Why the hell are you railing against someone making a REALLY good point? Sure his implementation was poor, but what's the point in ripping him for "grandstanding" and then claiming that politicians should be "telling websites what protocol to use?"
I mean, he's right. Stop trying to gin up controversy.
Its entirely possible that no one would ever have known who the heck Douglas Ruskoff is, if he hadn't been graciously granted a place to blog on Huffpo. And the fact that we care what he says now obviously means he's reaped some form of "fame" (bad word, can't think of a better one right now) from that exposure.
Well, the thrust of this is that the Daily Kos probably devoted resources to certain races based upon the information they were getting from their pollster. And if they did that on the basis of fraudulent information from their pollster, Kos can definitely claim damages. And on top of that, they were paying a polling firm to poll, which it looks like they weren't actually doing...
They're independent in the sense that one result isn't directly influenced by the other. If I go out on the street and poll a hundred women, and then go out a day later and poll a hundred men, you wouldn't call my results dependent upon each other. They might be (in the general sense) somewhat similar or different based on your "mens and womens brains" theory, but that would have NOTHING to do with the trailing digit of each of my individual polls being odd or even...
This is another example of Techdirt articles ripping on a company for doing EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT THEM TO DO! McDonalds decides NOT to lawyer up and sue, but instead laughs along with us, and you complain!
I just don't understand it. You wonder why Techdirt gets painted as this radical anti-copyright, anti-business organization, it's because sometimes (according to Techdirt articles) business can do no right.
I hear what you're saying when you point out that what's harm to him is simply disruption to you, but to some degree, you have to take into account his audience.
He's making this speech to the dinosaur generation. A group of Italian lawmakers... It's not like he's got a snowball's chance in hell of converting them into open culture fanatics. He's trying to make some incremental progress by saying, "Look, I understand your perspective. And given the choice between giving a radical speech and having you ignore it completely, or toning my message down a bit so that you might, just might take it to heart, I'll do the latter."
He has a very effective message here that I think would play well to an open minded person, even if you're a stuffy old legislator. "Don't regulate punitively. You're just waging war on your children. Find a way to keep the good while making the bad not quite so bad. If you focus only on ELIMINATING the bad, you will also eliminate the good."
So yea, I cut him a little slack on moderating his message a bit. Consider the audience.
He traded one scarce resource (his reputation) for another (money). We do it all the time, trading our time for money. He seems to be just fine with that tradeoff, and avoids the press because he doesn't feel like talking about his (perhaps illegitimate) former business.
I gotta give this article a big "meh." A damaged reputation is only a burden if you give a crap. He's rich and he has a silver medal because he's an awesome skier. I doubt he gives a damn that the Internets are angry with him.
OK, so I agree for the most part with your points on Lanier...
But you make a rather baseless throwaway claim that "QWERTY is no worse than Dvorak" as well. I don't think this claim holds up to scrutiny. I'll spare everyone the laundry list of reasons, but suffice it to say that if we'd have started with keyboards instead of typewriters, Dvorak would be much more efficient typists...
Hey man, we complain about newspapers that "don't get it" all the time, let's give credit where credit is due here, so long as they follow through on their intentions...
Otherwise we're the guys who damn them if they do (HEY ABOUT TIME STUPID!) or damn them if they don't (GET WITH THE PROGRAM STUPID!).
Maybe I'm dense, inartistic, or didn't RTFA, but it doesn't look like the secondary artist added much content to the original, beyond making it bigger. If that's the case, the WSJ may be justified.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I'm not, I don't think the Shep Fairey precedent is germane. What kind of value is being added here?
Players do this ALL THE TIME in post-game interviews. In this case, it's a coach trying to make a proactive statement on his players use of Twitter. I'd argue this had very little to do with the content of the tweet itself.
You don't have to amend the Constitution to bring about this change. No one here is saying that Copyright has no place in our society.
However, the laws that govern copyright are easily changable and in fact, OUGHT to be changed.
You're right, as the law is written now, songs are the intellectual property of the copyright holder. As such, they have the right to determine what happens to their intellectual property. But just because that's the way the law is written now doesn't mean that's the way it OUGHT to read.
Reforming a business model can come about two ways. By choice or by law. If the laws are changed to reign in copyright, the business models would have to change to survive. And in changing, Mike contends, they would prosper.
The Recording Industry, however, can also CHOOSE to embrace a "digital-age" business model instead of clinging onto a model that is doomed to failure. Suing your customers is never a sound business model. Soon (some would argue VERY soon), people will turn away from that model and embrace something different. Something they WANT.
And that is the choice that the Recording Industry faces. Reform by choice, go down with the old law, or be reformed by new law. Only one of these routes involves choice and survival, and we can only sit back and wonder, "When will they get it?"
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Drew.
Re: Re: So what?
So what?
I mean, he's right. Stop trying to gin up controversy.
For instance
This is an easy one...
Re: economy
Re: The rest of the story
Re:
Seriously, finally a company does something right...
I just don't understand it. You wonder why Techdirt gets painted as this radical anti-copyright, anti-business organization, it's because sometimes (according to Techdirt articles) business can do no right.
Let's think about this before next time.
Re: Lessig's Gone Off the Deep End
Some slack...
He's making this speech to the dinosaur generation. A group of Italian lawmakers... It's not like he's got a snowball's chance in hell of converting them into open culture fanatics. He's trying to make some incremental progress by saying, "Look, I understand your perspective. And given the choice between giving a radical speech and having you ignore it completely, or toning my message down a bit so that you might, just might take it to heart, I'll do the latter."
He has a very effective message here that I think would play well to an open minded person, even if you're a stuffy old legislator. "Don't regulate punitively. You're just waging war on your children. Find a way to keep the good while making the bad not quite so bad. If you focus only on ELIMINATING the bad, you will also eliminate the good."
So yea, I cut him a little slack on moderating his message a bit. Consider the audience.
In fairness...
I gotta give this article a big "meh." A damaged reputation is only a burden if you give a crap. He's rich and he has a silver medal because he's an awesome skier. I doubt he gives a damn that the Internets are angry with him.
Dvorak
But you make a rather baseless throwaway claim that "QWERTY is no worse than Dvorak" as well. I don't think this claim holds up to scrutiny. I'll spare everyone the laundry list of reasons, but suffice it to say that if we'd have started with keyboards instead of typewriters, Dvorak would be much more efficient typists...
Credit
Otherwise we're the guys who damn them if they do (HEY ABOUT TIME STUPID!) or damn them if they don't (GET WITH THE PROGRAM STUPID!).
Enlargements?
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I'm not, I don't think the Shep Fairey precedent is germane. What kind of value is being added here?
It makes you wonder...
In this case, it's the medium
Excuses for Theft?
However, the laws that govern copyright are easily changable and in fact, OUGHT to be changed.
You're right, as the law is written now, songs are the intellectual property of the copyright holder. As such, they have the right to determine what happens to their intellectual property. But just because that's the way the law is written now doesn't mean that's the way it OUGHT to read.
Reforming a business model can come about two ways. By choice or by law. If the laws are changed to reign in copyright, the business models would have to change to survive. And in changing, Mike contends, they would prosper.
The Recording Industry, however, can also CHOOSE to embrace a "digital-age" business model instead of clinging onto a model that is doomed to failure. Suing your customers is never a sound business model. Soon (some would argue VERY soon), people will turn away from that model and embrace something different. Something they WANT.
And that is the choice that the Recording Industry faces. Reform by choice, go down with the old law, or be reformed by new law. Only one of these routes involves choice and survival, and we can only sit back and wonder, "When will they get it?"
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Drew.
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