explicit coward 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Australian Gov't: Not In The Public Interest For The Public To Be Interested In Secret Anti-Piracy Negotiations

    explicit coward ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2012 @ 12:37pm

    Re: Re: Re: Getting a little tired of this argument

    +1

    Thank you for this interesting reply.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't: Not In The Public Interest For The Public To Be Interested In Secret Anti-Piracy Negotiations

    explicit coward ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2012 @ 12:33pm

    Re: Re: representative democracy

    And you think that dumb and ignorant people can do less damage if they "only" choose their representatives... as happened in Germany during the Weimarer Republic (a representative democracy) when people elected the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei...

    I never said that you need to have a form of direct democracy where EVERY decision has to be voted by the people - just a more direct form where countermeasures to bad legislation can be implemented by the people more easily.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't: Not In The Public Interest For The Public To Be Interested In Secret Anti-Piracy Negotiations

    explicit coward ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2012 @ 12:22pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    As far as I know it has not been tried in the US, so claiming it's impossible is pure speculation. And you can still have safety measures agains mob rule in a direct democracy.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't: Not In The Public Interest For The Public To Be Interested In Secret Anti-Piracy Negotiations

    explicit coward ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2012 @ 09:50am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    True, transparency would help - converting to a more direct form of democracy would help also. You could/should have both.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't: Not In The Public Interest For The Public To Be Interested In Secret Anti-Piracy Negotiations

    explicit coward ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2012 @ 06:10am

    Re: Re:

    And the public has every right to boss around their government.


    What does that mean, practically speaking? That you can "fire" them (aka not elect them again) AFTER they have done a bad job? Or, to put it in other words: Can you stop them BEFORE they do a bad job?

    Please keep in mind the meaning of the words "civil servant".


    I do. The problem is that it's merely a label an elected politician gets, it's not a spell laid on the elected person to behave as such.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't: Not In The Public Interest For The Public To Be Interested In Secret Anti-Piracy Negotiations

    explicit coward ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2012 @ 05:59am

    Re: Getting a little tired of this argument


    Can we just dispense with the "representative" government argument already. Yes we know that representative government was the best option, given the limitations of previous communication mediums, but we are in a new era of communications.


    The limitations of previous communication mediums wasn't the main reason (if a reason at all) why most democracies deemed it the best option. To cite wikipedia:

    James Madison: A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

    John Witherspoon: Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state ? it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.

    Alexander Hamilton: That a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity.

  • On the post: Australian Gov't: Not In The Public Interest For The Public To Be Interested In Secret Anti-Piracy Negotiations

    explicit coward ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2012 @ 04:43am

    What form of democracy is Australia? If it's representative, why should "the public" have a say in any negotiations? They elected people to do exactly that for them...

    That's why I will always prefer the other model, the direct democracy: It doesn't covertly imply that "ordinary" people are just not intelligent enough (aka to dumb) to make good governmental decisions.

  • On the post: MPAA Asks For Megaupload Data To Be Retained So It Can Sue Users… Then Insists It Didn't Really Mean That

    explicit coward ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2012 @ 04:14am

    Abstinence will only lead to more claims about piracy

    Say you got a majority of the consumers to adhere to this boycott. But if you don't get ALL of the uploading infringers (aka pirates) to join in, HELLywood will finally be able to present REAL NUMBERS about shrinking revenue AND they will obviously blame piracy for it.

    Rethinking it, they will blame it on piracy no matter what - even if all infringers suddenly cried out in terror and died.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    explicit coward ( profile ), 21 Mar, 2012 @ 01:37am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "They want the product, but they don't really want to pay what it's worth..."

    In a real competitive market the price for a product is determined by supply AND DEMAND - only in a monopolized market the supplier can dictate the price. As you have lost monopoly (and no matter what you try - even if this 6 strikes plan passes - will not get it back) you HAVE TO compete. If you don't, you're bound to fail. In this case I suggest buy yourself out of entertainment business (to something more honest) / get another job, stop making entertainment.

    "...or wait until it's actually on the market."

    Again, you lost monopoly, your window of opportunity has shrinked. Use the one you have now, because it will not return to former lengths.

    "The bitch here is that they would be customers "except". So either they are lost sales worth chasing, or they are not. Which one is it?"

    Of course these opportunities are worth chasing - as opportunities, not as opponents, mind you! You just have to offer something the competition can't! Example: Offer daily live-videochats with the artists making the movies or the music to your customers! Have them follow the production of a movie on live-streams! Churn out prizes like visits on sets or at the recording studio!

    Add value instead of trying to diminish it! Offer what is scarce, don't try to reduce the abundant! Because you won't succeed in the latter.

    You keep thinking that anyone who ever downloaded a digital movie with no drm and no region restrictions would go back to a cumbersome system? EVEN if they had no other choice??

    Be honest (if you can), if Bluray and DVD was made illegal today and all devices would magically stop to work, would you go back to VHS?

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    explicit coward ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2012 @ 02:09am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "Not when it is followed up by statements made that treat it as absolute fact."

    You mean, we're too ignorant to see an opinionist when we read one?

    "The actual facts? Buried and ignored, mostly not relevant to trying to make the opinion points."

    What facts? Especially when we talk about the industry's claims about losses due to piracy - it's impossible to quantify, but again and again we are confronted by the industry - done through old media - with terrifying numbers that should scare us into "donate to the industry because it's dying" clubs.

    "The point is that those who pirate would otherwise have been customers."

    This assumption is only true when you consider the circumstances, which you repeatedly refuse to. What is this "otherwise"? If the internet didn't exist? If the digital age hadn't brought us the possibility to copy anything from our computers to other computers to our phones to our tv's and back again? But they do exist. And even if they didn't it remains an assumption which can not be proven.

    "Maybe not as often as they pirate, but they would have been. This is completely against everything Mike has stated over and over again - and what many in the comments here say."

    They would have been, ONLY if you give them what THEY want NOT what YOU want to give them. That's what Mike and others here continue to repeat all the time. And what I say is: If you say it's not feasible to give them what they want (because the returns will not cover the costs) then get out of this business! Now! Do it! Or better: Organize the industry to not produce movies for a whole year, as a form of protest against piracy. Let's see who misses you...

    "So if pirates are in fact customers, and they are not buying but instead pirating, then sales are lost. It's pretty simple (even if you try hard to ignore it)."

    They are not in fact customers, they are in fact POTENTIAL customers. So what is lost are POTENTIAL sales, even if YOU try hard to ignore it. POTENTIAL is not the same as ACTUAL.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    explicit coward ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 08:56am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Of course there is a loss. You should buy the disc AGAIN! It's not the producers fault you scratched your disc, so stop whining and pay already!

    /sarc

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    explicit coward ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 06:43am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "When you look at old media, they would say "according to so-and-so" and they wouldn't draw conclusions. What Mike did was draw conclusions based on less than complete information."

    You mean, linking to the original article/source is not equivalent (if not even better!) than to say "according to so-and-so"? Sorry, keep going with the old media if you trust them more, I'll stick with the new ones.

    "For me, it's an indication of how many of the "facts" of techdirt are built up. It's a pretty simple concept really, if the basic stuff isn't right, every brick you put on top of it is faulty as well."

    Mh - as if unrelated articles were some sort of building that could crumble if one or more articles were inaccurate (which I didn't say they were). I'd rather compare it to a spider's web: True, holes in the net might diminish it's efficiency, but the bigger the net, the less these holes matter.

    "I will also note that Mike has entirely avoided the whole "customer versus pirate" debate. It's one he cannot easily win."

    I'd say it's one you lost a long, long time ago. Therefore Mike is not needed to re-debate this again and again. If you can't spot the difference between theft and copyright infringement, cost and lost opportunity, opponents and potential customers - it's not his loss, it's yours.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    explicit coward ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 05:05am

    ...

    While what you are suggesting is that WE, THE TAX-PAYERS, NOT THE STORE, employ all of the security, pay to install door locks and cameras ON THE INTERNET and HOPE LIKE HELL THAT IT WILL WORK (for the store, not for us as it doesn't anyway...) AND WE WON'T HAVE TO SHELL OUT MORE TAXPAYERS MONEY TO SAVE AN OBSOLETE BUSINESS-PLAN. Guess what? ...

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    explicit coward ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 04:52am

    Re: Re: Re:

    "It's the failing of the new media world."

    As if the "old media world" never took someone else's opinion to treat as a fact...

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    explicit coward ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2012 @ 03:00am

    Re: Re: Correct

    "That;s the point - as the argument is being "disproved" by the Techdirt faithful, they now have to accept that piracy DOES in fact cost sales, and as a result, causes harm.

    Can't have it both ways, can you?"

    It is clear that you are unable to see the difference between "cost" and "missed opportunity".

    When you spend money to buy or produce something, that's cost. When you don't earn money while you could have, that's missed opportunity.

    It's not the same. In the first case in the end you have less money than you had at the start. In the second case you still have the same amount of money at the end and at the start.

    It's that simple really. And, yeah, in business these differences matter. A lot.

    So, the sooner you people start to see things as what they are, the sooner you will be back into business.

    Write down the following sentences on a sheet and stick it to the wall in front of your working place at your office:

    - Copyright infringement is not equal to theft.
    - Pirates are potential customers, not opponents.
    - Missed opportunities are not the same as costs.

  • On the post: Does Anyone Who Develops New Products In Hollywood Ask 'Would I Ever Actually Use This?'

    explicit coward ( profile ), 15 Mar, 2012 @ 02:35am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "How about "see QR code on a billboard, scan it, and order for online digital delivery immediately"? They aren't doing it yet, but it's a next logical step - get it streaming now, and the disc to follow in the mail."

    Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the reason they don't do it already is because?

    ...

    Anyway, the biggest fail is in the time between the customers desire to watch the movie and the fulfillment of said desire.

    Nice, you're the patient guy, you got used to wait for your stuff, because it wasn't possible any other way before. But now it is and you still want us to... wait?

  • On the post: An Open Letter To Content Creators: One 'Pirate' Explains Why He Infringes & How To Get His Money

    explicit coward ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2012 @ 02:43am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Already own the album but want that extra track that's only available on the repackaged version?

    So let's go with the "real-world-car-analogy" as it is so popular.

    You bought a car which has a cd-player in it. A year later the same car comes out with a cd-player that can also play mp3-tracks. And now imagine you had to buy the new car instead of replacing the cd-player in your old car...

    Everybody on this planet and their dogs would call such an idea INSANITY. But the entertainment industry insists on THEIR RIGHT (aka entitlement) TO DO IT THEIR WAY OR NO-WAY.

    ...

  • On the post: An Open Letter To Content Creators: One 'Pirate' Explains Why He Infringes & How To Get His Money

    explicit coward ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2012 @ 01:18am

    Re:

    "I have so many problems with his ENTITLEMENT it makes me sick to my stomach."

    I have so many problems with your ENTITLEMENT it made me vomit right away.

  • On the post: Game Developer Takes 7-Year-Old Kid's Lego Design And Puts It Into The Game As A Birthday Present

    explicit coward ( profile ), 08 Mar, 2012 @ 01:12am

    "The whole story is yet another example of content creators going above and beyond what's "necessary" to be both awesome and human. The more you look, the more you find great stories like this, and it begins to make you wonder why so many companies simply go in the opposite direction."

    It always depends on the main motivation someone's doing what he's doing.

    The mainly creative people create because they feel the urge to do so and as it is their form to honestly communicate with others they want others to notice (and appreciate) their work. Money is secondary to them - sure, they want to make a living out of it, if they can. But most won't give it up if it doesn't make them rich.

    Then there is the people who's main motivation is money, who will always do what makes them earn the most money. They still might be creative, maybe even very skillful at what they do, but they won't feel the aforementioned urge to create. It's not a form of honest communication for them but a means to an end. An end called money.

    Obviously these are two extremes and I'm sure there are a lot of people inbetween. But they'll definetely tend either to one side or the other.

    Companies are mostly run by the latter, especially (but not exclusively) the big and "the old" ones.

  • On the post: UK ISPs Lose Their Challenge To The Digital Economy Act; Entertainment Industry Responds Condescendingly

    explicit coward ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2012 @ 08:48am

    Re: Re: Re:

    "Just because something it technically possible doesn't make it right. That's a lesson that needs to be learned here."

    Sorry, I refuse to learn a lesson which the entertainment industry itself does not heed. Otherwise they would have made me pay ONCE to watch star wars episode IV and not

    - twice at the cinema back in the seventies.
    - a dozen of times to rent a VHS.
    - again for buying a VHS.
    - once more at the cinema to see the special edition.
    - again for buying a VHS special edition.
    - again for buying a DVD (with only the special edition on it)

    I stopped there although I could have bought another DVD with the original version on it. I could have bought the blue-ray. And I could go back to the cinemas sometimes in the future to see it 3D.

    The black hole called entertainment industry got me, you and almost everybody else on this planet used to pay again and again and again THE FULL PRICE for the same content with a different package for so long, that most of the people - including you - still think it is RIGHT. And because it was technically possible the black hole sucked in all the money it could get, no matter if it was RIGHT or WRONG.

    But now that the technically possible has disabled the entertainment industry from continuing to milk the cow until it bleeds from their udder, they claim moral high ground.

    Sorry, no. Just no.

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