It seems to me this problem is partly (mostly?) insufficient disclosure to buyers about what they're getting.
I don't think anybody expects their Alexa or Google Home to keep working if Amazon or Google goes out of business, any more than people think that (purchased, wired) telephones will keep working if the phone company goes out of business (or owners don't they don't pay their bill). I think people know these are just "terminals" for a backend service.
But for things like "purchased" books or films on streaming services, that clarity doesn't seem to be there. If there were more required disclosure about what you're getting I suspect buyers would flock to services that offer a plan for how the buyer keeps their purchase in the event of service provider bankrupcy, etc.
I'm a fan of free markets, but not of fraud - markets work only when the rules of honest dealing are enforced by government.
...that which is sufficiently explained by incompetence.
I think people here vastly underestimate the incompetence of software designers at car companies. They just barely get the comptuers working at all, without any real internal standards or architectual clarity. Simply put, they're half-competent hacks (of course there are some outliers, but not a lot).
It doesn't help that Big Tech sucks up most of the compentent programmers willing to work for big burecratic companies.
Te car companies CAN'T comply with the law because their software is so poorly engineered in the first place, not flexible enough to accomodate the law's requirements, and will take literally years of effort to make complaint with the law (I say "make compliant" rather than "fix" because if they ever do it, it'll be by more half-competent hacking).
Go read the court expert's report on the Prius software.
(Yes, Tesla is an exception. Tesla is Big Tech and has competent software engineers. But they sell computers with wheels as a perihperal, not cars with a computer.)
I think you're implying that Japanese law says the if they don't pursue infringers Toei could lose the right to enforce their copyright.
If that's really the case, I also have some sympathy for them. But such a law is idiotic, needless, and ought to be changed immediately.
Any copyright owner ought to be able to say "we will permit unlicensed use in situation <x>", without losing rights to license in other situtations that are <not x>.
I don't see how even Hollywood executives could rationally oppose such a legal change.
And there appears to be no fix on the immediate horizon. The Defense Department is quick to point out the use of Signal and WhatsApp violates regulations
Yes, it violates regs, but it's secure and apparently works fine.
The problem here is imaginary paperwork made-up problems.
there's a vast difference between "Gruyere cheese" and "Gruyere-style cheeese".
The former I'd assume was made in Gruyere to the local standard. The latter is a similar kind of cheese made somewhere else.
Sort of like the difference between "chocolate" (acutal chocolate) and "choclatey" (anything brown and sweet).
I guess I'm an extreme moderate here. I'm fine with saving the regional names, but adding "-style" seems clear enough to me to legitimately distingish other things.
The 7 million number is the total of C and S corporations in the US - it doesn't count LLCs, partnerships, or sole proprietorships (tho to be fair the 2 "corporations" I own are both LLCs - I own them for the sole purpose of privacy; I don't want people to be able to look up in public records who owns a house I'm building for my retirement. So a LLC owns the house.)
When you start with 7 million corporations, it doesn't take a big percentage to for "a great many" to "go for the profit". My point being that the overwhelming majority of private corporations do in fact behave morally, as that's what the people who own and run them want to do and correctly believe is in their own long-term interest. If a few thousand corporations ("a great many") do otherwise, it's far from fair to blame the other 99.9% that are honest and moral.
I'll say again - private corporations are no more, and no less, moral than the people who own and run them. Most people are fully aware that crime, immorality, and cheating do not pay in the long run. And so they run their businesses honestly out of simple self interest.
A few exceptions run by monsters don't make that false.
I fully agree that, like most things, this is far more complex than most everyone thinks.
I also agree with SDM's implication that there are bad actors out there and flaws in our legal systems which allow them to get away with things they ought not to (again see some examples at https://mugwumpery.com/?p=565 ).
But those bad actors are rare exceptions - most private corporations are honest and moral. It is in their interest to be so. It is outrageously unjust to claim that the very structure that allows people to cooperate toward shared goals is "inherently amoral". That is simply false.
I'm sorry you feel that way SDM. When you say "private corporations are inherently amoral", you are painting with an extremely broad brush. In 2020 there were approximately 7 million private corporations in the US alone.
I personally own 2 of those and am a major investor (> 10% ownership) in 2 others. One of them I have worked at for the last 15 years.
I assure you that the private corporations I own and work at are not amoral.
Techdirt, where you so often post, is also probably a private corporation. I don't know who owns it (probably Mike Masnick is among the major owners), but I highly doubt Techdirt would "gladly traffic children if doing so would get them better margins this quarter".
Corporations are nothing more, and nothing less, than groups of people cooperating together to pursue some activity - usually, but not always, a money-making business. They are as moral, amoral, or immoral as the people who own and run them.
Do you think when people cooperate they suddenly and magically become amoral? Do you think it's inherently bad for people to cooperate? I don't.
Go pick up a trade journal in any narrow industry - say, semiconductors, dry cleaning, or plastic bag manufacturing. Look at the ads and articles. They're all focused on delivering real value and real service - hundreds of private corporations, some small and others large, all working hard to offer better products to their industry. You'll see no signs of deception or fraud - acting that way destroys the reputation that private corporations live on and they know that well.
Don't judge the millions of private corporations around the world based on the misdeeds of a dozen or two headline-making miscreants.
Sure, some corporations are amoral and run by bastards - in particular I've noticed a strong correlation between amorality and management by MBA-holding professional managers who are not major owners. Family-owned private corporations (probably the majority of all corporations, BTW) tend to have excellent morals. (As I've said before, the purpose of MBA programs seems to be to train any naturally occurring morality out of the students.)
Regulatory capture is a real and very common thing. Attempts to regulate particular industries are virtually always captured by the regulated industry. This is natural; they have the most interest and most expertise on the subject. Once captured, regulations usually end up imposing rules that look good to outsiders and are bearable by large well-established firms, but which form an impassible barrier for new and small firms. (Funny, that.)
That doesn't happen when the general and ancient rules of honest dealing are enforced by governments and courts - requirements to honor contracts, to deliver fair value, to advertise truthfully, to avoid harm to 3rd parties and compensate anyone whose rights are infringed by their activities, etc., etc.
The whole economy of millions of businesses in hundreds of different industries is too diverse, has too many competing interests, and is too uncoordinated to "capture" the broad system of laws and courts. That isn't the case when narrow industry-specific regulations are imposed.
As I've said before, I think the general rules of fair dealing are mostly insufficiently enforced, and construed more narrowly than they ought to be (e.g. https://mugwumpery.com/?p=565 ). But regulations usually only make things worse by empowering industries to keep out competitors.
But, please, don't tar all the millions of private corporations with the broad brush of amorality. Yes, there are a few criminals in every country - but most of us are honest.
The point of regulation is to (a) satisfy those who think private firms are inherently evil and need restraint over and above the ordinary rules of honest business (honor contracts, don't mislead, don't steal, don't lie, don't screw people, etc.), while (b) ensuring that the industry is successful and profitable (whether it deserves to be or not), and (c) providing a mechanism to erect barriers to entry to new firms who'd like to lower prices or innovate, which could lead to existing players seeing reduced profit or a lot of work.
...as I've said somewhere before, capitalists suck donkey balls, but capitalism doesn’t have to. (Adam Smith said something similar in 1776.)
The issue is disclosure. If the printer vendors clearly disclosed what the customer is getting, they'd (a) drive customers to other vendors who'll treat them better and (b) be so embarrassed for their reputation that they'd stop this.
Regulators need to enforce disclosure and prohibit misleading claims, not specify what vendors must offer. Unfortunately, they don't.
FWIW, this is why I switched from Canon to Brother (and lately Epson) years ago. Neither is perfect, but they're better.
I hope they'd make it publicly available to everyone in real time. What happens in public is...public.
If the government is going to install surveillance cameras in public places, the public should be able to look through them. And access any recordings. That ensures the police can't cherry pick what they use in court and that misdeeds by authorities are recorded and on the record, as well as by citizens.
I'll be far more worried if the police collect video and the public isn't allowed to see it - just the cops.
Still, at least they were embarrassed about it. That's something - people are only embarrassed about their behavior when they know something is morally wrong.
Only by turning the police into criminals can we stop DRUG ABUSERS from STEALING to get the DRUG MONEY they need for the BLACK MARKET!!!
STEALING is BAD!! We must maintain the black market in drugs so that cartels can stay rich and afford all those expensive weapons!! Otherwise ADDICTS!!!!!
Re: Re: Can better disclosure solve this?
The new ones that would be started to take advantage of the customers looking for that. If buyers knew what they were, and weren't, getting.
Don't underestimate the power of money sitting on the table waiting to be picked up.
Can better disclosure solve this?
It seems to me this problem is partly (mostly?) insufficient disclosure to buyers about what they're getting.
I don't think anybody expects their Alexa or Google Home to keep working if Amazon or Google goes out of business, any more than people think that (purchased, wired) telephones will keep working if the phone company goes out of business (or owners don't they don't pay their bill). I think people know these are just "terminals" for a backend service.
But for things like "purchased" books or films on streaming services, that clarity doesn't seem to be there. If there were more required disclosure about what you're getting I suspect buyers would flock to services that offer a plan for how the buyer keeps their purchase in the event of service provider bankrupcy, etc.
I'm a fan of free markets, but not of fraud - markets work only when the rules of honest dealing are enforced by government.
Never attribute to malice...
...that which is sufficiently explained by incompetence.
I think people here vastly underestimate the incompetence of software designers at car companies. They just barely get the comptuers working at all, without any real internal standards or architectual clarity. Simply put, they're half-competent hacks (of course there are some outliers, but not a lot).
It doesn't help that Big Tech sucks up most of the compentent programmers willing to work for big burecratic companies.
Te car companies CAN'T comply with the law because their software is so poorly engineered in the first place, not flexible enough to accomodate the law's requirements, and will take literally years of effort to make complaint with the law (I say "make compliant" rather than "fix" because if they ever do it, it'll be by more half-competent hacking).
Go read the court expert's report on the Prius software.
https://www.edn.com/toyotas-killer-firmware-bad-design-and-its-consequences/
(Yes, Tesla is an exception. Tesla is Big Tech and has competent software engineers. But they sell computers with wheels as a perihperal, not cars with a computer.)
Re: what the law in Japan says it must
I think you're implying that Japanese law says the if they don't pursue infringers Toei could lose the right to enforce their copyright.
If that's really the case, I also have some sympathy for them. But such a law is idiotic, needless, and ought to be changed immediately.
Any copyright owner ought to be able to say "we will permit unlicensed use in situation <x>", without losing rights to license in other situtations that are <not x>.
I don't see how even Hollywood executives could rationally oppose such a legal change.
Is there a real problem here or an imagainary one?
Yes, it violates regs, but it's secure and apparently works fine.
The problem here is imaginary paperwork made-up problems.
As a consumer...
there's a vast difference between "Gruyere cheese" and "Gruyere-style cheeese".
The former I'd assume was made in Gruyere to the local standard. The latter is a similar kind of cheese made somewhere else.
Sort of like the difference between "chocolate" (acutal chocolate) and "choclatey" (anything brown and sweet).
I guess I'm an extreme moderate here. I'm fine with saving the regional names, but adding "-style" seems clear enough to me to legitimately distingish other things.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: same old song
The 7 million number is the total of C and S corporations in the US - it doesn't count LLCs, partnerships, or sole proprietorships (tho to be fair the 2 "corporations" I own are both LLCs - I own them for the sole purpose of privacy; I don't want people to be able to look up in public records who owns a house I'm building for my retirement. So a LLC owns the house.)
When you start with 7 million corporations, it doesn't take a big percentage to for "a great many" to "go for the profit". My point being that the overwhelming majority of private corporations do in fact behave morally, as that's what the people who own and run them want to do and correctly believe is in their own long-term interest. If a few thousand corporations ("a great many") do otherwise, it's far from fair to blame the other 99.9% that are honest and moral.
I'll say again - private corporations are no more, and no less, moral than the people who own and run them. Most people are fully aware that crime, immorality, and cheating do not pay in the long run. And so they run their businesses honestly out of simple self interest.
A few exceptions run by monsters don't make that false.
I fully agree that, like most things, this is far more complex than most everyone thinks.
I also agree with SDM's implication that there are bad actors out there and flaws in our legal systems which allow them to get away with things they ought not to (again see some examples at https://mugwumpery.com/?p=565 ).
But those bad actors are rare exceptions - most private corporations are honest and moral. It is in their interest to be so. It is outrageously unjust to claim that the very structure that allows people to cooperate toward shared goals is "inherently amoral". That is simply false.
Re: Re: Re: same old song
I'm sorry you feel that way SDM. When you say "private corporations are inherently amoral", you are painting with an extremely broad brush. In 2020 there were approximately 7 million private corporations in the US alone.
I personally own 2 of those and am a major investor (> 10% ownership) in 2 others. One of them I have worked at for the last 15 years.
I assure you that the private corporations I own and work at are not amoral.
Techdirt, where you so often post, is also probably a private corporation. I don't know who owns it (probably Mike Masnick is among the major owners), but I highly doubt Techdirt would "gladly traffic children if doing so would get them better margins this quarter".
Corporations are nothing more, and nothing less, than groups of people cooperating together to pursue some activity - usually, but not always, a money-making business. They are as moral, amoral, or immoral as the people who own and run them.
Do you think when people cooperate they suddenly and magically become amoral? Do you think it's inherently bad for people to cooperate? I don't.
Go pick up a trade journal in any narrow industry - say, semiconductors, dry cleaning, or plastic bag manufacturing. Look at the ads and articles. They're all focused on delivering real value and real service - hundreds of private corporations, some small and others large, all working hard to offer better products to their industry. You'll see no signs of deception or fraud - acting that way destroys the reputation that private corporations live on and they know that well.
Don't judge the millions of private corporations around the world based on the misdeeds of a dozen or two headline-making miscreants.
Sure, some corporations are amoral and run by bastards - in particular I've noticed a strong correlation between amorality and management by MBA-holding professional managers who are not major owners. Family-owned private corporations (probably the majority of all corporations, BTW) tend to have excellent morals. (As I've said before, the purpose of MBA programs seems to be to train any naturally occurring morality out of the students.)
Regulatory capture is a real and very common thing. Attempts to regulate particular industries are virtually always captured by the regulated industry. This is natural; they have the most interest and most expertise on the subject. Once captured, regulations usually end up imposing rules that look good to outsiders and are bearable by large well-established firms, but which form an impassible barrier for new and small firms. (Funny, that.)
That doesn't happen when the general and ancient rules of honest dealing are enforced by governments and courts - requirements to honor contracts, to deliver fair value, to advertise truthfully, to avoid harm to 3rd parties and compensate anyone whose rights are infringed by their activities, etc., etc.
The whole economy of millions of businesses in hundreds of different industries is too diverse, has too many competing interests, and is too uncoordinated to "capture" the broad system of laws and courts. That isn't the case when narrow industry-specific regulations are imposed.
As I've said before, I think the general rules of fair dealing are mostly insufficiently enforced, and construed more narrowly than they ought to be (e.g. https://mugwumpery.com/?p=565 ). But regulations usually only make things worse by empowering industries to keep out competitors.
But, please, don't tar all the millions of private corporations with the broad brush of amorality. Yes, there are a few criminals in every country - but most of us are honest.
Re: same old song
The point of regulation is to (a) satisfy those who think private firms are inherently evil and need restraint over and above the ordinary rules of honest business (honor contracts, don't mislead, don't steal, don't lie, don't screw people, etc.), while (b) ensuring that the industry is successful and profitable (whether it deserves to be or not), and (c) providing a mechanism to erect barriers to entry to new firms who'd like to lower prices or innovate, which could lead to existing players seeing reduced profit or a lot of work.
And most important
WHY aren't they liable for all that time they're making you waste based on their baseless claims?
Why doesn't the law impose ANY penalties on those making baseless claims?
Re: Re: Elon is right about everything
Imperfect as Autopilot is (and it is imperfect; I have 2 Teslas), it appears to be nonetheless safer than the average human driver.
The bottom line is number of accidents per mile driven - Teslas generally, and Autopilot specifically, have less accidents that average cars.
Ref: https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport
So the article and Musk attacks seem pretty unfair - sure, nothing's perfect, but surely "better" is an improvement to be praised.
Um
Dorsey has been more supportive of free speech than many on the American political left ̶m̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ . Fixed.
Dorsey has been more supportive of free speech than many on the American political center ̶m̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ . Fixed.
Dorsey has been more supportive of free speech than many ̶m̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ . Fixed.
Somebody's partisan blindness is showing.
It should be a felony...
...for a police officer on duty to intentionally turn off, disable, or cover a body camera.
Warren was represented pro bono by the Institute for Justice
https://ij.org
...they could use your help.
Capitalists suck donkey balls
...as I've said somewhere before, capitalists suck donkey balls, but capitalism doesn’t have to. (Adam Smith said something similar in 1776.)
The issue is disclosure. If the printer vendors clearly disclosed what the customer is getting, they'd (a) drive customers to other vendors who'll treat them better and (b) be so embarrassed for their reputation that they'd stop this.
Regulators need to enforce disclosure and prohibit misleading claims, not specify what vendors must offer. Unfortunately, they don't.
FWIW, this is why I switched from Canon to Brother (and lately Epson) years ago. Neither is perfect, but they're better.
Re: They would never store this data on insecure servers, would
I hope they'd store it on insecure servers.
I hope they'd make it publicly available to everyone in real time. What happens in public is...public.
If the government is going to install surveillance cameras in public places, the public should be able to look through them. And access any recordings. That ensures the police can't cherry pick what they use in court and that misdeeds by authorities are recorded and on the record, as well as by citizens.
I'll be far more worried if the police collect video and the public isn't allowed to see it - just the cops.
Re: same flaws as regular humans
I wish more people understood that.
If it's morally wrong for you to do it, it's morally wrong for the government to do it. Making it legal doesn't change morality.
Re: 'We deeply apologize for our temporary honesty.'
Still, at least they were embarrassed about it. That's something - people are only embarrassed about their behavior when they know something is morally wrong.
Re: But DRUUUUUGS!
Given some of the people who hang around here, I suppose this is necessary:
For you dummies: /sarc
But DRUUUUUGS!
You dummies, DRUGS ARE BAD!
Only by turning the police into criminals can we stop DRUG ABUSERS from STEALING to get the DRUG MONEY they need for the BLACK MARKET!!!
STEALING is BAD!! We must maintain the black market in drugs so that cartels can stay rich and afford all those expensive weapons!! Otherwise ADDICTS!!!!!
You dummies are dumb!
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