Assume that Comcast (for example) owns the cable and offers TV and Phone service. Does the proposal prevent them from charging more for Internet services than they charge to their own services, thus reducing competition?
It is too late to have the bill posted 5 days before the president signs it. It's an improvement, but I am asking my representatives to delay voting to approve any Bill, ammendment ... until 5 days after ti (they) are posted. That way their vote can be based on the wisdom of the WEB rather than their own limited research staff or the lobiests only.
Obviously the representatives who do not honor such a commitment will have that on their record when they ask for money or my vote.
I agree with the general feeling that the best way to get people to read the NewsPaper material is to provide them with links to the source material. When a paper writes "A report says ..." they should follow the statement with a "WEBrite" symbol (w), that shows there is a link on the WEB copy of the article to the main source.
In addition, I'd like
1) well designed threaded comment area that would allow valued comments and
2) a BLOG headline list that would allow any blOG entry that talked about the article to be added, by the author, and sorted by popularity,
so that we could go the the WEB copy of the article, follow the source links and benefit from the WEB wisdom.
. 1) Let's agree that we are discussing for the future, thus what ever policy we develop is not STEALING from people who already own IP, but setting the rules society has for people who might consider producing IP in the future.
. 2) It seems to me that IP is much like any other product, the more we pay (patent/copyright) it, the more that is produced.
. 3) On the other hand, the more we pay for it. the less is the Value-Price, benefit, of the product.
. 4) Thus the society should set the patent/copyright protections high enough to get a "reasonable" amount of IP produced, while it is low enough so that the benefits are reasonably high and add on IP development can be made efficiently.
My guess is that in the case of Drugs, we either have to figure out some way to reduce the costs of initially producing and testing the innovative drugs or increase their patent protection.
On the other hand, in the case of copy-cat drugs, entertainment, and most other IP, the protection should be decreased, as most of the reward occurs in the first few years, and the cost of preventing add on IP, protecting the IP, etc. is inefficient.
I don't mind paying for phone service to get DSL support and though I understand the people who want Naked DSL, possibly because they want to get their phone service via VOIP.
On the other hand, I think it is ESSENTUAL that we have competation for content and contend delivory. Thus it is OK if the phone system provides the wire but I think it is desirable to be able to have another vender use these wires, at a reasonable cost, to deliver the DSL part of the service. That way it is more likely that there will be competation for DSL rates, services, and if needed content availability.
The phone system should be paid for, whether the DSL provider is them or a third party, for the wire, but allow us to have the flexability to use a partner for DSL, etc. service.
I agree, I'd accept any reasonable "bribe", including the survival of a good DVR system, for allowing a rating service to access my usage anonymously. 1) I want the DVR and Service to do it openly so that I can Opt-out if I want. 2) I want them to commit to not relating my usage with me personally. I may be willing to give then demographic information and if I am paid for it, some extra info, but I DON'T want advertisers, the government, etc. to be able to target ME because they have info as to my personal viewing habits.
My thought was to use something like Movielink for films looking for distributers that were shown at festivals. The downloaded films would be time and copy limited so that if the film got a distributer the downloads would not take away from the theaters. Note: I would also suggest that they would be charged for at some reasonable rate. On the other hand, 1) The films could gather an early set of comments, as the films could be charge less for if the viewer did review it. 2) The popularity of the film would be measurable by the number of peolle who did decide to download it 3) There would be some payback for the creator, though of course this would be minor, but at least the creator could get some of their money back before it was distributed by standard methods. Thus, allowing the films to be distributed before they were sold to a standard distributor or got to theaters would it seems to me allow many independantly produced films to get a viewing without hurting their final profits and would allow them to gtenerate some "buzz" and money. Of course, those of us who were interested in the films could view interesting films early. So this seems to be a Win, WIn situation...
I has seemed to me that the ".xxx" domain would make a lot of sense if it could be considered a "Safe Harbor". The trade off would be that if a site was in the domain, then it would be easy for an ISP or end user to filter it out based on the request of the end user. On the other hand, the site would be protected against local pornography laws.
It seem to me that we should consider two types of TV processing hardware: . 1) Dedicated end user commertial, e.g. hardware/software that is designed ONLY for receiving, storing, displaying... TV. . 2) General Purpose, e.g. General Purpose PC's etc. that may have a tuner card in them, but are used for multiple purposes. It seems reasonable that such hardware should be required to make a Good Faith Attempt to honor the broadcast flag and that Dedicated hardware prevent un-reasonable violations of the flag. . a) I realize that this is not a legal statement but I suspect that it at least allows the mass produced hardware/software to try to honor the flag so that most people will use it reasonably, without adding too much burdon on the developers of other systems. . b) My assumption is that we can NOT prevent smart, true criminals from "cracking" the Broadcast flag, but that a reasonable law would mean that most customers would honor the law/flag as their hardware/software would be developed to honor the flag.
What I think might make sense is to have a .sex and a .kids, but to allow sites to use them as they wanted. The key would be to make it DESIRABLE for sites to "self classify" themselves, e.g. .kids -- Sites that honored reasonable strong non-ponography standards, though I can't define it. The advntage would be that this domain would not be filtered out, but porn sites might have to post a bond to ensure that they did not violate the standards. .sex -- Sites that would not be held to local pornograpy standards (perhaps not to any) thus the GOVERNMANT would give up their right to censor them, even through the court, but that could be filtered out by isp's based on a specific request from their customer. These sites would have some protection against legal action, but would have to accept simple filtering if an individual wants to so filter.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Mike Liveright.
net neutrality.. got-ya
One factor that I have not seen discussed.
Assume that Comcast (for example) owns the cable and offers TV and Phone service. Does the proposal prevent them from charging more for Internet services than they charge to their own services, thus reducing competition?
Get our Representatives to commit to vote against unposted bills
It is too late to have the bill posted 5 days before the president signs it. It's an improvement, but I am asking my representatives to delay voting to approve any Bill, ammendment ... until 5 days after ti (they) are posted. That way their vote can be based on the wisdom of the WEB rather than their own limited research staff or the lobiests only.
Obviously the representatives who do not honor such a commitment will have that on their record when they ask for money or my vote.
At least link to the source material
I agree with the general feeling that the best way to get people to read the NewsPaper material is to provide them with links to the source material. When a paper writes "A report says ..." they should follow the statement with a "WEBrite" symbol (w), that shows there is a link on the WEB copy of the article to the main source.
In addition, I'd like
1) well designed threaded comment area that would allow valued comments and
2) a BLOG headline list that would allow any blOG entry that talked about the article to be added, by the author, and sorted by popularity,
so that we could go the the WEB copy of the article, follow the source links and benefit from the WEB wisdom.
Ideas are scarce, Media is not
. 1) Let's agree that we are discussing for the future, thus what ever policy we develop is not STEALING from people who already own IP, but setting the rules society has for people who might consider producing IP in the future.
. 2) It seems to me that IP is much like any other product, the more we pay (patent/copyright) it, the more that is produced.
. 3) On the other hand, the more we pay for it. the less is the Value-Price, benefit, of the product.
. 4) Thus the society should set the patent/copyright protections high enough to get a "reasonable" amount of IP produced, while it is low enough so that the benefits are reasonably high and add on IP development can be made efficiently.
My guess is that in the case of Drugs, we either have to figure out some way to reduce the costs of initially producing and testing the innovative drugs or increase their patent protection.
On the other hand, in the case of copy-cat drugs, entertainment, and most other IP, the protection should be decreased, as most of the reward occurs in the first few years, and the cost of preventing add on IP, protecting the IP, etc. is inefficient.
Partnered ok, Naked not-needed
I don't mind paying for phone service to get DSL support and though I understand the people who want Naked DSL, possibly because they want to get their phone service via VOIP.
On the other hand, I think it is ESSENTUAL that we have competation for content and contend delivory. Thus it is OK if the phone system provides the wire but I think it is desirable to be able to have another vender use these wires, at a reasonable cost, to deliver the DSL part of the service. That way it is more likely that there will be competation for DSL rates, services, and if needed content availability.
The phone system should be paid for, whether the DSL provider is them or a third party, for the wire, but allow us to have the flexability to use a partner for DSL, etc. service.
Pay for usage (OK)
I agree, I'd accept any reasonable "bribe", including the survival of a good DVR system, for allowing a rating service to access my usage anonymously.
1) I want the DVR and Service to do it openly so that I can Opt-out if I want.
2) I want them to commit to not relating my usage with me personally. I may be willing to give then demographic information and if I am paid for it, some extra info, but I DON'T want advertisers, the government, etc. to be able to target ME because they have info as to my personal viewing habits.
Downloadable films
My thought was to use something like Movielink for films looking for distributers that were shown at festivals. The downloaded films would be time and copy limited so that if the film got a distributer the downloads would not take away from the theaters. Note: I would also suggest that they would be charged for at some reasonable rate.
On the other hand,
1) The films could gather an early set of comments, as the films could be charge less for if the viewer did review it.
2) The popularity of the film would be measurable by the number of peolle who did decide to download it
3) There would be some payback for the creator, though of course this would be minor, but at least the creator could get some of their money back before it was distributed by standard methods.
Thus, allowing the films to be distributed before they were sold to a standard distributor or got to theaters would it seems to me allow many independantly produced films to get a viewing without hurting their final profits and would allow them to gtenerate some "buzz" and money.
Of course, those of us who were interested in the films could view interesting films early.
So this seems to be a Win, WIn situation...
Domain .xxx
I has seemed to me that the ".xxx" domain would make a lot of sense if it could be considered a "Safe Harbor".
The trade off would be that if a site was in the domain, then it would be easy for an ISP or end user to filter it out based on the request of the end user.
On the other hand, the site would be protected against local pornography laws.
Broadcast flag for
It seem to me that we should consider two types of TV processing hardware:
. 1) Dedicated end user commertial, e.g. hardware/software that is designed ONLY for receiving, storing, displaying... TV.
. 2) General Purpose, e.g. General Purpose PC's etc. that may have a tuner card in them, but are used for multiple purposes.
It seems reasonable that such hardware should be required to make a Good Faith Attempt to honor the broadcast flag and that Dedicated hardware prevent un-reasonable violations of the flag.
. a) I realize that this is not a legal statement but I suspect that it at least allows the mass produced hardware/software to try to honor the flag so that most people will use it reasonably, without adding too much burdon on the developers of other systems.
. b) My assumption is that we can NOT prevent smart, true criminals from "cracking" the Broadcast flag, but that a reasonable law would mean that most customers would honor the law/flag as their hardware/software would be developed to honor the flag.
.sex not only .kids
What I think might make sense is to have a .sex and a .kids, but to allow sites to use them as they wanted.
The key would be to make it DESIRABLE for sites to "self classify" themselves, e.g.
.kids -- Sites that honored reasonable strong non-ponography standards, though I can't define it. The advntage would be that this domain would not be filtered out, but porn sites might have to post a bond to ensure that they did not violate the standards.
.sex -- Sites that would not be held to local pornograpy standards (perhaps not to any) thus the GOVERNMANT would give up their right to censor them, even through the court, but that could be filtered out by isp's based on a specific request from their customer. These sites would have some protection against legal action, but would have to accept simple filtering if an individual wants to so filter.