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About Mark MurphyMark Murphy is the founder of CommonsWare and the author of the Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development. A three-time entrepreneur, his experience ranges from consulting on open source and collaborative development for the Fortune 500 to application development on just about anything smaller than a mainframe. He has been a software developer for over 25 years, from the TRS-80 to the latest crop of mobile devices. A polished speaker, Mr. Murphy has delivered conference presentations and training sessions on a wide array of topics internationally. |
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To recap:
Species Issue
According to a quick glance at the report cover, they polled orcs.
(this comment is "BYO punchline")
Re: Factual errors in the article
Nobody said it was. The words "codified" and "codify" are modified by "ask" and "seek", indicating future behavior.
That is not entirely accurate IMHO. The bill's synopsis includes: "an employer may request or require an employee to disclose any user name, password, or other means for accessing an electronic communications device supplied or paid for in whole or in part by the employer or accounts or services provided by the employer or by virtue of the employee's employment relationship with the employer or that the employee uses for business purposes". The key portion is the last seven words. That will be used as justification to get any passwords and account information, on the grounds that they have no idea if an account was used "for business purposes" without first examining the account.
Polls Show Growing Resolve to Live With Terror Threat
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/polls-show-growing-resolve-to-live-with-terror-t hreat/
A timely Nate Silver piece, illustrating that "an increasing share of the public is skeptical about sacrificing personal freedoms for security."
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Citation, please.
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Rentn.org, it has come to our attention that you are making illegal use of our trademark, "snarky". Our trademark application covers its use in "an arrangement of black and white pixels", and your comment is clearly such an arrangement. We demand that TechDirt immediately take down your unlicensed used of our intellectual property.
And, to those who are thinking about replying, pointing out their patents on pixels (or the colors black and white, or on the English language), please be advised that we possess significant second-strike capability.
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"A COMPANY HAS NO "DUE PROCESS" OBLIGATION TO A CUSTOMER."
Well, then, perhaps we should fix that.
> And the ISP's aren't going to randomly generate strikes and send them out. Strikes are based on what is happening with your account.
The allegations leading to the strikes will come from the purported holders of the copyrights. They can allege anything they choose, with no apparent recourse or penalty for false accusation.
Re: Every other crime is treated the same way
"You get accused of something and then you have to defend yourself"
Please provide any evidence that the six-strikes plan uses the justice system in the way that you describe.
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"What you're asking for is like being able to choose a different long distance carrier for your landline even if they don't own the copper of that land line to your home"
You mean, like the US has had for the past quarter-century or so?
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The patent was filed for on February 14, 2012. It is a follow-on to a provisional patent that was filed for on April 6, 2011.
Ask Patents entry
I have started an Ask Patents "question" to collect relevant prior art, including some cursory analysis of the prior art listed to date in this article and its comments. If anyone knows of possible prior art, please contribute an answer on the Ask Patents entry, so we can aggregate the results. Thanks!
Inevitable
(disclaimer: I am heavily involved in Android application development)
This is unsurprising, and perhaps inevitable, given Google's acquisition of Motorola and going after other patent collections.
In the olden days, simply hoarding patents and hoping for Mutually Assured Destruction competitive models would have sufficed. But Apple (and others) have turned this into a shooting war... one in which few (if any) are actually shooting at Google. Mostly, they are suing non-Motorola Android device manufacturers. IANAL, but I don't see where Google has the opportunity to volunteer as defendant (besides, they'd get sued for stealing the idea from The Hunger Games). It does Google little good to have a pile of patents and not be able to defend the larger Android ecosystem with them.
One could argue that Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility was simply to ensure that at least one manufacturer couldn't be sued without involving Google, but Android's strength lies in numbers of manufacturers.
I think Google, as is all too common, missed a golden opportunity for controlling the messaging. Had they come out with a "we won't shoot first, but we will shoot last" statement around this move, they could have done a bit better job of claiming the moral high ground (to the extent that there is "moral high ground" in the world of software patents).
In an ideal world, Google would have elected to "turn the other cheek" on all this patent nonsense, and instead worked to get the patents invalidated independently of being sued and pursue other similar tactics. As I often point out to those I'm advising in Android app development, in an ideal world, I'd have hair.
Re: Re: Three Parties are Weaker Than Two
I'm not, any more than the original article did. The original article does not address investors; neither did I. The Kickstarter-esque model they are using is getting seed users, not seed investors.
Three Parties are Weaker Than Two
"It's economically interested in taking its users' money. That's not that much different than a site that's economically interested in taking advertisers' money."
With a paid service, there are effectively two parties: the service and the users. With an ad-supported service, there are effectively three parties: the service, the users, and the advertisers. I agree that the relationship between the service and the users does not necessarily depend upon the model... but there's another party in the ad-sponsored system, and it's interests may not be aligned with the users.
Say, for example, al Qaeda (or Occupy Wall Street, or the Tea Party) decides to set up an account on the service and uses it as part of its propaganda/publicity campaign. Government officials decry the service's allowing al Qaeda's (or Occupy Wall Street's, or the Tea Party's) participation. The service defends allowing the account, on the grounds that the service has no right to discontinue arbitrary accounts for arbitrary reasons in the absence of some court order.
Some users will leave the service due over the issue, and that will harm the service and its remaining users. However, the three-party solution is intrinsically weaker, in that advertisers might withdraw from the service, either on their own or due to government pressure. In that case, the service's interests are aligned with its (remaining) users, but the advertisers' interests are not aligned with the users. By having advertisers, the ability of the service to keep servicing the users' interests is degraded in the face of controversy or similar pressures.
Admittedly, it is possible that some situation would arise that would cause more lost revenue from departing users than from departing advertisers, though in that case, the service's interests are apparently not aligned with enough of its users. However, advertisers, particularly larger ones, are easier to pressure.
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Look, it's pretty simple: if you make a product, and people continue to buy less of it, continue to consume less of it, and continue to use less of it as part of their business, then you get to continue to make less money.
You can argue that piracy is the primary cause. Others, like myself, can argue that The Band's modest original popularity and increasing irrelevancy is the primary cause.
For example, you cite "being used by radio stations to attract listeners", which is about as piracy-resistant of a business model as you're going to get. Radio stations aren't going to be downloading tracks from The Band off a torrent somewhere, as they don't need to. Yet, I am willing to be that The Band's royalties from such licensing is on the decline, because The Band is irrelevant to modern rock stations and is competing against an ever-growing collection of artists in the "classic rock" segment, as more artists age and become "classic rock". That's just natural given the passage of time.
Similarly, the sales of CDs, vinyl, etc. for The Band will continue to decline, for much the same reason. Which means if they are not touring (and I have no idea if they are or not, though from other comments my guess is "not"), I fail to see how anyone would expect The Band's income to remain steady, even if there were no piracy.
In fact, given that the percentage of The Band airtime on radio will decline in the face of increasing competition, and given the decline of "record stores" as a means of exposing people to different artists, it seems like pirate sites are a fairly likely place for people to find out about The Band's music, given a lack of other options. Whether the conversion rate of pirates becoming paid buyers of The Band's materials offsets those who avoid buying by downloading pirated The Band tracks is certainly up for debate, but that leads back into CwF/RtB and the general discussion of business models for musicians.
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"I buy books from them, but I'd never sell my works through them."
Neither do I. That just means that you have to have other ways of directly reaching your target audience and (gently) promoting your books to them. For example, I accomplish this by answering thousands of Android app development questions per year, releasing open source components, delivering presentations at Meetups and conferences, and so on.
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With regards to your laundry list of "costs":
- It takes "time and effort" to do anything, from writing to flipping burgers
- Choose a business model that does not require professional proofreading (e.g., continuously updated books, with rewards to readers who find flaws)
- Digital books do not typically require "professional-looking product masters", and for POD, a word processor and a mid-range edition of Adobe Acrobat will typically suffice
- Don't include many (any?) illustrations that you cannot do yourself
- Server and bandwidth fees will be negligible (Amazon S3 is costing me less than $100/month for several GB of subscriber material)
- Sales transaction fees should run ~3%, if you use the right services
- Sales taxes, in the US, are typically charged on top of your sale price and therefore are not a cost
- You would pay income taxes on any income, whether from writing or from flipping burgers
Aspiring self-publishers should read the works of Aaron Shepard (_POD for Profit_ and _Aiming at Amazon_) to get a better handle on the cost structures involved.
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Google does not approve apps for the Android Market. Anyone with $25 can list whatever apps they wish. Google can and does review apps after receiving complaints, where those apps violate the Market terms and conditions. Apple, Amazon, and other firms review all submissions to their respective markets/stores/whatever.
Re: Re: The Climategate Emails were not misread
No, you have not. At best, you have demonstrated that there are people who disagree with those "in certain circles" who hold certain opinions about Heartland.
At best, they might have a legal "right" to sue for libel.
And your proof that libel is their "only" concern is... what, exactly?
There is no nuance in their assertion that "individuals who have commented so far on these documents" have performed "actions [which] constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages". You are welcome to imagine such nuance, if you wish.
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It would help if you knew what you were talking about.
Citation, please.
In terms of being "secured", the iOS App Store and the Android Market are pretty similar. I am not aware of any significant hacks of the stores themselves.
The iOS App Store is curated, meaning that all submissions are reviewed and must pass Apple standards before being listed. The Android Market is not curated, preferring to take an "innocent until proven guilty" approach.
None of this especially matters in this case, as the tablet in question most likely does not qualify to have the Android Market, as I'm guessing that it does not pass the compatibility requirements. This is not saying that it is intrinsically a bad tablet, just that not all Android devices qualify for the Market.
Moreover, part of Android's freedom is that others can create their own markets, as Amazon did. So, the fine folk creating and sponsoring this tablet could easily set up their own market, with whatever rules they choose. You cannot do that with iOS, outside of jailbreaking.
And your evidence that they will be "exploited out of the box" is... what, exactly?
Citation, please.