BullJustin 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: PRS's Latest Trick: Demanding Money From Shop Assistant Who Was Singing At Work

    BullJustin ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2009 @ 12:17pm

    Re: Hard to Believe

    Be afraid. Be very afraid.

  • On the post: The Fact That Anyone Can Publish Means More Of The Good Stuff… And Yes, More Of The Bad Stuff

    BullJustin ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2009 @ 12:15pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    All businesses make the highest profit by controlling a bottleneck between the idea and the sale. The internet has shifted the location of these bottlenecks out from under many industries. Most of the major players in these fields are too bloated and entrenched to react quickly and thus are collapsing under their own weight.

    Some of the anger against middlemen is actually just anger that the speaker isn't the middleman, some of it is that the middlemen abused their position and now that it is untenable are trying to legislate their survival rather than adapt, and some of it is the prior pretending to be the former.

  • On the post: Why Ralph Lauren Photoshopped That Model So Skinny… It Thought She Was Fat… At 120 lbs

    BullJustin ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2009 @ 11:22am

    Why don't they just draw a stick figure and photoshop a head and clothes on it?

  • On the post: DRM Doesn't Enable Business Models; Blind Fear Disables Business Models

    BullJustin ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2009 @ 08:34am

    Re: Re: Slightly different take on something

    HD limits what can be done with their product by limiting how much product they put out in the marketplace. They create an artificial scarcity and thereby control the main supply bottleneck.

    Not only was AMF bleeding it dry but they were also having a hard time competing with the likes of Kawasaki, Honda, Yamaha, and even Suzuki. All of these were building higher quality machines at a lower price, and Americans were buying them. Coupled with HD's "breakdown" image, even brand loyalists were leaving. It wasn't until the corporate decision to cut back on the number of units produced and focus on a high quality product that HD regained the brand loyalty. Now they command a premium for the brand (or perceived value) and the quality (or physical value).

  • On the post: DRM Doesn't Enable Business Models; Blind Fear Disables Business Models

    BullJustin ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2009 @ 02:24pm

    Slightly different take on something

    There are no business models that are based solely on limiting behavior.

    Gotta disagree with you here. Any business model where the focus of the product is high quality can and will be successful using a limiting business model. Apple and Harley Davidson have both gotten much larger by creating business models based on restriction. Both companies were languishing in the competitive market until they began to limit what could be done with their product.

    On the other hand, most businesses stop focusing on product quality and begins to focus on product quantity once they find the product's "natural" bottlenecks. When a company is the first one to find the bottleneck, they learn how to exploit it and make money from it. Other companies can try to break in but once one or more companies have established themselves at the impasse, economies of scale take over and prevent further competition.

    This is the natural progression for a business, and it works as long as the business can find and exploit the bottleneck. When an industry is young (or recently disrupted) lots of companies are searching for the bottleneck. Some even manage to make some money along the way. Once that new bottleneck is found then all the young upstarts become entrenched.

    Look at record labels for and example. Originally people bought into the record label business model because it enabled them to get more and varied music at a fraction of the cost of going around the country and finding it yourself. As a young business model this opened new avenues for the consumer.

    Then the record companies realized their biggest money maker was the distribution of music, not the music itself. It stopped finding good musicians and began to find marketable musicians. It slowly contracted the flow of music from the anything goes kind of recording studios you found around the US in the early 20th century to the few major labels we have today.

    Now the internet has disrupted their very successful "restriction of music availability" based business model. Many people are scrambling, looking for the next bottleneck where they can focus their energies. Even the innovative models of today will become the big, lethargic, slow-movers of tomorrow as long as they focus solely on quantity and not quality.

    But hey, quantity is where the money is.

  • On the post: Lily Allen Distributing Tons Of Copyrighted Music; Blows Way Past Three Strikes

    BullJustin ( profile ), 23 Sep, 2009 @ 02:51pm

    Cease and Decist

    Where's the C&D letter when you want it?

  • On the post: The Difference Between Reporting And Discussion

    BullJustin ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2009 @ 09:19am

    Re: Re: Kind of meta complaint

    Interesting. How so? I tend to avoid "questions" since it often feels like begging for comments, and I never thought that was polite.

    Welcome to Coffee Talk. Mike's a little veklempt. Talk amongst yourselves, I'll give you a topic. "The Issue at Hand" is neither Topic A nor Topic B. Discuss.

    Maybe you could better elucidate which topics you want discussion on and guide the conversation in your comments better. Maybe even add some notifier for either off-topic or "Mikey Likes It" comments.

  • On the post: Pirate Bay Appeal To Be Heard By Judge Tied To Copyright Group As Well

    BullJustin ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2009 @ 01:18pm

    Fairness

    It's not about fairness, it never has been, and it never will. It's about money.

  • On the post: How Not To Do Things: Redskins Suing Over 100 Fans

    BullJustin ( profile ), 04 Sep, 2009 @ 10:17am

    Also the highest money earning team

    The Cowboys come in second behind the Redskins in annual gross revenue, even with the new 100,000 seat stadium. And yet, that is not enough for them. Truly sad, but the worst part is that they will still sell out every game in spite of these actions.

  • On the post: Digiprotect Admits It Shares Files Just To Find People To Demand Settlement Money From

    BullJustin ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2009 @ 03:03pm

    DigiProtection Money

    It's a DigiRacket

  • On the post: It's Not The 'Good Enough' Revolution; It's Recognizing What The Consumer Really Wants

    BullJustin ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2009 @ 11:08am

    Re:

    Don't forget the "pleasure" of mucking stalls, every day. The time it takes to care for horses, or any livestock, is immense.

  • On the post: Swedish Court Get The Pirate Bay Taken Down

    BullJustin ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2009 @ 12:06pm

    Re: Re: Re: Three hours later

    No, stuck behind a firewall and can't change many settings. Yeah Corporate Lockdown!!

  • On the post: Swedish Court Get The Pirate Bay Taken Down

    BullJustin ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2009 @ 11:33am

    Re: Three hours later

    Not entirely. GCI in Alaska is blocking traffic by bouncing requests back and forth between 2 IP addresses (101 and 102 are the last octet). Try doing a tracert on thepiratebay.org and see what you get.

  • On the post: Serial Anti-Spam Lawsuit Filer Loses Appeal… And His Possessions

    BullJustin ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2009 @ 11:04am

    Re: Mmmm

    It's anti-spam cereal, so northern cuisine

  • On the post: Outed Blogger Plans To Sue Google; Skank Model Mess Gets Messier

    BullJustin ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2009 @ 09:47am

    Re: Re:

    Actually, Port is pretty easy on the eyes.

  • On the post: Outed Blogger Plans To Sue Google; Skank Model Mess Gets Messier

    BullJustin ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2009 @ 09:23am

    Re: Aaaaaaand now...

    That would require people to be both observant and willing to learn from pother's mistakes.

  • On the post: Music Publishers Force Lyrics API Offline; How Dare Anyone Make Lyrics Useful

    BullJustin ( profile ), 21 Aug, 2009 @ 11:55am

    There's a bathroom on the right

    Excuse me while I kiss this guy
    I just bought a waterbed filled up with up with Elmer's Glue
    The girl with colitis goes by

    Okay, the waterbed is a purposeful reimagination of the lyrics by serious fans, but the others are all commonly misheard. While AC almost has a point, the lyrics are half of what connects a band to its fans. The better they can sing along, especially when they know there's a bad moon on the rise keeps them from feeling like an idiot for singing the wrong words at the top of their lungs.

  • On the post: Making Magazines Worth Buying: Magazines That Play Video

    BullJustin ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2009 @ 04:47pm

    Recycling?

    Which bin do I put that in?

  • On the post: Who's Easier To Intimidate: A Newspaper In Need Of Advertising… Or A Group Of Concerned Citizens?

    BullJustin ( profile ), 19 Aug, 2009 @ 04:13pm

    Gombossy's explanation

    So I read the explanation Mr Gombossy presents over his termination and the events leading up to it. He wrote a column where he investigated companies that people complained about. He had at least one column held back from publication because the subject of his investigation was a key advertiser. He wrote another one that also targeted a key advertiser and the editors gave him the boot.

    Gombossy was born in Hungary and lived under communist rule until he escaped in 1956. He worked at the Hartford Courant for 40 years, the last three writing a watchdog column. Over the three years he wrote he had over 8000 complaints. He knows the industry and understands the heart of the problem with the modern newspaper business.

    Advertisers don’t take out ads because they like the columnists or reporters. They take out ads based on a newspaper’s circulation, which is based on its credibility. The less credibility a newspaper has, the less readers it should have. And if that happens everyone will suffer consequences beyond our ability to now measure.
    Geroge Gombossy
    President
    Ctwatchdog.com

  • On the post: University Offers New Grade For Cheating Students: FD

    BullJustin ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2009 @ 09:57am

    Tuition

    The school has fixed costs (professor salaries, utilities, maintenance, etc.) that must be paid. Most colleges and universities have smaller upper classes as people drop out/are forced out. If they can keep a cheater paying tuition until he's a senior, it doesn't cost the school any more money but they can extract much more tuition from the cheating student.

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