vastrightwing 's Techdirt Comments

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  • Study Confirms What You Already Knew: Mobile Data Throttling About The Money, Not Stopping Data Hogs

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2012 @ 10:08am

    Go retro with analogue encoded data.

    Yes you understood that right. Perhaps I?ll write an app that uses the voice channel to revive the old analogue modems of the past. This can take advantage of unlimited voice plans to encode data and thus surf the internet without restriction. Of course, this would require a bank of modems to call into. Imagine using the AP mode of your phone to act as a WiFi access point using 56K modems on the other end. I imagine this wouldn?t be too much worse than what we get now for speeds anyway.

  • Techdirt Deemed Harmful To Minors In Germany

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2012 @ 11:47am

    The war is on

    Here?s an example of what the world censorship legislation was trying to do: censor websites people in power don?t like. Clean and simple. Actual porn sites won?t be shut down because they are popular with politicians. Putting TechDirt on the block list wasn?t an accident. It was put there. Anyone who blames a bad algorithm is being disingenuous. The internet is problematic since it allows ordinary denizens to be informed as to what is going on. The war is on.

  • Kenny Rogers' Lawsuit Shows The Many Ways That A Major Label Screws Artists (Even The Big Ones)

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2012 @ 02:31pm

    What's the benefit?

    If Kenny Rogers gets anything from the big labels, they will become targets from other artists. Therefore, they can?t afford to give any concessions what so ever.

    Moral: don?t sign a contract with a big record label. They are in fact a huge liability. So exactly what value do they provide today?... I can?t think of anything. Nope, still can?t think of any benefit of the big labels.

  • Belgian Anti-Piracy Group Facing Copyright Fraud, Embezzlement & Money Laundering Charges

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 21 Feb, 2012 @ 01:49pm

    I can hear the defense now

    Your honor, I know this was bad. We are so ashamed of our actions and we ended up hurting the very clients we were supposed to protect. I can?t tell how regetful we are as an industry. In fact, we have a plan that will ensure we can?t do this again and we will pay our clients the money they deserve. Unfortunately we can?t publically disclose this arrangement so we?ll have to seal this forever or 100 years. The story ends by the industry yelling to all those far and wide that they are being punished by paying a huge one time (undisclosed) fine and all the artists will be made whole. No one will know what the payment was and no one will know who got what because this is all confidential of course. You never hear much from the defendants until they do it again many years later.

  • Universal Music Album Recalled… For Infringing Content?

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2012 @ 04:20pm

    LOL

    I'm sorry... all I can do is laugh. LOL!

  • Congrats, US Government: You're Scaring Web Businesses Into Moving Out Of The US

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 17 Feb, 2012 @ 12:02pm

    Part of the plan

    Ehh.. just part of the big plan. The government has already moved all our manufacturing to China. Now it's time to move all our IT infrastructure out of here too.

  • Paulo Coelho On SOPA: 'Pirates Of The World, Unite And Pirate Everything I've Ever Written!'

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2012 @ 10:43am

    Copyright, go away

    Agreed. No need for copyright. Look at youtube. Do you think 99% of those videos produced by armatures do it for the money? If we didn?t have copyright, there would be more work published. Not less. Paulo basically admits this. The ones who benefit from copyright are the ones trading it: publishers, not authors. They want to sell scarcity in a world where there is infinite. My advice, get out of the publishing business: you?re doing it wrong.

  • Elected Officials Asked To Return Hollywood Money Following Dodd's Threats

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2012 @ 10:33am

    LOL

    Yea right. What is going on? First you had some newspaper publisher publically talking about offing the president and now big entertainment is asking for its money back? In public? Am I on the right planet?

  • Megaupload Shutdown Means Other Companies Turning Off Useful Services

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2012 @ 10:15am

    Let's get to the root of the problem

    By using the argument that file lockers are only used for infringement, we need to take a much closer look at computers themselves. After all computers must be mostly used for copyright infringement, after all, why buy them if that?s not what you?re using them for?

    Guns too. They can only be used to commit crimes. Ban all of them.

    Cars: they are used by criminals to escape law enforcement and they kill lots of people every day.

    Airplanes are often used by criminals to escape law enforcement of the United States. Sometimes planes are used in terrorist attacks which kill thousands. As a society can we afford to allow such an evil technology to exist?

    Alcohol: people who use alcohol often break the law, therefore, alcohol needs to be banned. There is no practical use for alcohol.

    Books: information leading to dangerous thought can cause people to do things the state doesn?t like, books need to be banned. Perhaps it?s not books, but printing technology that needs to be banned.

    Video game consoles: as we all know, it is illegal to modify them and people do it all the time. Also people waste a lot of time playing games and can often lead the game player to act out violence as depicted in the game. Besides, a game console is simply a euphemism for a computer: same rules apply.

    Mobile phones can be used to trip IEDs and this is a real danger. Not to mention the RF radiation which may cause brain cancer. Sorry, mobile phones need to go. Besides, this country obviously does not have the proper infrastructure to deal with the amount of data we consume. Just eliminate the problem.

    TV: again, another euphemism for a computer and part of a video game console. Pure evil!

    Electric light bulb; A lot of crime happens at night when the sun is down. Having light encourages malfeasance. Besides, using electricity causes unnecessary green house gas and carbon use. No practical use for light bulbs of any technology.

    I could go on?

  • Supreme Court Chooses SOPA/PIPA Protest Day To Give A Giant Middle Finger To The Public Domain

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 18 Jan, 2012 @ 02:25pm

    Book burning

    Back in the so called dark ages, we had book burning. Today?s modern equivalent is copyright. The correlation is like this: burning books was done to stop people from learning the truth. Today?s progress is to do the same thing using the government to make sure it and the others who control it can stop any information they want from getting out by controlling it with copyright. Sure, burning books is not the same thing, but the result is the same: keeping the masses ignorant so the powerful can continue to get away with whatever it wants.

  • Angry Birds CEO At Peace With Chinese Counterfeit Merchandise

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2011 @ 12:11pm

    LOL reminds me of when

    I used to work for a small manufacturing company that made printers and supplies for the electronics industry. One day I'm walking through a plant (MOTOROAL) in Singapore. I noticed they were using printing pads that were not ours. I asked why this was. The answer was, your company takes 4 weeks to ship and are very expensive. We found a local mfg. that makes copies of your pads for 1/2 and they can deliver them immediately. I understood and that was the end of that topic because I knew my company would never be able deliver supplies faster than 4 weeks due to the way they were, so MOTOROLA found a local solution. In this case, our own business was already taxed to its limit and the local mfg. picked up on the demand. That is the way it is. I didn?t want to bring this up to my company because I knew it would simply cause a relationship problem.

  • Don't Complain About Piracy When You Create Crappy Games

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2011 @ 08:05pm

    Know what you're getting into before

    I have no sympathy for the publisher. At one time I investigated developing for the iPhone and determined ahead of time that I didn't like the terms of Apple's one sided contract. I didn't see a bright future being in an extremely crowded market. In other words, I realized I could not create a polished product on that platoform and make money.

    Android, I stayed away for the reason this guy talked about. Yes, it's true, it takes a lot of resources to make sure your app works on all the major phones. No joke. Also, when apps make a few dollars each, it's hard to see how to make enough money to keep the busines viable. On top of that, new OS and new hardware come out frequently, it's a HUGE commitment. Better not to go in when you know in advance you can't keep the commitment.

  • NYC/NBCUniversal Pro-Copyright Propaganda Contest For School Kids: Facts Not Allowed And Your Rights Don't Count

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2011 @ 12:50pm

    A great introduction to publishing

    I find this contest an excellent introduction and learning experience for budding artists. This will be their first contract where the publisher gives them a few pennies and steals all their work and they will feel proud having done so. The publisher will recognize they will be be able to continue doing this with this artist and they will have a great relationship going forward until the artist wakes up, which won't be until the publisher has made millions from him/her. I say, this is just the beginning.

  • Verizon Removes FTP Access For Security… Well, Security Of Its Revenue At Least

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 30 Aug, 2011 @ 10:07am

    Money grab

    They've sucked up the $0.20 (that's twenty cents or 20/100 of a dollar, since we all know about Verizon math) text messaging revenue, so they need a new source of revenue. This is about all the customers using IP cameras out there which upload images to a FTP site. Now what are these people going to do? Pay Verizon more in order to continue.

  • Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 17 Aug, 2011 @ 01:10pm

    Here is how I understand your definitions

    Dear MPAA,

    I want to be sure I have your ideas clear:
    1) Copying any form of entertainment for any purpose equals theft.
    2) Sharing any form of entertainment equals theft.
    3) Distributing any form of entertainment equals theft.
    4) Watching entertainment on a DVD where the content travels more than 100 yards equals theft.
    5) Doing anything the entertainment industry doesn't like is a copyright violation or is infringement.
    6) There is no difference in the words infringement and theft.
    7) Sharing equals copying and therefore sharing equals theft.
    8) Copyright grants only movie industry titans the ability to distribute and copy. Therefore copy only equals theft if you are not considered part of the giant movie industry.
    9) Watching content not authorized for a particular geo-location equals theft.

    I would love to understand the difference in meaning between infringement and theft, if there is a distinction from an entertainment insider. My opinion is that the distinction only occurs when you own/control the copyright of any content.

  • How Data Retention Makes Us Less Secure

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 03 Aug, 2011 @ 01:51pm

    Security by obscurity

    The answer here is to have a job running on your IP address which dilutes all your real data with junk data, thus making data mining useless. That is, while you surf the internet, you have a data job running in the background which randomly crawls Google and makes random search engine requests. Then fetch the random page. This will effectively fill up the ISP logs and make finding your true web page visits effectively impossible to determine. Of course this is a complete waste of resources, but this is what it's coming to in order to have any sort of privacy.

  • Sony Continues Suing People Who Help Others Modify Their PS3s

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 21 Jun, 2011 @ 08:21am

    Open letter to Sony

    Dear Sony,

    I stopped buying your stuff years ago because of they way you lock your equipment down. Now I add to my list of reasons about the way you treat us as human beings. I can't buy any of your products when I know that not only do you restrict what we are allowed to do with it, you actively bully people who try to make your equipment useful. Unconscionable!

  • As Pandora Goes Public, How Come No One Is Pointing Out That It Misled The Press About Being Profitable?

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2011 @ 02:51pm

    Re: Contrary view

    Whine much? Come on. Why can't I get paid for stuff I did in the past? Come on! It's fair. If I do something once, why shouldn't I get paid for it over and over? After all, my employer benefits. If I build a house and only get paid $200K, people live in it for years free! If I cook a meal for a customer and only get paid once, how will I survive? You're asking me to cook forever? I agree. Song writers and musicians should not tolerate having people pay only once for a performance. Going forward, when you go to a concert, you should pay for that show every month. I think 5% of the purchase price is fair. And if you buy a ticket from a scalper who charges $500, you should be obligated to pay 5% of the scalped price since it's obviously worth more to you. Recorded music should be licensed and you should be forced to pay for each time you play the music. Furthermore, you need to be obligated to pay for each person who can possibly hear the music. Otherwise, it just isn't fair and artists will starve. I propose to manage said monitoring. I will be fair and make sure each artist gets their fair share. I promise! Really. I'm not like the others.

  • Mixed Messages: US Talks Of Cleaning Up 'Rogue' Internet… While Underwriting Censorship-Proof Shadow Internet

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2011 @ 02:50pm

    No mixed message

    Government believes in an open and free internet except when big business pays to have it censored. Where's the confusion?

  • EMI Exec Thinks You Shouldn't Be Able To Listen To Your Own Music Without Paying Again

    vastrightwing ( profile ), 31 May, 2011 @ 07:35am

    Forget the cloud!

    The future is Micro-SD media. They can hold a lot of bytes in a small space and no paranoid, out of touch music execs will be able to regulate what you decide to copy to and from these devices. Most new phones have micro-sd slots. The "cloud" is a huge personal liability. It will be too hard to resist peeking into the personal storage of people and then it will become a nightmare. No, I like tangible media (hard drives, SD/Micro SD, DVDs, etc.) as opposed to cloud storage. I just don't have the love here. I am paranoid about what conclusions will be drawn if I store anything there and someone decides it's not private to me.

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