This police department brought in 600 thousand dollars.
The same department cost 524 thousand dollars to operate.
The gross profit here is 76 thousand dollars.
That doesn't seem like a huge amount of money considering the reputational damage and number of really angry people that result from this push.
Am I missing something here? Is an extra 76 thousand dollars really that much of an important part of the entire budget of a small town?
It's not nothing, of course, but I don't see it as such a large amount that it couldn't be made up from other sources that are less likely to get (inter)national negative headlines.
It sounds like a disclosure of important information about the property. Same thing as does the place have municipal water? Septic tank or municipal sewer service? Natural gas service?
The availability of water, sewer, natural gas and broadband Internet service are important things to know about before you put your money on the table, and could easily be overlooked unless it's brought to your attention.
Electricity is a little different since the lights either come on or they don't. But you might not realize that the furnace is propane or heating oil if you don't know what you're looking at. The toilet still flushes if you're using a septic tank. And so on.
If an artist accepts a commission to make a statue or obelisk for a park or a public square, shouldn't the deal include the fact that the public art then belongs to those who paid for it, i.e. the public.
Same deal as copyrights on government publications, including software written for government use. Research papers paid for by grants funded by taxpayers. Etc.
I don't see how it would be possible for them to comply with this short of shutting down operations completely and worldwide. (Which wouldn't be a bad result, but that's not what the order actually tells them to do.)
Joe is from Canada, Jane is from the UK and they are on vacation together in Italy. Their vacation photo is posted on random-website-dot-com and gets scraped by a US based company.
That gets really complex really fast even without the added wrinkle that there's no reliable way to determine any of that information from that vacation photo.
Along with youtube, facebook and all of the other "social media/streaming/snakepit" sites, the owners of the site have the sole discretion to ban or not ban anyone at all for any reason or none.
Those who don't like it are free to set up their own service and use that instead. (See Twitter-Parler-"From the desk of Donald Trump" for one example of how this is supposed to work.)
Franchisees put up real money to obtain their franchise, decorate their building, stock it and staff it, all to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the franchise owners can still just take the whole thing away from them on what amounts to a whim. (See Subway franchises for several examples of this happening.)
"Creators" who perform for Twitch, youtube and the like generally put up an investment of $0 and have no formally negotiated contract or servicing agreement with the companies that they decide to pin their livelihoods on. They aren't even paying any rent for use of the company's facilities. If the company decides that the amount they make from their cut of the advertising revenue is no longer worth the hassle, that's a decision they are entitled to make.
I really don't see where these folks have a lot of room to complain when they get the vaudeville hook. "I've been using this service for free and now they don't want me any more."
So you get one of these bags and now your identification documents all stay in your car where any passing crook can just reach in the window and walk off with them.
And if he wants to steal the car the thief can provide the "license and registration" too.
"The copyright status of The Wizard of Oz and related works is complicated for several reasons. The book series is very long-running, and written by multiple authors, so the books often fall on opposite sides of eligibility for copyright laws. There have also been multiple adaptations across many different media, which enjoy different kinds of copyright protection. The copyright law of the United States has changed many times, and impacted Oz works every time. As of 2021, twenty-six Oz books and five films are in the public domain. Starting in 2019, an Oz book has entered the public domain every year. Barring another extension of copyright terms, all of the Famous Forty will be in the public domain by 2059. "
asexual, a. Biol.
(əˈsɛksjuːəl)[f. a- prefix 14 + sexual.]
asexual, a. Biol.
a. Not sexual, without sex. In Bot. formerly applied to cryptogams; cf. agamic.
1830: Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. Introd. 19 “Asexual plants are flowerless.”
1858: Lewes Sea-side Stud. 289 “Reproducing themselves by sexual and asexual methods.”
asexual, a. Biol.
b. In general contexts: without sexuality.
1896: L. Eckenstein Woman under Monasticism ix. 307 “The high estimation of virgin purity..was advocated by the leaders of thought..and..the asexual existence..was extolled as virtue in itself.”
1903: Daily Mail 10 Sept. 2/7 “All doctors will tell you that, athletic or not, women are more asexual than men.”
1928: D. H. Lawrence Let. ? 17 Aug. (1962) 1077, “I feel I've shot it [sc. the book] like a bomb against all their false sex and hypocrisy—as my Florentine doctor said, against all their asexual sexuality.”
Before computers were common, the Oxford Dictionary was available in printed form either as a 20-volume set of standard harcover books or as a single book printed in mouse-print font that even came with its own magnifying glass.
Then computers came along and in addition to or instead of the above you could then buy a CD with the Second Edition dictionary on it.
Then they started an online subscription service that currently costs something like $100 per year.
Then in 2017 they discontinued the Second Edition CD; your choices today are the 20-volume hardcover set or the yearly subscription but for the past four years there has been no way to legally obtain a digital copy of the dictionary from the publisher.
The Third Edition, which may or may not be released in the next few years (there's no exact schedule announced yet) will be available by monthly subscription only. No printed books will be available. No digital versions.
So the Second Edition is the first, the only and the final edition of the Oxford Dictionary that you can keep on your own computer and use to look up words without having to pay a subscription fee.
And yes, it's only a dictionary. But the Oxford Dictionary is THE Dictionary. Really. If you've never looked at it, you really don't know what you've missed. Citations, history, and usage that you won't find anywhere else. It ain't yer grandpa's Funk and Wagnalls!
I'm not convinced that confidential settlements should be allowed in court cases. If the case was important enough to bring to court (with all of the associated costs to the taxpayer as well as the participants) then it should be important enough for any settlements to be filed as a public document.
Otherwise you end up with a situation where someone litigious can just continually file-and-settle until he manages to find a sucker and cash in.
I'm not saying that I should have a claim either way (a photo of my statue or of me); I'm just saying that it's a bit inconsistent to hold that both of those things should be true.
My looks are the result of more than genetics. I might have a unique haircut or hat; perhaps I have pink glasses or a wooden leg. Maybe I'm just a "typical example of a middle aged white male". Random photographer Joe Schmoe decides that he needs a photo of a "typical example"; he takes mine and put it into his book.
Why can he do that without my permission but not put a photo of my statue in his book?
What if it's a statue that looks just like me? :)
Again, it's inconsistent that both of these things should be true.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Frank Cox.
Re: Re: Damages payment
I actually messed that up. Should have been "Well water to dew."
It's surprisingly difficult to type something like that and get it right when you're in the habit of typing grammatically....
Damages payment
Well water to do. They tide. It's shellfish, but they prawned everything on line at the riverbank for the o-fish-al payment.
I'm not seeing the profit being made here
This police department brought in 600 thousand dollars.
The same department cost 524 thousand dollars to operate.
The gross profit here is 76 thousand dollars.
That doesn't seem like a huge amount of money considering the reputational damage and number of really angry people that result from this push.
Am I missing something here? Is an extra 76 thousand dollars really that much of an important part of the entire budget of a small town?
It's not nothing, of course, but I don't see it as such a large amount that it couldn't be made up from other sources that are less likely to get (inter)national negative headlines.
Re: Re: Sounds reasonable to me
True, but it should be pretty obvious if the roof is covered by solar panels or there's a generator shack behind the house.
The septic tank and water well can be pretty much out of sight and out of mind, unlike a solar array or a roaring generator.
Sounds reasonable to me
It sounds like a disclosure of important information about the property. Same thing as does the place have municipal water? Septic tank or municipal sewer service? Natural gas service?
The availability of water, sewer, natural gas and broadband Internet service are important things to know about before you put your money on the table, and could easily be overlooked unless it's brought to your attention.
Electricity is a little different since the lights either come on or they don't. But you might not realize that the furnace is propane or heating oil if you don't know what you're looking at. The toilet still flushes if you're using a septic tank. And so on.
Public art should be public
Shouldn't public art actually be public?
If an artist accepts a commission to make a statue or obelisk for a park or a public square, shouldn't the deal include the fact that the public art then belongs to those who paid for it, i.e. the public.
Same deal as copyrights on government publications, including software written for government use. Research papers paid for by grants funded by taxpayers. Etc.
Is it even possible for them to comply?
I don't see how it would be possible for them to comply with this short of shutting down operations completely and worldwide. (Which wouldn't be a bad result, but that's not what the order actually tells them to do.)
Joe is from Canada, Jane is from the UK and they are on vacation together in Italy. Their vacation photo is posted on random-website-dot-com and gets scraped by a US based company.
That gets really complex really fast even without the added wrinkle that there's no reliable way to determine any of that information from that vacation photo.
Why do they need a reason?
Along with youtube, facebook and all of the other "social media/streaming/snakepit" sites, the owners of the site have the sole discretion to ban or not ban anyone at all for any reason or none.
Those who don't like it are free to set up their own service and use that instead. (See Twitter-Parler-"From the desk of Donald Trump" for one example of how this is supposed to work.)
Franchisees put up real money to obtain their franchise, decorate their building, stock it and staff it, all to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the franchise owners can still just take the whole thing away from them on what amounts to a whim. (See Subway franchises for several examples of this happening.)
"Creators" who perform for Twitch, youtube and the like generally put up an investment of $0 and have no formally negotiated contract or servicing agreement with the companies that they decide to pin their livelihoods on. They aren't even paying any rent for use of the company's facilities. If the company decides that the amount they make from their cut of the advertising revenue is no longer worth the hassle, that's a decision they are entitled to make.
I really don't see where these folks have a lot of room to complain when they get the vaudeville hook. "I've been using this service for free and now they don't want me any more."
Now your id stays in the car
So you get one of these bags and now your identification documents all stay in your car where any passing crook can just reach in the window and walk off with them.
And if he wants to steal the car the thief can provide the "license and registration" too.
What could possibly go wrong here?
Wizard of Oz is public domain in the United States
The Dorothy character in the Wizard of Oz is public domain if she appears in any of the first 26 books or five films.
I'm sure that she appears in all 31 of those public domain works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_The_Wizard_of_Oz_and_related_works_in_the_U nited_States
"The copyright status of The Wizard of Oz and related works is complicated for several reasons. The book series is very long-running, and written by multiple authors, so the books often fall on opposite sides of eligibility for copyright laws. There have also been multiple adaptations across many different media, which enjoy different kinds of copyright protection. The copyright law of the United States has changed many times, and impacted Oz works every time. As of 2021, twenty-six Oz books and five films are in the public domain. Starting in 2019, an Oz book has entered the public domain every year. Barring another extension of copyright terms, all of the Famous Forty will be in the public domain by 2059. "
Re: Re: Oxford dictionary has already gone there
asexual, a. Biol.
(əˈsɛksjuːəl)[f. a- prefix 14 + sexual.]
asexual, a. Biol.
a. Not sexual, without sex. In Bot. formerly applied to cryptogams; cf. agamic.
1830: Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. Introd. 19 “Asexual plants are flowerless.”
1858: Lewes Sea-side Stud. 289 “Reproducing themselves by sexual and asexual methods.”
asexual, a. Biol.
b. In general contexts: without sexuality.
1896: L. Eckenstein Woman under Monasticism ix. 307 “The high estimation of virgin purity..was advocated by the leaders of thought..and..the asexual existence..was extolled as virtue in itself.”
1903: Daily Mail 10 Sept. 2/7 “All doctors will tell you that, athletic or not, women are more asexual than men.”
1928: D. H. Lawrence Let. ? 17 Aug. (1962) 1077, “I feel I've shot it [sc. the book] like a bomb against all their false sex and hypocrisy—as my Florentine doctor said, against all their asexual sexuality.”
Oxford dictionary has already gone there
Before computers were common, the Oxford Dictionary was available in printed form either as a 20-volume set of standard harcover books or as a single book printed in mouse-print font that even came with its own magnifying glass.
Then computers came along and in addition to or instead of the above you could then buy a CD with the Second Edition dictionary on it.
Then they started an online subscription service that currently costs something like $100 per year.
Then in 2017 they discontinued the Second Edition CD; your choices today are the 20-volume hardcover set or the yearly subscription but for the past four years there has been no way to legally obtain a digital copy of the dictionary from the publisher.
The Third Edition, which may or may not be released in the next few years (there's no exact schedule announced yet) will be available by monthly subscription only. No printed books will be available. No digital versions.
So the Second Edition is the first, the only and the final edition of the Oxford Dictionary that you can keep on your own computer and use to look up words without having to pay a subscription fee.
And yes, it's only a dictionary. But the Oxford Dictionary is THE Dictionary. Really. If you've never looked at it, you really don't know what you've missed. Citations, history, and usage that you won't find anywhere else. It ain't yer grandpa's Funk and Wagnalls!
"Falsehoods?"
It bugs me when articles like this refer to "falsehoods".
You're sugar coating it and taking away the impact of calling it what it is. Lies.
Not falsehoods.
Why is everyone so afraid of calling a spade a spade here?
"That's a lie." There. See how easy it was.
Falsehoods indeed. Peh.
Should confidential settlements be allowed?
I'm not convinced that confidential settlements should be allowed in court cases. If the case was important enough to bring to court (with all of the associated costs to the taxpayer as well as the participants) then it should be important enough for any settlements to be filed as a public document.
Otherwise you end up with a situation where someone litigious can just continually file-and-settle until he manages to find a sucker and cash in.
Re: Re: I'm not sure about this..
I'm not saying that I should have a claim either way (a photo of my statue or of me); I'm just saying that it's a bit inconsistent to hold that both of those things should be true.
My looks are the result of more than genetics. I might have a unique haircut or hat; perhaps I have pink glasses or a wooden leg. Maybe I'm just a "typical example of a middle aged white male". Random photographer Joe Schmoe decides that he needs a photo of a "typical example"; he takes mine and put it into his book.
Why can he do that without my permission but not put a photo of my statue in his book?
What if it's a statue that looks just like me? :)
Again, it's inconsistent that both of these things should be true.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Frank Cox.
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