chris 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Pro-IP Blogger Feels Raising The Level Of Debate Means Locking Up Your Comments And Throwing Around The Word 'Freetard'

    chris ( profile ), 13 Jul, 2011 @ 12:34pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Speaking of free lunches, why is healthcare free under this administration but culture isn't?

    this administration was brought to you in party by hollywood, so IP is a huge deal. the last one was brought to you in part by AT&T, so net neutrality was a huge deal.

    in 2013 the huge deal will be either IP or net neutrality, depending on who wins.

  • On the post: Feds Respond To Rojadirecta's Challenge To Domain Seizures: If We Give It Back, They'll Infringe Again

    chris ( profile ), 13 Jul, 2011 @ 08:35am

    Re:

    Name a law that has been passed at the federal level in the past 50 years that hasn't been.

    try the last 100 years. read about woodrow wilson and franklin roosevelt and their approaches to executive power.

    The federal government was not constituted to do the majority of the things it does.

    you're talking about "the american tradition" which our government doesn't really do anymore. at least not since the invention of the independent agency in 1887 with the Interstate Commerce Commission. the american people still believe in the american tradition.

    this is why government types and lawyers sound so strange when they talk.

    But by and large, the fed, over time, just gathers more and more powers to itself regardless of what the constitution says.

    it's been that way for at least 80 years, and if you started today, it would take at least 80 to undo it.

  • On the post: Culture is Anti-Rivalrous

    chris ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2011 @ 02:43pm

    Re: Re: Re: Secrets lose their value...

    I get that power and value are much alike. But the fact is, the value to the population increases in both your example and mine with the distribution of the ideas.

    what you seem to be missing is that power and value are also very different.

    value is determined by marginal benefit: how much benefit to how many people? power is determined by control: how much control do you have over how many people?

    the people that you have power over will derive value from the sharing of the secret (benefit*people). that value may exceed the marginal value that the secret itself held for you (control*people)-(costs). however, regardless of the overall benefit, 100% of the power that secret gives you (or has over you) be lost once the secret is shared.

    power has nothing to do with benefit and everything to do with maintaining control.

    sharing an idea means giving up a lot of control over that idea. a lot of people are willing to sacrifice a lot of benefit to maintain a small amount of control over their ideas because they believe (mistakenly, in my opinion) that they can use that control to gain additional benefit.

  • On the post: You Don't Own What You Thought You Bought: Verizon Breaks Phones; Turns Off Feature

    chris ( profile ), 12 Jul, 2011 @ 11:42am

    Re: Re: Break the Contract!?

    Then get users to start reporting Verizon to the BBB, Stop buying their crap and Cancel your contract for breach on their part.

    i haven't been to the BBB website in a long time, but when i did, all of the mobile carriers were already badly scored there.

  • On the post: Why PROTECT IP Will Fail: Cultural Acceptance, Not Fear Of Punishment, Makes People Abide By Laws

    chris ( profile ), 11 Jul, 2011 @ 11:44am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Making People Hate You Is A Lousy Business Model

    Yeah, I was thinking about the penis waving as well. I want to know where I can line up to wave mine at the record and movie execs.

    i do a fair amount of waving here: http://thepiratebay.org

  • On the post: Apparently 'Hacked Sony PS3 & Got Sued For It' Looks Good On The Resume

    chris ( profile ), 29 Jun, 2011 @ 11:39am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Of all the people here whose definitions of hackers are lacking, you made my eyes twitch the least.

    the only thing that definition lacks is a date. AC's definition is a fairly modern definition of a hacker, specifically a hardware hacker or a reverse engineer. in 1980 it would be a passable definition of a fone phreak if you replaced all of the stuff about toasters with phones.

    the definition from the jargon file is a great broad definition of hacking or a circa 1985 definition of the academic unix hacker.

    what is missing from both definitions is the granularity that exists in hacking. the many facets of subject matter, intent, ethics, and approach can radically change the definition of hacking.

    for example, hacking a toaster into a death ray in a controlled environment and disclosing your findings in order to make toasting safer for the general public is very different from secretly hacking a toaster into a death ray because you are fulfilling a contract hit. i would argue that the latter better qualifies as criminality or terrorism than hacking.

  • On the post: Apparently 'Hacked Sony PS3 & Got Sued For It' Looks Good On The Resume

    chris ( profile ), 29 Jun, 2011 @ 08:26am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Some of the people who did that used their expertise to gain unauthorised entry into systems

    one of the main themes in the hacker ethic has always been universal access. this used to be a huge deal when computers were super rare and super expensive.

    the advent of [relatively] cheap PCs and [relatively] easy to find internet access has mostly eliminated the need for unauthorized access, but that wasn't always the case.

    in those dark days, all learning on a computer that wasn't part of a university, business, or government program was basically unauthorized because only universities, businesses, and the government had computers. back then there were no whitehats.

    this quest for computer time is why the media uses the word hacker to mean trespasser or criminal.

  • On the post: Why Propping Up Old Business Models Is Bad For The Economy And Bad For Innovation

    chris ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2011 @ 09:30am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    So the laws that discriminate against women in some countries are never wrong?

    indeed. laws also never change. that's why women can't vote and we still have slavery.

  • On the post: Entitlement? Spoiled Brats? Or Just Progress?

    chris ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2011 @ 10:04am

    Re: Re: Re:

    .well I hate skype, Hulu and barely frequent YouTube for the bad quality. If I want to watch TV I watch...TV, not my computer, and not the tiny little screen on my son-in-laws smart phone. Who does that?

    hopefully you and the rest of the baby boomers are dead before newspapers and broadcast television are extinct.

    in the mean time, could you let the rest of us get on with our lives instead of keeping everything trapped in 1990?

  • On the post: Copyright Czar Agrees That The Gov't Should Let Business Models Decide Winners, Rather Than Legislation

    chris ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2011 @ 09:51am

    Re: Rather than seeing the pendulum swing back

    I would like to have seen the pro-IP forces push things so ridiculously far that things snap back to normal with no chance of ever going back to how they presently are and are headed.

    that may work in other places, but in america we dearly love our perpetual "lash out -> backlash -> counter backlash" cycles.

  • On the post: Entitlement? Spoiled Brats? Or Just Progress?

    chris ( profile ), 08 Jun, 2011 @ 12:06pm

    Re: stupid circular arguments

    Why does the internet make this whole discussion new?

    It has ALWAYS been a question of striking the right balance of ad-copy vs. fee for subscription. What's new about the internet?

    uh, the difference is that the internet is ON THE INTERNET!

    the radio problem was different, it wasn't ON THE INTERNET!

    the cassette recorder was different, it wasn't ON THE INTERNET!

  • On the post: Entitlement? Spoiled Brats? Or Just Progress?

    chris ( profile ), 08 Jun, 2011 @ 12:01pm

    Re: Re:

    it ignores the reality of what goes into publishing a book, or anything else for that matter... So, the reality is that the cost of books or CDs in retail outlets never really had anything to do with manufacturing costs... So from that perspective, I think it makes sense that digital books cost only a few dollars less than a physical copy.

    i disagree. distribution and promotion were offered at a significant markup in order to subsidize creation. distribution and promotion are now free. it's time to find subsidy elsewhere, or learn to live without it.

    the problem is that no creative type wants to come out and say "i need x hundred/thousand/million dollars to be able to create in the manner to which i have become accustomed."

    i would imagine that it's the "manner to which i have become accustomed" part that makes creatives uncomfortable. in the past this was cleverly diluted by middlemen. those middlemen are now obsolete.

    maybe it's time to be honest about what all goes into publishing something.

  • On the post: More People Realizing That Infringement Can't Be Stopped, So Learn To Embrace It

    chris ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2011 @ 06:35am

    Re: Re: Study by Harvard Professors show piracy losses over stated

    The study is also covering a period from 2003 to 2009, yet anyone versed in the internet will know that the last 2 or 3 years have been significant for file sharing

    not much has changed in the last 10 years. pirates keep pirating, and hollywood keeps pissing and moaning about it:

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8560118020709409855&hl=en#

    and yet they're still here, still losing "billions" every year. funny how piracy has been killing them for 10 years and they're still alive.

  • On the post: More People Realizing That Infringement Can't Be Stopped, So Learn To Embrace It

    chris ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2011 @ 06:26am

    Re:

    But the online versions at the US release dates are generally not as good as what you pay for.

    i totally agree. but a 700mb dvd rip is good enough, and screeners and r5's are usually available a couple of months ahead of DVD/blue ray release.

    that's a big part of hollywood's problem, they are still making the same product they made 20 years ago, when they should be looking at the reality of the market and adjusting their products accordingly.

  • On the post: NATO Threatens Anonymous; Kicks Off Weekend-Long Hackathon

    chris ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2011 @ 06:14am

    Re: Re:

    An internet hat company? Now I've heard everything!

    i think he's talking about mann co. i get all my internet hats from mann co.

    http://www.teamfortress.com/mannconomy/

  • On the post: Is Google A 'Rogue' Website?

    chris ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2011 @ 07:44am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Real innovation wouldn't need to infringe to do this.

    cable TV did infringe. the cassette recorder did infringe. the VCR did infringe. the phonograph did infringe. radio did infringe. Tivo, MP3, photocopiers, all infringed.

    something new infriges at first, and then hollywood cuts some sort of licensing deal. that has been the history of media innovation for a hundred years... up until a decade ago.

  • On the post: RIAA Wants To Put People In Jail For Sharing Their Music Subscription Login With Friends

    chris ( profile ), 02 Jun, 2011 @ 10:20am

    stallman warned us about this

    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

    and it slowly comes to fruition.

  • On the post: Is Google A 'Rogue' Website?

    chris ( profile ), 02 Jun, 2011 @ 10:10am

    Re: The problem with idiotic laws

    There's one site that I know of that has non-infringing value that I guarantee will have an AC arguing that it's the vary definition of a rogue site. The Pirate Bay.

    uh, google is publicly traded company based in california, and the pirate bay has a pirate ship for a logo.

    your argument is obviously invalid.

  • On the post: Is Google A 'Rogue' Website?

    chris ( profile ), 02 Jun, 2011 @ 10:08am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Couldn't the same technology be developed, but just play by the rules?

    play by rules that are bought and paid for by legacy industries that don't want to be displaced by new technologies?

    see the problem? it's called "the pirate's dilemma" which basically boils down to "sure this thing is illegal at this moment in time, but the efficiencies it creates will create a lot more for the industry in the long run."

    this was the case with cable tv, radio, the cassette recorder, the photocopier, tivo, the mp3, etc. and it will be the case with the next new technology that does what all of those other copying technologies did, i.e. 3d printing.

    and before you say "then work to change the rules" i'll counter with "code trumps laws" and "action is cheaper than control". you can't stop a distributed movement with central authority.

    we don't have to change anything. the technologies that enable us to do what we want are already here and there is nothing that hollywood, its lobbyists, or the global intellectual property cartels can do about it.

  • On the post: Senators Want To Put People In Jail For Embedding YouTube Videos

    chris ( profile ), 01 Jun, 2011 @ 11:59am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Even Viacom themselves could not tell the court which videos they uploaded and had "permission" and which ones did not. How would anyone expect YouTube to do what the copyright holder themselves could not do?

    you guys keep getting caught up on the fact that policing youtube for infringement is impossible. we know that. hollywood knows that. we know they know. they know that we know. it's been firmly established. it's time to move on...

    ...to the fact that despite the fact that it's impossible, hollywood still wants youtube gone. if they can't change the law to punish google, they will change the law to punish youtube's users. and if they can't do that, they'll change the law in some other fashion.

    and if the law cannot be changed, the law will be ignored and hollywood will take matters into its own hands.

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