Interesting Links for 11-03-2012

[andrewducker]

• Women who have just finished ovulating are the best at spotting snakes
  (tags: snakes menstruation hormones women brains )
• Toshiba has a glasses-free 3D TV on sale. I wonder how well it works with multiple viewers.
  (tags: 3D tv technology )
• Scots offer to send water to aid drought-hit England - in exchange for train tracks
  (tags: scotland england water transport trains hs2 )
• A breakthrough in understanding how the brain stores memories
  (tags: memory brain psychology )
• Dozens of Iraqi teenagers stoned to death for ‘emo’ haircuts
  (tags: iraq fashion violence religion )
• Street Harassment #101 - a long page of reasons I'm glad I'm not a woman.
  (tags: harrassment women society )
• When a cat realises that who is controlling the toy it's playing with.
  (tags: cat cute )
• Don't Make Me Steal: The Digital Media Consumption Manifesto
  (tags: copyright piracy media video )
• The NHS Bill does not allow for patients to be charged
  (tags: uk politics nhs )
• Private Practice is the first show on television to have a male military survivor of rape.
  (tags: tv men rape )

Comments

[usmu.livejournal.com]

Though I agree with the sentiment of the piracy manifesto, I find it to be rather petulant in tone and demands. It sound like: if you don't give me what I want the way I want it now I'm going to steal it. Well that will make them listen.

And some of it seems wishful thinking: product costs are always factored into pricing, bandwith seems the same to me, and laws differ from country to country, so global release / no restrictions might not always be possible. I also have no idea if the pricing structure is viable (production costs of a TV series or a movie). And every movie ever made: good luck with that.

This is exactly the wrong way to go about it. Instead of trying to take the industry hostage, do as I say or else..., they should be going: here's what you do if you want lots of people to give you money.

[andrewducker]

Well, they're saying "Here's what you do if you want us to give you _any_ money." and "lots" is clearly a subset of "any".

[usmu.livejournal.com]

True. But my point is they're saying that if they don't do it, they're forced to steal it. Right in the title of manifesto. Nobody's forced to steal anything. This way tney sound like people who want to have their cake and eat it.

[fub.livejournal.com]

All of the 'demands' are merely properties of the pirated version. If the industry wants people to pay for content, it has to be at least as good as the pirated version!

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

precisely so. Piracy has as much to do with convenience as cost. this is why I buy DVDs but never watch them as purchased.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

And this is my point exactly. If it's a matter of convenience it's just people complaining they don't get what they want when they want it the way they want it.

It's like crossing the street through a red light because there wasn't any traffic anyway. Might be convenient, and we all do it, but that doesn't make it right. Not to mention the fact it occasionally goes wrong.

[andrewducker]

In this case it's down to pragmatism, as far as I'm concerned. If you want customers then you weigh up what it's worth doing to get them. If doing X means that everyone pirates your stuff and nobody buys it then you're pretty stupid to do X. If doing Y means everyone buys it, but you go bust because you're not charging enough, then that's pretty stupid too. Hopefully somewhere in-between you can get enough people to pay. But if not then your product just can't be made economically.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. Like I mentioned above I agree with the sentiment of the manifesto. I'd love for companies to make this kind of stuff available online in a productive way. I'm fine with (potential) costumers pointing out what they want. But it's so much better when done the right way. I don't think they have in this case.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I read his article as saying –

a) piracy is more convenient and unstopable so unless you match the convenience I’m just going to pirate your stuff for free.

b) some of your content is shoddy so I’m not going to pay for it until I’ve seen if it’s any good.

c) for reasons I won’t explain I think your products are too expensive, make them cheaper or I’ll apply a five finger discount.


I guess point a) works until content providers find a way to stop piracy. Other folk will know better than me the liklihood that a technical prevention to piracy will be developed. My guess is pretty slim. Which leaves us with a huge surveilance state and the FBI kicking in doors and shooting people in the head.

I’d be okay with the FBI doing this if, in exchange, they stopped targeting the legtimate businessmen commonly known as drug dealers.

Point a) & c) in combination leads to a bit of the tradegy of the commons type event. If piracy leads to content providers leaving the market then we’re all a little worse off. I’m going to have to think about which content providers stay in the market in the light of Kay’s work on strategy.

b) implies a rather more wholesale change in the relationship between content providers and content consumers.

How do you provide a good or service that is non-excludable and non-rivalous? State provision works. Are there any other models?

I’m a bit concerned about the guy’s understanding of the cost base of the content makers and providers and the lack of consideration of the price elasticity of demand.

I found the entitled tone of his article a little off putting.

[andrewducker]

If piracy leads to content providers leaving the market then we’re all a little worse off.

That depends. Would abolishing copyright lead to there being less content, or more content that was less well edited (because the financial incentive vanished)?

What I'm mostly paying for, with my monthly Virgin Tax, is simplicity. The TV is there instantly, and I don't have to faff around with filesharing technology. I'm happy to keep doing that - and I'd pay for all sorts of downloaded video, if the format was DRM-free.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Rather depends on whether the people who make content want to make a living or not.

I think you’re right about the first bit of the supply chain to drop out being the technical stuff.

Only one way to find out.

More broadly, I’m not so sure I want to return to a world where you can only manufacture high quality, well produced product if you don’t need to make a living at it e.g. are already quite well off.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

Clarification: when you pirate stuff out of convenience without buying the DVD's.

[anef.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting the bit about the NHS bill. I think it's a helpful contribution to the debate. Of course, not having read either the original or the revised version of the bill I am relying (like most people) on second hand reports of what it all means.

[andrewducker]

I'm in the same position. I'm relying on second-hand reports and I don't trust anyone who is doing the reporting. If the IFS brought something out on it then I'd be happier.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Sadly even after reading the thing three times it's pretty incomprehensible. But I *think* my summary is right.

[anef.livejournal.com]

I need to read tax legislation for my job. Often even if I understand more or less what it is supposed to do, how it actualy works in practice can end up being surprising.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Ah, street harrassment. One of the many reasons I'm a stay-indoors person. When you get to the point of wearing clothes that make you look misshapen and unappealing, while also carrying your keyring in your hand as a weapon, you know you do not feel comfortable being out after dark for fear of harrassment turning nasty.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Street harrassment: bloody hell, no-one shd have to live like that. I feel so, so lucky, never really had any hassle (touch wood). How can people(men) be *like* that??? I mean in themselves - just how? I know all the stock answers but it's still near-impossible to imagine either such a total lack of empathy or, if it's not immunity to women's/other people's feelings, such a desire to explicitly cause pain/fear/humiliation.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately many, many men are exactly like that. Without wanting to in any way compare what I go through to what those women go through, I know just from looking unusual (long beard and overweight) that a large percentage of young men, especially in groups (and especially those wearing football clothing) want nothing more than to cause others pain and distress.
A LOT of people enjoy causing pain to others, and it's just a matter of finding a social situation where they're allowed to. And sadly that kind of behaviour is more or less accepted, or people just don't believe it happens.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

my ex-wife comments near every time I go anywhere with her that people act *completely differently* when I'm there. It's like the arsehole switch is magically flipped.

Now, I'm aware that I can be very intimidating [it's not in any way deliberate, just buckets of experience], but I cannot help but wonder if people just behave better when there's a non-idiotic man around. It's a sobering thought.

[fub.livejournal.com]

I've once been mistaken for an attacker by a lady who lived in the same flat. It was winter and I took the bus back home from the train station in the evening, so it was already dark. I got out of the bus at the back, and this lady took the exit in the middle of the bus -- so I was walking some 10 meters behind her.
It's a few hundred meters from the bus stop to the flat. I walked at a leisurely pace and kept up with her. I did notice her glancing back, but I didn't make anything of it at that moment. When she walked up to the flat, she hastened her pace. My flat was at the first stairwell, and so I walked up the sidewalk behind her and got my keys out of my pocket -- which was her cue to sprint away.

This baffled me at that moment, but then I replayed all that had happened in my mind, and realised that she must have assumed that I had followed her home from the bus (which I did) to attack her (which I had no intention to). Back then, this amused me, but now I feel bad for giving her such a fright.
I don't know what I could have done differently, though. I could have tried to walk faster and overtake her en route to home, but perhaps that would have been interpreted as an overture to an attack as well. Speaking to her could easily be misinterpreted as well.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

Crossing the road is a good way of communicating that you're not following someone, even if you do have to cross back (that's maybe more useful for longer walks), or looking in a shop window for a minute or two.

[andrewducker]