Switching from Comcast to FIOS TV is not cutting the cord, it's just switching to a new cord. "Cord cutting" is leaving cable or fiber TV completely and opting to view TV over one of the many alternatives out there.
Im not sure what studies there are out there to offer you proof that there is a cord cutting movement, but I'm sure that I am not the only one. In fact I know quite a few people that have opted out of cable recently. Yes we need the broadband connection, but that is the only service that I am using.
There are so many other options out there now for telecommunications that it's staggering. Skype, Google Talk, project free TV, YouTube, and Hulu are just some and more and more keep popping up all the time.
While I fully agree that cord cutters are just a small percentage of the market, I would suggest that they have growing influence, especially in a down economy. During the lean times a lot of free online services will probably be doing all they can to improve their offerings and drawing new subscribers/users, and the snowball effect could be quite devastating to the old players' core business.
Lastly, if you read this blog regularly you would know that Mike does not believe that everything is free, nor should it be. The point is that the technologies in the market are effecting change and the old business models are struggling for survival in court rather than in the marketplace.
I say let the horse and carriage people stick with their model as the cars appear and see what happens.
I read the instructions and they do not imply a number between $30,000 - $150,000. All those instructions say is that because the act of infringement was willful the maximum compensation can be higher than $30k per song, but not exceeding $150k. The minimum of $750 is still an option.
With that said, I can understand $750 per song, simply because of the nature of sharing a song via P2P. Is it possible that sharing that song led to a loss of $750? Sure its possible, not very likely, but definitely possible.
Even if the defendant was a complete jerk and willfully infringed it would make sense for the jury to choose a number between $750 -$1000 per song just to teach her a lesson, but anything more is just crazy.
I wonder if the jury would be so quick to choose $62.5k if one of the RIAA lawyers were to suggest that all of their computer hard drives were going to be searched for shared files.
It just seems odd that Terra Firma didn't figure out that in addition to hiring the "new", you also need to fire the "old".
It just seems like EMI thought they would continue to use the old ways on the new stuff. It's like building a car then sitting on the roof with reins attached to the wheels and wondering why it isn't working.
The record labels just don't get it because they still have a ton of cash on hand and they are unwilling to believe that the world has changed. Let them expend their resources and slowly die off in their fight against evolution.
Sry but I had to comment about the poor in-flight reception. On 9/11/2001 Mobile phones were working just fine at cruising altitude on United Airlines flight 93.
Seems that terrorism does seem to improve mobile reception on aircraft. Maybe that is what the consultants are trying to warn us about.
Because the note was entitled "Expectations of Integrity" it does seem that this whole thing was an attempt to control plagiarism. It was well intentioned, if not well thought out.
Seems that an easier way to control plagiarism would be for the school to purchase a tool the scours the web for copied work, or perhaps they could have brainstormed to find some other way to combat the problem. Limiting the students to one text book and only the opinions of the instructor seems a bit narrow for an AP class.
Someone already mentioned it, but I think it needs to be said again. The cable companies should not think that the cord cutters are poor and not worth considering. In a lot of cases the cord cutters are their existing broadband customers. I mean, just how did they think these cord cutters were bypassing cable? Maybe they are so used to people pirating cable they just apply the same thinking to cord cutters.
I recently showed my 75 year old father project free tv, and I don't think he's spent much time watching cable since. He's also become aware of Hulu and Google Voice, and can't believe the "new technology". Basically the only thing that is saving cable TV model is the content they can still be the gatekeepers for, AND a lack of awareness / technophobia in the general population.
The Cable and Phone companies have been looking for the elusive Quadruple Play Service ( voice, TV, broadband, wireless ), but it looks like they should focus now on maximizing the Double Play (Broadband and Wireless).
As sad as it is that anyone would claim that Happy Birthday is copyrighted, I don't think the vast majority of us really care.
It has to be the most infringed upon song in the history of music if it is copyrighted. Now I have to go through YouTube and see if there are any happy birthday videos that have been hit with DMCA takedown notices.
I really would love for WMG to begin suing everyone who has infringed on this song. They will be sending out more legal notices than HADOPI in France if they tried.
Why do I now feel like a huge portion of my childhood has been tampered with for no good reason. I remember hearing those stories and thinking they were quite true.
This actually is another feather in the cap for TechDirt. It just reinforces all the stories about "real" journalists vs alternative media. If only those "real" journallists had access to Snopes.com back then, we could have enjoyed a better class of treats on All Hallows Eve.
So what is the upfront cash payment for? I never hear that in any of these articles. It's not that I don't believe that the labels want free cash, but they must have a reason for it?
Licensing fees? I guess Im just not sure how they can demand payment for goods not sold. I can see wanting a piece of the sales but asking for cash just to do business in the US seems more than odd, but somehow illegal.
If only religion actually worked like this guy wants it to. If you follow the Evangelical movement in the US you will find a lot of churches that tell you that if you tithe you will be "blessed" tenfold.
I don't think the investor should be suing, but rather he should have faith and wait for God to bless him tenfold for his investment.
It's just VERY humorous that the church has learned to use the internet to take its practice of receiving tithes to a whole new level.
I'm going to have to agree with the AC. I thought charities were already "for profit". I understand the point being made, but in the US, I believe that "charities" are allowed to keep up to 80% of the cash they bring in as operating capital (i.e. rent, utilities, SALARIES).
It gets even better if you are supplying food to hungry children, because they get to apply a monetary value to the food donated and keep all the cash donated.
A lender that works in favor of the underprivileged is an intriguing idea though. On the surface it sounds like a great concept that would work until the banking industry felt it was a threat and then Congress would be lobbied for protection from the upstarts.
I'm going to have to agree with ChurchHatesTucker. When I got my first iPod, I didn't really think about Apple's service. In the store they were helpful and it was a very pleasant shopping experience.
Then I got my first macbook from an Apple reseller and it crashed within a week. When I went back to the reseller they were less than helpful, not offering me a refund or exchange. It was only after I raised a huge stink that they referred me to an Apple store. I went into the Apple store heated and only armed with a receipt from the reseller. Apple immediately exchanged the macbook and through in AppleCare which I hadn't purchased.
Over the next 7 years and several more Apple products, the service has always been exceptional. I can't think of any other company that has been so customer-centric. Yes, I'm now a die hard Apple fan even though I really think that Windows 7 has caught up and maybe gone a bit past OSX.
Before switching to Apple, I'd had horrible customer service issues with competitors like Dell and Gateway. So I would have to agree that good customer service adds value far beyond the price of the product.
As far I know, location based services have been around since at least 2000. The telecom companies have been very interested in pursuing LBS as a business model for some time, but as was remarked, the technology just wasn't there to support it.
I'm sure the good people at Alcatel/Lucent could give some prior art on this one.
I am absolutely and totally confused by any news organization that decides that a paywall is a good business model. I have yet to run into any piece of news that is hidden behind a paywall, that is not available somewhere else on the web.
Whenever I run into a paywall (which isn't often), Google is kind enough to list the hundreds of other similar articles. So I have to wonder why anyone would pay for news online. It's not even like I'm being routed to "amateur" news outlets as an alternative, but rather to other "professional" news articles for free. So it all just boggles the mind that anyone would think a paywall is a good idea. I would think the site development costs would drain what little profit there is from the paywall.
As far as I know, Nokia is a major shareholder in Symbian, so its natural that the company would be slow to move away from that OS. It would be like Apple deciding to shift to Linux.
With that said, it makes me wonder why this article is even newsworthy. Mike usually reports on much better stuff.
We really cannot be too hard on this small town mayor. He is only doing what he has been trained to do. If he wants to change something quickly without discussion and little to no resistance, he's been taught that all he has to do is use terrorism, patriotism, support the troops, national security, protecting Americans, or any other phrase that scares the the sheep into line.
Those that would give up freedom for security, deserve neither. -BF
The reason for the pricing difference is that they can charge what they feel like charging.
The US doesn't have a national healthcare system, so it doesn't have to pick up the tab on drugs. If taxes were paying for the drugs, you can be sure that there would be an immediate change in the law.
Big Pharma uses the excuse that if the US were to regulate prices that it would severely reduce R&D. By that reasoning, it would appear that most pharma R&D is being subsidized by the US. Its completely ridiculous, but it sounds good for politicians to say after they've been bribed (lobbied).
Im not sure why the RIAA feels that its now expert at protecting Americans from "risk".
It's already been said that US laws don't have any real impact on foreign sites. If these foreign sites are being used so much that Congress has to act on it because Americans are at risk, then what exactly is this risk and why haven't we heard about it in the news?
WTF is wrong in this country? All anyone has to do is say terrorism, national security, or harming Americans, and suddenly the ridiculous should become law.
For everyone that is worried about Terrorism, you should take heed to the words of Benjamin Franklin:
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Copyrights are supposed to keep others from making money off the content creator. The laws were not written to keep people from sharing content for free.
The more I hear arguments on this topic, the more it seems clear that its not so much the content creators that have a problem with file sharing or copyright laws, but rather the people who get paid from what the content creators create.
I can't really blame them though. If I was getting paid for the work that someone else was doing, I would fight for that compensation too.
On the post: Comcast Buying NBCU Will Lead To Higher Prices... But Is That Really A Bad Thing?
Re: Little mikee's babble
Im not sure what studies there are out there to offer you proof that there is a cord cutting movement, but I'm sure that I am not the only one. In fact I know quite a few people that have opted out of cable recently. Yes we need the broadband connection, but that is the only service that I am using.
There are so many other options out there now for telecommunications that it's staggering. Skype, Google Talk, project free TV, YouTube, and Hulu are just some and more and more keep popping up all the time.
While I fully agree that cord cutters are just a small percentage of the market, I would suggest that they have growing influence, especially in a down economy. During the lean times a lot of free online services will probably be doing all they can to improve their offerings and drawing new subscribers/users, and the snowball effect could be quite devastating to the old players' core business.
Lastly, if you read this blog regularly you would know that Mike does not believe that everything is free, nor should it be. The point is that the technologies in the market are effecting change and the old business models are struggling for survival in court rather than in the marketplace.
I say let the horse and carriage people stick with their model as the cars appear and see what happens.
On the post: Why The Jammie Thomas Verdicts Return Such Huge Amounts Per Song Shared: It's All About The Framing
Not sure about Mike's conclusion
With that said, I can understand $750 per song, simply because of the nature of sharing a song via P2P. Is it possible that sharing that song led to a loss of $750? Sure its possible, not very likely, but definitely possible.
Even if the defendant was a complete jerk and willfully infringed it would make sense for the jury to choose a number between $750 -$1000 per song just to teach her a lesson, but anything more is just crazy.
I wonder if the jury would be so quick to choose $62.5k if one of the RIAA lawyers were to suggest that all of their computer hard drives were going to be searched for shared files.
On the post: Jury Finds Terra Firma Just Made A Bad Deal In Buying EMI
Odd
It just seems like EMI thought they would continue to use the old ways on the new stuff. It's like building a car then sitting on the roof with reins attached to the wheels and wondering why it isn't working.
The record labels just don't get it because they still have a ton of cash on hand and they are unwilling to believe that the world has changed. Let them expend their resources and slowly die off in their fight against evolution.
On the post: Security Consultants Claim New Terrorist Bombs May Mean No More In-Flight WiFi
Re: Magical Planes
Seems that terrorism does seem to improve mobile reception on aircraft. Maybe that is what the consultants are trying to warn us about.
On the post: Virginia High School Says Barring Students From Doing Outside Research Helps Them 'Think For Themselves'
The road to hell....
Seems that an easier way to control plagiarism would be for the school to purchase a tool the scours the web for copied work, or perhaps they could have brainstormed to find some other way to combat the problem. Limiting the students to one text book and only the opinions of the instructor seems a bit narrow for an AP class.
On the post: Turns Out TV Cord Cutters Are, In Fact, Young, Educated And Employed
?????
I recently showed my 75 year old father project free tv, and I don't think he's spent much time watching cable since. He's also become aware of Hulu and Google Voice, and can't believe the "new technology". Basically the only thing that is saving cable TV model is the content they can still be the gatekeepers for, AND a lack of awareness / technophobia in the general population.
The Cable and Phone companies have been looking for the elusive Quadruple Play Service ( voice, TV, broadband, wireless ), but it looks like they should focus now on maximizing the Double Play (Broadband and Wireless).
On the post: Reminder: Despite What You May Have Heard, Happy Birthday Should Be In The Public Domain
Who cares?
It has to be the most infringed upon song in the history of music if it is copyrighted. Now I have to go through YouTube and see if there are any happy birthday videos that have been hit with DMCA takedown notices.
I really would love for WMG to begin suing everyone who has infringed on this song. They will be sending out more legal notices than HADOPI in France if they tried.
On the post: Turns Out The Evil Halloween Candy Poisoners Was Just FUD That Got You To Buy Prepackaged Candy
Ok, this blows
This actually is another feather in the cap for TechDirt. It just reinforces all the stories about "real" journalists vs alternative media. If only those "real" journallists had access to Snopes.com back then, we could have enjoyed a better class of treats on All Hallows Eve.
On the post: If Spotify Is Making Labels So Much Money In Europe, Why Are They Still Demanding Crazy Upfronts In The US?
?????
Licensing fees? I guess Im just not sure how they can demand payment for goods not sold. I can see wanting a piece of the sales but asking for cash just to do business in the US seems more than odd, but somehow illegal.
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
LMAO - If only....
I don't think the investor should be suing, but rather he should have faith and wait for God to bless him tenfold for his investment.
It's just VERY humorous that the church has learned to use the internet to take its practice of receiving tithes to a whole new level.
On the post: Can Charity Work With A For-Profit Motive?
Re: I have to agree
It gets even better if you are supplying food to hungry children, because they get to apply a monetary value to the food donated and keep all the cash donated.
A lender that works in favor of the underprivileged is an intriguing idea though. On the surface it sounds like a great concept that would work until the banking industry felt it was a threat and then Congress would be lobbied for protection from the upstarts.
On the post: There's Always A Way To Compete: Competing With Google By Being Human
Sorry I wasn't FIRST with this post
Then I got my first macbook from an Apple reseller and it crashed within a week. When I went back to the reseller they were less than helpful, not offering me a refund or exchange. It was only after I raised a huge stink that they referred me to an Apple store. I went into the Apple store heated and only armed with a receipt from the reseller. Apple immediately exchanged the macbook and through in AppleCare which I hadn't purchased.
Over the next 7 years and several more Apple products, the service has always been exceptional. I can't think of any other company that has been so customer-centric. Yes, I'm now a die hard Apple fan even though I really think that Windows 7 has caught up and maybe gone a bit past OSX.
Before switching to Apple, I'd had horrible customer service issues with competitors like Dell and Gateway. So I would have to agree that good customer service adds value far beyond the price of the product.
On the post: Facebook Patents Foursquare?
This is new?
I'm sure the good people at Alcatel/Lucent could give some prior art on this one.
On the post: Should The Knight Foundation Be Paying For Startups To Put Up Paywalls?
Dazed and Confused
Whenever I run into a paywall (which isn't often), Google is kind enough to list the hundreds of other similar articles. So I have to wonder why anyone would pay for news online. It's not even like I'm being routed to "amateur" news outlets as an alternative, but rather to other "professional" news articles for free. So it all just boggles the mind that anyone would think a paywall is a good idea. I would think the site development costs would drain what little profit there is from the paywall.
On the post: World Progress Report Promotes Program About 'Scams'; Helps Hide All The Complaints That It's A Scam
Gotta love it
On the post: Nokia VP Compares Android To Peeing In Your Pants To Stay Warm
Nokia / Symbian
With that said, it makes me wonder why this article is even newsworthy. Mike usually reports on much better stuff.
On the post: Illinois Mayor Claims Anonymous Bloggers No Different Than 9/11 Terrorists; Says Anonymity Is A First Amendment Challenge
Don't be too hard on the guy
Those that would give up freedom for security, deserve neither. -BF
On the post: Drug Rep Accidentally Admits There's No Justification For Massive Markup Over Generics
Lobbying?
The US doesn't have a national healthcare system, so it doesn't have to pick up the tab on drugs. If taxes were paying for the drugs, you can be sure that there would be an immediate change in the law.
Big Pharma uses the excuse that if the US were to regulate prices that it would severely reduce R&D. By that reasoning, it would appear that most pharma R&D is being subsidized by the US. Its completely ridiculous, but it sounds good for politicians to say after they've been bribed (lobbied).
On the post: RIAA Claims That If COICA Isn't Passed, Americans Are 'Put At Risk'
?????
It's already been said that US laws don't have any real impact on foreign sites. If these foreign sites are being used so much that Congress has to act on it because Americans are at risk, then what exactly is this risk and why haven't we heard about it in the news?
WTF is wrong in this country? All anyone has to do is say terrorism, national security, or harming Americans, and suddenly the ridiculous should become law.
For everyone that is worried about Terrorism, you should take heed to the words of Benjamin Franklin:
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
On the post: Ad Age Explains How Copyright Is The Buggy Whip Of The Digital Age
WTF
The more I hear arguments on this topic, the more it seems clear that its not so much the content creators that have a problem with file sharing or copyright laws, but rather the people who get paid from what the content creators create.
I can't really blame them though. If I was getting paid for the work that someone else was doing, I would fight for that compensation too.
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