if it were the US in need and, say, a Chinese company with the patents, would the US side with the foreign company or our local population?
The obvious answer is that the US government would side with whichever side made the most campaign contributions, which would most likely be the Chinese company.
Incorrect sir, you are "EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL!" because you are a customer not because you bypass DRM. Actually breaking DRM only confirms your EVIL status.
Am I the only one that thinks paying $10 for an ebook is INSANE? Even at $8 for a paperback I sometimes think about it; my book buying has been cut down a lot since Borders closed and took their 30% off coupons with them.
That's not "selling the scarce", that's FARTS (forced artificial scarcity). You're just hoping everyone agrees that the emperor is wearing clothes, because the instant they don't the imagined scarcity is gone.
An example of the selling the scarce would be holding special screenings with the director and actors present; or for readers of techdirt perhaps a water dunking tank with MPAA lobbyists inside.
I am amazed at how many highly trained business people get trapped by fear and moral outrage and totally ignore the economic and business side of decisions.
I'm not surprised at all. Fear and moral outrage (anger) are emotional responses. Emotion tends to always win out over logic where humans are concerned.
The most bothersome thing of this strategy is that is's a waste of money and resources. I've bought both Witcher games and I'm not giving CD Projekt money for them to hand it lawyers for lawsuits, I'm giving them money to make more games. I'd much rather they spend their money servicing ME THEIR CUSTOMER AND FAN by making Witcher 3 instead of chasing what they perceive to be free loaders.
Both of the Witcher games are very good RPG's if you are into that sort of thing (which I am). Well worth checking out. Witcher 2 has some pretty stringent graphics requirements though, and I'm not sure how well it scales down on low end PC's which may affect your enjoyment of the game.
He completely ignores the fact that this will destroy privacy, anonymity and also block most of new creators from getting a chance to start.
I don't think he's ignoring this at all. The internet has done a great job of destroying the gatekeeper role; by restricting content generation to a small "known" list of content generators you in effect put the gates and walls back up. Now a band CAN'T just give their music away for exposure; they once again have to go through one of the approved content generators and sell themselves into slavery to get any exposure at all.
I think this bill is more aimed at putting the walls and gates back up (and worse putting them back up and having them funded by taxpayers) than it is at piracy.
This is an interesting (intended?) consequence of this bill that nobody is talking about. How much of this is about combating "piracy" as claimed vs. regaining total control of the distribution chain?
Could not any service that provides distribution to small bands also be used to "facilitate infringement" and thus be illegal, leaving Big Content as the only way to get exposure and thus forcing musicians back into slavery.
Why is the top situation illegal and the bottom not.
Well duh! They are obviously different in that the first one bypasses the "legal system" and prevents lawyers & politicians from getting their cut, and puts lawyers and judges (mostly former lawyers) out of work. THINK OF THE LAWYERS!!!
For me the big barrier to eBooks (of established, in print authors) is price. I simply refuse to plunk the money down for a reader and then pay more for an eBook than I do for a dead tree book.
As a paperback reader up until Borders went under I was buying $8 paperbacks at ~30% off, and with them gone I can still get a 10% discount at B&N (I buy enough to come out ahead in their membership). Meanwhile every eBook of any author I've bought recently is priced at the paperback list price $8-$10.
It seems that (as usual) the content copying industry has it's collective head up its ass when it comes to pricing. The biggest benefit of eBooks IMO is the ability of an author to route around said content copying industry.
Those sites are heavily used by the various modding communities for videogame mods. Of course he would probably consider that "infringing content" since we have the audacity to alter content created by Big Media (or in some cases medium sized media).
They'd have a little problem with that. Ice Age the Magic expansion came out in 1995, Ice Age the movie came out in 2002. Wizards of the Coast is also owned by Hasbro, who unlike the maker of this dice game, has a nuclear stockpile of lawyers and would fire back.
Just yet another case of a big company using the law as a club against a small company that cannot fight back.
If that was the reason then it had the exact opposite effect on me. I went from 3 DVD/BluRay+streaming to 2 DVD/BluRay. My queue had ~30 movies on it and only 2 could be streamed.
It'd be interesting to know what innovations they were successful in stopping over the last century.
DAT (digital audio tape) was originally pushed as a replacement for the audio cassette but paranoia over "perfect" digital copies forced all consumer DAT decks to have copy protection (Audio Home Recording Act of 1992) and the format was stillborn outside of pro audio (where it was used through the mid to late 90's). Amusingly the protection used was called SCMS which most users of DAT decks referred to as "scummy".
I don't think it would have replaced audio cassettes anyway as the transport was similar to a VCR in design and was probably too fiddly to be reliable in a car stereo, which is what really pushed cassette in front of vinyl at the time.
Why stop at 1? Pick a suitably large number and there is no way the system can handle it. Accuse him of 10,000 copyright violations and he can have his net access back for the low, low price of $35,000.
Hell write a bot that accuses people you dislike of copyright infringement and you've basically got a way to kick them off the net forever.
Here Mr. Troll, have a cookie... (I really can't help myself)
Sooooooooo, if the only reason people go to a theater at all is because they have no alternative choice (which your semi-rant implies) why should they stay in business? Do they have a divine right to be new release cinema gatekeepers or something? Is a monty-pyhon style cardboard lightning bolt going to strike me if I don't see a movie in a theater?
If the industry would use it's brain it would realize that you get money from customers from providing them a service that they want, not by providing them what you want to provide them. Only monopolies get to do the latter which is why these industries are fighting so hard to remain monopolies...
Re: Re:
if it were the US in need and, say, a Chinese company with the patents, would the US side with the foreign company or our local population?
The obvious answer is that the US government would side with whichever side made the most campaign contributions, which would most likely be the Chinese company.
Re: Re: Re:
In slightly less than 7 months!
Re: Re: Now this is funny!
Incorrect sir, you are "EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL!" because you are a customer not because you bypass DRM. Actually breaking DRM only confirms your EVIL status.
$10 for an ebook???
Am I the only one that thinks paying $10 for an ebook is INSANE? Even at $8 for a paperback I sometimes think about it; my book buying has been cut down a lot since Borders closed and took their 30% off coupons with them.
Re: Re:
That's not "selling the scarce", that's FARTS (forced artificial scarcity). You're just hoping everyone agrees that the emperor is wearing clothes, because the instant they don't the imagined scarcity is gone.
An example of the selling the scarce would be holding special screenings with the director and actors present; or for readers of techdirt perhaps a water dunking tank with MPAA lobbyists inside.
Re:
I am amazed at how many highly trained business people get trapped by fear and moral outrage and totally ignore the economic and business side of decisions.
I'm not surprised at all. Fear and moral outrage (anger) are emotional responses. Emotion tends to always win out over logic where humans are concerned.
Re: Re:
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Mike is actually the Hamburglar.
No wonder my happy meals keep disappearing every time I read this site. :(
(untitled comment)
The most bothersome thing of this strategy is that is's a waste of money and resources. I've bought both Witcher games and I'm not giving CD Projekt money for them to hand it lawyers for lawsuits, I'm giving them money to make more games. I'd much rather they spend their money servicing ME THEIR CUSTOMER AND FAN by making Witcher 3 instead of chasing what they perceive to be free loaders.
Re: Getting it right
Both of the Witcher games are very good RPG's if you are into that sort of thing (which I am). Well worth checking out. Witcher 2 has some pretty stringent graphics requirements though, and I'm not sure how well it scales down on low end PC's which may affect your enjoyment of the game.
Re: Re: Re:
He completely ignores the fact that this will destroy privacy, anonymity and also block most of new creators from getting a chance to start.
I don't think he's ignoring this at all. The internet has done a great job of destroying the gatekeeper role; by restricting content generation to a small "known" list of content generators you in effect put the gates and walls back up. Now a band CAN'T just give their music away for exposure; they once again have to go through one of the approved content generators and sell themselves into slavery to get any exposure at all.
I think this bill is more aimed at putting the walls and gates back up (and worse putting them back up and having them funded by taxpayers) than it is at piracy.
Re:
This is an interesting (intended?) consequence of this bill that nobody is talking about. How much of this is about combating "piracy" as claimed vs. regaining total control of the distribution chain?
Could not any service that provides distribution to small bands also be used to "facilitate infringement" and thus be illegal, leaving Big Content as the only way to get exposure and thus forcing musicians back into slavery.
Re:
Why is the top situation illegal and the bottom not.
Well duh! They are obviously different in that the first one bypasses the "legal system" and prevents lawyers & politicians from getting their cut, and puts lawyers and judges (mostly former lawyers) out of work. THINK OF THE LAWYERS!!!
Re: Re:
For me the big barrier to eBooks (of established, in print authors) is price. I simply refuse to plunk the money down for a reader and then pay more for an eBook than I do for a dead tree book.
As a paperback reader up until Borders went under I was buying $8 paperbacks at ~30% off, and with them gone I can still get a 10% discount at B&N (I buy enough to come out ahead in their membership). Meanwhile every eBook of any author I've bought recently is priced at the paperback list price $8-$10.
It seems that (as usual) the content copying industry has it's collective head up its ass when it comes to pricing. The biggest benefit of eBooks IMO is the ability of an author to route around said content copying industry.
Re: Re: So don't use slang! If doesn't say "pirate" or "bootleg", it's fine.
Those sites are heavily used by the various modding communities for videogame mods. Of course he would probably consider that "infringing content" since we have the audacity to alter content created by Big Media (or in some cases medium sized media).
Re:
They'd have a little problem with that. Ice Age the Magic expansion came out in 1995, Ice Age the movie came out in 2002. Wizards of the Coast is also owned by Hasbro, who unlike the maker of this dice game, has a nuclear stockpile of lawyers and would fire back.
Just yet another case of a big company using the law as a club against a small company that cannot fight back.
(untitled comment)
If that was the reason then it had the exact opposite effect on me. I went from 3 DVD/BluRay+streaming to 2 DVD/BluRay. My queue had ~30 movies on it and only 2 could be streamed.
Re: Re:
It'd be interesting to know what innovations they were successful in stopping over the last century.
DAT (digital audio tape) was originally pushed as a replacement for the audio cassette but paranoia over "perfect" digital copies forced all consumer DAT decks to have copy protection (Audio Home Recording Act of 1992) and the format was stillborn outside of pro audio (where it was used through the mid to late 90's). Amusingly the protection used was called SCMS which most users of DAT decks referred to as "scummy".
I don't think it would have replaced audio cassettes anyway as the transport was similar to a VCR in design and was probably too fiddly to be reliable in a car stereo, which is what really pushed cassette in front of vinyl at the time.
Re: Re:
Can you elaborate on what happens in step 6?
Ask the underpant gnomes? They're the experts in "???" economic theory.
"Time to go to work, work all night; search for underpants hey..."
Re: Re: But this is EXACTLY what you wanted
Why stop at 1? Pick a suitably large number and there is no way the system can handle it. Accuse him of 10,000 copyright violations and he can have his net access back for the low, low price of $35,000.
Hell write a bot that accuses people you dislike of copyright infringement and you've basically got a way to kick them off the net forever.
Re:
Here Mr. Troll, have a cookie... (I really can't help myself)
Sooooooooo, if the only reason people go to a theater at all is because they have no alternative choice (which your semi-rant implies) why should they stay in business? Do they have a divine right to be new release cinema gatekeepers or something? Is a monty-pyhon style cardboard lightning bolt going to strike me if I don't see a movie in a theater?
If the industry would use it's brain it would realize that you get money from customers from providing them a service that they want, not by providing them what you want to provide them. Only monopolies get to do the latter which is why these industries are fighting so hard to remain monopolies...