B's Opinion Only 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Major Labels Accused Of $6 Billion Worth Of Copyright Infringement In Canada

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2009 @ 03:10pm

    Hopefully this is the last nail in the coffin of a dying business model.

    Bands these days can get bank financing to record an album, at non-loan-shark rates and self-distribute on the Internet and at shows.

  • On the post: How Not To Connect With Fans: Let Them Vote And Then Ignore The Vote

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 01 Sep, 2009 @ 03:13pm

    Manchester came in second because someone else came in first. Oshawa, Ontario got the most votes and won the tour date. Pretty simple.

    Dear NH, coming in second is not winning.

  • On the post: No Truth In Advertising When It Comes To ISP Traffic Shaping In Canada

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2009 @ 03:04pm

    Fiber is the solution

    What we need is for a smart, nimble and innovative company to set up shop and start running fiber into our homes. The New Brunswick government is giving Aliant telecom $60 million to do it, and they say they can wire every home in 2 cities for $857 per home.

    I know that I would happily pay $857 or more to have an unlimited pipe coming into my home, and I would pay for the privilege of using as much real bandwidth as I wanted! Some months I might only use a few gigs, other months I would use hundreds. Just like electricity, water, and gas I would pay for what I use from an unlimited supply.

    I'm curious how many others would pay to free their homes from the clutches of Bell and Rogers. Resident-owned fiber to the home is the solution. Imagine real competition for your telephone, Internet and TV service!

    On another note, when I cancelled my Rogers Internet service last year, they asked why I was canceling and I told them it was completely because of the throttling. They pretended not to know what I was talking about, and their computers didn't have a 'check box' for that, so I made them put a note on my account explaining in detail how displeased I was. Unfortunately I went to Bell, who started throttling soon after I joined, after promising me that they had no plans to ever do so and would never do such a thing.

  • On the post: What's The Guinness World Record For Morons In A Hurry Sending Bogus Takedowns?

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2009 @ 10:53am

    I still don't understand why people continue to accept emails as legal and proper communications from corporate lawyers. Reply with a bounce message. Make them do some actual WORK if they want to be idiots!

    Although I did like failblog's response!

  • On the post: Why Should Webcasters Pay 25% Of Revenue To Promote Musicians?

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2009 @ 07:54pm

    sad. when will they get it?

  • On the post: Radiohead Manager, Nettwerk Launch New Label: Artists Get To Keep Their Copyright

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2009 @ 03:58pm

    Nettwerk gets it. We will be reading about them in textbooks soon.

    In every financial paradigm shift, there is some small potato who sees the future.

    I will support them and buy what they're selling for the simple reason that they are the only folks in the music business who have moved past 1985.

  • On the post: SIIA's Sequel To Don't Copy That Floppy Lies About Criminality Of Copying

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2009 @ 03:53pm

    I really hope this is a joke. Pretty sad if not.

    Hey nerds, are they at least speaking real Klingon?!?

  • On the post: New French Three Strikes Law: Judges Will Get Five Minutes To Rule

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 07 Jul, 2009 @ 08:29am

    It's the "Idiot in a hurry" test enshrined in the courts!

  • On the post: Yet Another Truth Telling Computer… Haven't We Seen This Before?

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2009 @ 08:40am

    Re: One step for innovation, I'd say.

    For several months now Google has allowed you to tell it which search results you like and which ones are irrelevant to you. If you are signed in, every search result has a light grey up arrow and X after the item. Click UP to promote (tell Google you like) a result, or X to remove it. Removing results gives that site much lower ranking in your future searches.

    As far as the Wolfram thing, I found the answers to all of the 'complicated' questions they say their search system can answer by cutting and pasting the questions directly into Google. All but one of the answers were in the Google search results themselves. ONE of the questions required me to click Google's first result and find it on the linked page.

  • On the post: Should Satellite Radio Ditch The Satellites And Go Online Only?

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 13 Feb, 2009 @ 02:19pm

    He's high.

    Satellite radio is all about listening in vehicles. Wireless Internet service is no where near ready for something like this. 3G data plans are so expensive here in Canada that listening to streaming radio while commuting would cost hundreds of dollars per month.

    Perhaps satellite radio needs to adopt the cable TV business model: charge a monthly fee for the pipe, then pay content providers for the channels. Many commenters in the previous satellite radio article had complaints about XM and Sirius playlists. Why not let third party stations compete for satellite radio subscribers?

  • On the post: Was Sirius' Bankruptcy Inevitable?

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 11 Feb, 2009 @ 05:24am

    Re: Iridium

    The "disaster known as Iridium" was a group of very smart investors who built a multi-billion dollar satellite network, declared bankruptcy then bought it back under a new corporation for cents on the dollar. Perhaps it was a disaster for its suppliers and creditors, but someone ended up owning Iridium for 90 to 95% less than it cost to build!

    One problem with Sirius that hasn't been mentioned is that they have made a large number of ridiculous programming changes in the past year, removing popular channels without notice and with no recourse for subscribers. When the XM merger finally went through, Sirius seemed to start choosing music from an entirely different playlist, losing anything 'alternative' or edgy and leaning more towards disco and pop. Annoying DJ's now yammer through our favorite songs, and idiotic 'news' updates interrupt our listening.

    Like many subscribers, I have been renewing my Sirius radio on a month to month basis, just to see how else they were going to screw loyal listeners.

  • On the post: Canadians Getting More Telemarketing Calls After Putting Names On Do Not Call List

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2009 @ 07:50pm

    Re:

    Good points, but do you see that key just above your left side shift key, the one labelled Caps Lock? You might wanna click it just to see what happens.

    If that doesn't work, look for a big circular button and hold it down for a second or two.

  • On the post: Canadians Getting More Telemarketing Calls After Putting Names On Do Not Call List

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2009 @ 03:16pm

    Re: I wonder

    I believe the US list requires you to upload the list YOU already have (if you are a telemarketer), then it is scrubbed of the people on the do-not-call list. If you don't already have my number, the US version isn't going to give it to you.

    If Canada is doing this ANY other way then the CRTC are worse idiots than we thought!

  • On the post: Canadians Getting More Telemarketing Calls After Putting Names On Do Not Call List

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2009 @ 11:31am

    All the government would need to do to stop unwanted telemarketers is to make it illegal to spoof or alter your Caller ID info.

    Set up the system so when someone receives a call with false data, simply hit *whatever and the caller gets sent a nice fine.

    In fact, if the phone company really cared they would automatically block calls from 000000 or 01234567

    Easy and fair.

  • On the post: South Carolina Considers Law That Would Criminalize Profanity In Public Forums

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2009 @ 10:39am

    Damn!

  • On the post: It's Like Bluetooth, But Without All The Pain

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2009 @ 06:29am

    I suspect the technology uses magnetic proximity switches to both sense when a compatible device is close enough and to turn on the radio circuits.

    If it doesn't, it should.

  • On the post: Lame: Apple Charging $0.30 Per Song To Ditch DRM

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2009 @ 06:26am

    There are existing tools to unlock iTunes tracks. Google it if it is worth the trouble for you.

    I think 30 cents is a reasonable price to pay for much higher quality sound.

    No one has mentioned what else this change does for Apple:
    -suddenly everyone's music files are twice as big. An iPod that held 1000 songs now holds 500, giving people more reasons to upgrade their iPods
    -DRM-free music means that the iTunes store is now available for anyone using any recent music player. That opens a huge new market for iTunes.

    As an Apple investor I am happy about this!

  • On the post: Lame: Apple Charging $0.30 Per Song To Ditch DRM

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2009 @ 06:21am

    Re: All or nothing

    Wrong. Nice try.

  • On the post: Record Labels Learning They Have Little Leverage On YouTube

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2008 @ 09:23am

    Re: The Trouble with Hulu

    Jon wrote "How about the music industry demand free advertising space on any YouTube page containing an "illegal" video?"

    Youtube already has something like that. Content owners are allowed to flag illegally uploaded copies of their material on Youtube. Rather than taking it down, they can instead share in Google's ad revenue from those pages. It's a nice simple solution that benefits everyone.

  • On the post: Can You Guilt Someone Into Not Pirating Software?

    B's Opinion Only ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2008 @ 02:51pm

    Re: USB Overdrive X

    USB Overdrive is actually a fantastic little app that lets you assign mouse buttons to do different things in different programs.

    For example Button 5 on my MS Bluetooth mouse opens a link in a new window in Safari and Opera, but changes to the Select tool in Photoshop.

    It works better for assigning mouse functions than MS or Logitech's drivers. This adding value. Thus being worthy of paying for.

    Since they are so cool about registering, I just might pay for my copy now!

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