I can personally attest to this. Last semester I was in a laboratory class where I had to make a presentation on shot noise and the derivation of the electron charge. The value I calculated was on the correct order of magnitude but was around 50% off. It wasn't until after the presentation (and before our papers were due) that my lab partner noticed that I had read off the wrong number from our linear fit as the electron charge (the right number was only about 10% off by contrast). If he hadn't seen what I had done, things could have turned out worse. If this had been the real world and I was publishing a paper confirming the electron charge, I would have been screwed. The problem in economics seems to be that there are too many vested interests (not necessarily professional economists) who will readily partake in confirmation bias instead of carefully scrutinizing data.
I think it's fine that Exxon is responding with rebuttals to each point made in the satire. They may not understand satirical humor, but that's fine. My issue is in them trying to block the video from spreading further. If they're going to do that, isn't that going to further perpetuate what's being said about Exxon like in the video?
Did you really expect anything else from a "unitary" plan? All it'll do is turn the current state of patents a little in one direction, but it won't ever reduce its extent.
(Quantum mechanics/linear algebra joke, nothing to see here, move along...)
Then they will charge $10 every time you walk past the store without going in (in addition to the $5 charge for not buying anything).
Then they will charge $20 for every person who reads an article about its impending bankruptcy without walking past the store (in addition to the above charges).
Then they will charge $40 for every person who reads an article about its bankruptcy and did not call them to provide some support against impending bankruptcy (in addition to the above charges).
Then they will charge $80 for every person who did not attend the going-out-of-business sale (in addition to the above charges).
Wow. Just...this is pretty incredible. But does this mean that the Copyright Office will do anything about lawsuits from the **AAs against ordinary people for amounts larger than content industry CEOs' salaries?
That aside, I've noticed that including but not limited to this article (and as I recall, TechDirt has responded negatively to other recent articles from him too), Bill Keller's articles have been getting so bad that I wonder if he has secretly been replaced by a poor robotic replica. I wonder if Bradley Manning would be OK with leaking that to the presses....
Given that Penn and Teller are libertarians, shouldn't they be advocating for a free-market-type solution to this dispute rather than advocating for government intervention through copyright lawsuits?
If aliens were to invade and play human copyrighted music as they started up their super-weapons, I bet every country would do everything they could to research and stop the threat...except Germany, where GEMA would say, "That music is copyrighted, so you can't look at the videos where flaws in their defenses become obvious."
I think the last two paragraphs need to be emphasized more. The article on the whole seems like a happy ending because Universal was smacked down for its hypocrisy and the people and Nintendo were able to get what they wanted, while in reality, Nintendo can now use the same tactics to get what it wants.
Being of Indian descent and having been there to visit a few times now, here is what I can add to this:
1. Air conditioning (AC) is expensive to have in the home, and it gets really hot there. Most movie theaters have AC. Therefore, people will go to the movie theater to watch movies but also to be able to escape the heat and stay for a while in an AC place; this is also why Bollywood movies are really long and elaborate, and why people go multiple times to watch the same movie in the theater much more so than in the US.
2. The police are easy to bribe. It's probably pretty easy to make sure that you don't get in trouble if you're caught possessing a pirated copy of a movie.
I remember the hubbub about Obama vouching for Sotomayor's capability for empathy during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Maybe that's something that needs to be applied to federal prosecutors as well.
I have this issue too, so it's not just you (and it's ironically appropriate).
Anyway, I'm confused: the TSA is dumping the scanners because the manufacturer couldn't make them less obviously like a naked scanner, and yet the TSA is also saying that this has nothing to do with the manufacturer's misleading information about how the scanners will affect travelers' privacy? How does that work?
The attacks remind me of what happened after Steve Irwin tragically died from a stingray strike. A lot of people in their anger started killing stingrays. It was needlessly destructive, wasn't helping anyone, was totally misplaced, and was exactly what Steve Irwin would not have done.
I have an idea: if a movie takes some amount of taxpayer money (either any, or above some threshold value or percentage) to be made, why not call it a government work and declare its copyright null and void, just like other government works?
I don't think it's really appropriate to compare this homeless guy's attitude to the ownership mentality pervading culture now. He has bigger issues regarding drug abuse, and he has basically said that he chooses to live out on the streets, not try to help himself, and mooch off of people. I think this is a simple case of greed, and I don't think it's proper to tie this in with the ownership mentality as it relates to copyright and TechDirt coverage of it.
Let's see...
"Free": copyright restricts other people's freedoms to produce and compete.
"Market": copyright severely curtails production in the market to just one supplying entity.
"Capitalism": copyright only allows one person to capitalize on a particular product, often in an arbitrary manner.
So no, copyright is not a part of free market capitalism. In fact, copyright is in every way disjoint from free market capitalism. Granted, we have a mixed-capitalist economy in the US, and it could be argued that nothing in the definition of mixed-capitalism precludes the existence of copyright, but empirically of course, it doesn't need to exist in as large of a scope as it does now.
Patent evergreening
This essentially sounds like patent evergreening, except it is done to copyrighted works (rather than patented works) and is done more shamelessly.
Shot noise
I can personally attest to this. Last semester I was in a laboratory class where I had to make a presentation on shot noise and the derivation of the electron charge. The value I calculated was on the correct order of magnitude but was around 50% off. It wasn't until after the presentation (and before our papers were due) that my lab partner noticed that I had read off the wrong number from our linear fit as the electron charge (the right number was only about 10% off by contrast). If he hadn't seen what I had done, things could have turned out worse. If this had been the real world and I was publishing a paper confirming the electron charge, I would have been screwed. The problem in economics seems to be that there are too many vested interests (not necessarily professional economists) who will readily partake in confirmation bias instead of carefully scrutinizing data.
Rebuttal without chilling
I think it's fine that Exxon is responding with rebuttals to each point made in the satire. They may not understand satirical humor, but that's fine. My issue is in them trying to block the video from spreading further. If they're going to do that, isn't that going to further perpetuate what's being said about Exxon like in the video?
Unitary transformation
Did you really expect anything else from a "unitary" plan? All it'll do is turn the current state of patents a little in one direction, but it won't ever reduce its extent.
(Quantum mechanics/linear algebra joke, nothing to see here, move along...)
Bankruptcy articles
Then they will charge $10 every time you walk past the store without going in (in addition to the $5 charge for not buying anything).
Then they will charge $20 for every person who reads an article about its impending bankruptcy without walking past the store (in addition to the above charges).
Then they will charge $40 for every person who reads an article about its bankruptcy and did not call them to provide some support against impending bankruptcy (in addition to the above charges).
Then they will charge $80 for every person who did not attend the going-out-of-business sale (in addition to the above charges).
From the Copyright Office
Wow. Just...this is pretty incredible. But does this mean that the Copyright Office will do anything about lawsuits from the **AAs against ordinary people for amounts larger than content industry CEOs' salaries?
Re: Re:
Would it be called "TechClean"?
That aside, I've noticed that including but not limited to this article (and as I recall, TechDirt has responded negatively to other recent articles from him too), Bill Keller's articles have been getting so bad that I wonder if he has secretly been replaced by a poor robotic replica. I wonder if Bradley Manning would be OK with leaking that to the presses....
Directionality of anti-circumvention
It's sad that the law prevents consumers from circumventing the interests of a small vested group, rather than the other way around.
Penn & Teller: Libertarians
Given that Penn and Teller are libertarians, shouldn't they be advocating for a free-market-type solution to this dispute rather than advocating for government intervention through copyright lawsuits?
If musical aliens invade
If aliens were to invade and play human copyrighted music as they started up their super-weapons, I bet every country would do everything they could to research and stop the threat...except Germany, where GEMA would say, "That music is copyrighted, so you can't look at the videos where flaws in their defenses become obvious."
The real message about Nintendo
I think the last two paragraphs need to be emphasized more. The article on the whole seems like a happy ending because Universal was smacked down for its hypocrisy and the people and Nintendo were able to get what they wanted, while in reality, Nintendo can now use the same tactics to get what it wants.
More theater perspective
Being of Indian descent and having been there to visit a few times now, here is what I can add to this:
1. Air conditioning (AC) is expensive to have in the home, and it gets really hot there. Most movie theaters have AC. Therefore, people will go to the movie theater to watch movies but also to be able to escape the heat and stay for a while in an AC place; this is also why Bollywood movies are really long and elaborate, and why people go multiple times to watch the same movie in the theater much more so than in the US.
2. The police are easy to bribe. It's probably pretty easy to make sure that you don't get in trouble if you're caught possessing a pirated copy of a movie.
Age of fan
So a child born at the start of this lawsuit would have probably outgrown these toys by now. That's pretty pathetic.
Sonia Sotomayor
I remember the hubbub about Obama vouching for Sotomayor's capability for empathy during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Maybe that's something that needs to be applied to federal prosecutors as well.
Re:
I have this issue too, so it's not just you (and it's ironically appropriate).
Anyway, I'm confused: the TSA is dumping the scanners because the manufacturer couldn't make them less obviously like a naked scanner, and yet the TSA is also saying that this has nothing to do with the manufacturer's misleading information about how the scanners will affect travelers' privacy? How does that work?
No cloning
How long will it be before quantum no-cloning becomes a part of copyright law?
Steve Irwin
The attacks remind me of what happened after Steve Irwin tragically died from a stingray strike. A lot of people in their anger started killing stingrays. It was needlessly destructive, wasn't helping anyone, was totally misplaced, and was exactly what Steve Irwin would not have done.
An idea for taxpayer-funded movies
I have an idea: if a movie takes some amount of taxpayer money (either any, or above some threshold value or percentage) to be made, why not call it a government work and declare its copyright null and void, just like other government works?
Not an appropriate comparison
I don't think it's really appropriate to compare this homeless guy's attitude to the ownership mentality pervading culture now. He has bigger issues regarding drug abuse, and he has basically said that he chooses to live out on the streets, not try to help himself, and mooch off of people. I think this is a simple case of greed, and I don't think it's proper to tie this in with the ownership mentality as it relates to copyright and TechDirt coverage of it.
Copyright antithetical
Let's see...
"Free": copyright restricts other people's freedoms to produce and compete.
"Market": copyright severely curtails production in the market to just one supplying entity.
"Capitalism": copyright only allows one person to capitalize on a particular product, often in an arbitrary manner.
So no, copyright is not a part of free market capitalism. In fact, copyright is in every way disjoint from free market capitalism. Granted, we have a mixed-capitalist economy in the US, and it could be argued that nothing in the definition of mixed-capitalism precludes the existence of copyright, but empirically of course, it doesn't need to exist in as large of a scope as it does now.