Derek’s Techdirt Profile

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  • Mar 17th, 2011 @ 8:24am

    People are Dying

    Laws are a set of rules, Patents are part of the grand set of laws we have. Once a law, or part of a law (patent), starts doing things that hurt others or are just morally wrong. It should not be a law anymore.

    Sometimes laws are stupid, this is a good example. Make the drug, save the people. After all, I did help pay for that drug, so should I not get a say?
  • Mar 3rd, 2011 @ 6:50am

    Re: To be fair...

    Really? Then why not pay for the "up to 12mbps" since your lines can only support that much. If you pay for 24mbps your throwing away money.

    I have never seen a company tell me what i might actually get, that would be an easy reason for me to down grade to a speed that would actually work.
  • Jan 7th, 2011 @ 5:24am

    Not the real Duke Nukem?

    "...though I imagine many won't feel it's the "real" Duke Nukem Forever (because that game is a myth)."

    Not really, you should read the extensive Wired article that talks about how this release actually came to pass, this is the same game they were working on, and the old developers were in general consensus that the game would be largely what they had envisioned. Granted that Take Two will put a few of their own tricks in the bag.

    Also from reading the Wired article, its pretty apparent that George Broussard is an idiot who does not know how to run a company. They recreated the game like 4 times, imagine being at Duke 4 by now!
  • Aug 17th, 2010 @ 8:42am

    Re: Mandating?

    I totally agree. Making FM radio mandatory for devices should never even be debatable. That is like making it mandatory for every car sold to have a CD player.

    Laws and regulations should be used for important stuff. If our govt. was not so corruptible, this would not be an issue.
  • Dec 12th, 2009 @ 7:31am

    Re: grey and dull

    I don't think you get it... an idea is just an idea. If you take that idea and make it into something that can stand on it's own, then you have something of value.

    Look at the car industry, the idea of a car has been around for a long time, in fact, everyone stole Henry Ford's idea of a cheap and effective automobile. But each iteration of that "stolen idea" is something that adds value to the original and people are willing to pay for that. That is what drives innovation, if you create something and expect to make money off of it for the next 100 years without innovating, you are going to be sorry.

    An idea by itself is worth absolutely nothing. I have a crap load of great ideas in my head right now, but unless I create something of value from them, they do not good at all. In fact, there may be lots of other people with the same ideas.

    Everyone knows that stealing is wrong. But do people complain about all the touch screen phones ripping off Apple's iPhone? It is basically the same with music, you create something and it has value for a while, but then you need to innovate to create new value. in 10 years the iPhone will have no value at all, but will Apple be complaining? No, they will be innovating.

    Your argument, in all honesty, is a very VALID one (almost the same as the record labels). The only problem is that your argument ignores the cold hard facts. If the record industry keeps this whiney, "It's not fair" attitude they are going to slowly die... and probably create a bunch of stupid and hurtful laws in the process!
  • Mar 19th, 2009 @ 7:39am

    Current customers still getting screwed

    As a subscriber for over 4 years, XM just keeps giving me more reasons to hate them. Not only have the subscription prices gone up since the merger (which they said would not happen for at least two years), but XM radio online is no longer free.

    They even said we could keep listening to XM online until the end of our current contract, but what they didn't tell us was that it would be downgraded to the crappy sound quality. I am pretty sure I paid for free high quality internet radio when I signed up.

    XM is unfortunately going to die because they care about money more than their customers. You can say all you want about them needing the money, but if you piss your customers off, good luck staying in business.
  • Jun 16th, 2008 @ 1:51pm

    I use XM

    some old guy: I have been using XM radio in my car for 3 years, and on my in home receiver for 2 years. After using XM radio, I honestly would never go back to normal radio because of all the annoying crap they put on. I am a big fan of music, and travel the country a lot, so having good, clear radio stations. (Especially without the annoying idiot DJ's that talk about what they did last night) I never have to put up with static, and never have to try to find a radio station that plays the music I like. And just so this does not sound like an AD for xm radio, I get sick of a lot of the XM channels because they play the same stuff over and over. It's also annoying that XM only shows some of the song title, mildly annoying.

    I do agree that it is a luxury and not a monopoly.
  • Apr 30th, 2008 @ 5:55am

    Re: Re: New England what?

    "It is a known fact"

    Please back this up with a link that has evidence, otherwise don't say it. Just makes you look like ever other idiot on the internet that knows everything.
  • Apr 22nd, 2008 @ 7:32pm

    screw ebay

    Screw Ebay, Craigslist FTW.

    Im sorry, but ebay is not what it used to be. Craigslist is free to post, and the stuff you get is mostly local, so you know what you are getting into. Sure you may not have the selection you do on ebay. But you also don't have to wait 7 days for the bidding to end. Did i mention it is free to post. I sold a bunch of computer parts on Craigslist for the prices I asked in 3 days.
  • Apr 11th, 2008 @ 12:09pm

    Re: interesting patent

    " nothing would ever be patentable

    What is wrong with that?"

    Ex: Microsoft trolls for ideas, the second they find a good one. They steal it, and market the crap out of it before any small company ever gets funding. They continue to do this until they make so much money that they can pay thousands of people to go around stealing ideas daily... see a problem?

    with that said. the length of a patent should be shortened, maybe like 5 years. if you cant make it happen in 5 years, let someone else try... that would spark a lot more innovation.
  • Apr 2nd, 2008 @ 6:11am

    Nope...

    This service would only work if...

    1) the movies were free
    2) no ads
    3) more people had unlimited internet connections

    People are not going to go out of their way to watch movies on their mobile, you have to give them some good incentives. (probably a lot of good incentives)
  • Apr 1st, 2008 @ 2:08pm

    It was in the contract

    From the report i read, China had agreed to open the internet up to reporters for the period of the Olympic games. Then when the whole Monk uproar happened, they were unsure that China would actually do it. So they re-iterated it.
  • Mar 31st, 2008 @ 8:04am

    Re: Your article is misleading!!

    Ok, sorry, i guess it is not that misleading, the one article you linked on Slashdot said that, the other one said different, who to trust?
  • Mar 31st, 2008 @ 7:48am

    Your article is misleading!!

    "PointDev's spokesman claiming that the BSA believes 47% of software used in corporations to be illegal — whether he is referring to Sony in particular is not clear in the translation."

    That is part of the article you are referring to, nowhere does it say that the Sony BMG pirates 47% of the stuff they use. I hate those people too, but writing misleading articles is lame. I am pretty sure the 47% is BS anyway.
  • Mar 14th, 2008 @ 6:04am

    So.....

    So, my ISP pays 5/month for me to subsidize music that I have stolen(and that cost is passed to me). Therefore I have subsidized the industry and can steal all I would ever want without having to worry about being caught? Now, I am sure they would not let that fly, but honestly, what are people going to think? If I was a heavy downloader, I would feel "well, i guess i can download heavily, cause I'm paying for it now".

    If the record industry wants to see its profits drop into the single digits (Billions), then it should enact this plan.

    Plus, i am no legal expert, but the record label has accepted a subsidy for the stolen music, so case closed. After you accept a subsidy are you going to go back and sue because you say it was not enough? Highly unlikely, you will raise the rates, so $10/month... then $20/month...
  • Mar 6th, 2008 @ 5:46am

    iPod

    What about iPods, are they as lethal to pedestrians as cell phones? Perhaps maybe we outlaw them.
  • Jan 24th, 2008 @ 6:11am

    Re: Re: technonsense (as derek)

    actually, not to pry, but studies have shown that the context of emails is only correctly understood about 50% of the time. which means that its a crap shoot on whether or not a person will understand your "jokes"

    i don't have the link to the study anymore, but it was a pretty interesting read, might try google-ing it.
  • Jan 7th, 2008 @ 8:11am

    Re: New world

    Radio is still a huge outlet for new music. Without radio most music would still not be discovered. I think radio wil continue to be a good outlet for a while because you can hear new music while doing something else and not have to search heavily for it.

    I have the report with all the statistics, but i cant seem to find it...
  • Jan 7th, 2008 @ 8:05am

    Re: Nope, he should be disheartened, truly

    You see music as way overpriced, but to an accountant for a big record label it is not. Record labels release a lot of albums every year that turn out to be flops, so the only way to cover the costs of these is to make a lot of money from the good albums (take a high percentage). So basically the current music system is a response to their business model (which is not working anymore, since the value of music as a good has gone way down).

    Also, a good single is a great way to advertise a new album, but selling it alone does not make any sense because the record company paid for the entire album to be produced, but instead of making $15 a pop, they are making $1 on that one good song. I am certainly not defending the record label, but looking at this from all angles you can see why selling only a single is not good business when you had to front the cost for the production of a whole album. And it is certainly not a good idea to sell and produce only singles, cause that would kill a ton of good music that the record label decides does not make the cut for a money making single.

    just tring to provide a different perspective, with that said, i think Reznor's idea is a good one, and techdirts analysis of it is also a good one. I think this is a much better way to go than signing with a big record label.
  • Jan 7th, 2008 @ 7:49am

    Re: spot on

    I agree with you, that was my first thought. It is a different kind of music, and i bet a lot of people acted the same way as you did. It is just too bad you can't measure that, as I would like to see the statistics with that factored in.

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