bshock’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: Dear Newspapers: Time To Focus On Enabling The Community; Not Limiting It

bshock ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2009 @ 09:25am

Okay, so from the viewpoint of the newspaper, what's the difference if 95% of its commenters are morons?

If the point is to create a "community," isn't the fact of the community more important than its content?

I suspect that newspapers tend to downplay the importance of community for the same reason some of the commenters here are complaining about the nature of communities: lack of control.

It's scary, I guess. If you can't control it, you feel like it has no value for you.

But your feelings may be leading you astray. Look at YouTube comments. Everyone hates them. They're unpleasant, extreme, and often unreadable. But people continue to use the comments. Maybe it makes people feel like they're part of YouTube. Maybe it just gives them a chance to vent. But YouTube is much healthier for the input.

On the post: The Cognitive Mismatch Between Newspaper Execs And Newspaper Readers

bshock ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2009 @ 08:58am

Re: Types of news also

Interesting examples.

This makes me think that people wouldn't so much pay for "news" as they would for specific data.

Indeed, people will pay for sports scores or financial information. I myself even have a subscription to the New York Times crossword puzzle. Perhaps what these things have in common is that we know exactly what we are getting before we pay for it.

"News," on the other hand, is a vague and unreliable concept. On some days, the news is exciting and interesting, but on most days it's dull or practically nonexistent. I don't particularly want to pay for the days where there isn't anything interesting. You could try offering teaser headlines of stories for sale, but I suspect most people just read the headlines anyway.

When we pay for data in newspapers, we're buying the scarce quantity of convenience for something that's clearly necessary or clearly desirable. Everything else is a pig in a poke.

On the post: Diebold Finally Dumps E-Voting Division… But Sells It To Equally Problematic ES&S

bshock ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2009 @ 08:27am

I found the "idiots" comment from the apparent ES&S employee to be deeply troubling. (I hadn't noticed it

"Confidence tricksters" got that name because their schemes asked people to trust them. To me, this ES&S employee was insisting that we had to trust ES&S, but he was being very defensive about it. While it's dangerous to try to guess emotion from a forum post, I wonder if that wording was a sign of fear.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, you idiots!"

On the post: A Hunger Strike Isn't A New Business Model And It Won't Stop File Sharing

bshock ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2009 @ 10:21am

I think a hunger strike to protest file-sharing is a very good idea. In fact, I'd like to see everyone angry about file-sharing start a hunger strike. And if file-sharing doesn't stop, I'd like to see these people follow their hunger strikes to the logical conclusion.

On the post: Myth Debunking: Fans Just Want Everything For Free

bshock ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2009 @ 10:05am

they always miss a basic points

If someone doesn't want to pay you for something, he's not your customer.

If you've got something that an infinite number of people can take without paying, that's not your product.

If you're suing people in order to make money, you're not a business.

On the post: What If The AP Focused On Providing Business Services Instead Of Content To Newspapers?

bshock ( profile ), 05 Aug, 2009 @ 09:14am

Lately I've been wondering if the only thing keeping AP alive is that fact that people keep talking about it.

Isn't it about time for the wake to end? That body is getting a bit ripe.

On the post: Why Segway Failed To Reshape The World: Focused On Invention, Rather Than Innovation

bshock ( profile ), 01 Aug, 2009 @ 12:02pm

Just adding to the chorus

In software terms, we would say that the Segway didn't really have a use case. Kamen would've been better off getting requirements from users (asked or observed), and then designing something that fit these requirements.

But that's just another way of stating what has already been said.

On the post: Were We Smarter About Copyright Laws 100 Years Ago?

bshock ( profile ), 21 Jul, 2009 @ 09:22am

not far enough

I think we were smarter still about copyright laws 1,000 years ago, before they actually existed.

Copyright demonstrably stifles creativity by (a) allowing wealthy, successful artists to rest on their laurels, and (b) preventing lesser-known artists from creating derivative works.

On the post: If You're Taking Away Features From Users, Don't Tell Them It's For Their Own Benefit

bshock ( profile ), 30 Jun, 2009 @ 11:34am

sure, it's maddening, but that's the way it works

Radical advocates of Capitalism never seem to admit that their system depends on (among other things) accurate information flow.

If Company X sells shoes that cause corns and Company Y sells shoes that don't, Company Y should outsell Company X and emerge as a winner in the marketplace. But that can only occur if consumers know the benefits of buying from Company Y.

These days, just about every major company has realized the benefits of controlling -- or at least muddying -- information flow.

Company X starts with a blank claim that its shoes are the best of the market. If word-of-mouth trends towards the idea that Company X shoes cause corns, Company X has endless responses, none of them true:

-- There is no scientific proof that Company X shoes cause corns. See the independent studies (that we paid for) which confirm this assertion?
-- Corns? This is a lie told by the Liberal Media.
-- Company Y's shoes actually cause corns, or worse.
-- Even if Company X shoes cause corns, we have indendent studies (again, that we paid for) showing that corns are beneficial.

And so on. Company X merely needs a sufficiently large, compliant tap into the media and an ongoing, aggressive spin campaign. If they keep up the disinformation long enough and in sufficient quantity, public opinion may very well end up supporting them.

So of course companies are going to crap on your shoes and call it "Shinola." They've got a very good chance of making you buy it.

And even if you don't, there's always your children, who believe anything they see on tv.

On the post: Would King Lear Ever Have Been Written If Copyright Law Existed?

bshock ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 09:19am

it's clear to everyone but the accountants

Creativity == copyright infringement

On the post: How The Recording Industry Changes Its Own Story

bshock ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2009 @ 08:28am

it's overly simplistic thinking, but...

I wonder if forcing radio stations to pay royalties for music would discourage radio stations from playing music at all, perhaps in favor of something cheaper, like talk shows.

We all know how successful AM radio talk shows have become, and what less-than-wonderful things they may be doing to political discourse in the US. When I hear the Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys and their petty imitators openly call for violence against various groups and individuals, I worry. Let's stick with music on the radio.

On the post: Entertainment Industry Still Insisting That Gov't Protectionism Is The Only Way To Compete

bshock ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2009 @ 08:19am

consumers are fascists?

"In this parallel universe, consumer rights have acquired the status of a fascistic mantra. What the consumer wants, the consumer gets, even if he does not want to pay for it."

Apparently Mr. Garrett belongs to the Jonah Goldberg school of thought (or lack thereof), where whatever we don't like is reflexively labeled "fascist."

In a very general way, fascism would be the needs of the few outweighing the needs of the many. In Mr. Garrett's world, fascism has mutated into the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. Funny -- where I come from, giving consumers what they want is called "capitalism," and in the correct doses it's quite a good thing at all.

On the post: Another Day, Another Bizarre Twist In The Pirate Bay Case

bshock ( profile ), 27 May, 2009 @ 08:47am

Re: Re: The more stuff they pull

Apparently it's also easy to look like the good guys when the other side is corrupt.

On the post: Person In Charge Of Determining If Pirate Bay Judge Is Biased… May Be Biased

bshock ( profile ), 20 May, 2009 @ 02:12pm

surprised that no one had done a simple search?

Lack of research doesn't seem all that surprising to me, at least in this case. As I recall from the Pirate Bay trial, the prosecution apparently hadn't done sufficient basic research on the nature of BitTorrent or the Pirate Bay system itself.

I suspect that Internet denizens have different -- hopefully better -- standards on what constitutes research.

As a middle-aged person, occasionally I still find myself following stupid old patterns for obtaining information. For most of my life, there was no Web, no Google, no Wikipedia, etc. All we could do was slog to the library and make phone calls, and half the time these approaches were fruitless.

While I've mostly trained myself to Google a question of fact before going off like a half-cocked idiot, I suspect that not everyone my age or older has been quite so fortunate.

On the post: Would You Rather Renegotiate Your Contracts… Or See Your Business Collapse?

bshock ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2009 @ 08:49am

honestly, why should we care?

Hollywood movie studios produce mindless garbage. If they can't adapt to the changing market, forget about them. What's there to lose?

Let the dinosaurs die. There are plenty of mammals waiting to step up.

On the post: Why Does The Movie Industry Shut Down Fansub Sites?

bshock ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2009 @ 08:30am

uh oh

I learned Japanese so that I could watch Japanese films without subtitles. Does mean my brain is infringing? What if they try to shut down my brain?

On the post: Authors Guild Continues To Falsely Claim That Reading Aloud On A Kindle Violates Audio Rights

bshock ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2009 @ 09:28am

Sometimes the main point is less important

Okay, so the main point in this discussion is that the Authors' Guild is fabricating copyright law in order to make its public complaints. Fine. I agree that this is stupid, illogical, and generally wrong.

But an underlying point is far more important: copyright law is based on a fundamental misunderstanding, and so its very existence is inherently flawed. Granting a temporary monopoly to artists has not been shown to increase or improve available art in the current era (where leisure time for creating art is abundant, as opposed to previous eras where leisure time for creating art was rare).

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The current discussion sounds like everyone has assumed that you can, and is busy arguing about what the stitching should look like.

Then too, there's the much narrower underlying point that invoking the name "Kindle" is promoting and prolongin a ridiculously bad product that needs to take its place on the dustbin of history as soon as possible.

A dedicated electronic text reader would be a marginal product at best. The only thing the Kindle might do better than an ordinary book is redirect a little money to Amazon and its tin-horn Kindle cartel. That's hardly a market-driving innovation.

However, I own thousands of text files (PDFs, CHMs, DOCs, TXTs, etc.) that I might want to read on such a device. Sometimes I want to read on a plane, sitting around in public, or on the toilet, and bringing a laptop to read my files would be cumbersome, and potentially expensive in terms of loss or breakage.

The current version of the Kindle is effectively useless for these purposes. First, it actively discourages you from using your own files. (Though it can be done, with some time and effort.) Second, it is ridiculously expensive. ($399)

This argument about the Authors' Guild is only serving to advertise a piece of technological garbage, and slow the pace at which the marketplace supplies something I can actually use, goddamnit.

On the post: Will The Supreme Court Give Steinbeck's Heirs Back The Rights To Some Of His Works?

bshock ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2009 @ 09:12am

Irony?

I suspect that Steinbeck would find this legal action ridiculous at best, and disgusting on average.

I recall in his autobiographical "Travels with Charlie," he wrote something about how he wasn't terribly concerned about his descendants' futures, with the implication being that they needed to get by on their own.

On the post: NY Times Buys Bogus Movie Industry Complaints About Piracy

bshock ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2009 @ 08:50am

if only...

I wish I could grant the studios' wish about fighting "piracy." I wish I were smart enough to create perfect DRM (or possibly magical enough, since this seems to be a logical impossibility) that locked down studio content to just those individuals who paid.

File-sharing spreads studio crap and supports studios. Giving them the restriction system they want would destroy them.

Any ideas on how to get these moths to their beloved flame?

On the post: Some Thoughts On Saving The Economy

bshock ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2009 @ 08:52am

Bread & Circuses?

Who would've thought the cliched "Bread and Circuses" that threaten to destroy democracy would come from our thrifty, efficient Corporate citizens, rather than the venal, worthless masses?

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