I understand they have spent $190,000 so far fighting this troll. If they wanted to add $5 a month to my bill to continue taking the high road I would be happy to pay it.
As Anonymous Coward mentioned above, the numbers people are throwing around work out to about $1500 per household for a fibre install. That's what most of us pay for TWO years of crappy/capped/slow Internet service, not to mention that fibre can handle our TV and phone as well.
If the telcos can convince us to take a "free" iPhone by agreeing to a THREE year contract, why can't fibre work the same way???
I would gladly pay $100 per month or more for fast, high-bandwidth fibre! And (for the first time in my life) I would happily pay a set-up fee to get that precious light pipe into my home.
The incumbent telcos won't acknowledge this reality until people catch on that they are being gouged, and that speed and bandwidth are basically free once the infrastructure is in place. Remember when you paid $75 per month for a pager that could only beep when you had a message? Remember paying $$ a minute for cell phone service?
Telcos will price the ones and zeroes as high as they can until someone like Google comes along and shows everyone that bandwidth is a commodity just like electricity, gas and water. Have you ever thought about your monthly water bill when 'downloading' a glass of water? Has your tap ever slowed to a trickle because your neighbor was washing clothes? Has the water co ever 'fined' you by quadrupling your monthly bill because you watered your lawn too much?
Bandwidth is the new water. The infrastructure for both is similar in logistics and cost. Water treatment plants, buried pipes, maintenance, quality control, repairs, billing - how are the ones and zeroes flowing into your home any different?
It is my understanding that service providers such as Twitter are protected from a lot of bad things by the DMCA's "Safe Harbour" provisions, specifically because they are simply the conduit of the information and exercise no editorial control.
If Twitter has started proactively censoring posts, wouldn't that mean that they are now legally and financially responsible for what their users publish?
People seem to forget that Paypal isn't a bank. It is a private business that has no federal oversight, no deposit insurance, no requirement to adhere to any sort of banking laws, and NO way to speak to a human when they screw you over.
Of course Paypal can arbitrarily freeze your funds indefinitely without recourse - it's in the contract you agreed to when you signed up. You DID read it, right?
I remember short years ago thinking Lycos was the be-all, end-all. Artificial Intelligence had been achieved. All of mankind's knowledge was now available. There was nothing more to invent. Period.
The Googorola deal is about Google building smartphones to compete with Apple, set-top boxes to bring YouTube into everyone's living rooms, and owning the chip foundry and manufacturing to make it happen. The patent portfolio is nice, but it is NOT the biggest part of the deal.
Anyone who thinks Google bought Motorola to help out their Android partners just doesn't get it.
Theoretically(*) Apple only has to store one copy of each song. Your personal cloud won't contain a physical copy of your music, it will have a database of what songs you are allowed to play.
(*of course they will store multiple copies of each song for maximum availability, scalability and geographical distribution, but you get the idea.)
They would have to build their schools inside huge faraday cages with no electricity. Either that or ban: TV, radio, cel phones, police radios, microwave ovens, etc.
OK. I have been well and soundly spanked by other commenters. Nice work.
Here in Canada no one can carry a pistol, so I was unaware that only felony convictions can take away that right in the US.
The action of the cops was reprehensible. I only mentioned that Fiorino had a record to indicate what may have set them off after a random license plate check or something.
Perhaps running a recorder all the time is an advisable activity in the new police state. I was just surprised that someone, with no supposed agenda, had done that.
This all sounds bad and the cops were obviously idiots, but this individual was previously known to the police. It is not inconceivable that the cops in question knew about his record, or had been antagonized by him in the past.
Yes, they were wrong to threaten his life. Yes their language was inappropriate, unprofessional and served to escalate the situation, but Fiorino's public record on the Internet makes him appear to be a shit disturber.
WHO the heck runs a black box recorder every time they leave the house?!?
How stupid do you have to be to accept any sort of legal communication by email? Would you take down a site based on a Post-It Note™ stuck on your door, because they are about as secure as email.
When someone emails our organization with anything containing legaleese, DCMA, Etc, the mail server politely responds "It looks like this email contains material of a legal nature (relating to laws, trademarks, copyrights). Your email has NOT been delivered and is being returned to you because communications of this nature are not appropriate for an insecure medium such as email. If you have a legitimate concern please forward hand-signed documents by courier or registered mail. Thank you. Please be advised that your email WILL NOT be delivered"
If ISPs didn't make it so easy for people to abuse them they would make life much easier for everyone.
I work in the film business. It has been growing every year and continues to make record profits, just as is has since: people got televisions in their homes, got VCR's, got cable, got Video on Demand, and since they got the Internet.
I encourage everyone to go to the Youtube video in the link, and FLAG it as inappropriate. I chose "Inappropriate because it is mass advertising" but feel free to choose your own reason for Youtube to take it down.
It is a shame they have disabled comments for the video, because it could have become an interesting discussion of due process and freedom of speech.
Even though I downloaded the entire album last week on the torrents, I have also ordered the Premium Package from their website. Here's what I am getting:
-CD with 8 Panel Digipak Fold-Out Design
-9-panel Fold-Out Poster Designed by Mike Mills
-2 x 180 Gram White Gatefold Vinyl
-Digital Album Download Card
-2 Extra Bonus Tracks + Remix (Delivered Digitally)
-Bonus 7"
-Beastie Boys T-Shirt (Exclusive To This Pre-Sale)
-Exclusive Iron-on (1 of 3)
-HD Download of the extended version of the
Make Some Noise Video called "Fight For Your
Right Revisited"
These smart artists got $74.99 from a guy who just wanted to make sure he could buy a non-iTunes download of the new album.
Anonymous Coward: Really? The Beastie Boys are still huge and yes their fans have grown up, along with them. Maybe you will one day.
@davey: That's why smart people READ contracts before signing them. The contract photographers use has been around for years. You pay them for their time, expenses and studio but you DON'T own their copyrights unless you negotiate that separately. I remember asking about it when they took my graduation photos many years ago.
This is a good lesson. If someone, for example, one day wanted to lead a country (God forbid), or be a heartbeat away from leading a country, it would be recommended for that person (or her staff) to be able to read and understand a contract.
This could have been Ms. Palin negotiating the surrender of the USofA to [insert enemy here]. Thank [insert deity here] that she just F'ed up a photo shoot.
20 years ahead
It has been stated many times that the technology the military/government has access to is 20 years ahead of what the general public uses.
How powerful was your computer in 1993 compared to now?
1200 baud modem, no internet, 40 megabyte hard drive (if any), 640K RAM, a few thousand operations per second.
(untitled comment)
The blue tape obscuring information in the documents above is transparent enough to read the info.
If the purpose was to hide the info, you might wish to fix the docs.
(untitled comment)
This will get more interesting when some of the parents send the forms back after changing the terms to a Creative Commons or Copyleft license.
(untitled comment)
I am very proud to be a Teksavvy customer today!
I understand they have spent $190,000 so far fighting this troll. If they wanted to add $5 a month to my bill to continue taking the high road I would be happy to pay it.
Just use the cellphone business model!
As Anonymous Coward mentioned above, the numbers people are throwing around work out to about $1500 per household for a fibre install. That's what most of us pay for TWO years of crappy/capped/slow Internet service, not to mention that fibre can handle our TV and phone as well.
If the telcos can convince us to take a "free" iPhone by agreeing to a THREE year contract, why can't fibre work the same way???
I would gladly pay $100 per month or more for fast, high-bandwidth fibre! And (for the first time in my life) I would happily pay a set-up fee to get that precious light pipe into my home.
The incumbent telcos won't acknowledge this reality until people catch on that they are being gouged, and that speed and bandwidth are basically free once the infrastructure is in place. Remember when you paid $75 per month for a pager that could only beep when you had a message? Remember paying $$ a minute for cell phone service?
Telcos will price the ones and zeroes as high as they can until someone like Google comes along and shows everyone that bandwidth is a commodity just like electricity, gas and water. Have you ever thought about your monthly water bill when 'downloading' a glass of water? Has your tap ever slowed to a trickle because your neighbor was washing clothes? Has the water co ever 'fined' you by quadrupling your monthly bill because you watered your lawn too much?
Bandwidth is the new water. The infrastructure for both is similar in logistics and cost. Water treatment plants, buried pipes, maintenance, quality control, repairs, billing - how are the ones and zeroes flowing into your home any different?
(untitled comment)
It is my understanding that service providers such as Twitter are protected from a lot of bad things by the DMCA's "Safe Harbour" provisions, specifically because they are simply the conduit of the information and exercise no editorial control.
If Twitter has started proactively censoring posts, wouldn't that mean that they are now legally and financially responsible for what their users publish?
(untitled comment)
People seem to forget that Paypal isn't a bank. It is a private business that has no federal oversight, no deposit insurance, no requirement to adhere to any sort of banking laws, and NO way to speak to a human when they screw you over.
Of course Paypal can arbitrarily freeze your funds indefinitely without recourse - it's in the contract you agreed to when you signed up. You DID read it, right?
Google who?
I remember short years ago thinking Lycos was the be-all, end-all. Artificial Intelligence had been achieved. All of mankind's knowledge was now available. There was nothing more to invent. Period.
Then Alta Vista came along...
Who is this Google of which you speak??!
(untitled comment)
The Googorola deal is about Google building smartphones to compete with Apple, set-top boxes to bring YouTube into everyone's living rooms, and owning the chip foundry and manufacturing to make it happen. The patent portfolio is nice, but it is NOT the biggest part of the deal.
Anyone who thinks Google bought Motorola to help out their Android partners just doesn't get it.
(untitled comment)
Theoretically(*) Apple only has to store one copy of each song. Your personal cloud won't contain a physical copy of your music, it will have a database of what songs you are allowed to play.
(*of course they will store multiple copies of each song for maximum availability, scalability and geographical distribution, but you get the idea.)
(untitled comment)
They would have to build their schools inside huge faraday cages with no electricity. Either that or ban: TV, radio, cel phones, police radios, microwave ovens, etc.
(untitled comment)
OK. I have been well and soundly spanked by other commenters. Nice work.
Here in Canada no one can carry a pistol, so I was unaware that only felony convictions can take away that right in the US.
The action of the cops was reprehensible. I only mentioned that Fiorino had a record to indicate what may have set them off after a random license plate check or something.
Perhaps running a recorder all the time is an advisable activity in the new police state. I was just surprised that someone, with no supposed agenda, had done that.
(untitled comment)
This all sounds bad and the cops were obviously idiots, but this individual was previously known to the police. It is not inconceivable that the cops in question knew about his record, or had been antagonized by him in the past.
Yes, they were wrong to threaten his life. Yes their language was inappropriate, unprofessional and served to escalate the situation, but Fiorino's public record on the Internet makes him appear to be a shit disturber.
WHO the heck runs a black box recorder every time they leave the house?!?
Someone at http://www.copblock.org/2187/mark-fiorino-nearly-shot-by-philly-pd-for-open-carrying/ has posted details about Fiorino's previous run-ins with the law, which include:
http://ujsportal.pacourts.us/DocketSheets/MDJReport.aspx?district=MDJ-38-1-13&dock etNumber=CR-0000104-05
http://ujsportal.pacourts.us/DocketSheets/MDJReport.aspx?district=MDJ-38-1 -13&docketNumber=NT-0000667-05
http://ujsportal.pacourts.us/DocketSheets/MDJReport.aspx?distr ict=MDJ-38-1-28&docketNumber=NT-0000501-09
http://ujsportal.pacourts.us/DocketSheets/CPReport .aspx?docketNumber=CP-46-SA-0000941-2009
It is surprising to me that someone with this history could obtain a firearms permit.
(untitled comment)
How stupid do you have to be to accept any sort of legal communication by email? Would you take down a site based on a Post-It Note™ stuck on your door, because they are about as secure as email.
When someone emails our organization with anything containing legaleese, DCMA, Etc, the mail server politely responds "It looks like this email contains material of a legal nature (relating to laws, trademarks, copyrights). Your email has NOT been delivered and is being returned to you because communications of this nature are not appropriate for an insecure medium such as email. If you have a legitimate concern please forward hand-signed documents by courier or registered mail. Thank you. Please be advised that your email WILL NOT be delivered"
If ISPs didn't make it so easy for people to abuse them they would make life much easier for everyone.
(untitled comment)
... and no, we don't get paid again when our work gets reused or re-branded.
(untitled comment)
I work in the film business. It has been growing every year and continues to make record profits, just as is has since: people got televisions in their homes, got VCR's, got cable, got Video on Demand, and since they got the Internet.
I encourage everyone to go to the Youtube video in the link, and FLAG it as inappropriate. I chose "Inappropriate because it is mass advertising" but feel free to choose your own reason for Youtube to take it down.
It is a shame they have disabled comments for the video, because it could have become an interesting discussion of due process and freedom of speech.
A reason to buy
Besides embracing leaked tracks, they are also using the common Techdirt theme of "giving people a reason to buy".
The Boys are offering some unique packages to those who preorder at http://beastieboys.com/preorder/
Even though I downloaded the entire album last week on the torrents, I have also ordered the Premium Package from their website. Here's what I am getting:
-CD with 8 Panel Digipak Fold-Out Design
-9-panel Fold-Out Poster Designed by Mike Mills
-2 x 180 Gram White Gatefold Vinyl
-Digital Album Download Card
-2 Extra Bonus Tracks + Remix (Delivered Digitally)
-Bonus 7"
-Beastie Boys T-Shirt (Exclusive To This Pre-Sale)
-Exclusive Iron-on (1 of 3)
-HD Download of the extended version of the
Make Some Noise Video called "Fight For Your
Right Revisited"
These smart artists got $74.99 from a guy who just wanted to make sure he could buy a non-iTunes download of the new album.
Anonymous Coward: Really? The Beastie Boys are still huge and yes their fans have grown up, along with them. Maybe you will one day.
(untitled comment)
H E R O
(untitled comment)
Who in the heck uses their ISP's DNS servers??? (For exactly this reason.)
All you need is OpenDNS - A free, safe, non-evil alternative DNS server.
All you do is change the DNS server settings to the following, either in your router or on each computer:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
As an added bonus, OpenDNS blocks phishing sites so it is a great option for Grandma and Grandpa's computer too.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
@davey: That's why smart people READ contracts before signing them. The contract photographers use has been around for years. You pay them for their time, expenses and studio but you DON'T own their copyrights unless you negotiate that separately. I remember asking about it when they took my graduation photos many years ago.
This is a good lesson. If someone, for example, one day wanted to lead a country (God forbid), or be a heartbeat away from leading a country, it would be recommended for that person (or her staff) to be able to read and understand a contract.
This could have been Ms. Palin negotiating the surrender of the USofA to [insert enemy here]. Thank [insert deity here] that she just F'ed up a photo shoot.