Posts by Mark Harris

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  • Hard News: Have you met thingy?,

    She doesn't go out with more than one Phil at a time, guys. Jeez, you make her sound like a phil-popper

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Discussion: On Copyright,

    - It is being used as a tool to protect outdated business models

    What does this actually mean? `Outdated' seems to be doing an awful lot of work here.

    It goes with the rest of what Rick wrote, about artificial scarcity and value. In the old publishing model, which publishers are trying to protect, throttling the means of distribution plus entry cost of production meant that going outside the model was difficult and expensive and so less attractive to infringers, even if they found it inconvenient.

    But, due to digital technology, the cost of production has changed and become almost infinitesimal (from the publisher perspective - the creator still puts in the same sweat) and the potential means of distribution is radically different and unable to be corralled into a linear process - thus the publisher no longer has control of the process from go to whoa (could be go to woe, from their perspective) and so is unable to artificially maintain the price and extract the revenue.

    It's also much easier to infringe, even accidentally.

    Put more simply, publishers are middlemen and creators no longer need them (to the same degree) to get their work to an audience.

    Thus their business model has become outdated.

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Discussion: On Copyright,

    why does a creative property lose its value after a certain period of time yet a physical property maintains it?

    Because part of its appeal is its timeliness. The further away you get from the inception of a creative piece (in the main), the less relevant it usually is to its cultural environment. That can only change with distance - eg disco clothes from the 70's were reviled during the 80's but now have the patina of "retro" .

    There are always exceptions (such as Michaelangelo's David etc) but if JKRowling is ruled out of the discussion, so are they.

    Culture is not property and copyright is not a property right - it's a licence to make copies, to benefit from the process of creation for a limited time.

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Hard News: Citizens,

    Need any help? :-)

    </innocent>

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Hard News: Have you met thingy?,

    I know someone who only goes out with guys called Phil for that very reason.

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Hard News: Have you met thingy?,

    That just fits you so well, Steve

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Hard News: Dial O for Obama,

    For anyone watching the debate who's boggling about how on earth you can pay $3 million for an "overhead projector", the good physicists over at Cosmic Variance have the whole story.

    Thanks for that. I figured he'd cherry picked it from somewhere.

    McCain is shamelessly lying about an extremely worthy and worthwhile bit of public science funding. But Obama is silly for not hitting straight back with a query about exactly which part of the Planetarium's mission in public science education McCain is opposed to.

    Obama was playing it by the rules which was single answers, no follow-ups, until McCain went to the well one time too many on the "he's gonna raise your taxes!" schtick.

    There's cool and laid-back, and then there's "Are you really in the same room with this turkey??"

    Were yopu watching the Ohio worm? I was watching on CNN and there's a little worm graph at the bottom showing male and female Ohio undecided voters. Obama was scoring significantly higher than McCain, especially with the women. The worm was getting turned off when McCain lied about Obama.

    What I thought was really interesting was one of the questions asked from the audience by a black woman. McCain looked everywhere in the studio but at her directly, but he engaged directly with all the white questioners.

    Man's got is-sues, is all I'm sayin'...

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Hard News: Citizens,

    I don't see the connection. Merkins?

    Wrong page - last option

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Hard News: Have you met thingy?,

    PS I can haz a blog now

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Hard News: Have you met thingy?,

    68 out of 72 in the first one and 30 out of thirty in the famous faces one.

    So WTF goes wrong with live people???

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

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