars.
I suppose I should have somehow made a connection to the original story about CNN trying something new to get people to watch the ads. If I am a studio or network, for me the real question isn't "how do I get the people to watch the ads"? The real question is "how can I make the show without advertisers (or their money)"? In my opinion, the capacity for advertising dollars to continue funding the development of TV shows is dwindling. More and more people record shows, and fast forward through the ads; or they just download shows via bit torrent. As an advertiser, I would start questioning the sense of paying for TV shows to get made if no-one is going to see my ads. So, as the TV show maker, I would be trying to find ways to make shows that don't rely on advertising.
First up, I hate ads. For the most part I subscribe to the definition of advertising as being an attempt by someone to persuade me to buy something I probably don't need. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and I understand that a business with a new product or service has to let people know about that product or service somehow. I also understand that companies are competing for my dollars - whether it be toothpaste, a new car, or a pair of jeans. They obviously want to let me know why their product is better than the next guy's. But it doesn't change the fact that I hate ads. I also get the economic reality that advertising dollars are largely behind the development of TV shows - if ratings for a particular show drop, it means less people see the ads, which supposedly means the ads are less likely to drive sales of the product or service, so advertisers pull their ads from that show, so the show gets cancelled, etc.
But, that doesn't seem to be how movies work. I am no economist, nor am I an entertainment industry insider, but it seems to me that movies make money directly from the paying public (not via advertising). A movie is released, and we pay to see it at the cinema - good movies make lots of money, bad movies don't (most of the time). Perhaps that should be popular movies make money. And I agree that popular doesn't necessarily mean good. After the cinema run, people buy the movies on DVD (not all people, but lots). I have a large (and growing) DVD collection (over 200); I also love going to the cinema (although with two young children I don't go as often as I would like); and I freely admit that I occasionally download a movie via bit torrent. The point is that over the years I have spent thousands of dollars on movies, and I fully expect to spend many more thousands in the years to come. The other thing to note is that there are no ads DURING the movie - sure there are ads before the movie starts, but the movie is not interrupted by ads, and if you really don't want to see the ads, you can stand outside the cinema until the ads are finished.
I personally agree with a lot of what Jerry Mander wrote in his book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television". In my view, TV has become little more than a moving billboard. It's PRIMARY function seems to be to sell stuff. TV shows are merely there to fill the space between ads. Even the news isn't really news - it is basically just useless trivia - a house burned down in town X; two people died in a car accident today; etc. I am reminded of Steve Martin's character in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" when he is giving John Candy a tongue lashing: "If you're going to tell a story, here's an idea. Have a point!" If the news is going to tell me about something, have a reason (other than that it is "sensational" and is of interest from a purely voyeuristic perspective).
I only watch a handful of TV shows (and none of them is the news) - in my opinion, most TV is unmitigated crap. I would happily pay a fee of some kind to have access to the TV shows I like, on the condition that they were ad-free. Why don't I just subscribe to cable, you ask? Several reasons: it isn't available in my street; it has ads; I am locked in to a minimum 12 month contract; I can't pick and choose the shows I want - I have to choose a channel (or a package of channels), where most of the shows are of no interest to me.
I want to present an alternative view of how TV might work. Let's suppose there was no advertising on TV. Or perhaps only community service announcements from the government. Obviously the funding stream for TV shows would dry up, so if we want to continue watching TV, we need to find an alternative way to fund production. What if it was basically the same as movies? Suppose you could buy access to specific TV shows, just like you pay for a ticket to see a specific movie. I don't know what the price point would be to make it viable. Maybe actors would have to accept reduced salaries to keep production costs down. In principle I accept the notion that an actor should be able to demand whatever they want for a role. But I would rather be an actor who works regularly for $10,000 per episode, than an actor who is out of work because I demand $100,000 per episode. I remember reading that the cast of Friends were getting paid $1,000,000 each, per episode. Frankly, that seems crazy to me. As an aside, it seems to say something interesting about our values if we pay comedy actors millions of dollars, but we pay teachers and nurses pitiful wages - but that is a separate conversation. Getting back to the original topic (buying TV shows), I don't know if people would accept such an idea. But if it did happen, I can see several things resulting from this approach.
1. There would be fewer TV shows being made (which in my opinion is a good thing cos most of them are crap). People would be forced to be more judicious about what they watch if they have to pay for it. It astounds me how many truly bad TV shows are made. Granted, they are on at 2:00 in the morning, but still, someone pays those actors and crew and writers to make this drivel. Personally, I wouldn't be at all upset if that kind of crap just disappeared. Ah - but now I'm being elitist, you say, and only the shows that I like should be made. Well, not really. If enough people like it enough to pay for it, it would continue to get made.
2. The price of products and services would drop (or should drop) because the cost of advertising is not baked into the price
3. People would watch less TV - this can only be a good thing. People would go out more, read more, play more sport, etc. Or maybe they would just spend more time watching YouTube videos.
How would it work? Suppose FOX wanted to make a new TV show - say a new drama about Lawyers (cos we don't have enough of those). They make the first episode and I can watch the first episode for free. Or maybe the first 3 episodes are free to watch. But if I want to watch any more, I have to pay. Perhaps I even have to pay for the first three in order to watch any more. If enough people like it, and decide to buy the show, it will continue to be made. If people stop buying it, it presumably means that the story is no longer of interest, so it gets cancelled. OR, perhaps FOX can solicit feedback from the subscribers as to what could be done to improve the show. Maybe shows would only have a life span of just one or two seasons so they remain fresh, instead of running for 7 or 8 seasons (or more) and becoming stale.
Like I said earlier, I'm not an economist so I don't know if this idea is viable. I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of it. I also don't know the detailed mechanics of how it would work - Do you pay for each individual show or do you pay for a whole series up front, or just a block of shows (say 5 at a time)? Who do you pay? The broadcaster or the network making the show? Years ago I read a very interesting article which proposed a model that might solve this and other related problems (eg: music "piracy"). If my ADSL service cost me an extra $10 or even $20 per month, but it meant I had unlimited access to music, TV shows and movies, all of it free of ads, I would pay it in a heart beat.
2000 may not have been the last year of the 1900's, but it was also not the start of the new millennium. The 3rd millennium technically started on January 1, 2001 (not 2000). Consequently, the first decade of the new millennium doesn't end until Dec 31, 2010.
What I don't get is how copyright law even got off the ground. It seems (to me) to fly in the face of the notion that nothing exists in a vacuum. There are very few truly original ideas - most advancement (in any field) is incremental. As the great Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants". Ironically, he is also quoted as saying, "I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people". Somehow apt given the crazy state of affairs in the world of copyright.
There's these things called jobs. The young kids of today don't like them cos they reduce the amount of time the young whipper snappers can spend on Facebook. But I'm told they build character, and if you get a good job, you can even get paid lots of money. Mind you, getting a good job usually requires an education - something else the young kids of today seem to avoid. Yikes - I sound like my grandfather. And I'm only 41!
In one of my comments to a different article I made the comment that Australia was way behind the US in the litigiousness department, but that we're slowly catching up. After reading about this suit I would say we are a lot further behind than I previously thought and we may never catch up. Thank God.
It seems to me that the heart of the issue is two-fold:
1. copyright owners want to get paid for their content, and they claim that torrents and other means of file sharing are depriving them of their dues
2. the public (apparently) wants access to content for free (or at least very little)
I don't believe that the majority of Internet users adopt the philosophical or ideological position that they are entitled to free content - I think most people are decent enough to accept that if something is of value, they should pay for it. However, in reference to point 2, I think most people believe (rightly or wrongly) that the price you pay for digital content should be much lower than the price you pay for physical content. iTunes might seem cheap at 99c per song, but at that price it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to fill an iPod with music, which is ridiculous. Given the choice between paying exorbitant prices for content, or getting it for free, people will almost always choose free (IMHO).
As much as I like the economic model that is often promoted on this site (CwF + RtB, give away the infinite resource and charge for the scarce resource), my gut tells me that it may not work for all content creators. For example, there are some artists who write great music and can produce an awesome CD, but they suck on stage, or they are not interested in touring.
So, let's assume that we need to satisfy two requirements:
1. people will always want free (or at least very cheap) content
2. the content creators/copyright owners need to get paid (somehow)
I can't help thinking that one solution lies here. Granted, it's an old article and there are numerous subscription style services already out there. But I think this idea is different for several reasons:
1. the consumer is not paying their money to a content provider (eg: EMI, Sony, NBC, etc), so you aren't limited to particular artists or movies or TV shows
2. ISPs don't need to become gate keepers (just look at what the idiotic Australian govt is trying to do with mandatory internet filtering)
3. it helps to guarantee the quality of the content. If you could get access to all the high quality content you wanted, why would you risk getting shitty content (or worse, eg: viruses) from a torrent site for the sake of $6 per month? As an aside, a similar argument can be made about the decriminalisation of drugs - you (mostly) eliminate the criminal trade; you can standardise the quality of the product; and you can regulate/monitor the consumption.
It seems to me that we are in for several years of heated debate, dumb law suits, crappy legal decisions, etc, before the world catches up to the technology. I'm hopeful that (within a few years) the sheer weight of numbers and the nature of the net itself will result in a better system that works for all stakeholders (except the RIAA who are bunch of low life fuckers).
I realise that my comment is slightly off topic, but given our increasingly litigious society (I live in Australia and we are way behind the US in the litigiousness department, but we're slowly catching up), it seems likely to me that this will one day end up with a driver suing someone for distracting them (if it hasn't happened already). If someone can spill their coffee on their lap while driving, and then successfully sue McDonalds for making the coffee too hot, how long before someone sues Toyota/Sony/Apple/ for a billboard on the highway that was so effective it caused the driver to take their eyes off the road?
I have long believed that billboard advertising by the side of roads should be banned. The whole purpose of a billboard is to take your attention AWAY from driving, even if only for a few seconds. But it is just another example of how commercial interests are placed ahead of those of the community. As far as I am concerned my "right" to drive in a relatively distraction-free environment (ie: the roads) trumps a company's "right" to stick yet another ad in front of me.
Marzipan dildo. I love it! That is truly funny. I'd like to use that term to describe truly useless people/organisations/policies, etc. Would I be guilty of copyright infringement?
This is actually one of the "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" by Jerry Mander (yes, that is his real name). With television the communication is strictly one-way, and to make it even worse, you (as the viewer) have no control over the pace at which the "information" is broadcast. At least with a newspaper you can read a section, think about it, read it again, think some more, etc. TV stations don't broadcast a snippet and then say, "OK, we'll pause for a minute while you digest that bit". Mind you, technology like TiVo gives viewers that ability - although I doubt many would use TiVo for that purpose.
I am not a US citizen - I live in Australia - so perhaps I am not qualified (or entitled) to comment on the media in the US. But as an outsider looking in it seems like the American media has pretty much given up challenging or investigating those in power. (I know that is a sweeping statement and there are lots of examples where the media has exposed corruption, etc). That being said, when George W. was President it seemed like the US media was afraid to criticise the Bush administration for fear of being branded unpatriotic (particularly after 9/11). Now it seems there is a reluctance to criticise the Obama administration because he is seen as some kind of Messiah, sent to deliver America from whatever wilderness it was led into by Bush (et al.). Personally I would be spitting chips if my government spent a gazillion dollars bailing out a bunch corporations guilty of all manner of "sins" ranging from plain ineptitude right up to outright fraud.
Now, as an outsider, I can say unequivocally that I am soooo pleased Obama was elected President. I think I speak for just about every non-American person who takes an interest in American politics. But that doesn't mean he deserves a completely free ride - even Obama needs to be held accountable.
Re: This post is copyright (c) property of Tristin (TM)
"If any of you quote more than 10 words of this post than I will take you to court for violating my copyright. Consider yourself warned. It is vital to me that I get the protection I so badly need from comment pirates that are destroying the comment industry."
As an Aussie (and proud of it) I am part shocked, part saddened, and part amused at the suit being brought by Larrikin Music. We (ie: Aussies) often joke about Americans being willing to sue anyone and everyone over just about anything. Maybe I should sue my parents because I'm not blonde, and therefore I don't have as much fun?
As for the suit itself, the consensus seems to be that it will be thrown out of court. The similarity between "Down Under" and "Kookaburra" isn't strong. And let's not forget that they still need to prove it was intentional, not a fluke coincidence.
By the way, a larrikin is someone who is a bit of a clown, a joker, is a bit irreverent, and who mocks authority. Doesn't exactly describe Larrikin Music, does it?
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Re: Re: my experience
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Blew me away
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Re: Re: Seriously, who gives a rat's
On the post: Man Claims To Own 84% Of Facebook
Seriously, who gives a rat's
"I would rather have a prostate exam on live television by a guy with very cold hands than have a Facebook page"
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Re:
This comment reminds me of a comment I heard made by another American a number of years ago that WW2 didn't start until December 1941 when America declared war on Japan.
On the post: How To Get People To Watch TV Ads: Don't Stop The Program While You Show Them
Re: Re: Surely there can be life without ads??
In Australia we have a system called FreeView - this is basically all the free-to-air channels along with an EPG. DVR manufacturers are only FreeView compliant if their devices are limited to a maximum fast forward speed of 32x. As long as they comply with this restriction, they can display the FreeView logo, and they have access to the EPG. Personally, I have no issue with 32x - it is fast enough that I can zip through 3 minutes of ads in a few seconds.
I think we are still a few years off yet, but the day is coming (IMHO) when advertisers will decide that TV no longer offers a good ROI. I would say that gimmicks like the one CNN is experimenting with are no more than re-arranging deckchairs.
In principle I agree with you that if a supply is infinite, the price will drop. But I'm not convinced it is always like that. One example might be bottled water. Pretty much everyone (where I live anyway) has access to clean, drinkable water, straight from the tap. And for all intents and purposes, it is an infinite supply. Yet people still buy massive amounts of bottled water, despite the fact that it is more expensive than petrol and offers no advantages over tap water.
I don't like Apple (the company or their products), but my business partner and I have decided that we should invest in an iPhone so we can demo our products/services as an iPhone app. Basically it comes down to wank value. Anyway, our new iPhone arrived yesterday - very nice looking phone, easy to use, etc - I can completely understand why lots of people buy them. But as part of the process of setting it up (just last night), I discovered something interesting. On iTunes I can buy an entire season of a TV series for $9.99. I never knew this was possible. As much as I can't stand Apple, this is pretty much what I have been looking for. I don't know if I can buy TV shows (from iTunes) here in Australia - it seems like many of the products that are available in the US are not available here. But it is nice to know that it is happening.
Maybe my idea above (actually, it isn't really my idea) won't work. Maybe people won't pay for TV shows, even if the price of goods and services drops as a result of lower advertising costs. But if I was CNN (or NBC or FOX or whoever) - I would still be exploring ways of being able to pay for the development of TV shows without relying on advertising dollars.
On the post: How To Get People To Watch TV Ads: Don't Stop The Program While You Show Them
Re: Surely there can be life without ads??
On the post: How To Get People To Watch TV Ads: Don't Stop The Program While You Show Them
Surely there can be life without ads??
But, that doesn't seem to be how movies work. I am no economist, nor am I an entertainment industry insider, but it seems to me that movies make money directly from the paying public (not via advertising). A movie is released, and we pay to see it at the cinema - good movies make lots of money, bad movies don't (most of the time). Perhaps that should be popular movies make money. And I agree that popular doesn't necessarily mean good. After the cinema run, people buy the movies on DVD (not all people, but lots). I have a large (and growing) DVD collection (over 200); I also love going to the cinema (although with two young children I don't go as often as I would like); and I freely admit that I occasionally download a movie via bit torrent. The point is that over the years I have spent thousands of dollars on movies, and I fully expect to spend many more thousands in the years to come. The other thing to note is that there are no ads DURING the movie - sure there are ads before the movie starts, but the movie is not interrupted by ads, and if you really don't want to see the ads, you can stand outside the cinema until the ads are finished.
I personally agree with a lot of what Jerry Mander wrote in his book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television". In my view, TV has become little more than a moving billboard. It's PRIMARY function seems to be to sell stuff. TV shows are merely there to fill the space between ads. Even the news isn't really news - it is basically just useless trivia - a house burned down in town X; two people died in a car accident today; etc. I am reminded of Steve Martin's character in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" when he is giving John Candy a tongue lashing: "If you're going to tell a story, here's an idea. Have a point!" If the news is going to tell me about something, have a reason (other than that it is "sensational" and is of interest from a purely voyeuristic perspective).
I only watch a handful of TV shows (and none of them is the news) - in my opinion, most TV is unmitigated crap. I would happily pay a fee of some kind to have access to the TV shows I like, on the condition that they were ad-free. Why don't I just subscribe to cable, you ask? Several reasons: it isn't available in my street; it has ads; I am locked in to a minimum 12 month contract; I can't pick and choose the shows I want - I have to choose a channel (or a package of channels), where most of the shows are of no interest to me.
I want to present an alternative view of how TV might work. Let's suppose there was no advertising on TV. Or perhaps only community service announcements from the government. Obviously the funding stream for TV shows would dry up, so if we want to continue watching TV, we need to find an alternative way to fund production. What if it was basically the same as movies? Suppose you could buy access to specific TV shows, just like you pay for a ticket to see a specific movie. I don't know what the price point would be to make it viable. Maybe actors would have to accept reduced salaries to keep production costs down. In principle I accept the notion that an actor should be able to demand whatever they want for a role. But I would rather be an actor who works regularly for $10,000 per episode, than an actor who is out of work because I demand $100,000 per episode. I remember reading that the cast of Friends were getting paid $1,000,000 each, per episode. Frankly, that seems crazy to me. As an aside, it seems to say something interesting about our values if we pay comedy actors millions of dollars, but we pay teachers and nurses pitiful wages - but that is a separate conversation. Getting back to the original topic (buying TV shows), I don't know if people would accept such an idea. But if it did happen, I can see several things resulting from this approach.
1. There would be fewer TV shows being made (which in my opinion is a good thing cos most of them are crap). People would be forced to be more judicious about what they watch if they have to pay for it. It astounds me how many truly bad TV shows are made. Granted, they are on at 2:00 in the morning, but still, someone pays those actors and crew and writers to make this drivel. Personally, I wouldn't be at all upset if that kind of crap just disappeared. Ah - but now I'm being elitist, you say, and only the shows that I like should be made. Well, not really. If enough people like it enough to pay for it, it would continue to get made.
2. The price of products and services would drop (or should drop) because the cost of advertising is not baked into the price
3. People would watch less TV - this can only be a good thing. People would go out more, read more, play more sport, etc. Or maybe they would just spend more time watching YouTube videos.
How would it work? Suppose FOX wanted to make a new TV show - say a new drama about Lawyers (cos we don't have enough of those). They make the first episode and I can watch the first episode for free. Or maybe the first 3 episodes are free to watch. But if I want to watch any more, I have to pay. Perhaps I even have to pay for the first three in order to watch any more. If enough people like it, and decide to buy the show, it will continue to be made. If people stop buying it, it presumably means that the story is no longer of interest, so it gets cancelled. OR, perhaps FOX can solicit feedback from the subscribers as to what could be done to improve the show. Maybe shows would only have a life span of just one or two seasons so they remain fresh, instead of running for 7 or 8 seasons (or more) and becoming stale.
Like I said earlier, I'm not an economist so I don't know if this idea is viable. I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of it. I also don't know the detailed mechanics of how it would work - Do you pay for each individual show or do you pay for a whole series up front, or just a block of shows (say 5 at a time)? Who do you pay? The broadcaster or the network making the show? Years ago I read a very interesting article which proposed a model that might solve this and other related problems (eg: music "piracy"). If my ADSL service cost me an extra $10 or even $20 per month, but it meant I had unlimited access to music, TV shows and movies, all of it free of ads, I would pay it in a heart beat.
Sorry for the long comment.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Complications Of Ownership Society: Family Claiming Rights To Spiderman Doesn't Seem To Have Created Spiderman
Re: Taking my childhood away from me
On the post: Complications Of Ownership Society: Family Claiming Rights To Spiderman Doesn't Seem To Have Created Spiderman
Re: Re: Limits
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The land of the Free to Sue thy Neighbour
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What about this idea...?
1. copyright owners want to get paid for their content, and they claim that torrents and other means of file sharing are depriving them of their dues
2. the public (apparently) wants access to content for free (or at least very little)
I don't believe that the majority of Internet users adopt the philosophical or ideological position that they are entitled to free content - I think most people are decent enough to accept that if something is of value, they should pay for it. However, in reference to point 2, I think most people believe (rightly or wrongly) that the price you pay for digital content should be much lower than the price you pay for physical content. iTunes might seem cheap at 99c per song, but at that price it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to fill an iPod with music, which is ridiculous. Given the choice between paying exorbitant prices for content, or getting it for free, people will almost always choose free (IMHO).
As much as I like the economic model that is often promoted on this site (CwF + RtB, give away the infinite resource and charge for the scarce resource), my gut tells me that it may not work for all content creators. For example, there are some artists who write great music and can produce an awesome CD, but they suck on stage, or they are not interested in touring.
So, let's assume that we need to satisfy two requirements:
1. people will always want free (or at least very cheap) content
2. the content creators/copyright owners need to get paid (somehow)
I can't help thinking that one solution lies here. Granted, it's an old article and there are numerous subscription style services already out there. But I think this idea is different for several reasons:
1. the consumer is not paying their money to a content provider (eg: EMI, Sony, NBC, etc), so you aren't limited to particular artists or movies or TV shows
2. ISPs don't need to become gate keepers (just look at what the idiotic Australian govt is trying to do with mandatory internet filtering)
3. it helps to guarantee the quality of the content. If you could get access to all the high quality content you wanted, why would you risk getting shitty content (or worse, eg: viruses) from a torrent site for the sake of $6 per month? As an aside, a similar argument can be made about the decriminalisation of drugs - you (mostly) eliminate the criminal trade; you can standardise the quality of the product; and you can regulate/monitor the consumption.
It seems to me that we are in for several years of heated debate, dumb law suits, crappy legal decisions, etc, before the world catches up to the technology. I'm hopeful that (within a few years) the sheer weight of numbers and the nature of the net itself will result in a better system that works for all stakeholders (except the RIAA who are bunch of low life fuckers).
On the post: German Judge: If Sex While Driving Is Legal, Why Isn't Driving While Phoning?
Where will it end?
I have long believed that billboard advertising by the side of roads should be banned. The whole purpose of a billboard is to take your attention AWAY from driving, even if only for a few seconds. But it is just another example of how commercial interests are placed ahead of those of the community. As far as I am concerned my "right" to drive in a relatively distraction-free environment (ie: the roads) trumps a company's "right" to stick yet another ad in front of me.
On the post: Tech Columnist Calls Model 'A Hero' For Exposing Anonymous Blogger
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On the post: Did European Court Just Make Search Engines Illegal? 11-Word Snippet Can Be Copyright Infringement
Re: This post is copyright (c) property of Tristin (TM)
On the post: Irony: Columnist Who Berates Bloggers For Not Fact Checking, Didn't Fact Check
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On the post: Irony: Columnist Who Berates Bloggers For Not Fact Checking, Didn't Fact Check
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Now, as an outsider, I can say unequivocally that I am soooo pleased Obama was elected President. I think I speak for just about every non-American person who takes an interest in American politics. But that doesn't mean he deserves a completely free ride - even Obama needs to be held accountable.
On the post: Did European Court Just Make Search Engines Illegal? 11-Word Snippet Can Be Copyright Infringement
Re: This post is copyright (c) property of Tristin (TM)
Come get me.
On the post: Music Publisher Suddenly Claims 80s Australian Pop Hit Infringed On 1930s Kids Tune
Crikey!
As for the suit itself, the consensus seems to be that it will be thrown out of court. The similarity between "Down Under" and "Kookaburra" isn't strong. And let's not forget that they still need to prove it was intentional, not a fluke coincidence.
By the way, a larrikin is someone who is a bit of a clown, a joker, is a bit irreverent, and who mocks authority. Doesn't exactly describe Larrikin Music, does it?
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