As leaving NZ by ship required such niceties as having a passport somehow I'd put that low on the list. Unless he chooses human smugglers and if the court can't find any wealtyh then he can't afford that either.
By ship, boat or air it's a long way from New Zealand to any other land if he decides to steal a boat and motor off. Then there's the minor issue of reading navigation charts.
Actually, he's better off sitting back at home thumbing his nose at the prosecutor.
oh and didn't you know that unicorns lead tigers to tasty humans? ;)
As long as we're going on about the AMERICAN judicial process let's remember that the bust took place in New Zealand. And as far as Grand Jury's go I don't know that they even exist in New Zealand any more than they do in Canada.
This is a bail hearing in a New Zealand court to decide whether or not to keep Dotcom in jail. The lawyer acting for the United States and the New Zealand prosecution couldn't prove establish that Dotcom was a flight risk and so now he's out with conditions.
Say what you will about the conditions in that sense the system worked. Not a flight risk, you can go home now. I'd say, off the top of my head, that this isn't all that good for the case the prosecution wants to build when this does come to a fully blown trial.
As for the Grand Jury system in the United States, little, if any, of what is heard by a Grand Jury ever makes it into a criminal trial in Canada as, at best, it's considered hearsay evidence of the weakest kind. It's both the structure of the system with Grand Jury's acting as "investigators" and often hearing what evidence they do hear behind closed doors instead of in public as Magna Charta demands it to be.
So let's just calm down here. The prosecution couldn't establish a flight risk so Dotcom is out of jail with some odd conditions, I admit, but he's out.
Lots more good stuff happening when the trail itself begins. As I said tough it's not a good start for the prosecution when they can't find the wealth that was part of the bust and a central point in the charges in the USA against him.
I guess his wealth is all tied up in Canadian Tire money! :-)
Crossing that line should also result in liability for false complaints, false take down notices and all that good stuff too. What they're saying is that they'll defend their customers where there is NO violation of fair use or safe harbour law in court if necessary.
I have to give them credit for that as a hosting company that they're willing to do that instead of rolling on over like so many others do. That's the extra cost, of course, but if you have a site with a lot of user input I'd say they're the way to go. Sort of like an insurance policy.
On issues such as SOPA and ACTA the ballot box says no such thing. ACTA may not have been an issue in many EU countries the last time they held an election and SOPA/PIPA certainly weren't the last time Americans went to the polls. So to say that the majority are in favour of these things is what's delusional.
The response to on line petitions, phone call campaigns and other kinds of protest indicate that the majority are opposed to these sorts of things. By which I mean bills in legislatures written by and for special interest groups such as the entertainment and fashion industries in the back rooms before being brought onto the floor for debate. Or international treaties being negotiated exclusively in the back room with those same interests before being imposed on countries without wide, knowledgeable and extensive debate by the citizens of the countries involved and not merely interest groups.
Just to educate you a little bit. The word Pope means Bishop of Bishops and does not just apply to the Bishop of Rome. The Coptic, Syrian, Ethiopian and some branches of Orthodoxy have popes and always have. And will continue to.
So, the Pope may not be Catholic. He could be Coptic and there is, in fact a pope in the Coptic church.
Oh, and you truly must be an urbanoid who lives nowhere near a forest or you'd know that bears don't just shit in the woods, but all over your lawn, in your garden and anywhere else they please.
It is nice to know that some AC's are as totally ignorant as I've always thought they were.
I've said it before but I'll say it again because it seems to need saying.
Just where were the uber concerned politicians like Maxime Verhagen while I and many other children were being sexually abused. Not to mention physical abuse and many other forms of abuse.
Once again, almost all of it takes place in family or by trusted adults such as teachers, ministers, scout master and coaches. But, to restate it, the vast majority of it takes place in family, By fathers and mothers almost equally and almost all of whom were abused themselves. So where were you then Maxime Verhagen? (Or Vic Toews)
Real pedophiles are a tiny minority of the human population. Take a second or two to look it up.
I have to say I'm sick and tired of being victimized again, or at least being used as a victim, by grandstanding politicians who want so desperately to play the "it's for the children card" when things like ACTA aren't any such thing. Just do me a favour and others who have suffered childhood sexual abuse out of your rantings.
IP has nothing whatever to do with the abuse (sexual or otherwise) of children who, after all, get no say in any of this. Abuse or idiotic IP laws.
There may be one bright light in all of this. Perhaps ACTA is on the verge of collapse in Europe. And I can't think of a better thing to happen to that thing. Let's stop this idiotic expansion of IP laws till they get to the point where no creator can create anymore without fearing that they may copy a sentence used in another work. For example: "I am" as it is used twice in the Bible. (The Bible may be in the public domain but virtually none of the translations are.)
While you're essentially correct about what Cold Fusion is, it's still being sold and promoted these days as a design tool or part of one. Much in the same way as frameworks like Drupal and Joomla! are for PHP.
Given some band sites I've seen I'm often struck by the bad design. So often that I often think that's deliberate on the part of the designer or the band as they find or establish a personna.
I wouldn't use Cold Fusion. It's expensive and slow, just to start with. And compared to, say Joomla! or Drupal there's very little of substance out there to add to it.
Back to the bad design. I'm more inclined to think that most of it's quite deliberate. Some designers need to remember though that there's bad design as goal and bad design as in "where the heck do I find anything!".
All changes, though, take time. Some, if not a great deal, of the value to artists of traditional labels will stay with labels of some kind or other.
As for your first point that CD sales still account for the largest portion of sales. I'm not surprised by that. For all the improvements in the mp3 format it still lacks the fidelity of a CD and likely always will. I can't say. either, with much evidence that indy bands do well from online sales though I do suspect some do.
A label may be a mark of success though recent history says it doesn't need to be a major label. That's more of a return to "how it used to be" than something solely brought on by the internet. Smaller labels have, traditionally, been the indy artist's friend signing and distributing the recordings when the majors wouldn't. It's helpful to remember that small labels such as Sun and Chess kicked off the rock'n'roll era not the big ones.
And labels DO have connections. I'd question at times if they're the right ones though a couple of examples come to mind that say they might. Fiest and Arcade Fire got their start as indy artists and their small labels pitched them to the CBC until the CBC got heartily sick of it and played the music in, what for CBC, passes as heavy rotation. The acts took off. I have no idea about Arcade Fire but Fiest still insists she's an independent artist.
I still question if labels have the right connections anymore or are, for the most part, interested. It's called get it our there and get it played. Find an influential blogger to send new songs to while paying the blogger special attention is one way of doing it.
Large labels can still saddle acts with unrepayable debt (advances not paid back and so on) and continue with the model they've always had but there is not competition from other models and ways of getting recorded music out there.
All that said I firmly reject that bands "aren't businessmen" in the sense of promoting themselves . Long before they get signed to labels, if they ever do they have to promote their gigs and other appearances, note audience reaction and spread that just as a label may later do. It's part of being an artist, right?
While it may be harder later on a global scale it's part of the same thing that new bands have had to do since forever.
As much as anything it's the transition that causes confusion and concern. Who fits were now and who doesn't and who may replace the old folks if anyone.
I'm happy for you that the silly notion that by selling blue backed CDs made some consider you an amateur. You're on stage performing, be it covers or your own material. I don't and never have considered that amateur. And I'm very happy that that way of looking at musicians is changing.
Well, let me denigrate away then. I happen to agree with the comments from an opponent of the French law who says that, like as not, has only increased the use of VPN and other similar work arounds.
On the other hand I'll also say that there's an increase in the awareness of "legal" on line download and streaming services which could account for all, if not most, of the increased sales from those sources.
Of course it's all the fault of "Big Search". Heaven forbid the search engines point people at existing sites based on things like popularity and relevance rather than do the bidding of Hollywood and the bob's of the world. It's a nice straw man but that's all it is.
While it appears that Netflix has it back on let's go to my major point.
WB pulls the stream to increase DVD sales, at increased prices no doubt, and gets hammered on line for it. Including here.
Does it not strike you that in the same way as Sony's attempt to profit from her death had to be reversed doesn't it strike you that the market IS speaking?
It has nothing to do with infringement or piracy or any other of your standard "evils" it's just the market speaking that the move is tacky, in horrible taste and they're not gonna buy.
It's the market that's speaking and that's all there is to it. Opportunism in the Internet age gets answered very quickly with outrage. What can't you understand about that?
Sony jacks up the price of their back catalog of Whitney Houston gets blasted and admits their mistake and sets the price back down again.
This movie production company doesn't seem to have noticed that as moves in to do roughly the same with the DVD. I don't really care all that much except that it's beyond tacky and opportunistic and in horribly bad taste.
Doesn't it strike you that the backlash in both cases IS the market speaking? Sony listened, these people didn't.
All in all they get what they deserve which is probably few, if any, extra sales of the DVD at, one assumes, increased prices. It's just not that good a movie.
Oh c'mon! The RIAA and MPAA don't have material that they control the copyright on on kitchen knives and forks and cleavers. If they did you KNOW the lobbyists would have been pressuring to make them illegal as well. Or at least the ones with built in USB ports :)
The other extra "advantage" to this sort of thing, or so they tell you, is that they can more efficiently stock a store.
Funny thing happened when they renovated the Safeway in my town is that they had to know from sales scans that farmed salmon just didn't sell here. Fish farms aren't popular in these parts so people insist on fish and salmon marked wild.
There were other stocking mistakes where the store was stocked with things people don't buy here or in quantities they don't buy them in.
The fish screw up took a week to fix and the rest of it is still sorting itself out.
If the idea, which they claim it is with loyalty cards and such, is better targeted ads and stores stocked with what customers buy then this experience is that it failed.
While I'll be one of the first in line to day I'm overtaxed for what I get from it I feel the need to point out that since the crash of 2008 the Canadian economy has done better and has grown than the American economy which has shrunk (slightly).
Yes, this has to do with resources like oil, wood and many others. Our housing market has been stable and prices have risen, not fallen.
I could go on. I will add, though, that a number of the tech industries beginning to flee the United States are moving north.
But to the point. As tech companies flee the United States not only do the taxes they pay and the jobs they create, far more then the entertainment sector, so does the intelligence, drive and education that helped create them. In short it's called a "Brain drain". That is never a good thing for any country to be experiencing because it endangers the future as well as the present.
By using the term remix no one is suggesting copying the Star Wars story outright or cutting and pasting, As I note elsewhere Lucas borrowed from and remixed from a number of sources to come up with Star Wars. Far more than I noted there.
And, again, cut and paste isn't being suggested here. Which is why you have to look so hard to find it.
On the post: Megaupload Boss Kim Dotcom Granted Bail After US Fails To Prove He's Got Cash Stashed Away To Make An Escape
Re: Re:
By ship, boat or air it's a long way from New Zealand to any other land if he decides to steal a boat and motor off. Then there's the minor issue of reading navigation charts.
Actually, he's better off sitting back at home thumbing his nose at the prosecutor.
oh and didn't you know that unicorns lead tigers to tasty humans? ;)
On the post: Megaupload Boss Kim Dotcom Granted Bail After US Fails To Prove He's Got Cash Stashed Away To Make An Escape
Re: Re: Re:
This is a bail hearing in a New Zealand court to decide whether or not to keep Dotcom in jail. The lawyer acting for the United States and the New Zealand prosecution couldn't prove establish that Dotcom was a flight risk and so now he's out with conditions.
Say what you will about the conditions in that sense the system worked. Not a flight risk, you can go home now. I'd say, off the top of my head, that this isn't all that good for the case the prosecution wants to build when this does come to a fully blown trial.
As for the Grand Jury system in the United States, little, if any, of what is heard by a Grand Jury ever makes it into a criminal trial in Canada as, at best, it's considered hearsay evidence of the weakest kind. It's both the structure of the system with Grand Jury's acting as "investigators" and often hearing what evidence they do hear behind closed doors instead of in public as Magna Charta demands it to be.
So let's just calm down here. The prosecution couldn't establish a flight risk so Dotcom is out of jail with some odd conditions, I admit, but he's out.
Lots more good stuff happening when the trail itself begins. As I said tough it's not a good start for the prosecution when they can't find the wealth that was part of the bust and a central point in the charges in the USA against him.
I guess his wealth is all tied up in Canadian Tire money! :-)
On the post: The 'New' Righthaven Offers Discount To Techdirt Readers Who Want 'Spineful' Hosting
Re:
I have to give them credit for that as a hosting company that they're willing to do that instead of rolling on over like so many others do. That's the extra cost, of course, but if you have a site with a lot of user input I'd say they're the way to go. Sort of like an insurance policy.
On the post: European Commission Suggests ACTA's Opponents Don't Have 'Democratic Intentions'
Re: Re: Re:
The response to on line petitions, phone call campaigns and other kinds of protest indicate that the majority are opposed to these sorts of things. By which I mean bills in legislatures written by and for special interest groups such as the entertainment and fashion industries in the back rooms before being brought onto the floor for debate. Or international treaties being negotiated exclusively in the back room with those same interests before being imposed on countries without wide, knowledgeable and extensive debate by the citizens of the countries involved and not merely interest groups.
On the post: European Commission Suggests ACTA's Opponents Don't Have 'Democratic Intentions'
Re: Democratic indeed
On the post: Dutch Economics Minister Says ACTA Is Designed To Shut Down Child Porn Sites... Even Though That's Not True
Re:
So, the Pope may not be Catholic. He could be Coptic and there is, in fact a pope in the Coptic church.
Oh, and you truly must be an urbanoid who lives nowhere near a forest or you'd know that bears don't just shit in the woods, but all over your lawn, in your garden and anywhere else they please.
It is nice to know that some AC's are as totally ignorant as I've always thought they were.
On the post: Dutch Economics Minister Says ACTA Is Designed To Shut Down Child Porn Sites... Even Though That's Not True
Here we go again
Just where were the uber concerned politicians like Maxime Verhagen while I and many other children were being sexually abused. Not to mention physical abuse and many other forms of abuse.
Once again, almost all of it takes place in family or by trusted adults such as teachers, ministers, scout master and coaches. But, to restate it, the vast majority of it takes place in family, By fathers and mothers almost equally and almost all of whom were abused themselves. So where were you then Maxime Verhagen? (Or Vic Toews)
Real pedophiles are a tiny minority of the human population. Take a second or two to look it up.
I have to say I'm sick and tired of being victimized again, or at least being used as a victim, by grandstanding politicians who want so desperately to play the "it's for the children card" when things like ACTA aren't any such thing. Just do me a favour and others who have suffered childhood sexual abuse out of your rantings.
IP has nothing whatever to do with the abuse (sexual or otherwise) of children who, after all, get no say in any of this. Abuse or idiotic IP laws.
There may be one bright light in all of this. Perhaps ACTA is on the verge of collapse in Europe. And I can't think of a better thing to happen to that thing. Let's stop this idiotic expansion of IP laws till they get to the point where no creator can create anymore without fearing that they may copy a sentence used in another work. For example: "I am" as it is used twice in the Bible. (The Bible may be in the public domain but virtually none of the translations are.)
On the post: If You're Going To Compare The Old Music Biz Model With The New Music Biz Model, At Least Make Some Sense
Re: ColdFusion isn't a Design Tool..
Given some band sites I've seen I'm often struck by the bad design. So often that I often think that's deliberate on the part of the designer or the band as they find or establish a personna.
I wouldn't use Cold Fusion. It's expensive and slow, just to start with. And compared to, say Joomla! or Drupal there's very little of substance out there to add to it.
Back to the bad design. I'm more inclined to think that most of it's quite deliberate. Some designers need to remember though that there's bad design as goal and bad design as in "where the heck do I find anything!".
On the post: If You're Going To Compare The Old Music Biz Model With The New Music Biz Model, At Least Make Some Sense
Re: Re: Re:
As for your first point that CD sales still account for the largest portion of sales. I'm not surprised by that. For all the improvements in the mp3 format it still lacks the fidelity of a CD and likely always will. I can't say. either, with much evidence that indy bands do well from online sales though I do suspect some do.
A label may be a mark of success though recent history says it doesn't need to be a major label. That's more of a return to "how it used to be" than something solely brought on by the internet. Smaller labels have, traditionally, been the indy artist's friend signing and distributing the recordings when the majors wouldn't. It's helpful to remember that small labels such as Sun and Chess kicked off the rock'n'roll era not the big ones.
And labels DO have connections. I'd question at times if they're the right ones though a couple of examples come to mind that say they might. Fiest and Arcade Fire got their start as indy artists and their small labels pitched them to the CBC until the CBC got heartily sick of it and played the music in, what for CBC, passes as heavy rotation. The acts took off. I have no idea about Arcade Fire but Fiest still insists she's an independent artist.
I still question if labels have the right connections anymore or are, for the most part, interested. It's called get it our there and get it played. Find an influential blogger to send new songs to while paying the blogger special attention is one way of doing it.
Large labels can still saddle acts with unrepayable debt (advances not paid back and so on) and continue with the model they've always had but there is not competition from other models and ways of getting recorded music out there.
All that said I firmly reject that bands "aren't businessmen" in the sense of promoting themselves . Long before they get signed to labels, if they ever do they have to promote their gigs and other appearances, note audience reaction and spread that just as a label may later do. It's part of being an artist, right?
While it may be harder later on a global scale it's part of the same thing that new bands have had to do since forever.
As much as anything it's the transition that causes confusion and concern. Who fits were now and who doesn't and who may replace the old folks if anyone.
I'm happy for you that the silly notion that by selling blue backed CDs made some consider you an amateur. You're on stage performing, be it covers or your own material. I don't and never have considered that amateur. And I'm very happy that that way of looking at musicians is changing.
On the post: If You're Going To Compare The Old Music Biz Model With The New Music Biz Model, At Least Make Some Sense
Re:
On the post: The Pirate Bay May Get Blocked In The UK; That'll Stop The Infringement
Re: Oh, but it will work.
On the other hand I'll also say that there's an increase in the awareness of "legal" on line download and streaming services which could account for all, if not most, of the increased sales from those sources.
Of course it's all the fault of "Big Search". Heaven forbid the search engines point people at existing sites based on things like popularity and relevance rather than do the bidding of Hollywood and the bob's of the world. It's a nice straw man but that's all it is.
On the post: Streaming Rights On Whitney Houston Movie NOT Pulled In Order To 'Make Really A Large Amount Of Money On DVD Sales' [Updated]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
WB pulls the stream to increase DVD sales, at increased prices no doubt, and gets hammered on line for it. Including here.
Does it not strike you that in the same way as Sony's attempt to profit from her death had to be reversed doesn't it strike you that the market IS speaking?
It has nothing to do with infringement or piracy or any other of your standard "evils" it's just the market speaking that the move is tacky, in horrible taste and they're not gonna buy.
It's the market that's speaking and that's all there is to it. Opportunism in the Internet age gets answered very quickly with outrage. What can't you understand about that?
On the post: Streaming Rights On Whitney Houston Movie NOT Pulled In Order To 'Make Really A Large Amount Of Money On DVD Sales' [Updated]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Sony jacks up the price of their back catalog of Whitney Houston gets blasted and admits their mistake and sets the price back down again.
This movie production company doesn't seem to have noticed that as moves in to do roughly the same with the DVD. I don't really care all that much except that it's beyond tacky and opportunistic and in horribly bad taste.
Doesn't it strike you that the backlash in both cases IS the market speaking? Sony listened, these people didn't.
All in all they get what they deserve which is probably few, if any, extra sales of the DVD at, one assumes, increased prices. It's just not that good a movie.
On the post: Killer Cool's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re:
On the post: Getting Past The Uncanny Valley In Targeted Advertising
Re:
Funny thing happened when they renovated the Safeway in my town is that they had to know from sales scans that farmed salmon just didn't sell here. Fish farms aren't popular in these parts so people insist on fish and salmon marked wild.
There were other stocking mistakes where the store was stocked with things people don't buy here or in quantities they don't buy them in.
The fish screw up took a week to fix and the rest of it is still sorting itself out.
If the idea, which they claim it is with loyalty cards and such, is better targeted ads and stores stocked with what customers buy then this experience is that it failed.
On the post: Killer Cool's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Jobs disappearing
Yes, this has to do with resources like oil, wood and many others. Our housing market has been stable and prices have risen, not fallen.
I could go on. I will add, though, that a number of the tech industries beginning to flee the United States are moving north.
But to the point. As tech companies flee the United States not only do the taxes they pay and the jobs they create, far more then the entertainment sector, so does the intelligence, drive and education that helped create them. In short it's called a "Brain drain". That is never a good thing for any country to be experiencing because it endangers the future as well as the present.
On the post: Killer Cool's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re:
Unless, of course, you believe everything in "Reefer Madness"!
On the post: Killer Cool's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Oops.
On the post: When We Copy, We Justify It; When Others Copy, We Vilify Them
Re: Re: Re:
And, again, cut and paste isn't being suggested here. Which is why you have to look so hard to find it.
On the post: When We Copy, We Justify It; When Others Copy, We Vilify Them
Re: Re: Re:
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