Minor derail, the comment about Betamax being technically superior, although common wisdom, isn't quite right. It ultimately failed on usability, the tapes were shorter, so you couldn't easily record a whole movie or sports broadcast on one tape, whereas you could with VHS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyKRubB5N60
When people say something is technically better they often mean either "more pleasant to use by programmers/administrators" or "able to do something difficult that another product can't do". But "more pleasant to use by end users" is pretty almost always what wins.
Centralized platforms like Twitter will always be easier for end users. Mastodon specifically caught on among the various ActivityPub implementations because it has a pretty good web interface that normal people can use.
The thing the fediverse it has over Twitter is that you have somewhat self-selecting communities with real actual community standards which can collectively eject/block/defederate with trolls and nazis. This leverages the open source ideal that an engaged community can actually bring more resources to the table than a single company working on its own.
It seems increasingly likely with ongoing indefinite extension of copyright terms past the length of multiple human lifetimes that works copyrighted today will only enter the public domain in the USA as a result of government revolution or collapse rendering current law void or irrelevant. So start stocking up your fallout shelters will all the pirated movies you want!
Can anyone comment how does this compare to Eldred v. Ashcroft, which also dealt with this issue of moving works in the public domain back under copyright?
Exactly! "Limited" has to mean something, but now seems to be based on the lifespan of corporations, not people. As it stands now, when someone the same age as you creates something under copyright, not only will it never become public domain in your lifetime, it probably won't enter the public domain for most of your children's lifetime either. That's really mind-boggling, when you think about it. At the current rate that copyright is being extended, it's more likely works will go into the public domain due to the American government collapsing or be overthrown than due to the expiration built into the law. This is an absurd situation.
Going back to the house printing idea, suppose you download Creative Commons-licensed plans for a house from the Internet, rent one of these house printing gadgets to build it for you. A few months later you wake up one morning being served a lawsuit by the AIAA (Architects Industry Association of America) because your house incorporates some copyrighted/patented design element, for which you must pay a license fee or they'll come knock your house down.
People seem to be missing the point. For follow the recording analogy, 3D printing now is somewhere between vinyl and early tape recording in terms of the ability for consumers to produce copies. The technology will get better. The problem that Mike anticipates is that copyright and patents are already severely bent out of shape by purely digital artifacts; if/when large numbers of individuals bypass conventional centralized manufacturing by taking digital artifacts and using them to produce real-world artifacts will turn many industries completely upside down. Those industries will likely fight back using legal, particularly the copyright and patent system.
My wife and I are professionals in our early 30s and have certainly given cable the boot in favor of Hulu and Netflix. For me it is a lifestyle thing since normal TV channels are always on and encourage you to leave the TV on for hours and hours blasting commercials into your home, whereas watching shows online is more deliberate, you are watching something you are specifically interested in and you are not bombarded with nearly as much advertising.
So yes, they are trying to make it out to be that dropping cable is "not cool", but from my perspective in fact it is exactly the young, technically savvy, high disposable income demographic that is deciding to drop cable in favor of media with a higher signal:noise ratio.
Of course, since canceling cable Comcast has jerked us around on the rate for internet service and sent pleeding packages to our door begging us to re-subscribe at cheaper rates then we were paying before.
Comcast is a perfect case study of pricing in monopoly conditions; they basically only offer three services (TV internet, VOIP phone) but they slice and dice the rate you actually pay based on what package you have, they charge an arm and a leg extra for HD service, the advertised prices only apply if you are a new subscriber, if not you pay a higher price, they'll only lower your rates if you threaten to quit...
Nobody every accused the right wing of intellectual consistency... IP issues are a perfect example of government policy distorting the natural market, but since it is framed as a "property rights" issue, increasingly draconian IP regimes can be spun as increasing freedom rather than taking it away.
I apologize for being a jerk in my original comment.
Actually, my issue is that Twitter is exceptionally bad at providing context; with the average blog it is usually reasonable to go back and read old posts, with Twitter you just have a jumble of unconnected sentence fragments.
Thus, ideally the journalistic "value add" of TechDirt would be to provide some context, such as who Jamie Love is and what the argument about patents in ACTA involves, for those of us who have not been following the issue obsessively. Two more links to background information embedded in the story is all it would take.
The total references on this post consists of a self-link and links to four tweets. I feel stupider for having read it. Are there no better resources on the whole Internet to provide further reading on this topic? I like TechDirt but the content-to-speculation ratio of this post is terrible...
Nice! I just spent twenty minutes labeling businesses in my neighborhood. I wish you could adjust the orientation of the boxes, though, sometimes they don't really fit the building...
While it would be even better for Google to integrate something like this into Google maps, Wikimapia looks like pretty much the next best thing. Maybe Google will buy them out? :-)
I recently had a very interesting conversation about venture capital with someone who explained how, at least in the case of startups, there is a natural inflate/deflate cycle. The reason is that venture capitalists have a big pile of money to invest, but once they invest it, it is tied up in those companies for N years (where N ranges from 3 to 7) so there is an investment drought until they achive liquidity and the cycle begins again.
Also, it's clear from a macroeconomic view that getting money out of the pockets of rich people (where it's just sitting there) into the hands of workers should have a net positive effect on the economy, even some businesses do go bust. That's how the American capitalist system works.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by tetron.
Minor derail, the comment about Betamax being technically superior, although common wisdom, isn't quite right. It ultimately failed on usability, the tapes were shorter, so you couldn't easily record a whole movie or sports broadcast on one tape, whereas you could with VHS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyKRubB5N60 When people say something is technically better they often mean either "more pleasant to use by programmers/administrators" or "able to do something difficult that another product can't do". But "more pleasant to use by end users" is pretty almost always what wins. Centralized platforms like Twitter will always be easier for end users. Mastodon specifically caught on among the various ActivityPub implementations because it has a pretty good web interface that normal people can use. The thing the fediverse it has over Twitter is that you have somewhat self-selecting communities with real actual community standards which can collectively eject/block/defederate with trolls and nazis. This leverages the open source ideal that an engaged community can actually bring more resources to the table than a single company working on its own.
It seems increasingly likely with ongoing indefinite extension of copyright terms past the length of multiple human lifetimes that works copyrighted today will only enter the public domain in the USA as a result of government revolution or collapse rendering current law void or irrelevant. So start stocking up your fallout shelters will all the pirated movies you want!
Eldred v. Ashcroft
Can anyone comment how does this compare to Eldred v. Ashcroft, which also dealt with this issue of moving works in the public domain back under copyright?
Re: For Limited Times
Exactly! "Limited" has to mean something, but now seems to be based on the lifespan of corporations, not people. As it stands now, when someone the same age as you creates something under copyright, not only will it never become public domain in your lifetime, it probably won't enter the public domain for most of your children's lifetime either. That's really mind-boggling, when you think about it. At the current rate that copyright is being extended, it's more likely works will go into the public domain due to the American government collapsing or be overthrown than due to the expiration built into the law. This is an absurd situation.
For example
Going back to the house printing idea, suppose you download Creative Commons-licensed plans for a house from the Internet, rent one of these house printing gadgets to build it for you. A few months later you wake up one morning being served a lawsuit by the AIAA (Architects Industry Association of America) because your house incorporates some copyrighted/patented design element, for which you must pay a license fee or they'll come knock your house down.
Missing the point
Example of house printing in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yv-IWdSdns
People seem to be missing the point. For follow the recording analogy, 3D printing now is somewhere between vinyl and early tape recording in terms of the ability for consumers to produce copies. The technology will get better. The problem that Mike anticipates is that copyright and patents are already severely bent out of shape by purely digital artifacts; if/when large numbers of individuals bypass conventional centralized manufacturing by taking digital artifacts and using them to produce real-world artifacts will turn many industries completely upside down. Those industries will likely fight back using legal, particularly the copyright and patent system.
Comcast will get its pound of flesh either way
My wife and I are professionals in our early 30s and have certainly given cable the boot in favor of Hulu and Netflix. For me it is a lifestyle thing since normal TV channels are always on and encourage you to leave the TV on for hours and hours blasting commercials into your home, whereas watching shows online is more deliberate, you are watching something you are specifically interested in and you are not bombarded with nearly as much advertising.
So yes, they are trying to make it out to be that dropping cable is "not cool", but from my perspective in fact it is exactly the young, technically savvy, high disposable income demographic that is deciding to drop cable in favor of media with a higher signal:noise ratio.
Of course, since canceling cable Comcast has jerked us around on the rate for internet service and sent pleeding packages to our door begging us to re-subscribe at cheaper rates then we were paying before.
Comcast is a perfect case study of pricing in monopoly conditions; they basically only offer three services (TV internet, VOIP phone) but they slice and dice the rate you actually pay based on what package you have, they charge an arm and a leg extra for HD service, the advertised prices only apply if you are a new subscriber, if not you pay a higher price, they'll only lower your rates if you threaten to quit...
Nobody every accused the right wing of intellectual consistency... IP issues are a perfect example of government policy distorting the natural market, but since it is framed as a "property rights" issue, increasingly draconian IP regimes can be spun as increasing freedom rather than taking it away.
Re: Re: c'mon techdirt
I apologize for being a jerk in my original comment.
Actually, my issue is that Twitter is exceptionally bad at providing context; with the average blog it is usually reasonable to go back and read old posts, with Twitter you just have a jumble of unconnected sentence fragments.
Thus, ideally the journalistic "value add" of TechDirt would be to provide some context, such as who Jamie Love is and what the argument about patents in ACTA involves, for those of us who have not been following the issue obsessively. Two more links to background information embedded in the story is all it would take.
c'mon techdirt
The total references on this post consists of a self-link and links to four tweets. I feel stupider for having read it. Are there no better resources on the whole Internet to provide further reading on this topic? I like TechDirt but the content-to-speculation ratio of this post is terrible...
Re: Wikimapia
Nice! I just spent twenty minutes labeling businesses in my neighborhood. I wish you could adjust the orientation of the boxes, though, sometimes they don't really fit the building...
While it would be even better for Google to integrate something like this into Google maps, Wikimapia looks like pretty much the next best thing. Maybe Google will buy them out? :-)
part of the business cycle
I recently had a very interesting conversation about venture capital with someone who explained how, at least in the case of startups, there is a natural inflate/deflate cycle. The reason is that venture capitalists have a big pile of money to invest, but once they invest it, it is tied up in those companies for N years (where N ranges from 3 to 7) so there is an investment drought until they achive liquidity and the cycle begins again.
Also, it's clear from a macroeconomic view that getting money out of the pockets of rich people (where it's just sitting there) into the hands of workers should have a net positive effect on the economy, even some businesses do go bust. That's how the American capitalist system works.