Re: Re: It depends on what you're trying to measure/assess
Oh, definitely, I wasn't defending overspecialisation and a lack of adaptability, merely pointing them out as a fact of life for many people.
The problem with taking a big picture "company X should just adapt to the changing market" view is that it can miss the trees for the forest.
Companies are made of people, and they can only change direction when the people within them do (whether that's organically or via leadership from the top). If the only way for a company to survive is to (for example) get out of the bricks-and-mortar world and go pure digital, then there are going to be a lot of people within that company that have no place in the new structure, and hence will understandably do everything they can to preserve the status quo. What do they care about the future of the company as a whole if postponing inevitable change staves off the direct impact on themselves for at least a few more years?
Re: Re: It depends on what you're trying to measure/assess
Ah, but you're making the mistake of viewing "the newspaper company" as a monolithic entity. It isn't, it's made up of individuals, and many of those individuals aren't needed in the digital world.
If your job is servicing the printing presses, driving the delivery truck, managing the ink store... there isn't any place for you in an all-digital shop.
If your job is managing one of those no longer needed (or substantially reduced) divisions, then you're for the chopping block, too.
Leaders can't lead where the followers won't follow and the legacy newspaper companies have a big problem on that front.
Erickson's lawyer gets paid for his time regardless of whether the suit has merit or not, so it isn't in the lawyer's personal interest to talk him out of it.
Now, some lawyers actually take their professional ethics seriously and will persuade their clients not to file baseless suits, but that still leaves plenty of scope to shop around until you find a slightly less ethical one willing to profit by indulging your misplaced sense of outrage.
Uh, if your ISP is counting uploads against your quota, get a better ISP. I've yet to see a plan that does that from any of the majors, so I'm not sure who would be imposing that on you.
Paid any money to Isaac Newton's estate lately? How about Albert Einstein's?
I guess we can count ourselves fortunate that not everyone thinks the way you do.
Still, you're missing the point that Mike has said many, many times that he agrees with you: if a copyright holder chooses not to make their works available the way you want to consume them, then the correct legal choice under the current system is to walk away.
The reason many people don't walk away, and go for an illegal copy instead, is that they figure they're using their own resources (power, bandwidth, time) to create a new copy, rather than taking anything from anyone. Is someone taking a photo of the Eiffel Tower stealing it? Enjoying benefits they aren't entitled to? That's the kind of point of view you're railing against here.
And that brings us to another point Mike regularly brings up: it doesn't have to be this way. Many artists have shown that you can give fans what they want (convenient access to your work) and still make a decent living. Probably not the obscene mega-profits of the winners of the current hit-based lottery systems, but certainly enough to sustain a comfortable middle-class lifestyle for the artist and their family.
One way adds a lot of net misery to the human condition (artists stressing about people "stealing" their work, fans struggling to get their hands on the products of their favourite artists, law enforcement barging in on adolescents and grandmothers). The other way... doesn't. We can do better. We should do better.
It depends on what you're trying to measure/assess
For investment purposes and for deciding how valuable a given skill set is likely to be in the future, defining "industry" in this narrow sense is quite useful.
If your expertise is in applying ink to wood pulp and shipping it out to customers every morning, then sorry, demand for that expertise is going to fall precipitously over the coming years.
If you're a wired telecommunications tech who only knows how to work with copper, and has learned nothing about optical fibre technology, then you should consider your job at risk as well.
Yes, these industries, in a broader sense, are changing rather than declining, but from the point of view of investors and individuals, it's often the narrow sense that matters.
I don't think you're really disagreeing with me, given that one of the things I said was "Managing the information firehose that is the internet *is* an art form, and I don't know how to teach it except through experience."
Consider what I pay attention to online:
- anything that gets past GMail's spam filter (which is 99.9% stuff that I have explicitly signed up for, or which comes from friends/family)
- stuff on sites I regularly visit (including FB and Twitter)
- stuff that comes up in my RSS reader (all of which I have explicitly subscribed to)
- stuff on sites that I don't regularly visit, but trust due to past experiences or offline knowledge (e.g. large company sites, government sites)
- stuff that comes up on a Google search (which is usually at least arguably relevant to what I searched for)
I don't care that huge amounts of what is posted online is irrelevant to me, as, not only am I not their target audience, I generally won't even learn that it exists unless it comes up in one of those above windows on the 'Net.
But learning how to create and manage effective windows on the 'Net isn't something that is easy to pick up without a lot of coaching, and without those filters, you're going to be overwhelmed by irrelevant drek and learn to hate the thing in fairly short order.
Your last paragraph basically echoes my own points. The younger generations are growing up with this, and managing their filters on the 'Net is as natural to them as choosing a preferred newspaper or TV news channel was for older generations.
There's actually a different branch of IP law that is better suited to retaining creative control, and that is trademark law.
For example, "Discworld" is trademarked by Sir Terry (and his wife, I believe). You can't go out and make commercial Discworld stuff without getting his OK, whether you copy anything from the books or not. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that several of the main characters were trademarked as well.
But if the early Discworld books came out of copyright, then somebody could quite happily republish them, since the use of Sir Terry's trademarks would be a nominative use.
The "Creator Endorsed" mark from Question Copyright is another approach to this same problem. CE-marked works would be those that have an amicable arrangement with the original creator, and some customers may choose to favour such works over those that don't bother.
Don't get too depressed about it, though. There are a lot of big battles that have been fought and largely won over the last few centuries:
- state-endorsed slavery is history
- state-endorsed religious, racial and sex-based discrimination is in decline
- corporal and capital punishment are significantly less prevalent than they once were
- sustainability is at least granted lip service in many economies around the world
The dream some folks have of a future where schools and hospitals are fully funded, but the air force has to hold a bake sale to afford a new fighter jet is still rather remote, but it doesn't take much of a review of history to realise just how much the world has changed with the steady rise in the availability of global travel and communications.
Marcus Carab touched on this above, but I think there's an interesting reflection on a few other aspects of economic regulation in that piece.
In particular: if supply is unlimited, there is no need to regulate demand. But if supply is, in fact, limited, then demand must be regulated in some fashion to apportion those scarce supplies.
We see this when non-obvious natural limits are identified, and supplemented with significantly more obvious artificial restrictions in an attempt to prevent "Tragedy of the Commons" scenarios (where a resource is exploited to the point of destruction, meaning that nobody benefits any longer).
The hard part (and the one many folks in the legacy media industries in particular struggle to come to grips with) is identifying cases (such as creative expression) where there really aren't underlying natural limits.
As long as humans continue to have leisure time (i.e. time not solely devoted to meeting basic physical needs like access to food, water and shelter), we will indulge both our own desire to create and our desire to be entertained by others.
They've been having the same problem with AR4 for years.
I believe it boils down to the fact that a lot of people don't actually care about the objective truth, they care about what feels like it should be true based on their existing prejudices.
CDs are currently the only way to consistently get lossless DRM-free recordings suitable for transcoding to the format du jour.
When they bring out a digital music store that is actually an adequate CD replacement (ie. one that offers DRM-free lossless recordings), then they can get rid of the shiny plastic discs.
"These studies show that letting works fall into the public domain confers no wider benefit, so the state has no business taking these rights away from copyright holders simply due to the inevitable passage of time."
I *wish* I thought that was being too cynical, but, alas, I doubt it :P
Notice the complete change in the tone of the responses as soon as the deposing lawyer describes a photocopier by its *function* (i.e. stick a piece of paper in, push some buttons, get a copy out) without reference to the specific term "photocopy".
For words that are quite common for almost everyone (such as photocopy), it can be quite hard to come up with a non-circular definition to bridge the gap in understanding to somebody else that uses a different term for the same thing (such as Xerox). Once you manage to link the terms, suddenly enlightenment dawns and a conversation that was going in frustrating circles can start moving forward again.
If the obstruction had been deliberate, then the switch to a functional description shouldn't have produced such a complete change in the nature of the responses. Just look at the last six answers - after all the dithering about whether or not people ever photocopied anything in his office, he was quite happy to say they had a xerox machine that they used to xerox stuff.
While I find it surprising that anyone could have avoided learning the "Xerox = photocopy" equivalence by the time this deposition was taken, the transcript certainly has the right feel for it to be a genuine case of simply not knowing what the word means. A definite failure on the defence lawyer's part if true, though - if the term was so important to the case, he should have made sure that both he and the deponent knew what it meant going in (and it doesn't take much Google-fu to find out what a photocopier is).
If nothing else, the router stores it's own SSID, usually a name the owner chose to give it. Many will also store the *name* of computers on that network, again something that isn't purely technical.
Those that are also uplink capable will generally hold the username for the user's ISP account, a very personal piece of data.
The key difference though is that, offline, if you don't do those things, you really can mostly ignore the results. About all you need to do is find one radio station you like, maybe a TV station and throw out the junk mail every few days.
There are analogies to those things online, sure, but they're significantly less mature, and the variety of choice available is unimaginably wider.
Note that it isn't the sub-25 age bracket that is having these problems, or even most of the 25-35 age bracket (that were still in their teens when the Web was born, and in their twenties when things like Youtube started). When you have 3 decades of "knowing how the world works" to contend with, shifting gears and recognising that the world has changed around you is not an easy task.
On the post: 10 Industries That Are 'Dying'? Or 10 Industries That Are Changing?
Re: Re: It depends on what you're trying to measure/assess
The problem with taking a big picture "company X should just adapt to the changing market" view is that it can miss the trees for the forest.
Companies are made of people, and they can only change direction when the people within them do (whether that's organically or via leadership from the top). If the only way for a company to survive is to (for example) get out of the bricks-and-mortar world and go pure digital, then there are going to be a lot of people within that company that have no place in the new structure, and hence will understandably do everything they can to preserve the status quo. What do they care about the future of the company as a whole if postponing inevitable change staves off the direct impact on themselves for at least a few more years?
On the post: 10 Industries That Are 'Dying'? Or 10 Industries That Are Changing?
Re: Re: It depends on what you're trying to measure/assess
If your job is servicing the printing presses, driving the delivery truck, managing the ink store... there isn't any place for you in an all-digital shop.
If your job is managing one of those no longer needed (or substantially reduced) divisions, then you're for the chopping block, too.
Leaders can't lead where the followers won't follow and the legacy newspaper companies have a big problem on that front.
On the post: Can You Copyright Pi? Lawsuit Filed Over Copyright On Pi Symphony
Conflict of Interest
Now, some lawyers actually take their professional ethics seriously and will persuade their clients not to file baseless suits, but that still leaves plenty of scope to shop around until you find a slightly less ethical one willing to profit by indulging your misplaced sense of outrage.
On the post: Bandwidth Caps Forcing Users To Police Their Own Household Internet Usage
Re: Re: always been
On the post: Bandwidth Caps Forcing Users To Police Their Own Household Internet Usage
Re: always been
Agreed on the rest, though.
On the post: If You're Arguing That Someone 'Deserves' Copyright, Your Argument Is Wrong
Re:
I guess we can count ourselves fortunate that not everyone thinks the way you do.
Still, you're missing the point that Mike has said many, many times that he agrees with you: if a copyright holder chooses not to make their works available the way you want to consume them, then the correct legal choice under the current system is to walk away.
The reason many people don't walk away, and go for an illegal copy instead, is that they figure they're using their own resources (power, bandwidth, time) to create a new copy, rather than taking anything from anyone. Is someone taking a photo of the Eiffel Tower stealing it? Enjoying benefits they aren't entitled to? That's the kind of point of view you're railing against here.
And that brings us to another point Mike regularly brings up: it doesn't have to be this way. Many artists have shown that you can give fans what they want (convenient access to your work) and still make a decent living. Probably not the obscene mega-profits of the winners of the current hit-based lottery systems, but certainly enough to sustain a comfortable middle-class lifestyle for the artist and their family.
One way adds a lot of net misery to the human condition (artists stressing about people "stealing" their work, fans struggling to get their hands on the products of their favourite artists, law enforcement barging in on adolescents and grandmothers). The other way... doesn't. We can do better. We should do better.
On the post: 10 Industries That Are 'Dying'? Or 10 Industries That Are Changing?
It depends on what you're trying to measure/assess
If your expertise is in applying ink to wood pulp and shipping it out to customers every morning, then sorry, demand for that expertise is going to fall precipitously over the coming years.
If you're a wired telecommunications tech who only knows how to work with copper, and has learned nothing about optical fibre technology, then you should consider your job at risk as well.
Yes, these industries, in a broader sense, are changing rather than declining, but from the point of view of investors and individuals, it's often the narrow sense that matters.
On the post: China Says No More Movies And TV Shows About Time Travel
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Is The Internet Enabling Bad Content... Or Killing Bad Content?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Consider what I pay attention to online:
- anything that gets past GMail's spam filter (which is 99.9% stuff that I have explicitly signed up for, or which comes from friends/family)
- stuff on sites I regularly visit (including FB and Twitter)
- stuff that comes up in my RSS reader (all of which I have explicitly subscribed to)
- stuff on sites that I don't regularly visit, but trust due to past experiences or offline knowledge (e.g. large company sites, government sites)
- stuff that comes up on a Google search (which is usually at least arguably relevant to what I searched for)
I don't care that huge amounts of what is posted online is irrelevant to me, as, not only am I not their target audience, I generally won't even learn that it exists unless it comes up in one of those above windows on the 'Net.
But learning how to create and manage effective windows on the 'Net isn't something that is easy to pick up without a lot of coaching, and without those filters, you're going to be overwhelmed by irrelevant drek and learn to hate the thing in fairly short order.
Your last paragraph basically echoes my own points. The younger generations are growing up with this, and managing their filters on the 'Net is as natural to them as choosing a preferred newspaper or TV news channel was for older generations.
On the post: Debunking The Claim That Bad Things Happen When Works Fall Into The Public Domain
Re: Predictable response
On the post: Debunking The Claim That Bad Things Happen When Works Fall Into The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Re: I Say 25 Years
For example, "Discworld" is trademarked by Sir Terry (and his wife, I believe). You can't go out and make commercial Discworld stuff without getting his OK, whether you copy anything from the books or not. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that several of the main characters were trademarked as well.
But if the early Discworld books came out of copyright, then somebody could quite happily republish them, since the use of Sir Terry's trademarks would be a nominative use.
The "Creator Endorsed" mark from Question Copyright is another approach to this same problem. CE-marked works would be those that have an amicable arrangement with the original creator, and some customers may choose to favour such works over those that don't bother.
On the post: Why Hasn't The Report Debunking Entire US Foreign IP Policy Received The Attention It Deserves?
Re: Re: Ask the IPCC
- state-endorsed slavery is history
- state-endorsed religious, racial and sex-based discrimination is in decline
- corporal and capital punishment are significantly less prevalent than they once were
- sustainability is at least granted lip service in many economies around the world
The dream some folks have of a future where schools and hospitals are fully funded, but the air force has to hold a bake sale to afford a new fighter jet is still rather remote, but it doesn't take much of a review of history to realise just how much the world has changed with the steady rise in the availability of global travel and communications.
On the post: Discussions About Scarcity vs. Abundance In Copyright From A Century Ago Sound Just Like Those Today
Mirror Images
In particular: if supply is unlimited, there is no need to regulate demand. But if supply is, in fact, limited, then demand must be regulated in some fashion to apportion those scarce supplies.
We see this when non-obvious natural limits are identified, and supplemented with significantly more obvious artificial restrictions in an attempt to prevent "Tragedy of the Commons" scenarios (where a resource is exploited to the point of destruction, meaning that nobody benefits any longer).
The hard part (and the one many folks in the legacy media industries in particular struggle to come to grips with) is identifying cases (such as creative expression) where there really aren't underlying natural limits.
As long as humans continue to have leisure time (i.e. time not solely devoted to meeting basic physical needs like access to food, water and shelter), we will indulge both our own desire to create and our desire to be entertained by others.
On the post: Why Hasn't The Report Debunking Entire US Foreign IP Policy Received The Attention It Deserves?
Ask the IPCC
I believe it boils down to the fact that a lot of people don't actually care about the objective truth, they care about what feels like it should be true based on their existing prejudices.
On the post: You Would Think The Recording Industry's Main Magazine Wouldn't Copy Other's Works Without Permission
They need a replacement first
When they bring out a digital music store that is actually an adequate CD replacement (ie. one that offers DRM-free lossless recordings), then they can get rid of the shiny plastic discs.
On the post: Debunking The Claim That Bad Things Happen When Works Fall Into The Public Domain
Predictable response
I *wish* I thought that was being too cynical, but, alas, I doubt it :P
On the post: Great Moments In Legal Questioning: IT Boss In Cuyahoga County Cannot Identify A Photocopier
Terminology problem
For words that are quite common for almost everyone (such as photocopy), it can be quite hard to come up with a non-circular definition to bridge the gap in understanding to somebody else that uses a different term for the same thing (such as Xerox). Once you manage to link the terms, suddenly enlightenment dawns and a conversation that was going in frustrating circles can start moving forward again.
If the obstruction had been deliberate, then the switch to a functional description shouldn't have produced such a complete change in the nature of the responses. Just look at the last six answers - after all the dithering about whether or not people ever photocopied anything in his office, he was quite happy to say they had a xerox machine that they used to xerox stuff.
While I find it surprising that anyone could have avoided learning the "Xerox = photocopy" equivalence by the time this deposition was taken, the transcript certainly has the right feel for it to be a genuine case of simply not knowing what the word means. A definite failure on the defence lawyer's part if true, though - if the term was so important to the case, he should have made sure that both he and the deponent knew what it meant going in (and it doesn't take much Google-fu to find out what a photocopier is).
On the post: Great Moments In Legal Questioning: IT Boss In Cuyahoga County Cannot Identify A Photocopier
Re: It seems ambiguous to me
The last part of the transcript does make me think it may have been a genuine dialect problem, though.
(e.g. similar to the way lots of people in the US South use "coke" as a generic term the way others would use "soda", "pop" or "soft drink")
On the post: Dutch Court Says Breaking Into An Encrypted WiFi Router To Use The Connection Is Legal
Re: Re: Unfortunately...
Those that are also uplink capable will generally hold the username for the user's ISP account, a very personal piece of data.
It's a crazy ruling.
On the post: Is The Internet Enabling Bad Content... Or Killing Bad Content?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
There are analogies to those things online, sure, but they're significantly less mature, and the variety of choice available is unimaginably wider.
Note that it isn't the sub-25 age bracket that is having these problems, or even most of the 25-35 age bracket (that were still in their teens when the Web was born, and in their twenties when things like Youtube started). When you have 3 decades of "knowing how the world works" to contend with, shifting gears and recognising that the world has changed around you is not an easy task.
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