TasMot 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (28) comment rss

  • On the post: Consumers Aren’t Buying Automaker Plans To Make Everything A Subscription

    TasMot ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2023 @ 05:43am

    There are many recommendations going around to remember to unload your vehicle. Every ounce that the vehicle totes around is extra gas used to accelerate, and more brake usage to decelerate. When will somebody/some group start a lawsuit against the manufacturers for loading up a car with extra weight (like the equipment for a heated seat or an in-car network, that has to be hauled around but is not useful. Not to mention, the price of the car includes paying for all of this hardware which is not useful unless the 'service' is also paid for monthly. So lots of useless hardware that has been paid for, is useless unless a monthly subscription, and makes operating the vehicle more expensive because of the extra cost of accelerating and decelerating it over the life of the vehicle. Big loss for car owners that don't end up paying extra to actually use the features built into the car but cost extra monthly to utilize.....

  • On the post: Leaked Doc From Microsoft To UK’s CMA Says ’10 Years Enough For Sony To Make Its Own CoD’

    TasMot ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2023 @ 04:55am

    One of the big confusing things about this fight is the traditionally, hardware is a one time sale. To keep the games (the software that is) interesting, requires buying more an more add-ons. Also, there has been a lot of discussion in the past that the hardware is either a loss leader or breakeven sale for the company. However; software is generally profitable. As in, producing the next copy of the software, especially as a download costs close to nothing. Why on earth would every game producer not want to be cross platform? More software sales have a trivial cost to produce. Oh, and how about the Minecraft folks, they are stopping the sale of Minecraft because it is costing them too much money???? Sony and Microsoft are too confused over selling hardware and software. They should concentrate on one or the other (and get good at it). Companies are way too interested in controlling the entire vertical integration in order to become a monopoly and "make more money." On the other hand, they get so busy trying to squeeze out every nickel and dime that they alienate their customers and those customers move on to somebody else.

  • On the post: Net Neutrality’s Dead: Time To Focus On The Real Issue: Telecom Monopolization

    TasMot ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2023 @ 08:33am

    Enter a huge boom in community-owned and operated broadband networks, whether they’re cooperatives, municipalities, city-owned utilities, or public/private partnerships. These projects are an organic, grass roots response to federal regulatory capture and monopolization, which is why monopolies have tried so hard to outlaw them with shitty, protectionist state laws.<
    The one issue that I see with the smaller ISPs is that they become ripe targets to be bought by the larger ISPs as soon as they are helping the most. They will have to be "owned" by the customers so that they can't be sold off to the highest bidder as soon as they start becoming popular.

  • On the post: New ‘Bipartisan’ Federal Privacy Bill Tries To Build Consensus Support, And Basically Succeeds In Annoying Everyone

    TasMot ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2022 @ 04:40am

    TechDirt has written several complaint posts about bad or proposed bad privacy legislation. Why not get some people together at the Copia Institute or whatever venue you have available and put together a good proposed Federal Privacy Law and then work with one of the good guys like Senator Ron Wyden to get it worked through the Congressional System to become a law. And FWIW, make sure that all of the parts are carefully interwoven so that when the inevitable attempts at amendments are pushed forward that they will not take into account the interwoven nature of the proposed law and will not make sense. I don't know if there is a way to do this, but many laws seem to have attempts at post ipso facto rewriting as to the intent of the law (see the oh so many attempts to rewrite Section 230 that require the original drafters of the law to say no-no). So, include an executive summary as the first part of the bill that state the intent of the eventual law in no uncertain terms. Maybe even get some future lawyers and politicians in colleges to participate with class projects that do either an entire proposed bill or some focused portion of it. It would probably be good training for a future lawyer/legislator to participate in the process. A part of the reason for this suggestion is that that good guy (OR Senator Ron Wyden) has been re-elected for a long while by the good people of the state of Oregon; however, at some point he will retire and/or not be re-elected and a decent replacement needs to get started on training now.

  • On the post: Lawsuit Attempts To Hold TikTok Responsible For Death Of 10-Year-Old Girl Who Engaged In A ‘Blackout Challenge’

    TasMot ( profile ), 19 May, 2022 @ 09:39am

    "for the sake of corporate profits"

    "TikTok is programming children for the sake of corporate profits and promoting addiction." I'm not a corporate accountant or anything, but I'm absolutely, positively sure that killing off your users is not good, in any way, for maintaining or increasing corporate profits.

  • On the post: No, Software-Bricked Tractors Thwarting Russian Looters Is Not A Sign That Either John Deere Or Copyright Is Good

    TasMot ( profile ), 06 May, 2022 @ 11:37am

    But WHO did the bricking?

    If the owners (as in the dealers) of the equipment are doing the bricking, then that is good. If John Deere did it just because, then maybe not so much. Or, maybe no so good because they are geo-locked to the Ukraine and when they went out of the geo-fence, they automatically bricked themselves. Slightly more details would be good. I'm looking at this from the point of view that if my mobile phone were stolen and I could remotely brick it, that would be good. Just wiping my data off of it is good too, but the thief can still profit from the stolen phone.

  • On the post: NY Times Editorial Board Gets It: Drug Patents Are Bankrupting Americans & It Needs To Be Fixed

    TasMot ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2022 @ 12:26pm

    Patent Applications

    First my disclosures, I'm not a patent expert of patent lawyer, AND, I don't have the time to do searches to get the relevant quotes. Now that said, Part 1., my recall is that a HUGE piece of the original purpose of patent legislation included that there must be enough information included in a patent application that those "experienced in the art" could reproduce the invention. Part 2., the patent application therefore became a repository of knowledge so that how to recreate the invention would not be lost. Part 3., in Physics, when something is newly proved, then others set out to reproduce the experiment and confirm the proof. Part 4., how do we go about getting labs to do a similar operation with patents? First to prove that the patent actually contains enough information to reproduce that "new invention" and whether or not there is anything non-obvious in the patent that should not be patented. So my suggestion is that instead of losing so much money trying to license basic research, they could set up these labs. It will help train next generation inventors, next generation patent examiners, and in the process validate that the described inventions a) contain enough information to build the described invention, b) works as described, c) actually is something new and d) provides an additional repository of that knowledge so that it doesn't get lost.

  • On the post: Yet Another Expert Points Out That Copy Protection Doesn't Work

    TasMot ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2006 @ 08:11am

    A very old business model

    Mike keeps saying that the recording inductry is trying to use the same old model. It's a very old model. Before there was a recording industry the artist had to actually play it so that it could be heard. Now the recording industry would like to go back to that model, except they get the money, not the artist (they only need the artist once to make the recording after all). But, look at how much money they would make by charging per use like the good ole' days. I mean let's face it, once they copy protect it so that we have to pay for every play, we will still be playing oh a hudred songs a day at $1 a piece, that means that they will get at least a $100 a day for every person on Earth. Man will they be rich because of course we will pay that much. Right!!!

    One thing Mike has not been repeating is that the recording industry has managed to keep the price of a CD at the $12 and up price even though everyone with a computer knows that the CD costs less than $1.00. Down from the $5.00 to $8.00 it used to cost for the blank CD. Fortunately, in their zeal to force everyone to pay up for every time a song is played, less and less people seem inclined to pay at all.