Brooks 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: More Creative Fiction In Warner Music Royalty Statements

    Brooks ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2009 @ 12:12pm

    Interest

    So the royalty thing is crazy.

    But isn't the obvious answer "interest", if it's an unsecured loan?

  • On the post: The Uselessness Of Amazon's Announcement That Kindle Is Its Best Selling Product

    Brooks ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2009 @ 01:21am

    Yeah!

    And there's a local ice cream place whose number one selling ice cream is this salted-caramel-chocolate blend. But, because other ice cream places also carry vanilla and chocolate but don't carry this unique flavor, clearly this unique flavor isn't all that popular.

    Is it just me, or does this article boil down to "Breaking news: sales of premium products at exclusive outlets not representative of global commodities"?

  • On the post: Murdoch's The Times Accused Of Blatant Copying, Just As It Tells The World You Should Pay For News

    Brooks ( profile ), 20 Nov, 2009 @ 09:42am

    I don't know...

    Unless someone is going to argue that the *policy* of the Times is to copy material without attribution, or that Rupert Murdoch stepped in and did this personally, I think this is kind of a silly argument.

    Companies aren't monolithic and homogeneous. Human and technical errors are made. Whether those are worth getting one's underthings in a bunch over is a maybe open for debate.

    But, even I as think Murdoch's stance on aggregators in general and Google in particular is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard, the fact that some writer somewhere at one of the properties that Murdoch owns violated copyright doesn't really seem at all germane to the conversation.

    It's a nice "gotcha!", but again, unless someone's going to argue that this is Times policy or Murdoch's active hand, it's a "gotcha!" on an anonymous staffer who almost certainly violated company policy and would have ended up in hot water regardless of whether his boss' boss' boss' boss' boss' boss' boss' boss had expressed naive opinions about the content economy. Presenting it as "Murdoch hypocritical on copyright!!!!!11!1!" is a cringeworthy distortion.

    So yawn.

  • On the post: UK Again Says That Mod Chipping Isn't Legal

    Brooks ( profile ), 11 Nov, 2009 @ 11:27pm

    Re: What's ridiculous about banning modded 360s...

    That seemed like a really lengthy way of saying that Microsoft doesn't ban people, it bans specific machines. Which, if the problem is modified machines, makes a lot of sense if you look at it as a protective mechanism for the Xbox Live experience and not as a punitive measure aimed at particular people.

  • On the post: UK Again Says That Mod Chipping Isn't Legal

    Brooks ( profile ), 11 Nov, 2009 @ 11:25pm

    Re: Re: In All Honesty

    No. Microsoft should be able to kick people off of a service if those peoples' systems are configured in a way that makes it possible for them to cheat without detection.

    You're turning the burden of proof around far too much. Yes, people should be able to mod any product they buy. However, that modification unilaterally changes the relationship between purchaser and service provider, and the service provider has a right to withdraw support, especially when the mods in question are universally aimed at cheating the system one way or another. If you're one of the six people who only modded your 360 because you wanted to get experience with surface mount soldering, well, you made a poor decision.

  • On the post: IP Czar Focused On Protecting Jobs, Not Promoting Progress?

    Brooks ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2009 @ 05:48pm

    Re:

    To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.


    Now, can you really, with a straight face, say there's a legitimate interpretation there that says that "progress" means protection jobs from disruption? Not that it's progress of *science* and *arts*, not *industry*.

  • On the post: Bluebeat Claims It Owns Beatles Copyright By Re-recording Songs; Judge Disagrees

    Brooks ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2009 @ 08:36am

    Re: Re:

    Let me get this straight: the argument you're referring to but won't deign to mention because it's too ridiculous is just as ridiculous as another argument that you're willing to mention but that nobody is making. Did I get that right?

  • On the post: Why Kicking Fans Off The Internet Won't Make Them Buy

    Brooks ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2009 @ 12:15pm

    Oh, come on

    Look, I think kicking people off the internet is the stupidest idea since, well, maybe forever. It's not technically feasible, it's bad business, it's counterproductive, and it's an ugly blurring of commerce and government.

    That said, it's a total misrepresentation and straw man to frame the issue as if it were the people who are kicked off the internet are the same "them" who are (supposedly) going to buy more.

    The actual argument is that the deterrent effect will, on the whole, steer more people to buying than "stealing" content. It's the same argument used to justify arresting people who frequent prostitutes: the punishment is about changing social behaviors, not necessarily about impacting future behavior of the few people actually arrested. It's still a ridiculous argument even when framed accurately.

    Let's at least practice a tiny bit of intellectual honesty over here on our side. Economics, human nature, and technology are all with us; there's no reason to use cheap misrepresentations too.

  • On the post: Guy Who Helped Mod Cable Modems Arrested By The FBI

    Brooks ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2009 @ 09:55am

    Yep, too far

    This seems like a pretty clear case of a wrongdoer who one could argue was tiptoeing along a series of fine lines and who should therefore be in the clear. That seems to be what Mike's arguing.

    But you've got a guy operating forums whose express purpose is to facilitate theft of service (very different than copyright non-theft we hear so much about), and who performed and sold hardware modifications expressly designed for theft of service.

    I just don't see how there's any argument for his innocence or indemnity that passes the smell test. Call him an unauthorized reseller (still illegal for utilities), call him a warranty voider and mattress tag remover... he, his customers, and pretty much all of us understand that his intent was not innocent.

    The worst part is, as I've typed this out, I've challenged myself with "how is this different than The Pirate Bay"? And while clearly there are some differences, working out that model has made me a little more (still not very!) sympathetic to the MPAA et al. They see TPB like most of us see this guy: clearly profiting from selling someone else's sweat of the brow (note that I don't buy the SotB argument, but you've gotta understand it to have any of this make any sense at all).

  • On the post: Chicago Tribune Tries An Experiment: Life Without The AP

    Brooks ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2009 @ 08:36am

    Re: Re: Goodbye AP

    Hey, done right, the AP is a wholesale aggregator. There's tons of value there, and a well run company will always be able to make money in that space ("always" in internet time, meaning "at least five years").

    The AP's problem is its foray into retail and its tendency to try to extract more profit than its market will bear.

  • On the post: Is Google Going Better Than Free On Navigation? Will That Set Off Antitrust Alarms?

    Brooks ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2009 @ 08:01pm

    Re: Google Risks More Every Day

    Um, lots of problems there:

    1) Your "as a standalone business..." reasoning has never been applied in an antitrust or anti-dumping case. Might as well say that Walmart couldn't sell at the prices they do if they were a corner grocery. Sure. But so what?

    2) You claim they're dumping services at less than cost. Can you document that? What's their cost? How much do they make from ads on maps? What's the NPV of future ad revenues? It's a huge claim to make and notably unsupported by any actual, you know, facts.

    3) There's nothing wrong, ethically or legally, with "trying to buy a market." New entrants do it all the time. Look at MSI's netbook pricing and how successful that's been. Or McDonalds' gourmet coffee pricing.

    On the whole, you seem to be heading towards an outcome fairness argument; that because the existing GPS players have a different business model and different resources, it's not fair for Google to compete using its own business model and resources. It's just not that strong of an argument to me.

  • On the post: Debunking The Idea Of A Music Tax For The Creation Of New Music

    Brooks ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2009 @ 03:11pm

    I'm for it

    Hey, I am going to create some truly amazing works in the next few years. In fact, not only am I going to write music that will put Bach to shame, I'm also going to reinvent the novel, combine the best parts of Fellini, Spielsberg, and Welles into an entirely new type of film experience, and maybe cure cancer while I'm at it.

    For those reasons, I'd like to propose a modest tax of, oh, $1 per connection per month on all Internet connections, payable directly to me. Oh, you folks are going to be so thrilled with the work I'll do!

  • On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It

    Brooks ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2009 @ 12:24pm

    Re: genus and creativity need to have unique rewards

    Why are his heirs more deserving than the populace as a whole? Society, in the form of copyright laws, guaranteed Fitzgerald a time-limited exclusive right on his work in return for his energy and the risk he took in creating something that might not have been popular.

    Why should we, as a society, give his heirs a perpetual exclusive license for doing *nothing*? What value have they added that gives them any claim to alter the social contract made by Fitzgerald?

  • On the post: AC/DC's Reason To Buy: Get A Box Set Inside A Functioning Guitar Amp

    Brooks ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2009 @ 10:32pm

    Re: I agree with this comment

    Um, yeah. You seem to have hit on the idea that not every musician, and not every AC/DC fan, will buy this. It is, in fact, not going to be a great amp for either practicing or playing gigs. In fact, it's going to be toy quality.

    Think about target markets for a second, and how many of these they need to sell. They're aiming at collectors, and people who have the disposable income to say "hey, that's cool, I want it."

    The idea isn't to sell guitar amps. The idea is to use a relevant and fun gimmick to sell boxed sets and to make some money. If you're looking for the best price/performance combination of guitar amp + AC/DC music, you'd be crazy to even consider this. That's not what this is for.

  • On the post: AC/DC's Reason To Buy: Get A Box Set Inside A Functioning Guitar Amp

    Brooks ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2009 @ 04:23pm

    And then there's Rammstein....

    ...who have a similar approach, but with a somewhat more provocative box set.

    Probably NSFW, unless you work in the porn industry:
    http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/rammstein-to-release-dildo-box/

  • On the post: Chamber Of Commerce Sues Yes Men; Someone Just Gave Protestors A Lot More Attention

    Brooks ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2009 @ 08:15am

    Re: I thought it was real at first

    You seem to be suggesting that satire is (or should be) illegal if anybody believes it.

  • On the post: Chamber Of Commerce Sues Yes Men; Someone Just Gave Protestors A Lot More Attention

    Brooks ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2009 @ 07:56am

    Re:

    So your concern is the CoC being rendered "useless"? Let's look at two scenarios:

    1) They sue Yes Men, generating a ton of press. Every article on CNN, Fox, etc, mentions the organization's climate change denial, the departure of Apple and PG&E, and questions the organization's relevance today. Further, those articles frame the prank as funny and the lawsuit as defensive and bullying.

    2) They do not sue Yes Men, the incident passes into the annals of Internet history, and remains on the fringe of mainstream discourse.

    In which scenario do you think copycat attacks on CoC are more likely? Which scenario pushes CoC closes to uselessness?

    The lawsuit is a knee-jerk move, and the sheer filing of it will backfire. It gets more attention for the problems within CoC, making them harder to fix. It gets more attention to Yes Men, encouraging them to continue. It makes CoC even more controversial, making it more likely additional members will leave rather than participate in a circus.

    And, if EFF wins the case or CoC is forced to withdraw, it's a further PR black eye.

    They're not making an issue out of nothing. They're making a huge strategic PR blunder where there was a minor issue.

    What they should have done: staged a fake Yes Men press conference to apologize and to acknowledge that the prank went to far and was factually inaccurate.

  • On the post: Trying To Explain The Economics Of Abundance In Two Minutes Or Less With A Whiteboard

    Brooks ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2009 @ 05:23pm

    Very cool

    See, I can say nice things. Well done, and a good example of parlaying your expertise into some combination of revenue and greater exposure. This kind of thing is why I've got Techdirt in my RSS reader.

  • On the post: As The FTC Goes After Bloggers, Doctors Making Millions Promoting Drugs With Little Oversight

    Brooks ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2009 @ 12:46pm

    Ugh, redux

    Oh, come on, Mike, please. Last time I pointed out your highly emotional take the FTC blogger regulations, you 1) denied that the regulations apply to Techdirt, and then 2) posted some pretty amusing snark later in the day about how they apply to Techdirt (the whole "got free cable service due to technical glitch a few years ago" thing).

    Do you think it's possible that the FTC, as a fairly large organization, has the resources to look at both blogs and medical studies? Do you think, maybe, it would be entirely different people in the FTC for the two areas?

    It's a complete straw man, and really beneath you, to handwave about how the FTC's (admittedly misguided) blogging regulations are somehow at the expense of properly regulating medical studies and advertising.

    I promise you, at no time did someone at the FTC sit down and say "so, we have to choose between the advertorial issue in blogging and the corruption in medical studies... which will it be?" You're like the guy who complains about getting a speeding ticket when people can get away with crap like Enron. It's not a zero sum resource allocation problem, and each case or action should stand on its own merits, or lack thereof.

    You're hurting Techdirt with this continuing highly emotional and poorly reasoned hyperventilating about the FTC's (stupid, poorly designed) blogging regulations. Please focus on stuff you can be relatively even-handed and intellectually honest about -- you do such fantastic work when you have that distance.

    Sorry to be a downer and a critic; I love Techdirt and the bulk of your work. But this is really getting ridiculous. Though I guess the RIAA guys are probably happy about the new crusade.

  • On the post: Sequoia Accidentally Reveals (Potentially Illegal?) E-Voting Code

    Brooks ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2009 @ 10:59am

    Re: Re: Tech bits

    SQL stored procedures *are* best practices. Think of it this way: you can either bring buckets of data, which can be very large, to the code... or you can bring the code, which is small, to the data.

    In fact, when we say SQL, we're actually talking about two things: DDL and DML. DDL is tables and stuff, DML is logic. this is completely normal and very much the way things are done in many, if not most, databases.

    Another advantage of stored procedures is that they do away with code/schema version problems. There's no danger of an old executable running around that expects different schemas, and if executables interface with a database via stored procedures, DBAs can change the underlying schema (for performance, partitioning, or feature expansion) transparently.

    The main reasons some people don't use stored procedures are that they can be harder to debug, they require knowledge of DML (what people usually call SQL), and low end databases didn't historically support them. However, even MySQL started supporting them in 5.0. Stored procedures are everywhere, they're common, and they are absolutely the best practice in many scenarios.

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