Douglas Gresham 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Associated Press Digs Its Own Grave Deeper; Wants To Create Its Own Fair Use Rules

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2008 @ 10:05am

    Another case of misunderstanding copyright

    Another case of Big Content thinking copyright isn't for incentivising content creation, but for allowing them to completely control everything content consumers do. You'd think maybe they'd be capable of learning from others' mistakes. Ah well.

  • On the post: Google's Moral Obligation To Newspapers: Help Both Sides Be Better Off

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2008 @ 10:12am

    Re: The US UK contrast

    I should qualify what I meant; I didn't mean to imply that all UK TV news is good and all newspapers bad (and vice-versa across the pond). What I meant was that the news sources that seem perceived as the most reputable are TV (BBC, ITV (if a bit tabloidy), C4 (if a bit lefty)) in the UK and papers (WSJ, WP, NYT) in the US. Purely by reputation and general perception, I might add.

    I think the British in general are more skeptical and less sensationalist (certainly on the religious zealotry) which is reflected in our media too, but that's a different argument.

  • On the post: Google's Moral Obligation To Newspapers: Help Both Sides Be Better Off

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2008 @ 02:55am

    Re:

    It's a contrast between the UK and the US I find quite interesting; here (UK) we have generally serious and trusted news reporting on TV and the papers are typically sensationalist, whereas in the States it's the other way around. We can only hope that the US never gets the Daily Mail and we never get Fox News, or we're all in trouble :)

  • On the post: Trent Reznor's Path To Accepting And Embracing New Business Models

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2008 @ 10:11am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Two points Jason:

    1) There are other scarce goods you can sell that are environmentally friendly. Your time is one (concerts, commission, fan access, whatever). There are others.

    2) Price is not the same as value. The fact that some content is infinitely replicable means that any copy of it will tend towards zero price, but clearly it has value (which can be used to sell some scarce good). It's worth noting that your time to create content is a scarce good which can be sold in the form of commissions. Further, complaining that just creating the content should be enough to get paid isn't living in the real world - for instance, inventors primarily invent, but to get paid they have to set up distribution, do marketing, etc - or get someone else to do it for them (or get patents and sue everyone, meaning nobody brings the useful product to market - but that's another argument).

  • On the post: EA Backs Down On Controversial DRM

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 12 May, 2008 @ 03:07am

    Why Steam works and this wouldn't have . . .

    Apart from the fact that your games wouldn't be disabled if you weren't online for 10 days, Steam is pretty similar in it's approach to piracy. The key difference is that Steam actually improves the user experience (for me, at least): I can get games as soon as they're out by having them preinstalled, there are community features and good online gaming support, automatic patching, etc etc. Where most DRM goes wrong for me is making the experience worse for the paying customer - if you make this nice user experience available to them but not pirates, people will pay for that. If you make it so that the pirated product is actually the superior one, that's what people will go for.

  • On the post: Amazon Says It Will Only Sell Print-On-Demand Books That It Gets To Print

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2008 @ 01:11pm

    Re: Re: Smells like antitrust

    You may notice I made that point, and that I noted questions of antitrust are relevant if and only if we're talking about leveraging monopolies in one market to gain traction in another. In your car analogy, it would be like Ford owning the vast majority of all car dealerships and blocking sales of non-Ford cars in said dealerships, meaning that despite the fact that the Lexus car may be better consumers won't be able to get one and therefore have to buy a Ford.

  • On the post: Amazon Says It Will Only Sell Print-On-Demand Books That It Gets To Print

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2008 @ 11:44am

    Smells like antitrust

    In the non-monopolised world, Amazon not stocking those products would lose them their cut to other outlets. The only way this can work is if Amazon controls a sufficiently large market share in general book retail to leverage it unfairly in this new market space. IANAL, but that seems shady at best and antitrust at worst to me.

  • On the post: Warner Music Latest To Jump On The Music Tax Bandwagon

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2008 @ 11:39am

    If I could take this as a serious plan . . .

    I wouldn't even know how to begin attacking it, it's so ridiculous. The reason I can't is it's basically the labels' death rattle - they can't make money how we used to, they can't be bothered making it in new ways - it's extortion or extinction.

    Rest in peace guys.

  • On the post: Has Congress Backdoored In 'Attempted Copyright Infringement' As A Crime?

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2008 @ 11:13am

    Re: Reporting 101

    I worry about a world where critiquing a law that's a step away from thought crime brands you a leftie. I mean what exactly does "attempt" mean in this context? Do you have to prove malicious intent, is incompetence sufficient, or do we punish people who engage in legal activities that could be associated with criminal acts? Would asking an undercover cop to buy some drugs be covered by this, for instance? How about owning a firearm?

    But hey, for questioning the establishment you're a commie, despite the fact it's a case of individual rights taking precedent over those of the state. Muppet.

  • On the post: Canadian Telemarketers Play The FUD Card On Do Not Call List

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2008 @ 02:11pm

    Re: telemarketing

    I'm amazed your argument is that people have trouble saying "No" and this is an *opt-in* list for the express purpose of saying "No".

    I also contest your assertion that it's taking away people's livings. Care to show figures? I work for Google, so I know a little about targeting advertising, and we know that you do much, much better by increasing relevance and decreasing the number of ads you show. We'd also say intrusive advertising to people who don't want to be advertised to actually does damage to the advertised business.

    I'd also say that cold-calling is sufficiently intrusive and disruptive to be very different to the examples you give of allowed advertising, with the possible exception of junk mail.

  • On the post: Adopting New Music Business Models Doesn't Mean The Death Of Record Labels

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2008 @ 02:54pm

    Re: There's this foundation again

    Yes and no, Hellsvilla. The record labels (particularly the big 5) have made their business a cartel by effectively controlling distribution and supply. In the New World Order of free net distribution, they obviously can't do that, so they can't control in the way they're used to. Moreover, you are musicians don't need a label in order to get their stuff out there. That doesn't mean that artists are necessarily better off without labels, though, as the article points out. It just means that the labels have to demonstrate tangible benefits to musicians rather than rely on their old, artificially controlled business model to ensure there's no choice in the matter.

  • On the post: The Constitution Still Doesn't Let States Stop Kids From Buying Video Games

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2008 @ 12:52am

    Re: Duh

    Easy availability of firearms means people who want to commit firearms-based crimes have an easier time of it, because they can access them and because people like you defend their right to carry them.

    Duh.

    Countries that prohibit personal firearms have significantly lower gun-related crime rates than countries that don't (particularly the United States).

    Duh.

    Dividing the world into "law abiding citizens" and "criminals and nut cases" instead of addressing the underlying issues that cause crime can't ever help said people not become criminals (and don't get me started on your ridiculous bigotry against the mentally ill).

    Duh.

  • On the post: You Succeed By Executing Well, Not By Gathering Patents

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 06 Mar, 2008 @ 07:47am

    Re: Mike's retarded as usual

    I don't see the problem AD. Mike argues eloquently, takes all sides into account and presents evidence to support his conclusions. Even if he was making points on behalf of others, that doesn't mean he isn't right.

  • On the post: UK Press To Create Guidelines About Using Social Networking Info In News Stories

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2008 @ 01:24am

    Re: You're looking at it the wrong way...

    "If, say, a guy DID shoot up his school (which never happens in the UK anyway, but whatever)"
    I take it you've never heard of Dunblane, then. School shootings may have become pretty much synonymous with the US, but don't think it doesn't happen elsewhere. I agree with the rest of the points, though.

  • On the post: DRM-Free Doesn't Mean Copyright-Free

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2008 @ 12:36pm

    While I'm not pro-DRM in any form, software is a different ball game to traditional media. It's completely implausible to create workable DRM for music; by making, say, a game dependent on external resources you control (eg a game server, an online auth system ala Steam, etc) you make it much harder for people to play unauthorised. I'm fairly sure that Steam in particular is effective at cutting piracy (if someone could point me at some stats I'd appreciate it), although there's also games aren't available on P2P first, easy to get, maintaining patches - ie they're offering a better product.

  • On the post: France Decides That Expressing An Opinion About Your Teachers Should Be Illegal

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2008 @ 03:51am

    Re:

    Teachers are paid professionals and as such it would be vastly inappropriate to give such public feedback on student (and think of the discrimination lawsuits they'd open themselves up to). Students are consumers of a service the teachers are providing. There is a world of difference, and that's without the individual-vs-crowdsourced nature of the two.

  • On the post: Turns Out Social Networks Aren't Breeding Grounds For Sexual Predators

    Douglas Gresham ( profile ), 19 Feb, 2008 @ 04:17am

    Not just "internet smarts" . . .

    I have a feeling that on TD I'm preaching to the choir on this one, but it annoys me when "the internet" is singled out when what we're talking about are life skills. Was nobody else told as a child not to talk to strangers without your parents? Does nobody else see that the same mantra is easily applied to the internet?

    The solutions to such issues are education, openness with your kids and actually checking up on what they're doing - exactly the same, in fact, as in the real world. I'm tired of the "internet boogeyman" being brought out any time there's an issue that has nothing to do with technology in particular, and everything to do with life and the world in general.