KnownHuman 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (53) comment rss

  • On the post: Guy Who Was Arrested & Convicted For Joke Tweet Loses Appeal

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2010 @ 08:12am

    Re: Re: Relatedly

    I know, right?

  • On the post: Guy Who Was Arrested & Convicted For Joke Tweet Loses Appeal

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2010 @ 08:09am

    IAmSpartacus

    Of course, the absurdity of the entire situation has been picked up by Twitter and spurred a globally trending hashtag #IAmSparticus

    http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23iamspartacus

  • On the post: UK Police Officer Accused Of 'Planting' Song Titles Into Evidence Over Shooting

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2010 @ 06:30am

    Re: Missing the point... not about the guy shot!

    Indeed. Where is the outrage? Police officers are sworn to uphold the law, not flaunt their disrespect of it.

    Those songwriters spent countless hours carefully crafting those song titles and to have an officer of the law callously weave those song titles into a coded mixed CD is beyond reprehensible.

    I can only hope that the legal system is able to hold the entire police department fully responsible. How else are those song writers expected to put food on their tables?

  • On the post: Getting Closer To Autonomous Cars: Vans Make The Trip From Italy To China

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2010 @ 03:25pm

    Who Stands to Benefit

    This area of research should rather interesting to watch in terms of future business potential. It would be interesting to see the beverage and hospitality industry really get behind this, while the taxi (and to a lesser extent, insurance) industries argue against autonomous vehicles.

    Imagine the potential drop in drunk driving accidents.

  • On the post: Company Making Cab/Limo Rides More Efficient Ordered To Stop

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2010 @ 05:41am

    Re: Re: Supply and demand isn't straight-forward.

    "Driving a taxi ... really?"

    Win.

  • On the post: Broadway Actor Sues To Find Out Anonymous Tweeter Who Says He Has Crabs

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 20 Oct, 2010 @ 08:06am

    I think there needs to be a website that showcases every instance the Streisand Effect. It would certainly serve as a warning that people could be pointed to prior to pursuing legal action.

    "Yes, Mr. Broadway Actor, you could sue. Or, you could just let that thing slide. Only one of these actions will allow the rumor die. The other will permanently tie your name with "has crabs" in the minds of people and the Google hivememory."

  • On the post: Glenn Beck Not A Fan Of Fair Use; Claims US Gov't Paying Remixers To Create Anti-Beck Propaganda

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2010 @ 01:07pm

    Re: Satirist's Union

    This union needs to happen.

  • On the post: Don't Be Confused By Amazon's Ebook Sales Claims

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2010 @ 05:33am

    The hardcover bit was just a little fun with words. Publishing likes to protect hardcover sales, because they are high margin, but they still make up a small portion of overall book sales.

    What's more interesting is that, even without being the dominate format, Kindle books are still making up 30% of Amazon's book sales. Or, 3 out of every 10.

    If we extrapolate that out even further, one propitary format sold through one single vendor - kindle eBooks - account for one 1 of every 17 books in the world.

    And though eBooks have been around a few decades, the Kindle has had a hell of an adoption rate in it's three year run.

  • On the post: Broadband Reports Hit By Righthaven; Goes With Kitchen Sink Approach In Response

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2010 @ 06:26am

    Re:

    That's actually an interesting theory. RightHaven's brazen, even bullheaded, tactics seem like they'd be fairly easy to steer for personal gain.

    Through focusing purely on second-hand liability, a small group could harness RightHaven's legal team to bully websites said group disagrees with. A modest campaign of copying and pasting could almost guarantee legal action. A court-battle by proxy with (at this point) no foreseeable action against the actual "infringing" entity.

    Talk about a combat multiplier.

  • On the post: Google Sued For Nexus One Suckiness

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2010 @ 07:11am

    Re: Nexus One

    Have to say, I'm much happier with my Nexus One than any other mobile I've owned.

    This guy's suit seems like it'd be better targeted at his service provider rather than his handset provider. But, Google is a larger target.

  • On the post: Facebook Sues Teachbook Over Trademark Concerns; Where's Legalbook?

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2010 @ 12:50pm

    Re:

    That's awesome.

  • On the post: Attorneys General Continue Grandstanding Against Craigslist

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 26 Aug, 2010 @ 12:21pm

    This one hit the news locally last night, as my state's AG Ken "The Cooch" Cuccinelli was one of the signatures. Got into quite the heated discussion about this with someone actually siding with Cooch.

    It's sad when political aspirations and the desire for a headline win trump actual impact and the power of the honey pot.

  • On the post: Research Claims Hackers Could Figure Out Your Smartphone Password Via Screen Smudges

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 13 Aug, 2010 @ 05:28am

    I wouldn't exactly call my fellow employees "hackers," but several of them quickly identified the swipe lock on my Android phone as a pretty easy physical hack. Two went as far as to unlock my phone.

    But, that's all besides the point - anytime someone has physical access to a device, a security breach is not a matter of if, but rather when.

  • On the post: Motorola Does Openness Wrong; Bricks Your Droid X If You Tamper

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 15 Jul, 2010 @ 12:20pm

    And in a moment of ultimate irony, Droid X adverts are serving on the page.

  • On the post: Author Joe Konrath Experiments With 'Piracy' To See How It Impacts Sales

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2010 @ 03:50pm

    Boost in Advertising

    I don't think it's completely fair to describe what Joe is doing as completely out of the ordinary for him. About a year ago, when he started becoming a more aggressive advocate for low-cost eBooks, he always pointed out that people were readily available for free on his website.

    He's an aggressive self-promoter, and frequently points that out as one of his primary pieces of advice to other authors. This recent blog post is merely capitalizing on the press he got over last week's post. Joe knows that when a story is hot, you run with it, and digital enables that.

    What's really interesting about Joe is how his recent deal with Amazon was received by the publishing industry. Announced shortly before BEA, it caused several people to really evaluate what a publisher is, and what value they bring to the author.

    Jane Friedman quoted Bowker as saying that Amazon will be a full fledged publisher in six months (http://twitter.com/JaneFriedman/status/14692409544), Richard Nash is pushing for publishers (starting with his own Cursor initiative) to only ask for three years of copyright, and numerous channels said that publishers need to do a better job of articulating value - a powerful first step to enabling a CwF RtB system.

  • On the post: MPAA And Its Priorities: Asks US Gov't To Stop Soldiers From Buying Bootleg DVDs

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 18 May, 2010 @ 03:40am

    When I was leaving Iraq, a little over six years ago, we had to go through a cursory customs inspection by the Air Force. They were looking for weapons and anything that might be considered an illegal spoil of war (basically anything beyond flags and unregistered bayonets). However, they didn't expect to find any of these, so they spent most of their attention on our DVD and CD collections.

    The rule was, and again, this was six years ago, a soldier was allowed to have up to two bootleg copies of any individual title. Anything more than that would be confiscated as something similar to "intent to distribute."

    Made us all wonder what kind of world we were coming back to, especially since there was this crazy rumor that Arnold Schwarzenegger had been elected Governor while we were gone.

    I figured everything would have shifted to digital copies, party drives and downloads, by now.

  • On the post: Misguided Outrage At NY Times' Ethicist Over Ethics Of Downloading A Book

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2010 @ 10:50am

    Re: How much effort really...

    Totally agree, which is why I am a huge fan of fan-fic. I think it's a sincere form of flattery. Most people who engage in copyright infringement aren't out to hurt the author, they're fans who wish to share the experience - be it an album, book or film.

    There are, of course, always bad seeds. Unfortunately, those tend to draw the bulk of the attention.

    I don't think I attempted to draw a comparison between writing and scanning a book. If I did, I apologize for the confusion.

  • On the post: Misguided Outrage At NY Times' Ethicist Over Ethics Of Downloading A Book

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2010 @ 08:46am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I'm in agreement with you that it's not the reader's problem. I frequently point this out to publishers, that the transition is coming and they can either make money off of it, or let control and innovation slip to other channels.

    All too often, the response from publishers about their eBook policies is either a poor analogy used to justify windowing (typically that the hardcover is a theatrical showing and the ebook/paperback is the DVD) or the need to "educate consumers" as to the cost of producing a book and then use cost-based pricing.

    But, the above response was not an excuse to educate the reader, but rather to point out that publishing is often gridlocked because of its own complexity. The Shirky article that Mike referenced not too long ago fits brilliantly.

    The thing left unsaid in the above response was that, there are authors who know their books are tied up in debate and are willing to slip you an electronic copy of their book. Not all. Not even most. But still some.

  • On the post: Misguided Outrage At NY Times' Ethicist Over Ethics Of Downloading A Book

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2010 @ 07:31am

    Re: Re:

    With regards to your second bit, I really know the feeling. I hate when I want to enjoy a piece of media and it's not in the format I want. A lot of the time, though, the authors are the people with the least say in the situation.

    The problem with publishing is that the contracts are really specific when it comes to edition and format rights. It used to be that paperback and hardcover rights were granted separately - leading to one publisher putting out the HC, and if that was successful, the author's agent would approach publishers for a second bid on the paperback. Stephen King mentions benefiting from this in "On Writing." But as publishers started to produce both paperbacks and hardcovers (and invented the third edition, the Trade Paperback), publishers began to acquire rights to all editions of the book, often including the other formats like audiobooks.

    Until recently, eBooks weren't even mentioned in contracts, and this has caused a bit of a tussle between agents and publishers over whether the eBook constitutes a new format, or simply a new edition. You might recall that in December, Random House made their argument for the edition logic, while agents and authors tended to side with format. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/media/13ebooks.html) (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704121504574594113096154756.html)

    The debate is still going on - and fuel has been added to the fire with the recent AAP stats that showed eBooks surpassing audiobooks in sales last year. (http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/publishing/book_sales_dipped_18_in_2009_ebook_sales_rose_176_157677.asp)

    Many authors are currently stuck, not knowing who controls the eBook rights to the books they wrote. Obviously, everyone is keen on making some money off these books, but the questions of how much and when have yet to be decided. However, it never hurts to email your favorite author, and inquire. Many really enjoy hearing from fans.

  • On the post: Misguided Outrage At NY Times' Ethicist Over Ethics Of Downloading A Book

    KnownHuman ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2010 @ 07:07am

    Re: Re:

    I did. Another reason why comments shouldn't be written before coffee.

Next >>