E. Zachary Knight 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Why The Internet Has Been Awesome For Both Musical Artists and Fans

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2011 @ 12:06pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Come one Marcus. You and I both know that there is a finite amount of music in the world. Every time a new "song" is made, and older song is zapped from existence because there just isn't enough room in the world.

    When these remixers make their "music" it doesn't just replace 1 song, it replaces every song used to make the remix. Don't you see how damaging that is?

  • On the post: The Coming Fight Over Sales Tax For Online Retailers

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2011 @ 09:00am

    Re:

    The complexity does not come from keeping track of all the taxes (although that is pretty complex in and of itself). The complexity rises from the ineffectual process of determining which sales tax to apply to which buyer.

    If you were to base your sales tax on the address information provided by the buyer, they could always enter an address that has little or no sales tax.

    If you base it off of IP address, those can be mixed up. I am always flagged as living in a city other than the one I live in when sites do an IP check.

  • On the post: The Coming Fight Over Sales Tax For Online Retailers

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2011 @ 08:47am

    Re: Re: The complexity is unworkable

    As I mentioned above, it is harder for Amazon. Walmart has the benefit of knowing precisely which county/city the location resides in. Amazon has to rely on unreliable information for that.

    For example, if Amazon relied on an entered address by the purchaser, they can always inter a location that has a lower or no sales tax.

    If Amazon relies on IP address information, that is also unreliable. For example, my IP address often registers as cities other than the one I reside in. That messes up who gets the sales tax.

    It is not simple in the least.

  • On the post: The Coming Fight Over Sales Tax For Online Retailers

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2011 @ 08:38am

    Re: Re: Re: State sales tax...

    Walmart has the benefit of knowing precisely which county/city the location is in. Amazon does not have that precision.

    For example, I live in Newcastle, Oklahoma. However, because of the nature of my ISP's infrastructure, my IP is often recognized as Blanchard or Kingfisher, Oklahoma.

    We could go off of an entered address, but what is to stop me from entering a local with a low or no sales tax?

    Do you see where I am going with this?

  • On the post: Joe Biden On The Internet: 'If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It… Unless Hollywood Asks You To'

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2011 @ 02:34pm

    Re: I'm pretty sure he didn't say that

    The use of quotes is to set that phrase apart as a full thought. So the use of quotes is correct, although there probably should have been a comma before it began. but this isn't a narrative so we can let it slide.

  • On the post: Joe Biden On The Internet: 'If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It… Unless Hollywood Asks You To'

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2011 @ 02:32pm

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

    Wow. That is way off the mark.

    Here is the correct analogy:

    A user of YouTube uploads a copy of Ironman. The user is liable for copyright infringement, YouTube is not.

    A grocery customer sells weed in the parking lot. The seller of weed is liable for drug trafficking, the grocery is not.

    Your analogy of the grocery selling weed does not mesh with the reality of YouTube and other user contributed content sites.

  • On the post: Joe Biden On The Internet: 'If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It… Unless Hollywood Asks You To'

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2011 @ 09:28am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    This is one of those times when I think we need a sad but true button.

  • On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 07:33pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Creative America's Letter Count

    No you don't need to take the letters sent into account. The only meaningful statistic is the number of signatories you have in your support. Why you choose not to use that is obvious, they number is far lower than groups opposed to SOPA.

  • On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 07:30pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Creative America's Letter Count

    But they don't need you to speak for them. They can already write their own letters and do it the way they want. They only service you are offering, if you can call it a service, is the ability to be added to a statistic that will be touted by an astroturf group.

    That is not worth while and is why you are having to tout letters written rather than signatures gathered.

  • On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 11:55am

    Re: Re: Re: Creative America's Letter Count

    But isn't the people that are important? Letters are inanimate objects. People are the ones who will be effected by the legislation. They are the ones who should be at the forefront to back any campaign.

    As Dark Helmet has said, the number of letters can be manipulated into whatever you want it to be. All you have to do is add a few more people to the recipient list.

    However, the number of signatories has real meaning and value. That shows how many people actually support your position.

  • On the post: Angry Birds CEO At Peace With Chinese Counterfeit Merchandise

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 11:46am

    Re:

    Because he has the real deal. If the price is competitive enough, people will opt for the real thing over the knock off.

    But if he tries pricing it far above what the market can bear or is willing to pay, then he will fail.

    For example, let's say the knock off stuffed bird sells for $5. He could theoretically sell his authentic stuffed bird for $10 and still get a large portion of the sales. However, if he tries selling it at $20, he will get far less.

    I am sure he has done far more research into what prices the market will bear.

  • On the post: Angry Birds CEO At Peace With Chinese Counterfeit Merchandise

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 11:43am

    Re:

    He would only be at war if he were suing his fans and attempting to get websites declared illegal and blocked. By entering the market and selling his own merchandise, he is competing. For that he is praised.

  • On the post: Angry Birds CEO At Peace With Chinese Counterfeit Merchandise

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 11:42am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Why don't you prove that SOPA is needed. Nobody has done so. They only quote grossly inflated "losses" to piracy without any real context or verifiable methodology.

  • On the post: Angry Birds CEO At Peace With Chinese Counterfeit Merchandise

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 10:35am

    Re:

    No.

    We should stop a US law because it is completely useless to stop piracy and counterfeiting by design.

    We should stop a US law because it will cause far more economic harm to the US and world economies than will be saved for content industries.

    We should stop a US law because it is not the least restrictive means of achieving the goals of the content industry.

    We should stop a US law because the content industries need to adapt.

  • On the post: Angry Birds CEO At Peace With Chinese Counterfeit Merchandise

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 10:32am

    Re: CMO, not CEO

    Interesting. Gameindustry.biz names him as the CEO and his Linkedin profile lists him as the Mighty Eagle. Will have to look more into it.

  • On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 09:41am

    Re: Demand Progress

    Over on the bottom right of this page shows a figure of over 250,000 signatories:

    http://demandprogress.org/blacklist/

  • On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 09:31am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You mean Hollywood inflates the numbers to suit its own interests?

    I'm on the Brute Squad.

  • On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 08:25am

    Re: They are still avoiding the truth

    Ooh. They just responded:

    Each signature at our online petition generates three letters, one to each Senator and one to the signer's Representative

    https://www.facebook.com/creativeamerica/posts/154413744656794?notif_t=share_reply

    So these aren't 100,000 people sending letters, this is 100,000 form letters being sent. Makes sense now.

  • On the post: Hollywood Front Group Rounds Up 4,000 Letters Sent To Congress, Pretending It's 100,000

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 08:24am

    They are still avoiding the truth

    I have asked them again to further clarify both on Twitter and Facebook. Still waiting for a response. As of now only these two sources are the basis of the 100,000 figure.

  • On the post: White House Petition Against E-PARASITE/SOPA

    E. Zachary Knight ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2011 @ 02:28pm

    Re:

    Meh. That is a common misdirection. The hope is that most people who read the tweet will not follow up on it and read the source. Rather they expect the majority to simply take it at face value and possibly retweet.

    It is pretty disgusting, but not unexpected from the likes of the MPAA.

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