I started writing a "manifesto" for what the content industry could do to sort out their business model and remain relevant but I was initially concerned that it was taking me so long to write that they'd adapt before I finished it.
I'm now more concerned that they might completely lock down the web before I get chance to publish it... http://www.yamdac.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/manifesto-for-content-industry.html
I'm assuming that this is an anti-freetard rant? It's a bit confused, but I'll approach it in that regard.
So, one step at a time:
"Everything should be free."
Right, let's find the people who are saying that please?
"Please come clean my house for free. Thanks."
That would be a service that is discrete, as opposed to a product that is near-infinitely abundant.
"Oh wait, you can't because cleaning can't be digitized?"
This is progress. You now recognise that analogue scarcities don't translate to digital abundances.
"You've chosen to live in a society. Deal with it."
Umm, we are, we're not the ones trying to throttle the communication mechanisms of that society. That, last time i looked, would be the legacy industries discovering that they are unable to deal with society.
Surely even you recognise the sheer idiocy of this statement "that the Greek ISPs should take technical measures to make it impossible for their subscribers to access Web sites through which illegal posting and exchange of works can take place."?
Impossible to access any websites through which illegal exchange of works can take place also eliminates the sites that allow exchange of legal works.
Surely, surely, you can see that this is an over-reaching and detrimental step?
Right, so the politicians get a kicking for trying to censor the web via SOPA/PIPA and their response is to give more funds to a body that censors the web.
This may be cause and effect but it sure doesn't answer the question of why tax dollars are being allocated to protect an industry that is failing to adapt.
I used to think that but I'm increasingly thinking that there might be a better way of doing things that gets rid of copyright altogether.
But maybe not, I might just be getting confused by how badly the current laws have twisted it away from its original purpose.
Either way I agree with you about non-commmercial sharing.
"Censorship is when the government stops you from circulating your OWN opinions, not when it stops you from repeating someone else's without their permission. There's a big difference."
Umm, no. The source of the opinions has sweet fuck all to with whether blocking that speech is censorship. A news site may report nothing but opinions pieces from other people, but if you take it down without any kind of adversarial hearing it's censorship.
"The irony is that pirate sites do more to shut off artists from making a living than any government censorship. These pirate sites are the real censors."
Right, you know that this is a complete non-sequitur don't you? Even if pirate sites were stopping someone making a living, that's not censorship.
">> Do you give to charity?
No. Does it make me evil? Of cause not, but you seems to think so."
Not at all, just giving an example of where people in the real world put profit second. No evil was implied in the writing of this post.
">> The Indian government obviously made a decision that they considered the lives of their populace more important than Bayer's profits.
Oh, how cute of them. Since Bayer's profits are going to US, it's easy choice, isn't it? Will you excuse me if I value profits of my $company (not US-based, don't worry) more that lives of entire Africa?"
Yes, yes it is an easy choice. I'm afraid you'll have to clarify your point for me though. As for valuing your company profits over all the lives in africa, actually I won't excuse you for that, it feels horrifically inhumane to me.
">> Research and licensing are sunk costs
Did you already offered your services to Bayer as genius economist? If they refused, that's probably because your explanation makes no sense. How is your business doing?"
My business is doing fine thanks, if you'd like to explain why you think my statement about those being sunk costs is wrong we can continue the discussion. Or you can continue to make petty insults instead of coherent arguments.
Either way is good with me.
">> Are Patents the best way of promoting progress?
No, but this is irrelevant question. Companies use patents to recoup huge certification costs. Don't like this process - fight to lower qualification barriers first."
My understanding was that this post was about how US uses mechanisms like the TPP to export its IP laws (that are developed by vested interests), the IP in this question is a patent, hence it seems relevant to the discussion.
">> Is recouping a company's costs more important than saving lives?
Yes. Welcome to real world, not all lives are equally valuable.
Don't like it - why not start your own pharma company and we'll see how that will work?"
"Real world" is a variable thing though isn't it? Do you give to charity? If so you're implicitly deciding that a proportion of your profit is worth less than the lives that it might save. The Indian government obviously made a decision that they considered the lives of their populace more important than Bayer's profits. Something that potentially affects over a billion people seems fairly real world to me.
Besides which, isn't starting their own pharma company exactly what Cipla and Natco have done?
">> so I'm not sure how much they would have recouped on this in India anyway?
You're so smart! Call Bayer's CEO immediately and give your valuable advise. Hint for you: annual salary is irrelevant here. What's relevant is annual salary _of target population_. If annual salary here (doesn't matter where) is ~$3000/month, does it mean that BMW should close the shop?"
You're very aggressive this morning, have I offended you? Apologies if so. The BMW analogy isn't really a very good one though is it? Manufacturing costs of a BMW compared to a Tata are very different. Research and licensing are sunk costs, Bayer might find that if they reduced their profit-per-course to something that competes with the generic market they might have an target population of around a billion people rather than just the tiny percentage at the top of the salary scale. They might not of course, I'm sure they've done the maths, so they've decided to pay some lawyers instead and people will die if they win.
All of which does tend to reinforce the idea of the whole Evil Big Pharma thing.
True, testing and certification must contribute a huge overhead.
I think there's three questions rather than one though:
Are Patents the best way of promoting progress?
If so how long should the patent be?
and, most importantly,
Is recouping a company's costs more important than saving lives?
The obvious rejoinder is that if the companies can't recoup their costs then they wouldn't be making any drugs at all, hence it becomes a tricky question.
But to get back to the case in point, a quick shufti at google gives me a figure of about $8000 for an average yearly wage in India. So a drug costing 2/3rds of a annual salary probably isn't going to sell that many treatments, so I'm not sure how much they would have recouped on this in India anyway?
AC, the problem isn't over there. The problem is right here. In the US no new material is entering the public domain. That's the concern, not whether cutting the term to 35 year (or 20 years) would affect piracy levels.
The purpose of copyright is to promote creativity. The last thirty years of changes to copyright law haven't achieved that because they have been driven by the idea that inspiration and creativity happen in a vacuum. It's simply not so. We all build on our experiences and our experiences are our shared culture.
"If opt-out work as intended, I don't see an issue here."
2 things on this, 1) they probably won't work as intended because of the technical hurdles to overcome (see other comments for details) and 2) I dislike (and I fully appreciate that this is solely my opinion) both the concept of censorship by default and the delegation of personal responsibility that comes with it. I'm in the UK and we appear to be doing a fine line in creating a culture where everyone knows their rights but not their responsibilities, everything is someone else's fault no-one takes ownership of their actions. Proposals like this feed that behaviour.
"If your government censoring critics this way - time to put keyboard aside and take a gun" Well, probably, but I'd rather we stopped them at the top of the slope rather than when they're halfway down and accelerating.
Basically, this kind of opt-out filter isn't needed, is unlikely to achieve its objectives and is likely to cause a reasonable amount of collateral damage.
That makes it a bad idea in my book.
his obscene wodges of tax-efficient-cash-funneled-through-switzerland... ;¬)
Really though, cherry-picking quotes from the top 1% of the recording artists* is hardly representative of the bulk of the industry now is it? How about some quotes from those in the middle or lower quartiles?
* By sales, i'm not convinced they're the top 1% of artists...
Re:
I started writing a "manifesto" for what the content industry could do to sort out their business model and remain relevant but I was initially concerned that it was taking me so long to write that they'd adapt before I finished it.
I'm now more concerned that they might completely lock down the web before I get chance to publish it...
http://www.yamdac.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/manifesto-for-content-industry.html
Re:
I'm assuming that this is an anti-freetard rant? It's a bit confused, but I'll approach it in that regard.
So, one step at a time:
"Everything should be free."
Right, let's find the people who are saying that please?
"Please come clean my house for free. Thanks."
That would be a service that is discrete, as opposed to a product that is near-infinitely abundant.
"Oh wait, you can't because cleaning can't be digitized?"
This is progress. You now recognise that analogue scarcities don't translate to digital abundances.
"You've chosen to live in a society. Deal with it."
Umm, we are, we're not the ones trying to throttle the communication mechanisms of that society. That, last time i looked, would be the legacy industries discovering that they are unable to deal with society.
Re: Re: Re:
Surely even you recognise the sheer idiocy of this statement "that the Greek ISPs should take technical measures to make it impossible for their subscribers to access Web sites through which illegal posting and exchange of works can take place."?
Impossible to access any websites through which illegal exchange of works can take place also eliminates the sites that allow exchange of legal works.
Surely, surely, you can see that this is an over-reaching and detrimental step?
Re: Hollywood $$$
Right, because the republicans would completely reject all those lobbyist dollars...
Re: Re: Authority?
Right, so the politicians get a kicking for trying to censor the web via SOPA/PIPA and their response is to give more funds to a body that censors the web.
This may be cause and effect but it sure doesn't answer the question of why tax dollars are being allocated to protect an industry that is failing to adapt.
Re: Re:
Or when Greece's collapse completes to the point where they can no longer pay their power bills and they loose the internet...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Abolish copyright
I used to think that but I'm increasingly thinking that there might be a better way of doing things that gets rid of copyright altogether.
But maybe not, I might just be getting confused by how badly the current laws have twisted it away from its original purpose.
Either way I agree with you about non-commmercial sharing.
Re: This is not censorship
"Censorship is when the government stops you from circulating your OWN opinions, not when it stops you from repeating someone else's without their permission. There's a big difference."
Umm, no. The source of the opinions has sweet fuck all to with whether blocking that speech is censorship. A news site may report nothing but opinions pieces from other people, but if you take it down without any kind of adversarial hearing it's censorship.
"The irony is that pirate sites do more to shut off artists from making a living than any government censorship. These pirate sites are the real censors."
Right, you know that this is a complete non-sequitur don't you? Even if pirate sites were stopping someone making a living, that's not censorship.
"You can keep repeating that it's censorship, but that doesn't make it true."
You might want to swat up on this: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/censorship?s=t&ld=1031
Re: Re: If you think we have problems now, just wait...
Winter is coming?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
">> Do you give to charity?
No. Does it make me evil? Of cause not, but you seems to think so."
Not at all, just giving an example of where people in the real world put profit second. No evil was implied in the writing of this post.
">> The Indian government obviously made a decision that they considered the lives of their populace more important than Bayer's profits.
Oh, how cute of them. Since Bayer's profits are going to US, it's easy choice, isn't it? Will you excuse me if I value profits of my $company (not US-based, don't worry) more that lives of entire Africa?"
Yes, yes it is an easy choice. I'm afraid you'll have to clarify your point for me though. As for valuing your company profits over all the lives in africa, actually I won't excuse you for that, it feels horrifically inhumane to me.
">> Research and licensing are sunk costs
Did you already offered your services to Bayer as genius economist? If they refused, that's probably because your explanation makes no sense. How is your business doing?"
My business is doing fine thanks, if you'd like to explain why you think my statement about those being sunk costs is wrong we can continue the discussion. Or you can continue to make petty insults instead of coherent arguments.
Either way is good with me.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
">> Are Patents the best way of promoting progress?
No, but this is irrelevant question. Companies use patents to recoup huge certification costs. Don't like this process - fight to lower qualification barriers first."
My understanding was that this post was about how US uses mechanisms like the TPP to export its IP laws (that are developed by vested interests), the IP in this question is a patent, hence it seems relevant to the discussion.
">> Is recouping a company's costs more important than saving lives?
Yes. Welcome to real world, not all lives are equally valuable.
Don't like it - why not start your own pharma company and we'll see how that will work?"
"Real world" is a variable thing though isn't it? Do you give to charity? If so you're implicitly deciding that a proportion of your profit is worth less than the lives that it might save. The Indian government obviously made a decision that they considered the lives of their populace more important than Bayer's profits. Something that potentially affects over a billion people seems fairly real world to me.
Besides which, isn't starting their own pharma company exactly what Cipla and Natco have done?
">> so I'm not sure how much they would have recouped on this in India anyway?
You're so smart! Call Bayer's CEO immediately and give your valuable advise. Hint for you: annual salary is irrelevant here. What's relevant is annual salary _of target population_. If annual salary here (doesn't matter where) is ~$3000/month, does it mean that BMW should close the shop?"
You're very aggressive this morning, have I offended you? Apologies if so. The BMW analogy isn't really a very good one though is it? Manufacturing costs of a BMW compared to a Tata are very different. Research and licensing are sunk costs, Bayer might find that if they reduced their profit-per-course to something that competes with the generic market they might have an target population of around a billion people rather than just the tiny percentage at the top of the salary scale. They might not of course, I'm sure they've done the maths, so they've decided to pay some lawyers instead and people will die if they win.
All of which does tend to reinforce the idea of the whole Evil Big Pharma thing.
Funny?
Or phenomenally depressing?
Very good.
Re: Re: Abolish copyright
But if you'd abolished copyright it wouldn't be illegal?
Re: Re: Re:
True, testing and certification must contribute a huge overhead.
I think there's three questions rather than one though:
Are Patents the best way of promoting progress?
If so how long should the patent be?
and, most importantly,
Is recouping a company's costs more important than saving lives?
The obvious rejoinder is that if the companies can't recoup their costs then they wouldn't be making any drugs at all, hence it becomes a tricky question.
But to get back to the case in point, a quick shufti at google gives me a figure of about $8000 for an average yearly wage in India. So a drug costing 2/3rds of a annual salary probably isn't going to sell that many treatments, so I'm not sure how much they would have recouped on this in India anyway?
Re:
AC, the problem isn't over there. The problem is right here. In the US no new material is entering the public domain. That's the concern, not whether cutting the term to 35 year (or 20 years) would affect piracy levels.
The purpose of copyright is to promote creativity. The last thirty years of changes to copyright law haven't achieved that because they have been driven by the idea that inspiration and creativity happen in a vacuum. It's simply not so. We all build on our experiences and our experiences are our shared culture.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 20 bucks a record?
nah, you're doing good work. that's why he doesnit reply to your comments.
Re:
"upcoming second "recession"."
Upcoming? It's already here in the UK. Might be why we're slightly ahead of the curve I guess...
Re: Re: Re: I actually prefer blocked porn
"If opt-out work as intended, I don't see an issue here."
2 things on this, 1) they probably won't work as intended because of the technical hurdles to overcome (see other comments for details) and 2) I dislike (and I fully appreciate that this is solely my opinion) both the concept of censorship by default and the delegation of personal responsibility that comes with it. I'm in the UK and we appear to be doing a fine line in creating a culture where everyone knows their rights but not their responsibilities, everything is someone else's fault no-one takes ownership of their actions. Proposals like this feed that behaviour.
"If your government censoring critics this way - time to put keyboard aside and take a gun" Well, probably, but I'd rather we stopped them at the top of the slope rather than when they're halfway down and accelerating.
Basically, this kind of opt-out filter isn't needed, is unlikely to achieve its objectives and is likely to cause a reasonable amount of collateral damage.
That makes it a bad idea in my book.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
and a bit of that there tumbleweed...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
his obscene wodges of tax-efficient-cash-funneled-through-switzerland... ;¬)
Really though, cherry-picking quotes from the top 1% of the recording artists* is hardly representative of the bulk of the industry now is it? How about some quotes from those in the middle or lower quartiles?
* By sales, i'm not convinced they're the top 1% of artists...