I was active in the recording industry back at the turn of the century (I love saying it that way).
Needless to say, the internet was just beginning to act as a distribution and promotion channel for musicians then. The recording industry doubled down on their anti-competitive, ever-chasing-the-blockbuster business model, as they have done many times since.
The industry failed to grasp the importance of the internet, and now there are many, many examples of artists thriving financially WITHOUT a major label, and with audiences in numbers the labels normally wouldn't have bothered with. It's almost the economics of scale in reverse. Recording costs have PLUMMETED thanks to digital recording and project studios. Distribution costs have plummeted, and now promotion costs (thanks to social networking and "going viral") have plummeted. Put it all together and as an artist, you no longer need someone else to "manage the business end" for you.
Marketing isn't a messy, bothersome business, but merely a way to connect with your fans. Distribution can be handled on iTunes, eMusic, and other sites with ease. And if you love your music, you can put together a fairly cheap (compared to the costs just 10 years ago) studio in your basement capable of producing a quality that people are willing to pay for.
The patent, the jurisdiction argument, the supposed innovation... this entire situation reeks of the need for patent law reform.
If it isn't big pharma or big content seeking extensions into the next eon, it's people like this patenting stuff they never built and never will. Pathetic.
... it's just wrong, man. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make a cartoon video character out of a guy who hated his own fame, struggled with drugs, and then gave a shotgun a blowjob... is an idiot.
Publishers are scared of online distribution for the same reason record labels are scared of it. Because when you pull more and more of the roadblocks between content CREATORS and contents CONSUMERS out of the way, they become obsolete. Indeed, they should adapt or prepare for the end. Should ebooks cost less? Absolutely. An optimized business model that delivers content online is vastly more efficient than an optimized business model that is binding paper books and shipping them around the country so consumers can get in their cars and drive to a book store, browse through stacks and buy what they want... if it's in stock.
Obviously, they have to get pricing right. But consumers are aware enough of the pricing signals they are getting to know when they're getting gouged. And the economic incentive for online book sellers is to drive volume through lower prices for ebooks. That's going to be a hard incentive for publishers to thwart.
"The new Keynesians still believe that through government tweaking, we can guide the economy to some sort of 'soft landing.'"
Let's not pretend Keynesianism is something that it isn't. Keynes called for capital infusions by governments when recessions or depressions caused a constriction of capital flows in the private equity, bond, and other private debt markets. This is not some clarion call for massive structural intervention by government. It is focused specifically on capital supplies, and prefers those capital supplies to come in the form of PAYMENT for actual work done (paying contractors who then pay suppliers, who then pay others, for example) rather than loans and equity purchases. Everyone who thinks the private capital markets are capable of ressurecting our economy in its present condition, please raise your hands. Yeah, that's what I thought.
"Encouraging competition should be a key goal of government, but in most cases that means staying out of the way."
Hardly. We "stayed out of the way" in the late 1800s and we got the robber barons. There are any of a number of disastrous policies that wrap themselves in the concept of "getting the government out of the way" that have time and again wrought havoc with our economy, our environment, and our labor markets. Government "staying out of the way" is often more about being pro-BUSINESS rather than pro-COMPETITION. A pro-BUSINESS government inevitably reinforces a status-quo, pushing innovation into irrelevance. Artificially low, government subsidized oil allowed the big 3 to continue to produce terrible, short-sighted products while their international competitors leaped ahead in terms of technology and innovation. And that's just a single example.
"While there are some who suggest they should be allowed to simply fail anyway, the economic risk in doing so is quite large -- in part, as a result of bad gov't policies for many years, abused and exploited by these companies."
I'm so sick of this excuse. It's the bad government policies that ALLOWED those banks do shoddy risk assessments of asset classes they were over-selling? If I leave my door unlocked, is it partly my fault that someone decides to enter my house illegally and steal all my stuff? What court of law would throw me in jail for leaving my door unlocked? None. Banks chose to do STUPID, SHORT SIGHTED, WEAKLY VETTED stuff. THEY did that, not government. What's the long term return on shareholder value for those companies that sucked the sub-prime trough dry? I think we've found out in the last year. These banks chose Q3 2005 profit statements over long-term shareholder value. THEY did that, regardless of what regulators said was OK or not OK. Government policies could have prevented it, and I could have prevented my house from being robbed by locking the door, but that doesn't make ME equivalent to the thief in terms of culpability.
"And, indeed, this economic restructuring is a good cold shower (though, some may prefer douche), but we don't get that sort of restructuring when the government is propping up exactly what needs to be restructured."
Tell that to the people who died of starvation and disease during the Great Depression because they were broke. Tell that to the people who died of exposure because they didn't have a house, or the people who got black lung in the dustbowl. I love the Schumpeter quote. It's hilariously myopic. "Don't worry about the Great Depression." He was an itelligent man, and rightly influential, but this quote shows that he was also capable of being a clueless, heartless ... douche.
Look, the free-market economy is ultimately the best option we have because it does the most good for the largest number of people. It provides the most freedom, the best and fairest distribution of resources, and contributes to the most widely spread welfare. People talk about the economy like we need to keep it healthy. We need the economy to keep US healthy. Schumpeter and his compatriots who imagined a Randian meritocratic utopia had some great ideas that are still of great use. Let's not pretend this is a package deal, however. The truth is, somewhere amidst all the economic partisans, there is a good balance. We should strive for that.
Ultimately, Cuban makes a rather transparently self-aggrandizing point that falls flat on a policy level.
There is a MASSIVE difference between knowing start-ups and small businesses and knowing the government POLICIES that allow for an ENVIRONMENT where these businesses thrive. Cuban makes the mistake of thinking these are the same thing. Patent reform, for instance, could be a HUGE boon to start ups. But I'll be damned if I'm going to trust Cuban to come up with the right legalese that allows for openings to innovation while offering appropriate, limited protections to innovators. That would demand someone well versed in patent law precedents and government reform measures, not somebody who successfully ran online media web sites.
Also, don't equate success in start-ups with business acumen. Entrepreneurs can be successful for a variety of reasons, including ability to schmooze, lie, cheat, cajole, and/or over-promise their way into bigger and bigger business deals. There are brilliant people too. And smart financiers. If starting your own company and having it thrive is the measure of a true entrepreneur, you have to wonder why Cuban tosses aside Buffet as if the fact that he won't INVEST in start-ups erases the fact that Berkshire-Hathaway thrives as it does under Buffet's leadership.
Actually, it has slowed their economic growth. They rigged stock market, state sponsorship and other hallmarks of China's not-quite-capitalism are other elements that slow growth in that country. Of course, if they really let capitalism do its work, they would be dealing with out of control inflation and even greater income disparity, not to mention much, much more foreign ownership of Chinese business. In other words, the manner in which they have chosen to grow their economy and the manner in which they choose to regulate the internet spring from the same philosophy. Perhaps it is even DESIGNED to control the growth, but controlling (by slowing) is what it is doing.
I don't think SUV drivers are more likely to have a sense of entitlement. I don't think they're narrow-minded, and I don't think this study means much of anything aside from exactly what it says: For the group sampled, SUV drivers were more likely to have X behavior. Interesting, but hardly a dramatic illumination of an entire subset of society. You don't like the study? Fine. Think it's a waste of time? Fine. Not liking it doesn't make it invalid.
And for those who say they don't give a *@#$! about the environment: Great, tough guy, because it won't give a #&$*! when you and your family are dying in a drought, hurricane, tornado, flood, etc. It's not about saving the planet... it's about saving your own @ss you ignorant moron!
McCook - You're right, there is no conspiracy. There is just a lot of fraud and payoffs and back-scratching going on in full view, and it's all just a biiiiiiig coincidence.
If you actually want to communicate with people, try addressing their argument instead of calling them names ("children") and using an utterly meaningless label ("liberal") to make your supposed point for you.
If you had a point you would have used something called "logical argument" to make it. But you don't, so you didn't.
The free market works great, when there's competition. When there is no competition, it falls on its keister. Can anyone think of an example of the deregulation of a market that had an insufficient number of competitors in it prior to deregulation?? How about the energy market in California in 2001. Anyone remember that? If you don't have enough competitors, there is no incentive to compete, and so the potential competitors just watch the rolling blackouts and keep raising their rates. Many people don't realize that this was the reason behind the crash and burn of energy market deregulation in that state.
So, unless you're willing to argue that there is significant competition in the telecoms industry in the US, then you have to admit the deregulating this industry at this time, would be a huge mistake. Maybe after more suppliers are in the game. But until then DEREGULATION = RECIPE FOR DISASTER.
I like how the issues of nepotism and influence peddling are glossed right over. Soliciting for your son's business while acting as mayor is a lot more about "scratch my (son's) back and I'll scratch yours" than it is about whether or not he's wasting the taxpayer dollars that pay his salary.
PS - How many are posting from work, right now? I'll fess up.
Are steroids used to treat allergies? Yes. But just because 2 things go by the name "steroid" doesn't make them remotely comparable.
I agree with the fixing a defect vs. enhancing something already perfectly functional standard, but I think we should add health cost vs. benefit into the equation.
Anabolic steroids used for performance enhancement are injected at toxic levels. You are using a chemical to enhance a specific trait at the cost of the rest of your body.
The line here seems intuitive. To put this on an analgous scale, consider that human performance and health can be enhanced through Gene Therapy Studies conducted on frozen embryos, but everyone knows a Dr. Mengele when they see one.
Does it make you frustrated that the right/wrong scale here isn't completely rule driven and logical? Welcome to ethics.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by nullbull.
Anachronism
I was active in the recording industry back at the turn of the century (I love saying it that way).
Needless to say, the internet was just beginning to act as a distribution and promotion channel for musicians then. The recording industry doubled down on their anti-competitive, ever-chasing-the-blockbuster business model, as they have done many times since.
The industry failed to grasp the importance of the internet, and now there are many, many examples of artists thriving financially WITHOUT a major label, and with audiences in numbers the labels normally wouldn't have bothered with. It's almost the economics of scale in reverse. Recording costs have PLUMMETED thanks to digital recording and project studios. Distribution costs have plummeted, and now promotion costs (thanks to social networking and "going viral") have plummeted. Put it all together and as an artist, you no longer need someone else to "manage the business end" for you.
Marketing isn't a messy, bothersome business, but merely a way to connect with your fans. Distribution can be handled on iTunes, eMusic, and other sites with ease. And if you love your music, you can put together a fairly cheap (compared to the costs just 10 years ago) studio in your basement capable of producing a quality that people are willing to pay for.
Record labels are an anachronism.
From stem to stern
The patent, the jurisdiction argument, the supposed innovation... this entire situation reeks of the need for patent law reform.
If it isn't big pharma or big content seeking extensions into the next eon, it's people like this patenting stuff they never built and never will. Pathetic.
They made him look like a Calvin Klein model
... it's just wrong, man. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make a cartoon video character out of a guy who hated his own fame, struggled with drugs, and then gave a shotgun a blowjob... is an idiot.
RIP Kurt, indeed
So what?
Publishers are scared of online distribution for the same reason record labels are scared of it. Because when you pull more and more of the roadblocks between content CREATORS and contents CONSUMERS out of the way, they become obsolete. Indeed, they should adapt or prepare for the end. Should ebooks cost less? Absolutely. An optimized business model that delivers content online is vastly more efficient than an optimized business model that is binding paper books and shipping them around the country so consumers can get in their cars and drive to a book store, browse through stacks and buy what they want... if it's in stock.
Obviously, they have to get pricing right. But consumers are aware enough of the pricing signals they are getting to know when they're getting gouged. And the economic incentive for online book sellers is to drive volume through lower prices for ebooks. That's going to be a hard incentive for publishers to thwart.
Modern technology to blame
You know what other modern technology the terrorists used? 2 pieces of technology that they could not have done without? Guns and explosives.
But let's ban Google Earth, because that's dangerous.
Some dissent
"The new Keynesians still believe that through government tweaking, we can guide the economy to some sort of 'soft landing.'"
Let's not pretend Keynesianism is something that it isn't. Keynes called for capital infusions by governments when recessions or depressions caused a constriction of capital flows in the private equity, bond, and other private debt markets. This is not some clarion call for massive structural intervention by government. It is focused specifically on capital supplies, and prefers those capital supplies to come in the form of PAYMENT for actual work done (paying contractors who then pay suppliers, who then pay others, for example) rather than loans and equity purchases. Everyone who thinks the private capital markets are capable of ressurecting our economy in its present condition, please raise your hands. Yeah, that's what I thought.
"Encouraging competition should be a key goal of government, but in most cases that means staying out of the way."
Hardly. We "stayed out of the way" in the late 1800s and we got the robber barons. There are any of a number of disastrous policies that wrap themselves in the concept of "getting the government out of the way" that have time and again wrought havoc with our economy, our environment, and our labor markets. Government "staying out of the way" is often more about being pro-BUSINESS rather than pro-COMPETITION. A pro-BUSINESS government inevitably reinforces a status-quo, pushing innovation into irrelevance. Artificially low, government subsidized oil allowed the big 3 to continue to produce terrible, short-sighted products while their international competitors leaped ahead in terms of technology and innovation. And that's just a single example.
"While there are some who suggest they should be allowed to simply fail anyway, the economic risk in doing so is quite large -- in part, as a result of bad gov't policies for many years, abused and exploited by these companies."
I'm so sick of this excuse. It's the bad government policies that ALLOWED those banks do shoddy risk assessments of asset classes they were over-selling? If I leave my door unlocked, is it partly my fault that someone decides to enter my house illegally and steal all my stuff? What court of law would throw me in jail for leaving my door unlocked? None. Banks chose to do STUPID, SHORT SIGHTED, WEAKLY VETTED stuff. THEY did that, not government. What's the long term return on shareholder value for those companies that sucked the sub-prime trough dry? I think we've found out in the last year. These banks chose Q3 2005 profit statements over long-term shareholder value. THEY did that, regardless of what regulators said was OK or not OK. Government policies could have prevented it, and I could have prevented my house from being robbed by locking the door, but that doesn't make ME equivalent to the thief in terms of culpability.
"And, indeed, this economic restructuring is a good cold shower (though, some may prefer douche), but we don't get that sort of restructuring when the government is propping up exactly what needs to be restructured."
Tell that to the people who died of starvation and disease during the Great Depression because they were broke. Tell that to the people who died of exposure because they didn't have a house, or the people who got black lung in the dustbowl. I love the Schumpeter quote. It's hilariously myopic. "Don't worry about the Great Depression." He was an itelligent man, and rightly influential, but this quote shows that he was also capable of being a clueless, heartless ... douche.
Look, the free-market economy is ultimately the best option we have because it does the most good for the largest number of people. It provides the most freedom, the best and fairest distribution of resources, and contributes to the most widely spread welfare. People talk about the economy like we need to keep it healthy. We need the economy to keep US healthy. Schumpeter and his compatriots who imagined a Randian meritocratic utopia had some great ideas that are still of great use. Let's not pretend this is a package deal, however. The truth is, somewhere amidst all the economic partisans, there is a good balance. We should strive for that.
Entrepreneurs Know THEIR Business, Not Everyone's
Ultimately, Cuban makes a rather transparently self-aggrandizing point that falls flat on a policy level.
There is a MASSIVE difference between knowing start-ups and small businesses and knowing the government POLICIES that allow for an ENVIRONMENT where these businesses thrive. Cuban makes the mistake of thinking these are the same thing. Patent reform, for instance, could be a HUGE boon to start ups. But I'll be damned if I'm going to trust Cuban to come up with the right legalese that allows for openings to innovation while offering appropriate, limited protections to innovators. That would demand someone well versed in patent law precedents and government reform measures, not somebody who successfully ran online media web sites.
Also, don't equate success in start-ups with business acumen. Entrepreneurs can be successful for a variety of reasons, including ability to schmooze, lie, cheat, cajole, and/or over-promise their way into bigger and bigger business deals. There are brilliant people too. And smart financiers. If starting your own company and having it thrive is the measure of a true entrepreneur, you have to wonder why Cuban tosses aside Buffet as if the fact that he won't INVEST in start-ups erases the fact that Berkshire-Hathaway thrives as it does under Buffet's leadership.
Re: What?
Actually, it has slowed their economic growth. They rigged stock market, state sponsorship and other hallmarks of China's not-quite-capitalism are other elements that slow growth in that country. Of course, if they really let capitalism do its work, they would be dealing with out of control inflation and even greater income disparity, not to mention much, much more foreign ownership of Chinese business. In other words, the manner in which they have chosen to grow their economy and the manner in which they choose to regulate the internet spring from the same philosophy. Perhaps it is even DESIGNED to control the growth, but controlling (by slowing) is what it is doing.
Name calling
I don't think SUV drivers are more likely to have a sense of entitlement. I don't think they're narrow-minded, and I don't think this study means much of anything aside from exactly what it says: For the group sampled, SUV drivers were more likely to have X behavior. Interesting, but hardly a dramatic illumination of an entire subset of society. You don't like the study? Fine. Think it's a waste of time? Fine. Not liking it doesn't make it invalid.
And for those who say they don't give a *@#$! about the environment: Great, tough guy, because it won't give a #&$*! when you and your family are dying in a drought, hurricane, tornado, flood, etc. It's not about saving the planet... it's about saving your own @ss you ignorant moron!
Yes, everyone... go back to sleep
McCook - You're right, there is no conspiracy. There is just a lot of fraud and payoffs and back-scratching going on in full view, and it's all just a biiiiiiig coincidence.
If you actually want to communicate with people, try addressing their argument instead of calling them names ("children") and using an utterly meaningless label ("liberal") to make your supposed point for you.
If you had a point you would have used something called "logical argument" to make it. But you don't, so you didn't.
The free market works great, when there's competition. When there is no competition, it falls on its keister. Can anyone think of an example of the deregulation of a market that had an insufficient number of competitors in it prior to deregulation?? How about the energy market in California in 2001. Anyone remember that? If you don't have enough competitors, there is no incentive to compete, and so the potential competitors just watch the rolling blackouts and keep raising their rates. Many people don't realize that this was the reason behind the crash and burn of energy market deregulation in that state.
So, unless you're willing to argue that there is significant competition in the telecoms industry in the US, then you have to admit the deregulating this industry at this time, would be a huge mistake. Maybe after more suppliers are in the game. But until then DEREGULATION = RECIPE FOR DISASTER.
Influence Peddling
I like how the issues of nepotism and influence peddling are glossed right over. Soliciting for your son's business while acting as mayor is a lot more about "scratch my (son's) back and I'll scratch yours" than it is about whether or not he's wasting the taxpayer dollars that pay his salary.
PS - How many are posting from work, right now? I'll fess up.
Health Benefit, Health Cost
Are steroids used to treat allergies? Yes. But just because 2 things go by the name "steroid" doesn't make them remotely comparable.
I agree with the fixing a defect vs. enhancing something already perfectly functional standard, but I think we should add health cost vs. benefit into the equation.
Anabolic steroids used for performance enhancement are injected at toxic levels. You are using a chemical to enhance a specific trait at the cost of the rest of your body.
The line here seems intuitive. To put this on an analgous scale, consider that human performance and health can be enhanced through Gene Therapy Studies conducted on frozen embryos, but everyone knows a Dr. Mengele when they see one.
Does it make you frustrated that the right/wrong scale here isn't completely rule driven and logical? Welcome to ethics.