iSights 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: That Mythical 'Information Wants To Be Free' Crowd

    iSights ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2009 @ 02:40pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Content is free

    There's not a large torrent crowd (the implied "they") on Slashdot? There's not a group of people who post "information wants to be free" on every copyright thread there?

    I did the Google search I suggested. Did you?

    Sorry, no straw man, have the facts, and I even have the t-shirt (though I didn't want it).

  • On the post: That Mythical 'Information Wants To Be Free' Crowd

    iSights ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2009 @ 02:32pm

    Re: Bits

    "Bits are not atoms. But people want to treat them as if they were."

    If all you want is a collection of bits, I'll sell you a hard drive full of randomized sectors. But you don't want "bits". You want bits that have been organized into music and movies and books and software.

    And that "organization" didn't happen accidentally. Someone spent a lot of time and effort and money doing so.

    Even in the physical world, the costs of manufacturing and shipping and selling a CD or DVD containing software or a movie is still just a fraction of the original content creation costs.

    In other words, the "distribution" costs are irrelevant.

  • On the post: That Mythical 'Information Wants To Be Free' Crowd

    iSights ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2009 @ 02:23pm

    Re: Re: Re: Content is free

    First, you assume that I actually WANT a bunch of t-shirts or to attend concerts. I don't. What I want is the music (or the movie, or the software, or the book).

    Selling me a bunch of crap simply in order to pay for people to produce what I originally wanted in the first place is counter-intuitive at best, and resource intensive at worst. (Not to mention asinine.)

    Second, buying a USB stick or CDRW or hard drive certainly helps the USB stick or CD or hard drive manufacturers, but does nothing for the artists, authors, or developers who created the work in the first place. (Unless, of course, you want to go the Canadian route and add a surtax to every storage medium?)

    And pretty soon you also have all of the USB sticks and HDs you need anyway. A single TB HD can in no way, shape, or form properly subsidize the creation of all of the content it can hold.

    So much for finite goods.

    And finally, visit, say, Slashdot sometime. Plenty of the "information wants to be free" crowd hangs out there, and they do say it. At every opportunity. If you think it's "mythical" just do a Google search.

    The problem lies in the word "information". Sure, "information" may want be free, but that's just code. Saying "information" makes it sound noble. But what they're really saying is that they want all of their ENTERTAINMENT to be free.

    There's a large torrent crowd there that wants, and expects, free music, free movies, free shows, free books, free games, and free software. Tell 'em they can't have it and they get pissy. Talk DRM and they'll immediately talk circumvention. Talk about ISP monitoring and they'll immediately talk about encryption and darknets. Talk about ads and they'll immediately talk about ad blockers.

    Talk about paying a buck a song and they'll complain it's not "fair". Talk about a quarter or a dime or a nickel, and someone else will complain that at a nickle a pop that terabyte drive would cost $25,000 to fill, and how is that "fair".

    They want to pay nothing. Period. And they'll piggyback on any scarce-goods finite-model you want to discuss, hoping that someone else--anyone else--will subsidize their entitlements.

  • On the post: Researchers: Copying And Imitation Is Good For Society

    iSights ( profile ), 27 Nov, 2009 @ 09:57pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    And artists and writers needing to eat and pay the bills seems to elude you...

  • On the post: Recording Industry Making It Impossible For Any Legit Online Music Service To Survive Without Being Too Expensive

    iSights ( profile ), 18 Nov, 2009 @ 10:26am

    Re: Re: "Too Expensive"

    "That's $10,000 dollars, genius."

    If you stop at Starbucks every monring before you go to work and buy a $4 latte you're going to spend $52,000 over the course of your working lifetime.

    Put into that perspective, genius, $10,000 is nothing, fifty cents a day, 1/8th the amount you're going to spend on ONE cup of coffee.

    And, by the way, 10,000 songs also meant that you were effectively buying one new song every other day during the same period. A rate of purchase I doubt you'd sustain.

    Or are you saying that you value your music that much less than a friggin' cup of coffee?

  • On the post: Just Because People Say They'll Pay For Something, It Doesn't Mean They Will

    iSights ( profile ), 18 Nov, 2009 @ 02:31am

    surveys are notoriously poor indicators

    "Of course, the reality is that this is just a survey of what people say they'd pay for -- and history has shown that surveys are notoriously poor indicators in terms of getting people to accurately reflect what they will and will not buy."

    Just like the surveys of people who say they'd finance the production of future movies or books or music by buying shares? (Various assurance contracts and micropatronage schemes.)

  • On the post: Mariah Carey Showing How The New Music Business Model Works For Megastars

    iSights ( profile ), 16 Nov, 2009 @ 11:20am

    Stuff I don't want.

    Unfortunately, all of these models seem to be based on selling me stuff I don't want (a closet full of t-shirts and magazines and posters) in order to pay for the stuff I do want: music, movies, books, software.

    So why is it again that I can't pay directly for the content I want, and skip all of the other junk? Especially since most of it is destined for the nearest landfill?

    Seems to me that you're continually promoting the generation of waste (scarcities) just at the point in time where we could freeing ourselves from it entirely.

  • On the post: Star Wreck Filmmakers Experiment With Iron Sky

    iSights ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2009 @ 07:56pm

    Re: Re:

    ".... once they have a little more to show."

    Actually, that's one of the problems I have with this concept. Say I want to make a movie. Fine. Now, how much do I need to tell you before you'll donate? Enough to spoil the film?

    Think of The Matrix. I could say that I'm going to make a movie about a computer programmer... boring. Okay, a computer programmer who discovers that.... what?

    Anything I say from this point on is going to spoil all or part of the film for the viewer. I could say that it's going to have really cool groundbreaking special effects... but anyone can say that. It's hype.

    You MIGHT be able to get fan funding for a known entity, like say, Firefly/Serenity II, but I strongly suspect that it still made more money on ticket sales from the general public than from fans.

  • On the post: EU Officials Push Back Against Hollywood… Sorta; Note That Internet Access Should Be A Right… Sorta

    iSights ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2009 @ 04:35pm

    Rights

    "...if internet access is such a human right, why should anyone ever need to defend themselves?"

    Freedom of movement is a human right... unless you're found guilty of theft or assault or embezzlement or fraud and thrown in jail, in which case as far as you're concerned that particular right has been rescinded for the duration of your stay.

    And, one might add, rescinded entirely as a result of your own actions.

  • On the post: Attacks On File Sharing Simply Drive People Further Underground

    iSights ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2009 @ 03:32pm

    Re: Re: Fewer people....

    The original article makes that connection, does it not? "...rather than stop file sharing, under the new IPRED law, a growing number of file sharing users have simply gone further underground using anonymizing services."

    But I see your point, which would in turn mean that LESS than 6 or 7% are using encryption services to share, which then means that file sharing percentages have been cut even further.

    I don't think you're helping his case.

  • On the post: Attacks On File Sharing Simply Drive People Further Underground

    iSights ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2009 @ 03:27pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Attacks on File Sharing

    "... xeroxed a page out of a book at a library..."

    You do realize that there's this little thing called "fair use", do you not?

  • On the post: Attacks On File Sharing Simply Drive People Further Underground

    iSights ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2009 @ 11:07am

    Fewer people....

    FTFA: "Måns Svensson, PhD in Sociology of Law in Lund, estimates the percentage of all Swedes who are hidden on the Internet to be as high as 6 or 7 percent. "

    From TorrentFreak: "According to new research carried out by music group IFPI, around 40% of Swedes between 15 and 74 illegally share files every single day."

    Let's see, 6 or 7% vs. 40%?

    Seems like a major reduction to me. Another survey put the number at 11%, which still means roughly a 40-50% reduction.

  • On the post: Attacks On File Sharing Simply Drive People Further Underground

    iSights ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2009 @ 10:47am

    Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself

    Queue massive rationalization #23.

  • On the post: Attacks On File Sharing Simply Drive People Further Underground

    iSights ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2009 @ 10:46am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself

    Torrent relies on moving a huge number of bytes both from and to a large number of end connections in a rather small period of time.

    The pattern is obvious, encrypted or not.

    Besides, all ISPs need to do really put a dent in P2P is enact a rather steep per-byte surcharge on all upstrean traffic.

    Run up your internet bill a couple of hundred dollars a month, and I suspect that most people will stop (or greatly reduce) funding the habits of others.

  • On the post: Teens Sue School After Being Disciplined For MySpace Photos

    iSights ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2009 @ 03:58pm

    Re: Well, it's tricky, isn't it?

    Apparently the MySpace page containing the photos was set to "private", meaning that only approved friends could see them.

    Looking back, it's entirely logical to assume that some "friend" might take them and run with them, but they did have at least some expectation of privacy in the first place.

  • On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It

    iSights ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2009 @ 01:43am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Entitlement

    "Your [sic] wrote it so you should be compensated for it right?"

    Only if if has value to you.

    Which it must, since you're spending so much time on it...

  • On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It

    iSights ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2009 @ 01:38am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking

    You're the one that said, "just compensation," as if it's some kind of sin for someone to profit from their own creations.

    And it's not "my" industry.

  • On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It

    iSights ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2009 @ 01:34am

    Re: Re: Re: Entitlement

    "Or, ...gasp, he writes because he enjoys it and pays his bills with a job where he makes a salary."

    Which just forced another writer to stop writing full time, didn't it? Which pretty much screwed up that whole "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries," thing, now didn't it?

    I, for one, do not want my favorite authors greeting me as I walk into Walmart. I do not want them sitting in bookstores pleading for a handout. I do not want them going door-to-door looking for patrons and grants.

    I want them to do what they do best. Write.

    We have an admittedly imperfect system that still manages to generate hundreds of thousands of books each and every year, all on spec. I can buy any of them for a fraction of what it cost to produce them.

    And I have yet to hear of any other "solution" that guarantees the same results.

    Other than ones proposed by people who seem to think they're entitled to something for nothing...

  • On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It

    iSights ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2009 @ 01:27am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shocking

    "...want a reason to buy the better quality version? Besides the concept of many consumers wishing to own 'First Edition' ..."

    Same quality, they're all printed in China anyway. And I can print "official" and "first edition" on my knockoff too.

  • On the post: F. Scott Fitzgerald Made $8,397 On Great Gatsby; His Daughter Gets $500,000 Per Year From It

    iSights ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2009 @ 01:23am

    Re: Re: Re: Entitlement

    "Writing is a talent, much like anything else. ... Or, ...gasp, he writes because he enjoys it and pays his bills with a job where he makes a salary."

    You are an idiot, aren't you?

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