Tim Griffiths 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (294) comment rss

  • On the post: UK Looking To Cement Its New Anti-Free Speech Reputation By Arresting Man For Posting Photo Of A Burning Poppy

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2012 @ 01:46am

    When the revolution comes

    When the revolution comes they will be the first up against the wall... to be insulted...

    It's depressing that the next big thing is going to be people in V masks running around being, shock, rude to people! How god damn pathetic.

  • On the post: Cat Power Gets Sick, Atlantic Wire Declares Indie Music Dead

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2012 @ 03:19am

    Re: Re: Re:

    step 1) Put on concert in my living room

    step 2) Set a ticket limit of one to to health and safety issues with the venue

    step 3) Sell the price at 1 pence and sell it to a friend with a promise of a cup of tea

    step 4) play song

    step 5) State that I've played sold out concerts this year

    step 6) ???

    step 7) PROFIT!

  • On the post: Kink.com Owner Inoculating Against Piracy By Selling The Scarce

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2012 @ 06:26am

    Re:

    The live stream can be pirated, being part of and interacting with the live stream can't. A lot of twitch tv casters have access to the chat as part of a sub or at lest special privileges in the chat for example. The content is often free but your access to and interaction with the creators of that content is not.

  • On the post: Kink.com Owner Inoculating Against Piracy By Selling The Scarce

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2012 @ 04:36am

    Re:

    It's not exactly social connectivity in this case it's just expanding on something that the industry has always known. Lots of people go to porn conventions to meet stars they like and live cam girl shows are endlessly popular because of the interactivity they provide. Cam girls are often building as much of a following with the personality they put across as with what they are showing.

    At this point you can sell internet porn based on it be scarce but what is scarce is interaction with the stars. It's exactly the same idea behind why gigs are more important now for musicians than they have ever been and it's not at all odd that this is also the case in porn.

  • On the post: George Lucas Finally Relinquishes His Tight Control Of Star Wars… To Mickey Mouse

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2012 @ 08:50am

    Re: Re:

    If that's strikes you as creepy you really don't want to read some of the fanfic out there, or see the results of rule 34 for Star Wars.

  • On the post: George Lucas Finally Relinquishes His Tight Control Of Star Wars… To Mickey Mouse

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2012 @ 06:15am

    Re: Re: And just like that....

    Disney own Marvel and Marvel while marvel has been producing films like Iron Man and the Avengers. Pixar have arguably suffered since being taken over but there's nothing to say it's directly due to Disney messing the company up.

    My view on it is simply this, the worst of what I could expect from Disney owning the rights to Star Wars has already been done by Lucas him self. In the Clone Wars Darth Maul has been brought back, he didn't die after being cut in half but was going crazy in a cave with a spider like droid body. Another Sith, who just happens to be his brother, finds him and now Maul has droid legs and is planing to take over the galaxy or some crap. He also speaks. If that does not give you a sense of how creative bankrupt the whole thing has gotten nothing will.

    Truth is that Star Wars is at it's best when Lucas is acting as a creative consultant who people are willing to say "no" to. Given his stepping aside and is no longer the soul controller of the rights we may actually see something good come out of it. If it's an awful cash in then it's just going to be another awful cash in but if it's not... and we actually get see on film what the expanded universe has been promising at the hands of a capable director? Well that may be worth the risk.

    Now of course being owned by the mouse means Star Wars is likely never going to be public domain but it never was anyway.

    Screwed up thing is that all told this should be taken as hopeful news... which is crazy.

  • On the post: Copyright: The New Mercantilism

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2012 @ 06:30am

    Re: Re: Nice

    "so what if the money we spend on one product means we aren't spending it on another?"

    Exactly. What makes the copyright industry so special they can argue that the government has to change the law in an attempt to make more people spend more money on their products over other products?

    Their argument boils down to this "People are spending less money on our products so we are losing jobs, we think stronger copyright law will let us make more money so we can create jobs" thing is that this logic extends past the copyright industry and in the economy.

    If it's true that stronger copyright laws would make more people spend money on copyright work that means by their logic that stronger copyright laws would move money away from other industries costing those other industries jobs. What makes the copyright industry special that their ability to create jobs is more important? In your words, so what if people are spending money else where?

    Yet this economic argument is used as a base for expanding laws that are meant to be short term exceptions to public rights. It means that the interests of the small group are being placed above those of the public and the wider economy and no one is providing a reason to why other than "because".

  • On the post: Trent Reznor Talks To Techdirt About His Unconventional New Record Deal, And Why He Still Loves DIY

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2012 @ 03:23am

    Labels as enablers not gatekeepers

    It's funny how the critics of any of the new ways of doing things forget that one of the often talked about new ways would be big labels in a reduced role of an enabler. Which is exactly what is happening here. Reznor and the band retain their masters and creative control and the label handles the day to day running of marketing and distribution and invests in the product.

    What labels do is a mix of being an investor in, and contractor of, a band. Part of what they used to do as a contractor was distribution and they had a strangle hold on the market because of it. That one thing allowed them to distort the value of what they actually offered because they had a monopoly on being able to effectively offer it.

    Those days are done and with out that gate to keep labels are left with the actual value of what they have to offer. It gives artist the power to actually negotiate because they have the power to go their own way.

    I see people saying that Reznor taking this root shows the new models are too much hard work for artist or that Reznor didn't have the balls to make it on his own. It's stupid, yes doing everything on your own is harder work, we are all well aware of this so it shouldn't be a surprise that some one who can get terms they favour with a contractor who can do that work for them for a price they are happy with take it.

    "Why not just put together his own team/label"? Because he doesn't have to do all that work or hold all that responsibility. He has been able to work out a deal with the label to have them take care of all that with out loss of control over his work. What a god damn shock it is that some one might want to pay people to do work or assume risk for them!

    I'll put it like this, I'm in a band, I used to do a bit of promotion. I got started in promotion because I was in a new band at the time and we decided to put our first gig on ourselves, rent out a bigger venue than would put us on, pack the bill with acts we knew would pull and plop ourselves down in the middle of it. It was hard work and we felt we where going to lose money but seemed work it for a one off. It went amazingly well, packed out the venue our first gig was a hit and we made money! So we kept putting on gigs, in fact while I went to uni one of the band members built a promotion company that did very well for a while. But we didn't promote all our gigs and in the end the band split up because the guy with the promotion company decided to put his efforts in to that over the band.

    My point? If I want a gig for my band I have the skills (and to some extent the contacts) to do it my self. What I don't have however is the time, will, and money I'm willing to lose that I'd need in order to do that very often if at all these days.

    So what do I do when I want a gig for my band? I work with promoters and agree to a deal in which they take the risk/effort of investing and running a gig and we just turn up play and try and draw people in. The better known for drawing a crowd my band is the better deals I can look to negotiate with promoters.

    See the point I'm making? Just because I can do something does not mean I have to. There is nothing wrong with working with other people and in some way paying them to do something I could do but for one reason or another don't want to.

  • On the post: Rovio Recognizes That Massive, Massive Volume At Cheap Prices Beats Low Sales At Inflated Prices

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2012 @ 02:55am

    Re: Re: What about Steam?

    Deeply discounting some books in a series is a genius idea honestly and giving away the first book in a planned series from a new writer is I think something we'll see more and more of.

    I picked up the The Phoenix Conspiracy by Richard Sanders free and enjoyed it so much that I didn't even hesitate to pick up the second book, The Phoenix Rising, when it came out for ?5. The guy understands ebook pricing and got money from me he likely wouldn't have ever seen otherwise by doing so.

  • On the post: Yes, Apple, You Have To Tell The UK Public That Samsung Didn't Copy You

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2012 @ 02:45am

    Re:

    If you are not sure enough about your case that you are not willing to issue an apology and redress any negative PR impact your accusation had then you shouldn't be in court.

  • On the post: Free Software Foundation Certifies 3D Printer — And Why That Matters

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2012 @ 02:37am

    Re:

    I think it may end up like this; if you don't print an official part using a printer that is rated as being compatible you can't hold any one libel for use of that part. I think is is in part why some fears about 3D printing and "piracy" are not going to turn out as bad as some people might imagine. If you don't hold a valid licence for a product you shouldn't be able to sue any one if it doesn't work correctly or if it isn't safe, which is a hell of an intensive for buying a licence.

    Of course "compatible" is an issue here since while it wouldn't stop you using printers that come, say, with out DRM built in, once the DRM lock is broken it would make 3D printers that the industry likes more desirable.

    It is going to be interesting to see if the makers of 3D printing end up being held libel if a part one of their printers prints is defective but I doubt it's going to be a killer issue. Home manufacture already exist and these problems already exist on a home scale. People don't commonly sue the tools they used to build something if what they built ended up hurting them.

  • On the post: It Is Easy For People To Miss Disruptive Trends

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2012 @ 07:07am

    Re: Re: 3d Printing is set to be the most disruptive technology yet

    When people are able to do something new they'll find all kinds of new things they will then "need" to do with it. While I think you claim that 3d printers in the short term offer nothing of value to most people is simply a false one you are make a fatal mistake in presuming that there is no need for 3D printing that we are currently not aware of. This is in fact exactly the kind of thinking the article was seeking to point out when it comes to how people manage to overlook disruptive technology.

    There are always unintended consequences, emergent behaviour and ways of thinking that can only come about once something new have enabled them. We've gotten better at understanding and predicting these things as we now have people who where born in and grew up in a world where the pace of technological change has been huge. One of the most important ways of thinking we've developed as a result is that you simply can not look at a new technology and say "there is not enough of a need for that how things stand" because big technologies change how people behave what they want and what they think. Technology is at it's most disruptive when it creates needs that can only exist when the technology is available.

  • On the post: It Is Easy For People To Miss Disruptive Trends

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2012 @ 06:33am

    Re: Re:

    Think of all the plastic crap that most store have to buy in and stock. It may makes sense before too long to have their own on site 3d printers especially if those 3d printers can print larger objects than what ever the most common size for home use ends up being.

    In terms of straight up printing you still have high quality print shops because most people currently don't need an A1 size printer or will have the room for it at home. As such the price isn't driven down as much either. Which is not to say long term people won't be able to print A0/1 at home but the larger the printed object (in both cases) the less likely the common day to day need is likely to be.

  • On the post: It Is Easy For People To Miss Disruptive Trends

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2012 @ 06:26am

    Re: Re: Re:

    I've suggested lego should jump on the band wagon. Build a kiosk that keeps it's self stocked with basic bricks and bits with an option for people to print anything from legos whole range. Given you don't have to package or stock individual item and can avoid most other retailer overheads it could make economic sense. Just send some one to top up it's printing material every ones in a while and your done.. guess there some issues with how you do any detailed surface printing and such but it would be worth lego trying given that for basic building blocks they are going to be in a bit of trouble if 3d printing becomes common.

  • On the post: It Is Easy For People To Miss Disruptive Trends

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2012 @ 06:19am

    Re: Re:

    The difference between the 3d printer, flying cars and home nuclear power supplies is that we already have consumer grade 3d printers in peoples homes. They may not be very good, they may cost too much and be for people who have an interest in the idea but they exist. You can buy one and use it in some limited form.

    What also exist are the commercial grade 3d printers, which are currently vastly most expensive but vastly better are used in a number of industries and are constantly being improved on.

    We've seen that as technology advances prices come down so it's not out of the question that versions our current commercial grade printers will end up in the home and they have a wide range of applications.

    The 3d printer unlike flying cars or nuclear powered homes exist and is already useful and it will to grater or less extent be disruptive. We have to be careful not to swing the other way and make grand predictions that fail to come true but there is a growing sense of where 3D prints are starting to go and they may go far.

    Yes it maybe limited but it might not be and ignoring what it could become is going to leave you flat footed when it does. Which is the point made here. Mistakes are made when you dismiss something because it may come to nothing.

  • On the post: PETA Vs. Pokemon

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 11 Oct, 2012 @ 02:52am

    Re: Peta

    Peta does not and never wanted to act as a shelter. They do it as a last resort and will claim they have a higher put down rate because they only begrudgingly take in animals that are vastly more likely to have to be put down. They don't think companion animals should exist so they are not making efforts to prop up a system they view as akin to slavery.

    It's a stupid awful view but peta are not looking to make life better for companion animals now, they are trying to make sure there are no companion animals in the future.

  • On the post: PETA Vs. Pokemon

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 11 Oct, 2012 @ 02:43am

    Re: In other news

    PETA are not hypocrites when you actually understand what their beliefs and goals are. PETA are an animal rights organisation which is not the same as animal welfare. They believe for example companion animals shouldn't exist and is a form of slavery. There goal isn't to make life better for those animals now it's to makes sure animals like that don't exist in the future.

    As such they don't claim or want to act as a shelter, they only take animals as a last resort and as such their rate of putting animals down is higher than other shelters because they claim they get a higher rate of animals that have to. They view no kill shelters as cruel prisons that are over full.

    This is why they have an issue with pokemon, the people claiming peta don't understand pokemon because it's all about love and friendship are ironically not understanding peta. In petas view there should be no love or friendhsip with animals, they have equal rights and that includes the right to not be interfered with by humans as much as it's possible for us to avoid.

    Now of course there is a sliding scale from this core peta ideal down through it's members and such. They even make a show of having members who have pets these days. But the fact is peta's end game is not making the human world a better safer nicer place for animals, it's about them not being involved in it at all.

    A lot of people who talk about animal rights are often really just advocating animal welfare. Peta on the other hand are at the core a group who do honestly believe in animal right to be equal.

    As such you can view a lot of what seems to be hypocrisy as simply the pragmatic expression of their core ideals. It's almost admirable in fact that while they try and spin their views as much as they can for PR (they live on donations remember) that they still manage to actively express and act on their core values.

    I hope I've not come across as bagging on the idea of animal "rights" as a whole. In fact I've recently managed to stop being hypocritical with my views and changed to a vegetarian diet. It's just that I dislike peta and I find a lot of people dislike peta for the wrong reasons.

  • On the post: Teenage Engineering: If Our Parts Are Too Expensive, Here's How To Print Your Own

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 05 Oct, 2012 @ 02:01am

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

    "A single color 3D printer alone is not going to answer that many real questions"

    I don't think any one is really suggesting that it is. Right now what we are getting is consumer level proof of the basic concept. From this point as costs come down and the technology advances we'll start to see if it can live up to it's disruptive potential.

    I just think given it's end point potential we'll start seeing it targeted by the same old propaganda for the same old reasons.

  • On the post: WIPO Scared Of The Pirate Party; Won't Give It Observer Status Due To Objections Despite Meeting Criteria

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2012 @ 07:13am

    Re: Re: Re: Uh, the name is part of what they stand for

    No matter what name they gave them self's people like you would have simply called them the "Pirate Party" in an attempt to discredit them anyway.

    You are going to spout the same rubbish regardless but by naming them self's the Pirate Party they remove some of the power of the name to be used to mock. It even forces people like you to have to engage is a debate on the meaning of the term pirate and where it comes from.

    You are arguing semanticist of a name you'd have other wise been hurling as an insult.

    Names come to reflect what they are used to name not the other way around. "The President of the United Sates" is a title that was originally intended to be modest, almost insultingly so, to keep egos in check. President is now a title that is used by any number of world leaders and carries a vastly different meaning than when it was first used.

    So while you spin your wheels over something that is effectively meaningless because your upset they took your insult away from you they will get on with doing what they want to do.

  • On the post: Teenage Engineering: If Our Parts Are Too Expensive, Here's How To Print Your Own

    Tim Griffiths ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2012 @ 06:06am

    Re: Re: Re:

    You can build a gun at home using other tools that really don't cost that much anyway.

    "As for 3d printers within the manufacturing industry, I've only seen them in the prototyping sectors."

    3D printing wouldn't be disruptive to the industry if it was purely something that was going to be used by the industry. It would just represent a change from subtractive to additive manufacturer in cnc like machines. Which does not make sense for everything and won't happen until it's cheap enough and effective enough that it makes economic sense to switch for relevant processes. Any change to 3D printing for industrial scale use is just a case of adding something to the tool set.

    But that's not what is happening, 3D printing is not just a new industry tool. What makes it disruptive is putting an increasingly powerful manufacturing tool in the hands of consumers. It's not going to threaten all manufacture but even just looking at the current technology is able to do there are areas of manufacture that would be in trouble if 3D printers come in to common wide spread use. Niall example of the toy industry is a good one in that regard. Lego is based on manufacturing relatively simple bits of plastic, something a 3D printer could start to do at home.

    Hell Lego might want to get the jump on this by creating vending like machines, drop a bit of money on and it will dump out a given number of blocks that are kept in stock by a 3D printer. All you need to do is keep it topped up with one bulk transport item. It could even on demand provide ANYTHING Lego makes.

    There is a wealth of "simple" manufacturer that 3D printing might be able to compete with even in it's current state. What it can compete with will only widen as the technology advances and as costs come down it will become more wide spread.

    The potential for disruption due to 3D printing is huge. If it will ever actually live that is another matter but it would be a safe bet that those who might be effected are well aware of it and will do there best to see that it doesn't.

Next >>