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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. |
Re:
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.
Re: Re: Re:
"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.
Re:
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.
Re:
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.
Re:
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.
Re: Re: Re:
Making more money is no more an indication of "health" than is the number of releases. It all depends on one's definition of "health".
For many people, having twice as many releases for no more money would be the epitome of health, as twice as many visions get to market without the public having to pay more for the benefit.
For some people, having one movie with compulsory viewing by the public for thousands of dollars per head would be considered the epitome of health, simply because it brings in more money, without regard to any other considerations.
Re: Android is not Free
And how many OEMs have you directly discussed this with? I have direct dealings with many Android OEMs about Android, and your explanation would come as a surprise to them.
And your proof of this is... what, exactly?
Clarification
FYI, "breakage" as a term in retail refers as much to shoplifting as physical destruction of goods. 20% is still preposterous, of course.
Android Market: Definitely Possible
The Android Market used to have a 48-hour refund period. They changed that policy to be a 15-minute refund period. The complaints were from developers creating apps whose value might be consumed in that 48-hour window (e.g., games with only a few levels). Hence, technically, Google could require a 7-day refund period, across the board, or perhaps only for app sold in Taiwan (though probably not only Taipei).
Google has no ability to enforce these terms on any other distribution channel, and developers in the Android Market itself have limited ability to offer longer refund periods themselves (per Google's apparent argument).
However, Taipei's 15-day demand means that paid apps will probably be pulled from Taiwan, at least for a while, as these sorts of changes aren't going to be implemented quite that quickly.
Detecting microphone usage, lighting up an LED
I do not believe that there is a way for an app to be notified that another app is using the microphone, sorry. Blocking it is even more out of the question -- any app that could do that could just as easily permanently block the microphone. The problem is that most "user defense" apps like this would need capabilities that could be exploited by malware, causing problems worse than what we started with.
For the camera, preview mode needs to be active for the camera to work. While there is a fairly arcane way to get around this, the net is that the vast majority of Android camera-using apps will have an on-screen preview of what's coming in the camera lens. This will be more visible than an LED. There is no equivalent for the microphone, though.
Re: Psh, easy.
Please provide evidence that the US Army is hosting a race.
So does Burning Man. Either the US Army should support NASCAR and Burning Man, or neither.
Is the US Army holding a bake sale, whereby sponsoring a car will increase the number of pies that get sold?
Please provide evidence where the US Army "gets...even more money out of it".
Difference between Gilmor and Rushkoff
Your post is fine, insofar as it pertains to the Gilmor "everybody should paid" line of reasoning.
Rushkoff isn't saying that, though. As he wrote, "It's because we write for HuffPo for free, and – because it's Arianna – we do it without resentment."
Do not discount the value of personal relationships here. I have little doubt that a fair number of contributors to HuffPo did so in part "because it's Arianna". This AOL deal changes that dynamic, and some, like Rushkoff, will elect to vote with their feet. I don't get the sense that Rushkoff would stop writing for HuffPo because he's not getting paid -- I get the sense that Rushkoff would stop writing for HuffPo because now it's really AOL.
Sure, some contributors to HuffPo did it for other reasons, such as you mention, and many of those will continue to do so for the same reasons. However, do not tar everyone with the same brush, please.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh Come on..
By your argument, nobody needs to pay attention to robots.txt for any purpose whatsoever, since the same data could be obtained by humans instead of robots.
That's fine, but then I don't want to hear anyone suggest that copyright holders (e.g., News Corp) should use robots.txt to stop from being indexed by search engines (e.g., Google), since search engines don't need to use robots for that purpose. At least then we have consistency.
Personally, I would prefer the consistent solution whereby robots.txt represents a "do not index" roster.
Re: Re: Oh Come on..
Yes, they are, in some cases. That was the point behind the "sting".
Correct. However, the "sting" demonstrates that Bing is perfectly willing to simply feed back Google search results, even in the absence of any other data.
Again, this was the point behind the "sting". The pages that Bing reported in its search results could only have come from Google searches, since the pages did not exist anywhere else, were not linked to from anywhere else, etc. It's not like Bing blended Google search results with umpteen other sources in these cases -- they just reported the Google results.
Furthermore, it indicates that Bing ignores robots.txt, since Google search results are marked as "disallowed". If Google wanted its search results to be indexed by other search engines, it would allow it via robots.txt.
In fact, this means that you're being a bit two-faced on this issue. For other places (AFP comes to mind), your argument has been "use robots.txt if you don't want to be indexed". Here, we have a case where somebody is using robots.txt to avoid being indexed...yet your argument now is that robots.txt can be safely ignored by the indexer. Which is it?
Another Example: Me!
I self-publish a popular line of Android application development books. While I do sell print editions (pro tip: read Aaron Shepard's Aiming at Amazon and POD for Profit), most of my sales are digital.
However, since I am writing in a subject area that is evolving rapidly, I publish on a subscription model. A $40 "Warescription" gets you a year's worth of updates to the books, which get updated almost every month. That also gets you access to occasional "office hours" online chats (CwF/RtB) for direct support on Android programming issues. While that price is much higher than Konrath's price point, it is a much better deal than print alternatives (3 books totaling ~1500 pages with frequent updates versus one print book with no updates). The price point plus the subscription model means I do not need quite the number of fans to be a success.
I do no traditional advertising. Rather, I give away my expertise frequently: ~3,100 answered questions on StackOverflow, thousands of posts on official Android support Google Groups, a bunch of open source components, etc. Despite a lack of advertising, I outsell traditional publishers -- I sold print rights to my original book to Apress, and I sell more Warescriptions than they sell print copies. That comes despite the fact that Apress gets their books in bookstores, university libraries, and such, plus has a real marketing budget.
I cannot speak across the board for self-publishing. However, in tech topics, if you are serious about it, you can do fairly well.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
And only anonymous fools want laws that force judges to "draw the line". The rest of us would like something that we can work with, so we can actually understand when we are and are not in violation of the law.
Next, you'll argue that concrete speeding limits should be removed, with the police and judges allowed to arrest and jail anyone moving, based upon how they feel like they want to "draw the line" that morning.
Re: Re: Re:
And therein lies the problem.
Using an advanced technique known as "math", you can see that there are a spectrum of percentages, from 0% of material that you deem is infringing to 100% of material that you deem is infringing. You clearly feel that sites with less than 100% of material that you deem to be infringing are "dedicated" to infringement. No doubt others feel the same way.
If COICA has some objective determination for what is "dedicated" (and, for that matter, "infringing"), I am unaware of it. The MPAA and kin will happily argue that this threshold is as close to 0% as they think they can get away with. Heck, they would love it if the percentage were exactly 0%, and that every Web site owed them protection money or would be shut down by Justice.
Re:
That's an intriguing idea. OTOH, it makes me wonder if you've been reading The Onion:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/american-people-hire-highpowered-lobbyist-to-push,18204/
Consider Group Buys
While stuff for individuals to buy is cool and all (my vote: long-sleeve T-shirts or baseball caps), you might consider branching into group purchases.
For example, host a Virtual Hour with TechDirt for 5 people at, say, $100 per person. Run it via a Skype conference or something, for open Q&A on TechDirt topics and such.
If you don't want to code the infrastructure for orchestrating the group purchase, use Kickstarter or something off-the-shelf.