Mike 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (45) comment rss

  • On the post: Can't We All Get Along: Principles Over Policy; Ideas Over Ideology

    Mike ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2012 @ 06:53am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Field and the Rules, Not the Game

    Androgynous Cowherd,
    I just wanted to say thanks for the very cogent arguments.

    I think you may have just (in your last few comments) expressed my thoughts much more clearly than I've been able to, both on so called intellectual property and on taxes.

  • On the post: Louis CK's Direct Tour Sales: Over $6 Million In 1 Week, Scalping Drops From 25% To Below 1%

    Mike ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2012 @ 07:33am

    Re:

    Ah, but it is still competing. If they weren't working hard to track down and cancel those tickets then they wouldn't be making a good effort to uphold the terms promised on all of those tickets.

    Of course some tickets may fall through the cracks, but the purchasers of a ticket expect that the terms on their ticket are applied to all of the tickets.

  • On the post: Louis CK's Direct Tour Sales: Over $6 Million In 1 Week, Scalping Drops From 25% To Below 1%

    Mike ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2012 @ 07:27am

    Re: Re:

    There is a big difference between an item that a reasonable purchaser expects to have value for as long as they own it versus an item that only will have value until a fixed point in time after which it will be worthless.

  • On the post: Louis CK's Direct Tour Sales: Over $6 Million In 1 Week, Scalping Drops From 25% To Below 1%

    Mike ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2012 @ 07:22am

    Re: Re:

    You missed 1 point.

    I believe that LouisCK will buy back your ticket if you find that you can't use it. So you don't even have to worry about finding some other person to buy the ticket(s) you can't use.

  • On the post: Get Ready For The Political Fight Against Encryption

    Mike ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2012 @ 05:58am

    Define Encryption

    So how would you define encryption anyway?

    If I used EBCDIC instead of ascii to encode my characters in an email is that encrypted?

    How about compression techniques? Are those encryption?

    Basically anything that one person can't make sense out of but that another person can is "encrypted". So if this website was in chinese, it'd be encrypted from me as I can't read (or speak chinese).

    Obviously some "encryption" algorithms (such as chinese) are more well known than others and the "decryption" algorithm is also widely known, but does that make it less encryption?

    My point is that I'm not sure how the government could distinguish between what they call unencrypted data, and encrypted data. (Which is not to say they wouldn't try).

  • On the post: New iPhone Connector Port Revealed, Thus Wiping Out Several Generations Of Accessories In One Fell Swoop

    Mike ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2012 @ 05:36am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Sorry, the consumer friendly connector change would have been to use a standard connector such as mini or micro USB. And those are much smaller than either the 30 pin or the new 19 pin connectors.

    I agree w/ all the commenters that this is a consumer unfriendly move.

  • On the post: Economist: Copyright Is An Antiquated Relic That Has No Place In The Digital Age

    Mike ( profile ), 16 May, 2012 @ 04:53pm

    Re: What a nightmare!

    I think it's wonderful that Amanda Palmer raised $100k, but it's by using a super paywall called Kickstarter. How do you think the Kickstarter funders are going to feel if one of them just makes a zillion copies for their friends? Someone will feel ripped off.

    Actually so far Amanda Palmer has raised ~$700K.

    I am one of the backers of that project, and I fully expect that the album she's planning on producing will be available on the internet for free, and you know what? I don't care. I didn't back the project solely to get the album and artwork. I backed it because I really like what Amanda Palmer does and I wanted to support this next creation of hers.

    The fact that tons of other people will get to experience what she creates because I helped fund her is a positive for me, it doesn't make me feel ripped off.

  • On the post: Postal Service Could Be On The Hook For Millions For Daring To Memorialize The Korean War Memorial

    Mike ( profile ), 16 May, 2012 @ 04:32pm

    Re: Re:

    Actually, I think that postage stamps sell at a loss otherwise the post office wouldn't be losing money. So perhaps the percentage of the profits is a loss and Frank Gaylord owes the Post Office some money?

    After all the price you pay for the stamp is for the stamp itself plus the delivery of a piece of mail.

  • On the post: Evidence Shows That Megaupload Shutdown Had No Real Impact On Infringement

    Mike ( profile ), 08 Feb, 2012 @ 12:46pm

    Herding cats

    I believe herding cats works something like this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8
    (my favorite superbowl commercial from a few years ago)

  • On the post: Another Interesting White House Petition: Reduce The Term Of Copyright

    Mike ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 04:50pm

    7 years renewable for 7 more

    That sounds reasonable to me.

    The argument I frequently make when discussing this with friends and family is that the culture of your childhood should be in the public domain for you to use to create new culture when you're in your 20's and most likely to be creating new culture.

  • On the post: Sorting Out the Sharing License Shambles

    Mike ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2012 @ 10:00am

    Re: Re: Re: License: CC by NC SA(aka Creative Commons, Non-Commercial Sharealike)

    Thanks that was very informative.

    Having read through that page, I think it should explicitly state something it implied about commercial use.

    If one of the big traditional media producers wants to use your content commercially, say in a Hollywood movie or TV commercial, they will not just use it with a BY-SA licence any more than they would use it with a NC license.

    Instead if they want to use it and not release their containing content with a BY-SA (which we know they don't) then they will still contact the creator of the content to arrange for different licensing terms (probably with some financial agreement).

    This is why the BY-SA is just as effective as the BY-SA-NC at preventing the exploitative use the people selecting the NC license probably wanted to prevent.

  • On the post: A Response To Felicia Day On How Video Gets Funded In A Fragmented, Digital World

    Mike ( profile ), 18 Aug, 2011 @ 04:31pm

    Patronage

    I have to say that patronage is useful for new video producers, but once you've got fans, you've got potential patrons.
    I really believe that there are some canceled shows that could use something like kickstarter to get $10 million for 5 new shows. That's only $10/fan if there are a million fans.

    I'd pledge $25 for 5 new episodes of Firefly!

    As long as they get produced and I can obtain them (on DVD or download) for my patronage, it doesn't matter to me if the producers can get more money from those episodes. Actually that can only benefit me by creating more fans and lowering my needed contribution to additional episodes.

  • On the post: Do We Really Want The First To Come Up With An Invention To Own The Market?

    Mike ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2011 @ 12:39pm

    Purpose of patents

    I have to disagree with this stated purpose of patents.

    The function of the patent system isn't to maximize the profits of inventors. Rather, it's to provide inventors with sufficient incentives to ensure they continue innovating.

    While the purpose of patents is not maximize the profits of inventors it also is not to provide inventors with incentives to invent.

    The purpose of patents is to encourage inventors to PUBLISH the details needed for someone else to recreate their non-obvious invention.

    The idea is that in return for a limited time monopoly, the details of the invention are made public for everyone to use and build upon after a time. Otherwise inventions would always be closely guarded trade secrets, and many would be (in the past, probably not as much now) when the person guarding the secret dies without passing it on.

    This is why patents should only be granted for tangible non-obvious inventions. (and this is where our current system has become incredibly broken).

  • On the post: Heirs Of Superman Creators Appeal To Try To Get The Half Of The Baby The Judge Didn't Give Them

    Mike ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2011 @ 06:04pm

    copyright on a character?

    Can someone explain why copyright extends to a character from a story?

    I guess it comes from how copyright covers derivative works, and I'm still not sure why that is.

    At least I understand copyright as applied to the original expression, but why should it cover a brand new creation which just takes ideas from that expression and builds on them?

    I think I'm venting and these are rhetorical for this audience, but if you've got something to add, please do.

  • On the post: It Took The NY Times 14 Months And $40 Million Dollars To Build The World's Stupidest Paywall?

    Mike ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2011 @ 09:36am

    Stopped looking back when Paywall was announced

    So I pretty much stopped browsing the NY Times stories and columnists back when they announced they were planning a paywall.

    Which I feel sort of sad about since I really did enjoy several of the NY Times columnists.

    And of course this means that I no longer email friends and family to recommend that they read articles on the NY Times.

    Who knows, maybe they'll get sane in a year or two.

  • On the post: The Changing Way That Math Is Taught To Children

    Mike ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2011 @ 06:47pm

    Seems harder

    Well I learned the 1st way as well, and I have to say that this new method still seems harder to me.

    If you're multiplying a 3 digit number by a 4 digit number, you'll either end up adding 12 numbers or 3 numbers. Adding 3 numbers is easier to deal with.

  • On the post: Major Record Labels Agree To Pay $45 Million For Copyright Infringement In Canada

    Mike ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2011 @ 03:03pm

    Re: Re:

    ...$62,500 per song. This is almost 500% of the actual damages...

    Minor quibble, I think you meant 500 times, not 500 percent.

  • On the post: Is Figuring Out A Slot Machine Software Glitch & Making Money From It A Crime?

    Mike ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2011 @ 07:55am

    Casino's encourage people to try to exploit bugs in slot machines

    Actually I think they do.

    Casino's actively encourage people to think they can come out ahead of a slot machine, and people think they're doing that all the time.

    That' why some people get upset if someone takes their "warmed up slot", or why they'll wager more after they see certain sequences.

    I really don't think a player should be penalized because they actually discover a way that works.

  • On the post: Debunking The 'But People Just Want Stuff For Free' Myth

    Mike ( profile ), 22 Dec, 2010 @ 01:50pm

    Re: Re: Re: Addtional Free Sodomy

    Except pretty much no one has ever had to pay to read a book, they could borrow it from a library, or they could borrow it from a friend.

    I tend to buy books for 2 reasons, first I like to own a copy of a book I enjoyed so I know it is available for me to read it again and lend it to others, and second, I want to support the author so they'll write more books that I can enjoy.

    In that 2nd case, I don't actually look at it as recompense for the book already created, but more as support and encouragement for a future creation.

  • On the post: Another Reminder That You Don't Own Your eBooks: Amazon Removing More eBooks You 'Bought' From Archives

    Mike ( profile ), 15 Dec, 2010 @ 04:14pm

    Re: Personal Morals?

    I don't think anyone here feels that Amazon shouldn't be allowed to decide which books it wants to sell and which ones it doesn't.

    The issue most people here have w/ this story is that it is yet another example of DRM causing issues. In this case allowing Amazon to "come into your house and take back a book that they don't think you should have".

    That isn't to say that people don't agree with fogbugzd (above) that a company is restricting its customer base and thereby losing potential profits by acting as the "Morality Police".

    I agree with him and with you. For example I was very happy to hear about Google deciding that they would no longer censor results for the Chinese government. That could be considered a moral stand that would cost the company money. (I'm not sure I know how that has played out in the end.)

    OTOH, I don't like Amazon censoring what books it sells (although I believe it is totally their right to do so). But that is mostly because I liked to think that if I wanted to buy any book, it would available at Amazon. Censoring books like this means that is less likely. It also means I may look elsewhere first when looking for a book, even if they do carry it.

    Other large companies censor what they sell. I don't believe that either Netflix or Blockbuster offer any "adult" titles.

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