Brent Ashley 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (114) comment rss

  • On the post: Pizza Shop Sues Former Employee For 'Stealing' Recipe

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2010 @ 10:03am

    competing from 20 miles away?

    Unless it's a rural setting, 20 miles is a bit far to be claiming that a pizza place is in direct competition. In even the smallest of cities there would be at minimum 10 or 15 other pizza joints much closer than that.

  • On the post: Newspaper Gets Around Photography Ban At Football Event With Cartoon Illustrations

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 10 Aug, 2010 @ 07:22am

    Market forces

    I don't see why the press doesn't just stop reporting on these teams altogether, and see what the fans and team decide to do about it. The press would have to express to their audience that the teams precipitated this action and entreat upon them to complain to the team if they wanted to see them back in the press, but that they would respect the team's wishes to not be reported on in any meaningful way. After the shitstorm died down, I think some sense would reign.

  • On the post: Snoop Dogg Sued By Famed Jazz Artist For Sampling

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2010 @ 06:26pm

    paying attention.

    Sorry, don't mean to include everyone in my rant there. There has been some illuminating discussion, notably I found Eugene and Scott's interaction to be optimistic about seeking better understanding and finding balance.

  • On the post: Snoop Dogg Sued By Famed Jazz Artist For Sampling

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2010 @ 06:12pm

    paying attention.

    "As with many anti-sampling people, you assume that this is all that happens."

    Hello, MacFly?!?! Are you even reading the same thread?

    I'm not anti-sampling. I've iterated and reiterated that I fully recognize the innovation in making something creative from samples, despite the many extant examples of sampling done with marginal transformation or added value.

    What I've been trying to do is expand the conversation to fill the chasm of reality that seems lost in such discussions and lies between the diametrically opposed entrenched positions of "sampling-good" and "sampling-bad".

    Copyright is in a ridiculous state. The complete 1950's rock and roll and doo-wop eras can be reduced to a handful of riffs. The entire 12-bar Blues world would come to an end (or perhaps never have begun) if copyright were to be taken to the extremes advocated by some.

    The haute-couture fashion industry survives quite well in the dog-eat-dog mix-and-copy market economy despite the counterfeiting and edge cases. They take the hit and move on, knowing that freshness and authority is their currency. We could learn something from it if we cared to open our minds.

    The conversations necessary to solve it aren't happening though, because any time a cogent thought is expressed, it's drowned out by dismissive polemic.

    Yes, I know I'm being subjective. No, I do not need it pointed out that my opinion is not likely 100% correct, I work on the assumption that I'm very likely somewhere between 13% and 87% correct and that I'm open to have my position shifted within that vast apparently unoccupied space between 100% in one direction and 100% in the other direction.

  • On the post: Snoop Dogg Sued By Famed Jazz Artist For Sampling

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2010 @ 12:08pm

    Re:

    Hi Mike;

    No, I'm not saying thru-you requires no innovation. It requires tons of innovation. I had hoped I was being clear that the composition of things is innovation. My personal opinion as to the relative merit of different art forms, while expressed in my original reply, is not my central point.

    What I am trying to explore is that the creators of the original works that are remixed into this work, having had their performance included in it, might be said to be performers in the context of the new work in a way that is not true where a new work is created from entirely newly performed material.

    There is an ownership of the original work which includes the performer, the composer, the producer and others. One of the established outcomes of this is that somewhere between one and all of those participants are entitled to credit and possibly compensation when their work is reused.

    Any new mixed work contains innovation by the original participants, and innovation by the new participants. The remixer, whose role may include any or all of composition, production and artistic performance, is now one of a number of players involved.

    Back to the Jazz representation of an existing work, when a musician reinterprets the music, whether or not he/she makes it sound exactly the same, the contribution by the previous performer and producer are not directly included in the new work. I agree that there is moral value in positing that George Martin's production or Ravi Shankar's accompaniment on a recording materially influences subsequent interpretations, but their involvement is no longer in the DNA of the output, and any legal interpretations will take note of that.

    Sure, I'm being pedantic, but I'm hoping a dispassionate dissection of the issues can lead to some clarity.

    Perhaps the notion of a traceable genealogical thread from one work to another could be an analogy that helps to separate out what credit people get from derivative works, sampled or unsampled.

  • On the post: Snoop Dogg Sued By Famed Jazz Artist For Sampling

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2010 @ 09:12am

    It's not patently false. Taking an exact copy of something requires no innovation. I pointed out in the next sentence that the lack of innovation in taking an exact copy of something is orthogonal to the innovation which I recognize is required to then mix that copy with something else. I agree that the mixing takes innovation but it doesn't detract from the fact that the mix contains someone else's copied original content. By orthogonal I mean that the one fact has no impact on the veracity of the other fact.

    Based on your misunderstanding of my statement, your subsequent paragraph is moot in that we don't disagree on the point that creating a new work from original and/or copied sources requires innovation.

    I'm not arguing the current legality of it, I'm pointing out the difference between innovation and copying. I'm fully aware of fair use, I'm just trying to show how the comparison of the Jazz culture of reusing music to the sampling culture is inexact enough that it cannot be a useful analogy to support legal arguments.

  • On the post: Snoop Dogg Sued By Famed Jazz Artist For Sampling

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 08 Jul, 2010 @ 08:16am

    Sampling is direct copying and requires no innovation. The innovation in mixing it with other sounds is orthogonal to the undisputed source of the copied sample.

    Playing your own interpretation of someone else's music is innovation. Even playing it in exactly the same style takes some talent and personal effort and is closer to a hand-drawn facsimile than a direct copy.

    Referencing another's music in Jazz usually results in a finely tailored pastiche worthy of its own accord, whereas in my experience a preponderance of the current sample-based popular fare is a cut-and-paste hodgepodge, resembling a ransom note more than a patchwork quilt.

  • On the post: Apple Needs To Offer More, Less Porn, Depending Who You Ask

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2010 @ 12:18pm

    Enablers

    "All of these applications are free -- and available to children."

    That is, available to children whose parents bought them an iphone with a voice and data plan, or at least an expensive iPod Touch, and supplied them with an app store password.

  • On the post: Bogus Copyright Claim Silences Yet Another Larry Lessig YouTube Presentation

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2010 @ 05:44am

    Intended consequences

    With the leaked ACTA negotiations, it's becoming increasingly apparent that consequences like these can't easily be labeled unintended. I'm just not sure what the goal is beyond control and subordination.

  • On the post: Apple Trying To Patent Anti-Tamper Tape

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2009 @ 05:21pm

    Schrodinger's tape?

    Surely before you open it, the tape can only possibly be described as simultaneously tampered with and not tampered with. Thus by installing such tape, Apple is guaranteed to have the option to honour the warranty or not as they see fit.

    A cunning plan, worthy of Baldrick himself.

  • On the post: What Does It Say When A Comedy Show Does More Fact Checking Than News Programs?

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 19 Nov, 2009 @ 06:39pm

    Jesters through the ages

    Jon Stewart and his crew pull it off brilliantly. I'm surprised though how many people seem to think this is some novel approach.

    There has been a centuries-long tradition in the role of the court jester to speak the truth where it might otherwise never be spoken, and to shine the light of reason and insight by way of parody and mockery.

    For instance, Shakespeare's King Lear had just such a fool, his wisest and most truthful advisor.

  • On the post: Will .jobs Domain Yank The Business Model Out From Online Job Boards?

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2005 @ 02:06pm

    jobs tld

    surely ICANN should know better than anyone that the heirarchy goes in the other frickin direction.

    jobs.mycompany.com or www.mycompany.com/jobs is a much better use of DNS space than managing a whole new tld to support www.mycompany.jobs and doesn't have the issue of policing cybersquatting on the entire new tld.

    what the hell are they thinking?

  • On the post: Urban Legend Email Effective At Driving Do Not Call Registrations

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 10 Dec, 2004 @ 05:31am

    number portability

    What about number portability? How do the telemarketers know when you start using a number on your cell that used to belong to a land line? Is there a way to know definitively that a number is a cell phone before calling it?

  • On the post: The Price Of Free WiFi? Stringent Filters?

    Brent Ashley ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2004 @ 08:57am

    making Wifi secure and flexible

    I wrote recently about how I use ssh and a proxy under my control to provide myself with secure web access with no restrictions from any wifi site.
    http://www.ashleyit.com/blogs/brentashley/archives/2004_06.html