Deirdre 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Feds Still Trying To Abuse Trademark Law (?!?) To Stop Motorcycle Gang

    Deirdre ( profile ), 30 Jun, 2011 @ 03:59pm

    I have been trying to remember which hate group was civilly sued on constitutional grounds and ended up having to forfeit their property including their name.

    Different situation from that described in the article but a creative use of damages to strike at the identity of the offending group.

  • On the post: Julie Taymor Blames Twitter For Bad Reviews Of 'Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark'

    Deirdre ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2011 @ 06:35am

    Re: TAYMOR'S REMARKS re spiderman

    Actually the plays of Shakespeare have been retooled in many ways over the centuries including Shakespeare's own lifetime. Some of his plays such as King Lear exist in two different versions, both with authority. Certain passages would be emphasized or changed depending on current events or the tastes of the audience.

  • On the post: Six Years Later, JK Rowling Realizes Ebooks Are A Good Idea… And She Cuts Out The Middleman

    Deirdre ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2011 @ 05:11am

    In some parts of the internet there are still people arguing up and down about those books. Some of them have built the world of Harry Potter into their delusion systems-- the Snape Wives who have all married Snape on the astral plane are probably the best known. Things are going to get very interesting.

    Actually, Rowling has been pretty good about noncommercial uses of her fictional world. Except for the time she sued about the use of Hogwarts castle in a religious festival in India. The Court in India behaved very well, Rowling and her advisors got a black eye.

    This is a very clever way to exploit her creation though. It may start a trend.

  • On the post: Apple Goes After Open Source Startup For Daring To Use The Term 'App Store'

    Deirdre ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2011 @ 05:29am

    Re: Didn't Apple get slapped down ont the Amazon lawsuit?

    No ruing yet but Judge indicated Apple had some problems with their case-- "stumbling block" was the word the Reuters article used. No one explained exactly what the stumbling block was.

  • On the post: Nevada Bar Investigating Righthaven Lawyers

    Deirdre ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2011 @ 05:24am

    Re: Re: I hate to stick up for Gibson...

    Is Whosearrested.com that nasty site where they put up mug shots from unexciting arrests and then will take then down if the person pays? My state tried to stop it from using the mug shots from the correctional system but I noticed it was doing it again.

  • On the post: Apple's Music Match: Innovation By (Record Label) Committee

    Deirdre ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2011 @ 02:12pm

    Data Usage

    The only Apple hardware I use any more is my iPhone, and it has a data limit-- ATT. I'm not interested in anything that affects that.

  • On the post: Senators Want To Put People In Jail For Embedding YouTube Videos

    Deirdre ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2011 @ 07:06pm

    Well they just dropped the mandatory sentence for a a dealer caught with 50 grams or less of crack from ten years to five, so they have to find someone to do those other five years.

  • On the post: Chinese Prisoners Forced To Farm Gold?

    Deirdre ( profile ), 31 May, 2011 @ 06:20am

    It's probably about as useful as having prisoners doing cold call telemarketing.

  • On the post: Lawsuits Filed Against Twitter, Facebook & MySpace For Confirming That A User No Longer Wanted Text Messages

    Deirdre ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2011 @ 06:07am

    Check the US code cites

    The text message is arguably a violation of 47 USC 227 but I would never have been involved with this case. It's one of those where the plaintiff may be found to be technically right but should be awarded damages of a $1.00.

    I vote for receiving confirmation notices. It makes it clear the request went through.

    As for the requested amount: "(B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such violation...." And the $500 is tripled for willful and knowing violation.

  • On the post: China Will Cut Off Your Phone Call If You Say The Word 'Protest' [Updated]

    Deirdre ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2011 @ 01:38pm

    In the mid 70's on a land line phone it was thought that there was monitoring going on for certain words. One particular friend I would talk to would -without warning in the middle of a conversation about something apolitical- yell conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy. Ma Bell was still alive and assumed to be in the pocket of the government and the whole point was to keep the phone company busy chasing harmless conversations.

  • On the post: Bon Jovi Thinks Steve Jobs Killed Music; More Old Rockers Shooing Those Darn Kids Off Their Lawn

    Deirdre ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2011 @ 11:13am

    Re: Re: Is he serious?

    Honestly. Transistor radios plugged in one ear. I'd never want to go back to those days.

    I've spent the afternoon listening to Pandora and looking up singers I particularly enjoyed on Amazon.

  • On the post: Cheap eBook Authors Realize Even Cheaper Is Even Better

    Deirdre ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2011 @ 03:29pm

    Re: from the editor's desk

    One of the largest independent erotic romance publishers-- Ellora's Cave, who puts out both digital and paperback editions-- recently announced that they were going to reduce their prices-- Here's a quote from Jane Litte's Dear Author blog:

    Ellora?s Cave?s pricing at retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble has been outrageously high. This is because EC?s existing contracts pays royalties based on the cover and if EC lowers the retail list price then (according to how the contracts are structured) EC would lose money on the sales at third party retailers. The stated goal is to lower prices but ?adjust royalties so that EC makes no less than it does now and the author makes more that currently due to increased sales.? The internal email goes on to state that ten authors have been recruited to test a lower price point with a reduced royalty rate of 30% cover price. At the lower price, EC will need to have ?at least two-and-a-half times more sales from the vendor sites to compensate for the lower per-sale income.?
    The whole post is here: http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2011/03/09/wednesday-midday-links-upcoming-rt-convention-avon-impulse-ec-lowers-prices/ Erotic romance is a big seller in digital. However, as Jane noted, EC's prices were considered outrageously high at between $2.49 for a short short story (Called *ahem* Naughty Nooners) to $15.95 for novels over 100k words. The fact that they are even willing to test this with a few authors is significant of the need for lower prices in order to move downloads. An author chimes in on the posts stating that her book with EC at $11.98 on Amazon had sold dismally compared to her other "more reasonably" priced work. I think, not all, but a significant number of ebook buyers are very cost conscious, especially when they are buying genre for leisure reading. I bought five independent Kindle books this year. Two were some of the best writing I read this year, two were entertaining and fluffy, one was extremely painful. Very, very, very painful. Hint: if the sample sucks don't be optimistic and think it will get better.

  • On the post: Cheap eBook Authors Realize Even Cheaper Is Even Better

    Deirdre ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2011 @ 09:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    J. A. Konrath blogs here: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ He give excruciating detail about his experiences as an author including numbers both from his trad publishers and his current situation.

    There's also a guy named John Locke who was a niche insurance salesmen and now has 7 books on the Amazon Kindle top hundred bestselling books. There's a guest blog post by him that is fascinating.

  • On the post: Librarians And Readers Against DRM [Updated]

    Deirdre ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2011 @ 06:54am

    I admire librarians. They are the first to stand up for the free distribution of information and the protection of the privacy of their patrons. If you had Googled you would have known who Matthew Goins was and that he has a history of work with libraries and librarians.

    This site: http://librarianbyday.net/2011/02/25/publishing-industry-forces-overdrive-and-other-library-ebook-vendors-to-take-a-giant-step-back/ might help you understand that this is a big issue for librarians and library users.

  • On the post: Drug Firms Freaking Out Over Expiring Patents

    Deirdre ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2011 @ 06:38am

    I'll never forget checking up on a new medication that I had been placed on and discovering (on the internet)that the company was paying doctors $100 per patient up to a certain number of patients to put people on the drug. That was in the late 90's. I immediately asked for something with a generic equivalent-- especially since the new drug had a very weird side effect involving dropping my body temperature.

  • On the post: Music Companies In Korea Guilty Of Price Fixing, Collusion For Boycotting DRM-Free Music Retailers

    Deirdre ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2011 @ 07:17am

    EU authorities this week raided a bunch of publishers-- the ones who have admitted it were in France-- looking for evidence of price fixing with digital books. There's a separate investigation going on in the UK.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/8357983/EU-raids-publishers-in-ebook-price-fixing-probe.html

  • On the post: More Authors Realizing They Can Make A Damn Good Living Self-Releasing Super Cheap eBooks

    Deirdre ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2011 @ 04:13pm

    Re: Photos

    There isn't color eink yet-- at least its not on the market at a reasonable price, but tablets show pictures nicely. I have a 10.5 android tablet I use for viewing graphic intense books. In fact I prefer it because I enlarge detail. There is also a dedicated Nook color although I think that ereader may be heading toward tablet status. I've seen it but it's smaller than my android although it is priced quite attractively.

  • On the post: More Authors Realizing They Can Make A Damn Good Living Self-Releasing Super Cheap eBooks

    Deirdre ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2011 @ 04:05pm

    Re: They may sell a lot but the product is still amateur

    I keep hearing that about editors. If you would read Ms Hocking's web site, she has in fact employed an editor-- in fact she wasn't happy with the job the first one did so she brought another one in to clean up.

    A lot of employees from publishers are unemployed and some clever ones are offering their services to indie authors. This also includes graphic artists doing some very good covers (although Hocking did her own at first) and agents who are brought on board to negotiate derivative rights.

    The author now gets placed in the position of employer as opposed to being treated like an employee by the publisher.

  • On the post: Can Someone Explain How Sponsoring NASCAR Is A Good Use Of Taxpayer Funds, If Funding Sesame Street Is Not?

    Deirdre ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2011 @ 05:00pm

    Both the Navy and the Marine Corps stopped sponsoring NASCAR because they were not sure it worked-- http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/02/ap-military-house-vote-pentagon-nascar-021811/ So what evidence does the Army (National Guard, Air Force) have that it is an effective use of money?

    Considering that NASCAR actually entered into a relationship with Harlequin Romance to produce romance novels with NASCAR theme but "Nascar has put some limits on these branded Harlequin books in order to maintain its family image: no booze, no drugs, no sex." I'm not sure who the average NASCAR fan is now.

  • On the post: UK Gov't Admits That Protecting Big Record Labels More Important Than Getting Poor Online

    Deirdre ( profile ), 12 Feb, 2011 @ 12:33pm

    Re:

    Actually Mick Jagger was knighted in 2003. It was criticized because he was living as a tax exile.

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