Aaron Von Gauss 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (35) comment rss

  • On the post: Police Claim That Allowing People To Film Them In Public Creates 'Chilling Effects'

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 16 May, 2011 @ 03:17pm

    While I think people (for non-profit purposes, i.e. not TV camera crews) should be able to film whatever or whoever in public, let's be real, throw a camera in someone's face and we all react a bit differently.

    On a (un)related note, how did the US become a society where you need to blur out every product image in regular TV? Thats just insane.

  • On the post: Surprise: NY Times Doesn't Think Osama Bin Laden's Death Warrants Taking Down The Paywall

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 03 May, 2011 @ 02:26pm

    What's the problem?

    I don't see what the problem is, if they want to try and set up a pay wall and make everyone a subscriber - more power to them. Will I subscribe? Doubtful.

  • On the post: Forget Hot Coffee, Now Disney Is Sued For Severe Burns From Nacho Cheese

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 14 Feb, 2011 @ 11:04am

    Re: Re:

    I wasn't going to go there because I was too lazy to watch the video, but I agree, it looks awfully suspicious like the child was eating the nachos at the time.

  • On the post: Forget Hot Coffee, Now Disney Is Sued For Severe Burns From Nacho Cheese

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 14 Feb, 2011 @ 11:00am

    Criminal Charges

    Should the parents be charged, criminally, with placing their child in a situation where the child may be physically hurt? If you answered no, then the civil case should be dismissed, the filers including the lawyer(s) sanctioned.

    Not a defense of Disney per se as much as - enough is enough.

  • On the post: Comcast Buying NBCU Will Lead To Higher Prices… But Is That Really A Bad Thing?

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 09 Nov, 2010 @ 07:18pm

    I think another key factor is how willing investors / financiers are willing to back productions without the involvement of the more established distribution players.

  • On the post: Men At Work Ordered To Pay 5% Of Earnings On 'Down Under' Over Copyright Claim

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 06 Jul, 2010 @ 12:39pm

    Travesty?

    A travesty or an embarrassment? I'm all for protecting the rights of artists and other content producers, but I have the feeling this one was long ago abandoned.

  • On the post: Feds Look At Jamming Mobile Phones In Prison

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 13 May, 2010 @ 04:40pm

    Root Problem

    Isn't this kind of avoiding the root problem? I believe if I were in charge of a prison I would be embarrassed to ask for cell phone jamming capability and instead would focus on how contraband of any kind is getting in to a supposed highly controlled environment.

  • On the post: Google Fights Back And Wins Against Bogus Patent Lawsuit From Guy Who Couldn't Even Code His 'Invention'

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2010 @ 08:34pm

    Flip Side

    There are tons, and tons, of examples of how software and maybe to a lesser degree business process patents (imo) are silly, destructive and a complete waste of everyones time. My question is, are there any real success stories?

  • On the post: New Study Says Social Networks Not Making Kids Stay Up Late

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2010 @ 06:39am

    Parents

    Social networking may not be making kids stay up late, but it sure seems to have an impact on how late their parent's stay up. Put kids to bed, log in to Facebook, click Mafia Wars......

  • On the post: FCC Boss Spams Facebook Friends With Make Money Now Scam

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 31 Dec, 2009 @ 04:55pm

    Sympathizer

    Considering the number of Facebook phishing e-mails I have received over the last couple of days, I can sympathize with him. He's probably not the only one...

  • On the post: Rogers Back To Inserting Its Messages Onto Others' Websites

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2009 @ 06:26pm

    Derivative Work

    I know Rogers serves Canada, but wouldn't this raise questions regarding derivative works? As for why people would be annoyed? In my case, I am paying for a service not a service supported by ads, internal ads or other propaganda. Would you want your telephone company interrupting one of your calls to announce a feature of their product?

  • On the post: AT&T And Comcast's Non-Denial Denial Of Three Strikes

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2009 @ 06:34pm

    Comcast

    I am not sure what the future will hold for any of the ISPs, but if you are interested in one of the official Comcast responses to yesterday's speculation: http://www.comcastvoices.com/2009/03/a-few-words-about-copyright.html

  • On the post: Music Industry Folks Worried About iTunes Variable Pricing

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2009 @ 05:58pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Gizmodo

    Economics is a very broad subject, with the concept of supply and demand only being one aspect and I am definitely not ignoring it. I just believe we might have a slight difference of opinion on its application to digital content and the value of said content.

    FWIW, I believe an artist or publisher should be able to set any arbitrary price rather than being confined to a universal cost structure. If they want to charge $99 per track and get people to buy it, all the more power to them - personally, I think the buyers would be nuts, but it is a diverse world. If they want to charge zero and eat the cost of the delivery based on expected sales from other avenues, great, lets see how it works.

  • On the post: Music Industry Folks Worried About iTunes Variable Pricing

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2009 @ 02:25pm

    Re: Re: Gizmodo

    That's a different thing. The creation of new music is a scarce good, but that's not what's being charged for. Music, once created and saved as a digital file, is an infinite good.

    Unless this is a purely theoretical discussion, I'm not quite sure how you can separate the two. I would compare that to saying once a CD or a book master has been made the content no longer has any value above the cost of the fabrication of the replication medium.

    Whoa... that needs an explanation. You are saying fundamental economics doesn't apply to one particular industry? You can't just say taht...

    I didn't say it didn't apply, I said it doesn't really fit the music industry - a good word to have added would have been "well". It is definitely not just the music industry, electronic distribution of books or software come to mind and I am sure there are more. The traditional supply and demand model works best with a tangible good that can be held or a service provided by an individual or group that be interacted with.

    If this were a live concert, we would all understand implicitly how it would work. The performer puts on an announcement regarding a performance and states what the price for admission will be and the potential consumers decide if they want to pay to experience the performance. Where it gets interesting is if more people want to see the performance than there is room to accommodate. The supply and demand model plays out exactly how we would expect it to do so.

    With anything that involves reproducing an original work on to a delivery medium it gets a bit murky. This would include CDs, books, paintings, software and a host of other goods that we have today. What is the value of the end product, the value of the delivery medium or the perceived value of the reproduction based on what people are willing to pay? The supply is technically unlimited, even if its not an electronic delivery you can always press/burn more CDs, but that doesn't mean the value of the work is zero or limited to the cost of the delivery medium.

  • On the post: Music Industry Folks Worried About iTunes Variable Pricing

    Aaron Von Gauss ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2009 @ 12:42pm

    Gizmodo

    Gizmodo misunderstands the market much as the music industry itself does, the supply is definitely not infinite. Yes, its a digital product and thus can be replicated as many times as desired but that does not mean there is an infinite source of new music to be delivered digitally. The supply and demand model doesn't really fit the music industry, but if it were applied the supply is not infinite and the demand is what a consumer is willing to pay to acquire said music - nothing artificial there. If there is not enough consumer demand, as in customers purchasing a product, there will be less supply. What a lot of this is really about is the role and purpose, or not, of the music labels in this era.