In your own words: "This is the same old story over and over again."
An interesting article, as usual, but there is nothing new here. As much as I usually disagree with OOTB, he may have a point this once. A number of techdirt articles start out with a bit of (interesting) news, before repeating the same old arguments (and preaching to the choir and deaf congregation). This time, there is enough news for only 2 sentences. Why bother?
"That public interest cannot be realized if the inherent difficulty of proving actual damages leaves the copyright holder without an effective remedy for infringement or precludes an effective means of deterring further copyright violations."
The White House seems to admit that this law cannot be effectively enforced in accordance with principles of justice and fairness. So do we change the law or give up on fairness?
You missed one RIGHT. India has the sovereign right to set any laws it wants. And the attitude "you can't afford it, just go and die" usually does not sit well with voters.
The problem with deduplication is that if somebody provides Mega with a file, Mega is able to determine which users have uploaded that same file. So it is not an issue if you are uploading family pictures or personal documents, but it is an issue if you are uploading anything from the internet.
Public service may be good at maintaining existing infrastructure, but it very often fails to innovate. What might help would be regulation (even local) that makes it much easier and cheaper to enter the competition. Perhaps whenever you put anything into ground (water, waste, electricity, phone, ...) or repave a street, you would have to bury certain amount of fiber and then lease to highest bidder?
Caps are very usefull for ISPs. They sell plans based on "peak" download speeds. Yet the sum of all "peak" speeds sold greatly exceeds the actual capacity of the network. So if everybody decides to pirate the new blockbuster at the same time (or just watch Netflix at HD), the ISP cannot deliver on their promise. It is like airlines overbooking flights. You are fine until everybody turns up. Data caps keep you off internet, reducing conflict. So with caps the ISP can sell more "high" speed plans.
Any pricing of cable internet will be entirely arbitrary. The actual costs are almost entirely fixed and have nothing to do with the actual usage. ISPs behave like any "good" corporation should. Anything they say is just PR BS in their effort to squeeze as much money as possible out of existing infrastructure. And regulation will not help, only real competition will. Look at Canada if you need a proof. Here the owners of cable are common carriers and independent ISPs are free to offer internet access over that infrastructure. Yet the internet access still sucks. Common carriers can still charge any arbitrary amount to cover their "costs", they just charge the independent ISP first, who transfers the cost onto you.
First, this law would only strengthen Google's monopoly. Google may be the only search engine that can easily afford whatever fee the news publishers come up with. Smaller search engines will not be able to afford the fee and will slowly become irrelevant. Right?
Second, if you don't like Google "flexing" its influence against a government, where do you stand with National Rifle Association?
"The EU has defined terrorist offences as ‘intentional acts which ... may seriously damage ... an international organization where committed with the aim of ... seriously destabilizing ... the fundamental ... economic [structure] of ... an international organization” (EU FD, 13 June 2002 on combating terrorism).
No, they are not. They are trying to gouge libraries. You can purchase a physical book in a bookstore and then lend it anybody you want. If publishers tried to charge libraries extra, they would simply start buying through Amazon.
But ebooks are licensed and not sold. Nobody can lend their ebook to another person without express permission from the publisher. So they can charge different prices to different classes of buyers. As the above article correctly points out, libraries work with fixed budgets. They will simply buy fewer ebooks, slowing down the digital revolution in publishing, which is the point!
Why would you think that libraries are "resisting paying their fare share of development costs?" Wouldn't the market price be the "fair" price in your book? And the last time I checked, libraries are paying what the publishers charge. They may not like it, but they pay.
1) I'll grant that libraries can appear as gatekeepers. We'd need to get a better definition of the word to properly argue this point.
4) I have lend a book to a friend. I borrow a new best-seller and read it in 3 days. Since I can keep the book for 3 weeks, there is plenty of time for my friend to read it as well. When he is done, he either returns the book to me, or drops it off in a library. Though, if he were to loose it, I'd be the one to pay for it.
5) Books cost money and libraries have small budgets, knowing who they are lending to is unavoidable. Comparison to Gutenberg is not fair. All of those books are free (because they are in public domain). Libraries would love to give away copies of ebooks anonymously, but they are not allowed to.
FAIL#1: Libraries are the classic gatekeeper.
Many libraries ask their subscribers what they want. All libraries run stats on which books are taken out more often and then buy more from those authors.
FAIL #3: Libraries are anti-green. You've got to go to get the book.
Libraries love ebooks: smaller operating costs, smaller and cheaper buildings with larger collections. If only publishers would play ball.
FAIL #4: Librarians love their form of DRM. You want to lend a library book to a friend? You can't do it.
You can for paper books, though you remain responsible for returning it. You can't for ebooks, but publishers are responsible for that.
FAIL #5: Librarians don't believe in anonymous lending.FAIL #6: Librarians sleep. The Internet is a 24 hour invention.
Have you been to a library in the last 10 years? Aside from picking up a physical books, everything else can be done online. Most libraries will even ship the book you want to the branch nearest to your home.
So from now on, query "watch dark knight rises online for free" will pop up a bunch of legitimate licensed service?
Or, I'll be less greedy and try "watch dark knight rises online in Canada for any price sometime this century". Could MPAA please direct me to the myriad legitimate links that they claim are out there?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Mike favors grifters over publishers.
Scalping is buying at a regulated price and then selling at the market price.
In other news: it's been a slow day today.
In your own words: "This is the same old story over and over again."
An interesting article, as usual, but there is nothing new here. As much as I usually disagree with OOTB, he may have a point this once. A number of techdirt articles start out with a bit of (interesting) news, before repeating the same old arguments (and preaching to the choir and deaf congregation). This time, there is enough news for only 2 sentences. Why bother?
Re:
Google has to comply with existing laws, not enforce them!
And I agree that Google should remain completely neutral.
(untitled comment)
"That public interest cannot be realized if the inherent difficulty of proving actual damages leaves the copyright holder without an effective remedy for infringement or precludes an effective means of deterring further copyright violations."
The White House seems to admit that this law cannot be effectively enforced in accordance with principles of justice and fairness. So do we change the law or give up on fairness?
Re: Who cares
You missed one RIGHT. India has the sovereign right to set any laws it wants. And the attitude "you can't afford it, just go and die" usually does not sit well with voters.
Re:
The problem with deduplication is that if somebody provides Mega with a file, Mega is able to determine which users have uploaded that same file. So it is not an issue if you are uploading family pictures or personal documents, but it is an issue if you are uploading anything from the internet.
Re: Re:
Public service may be good at maintaining existing infrastructure, but it very often fails to innovate. What might help would be regulation (even local) that makes it much easier and cheaper to enter the competition. Perhaps whenever you put anything into ground (water, waste, electricity, phone, ...) or repave a street, you would have to bury certain amount of fiber and then lease to highest bidder?
Re: Re: Caps
Caps are very usefull for ISPs. They sell plans based on "peak" download speeds. Yet the sum of all "peak" speeds sold greatly exceeds the actual capacity of the network. So if everybody decides to pirate the new blockbuster at the same time (or just watch Netflix at HD), the ISP cannot deliver on their promise. It is like airlines overbooking flights. You are fine until everybody turns up. Data caps keep you off internet, reducing conflict. So with caps the ISP can sell more "high" speed plans.
(untitled comment)
Any pricing of cable internet will be entirely arbitrary. The actual costs are almost entirely fixed and have nothing to do with the actual usage. ISPs behave like any "good" corporation should. Anything they say is just PR BS in their effort to squeeze as much money as possible out of existing infrastructure. And regulation will not help, only real competition will. Look at Canada if you need a proof. Here the owners of cable are common carriers and independent ISPs are free to offer internet access over that infrastructure. Yet the internet access still sucks. Common carriers can still charge any arbitrary amount to cover their "costs", they just charge the independent ISP first, who transfers the cost onto you.
Re: Google creates none of the value in content linked.
First, this law would only strengthen Google's monopoly. Google may be the only search engine that can easily afford whatever fee the news publishers come up with. Smaller search engines will not be able to afford the fee and will slowly become irrelevant. Right?
Second, if you don't like Google "flexing" its influence against a government, where do you stand with National Rifle Association?
Definition of terrorism
"Instead of tackling concrete problems, the vague threat of "terrorism" is constantly invoked -- without ever defining what that means"
Nope, it appears to be defined very clearly. Check out first paragraph of "draft document": http://www.cleanitproject.eu/documents/
"The EU has defined terrorist offences as ‘intentional acts which ... may seriously damage ... an international organization where committed with the aim of ... seriously destabilizing ... the fundamental ... economic [structure] of ... an international organization” (EU FD, 13 June 2002 on combating terrorism).
Well, there go technological disruptions - stone age, here we come. The worst thing is, they are not even misquoting the original document, just leaving out a few points:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32002F0475:EN:HTML
Re: Re: Re: Why this sympathy for libraries?
No, they are not. They are trying to gouge libraries. You can purchase a physical book in a bookstore and then lend it anybody you want. If publishers tried to charge libraries extra, they would simply start buying through Amazon.
But ebooks are licensed and not sold. Nobody can lend their ebook to another person without express permission from the publisher. So they can charge different prices to different classes of buyers. As the above article correctly points out, libraries work with fixed budgets. They will simply buy fewer ebooks, slowing down the digital revolution in publishing, which is the point!
Re: Re: Re: Why this sympathy for libraries?
Are you saying that using public money to support literacy is a bad thing?
Re: Why this sympathy for libraries?
Why would you think that libraries are "resisting paying their fare share of development costs?" Wouldn't the market price be the "fair" price in your book? And the last time I checked, libraries are paying what the publishers charge. They may not like it, but they pay.
Re: Re: Re: Why this sympathy for libraries?
1) I'll grant that libraries can appear as gatekeepers. We'd need to get a better definition of the word to properly argue this point.
4) I have lend a book to a friend. I borrow a new best-seller and read it in 3 days. Since I can keep the book for 3 weeks, there is plenty of time for my friend to read it as well. When he is done, he either returns the book to me, or drops it off in a library. Though, if he were to loose it, I'd be the one to pay for it.
5) Books cost money and libraries have small budgets, knowing who they are lending to is unavoidable. Comparison to Gutenberg is not fair. All of those books are free (because they are in public domain). Libraries would love to give away copies of ebooks anonymously, but they are not allowed to.
Re:
I am right there with you. Though "Dance with Dragons" was paid by a giftcard.
Re: Why this sympathy for libraries?
FAIL#1: Libraries are the classic gatekeeper.
Many libraries ask their subscribers what they want. All libraries run stats on which books are taken out more often and then buy more from those authors.
FAIL #3: Libraries are anti-green. You've got to go to get the book.
Libraries love ebooks: smaller operating costs, smaller and cheaper buildings with larger collections. If only publishers would play ball.
FAIL #4: Librarians love their form of DRM. You want to lend a library book to a friend? You can't do it.
You can for paper books, though you remain responsible for returning it. You can't for ebooks, but publishers are responsible for that.
FAIL #5: Librarians don't believe in anonymous lending.FAIL #6: Librarians sleep. The Internet is a 24 hour invention.
Have you been to a library in the last 10 years? Aside from picking up a physical books, everything else can be done online. Most libraries will even ship the book you want to the branch nearest to your home.
Re: We need a Librepedia
Sadly, it would be a very short encyclopedia.
Re: Poor gatekeepers
Your cry for help almost moved me to tears. I really really want to help you by buying your awesome product. Please post where should I go.
Where's this myriad?
So from now on, query "watch dark knight rises online for free" will pop up a bunch of legitimate licensed service?
Or, I'll be less greedy and try "watch dark knight rises online in Canada for any price sometime this century". Could MPAA please direct me to the myriad legitimate links that they claim are out there?