Robin Hoover’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: Vevo Doesn't Put Ads In YouTube API, Gets Upset When Music Streaming Startup Uses That Fact

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2009 @ 08:12pm

permitted

and in point of fact, earlier this year, 2009, youtube explicitly extended permission to this kid to use their api and embed their content as he saw fit.

that's "getting it", which is not spelled vevo.

On the post: A Look At The Data Center That Crunched Avatar

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2009 @ 08:06pm

story first

imho the huge servers required to render huge blockbusters will continue to have a market for their services as long as the majors in hollywood keep trying to produce huge blockbusters. (the foreseeable future that is and long enough for the server farms to recoup their costs)

i.e. filmed entertainment wherein the technology and not the story is paramount (no pun intented).

anecdotal story: i begged my two daughters (10 & 13)to go see avatar with me, they refused: "who wants to see a horrible story about 12' blue aliens?" me, i wanted to see the technology in action having never been to a "3D" movie, the trailers told me the story was run-of-the-mill at best.

btw, what's the r.o.i. on paranormal activity?

On the post: IsoHunt Loses Big; Court Says: You Induce, You Lose

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 24 Dec, 2009 @ 06:39am

blame canada

silly question: while a u.s. summary judgement enters the available legal discussion and precedents down here, what practical, on-the-ground effect does it have in a separate sovereign nation (canada)? and a canadian national's desire to operate a website?

On the post: HTC Sends Cease & Desist To Developer Who Made Similar Android Widgets

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 22 Dec, 2009 @ 09:19am

Re: reverse it

"...they are losing control over their product..."

the plaint and world-view of the status quo defender. sadly for the anti-mikes' of the world, the future is not about control, it's about how to make money when you've lost control; to technology and irritable consumers:

http://www.mediafuturist.com/the-end-of-control-essays.html

"What was HTC gaining?"

they were gaining: a larger network surrounding their products and company, energized developers, attentive purchasers, engagement with with fans.

PFFT, gone.

On the post: Australian Domain Authority Circumvents Standard Process To Shut Down Site Critical Of Australian Internet Filters

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2009 @ 09:02am

this sux

solution:

www.stephen_conroy_sucks.com

i enjoyed the view on their front page noting how a gov't minister for digital matters has never registered his own name as a domain. just clueless.

On the post: Shouldn't The Labels Be Paying YouTube For All The 'Free' Service They Provide?

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2009 @ 02:13pm

Vevo is...part deux

"I still haven't quite figured out what Vevo is, however"

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-what-vevo-gets-right-and-what-it-gets-wrong/

the ceo of vevo, a certain mr rio caraeff, has posted a lengthy description in the comments to this article as to what his company is and does. feel free to read.

but my take is that the simple idea is to earn advertising dollars (income) from that old promotional tool (videos). he goes on and on using alot of jargon, but this is the base idea.

"In order to build a meaningful business around music videos...VEVO will manage the ad sales, ad inventory and underlying audience metrics to create a large scale network" - rio caraeff

On the post: FBI Arrests Wolverine Leaker; Don't You Feel Safer Now?

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2009 @ 06:37am

Re: Re: "..Don't You Feel Safer Now?"

"So, you endorse him trespassing, possibly breaking and entering, and then stealing something that did not belong to him."

yep, just like i endorsed a certain rosa parks who willfully and gleefully sat where it was clearly illegal for her to sit.

hyperbole? yes but a valid point, and quite different from your own hyperbole and fabrication:

"possibly breaking and entering",
"appears to have stolen",
"apparently stole",

On the post: The Language Of 'Piracy' As A Spectacle

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2009 @ 06:29am

history

this guy, matt mason:

http://thepiratesdilemma.com/

wrote, on the whole, a very useful book, with a focus on the history of piracy. he presents the notion that "pirates" are folks whose needs are not being met by the status quo, whatever the field of human endeavour or activity.

natch, every "pirate" culture grew into a dominant mainstream institution, which will eventually be the case here with digital goods.

personal case in point, i'm connected to techdirt's servers through the capabilities of an o.s. that is free, and reading this story with a browser that is free.

On the post: Sens. Feinstein And Durbin Specifically Try To Carve Citizen Journalists Out Of Shield Law

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2009 @ 04:47pm

Judiciary Committee Update

as of today, 12/3/09, the judiciary committee (privately of course) did not vote to advance s.448:

http://judiciary.senate.gov/

it was "held over".

interestingly though, the knuckleheads did vote on and approve an amendment by senator spector (amandment hen09b24) defining in sec. 10(2)(a) a covered person (according to the legislation)

means a person who—

with the primary intent to investigate events and procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information concerning local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest,.... regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports or publishes on such matters by conducting interviews, making direct observation of events, or collecting, reviewing, or analyzing original writings,statements, communications, reports, memoranda, records, transcripts, documents, photographs, recordings,tapes, materials, data, or other information whether in paper, electronic, or other form;...blah blah blah

essentially blocking fienstein. she's a crafty witch though and she'll be back.

i'd like to think that this vermonter calling chairman leahy's office this morning made a difference......nah.

On the post: Danish Anti-Piracy Group Tells DVD Ripper Who Turned Himself In That It Won't Sue Him

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2009 @ 04:24pm

individual rights, sit down

"The main purpose of the rule is to ensure against abuse of films and music being illegally copied and distributed further."

demonstrating very clearly that individual rights ain't nothing (indeed must be stamped out) compared to protecting a collapsing business model.

and no to td's in-house content-shill a.c., selective enforcement does not excuse any assault on individual rights.

On the post: Should There Be Punishment For Bogus 'Pre-Settlement' Letters?

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2009 @ 07:35am

Re: shill

"...but certainly you do have to admit that they are sending letters to the right place for the moment."

if you had rtfa, you know that that statement is clearly and simply a lie:

"...For whatever reason, some publisher started including a Coralized URL for the tracker's location,..."

i do have to admit though to admiring the gall of some people and their delight in out-n-out lying. you may continue.....

On the post: If Google Visitors Are Worthless, It's Only Because Newspaper Execs Don't Know What They're Doing

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 25 Nov, 2009 @ 11:41am

Re:

yer a bonehead.

i can't imagine mike or the author of that article proposing that advertising is THE revenue solution. i can imagine them both proposing that advertising is PART OF a revenue solution.

and on the subject of advertising, it seems plain to someone who read the entire article, that the focus was on targeted advertising, or rather the wsj's laughable lack thereof.

and stealing from the masnickian line, as it was alluded to in the comments of the article, is the idea of building a community. you know, using the internet as it was designed to be used: as a communication tool.

trying to force your centuries old one-way broadcasting models onto a many-to-many communication tool will surely hasten your epic fail. as we are witnessing atm.

On the post: Mandelson Wants Gov't To Have Sweeping Powers To Protect Copyright Holders

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 19 Nov, 2009 @ 04:16pm

Re: Re: hmmmm.....

seeing as how this guy mandehlson has proven himself to be inscrupulous, either during or after dinner the answer is sex or money.

On the post: Cable Industry Joins MPAA In Asking FCC To Allow Them To Stop Your DVR From Recording Movies

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 18 Nov, 2009 @ 05:51pm

Re: ACTION!!!

you're absolutely right:

http://www.publicknowledge.org/action/say-no-to-soc

fill out the form on this page and submit it to the fcc (all electronically of course).

tell them just how opposed you are to soc.

On the post: Jenzabar Finds 'Expert Witness' Who Will Claim Google Relies On Metatags, Despite Google Saying It Does Not

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 18 Nov, 2009 @ 01:22pm

Re: Jon Bane's sarcasm

...is perfectly well placed. you're clearly a lunatic anoncoward2, to wit:

ideas, patents, copyrights...all great shit but useless without execution that serves a need out there in the marketplace somewhere. "ip" doesn't do that by itself. hence google's strength in their core product: search.

@ mr. bane, :thumbsup:

On the post: Verizon Starts Passing On RIAA Infringement Letters To Users

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2009 @ 09:10pm

iiNet

"but on the whole it's not that terrible to pass along notices"

not the feeling of australian isp iinet, currently in court over their refusal to act as cops on behalf of a disrupted industry.

shame on you mike.

On the post: Copyright And Education In Conflict?

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 10 Nov, 2009 @ 07:49pm

Threatening Students

The IP Maximalists have no regard even for student learning, certainly the 3,500 strong firm of DLA Piper: http://www.dlapiper.com/

This firm has as one of its clients the estate of Dr. Seuss.

Some animation students, fans of Dr. Seuss wanted to create as a class project a Marvin K. Mooney short...you know to practice, learn and pay respects. They were given a rather rude awakening: http://www.spinquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22083

And shut the semester's project down: http://www.marvinkmooney.com/

Pleasant, no?

On the post: Comcast Exec: We Need To Change Customer Behavior, Not Our Business Model

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2009 @ 06:33am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Something, I Forget

"The point that has been made time and again is that consumers are no longer willing to pay the premium price that the content producers want."

What you refuse to admit sir is the following modification to your assertion:

"The point that has been made time and again is that consumers are no longer willing to pay the premium price coupled with the limited distribution and lack of personal flexibility that the content producers want."

Despite being told repeatedly by the good folks of this community how much and how willing they are to pay for stuff that meets their needs on their terms, you refuse to accept that Big Content is scared shitless of distribution they don't control from beginning to end.

Like a many-to-many communications network of computers. We call it the internet.

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

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 04 Nov, 2009 @ 05:58am

Re: Re: history repeats itself

Just sort of paraphrasing Marcel de Jong above with a lovely story someone posted here at Techdirt some time ago.

Here's the link:

http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20090922%2F0310156273&threaded=true&sp=1#c284

but I'll quote anyway for convenience:

"It reminds me of a tale from long ago (well the 70s actually).

The operators of the University's mainframe computer kept a number of lineprinter picture files, they were used as a quick way of testing the full width of the drum and the character set. The older ones among you may remember the Mona Lisa, Snoopy etc etc. Users would print them out from time to time to put on their walls.

At some point the authorities decided that this was a waste of paper and put the pictures into a protected directory where users couldn't get them. Of course a few people had made their own copies already and these copies quickly multiplied as people shared them around. So now file storage space (then an expensive commodity) was being wasted as well as paper.

Of course the authorities didn't stand still, they started looking at all the large files on the system and deleting any picture files that they found. As you will probably have guessed they couldn't complete this process before the word got around and people quickly encrypted their files to look like innocent experimental datasets. These files were of course bigger than the original pictures so now paper, even more file store and CPU (then expensive) and man hours were being expended and the problem wasn't fixed.

Everything they do will make the file sharing "problem" worse and more expensive, When will they learn?"

On the post: Grammar Nazis: Useful Language Experts, Or Elitist Snobs?

Robin Hoover ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2009 @ 10:07am

rules and death

grammar rules strikes me as an oxymoron anyway.

as soon as language is locked down with rules, it begins to die. language is alive, always changing.

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