Christopher’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: Major League Baseball Claims Dodgers Still Own Trademark On Brooklyn Logo, Despite Leaving Town 53 Years Ago

Christopher ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2010 @ 10:19am

Thus, corporate disobedience...

... becomes your only viable option once again.

-C

On the post: Astronaut Sues Dido For Using His Photo In Album Cover

Christopher ( profile ), 06 Oct, 2010 @ 10:52am

Public figure.

He's a public employee on a government mission. He needs to understand that the public funded his little trip, and STFU.

-C

On the post: Drug Rep Accidentally Admits There's No Justification For Massive Markup Over Generics

Christopher ( profile ), 30 Sep, 2010 @ 02:52am

Re: Re:

If you say big pharma spends more on advertising than research, cite sources. I've been in the industry for eight years, and Sales and Marketing do not have multimillion dollar clusters for modeling drug interactions, nor test labs with millions in equipment. They have laptops and Powerpoint and color printers, easily a quarter of the staff of R&D, and a commodity-like mission: sell "X".

Contrast that with the human capital expense of any talented scientist, and I don't see, even back-of-the-envelope, how R&D is less than S&M. But hey, cite source.

And one more thing: ingredient costs are not the same as total costs, which includes manufacturing and distribution. At the lowest margins, a generic bottle of ibuprofen is really at its lowest possible cost per pill. That's what should be compared to Advil, to prescription 600mg ibuprofen (which is 3 generic 200mg pills in one).

-C

On the post: Court Tells Mall That It Cannot Ban Customers From Talking To Strangers

Christopher ( profile ), 18 Aug, 2010 @ 04:14am

How are they going to enforce it?

Private security? For serious? Just ignore the law.

-C

On the post: Telcos Close To 'Deal' On Net Neutrality That Gives Them Everything They Want

Christopher ( profile ), 04 Aug, 2010 @ 05:21am

This is why corporate disobedience is so good.

Any aspect of society controlled by lobbyists is fair game to exploit, disobey, and ignore. RIAA and MPAA stifling access to back catalogs? Download MP3s and XViDs by the hundreds. Block tethering? Root the phone, do it anyway.

Unfortunately most people do not want to live at the edges, or should have to, so this attitude doesn't really resonate with the populace. Guerrilla warfare in this case, though, is entirely appropriate.

-C

On the post: Judge Rejects Attempt To Fine Family For Picking Up Discarded Air Conditioning Unit

Christopher ( profile ), 16 Jul, 2010 @ 05:56am

Wrong.

That becomes an issue at the time the AC unit is "chopped up", not at the point of discarding the item. There is no presumption of illegal activity in disposing of white goods. But your angle was, as usual, creative.

-C

On the post: Author Puts Novel Online For Free… And Gets A Book Deal

Christopher ( profile ), 14 Jul, 2010 @ 05:07am

Re: Interesting

Speculative argument. You say it worked out because she's established, but I think your main point is that first efforts are shit that should be denied by publishers... which really *only* leaves online self-publishing as an option.

The way I figure it is this: you still retain copyright, if your work is any good you'll get the correct amount of attention given a decent venue. The venue doesn't have to be print, either, it just needs to be where the readers are. Scribd happens to be such a place.

--#

On the post: RIAA Accounting: Why Even Major Label Musicians Rarely Make Money From Album Sales

Christopher ( profile ), 13 Jul, 2010 @ 11:29am

(Don't) consider the source.

It's Courtney Love and we all hate her for killing Kurt, right? Except, if you get past whatever biases you have, she's been essentially unchallenged in her math. No one from the label side has refuted the arithmetic, either from inability or inattention. And so it stands.

One band you never see mentioned on this topic is Tool: they not only own the copyrights to all of their music, they've never received any advances. They've done at least their last three albums on their own, labels only handling marketing. Being smart about your contract is very possible. Of course, keeping all of that money also explains why they put out albums every eight years now...

--#

On the post: NY Hotels Upset Over More Efficient 'Home' Competition; Gets Politicians To Try To Outlaw Such Things

Christopher ( profile ), 29 Jun, 2010 @ 07:42am

Unlikely

Hotels can have wild variations in service and cleanliness. You only pick a hotel because you're thinking that they've bet a "reputation" against your experience. You can easily be displeased with a name-brand. You're not buying anything "extra" other than a purported economy of scale... that in NYC you cannot enjoy.

Users sleeping in homes or apartment on micro-sublets are informed consumers, they *know* it's not a hotel. Furthermore, the owners also know they aren't a hotel. So what's the problem? Insurance isn't the renter's problem. Firecode, also not the renter's problem. All borne by the owner, and presumably in place for them to live there without subletting.

Nah, it's a pure play to crush competition.

On the post: How Monetary Rewards Can Demotivate Creative Works

Christopher ( profile ), 05 Jun, 2010 @ 09:59am

Re: Atlassian

What industry has adopted JIRA as a standard? The unattributed factless assertion industry?

On the post: Canadians Get To Pay More Money For The Same Broadband

Christopher ( profile ), 07 May, 2010 @ 05:13am

Vote with their what?

Every single time I see an article about how an incumbent enjoys competition due to cable/ wireless/ dishes I cringe, because the fact is that all incumbents enjoy a monopoly. They provide a wire to a home, a wire that takes an infrastructure build-out comparable to a road. Yet, somehow, people would complain if a tollbooth was installed at the foot of their driveway... and think they "enjoy" competition by being able to switch to cable. This is no different than pulling out of your driveway and choosing the Turnpike over the Parkway (Jersey references).

No, Dave Isenberg called it right over 15 years ago. Build-outs to homes should be owned and managed by your town/ county/ state. The central office, however, is just an empty data center. Verizon installs their switches, AT&T install theirs, Joe's County Mile installs theirs, and everyone competes on services.

There's nothing magical about a fiber connection, or copper wire. The magic happens at the end points. Bid out the maintenance of the fiber and be done with it.

-C

On the post: NYTimes' Boss Pretends That A Paywall Creates A Stronger Emotional Bond

Christopher ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2010 @ 10:10am

One question.

How are they measuring emotional quantity or quality?

-C

On the post: The Future Of Content: Protection Is In The Business Model — Not In Technology

Christopher ( profile ), 23 Apr, 2010 @ 05:21am

Re: sounds like the "piracy pass"

Love the idea, one I've advocated in the past. I own a vinyl copy of "Led Zeppelin IV" circa 1974. That's my license. If ever I was hauled into court for owning mp3 copies of "Stairway to Heaven", holding up my copy of the record should get me out and force Atlantic to eat my legal bills.

Where it gets tricky is when, in the spirit of community, I make that mp3 available to others on the presumption that they, too, have vinyl copies but no means to acquire a digital version.

-C

On the post: California Court Says Online Bullying Is Not Protected Free Speech

Christopher ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2010 @ 07:23am

Re: shame on you

I have a problem with that assessment of Mike's as well, but not enough to stop reading Techdirt.

If someone expressed a desire to stab my son in the head with an icepick, at the very least I'd like that person to spend a night in jail. It's a criminal act, and when it isn't treated as such, it forces me to seek alternative recourse. Suing is the only legal avenue left to me.

Saying "you suck" is different than "when we meet I will stab your head".

--#

On the post: How Does Copyright Apply To Your Kids' Monster Drawings?

Christopher ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2010 @ 04:28am

I'm sure they signed a release!

And then it's okay, since a release allows you to sign away anything, at anytime!

What?

All right, seriously? No copyright claim from the children. Likewise, when my son decides to draw copyrighted action figures, no one had better come after him, either. Gloves off, works both ways, a stitch in time saves nine.

-C

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

Christopher ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2010 @ 07:35am

Re: Re: Follow the law

Is ignorance of the law now a defense?

On the post: NBC Universal Boss Jeff Zucker Lies To Congress About Boxee

Christopher ( profile ), 05 Feb, 2010 @ 10:09am

It is just a browser.

You're (deliberately) reducing a browser experience to a simple HTML page. *LOTS* of presentation layer goodies like Javascript, XML, Flash, CSS can go into a page and make the experience richer... likewise, a custom browser can ship with CSS templating and make pages look much better than they are. And it's still a browser, and the content hasn't been altered.

-C

On the post: Patents Being Used To Keep Starving Children From Getting Therapeutic Food Paste

Christopher ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2010 @ 01:07pm

Umm, no.

They might need to offer an alternative, not a replacement. They need to save millions of lives, not thousands.

On the post: Google Considers Leaving China If China Will Not Allow Uncensored Search

Christopher ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2010 @ 07:48am

Weak entry this time.

1) Google isn't really in deep anything over digitizing books without permission. So far it's just PR and posturing.

2) I don't believe Google is just realizing this now, I believe that there was a tacit agreement with China to keep their cyberwarfare off Google so long as Google played nice. Obviously, China lied -- and why this might surprise anyone is beyond me -- and Google has to respond in the only manner possible, by running their search portal their way. Eventually, Google may have to leave the Chinese market. And good riddance.

3) The domain won't be revoked or put on hold, and I doubt it'll even be redirected. Once you start down that path, it becomes a fairly trivial step towards Balkanizing the Internet domains and freezing domains like assets. No one wants that.

4) Of course Baidu is up. The public lesson here? You can compete with free by using totalitarian rule.

On the post: Copyright Sillyness: Can't Take Photos Of Artwork That Was Built On The Works Of Others

Christopher ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2010 @ 05:43am

So toss copyrights.

What's the harm in tossing a copyright after demise?

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