Lauriel 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Warner Bros. Just Keeps Pushing People To Piracy; New Deal Also Delays Queuing

    Lauriel ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2012 @ 10:43pm

    Re: Listen to the thieves ...

    Oh dear.-

    I suppose that when a bank a robbed, they are at fault for not giving away cash.


    When it became obvious to banks that their customers were no longer satisfied with 9-4 business hours, they embraced ATMs, EFTPOS, and online banking.

    I suppose that when a car is stolen, the owners are at fault for not just giving away the keys.


    Car dealers? Or individual owners? Because piracy does not equate stealing an individual's DVD collection. As for car dealers, they have never tried to stifle the second hand market, nor have they tried to limit rentals. They have never attempted to legislate to outlaw taxis and public transport. They have also never attempted to hinder people riding bicycles or walking (the transport equivalent to 'creating their own').

    I suppose that when a house is broken into, the owners are at fault too.


    Seriously? Have you ever tried to make an insurance claim? Not to mention the poor sods who have been sued by burglers who have injured themselves. And let's add to that the standard police response of "what do you expect us to do about it?" And that is completely ignoring the salient point: house ownership is a poor example. This is more like being in the rental market, and your real estate agent has told you that you can only be added to the waiting list two months after the house is empty and available for lease.

    I suppose that when farmers and supper markets are stolen from, they are at fault for not giving their products away too.


    And again - analogy fail. Neither farmers nor supermarkets have ever tried to make it more difficult to give them money in exchange for their products. I tried really hard to relate supermarkets and farmers to a second hand or rental market, but came up short. Maybe you've some ideas I haven't thought of in this regard.

    Come on folks ... work for a living, and pay your bills for the things that are forsale that you want.


    Yes, I work for a living. And I can buy DVDs if I want to. The key point of contention, however, is that many people (me included) do NOT want to buy a DVD. They want to watch once or twice.

    The main objection to WB's decision is that they then bemoan the lack of DVD sales, mistakenly (or obtusely) crying that piracy is the problem. Piracy is the visible symptom of the problem - people want more options. If WB provided more options, instead of less, there might be a more observable impact on piracy.

    Banks found alternatives. Car dealerships thrive in a competitive market. Housing sales continue regardless of the construction and rental sub-industries. Only the entertainment industry is doing its utmost to erase all alternate avenues, while crying out how badly done by they are.

    Stealing is stealing ... everybody has the right not to buy, what they do not want to pay for ... nobody has the right to steal.


    Business is business. Everybody has the right to support a business or not. This is generally contingent on whether their needs (and wants) as a consumer are met. If the entertainment industry steps up an meets those needs, people will support them. If they treat their customers like thieves, limit their customers' options, and riddle their products with defects (DRM), then no, people will not support them. The fact that their products are so easily replicated (not stolen) and shared is unfortunate for them, but it is NOT the core problem.

  • On the post: MPAA Uses Anon Attacks To Make Nonsensical Comments About Free Speech

    Lauriel ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2012 @ 05:22am

    Re: Re: Re: It's not just the government that can attack free speech

    However, even though throwing a custard pie on someone's fade is not censorship it is still an attack on free speech. Sometimes it can even be a quite serious attack.


    No, it isn't. Using overwhelming power (government mainly, but also wealth/political power) to stifle someone's means to speak freely is censorship, and an attack on their free speech.

    Throwing a custard pie is a response to the other person's free speech. The response is simply "Shut the hell up, I'm through listening to you."

    The rights and means to speak doesn't equate to a necessity to be heard and regarded highly. :)

  • On the post: US Can Extradite UK Student For Copyright Infringement, Despite Site Being Legal In The UK

    Lauriel ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2012 @ 11:04pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The implications...

    Dude, he's got the US Government on one side, and a 19 year old kid on the other. He doesn't have to be on anything - he's just not brave enough to follow his conscience.

  • On the post: UK PC Gaming Site Rock, Paper, Shotgun To Join SOPA Protest By Going Dark Tomorrow

    Lauriel ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2012 @ 09:46pm

    Re: POOP

    Not to mention it's companion legislation aimed at those who 'induce' protests - the Stop Helping Internet Terrorists act.

  • On the post: UK PC Gaming Site Rock, Paper, Shotgun To Join SOPA Protest By Going Dark Tomorrow

    Lauriel ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2012 @ 09:45pm

    Re: Re:

    I agree Loki. Google could actually do more damage by giving strong opposition. And even just a link will likely do more to promote and educate those who don't any sort of internet or tech news closely.

  • On the post: Rikuo's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    Lauriel ( profile ), 24 Dec, 2011 @ 08:36pm

    Re: Re: Merry Xmas, lets hope santa sent you a blank CD and a downloaded song for crissy.

    Sharing the bed you sleep in can be kind of fun too. ;)

  • On the post: As Expected, SOPA Supporters Hate More Reasonable Alternative

    Lauriel ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2011 @ 10:47pm

    Re: Re: Re: Yes, but you keep arguing that multi-party infringement

    Never mind, Trails. You got enough of the relevant letters in for your message to be recieved!

    For my part, I suggest we be supportive of out_of_the_blue. After all, he's finally getting HLP to make an argument.

  • On the post: Why All Filmmakers Should Speak Out Against SOPA

    Lauriel ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2011 @ 05:23pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Artist are the one selling their rights. If that is wrong, offer them a better alternative that makes them more money, that gives them more control, and makes the more popular, and I am sure they will be all over it.


    Do you mean an alternative like a platform where they can promote and release their art for little to zero cost, to a wide audience, maintain the rights to their work, interact with their fans to increase exposure, and maybe even earn some money from their promotions while they get to the stage of earning larger amounts from ticket sales and the like?

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Lauriel ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2011 @ 04:46pm

    Re: Re: Re: Awwww, I did it, its all my fault

    Be careful what you wish for. I'm sure there are many families who would get far more entertainment value out of getting together with a camcorder than sitting on the couch for an hour and a half watching a movie.

  • On the post: Why All Filmmakers Should Speak Out Against SOPA

    Lauriel ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2011 @ 03:33pm

    Re:

    First off, no solution is 100% - success won't be measured by piracy disappearing entirely nor is failure measured by some level of piracy still existing. Since the days of the reel to reel tape, there has been some piracy and there always will be. Arguing that some piracy will exist is like arguing that the sun comes up - everyone knows it.


    This goes two ways. Most criticism of new business models that attempt to compete with piracy is that they don't combat piracy. You can litigate, or compete, but neither will totally eradicate piracy. The consideration must then be how much collateral damage they do - and here legislative options lose. No new business models that I'm aware of have included censorship or attempted to circumvent civil rights.

    Second, the issue of piracy today isn't the determined few, it's the masses with easy access. Move piracy underground, and the masses won't be there (otherwise it wouldn't be underground, would it?). Secrets can only be kept by small groups. So, seeing my first point, accepting that there will be some piracy (probably private groups, or sneakernet) doesn't preclude the new laws from having a positive effect on reducing piracy.


    The problem is that this is only one scenario - and a rather idealistic one at that. Other scenarios include the one posited by Techdirt - that SOPA will have minimal effect on piracy while having a hugely detrimental effect on legitimate services. Another scenario is that, as this article suggests, it may have moderate success in fighting piracy, but will cripple any future directions technology and internet services can go. Imagine 20 years down the line and still being tied to the massive overheads currently existing with CD and DVD production compared to low cost distribution methods that are developing thanks to the internet? Just because the pirates got there first, doesn't mean that it is an irrelevant process. Again, Valve is a great exemplar - and they aren't going broke due to piracy.

    Third, networks are never entirely outside the reach of prying eyes. As soon as your transit your ISP, you are at least somewhat exposed. You can try to hide it all you like, but almost every time of traffic has patterns, which given time, can be deduced and dealt with - and that would be only if there wasn't an acceptance of point 1, that there will be some and it will be tolerated.


    Third, creative content is never entirely outside the reach of prying eyes. As soon as your transit your creative work, you are at least somewhat exposed.

    You can try to control it all you like, but if it is made public, it is open to piracy. I'd argue that the better option is to make legitimate copies valuable, and worth the cost of paying for.

    For starters, good will still exists. Many fans want to support the creators, and all those who help the creator get the content out. Speaking personally, I want to contribute to help creators continue creating stuff I'll enjoy. What I don't want is to be told I have to pay for it, even if I don't want it, don't enjoy it, or can't afford it. Paying for something isn't necessarily monetary - don't break the internet, limit usage or availability of forums and blogs like Techdirt that I enjoy spending my time on, simply to enforce payment of a couple of products. There is simply no good will generated there.

    Secondly, people will pay for quality and reliability. If a creator's product is neither as good a quality nor as reliable as the pirated version, the issue is theirs to deal with, not mine. If thier content is both of a good quality, and reliable (no viruses, easy to locate, works every time on any platform), then payment is a lot more certain.

    Oh - and if I just don't like it, I won't pay. Both talent and what's "good" in creative terms are subjective. Payment, or lack thereof, may simply be an indicator of that subjective quality, not of piracy.

    Driving piracy further underground will affect none of the above. If content is released to the public, it is able to be pirated. Driving piracy underground will make little difference. The wide availability of pirated copies isn't the issue - it is the ease of making it available that is. That is the issue I would like to see content creators start to address, by making their own products equally easy to access, at a fee that I can comply with.

    Finally, you have to remember that most of the ripping of DVDs and Blu Rays are done by a small group of people, many of them doing it for social brownie points. Remove the social, remove their desired results, and they are likely to give it up or slow down their activities.

    Making it harder to pirate in public rips down huge amounts of infrastructure, makes P2P pretty much passe, and shifts the public's perception and access to pirated materials. Those are the people who are the targets, not the rippers or the hosts specifically.

    Understanding the social as well as economic implications are key. Without it, you can go off on a rant that goes nowhere, and one that doesn't really do anything except rake the same tired list of gripes out over again without anything new.


    So remove the overheads of DVD and Blu Ray, offer content in an accessible digital format, download or stream, either ad supported or for an access fee to a service, and promote the social rewards for going legit.

    In education, research has proven that people's mind disregard the negative, and latch on to the concrete. If you tell a child "don't run", their mind disregards the negative "don't" and latches on to the concrete "run". They might stop running for the immediate moment while you are there, but the word "run" is what is imprinted on their mind. Try it yourself, right now. If I said "don't think about the blue monkey" - what did you do? Stop thinking about the blue monkey? Or did you start wondering exactly what is a blue monkey, what would one look like? Or even, what the hell is she on about?

    In short - promote the benefits of the legitimate services. Win social approval of legitimate services by telling us the positives. This doesn't exclude cracking down on the negitives (in education, there are still penalties for breaking the rules, of course), but the rewards for doing the right thing need to outweigh the punishment for doing the wrong thing. Harsher punishment is only one side of the equation. The only catch is that they have to live up to the promotion.

    Oh, and will you go back 20 years and tell yourself that you don't have a job anymore?


    If I've been sitting there for 20 years wondering why a job hasn't fallen in my lap, I probably deserve to be unemployed. Equally, if I've been employed in an industry for 20 years and haven't been educating myself on how the changes that policy, technology, economics, and public needs have been impacting that industry, I probably shouldn't have the job. I definitely shouldn't be surprised that I'm no longer relevant to the industry. Looking at changes over a 20 year period and then blaming piracy is, to put it bluntly, complete lunacy.

  • On the post: Why All Filmmakers Should Speak Out Against SOPA

    Lauriel ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2011 @ 02:49pm

    Re:

    The biggest difference is that the wider public view spam as a pain in the rear end. The wider public view piracy in an entirely different light. That is why piracy is so difficult to combat - the general public recognise a direct benefit to themselves, unlike spam. The only way to defeat piracy is to remove that benefit - either by crippling laws that are increasingly problematic, or by following Valve's example and offering services where the benefits are comparable, or exceed, that of services who rely on piracy.

  • On the post: Author Puts Article Online, Insists That Due To Copyright, You Cannot Link To It

    Lauriel ( profile ), 12 Nov, 2011 @ 12:21am

    Re: Here is a GUN - it has a simple "point and click" interface.

    You have an interesting interpretation of copyright law, Daryl. Linking (directing people to view the author's copy of the article is illegal, yet you quoted (copied and posted) a segment of his article without citation?

  • On the post: How Copyright Infringement Turned Vampires Into Big Business

    Lauriel ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2011 @ 06:05am

    Re: Re:

    The point of all this is that the culture of vampire lore grew, multiplying interest beyond what Stoker's work alone would have garnered...
    Nobody is discounting the work of Stoker here. The point is that the derivative is important as well and stifling that work is silly.


    ITA. It's also worth pointing out that Stoker's Dracula 'borrowed' (or should I say 'freetarded'? Is that a word yet?) from Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's short story Carmilla. Le Fanu's work was first published in 1872, and Stoker's in 1897, 25 years later.

    Le Fanu also built on earlier vampire lore, but was the first to take it out of the 'monster' category and build the dark subculture more commonly associated with vampire lore. He was also developed the romance and seduction that is a common trait to more modern vampire stories, including Stoker's.

    To reiterate DH, this is not to discount Bram Stoker's work - his brought in some original elements of his own, and was certainly more widely circulated than Le Fanu's. But he definitely built on prior art, rather than creating it "out of a vacuum", as it were.

  • On the post: More Evidence That If You Give People A Reason To Buy, They'll Spend More

    Lauriel ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2011 @ 03:54am

    Re: Yeah, and no, but....

    I work with a Yoga school. I can assure you that our email list to purchase rate is somewhat similar to that - and we ONLY have one outlet, not multiple outlets.

    I get the point of your post, and I honestly think that you make some good points. I also recognise that there are differences between industries, and also that sales on the internet are reaching a much broader audience, as they are not tied to a singular location. However, essential concepts are not that different. I would like to know why people involved in aspects of the entertainment industry seem to think that their industry is so different to that of others?

    Does ANY business believe that they will have an email list that consists of 80-100% buyers? Are there ANY small businesses (and a band starting out is exactly that) that don't have to battle to have profits outweigh overheads?

    Are there NO other industries (Yoga, remember?) that don't have huge amounts of free content on you-tube and other media that compete with their paid content? Don't businesses in these industries constantly have to search to find ways to promote their product, connect with customers (actually harder than fans, I think), and make their product worth paying for over the free content available?

    I'm sorry if I'm overreacting to your mostly reasonable post, but really - a 20% uptake from an email list, while I'm sure there are many that have higher rates, is not abnormal, especially for a small business.

    It seems to me, from the many posts I read from those involved in the entertainment industry, that there is a massively disproportional sense of what an achievement it is to be noticed, sell, gain followers, and be able to continue being in a business you love in such a saturated market. Have we really sunk so far that we ONLY consider a person successful or worthwhile if they have huge followings and are raking in millions?

    Posts like this one make me think the biggest dilemma facing entertainment industries is that they've been hit with a large dose of reality.

  • On the post: Author Dumps Publisher At Book Launch Party

    Lauriel ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2011 @ 03:12am

    Re: Re:

    Hahahaha! Perfectly demonstrating the occasional need of a good editor!

  • On the post: Author Dumps Publisher At Book Launch Party

    Lauriel ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2011 @ 03:10am

    Re: Re: Re:

    It's a common misconception to confuse an editor with a proof reader, too. Proof readers check spelling and grammar.

    Editors also check for consistency - are the characters consistent throughout the story? Is the timeline correct? Is the main plot plausible, at least enough to get the reader to suspend belief? Are there glaring holes in the main plot? Does the text read naturally, or is it halting and awkward in areas? And so on.

    An editor is also most likely to be the one keeping you out of the copyright soup.

    While I agree there are many benefits to self-publishing, I also think that an editor could only add value to your work. And hiring a freelance editor before publishing, while most likely an expensive undertaking, would be a serious consideration.

  • On the post: Author Dumps Publisher At Book Launch Party

    Lauriel ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2011 @ 02:51am

    Re: Doesn't matter unless you're in it for the money

    Doesn't matter which way you go, if you're a good writer and your story is popular you will always rise to the top.


    I disagree. Even if you are a great writer, popularity doesn't necessarily follow. Firstly, you need to get noticed, increase circulation, etc. For that, you need to attract those who will be interested in the product you are offering.

    Those heading to the 'chick lit' area of the shelf are not necessarily going to like a book that deals with feminism and media - especially if this theme isn't tackled through the lens of romance. If you aren't interested in the subject matter, it doesn't matter how well it is written.

    Equally, those interested in fiction that examines and challenges a social status quo probably aren't going to head to the romance section to look for it.

    Even an excellent writer needs to reach the right market in order to gain recognition, word of mouth, and increased popularity.

    Ridiculous analogy: How popular do you think Coca Cola would have become if it was marketed as fruit juice?

  • On the post: Cocaine Ring Used Universal Music's Interscope Label To Ship Drugs & Cash

    Lauriel ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2011 @ 02:36am

    Re: Re:

    You said: "it happened there this one time!"


    Girl: "This one time, at Interscope, we fixed the accounts so it looked like no one made any money, and we kept the profits."

    Guy: "Meh."

    Girl: "This one time, at Interscope, we did coke."

    Guy: "Meh."

    Girl: "This one time, at Interscope, we downloaded a song."

    Guy: "You're a criminal!!!111!"

  • On the post: Cocaine Ring Used Universal Music's Interscope Label To Ship Drugs & Cash

    Lauriel ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2011 @ 02:30am

    Re: According to their own standards, doesn't it make them liable?

    You know, with their push for third party liability, shouldn't Universal Music execs and staff be arrested for drug trafficking?

    No, no, no. That's not how it works. Third party liability would be extended to the postage label manufacturers, for making accessible and redirecting to criminal activities.

  • On the post: Entertainment Industry's Coordinated Effort To Blame Third Parties Taking Shape

    Lauriel ( profile ), 20 Sep, 2011 @ 01:22am

    Re: Re: Re: "Nothing in this will make anyone want to buy." -- So?

    Damn. HTML fail. Sorry.

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