Andrew F 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Prime Minister David Cameron: Google, Bing and Yahoo! 'Enable' Child Porn

    Andrew F ( profile ), 22 Jul, 2013 @ 11:55am

    Re:

    This reminds me of early Chinese filters where they would ban references to dates (June 4 -- the date of the Tiananmen Square protests), which only served to make otherwise non-subversive Chinese citizens curious why the censors were flagging invitations to get coffee on June 4.

  • On the post: Discovering Names Of Secret NSA Surveillance Programs Via LinkedIn

    Andrew F ( profile ), 13 Jul, 2013 @ 01:32pm

    Re:

    Whatever this is, I hope there's a better explanation for why this is public-facing other than "an analyst wanted to tele-commute".

  • On the post: US Officials Realizing That Snowden May Have Copied Info On Almost Everything The NSA Does

    Andrew F ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2013 @ 04:43pm

    Re: Re:

    The analogy to computer security isn't applicable here. Transparency works well for "defensive" security because everyone with an interest in maintaining that security can find and fix exploits.

    The NSA's job is not (purely) defense. It is offense. Its objective is to exploit holes in the security of its targets to collect signal intelligence. Revealing those exploits ahead of time would be counter-productive.

    That said, where the NSA is involved in less offensively oriented activities, it has been surprisingly open. See, e.g., the open source Accumulo database.

  • On the post: Latest White House Intellectual Property Strategic Plan Much More Balanced & Reasonable

    Andrew F ( profile ), 20 Jun, 2013 @ 01:33pm

    Trade Secret Enforcement

    My understanding is that a lot of the concern over "trade secrets" stem from corporate espionage by hackers overseas. So this sort of dovetails with the recent drum beating on cyber warfare.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Strikes Down Gene Patents

    Andrew F ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2013 @ 12:56pm

    Re: Monsanto

    Artificial genes are still patentable under this case, and reproduction of artificial living organisms still violates patent law under the Monsanto case.

    So ... if you have artificial genes spliced into your genome, you may need to pay a license fee to have kids?

  • On the post: Awesome Stuff: Maps Aren't Just An App On Your Phone

    Andrew F ( profile ), 09 Jun, 2013 @ 03:44pm

    Personally a fan of wargear.net -- same idea, slick maps and UI, and some great experimentation with different rule variations.

  • On the post: White House Also Releases Report On Patent Problems

    Andrew F ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2013 @ 01:47pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    I'm not Mike -- but I'd hazard a guess that he'd be okay with trademark law if it got rid of dilution and returned to its likelihood of confusion origins, although it becomes more of a consumer protection law than an IP law at that point.

  • On the post: Microsoft's Attack On Used Game Sales Asks Customers To Sacrifice Their Rights To Save An Industry

    Andrew F ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2013 @ 01:22pm

    Re:

    You ever try reselling an e-book on your Kindle? Or an iPhone app? Or any sort of digital download?

    The video game industry is in this awkward transition phase between physical distribution (which traditionally has permitted resale) and digital distribution (which, for the most part, has not).

    So when you get the XBO, which I like to think of as a digital distribution platform that just happens to have a disc drive, you get this awkward hybrid not-quite-used-game-sale market.

  • On the post: Microsoft's Attack On Used Game Sales Asks Customers To Sacrifice Their Rights To Save An Industry

    Andrew F ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2013 @ 01:16pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Vernor v Autodesk. The theory is that the game manufacturer is "licensing" the game to you and not selling it. The metaphor is like this: If I sell my house to you, I can't stop you from reselling to someone else. But if I lease my house to you, I can stop you from subleasing.

    That said, the obvious argument is that software licensing is nothing like renting physical property. The point of renting something is that you eventually give it back. For the most part, a lot of software developers who are "licensing" the software don't realistically expect you to return the software when you're done playing with it.

  • On the post: Microsoft's Attack On Used Game Sales Asks Customers To Sacrifice Their Rights To Save An Industry

    Andrew F ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2013 @ 01:11pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Actually, Steam's policy of not permitting you to sell your account probably would stand up in a court. There's no law obligating Steam to permit you to access their network as someone else.

  • On the post: More Money, More Problems: The Challenge Of Managing Crowdfunding Success

    Andrew F ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2013 @ 01:06pm

    Fulfillment

    Amazon offers a fulfillment platform Kickstarter could build off of. Given that they already use Amazon to handle payments, it wouldn't surprise me if they made some sort of deal to streamline the fulfillment process.

  • On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans

    Andrew F ( profile ), 29 May, 2013 @ 08:33pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    A sale is just a temporary decrease though. You can't increase the price past its original position after a sale. That's why there's an incentive to start high. You can capture more of the surplus.

    The risk, of course, is that if you wait too long to drop the price, gamers will just spend their money elsewhere and forget about your game. But all publishers follow this strategy to some degree. It's why you can buy the 2008 game of the year for $20.

  • On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans

    Andrew F ( profile ), 29 May, 2013 @ 01:58pm

    Re: Re:

    I'm not sure what the first-sale doctrine issue is here. The first sale doctrine is a limit to the scope if copyright. DRM and making it technologically difficult to sell used games is not the same thing as suing someone for copyright.

    The more interesting issue would be if someone cracked the Xbox's DRM and was sued under the DMCA's anti-circumvention laws. But that's less about first sale and more about DMCA reform in general.

  • On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans

    Andrew F ( profile ), 29 May, 2013 @ 01:43pm

    Re: Re: Perspective

    Usually not for recently released mass-market games -- e.g. Bioshock Infinite is still $60.

  • On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans

    Andrew F ( profile ), 29 May, 2013 @ 01:27pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Market segmentation. You can always lower the price after release, but you can't increase it. Sell a 100 games at $60. Then lower to $40. Sell 1,000. Then lower to $20 and sell another 8,900.

    The joys of monopolies.

  • On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans

    Andrew F ( profile ), 29 May, 2013 @ 01:10pm

    Re:

    Interestingly, Microsoft might lower the price of a used game and increase the amount you can get for selling it -- i.e. some of the value you get by cutting out the middleman (Gamestop) could go to the gamers. Or maybe it'll just go to Microsoft and software publishers. Probably mostly the latter but maybe a bit of the former.

    The other thing to consider is how a mostly digital used games market would affect pricing. The obvious end game for Microsoft here is a global "instant" used-games market. From what I've read, selling a "used" game on Microsoft's system doesn't require transferring a disc. It's simply a matter of unregistering the game from your account and downloading the game to another person's account. That eliminates a lot of arbitrage opportunities -- I'm curious whether people as a whole perceive that as raising or lowering prices though.

  • On the post: Reports Of Xbox One's Handling Of Used Games Mobilizes Playstation Fans

    Andrew F ( profile ), 29 May, 2013 @ 01:21pm

    Perspective

    What's interesting about the uproar is what people are using for their point of reference.

    Microsoft's long game here is to set up an entire digital distribution system akin to Steam -- e.g. one of the interesting announcements was that if you went over to a friend's house and forgot the disc, you could easily download the entire game from the Internet.

    Yet Steam doesn't allow resale of used games. As far as I know, no digital distribution does, yet for the most part, they charge the same price as the boxed goods and do quite well.

    From that perspective, the fact that Microsoft is considering a a used games system at all is incredibly consumer-friendly.

  • On the post: Rice University Professor: SkyNET's Gonna Take Ur Jerbs!

    Andrew F ( profile ), 18 May, 2013 @ 11:51am

    Horses

    When the automobile was invented, it isn't as though the buggy whip makers simply died off in unemployed starvation.

    Horses did.

    Can machines make rugs? Yup, yet there's a huge market in hand-woven rugs out there.

    And some people enjoy riding horses -- that doesn't mean demand for horses is anywhere close to what it was in 1910.

    People aren't horses of course. As the economy changes, people can adapt to provide labor in a way horses can't. But people adapt slowly -- certainly not as quickly as automation replaces jobs. There's no Moore's Law for labor.

    And service jobs aren't really an answer. Wages for service jobs are low because there's excess supply in the labor market there -- that excess supply is coming from all of the manufacturing workers that have, essentially, been replaced.

    I don't think it's the end of the world, but it definitely deserves more of a response than simply dismissing the people raising those concerns as luddites.

    A short read on this topic that's neither dismissive nor neo-luddite: http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-The-Machine-ebook/dp/B005WTR4ZI

  • On the post: More Details Show IRS Targeted Groups Critical Of How The Government Was Run

    Andrew F ( profile ), 13 May, 2013 @ 09:41pm

    Tax Code

    Non-profits claiming 501c3 status can lose their tax exemption if they engage in certain political activities. It's a fine line -- for instance, while it's okay to advocate for some particular legislation, it's not okay to advocate for a particular candidate. It's not a new development but rather a longstanding interpretation of the law.

    Given that, it's not surprising that the IRS would focus on Tea Party groups. Imagine if you saw a sudden surge in non-profit applications under a section of the tax code that prohibits lobbying for or against specific candidates and that these groups are associated with movements were explicitly organized to protest the election of a political candidate that now happens to be President. That would raise all sorts of red flags!

    That's not to say what the IRS did was legal or proper. But I'd chalk this up to overzealous enforcement of the tax code rather than any specific malicious or ideological intent.

  • On the post: Native Advertising Is Advertising People Want

    Andrew F ( profile ), 28 Apr, 2013 @ 03:02pm

    Recent Techdirt Ads

    Can I complain about some of the recent inline advertising? A couple months ago, there were some Intuit ads that were designed to look like posts written by Techdirt staff. Although Techdirt had marked it as advertising, the markings weren't all that clear and the text within the ad itself was meant to come across as an "organic" post. That sucks.

    Also, a request: I want the ability to post comments on inline ads -- e.g. if I see an Intuit ad, I want to be able to post an angry screed about Intuit next to it for the benefit of other Techdirt readers.

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