Copyright should not provide a right to compensation--this leads to attempts to legislate protection for failing business models and monopolies. Copyright should only provide a limited window of opportunity for compensation--in the form of exclusivity. This allows for the consumers to choose what business model they want to support, and stops the content providers from trying to dictate the market to the exclusion of anything else. In any healthy business model it is the consumer that dictates how it should function not the provider. Why should content distribution be any different?
Yes, but the person being brutally raped and mutilated until dead usually isn't handing out large bri...er...campaign contributions and lucrative job offers to those in power.
No, we'd have to hold onto something securely attached to the planet for dear life, or go flying out into space from the inertia of planetary motion and rotation. But most likely horribly die in the vacuum caused by the lack of an atmosphere.
Solid evidence that customers are screaming out for services they can pay for...fixed that.
Once the studios or any of their shills start using terms like 'pirate', 'piracy', 'theft', or 'stealing', it usually means they are not going to listen to what anyone says. It's the modern day version of someone yelling out 'heresy' during the conversation--a clear indication that any meaningful discussion of the issue can no longer take place.
I think a suitable punishment for these guys would be for the court to order them to change their name from Gaijin Entertainment to Baka Entertainment, then there'd be no possibility of confusion about what kind of asshats you're dealing with.
It is one thing to sing for your supper occasionally, but to have to do so for every meal forces you into a peasant's dilemma: The peasant's dilemma is that there's no buffer. A musician who is sick or old, or who has a sick kid, cannot perform and cannot earn.
Why should being an 'artist' be different from any other line of work? I've yet to see any job that doesn't have this 'peasants dilemma'. If you take more than an extremely limited amount of time off at any job, do you still get paid? Some jobs--like commission based sales--are even worse, don't work--don't get paid.
It always amuses me that the defenses for a failing business model are insulting to the very people they are trying to convince that it has to be this way or civilization will collapse--or something.
I think you are confused about what can be patented or not. From the USPTO site...
“...new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent,”
What they claim these patents (I believe there are four) cover is the process of network scanning--not the actual equipment. So yes, there really are patents involved. And yes, you can infringe on a process patent using your own equipment that you purchased. Whether or not these patents would pass the obviousness test, and can be interpreted the way these trolls claim is irrelevant until someone actually takes them to court. Which will probably not happen because they are avoiding shaking down any company large enough to have a well funded legal team and enough employees that the cost of fighting could be justified as opposed to paying the settlement.
i would love to be taken to court to be sued, cos i would be suing them back for a few million and not only would i almost be guaranteed to win
Doesn't work that way, the best that you could hope for is to get the patent invalidated. You can't sue for damages (not even attorney's fees), because these trolls would use the defense--"A good faith belief in the validity of their patents", which gets them off the hook and might make you liable for their attorney's fees (you're the one maliciously suing, not them). Not that it would get that far. These trolls do not want to have these patents challenged in court, so the second someone with the wherewithal to take this to court stands up to them, they will use the last defense of any patent troll worth his salt and file for dismissal without prejudice but would except a dismissal with prejudice if they had to. And you're now sitting with a big fat pile of attorney's fees for your troubles, and they can continue their shakedown operation on someone else.
Yes, a business can infringe on a patent like this. They are using the patent on the process of automated scanning+e-mailing of documents to shake down businesses--not the use of a specific device. So a business could be held liable, but an individual doing this at home most likely would not be.
Of course this patent is complete shit and so obvious that it would probably get thrown out, which is the reason they aren't suing the manufacturers of these scanners--they don't want to have to go to court against someone with a well funded legal team. This is why it looks like they are targeting smaller businesses and giving the ones that complain the advice to talk to a patent attorney. That advice would probably be something along the lines of--"You could probably win, but it might take a million plus dollars to do it. It's better to just give them the $100,000 they want so they'll go away".
Hmmm...If they don't get their way and can't block a service that allows people to watch their shows with the ads intact (what gets them paid), they'll stop broadcasting OTA and send everyone to the pirate sites (which doesn't get them paid).
Most of us here believe in the original stated purpose of copyright in the US constitution--the benefit of the society granting it. Seeing as copyright law as it exists today provides no discernible benefit to society (it only benefits those that hold the copyright), it should be abolished or replaced with something that does.
Re: Re: WHOA! Stop at: "everyone just wants stuff for free".
Copyright should not provide a right to compensation--this leads to attempts to legislate protection for failing business models and monopolies. Copyright should only provide a limited window of opportunity for compensation--in the form of exclusivity. This allows for the consumers to choose what business model they want to support, and stops the content providers from trying to dictate the market to the exclusion of anything else. In any healthy business model it is the consumer that dictates how it should function not the provider. Why should content distribution be any different?
Re: censorship
Go you! Move those goalposts!
Re: Re: A matter of proportionate ease.
Yes, but the person being brutally raped and mutilated until dead usually isn't handing out large bri...er...campaign contributions and lucrative job offers to those in power.
Re: A matter of proportionate ease.
Re: Re: Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
Re: Re: re-read the report
That's your problem, assuming that he (or his masters) use 'logic' in any of their statements or beliefs. Something I've seen zero evidence of.
Re: Re: Re: re-read the report
No, we'd have to hold onto something securely attached to the planet for dear life, or go flying out into space from the inertia of planetary motion and rotation. But most likely horribly die in the vacuum caused by the lack of an atmosphere.
Re:
Solid evidence that customers are screaming out for services they can pay for...fixed that.
Once the studios or any of their shills start using terms like 'pirate', 'piracy', 'theft', or 'stealing', it usually means they are not going to listen to what anyone says. It's the modern day version of someone yelling out 'heresy' during the conversation--a clear indication that any meaningful discussion of the issue can no longer take place.
Re: Re: Re:
Since this is also the translation used in the trademark listing, I'll go with that definition.
Poetic Justice
I think a suitable punishment for these guys would be for the court to order them to change their name from Gaijin Entertainment to Baka Entertainment, then there'd be no possibility of confusion about what kind of asshats you're dealing with.
(untitled comment)
It always amuses me that the defenses for a failing business model are insulting to the very people they are trying to convince that it has to be this way or civilization will collapse--or something.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think you are confused about what can be patented or not. From the USPTO site...
What they claim these patents (I believe there are four) cover is the process of network scanning--not the actual equipment. So yes, there really are patents involved. And yes, you can infringe on a process patent using your own equipment that you purchased. Whether or not these patents would pass the obviousness test, and can be interpreted the way these trolls claim is irrelevant until someone actually takes them to court. Which will probably not happen because they are avoiding shaking down any company large enough to have a well funded legal team and enough employees that the cost of fighting could be justified as opposed to paying the settlement.Doesn't work that way, the best that you could hope for is to get the patent invalidated. You can't sue for damages (not even attorney's fees), because these trolls would use the defense--"A good faith belief in the validity of their patents", which gets them off the hook and might make you liable for their attorney's fees (you're the one maliciously suing, not them). Not that it would get that far. These trolls do not want to have these patents challenged in court, so the second someone with the wherewithal to take this to court stands up to them, they will use the last defense of any patent troll worth his salt and file for dismissal without prejudice but would except a dismissal with prejudice if they had to. And you're now sitting with a big fat pile of attorney's fees for your troubles, and they can continue their shakedown operation on someone else.Re: Re:
Yes, a business can infringe on a patent like this. They are using the patent on the process of automated scanning+e-mailing of documents to shake down businesses--not the use of a specific device. So a business could be held liable, but an individual doing this at home most likely would not be.
Of course this patent is complete shit and so obvious that it would probably get thrown out, which is the reason they aren't suing the manufacturers of these scanners--they don't want to have to go to court against someone with a well funded legal team. This is why it looks like they are targeting smaller businesses and giving the ones that complain the advice to talk to a patent attorney. That advice would probably be something along the lines of--"You could probably win, but it might take a million plus dollars to do it. It's better to just give them the $100,000 they want so they'll go away".
(untitled comment)
Hmmm...If they don't get their way and can't block a service that allows people to watch their shows with the ads intact (what gets them paid), they'll stop broadcasting OTA and send everyone to the pirate sites (which doesn't get them paid).
Re: Re: Re:
He's given his answer. You just have to read all that he's written on the subject (might take you a while).
Re: Re: Re:
How does this matter? Everyone infringes to a lesser or greater extent, copyright law has been written to make sure of that.
Re: Re:
There are positives to copyright--just like there are positives to slavery, but only to those profiting from copyright--or slaves.
Re:
Most of us here believe in the original stated purpose of copyright in the US constitution--the benefit of the society granting it. Seeing as copyright law as it exists today provides no discernible benefit to society (it only benefits those that hold the copyright), it should be abolished or replaced with something that does.
(untitled comment)
Re: Re: Wool
Yes. It, and his other books are available at the Kobo Bookstore as DRM free EPUBs, super easy to convert to whatever format you want.