Tim K's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Normally I try to avoid writing, which was one of the benefits of going into computer science. However, I figured I’d give it a go for this week’s favorite posts article. So first off, I wanted to start out with the post from Leigh bringing our attention to the great clip of Rob Reid. Rob does a great job of illustrating how ridiculous the numbers are that Hollywood uses in their attempts to justify their actions. They continue to show that facts and logic have no place in their world as they keep coming up with new ways for consumers to jump through hoops to get their content. We aren’t asking them to come up with new ways to deliver the content. All that work has been done for them, they just need to actually start embracing it instead of trying to use QR codes to get people to buy physical discs or making people drive to a store and pay for the ‘privilege’ of a (more than likely DRM-riddled) digital copy.
This week really had a lot of stories highlighting just how full of themselves the *AAs are, as another story by Mike discussed their claims that without the brilliant gatekeepers there would be no content that people actually wanted. Aside from the fact that they don’t actually make the content, I’m pretty sure there are many people on Kickstarter who would disagree with that. Tim Schafer being the most well known with his project ending with a massive $3.3 million dollar funding, which was more than 800% of the goal, for a game that those gatekeepers claimed people wouldn’t want. And there are tons of other examples of musicians from Kickstarter and BandCamp, and I’m sure elsewhere who were successfully funded without the help of those gatekeepers.
There were two posts in particular this week that I thought the authors of the original stories did a great job of showing how they must think the public is completely stupid, because I do not see how they could possibly believe what they are trying to get us to believe. First was the article by Tim about the Author’s Guild Boss On E-Book Price Fixing Allegations. He tries to describe how amazing Apple is because with Apple “publishers would make less money on every e-book they sold,” and there would also be “lower royalties for authors.” Yet, despite both of them making less money, the consumers end up paying more money. I can not see how someone can combine those statements into an argument for how Apple is the savior of authors. The second article was another by Mike that a lot of people thought was a bit lengthy, but as Mike noted, was a great point by point debunking of ridiculous claims. Again, I don’t understand how people can believe some of their own arguments, let alone try and convince the public of these laughable statements. It does do a few good things though: it shows the world how much this guy doesn’t understand the way things work today, it provides a nice single convenient location of debunked ‘logic’ for easy reference, and one can hope that it could lead him to getting fired, so there is one less luddite in charge.
Of course I cannot leave out the wildly popular article by Mike about how copying still isn’t stealing. People seem to ignore the fact that we have different words for a reason. An important reason for the distinction between copying and stealing is so that people cannot make the ridiculous false analogy that Logan made about breaking into a place and stealing a painting versus downloading something from the internet. I’m sorry if you don’t understand very basic concepts such as words having definitions and not meaning whatever you think they should mean, but everyone should at least be able to see a very clear distinction between the two, and they should never be used in an attempt to equate stealing and copying.
Now onto better stories from this week, where we have the story about Valve doing a great job again with CwF + RtB. I’ve been a fan of Valve since the counter-strike days, which by the way, I never even had to buy the game, or pay for the updates or the maps or anything with that game as it was all free with Half-Life (up until Source). That was a great way to CwF and they did it again with TF2. It’s good to see that while some companies can no longer innovate, Valve is still doing a great job with their games. I have not actually played TF2 myself, but I hope other developers are paying attention to stories like this so that they can learn how to go free-to-play and still make money, or even increase revenue as Valve has done, and do it without hurting the players who do not want to, or cannot afford to, pay.
There were also a couple stories that I enjoyed seeing about people who are actually fighting back and not just giving in to government demands, or taking the money and running, even though that’s what a lot of our representatives seem to be doing. If only our government would learn from us, and from their past mistakes and actually be more transparent as they are supposed to be and as Glyn said, not insult the public they are supposed to represent.
This ended up being a bit longer than I was expecting, but I would like to end with this great article about how India is trying to save lives. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are more concerned with their own pockets then saving lives. It is a little disheartening to read in this article about how, despite this being a very good thing, it will likely come with a lot of opposition. Hopefully, we will all do away with drug patents sometime soon (wishful thinking I’m sure), but for now it’s great to see India grant this compulsory license to get this drug marketed at a significantly lower price than the current $70,000/year!
2 minute warning
Just last week I was looking into the purpose of the 2-minute warning in football. Seemed pretty dumb, and only added more commercials. Turns out originally it was because the stadium clock was not the official time, so they used that to make sure the teams knew exactly how much time was left. Then when it became the official time, they left it because of TV for commercials and to 'build tension'. But really for commercials.
So my question is what would the numbers actually be if it wasn't frequently cheaper to get the TV with the internet? I technically have the basic TV subscription with my AT&T service because it was cheaper to get that with the internet than just the internet. I've never even hooked up the box, but technically I guess I'm not a cordcutter.
Why do I even have to buy a smart tv?!?
I don't want a smart tv. Not because of this, though this isn't surprising. But it adds expense, and often the UI/UX is pretty terrible. as radix mentioned you have ~$30 devices like chromecast/fire stick if you want smart functionality. And those can easily/cheaply be upgraded. I don't want to have to upgrade my TV every few years because some new app came out that my TV doesn't support. So why bother making TVs 'smart' to begin with? It seems the only way to get 'dumb' TVs mostly now is to get off brand TVs. Can someone please start selling dumb TVs again that are a bit cheaper than these supposed smart TVs.
Re:
You do realize that that crowd in the crowdsourcing, would be the fans of Star Trek
I have cable TV, but only basic, and only because it was cheaper to get the faster U-Verse internet with the basic TV, instead of just internet
Re:
The problem with that, is there is usually no where else to go. For instance, I have comcast, even though I hate comcast. But they are the only service I can even get, not counting dsl, which is not really comparative, so I'm stuck with comcast. That's how most places are, they have one option for high speed internet, and maybe they have a second option for non-comparable internet
Re:
The texts were an opt-in decision by families that could not be met face to face at hotels or support centers.
Did you miss that part?
Yep, I just got a call for the first time last month, saying I had 30gb of the 300gb limit left last month. I got no notification before that that there even was a cap on the data, and when I clicked on the link in the email from them to view my usage, it doesn't even take you to the right page! I couldn't even find it on their shitty site, and had to go with my ddwrt estimates of usage
including actively retrieving stolen information, altering it within the intruder?s networks, or even destroying the information within an unauthorized network. Additional measures go further, including photographing the hacker using his own system?s camera, implanting malware in the hacker?s network, or even physically disabling or destroying the hacker?s own computer or network.
Not really surprising. And I'm sure it would be 100% accurate and not accidentally do that to innocent people ever...
Once again
Difficult for MPAA to differentiate between infringing and non-infringing material, but everyone else should still easily be able to know immediately what's infringing.
Re: Re: Re: Oh really?
a?ban?don
/əˈbandən/
Verb
Give up completely (a course of action, a practice, or a way of thinking)
I don't think you know what abandon means. First paywalls means they are still utilizing the web. Second, I don't ever use any of those paywall sites. I'm at work, I don't have a TV, yet I'm watching the news on the marathon for free on the web. They are in no way abandoning the web.
Re: Oh really?
professionals are abandoning the web.
What world do you live in?
Re: You CAN'T disagree that "it facilitates piracy".
Computers, hard drives, flash drives, the internet all facilitate piracy. What's your point?
Re: And so too will VPNs "pipes" be cracked!
By the way, ever notice how much focus here is on keeping identity hidden? The most obvious purpose is so you can download infringed content.
Says the person who is always on this site commenting, but never creates an account. Obviously OOTB must be pirating this site!
That technology has been around for years. Why is Apple trying to patent it now?
That's SOP for Apple. Followed by suing everyone else.
The cloud also represents a threat in that it facilitates piracy, and the pirates seem to have gotten into this space first
Who would have guessed that? Probably because Hollywood doesn't actually come up with new tech other than tech to try and screw their customers.
Re: Re: Re: To Tim it's academic: to her and employees, it's LOST income.
Could the same be accomplished at half the price? How about $10,000 per year? Or $0? ... Kathy Wolfe has obviously worked hard to keep Wolfe Films running for more than a quarter-decade. She deserves a salary and I hate to see that money flowing into an effort that's not paying off.
Yeah...What a dick
Re: To Tim it's academic: to her and employees, it's LOST income.
Saying something is a fact does not make it so. Hence the desire for the actual numbers/research she used to come to that conclusion
In the wrong business
$30K for sending probably mostly automated DMCA. Which does nothing because as she stated, after taking down links more popped up the next day. So you have ridiculous money, one would assume not much work after the initial setup of your DMCA bots, and guaranteed work because people will just keep reposting links, and content owners will continue throwing money at it hoping that they are actually doing something that helps.
Spotify
I listen to about 95% of my music through spotify, and I pay the $5 a month for no commercials. The other 5% is from driving around and listening to the radio. So pretty much spotify is the reason I don't need to buy/download/whatever music anymore, not anything else that the music industry might claim.