vastrightwing’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: Brazilian Newspapers Apparently Don't Want Traffic; They All Opt Out Of Google News

vastrightwing ( profile ), 22 Oct, 2012 @ 09:55am

If a reporter comes to me

I'll put my hand out and say, please pay me to ask questions. After all information should not be free.

On the post: Sony Sues Actor For Trademark Infringement For Looking Too Much Like Himself In Another Commercial

vastrightwing ( profile ), 10 Oct, 2012 @ 10:28am

Letter

Dear Sony,
You sure know how to keep me from buying your products, don't you? First you come out with an expensive Beta tape deck, and let VHS kill your format after I spend thousands of dollars on it. Then you get me to buy your cameras with your proprietary memory sticks and your mini-disk player. Then you add rootkits to your music CDs and open my computer up to hackers. Next you start suing consumers who want to modify their own PS2/3 and now you attack an actor based on his looks. So basically you think you control everyone in the world and you attempt to punish people you don't like. That must mean me too. I surely won't be buying any new Sony products in the future. I will continue my boycott.

On the post: New Data Dump Shows Feds Massively Increased Spying On Who You're Talking To

vastrightwing ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2012 @ 06:11am

Symbiotic relationship

Consider the relationship of enforcement agencies and crime. Enforcement agencies want to get bigger and have their budgets increased each year. To do so, they need to justify that by showing an ever increasing threat of some kind. Therefore, I conclude that the very enforcement agencies must not only tolerate a certain amount of crime being perpetrated, but also must find new crimes or worse possibly encourage crimes in order to sustain their enforcement model going forward. I know this is a very cynical view, however, it's in line with Mike's premise that our domestic agencies are forever reaching further and further into the bag to find new threats domestic, foreign or otherwise.

On the post: When Captain Picard Loses Patience With Your Cable Service, You Need To Run A Tighter Ship

vastrightwing ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2012 @ 01:52pm

Lifetime annuity

Cable companies treat customers this way because you cable subscribers have told them it's OK by paying for their service each month. I'm not like Captain Picard: when the cable company is unresponsive to me or charges me too much, I leave. I'm not going to waste my time trying to reason with a company dedicated to overcharging me. There is no value to me here. I'm not going to call the cable company and complain. Why? Because they don't care. I'm such a non-issue to them; they have no reason to care about my problem. My business is about 0.0000001% of their income, that my complaint does not matter and neither does any one else's. Clearly. Cable TV is unnecessary and it's not worth paying money for. It's certainly not worth wasting hours and days trying to get someone to care about my problem. I used to watch cable and because I'm no longer interested in the programming, I've changed my habits and cable is not in my future. These operators know their life is limited. They're milking it for what they can now. Rates are high because you keep writing checks and allowing auto pay to suck your hard earned cash out. Is paying over $100 each month a good value to you? Really? Look at it this way; at $50/mo you waste $600/year and about $42,000 during your life. If you add up your lost wages, that figure is more like $21,000 a year and $1,528,800 over your life + $42,000! Yes, and that's only using a very modest $12/hour pay rate. Imagine if you're paying over $100/mo to the cable company and you can earn substantially more. And this is how the cable company looks at you: you're worth a lot of money to them over your life. They don't care if you watch their content, they simply want you to pay them a monthly annuity for the rest of your life. Yes, you're worth over a hundred thousand dollars to them and they treat you with such disdain. Why do you allow this?

On the post: Uber's Most Important Innovation: Highlighting Totally Bogus Local Restrictions

vastrightwing ( profile ), 24 Sep, 2012 @ 08:58am

No more new business models

I propose that we no longer allow any new business models to be developed. We have all that we need right now. New models only serve to disrupt existing models and this is very bad, as the music industry will tell you over and over. So kids, you can stop thinking and go back to watching legacy TV right now. You won't ever have to worry about figuring out to make a living because you will only be allowed to do what is currently being done. Politicians can rest now knowing that they won't ever have to deal with new technology to get around existing systems. I love it!

On the post: Big ISPs Expected To Start Six Strikes Program This Weekend [Updated]

vastrightwing ( profile ), 27 Jun, 2012 @ 08:58am

US Post office is next

Change ISP to USPS and imagine mailing hard disks to your friends with infringing material on it. Now imagine the post office scanning your packages for hard drives with infringing material on them. Then the USPS notifies you that your mail will be shut off because you are using the USPS to steal from artists. Well, the idea is exactly the same.

On the post: UK ISPs Are Already Planning To Offer Porn Filters — So Who Needs New Legislation?

vastrightwing ( profile ), 15 May, 2012 @ 08:16am

Red herring

Only one commenter got close to the truth. This has nothing to do with children or porn. It has everything to do with being able to control information. Once these controls are in place it will be easy to shut off the internet when desired. The excuse is a thin veil to put the mechanism in place.

On the post: The Latest In Hollywood Mathematics: A 46.3% Employment Increase Equals 'Countless Jobs Lost'

vastrightwing ( profile ), 24 Apr, 2012 @ 10:49am

Hollywood mathematics

No Hollywood doesn't expect legislators to accept inflated "loss" numbers, Hollywood expects politicians to do what they pay them do. Whatever that may be. The hyperbole is there for public consumption. They know we are ignorant and stupid.

On the post: HBO Decides It Still Isn't Difficult Enough To Watch HBO Shows

vastrightwing ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2012 @ 09:14am

Reverse piracy or subsidy?

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Yes, in fact, bundling pay TV content is in fact reverse piracy. The content providers are now the pirates stealing money from the consumers who are paying for content they don't consume! The people who claim we need bundled channels to promote niche programming simply don't consider this an act of blatant piracy in the other direction. So if a consumer has unauthorized access to programming you call it piracy. But done in reverse, it's not piracy, it's called a subsidy.

On the post: The Stupidity Of Data Caps: No One Knows What A Megabyte Is

vastrightwing ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2012 @ 01:25pm

Pissing off your customers must be good business

It must be good to piss off your customers. After all, banks do it all the time. Cable companies do it. The Federal Reserve? Come to think of it cell companies, airlines, entertainment companies, social media companies, and many retailers all have business models where the customer is seen as nothing more than a wad of cash walking around just waiting for them to grab it. We are told what we can buy how much it will cost and what we are allowed to do with our products. It's OK not to deliver what was promised because it's good for the shareholders. For example, if you want to buy a movie to watch at home, you are told you must wait until a certain date before you can buy it. Then you are told you must buy it on a DVD or some other form of locked down format. You are not allowed to transcode the content or break the DRM. Further, if you buy certain types of game consoles, you will be thrown in jail for tampering with the electronics. I therefore must conclude that treating customers like garbage must be good business, otherwise companies like EA, BoA, PayPal, Comcast, Walmart, Sony, Best Buy, Charter, Citi, Facebook, et. Al. would not be so hated by consumers everywhere.

On the post: Appeals Court: Bundling Cable Channels Together Isn't Anticompetitive

vastrightwing ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2012 @ 09:00am

Who cares?

Meh, I don?t care. I used to, but now due to the economy and price, I?ve simply been without pay TV for years. I wanted to get AMC for the show Mad Men, but have since discovered a way to get the show with a 1 day delay for a lot less than the $30/month required to get that one channel.

Consumers are already changing their habits so pay TV with its bundled channels has a limited lifespan already. I?m sure the cord cutters are still going strong and the trend will continue until there are not enough cord keepers to pay the bills.

On the post: IP Above All Else: WIPO Defies UN Sanctions To Give Computers To North Korea

vastrightwing ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2012 @ 08:50am

Not surprising to me

Surprising? Not at all. This has all the hallmarks of short sighted greed. The special interest which sent these computers was not concerned about anything other than their agenda (what ever it may be). Almost every instance of this short sightedness can be attributed to the same thing; namely that all we care about is our agenda and we can figure a way around anything getting in our way, even if we have to lie or drag this out in court.

On the post: How The TSA's Security Theater Harms Us All

vastrightwing ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2012 @ 01:49pm

Foreign threats? How about domestic?

It seems we have more to fear of our own bureaucrats than we do of any foreign threats. I?d welcome going back in time to the days when we bought our tickets 5 mins before take off and could bring our family right to the gate. Yes, I miss those days. I don?t worry about terrorism from any foreign countries at all. Even if a few slipped by, so what. Sometimes planes crash. Sometimes cars crash too. Part of life.

Now there is an enormous infrastructure around the security theater and it needs justification to keep growing. My biggest fear is that in order to keep building up the security theater, more threats will have to be invented. Sure they may be plausible threats, but statistically insignificant.

On the post: SoundExchange & A2IM Sued For Antitrust Violations By Sirius

vastrightwing ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2012 @ 10:51am

Simply greed

Ehh! I don?t care. The RIAA made satellite so expensive, I?m already priced out of the market. I?m willing to pay only about $36/YEAR. Instead, I simply load my mp3 collection on a DVD and listen to that in my car. All that will happen is that SoundExchange will simply make satellite radio more expensive and price the service out of reach for even more consumers. That will cause a recursion effect ultimately causing the entire service to fail. Bad business model? Only when you factor in the greed of these licensing agencies.

On the post: Boston Pays $170,000 To The Guy Police Arrested For Filming Them

vastrightwing ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2012 @ 10:51am

Boston police over zealous

Don't worry Boston has plenty of money to pay out for their mis-deeds. It was privy to the Big Dig, worth over 15 billion of your tax dollars. The police also love asserting their force with hoax devices. Now the city is raising its public transportation costs, so I say only $170K? Not even a drop in the bucket!

On the post: German Pirate Party Scores Another Electoral Victory: Gets 4 Seats In State Parliament

vastrightwing ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2012 @ 03:39pm

Arrrrr matey!

I don't think the name will be too much of a problem. People have an ability to associate names with ideas pretty quickly. Someday, the word pirate will be a good thing!

On the post: European Commission Blames Social Networks For ACTA Failure; Worried About Its Imminent Directive On Copyright Enforcement

vastrightwing ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2012 @ 05:55am

Those darn denizens!

If only they'd keep watching their TV shows and playing Xbox and leave the important stuff to us!

On the post: Rather Than Speaking Out Against Domain Seizures, ICANN Provides A 'How To' Manual

vastrightwing ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2012 @ 10:21am

Peer to peer DNS

Clearly this now means it?s time for a serious discussion on alternative DNS. This can be easily done. Simply search for "alternative DNS" and there many articles talking about this very thing. I kind of like the Dot-BIT project. This is a peer to peer system that on the surface seems like it would solve government manipulation. But as we know, they manage to interfere in everything no matter what.

On the post: Why Search Engines Can't Just 'Fix' Search Results The Way The MPAA/RIAA Want

vastrightwing ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2012 @ 12:18pm

If you ask me for directions

to the local used record store, the RIAA would like me to lie and tell you, ?I?m sorry there is no used record store in town.? when in fact there is. This is what the RIAA wants Google to do: lie. Heck they lie all the time, it?s normal. So why can?t Google lie for us?

Is this about right?

On the post: Company That Issued Bogus Takedown Says It Was All A Mistake, Apologizes

vastrightwing ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2012 @ 02:03pm

Imagine if

Imagine for a minute that there is a plan to move all US business out of the country. Phase 1, dumb down the education system so we can?t innovate. Progress, almost complete. Phase 2, move all factories and production out of the US. Find cheaper places for labor such as China and India. Progress, almost complete. Phase 3, move entire IT infrastructure to India and other parts of Asia. Progress, early stages, but progressing nicely.

If you stop and assess this imaginary plan, it has progressed nicely. We?ve managed to churn denizens through the school system so they can not critically think on their own. We suppress individual thought in the system and outside of the system. Graduates from Asia have a much more solid scientific foundation then our grads do. We?ve lost a major amount of manufacturing capability. Big corporations have closed down factories here and outsourced it to Asia mostly. Now we are working on destroying our IT infrastructure by using copyright and patent law to destroy our last source of productivity. Innovation being stopped in the name of IP rights and only companies outside of US law will ever be able to create anything useful without the threat of being shut down.

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