Programmer working for a large multi-national firm. The division I'm in creates commercial insurance management software (policies, claims, billing, reporting, etc) and I primarily work with the claims software.
Of course, the linked article points out that they didn't even copy the article "as is", but felt they needed to edit. This further upset Mr. Wright as it removed what he felt were important parts of the article.
Maybe someone needs to point this out to Mandelson so he can sick his copyright police force on the Times... :-)
The problem I see is an issue of whether or not that "major league" is still any good? I have two boys that play Cal Ripken baseball and those games are FAR more exciting than any major league game I watched this year. Yes, I'm biased for the games my kids are in, but almost ALL of the games at all levels of play were fun to watch because the smaller league takes the time to balance the teams. This makes game play more even, less lopsided victories, etc. I was just as happy watching two unrelated teams while waiting for my kids games to start as I was watching their games.
Additionally, if major league was gone, the exhorbitant amounts of money spent on it could help fund far more baseball at the lower levels. I understand the natural desire to be bigger, but bigger isn't always better.
I'm not sure what your opinion of "very few" is, but according to the CDC, 672 people died from laboratory confirmed influenza in the time period from August 30 to October 31, 2009. Of those, 73 were children. These figures were updated November 6th here if you'd care to check for yourself.
In case you're having trouble with the math, that's about 11 people every week dying from the flu. To give you a point of comparison, New York City has managed to have less than 400 murders all year.
Do you honestly believe they'll stop with VOD? If they haven't been able to figure out what consumers want by now, what makes you think they'll stop with using SOC with VOD?
(and why do I keep thinking of that scene with Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam where he asks a complete question in mostly initials?)
While it's a bad one, the only theory I can come up with is that they planned to use infringement claims to keep images of the bills from being shared publicly, thus reducing the number of people who have clean images to counterfeit from.
And wow - that's an even worse theory when I see it typed... :-)
While I believe that Gatehouse is overreaching in their statements, they do have some just cause. I spent some time perusing some of the various other threads on the forum and quickly found a number of them where entire articles were pasted into the thread. I'm wondering if it's that behavior that initiated the contact from the legal department and the lawyers just went overboard?
While I completely disagree with the premise, the prosecutor is implying that the grades were dependent on a finding of potential innocence. Assuming she actually believes that drivel, you might be able to understand the thought process behind the subpoena.
That being said, I find it a sad testament to blame avoidance that the prosecutors would rather attack the students than attempt to verify their "evidence" with witness interviews of their own.
While I agree with some of what you say, I can't help thinking there is one major flaw in your analysis - you're assuming that the developers MUST use best practices.
While it does make sense to have some functionality in the database for efficiency and speed, why does the database have to have any code at all? Why couldn't the database simply be a data repository and all the data manipulation / verification get done in the compiled executables?
Yes, it may not be the most efficient way to do things. In fact, it probably makes the development effort an order of magnitude more difficult. That being said, why should the developers be allowed to break the rules for the sake of convenience?
I think Sequoia needs to be taken to task for this and in a very public way. Just my $0.02.
Their business model is failing because people KNOW they can buy the 1-3 songs they like for $1 to $3 instead of having to shell out $12+ for a CD containing a bunch of stuff they DON'T want. People don't want to buy crap anymore and thanks to the MP3 format, we don't have to.
The other factor they absolutely refuse to consider is that consumers do not have an unlimited entertainment budget. I still spend about the same now as I have each year for the last couple decades. The problem for the RIAA is that in addition to music, I also spend some on online gaming, Wii games and am actually reading more, so there are more books being bought. I'm able to do this because I'm no longer spending an extra $9-$11 for songs I don't want.
The music industry MUST adjust to the current times. Their abject failure to do so is what is causing their failures - not piracy.
The point I think you've missed is that Mike isn't completely against middlemen. He IS against middlemen who no longer serve a viable purpose attempting to frame the argument so that their failing (or failed) business model can continue.
Using the music industry as an example, I think we can both agree that large scale production of cassette tapes is no longer needed. People rarely buy them anymore. If the cassette manufacturers were to come in complaining that piracy killed their business and they need a bailout, would you be more or less inclined to agree. Personally, I dropped cassette for CD's a long time ago.
Fast forward to current technology and the CD is being replaced by the MP3. The problem I face as a consumer is that the music industry does not seem willing to accept that. My friends and I no longer want to be forced to buy a complete album with 2-3 good songs and 8-12 moderate to crappy ones. I want to just buy the 2-3 good ones, but the RIAA is extremely reluctant to let me do that.
Don't get me wrong - I understand their reluctance. It's because their facing their shareholders who want a guaranteed return on investment. As a general investor, I understand that desire too. The problem is you can't guarantee music. You can have an artist create a dozen albums and none of them sell well, but write one hit movie theme song and everybody loves it.
Taste is a subjective thing and not prone to guarantees. I believe that the sooner they realize this, the sooner they can get over their fear of technology and start moving forward.
If major media hadn't insisted on extending the length of the copyright term so much, the music the artists are looking to recapture would have been in the public domain already. The only people the music industry can truly blame... are themselves.
My household is a family of 4 - me, my wife, 2 kids ages 8 and 12. The 12 year old is 5'7" and takes adult medication at the low end of the recommended dose. With cold and flu season coming, we'd be screwed if we lived in Indiana.
Psuedophed makes a 12-hour dose that contains 120mg per pill. If my wife, my older son and myself were all sick needing a decongestant for a week, we'd use 42 pills (3 ppl x 2 pills per day x 7 days). That's 5.04 grams. Add in a children's dosage for my 8 year old, and heck... we might even hit 6 grams a week. Looks like it would be jail time for me... :-)
I guess according to Indiana law, they'd rather encourage the spread of illness by forcing multiple people to make multiple trips to the store to keep themselves snot free. What could possibly go wrong?
The site is back up and while the question from "James" is deserving of a better answer, I can't say I'm surprised by the one he got. That being said, I asked what I hope is a more pointed question and recommend that everyone ask questions to let them know people ARE following these negotiations and that there very would could be repercussions from bad decisions.
My question started by indicating that the list of committee members (found here) includes a number of people with a vested interest in increasing IP restrictions. I then asked what was being done to insure that consumer interests and public benefit were being properly balanced with any new restrictions being added.
Again, I doubt I'm going to get an answer that I like, but I feel better that the question has been asked and hope that others start posting questions too. What strikes me most is that it's sad to see myself have such a low expectation of getting an honest answer in return.
The interesting aspect of the healthcare reform debate has been the hilighting of two polar opposite interests: Big Pharma / Healthcare industry on one side, and the general public or patients on the other. What has become abundantly clear throughout this whole endeavor, regardless of what side of the debate you're on, is that Pharma and the healthcare industry don't want change, and if given the option, they'll choose the least amount of change possible.
This is a complete tangent, but do you realize you've basically descibed Newton's 1st law...
In the absence of a net external force, a body either is at rest or moves with constant velocity.
9 months of getting to school well before the children and staying at school for hours after they've left, dealing with whiny parents who believe their "precious child" can do no wrong and is the smartest one in the class, taking work home with them most nights and weekends, dealing with No Child Left Behind requirements, illegal immigrant children who can barely speak English (about 1000-3000 of them in my city of 85K) but are still held to the NCLB standards, budget cuts left and right.
My older son's middle school got a $0.00 increase this year. Because of union contracts mandating raises, that meant they had to let some teachers go to free up salary for the teachers that remained. Classes got cut and the students suffer.
My other son's elementary school teachers get $200.00 for the year for classroom supplies including pencils, crayons, paper, wipes, paper towels, tissues, etc. They are also not allowed to ask the parents to pitch in.
In the end, I think they deserve more credit than your jealousy wants to give them. They may get more vacation than you and have better benefits, but they pay for those in reduced salary, long hours and constant pressure.
The problem is that your analogy is all wrong. The way I read this is more like:
- being on trial for shoplifting a pencil and the prosecutor saying you're accused of "Grand Larceny"
- being on trial for aggravated assault and having a term like murderer used with the jury.
Juries do not tend to be well versed in the details of copyright law. As such, they will draw meaning from the words used during the trial.
If the plaintiffs were required to use terms like "copied without permission" and "gave copies to other people without authorization" instead of "pirated" and "stole", I think things would take a different course. Personally, I would love to see a defendants lawyer object to the terms as slander and see what happens.
Mike is NOT blowing smoke - he's just posing a valid question and inviting a discussion. Seems to have worked.
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Well.... mostly copied. (as Mike C.)
Epic fail.
Of course, the linked article points out that they didn't even copy the article "as is", but felt they needed to edit. This further upset Mr. Wright as it removed what he felt were important parts of the article.
Maybe someone needs to point this out to Mandelson so he can sick his copyright police force on the Times... :-)
Re: (as Mike C.)
The problem I see is an issue of whether or not that "major league" is still any good? I have two boys that play Cal Ripken baseball and those games are FAR more exciting than any major league game I watched this year. Yes, I'm biased for the games my kids are in, but almost ALL of the games at all levels of play were fun to watch because the smaller league takes the time to balance the teams. This makes game play more even, less lopsided victories, etc. I was just as happy watching two unrelated teams while waiting for my kids games to start as I was watching their games.
Additionally, if major league was gone, the exhorbitant amounts of money spent on it could help fund far more baseball at the lower levels. I understand the natural desire to be bigger, but bigger isn't always better.
Re: no (as Mike C.)
I'm not sure what your opinion of "very few" is, but according to the CDC, 672 people died from laboratory confirmed influenza in the time period from August 30 to October 31, 2009. Of those, 73 were children. These figures were updated November 6th here if you'd care to check for yourself.
In case you're having trouble with the math, that's about 11 people every week dying from the flu. To give you a point of comparison, New York City has managed to have less than 400 murders all year.
Re: The Big Deal? (as Mike C.)
Do you honestly believe they'll stop with VOD? If they haven't been able to figure out what consumers want by now, what makes you think they'll stop with using SOC with VOD?
(and why do I keep thinking of that scene with Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam where he asks a complete question in mostly initials?)
Security through obscurity... (as Mike C.)
While it's a bad one, the only theory I can come up with is that they planned to use infringement claims to keep images of the bills from being shared publicly, thus reducing the number of people who have clean images to counterfeit from.
And wow - that's an even worse theory when I see it typed... :-)
Shocked and amazed... (as Mike C.)
What... no mention of the Streisand Effect? Or has that been hit with a copyright claim too... lol.
Some assumptions being made... (as Mike C.)
While I believe that Gatehouse is overreaching in their statements, they do have some just cause. I spent some time perusing some of the various other threads on the forum and quickly found a number of them where entire articles were pasted into the thread. I'm wondering if it's that behavior that initiated the contact from the legal department and the lawyers just went overboard?
I'm surprised... (as Mike C.)
... you didn't mention the biggest drawback of all.
What happens to your locked up content when Disney decides that Keychest is no longer a profitable venture and shuts it down?
While I think the concept is a step in the right direction, the execution screams "EPIC FAIL".
Re: What difference do grades make? (as Mike C.)
While I completely disagree with the premise, the prosecutor is implying that the grades were dependent on a finding of potential innocence. Assuming she actually believes that drivel, you might be able to understand the thought process behind the subpoena.
That being said, I find it a sad testament to blame avoidance that the prosecutors would rather attack the students than attempt to verify their "evidence" with witness interviews of their own.
Re: Tech bits (as Mike C.)
While I agree with some of what you say, I can't help thinking there is one major flaw in your analysis - you're assuming that the developers MUST use best practices.
While it does make sense to have some functionality in the database for efficiency and speed, why does the database have to have any code at all? Why couldn't the database simply be a data repository and all the data manipulation / verification get done in the compiled executables?
Yes, it may not be the most efficient way to do things. In fact, it probably makes the development effort an order of magnitude more difficult. That being said, why should the developers be allowed to break the rules for the sake of convenience?
I think Sequoia needs to be taken to task for this and in a very public way. Just my $0.02.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (as Mike C.)
Their business model is failing because people KNOW they can buy the 1-3 songs they like for $1 to $3 instead of having to shell out $12+ for a CD containing a bunch of stuff they DON'T want. People don't want to buy crap anymore and thanks to the MP3 format, we don't have to.
The other factor they absolutely refuse to consider is that consumers do not have an unlimited entertainment budget. I still spend about the same now as I have each year for the last couple decades. The problem for the RIAA is that in addition to music, I also spend some on online gaming, Wii games and am actually reading more, so there are more books being bought. I'm able to do this because I'm no longer spending an extra $9-$11 for songs I don't want.
The music industry MUST adjust to the current times. Their abject failure to do so is what is causing their failures - not piracy.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (as Mike C.)
The point I think you've missed is that Mike isn't completely against middlemen. He IS against middlemen who no longer serve a viable purpose attempting to frame the argument so that their failing (or failed) business model can continue.
Using the music industry as an example, I think we can both agree that large scale production of cassette tapes is no longer needed. People rarely buy them anymore. If the cassette manufacturers were to come in complaining that piracy killed their business and they need a bailout, would you be more or less inclined to agree. Personally, I dropped cassette for CD's a long time ago.
Fast forward to current technology and the CD is being replaced by the MP3. The problem I face as a consumer is that the music industry does not seem willing to accept that. My friends and I no longer want to be forced to buy a complete album with 2-3 good songs and 8-12 moderate to crappy ones. I want to just buy the 2-3 good ones, but the RIAA is extremely reluctant to let me do that.
Don't get me wrong - I understand their reluctance. It's because their facing their shareholders who want a guaranteed return on investment. As a general investor, I understand that desire too. The problem is you can't guarantee music. You can have an artist create a dozen albums and none of them sell well, but write one hit movie theme song and everybody loves it.
Taste is a subjective thing and not prone to guarantees. I believe that the sooner they realize this, the sooner they can get over their fear of technology and start moving forward.
But don't you see..... (as Mike C.)
If major media hadn't insisted on extending the length of the copyright term so much, the music the artists are looking to recapture would have been in the public domain already. The only people the music industry can truly blame... are themselves.
/that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
Law was obviously written by a single/childless legislator (as Mike C.)
My household is a family of 4 - me, my wife, 2 kids ages 8 and 12. The 12 year old is 5'7" and takes adult medication at the low end of the recommended dose. With cold and flu season coming, we'd be screwed if we lived in Indiana.
Psuedophed makes a 12-hour dose that contains 120mg per pill. If my wife, my older son and myself were all sick needing a decongestant for a week, we'd use 42 pills (3 ppl x 2 pills per day x 7 days). That's 5.04 grams. Add in a children's dosage for my 8 year old, and heck... we might even hit 6 grams a week. Looks like it would be jail time for me... :-)
I guess according to Indiana law, they'd rather encourage the spread of illness by forcing multiple people to make multiple trips to the store to keep themselves snot free. What could possibly go wrong?
Submit your own question... (as Mike C.)
The site is back up and while the question from "James" is deserving of a better answer, I can't say I'm surprised by the one he got. That being said, I asked what I hope is a more pointed question and recommend that everyone ask questions to let them know people ARE following these negotiations and that there very would could be repercussions from bad decisions.
My question started by indicating that the list of committee members (found here) includes a number of people with a vested interest in increasing IP restrictions. I then asked what was being done to insure that consumer interests and public benefit were being properly balanced with any new restrictions being added.
Again, I doubt I'm going to get an answer that I like, but I feel better that the question has been asked and hope that others start posting questions too. What strikes me most is that it's sad to see myself have such a low expectation of getting an honest answer in return.
Re: These frakin' frakers are fraked! (as Mike C.)
Don't hold back... let us know how you REALLY feel... :-)
/right there with you, btw
Re: Thoughts (as Mike C.)
The interesting aspect of the healthcare reform debate has been the hilighting of two polar opposite interests: Big Pharma / Healthcare industry on one side, and the general public or patients on the other. What has become abundantly clear throughout this whole endeavor, regardless of what side of the debate you're on, is that Pharma and the healthcare industry don't want change, and if given the option, they'll choose the least amount of change possible.
This is a complete tangent, but do you realize you've basically descibed Newton's 1st law...
In the absence of a net external force, a body either is at rest or moves with constant velocity.
Re: Re: Re: Ummm... (as Mike C.)
9 months of getting to school well before the children and staying at school for hours after they've left, dealing with whiny parents who believe their "precious child" can do no wrong and is the smartest one in the class, taking work home with them most nights and weekends, dealing with No Child Left Behind requirements, illegal immigrant children who can barely speak English (about 1000-3000 of them in my city of 85K) but are still held to the NCLB standards, budget cuts left and right.
My older son's middle school got a $0.00 increase this year. Because of union contracts mandating raises, that meant they had to let some teachers go to free up salary for the teachers that remained. Classes got cut and the students suffer.
My other son's elementary school teachers get $200.00 for the year for classroom supplies including pencils, crayons, paper, wipes, paper towels, tissues, etc. They are also not allowed to ask the parents to pitch in.
In the end, I think they deserve more credit than your jealousy wants to give them. They may get more vacation than you and have better benefits, but they pay for those in reduced salary, long hours and constant pressure.
Re: (as Mike C.)
Even more unusual, every RIAA executive is just in this to help the musician....
:-)
Re: Re: Re: Re: Calling BS on this one (as Mike C.)
The problem is that your analogy is all wrong. The way I read this is more like:
- being on trial for shoplifting a pencil and the prosecutor saying you're accused of "Grand Larceny"
- being on trial for aggravated assault and having a term like murderer used with the jury.
Juries do not tend to be well versed in the details of copyright law. As such, they will draw meaning from the words used during the trial.
If the plaintiffs were required to use terms like "copied without permission" and "gave copies to other people without authorization" instead of "pirated" and "stole", I think things would take a different course. Personally, I would love to see a defendants lawyer object to the terms as slander and see what happens.
Mike is NOT blowing smoke - he's just posing a valid question and inviting a discussion. Seems to have worked.