Posts by Mark Harris
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However, it's a fair point for Russ to point out that s92A allows a harsher punishment than a court has handed out for copyright infringement, which I think is what he meant when talking the Hocquard.
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I've heard you say this a bit Russell, including with Chris, and I've got to say that out of all the arguments against s92A, this one seems to me like a bit of a straw man, or maybe just irrelevant.
Russ can speak for himself but I don't think this is a strawman, Damian. It's part and parcel of the unfairness of the act, that it allows penalties to be enforced, without proof of guilt, that go beyond those a court could impose.
Would s92A be betterif the arbitary uncontestable penalty was a fine or imprisonment, or whatever else a judge currently has in his/her arsenal? No, it's still arbitrary and uncontestable.
I agree completely, but Russell's comment explores the scope of how bad the law is, looking at the context of surrounding process. Either the arbitrariness or the overkill in penalties should be enough by themselves to blow this law out of the legislative water. That neither is being considered enough by the government is a bit tragic.
And to compare it with the penalties for child porn sounds like a variation on Godwin's Law - not to mention that as above, the penalties for child porn already include imprisonment and large fines - something I'm sure you would agree is harsher than having your broadband turned off...
Well, Tizzard herself raised that particular spectre while Minister, so it's not unfair to wave it around, really. Still, It's not an argument I favour myself. As you say, there are significant penalties for such activities and the court can order your equipment seized:
The penalties relating to child pornography vary due to the different types of offences that fall within this category of offending. Depending on the type of offending, a term of 1, 5 or 10 year(s) maximum imprisonment and/or a maximum fine of $20,000, $50,000, $100,000 or $200,000 are available. Some of the offences, in this category, have different penalties for individuals and body corporates
http://www.safetravel.govt.nz/children/sexcrimes.shtml
However actual sentences range from community service and home detention to imprisonment. I don't think that's comparable with s92A, really.
Given that it's the ISPs who are being required to take this step, it's perhaps analogous with employment law, where an employer can be compelled to take back a wrongly-fired employee.
Umm, I feel I should disagree with this, but I'm not sure what it says.
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I like Shirky's comment:
The fantasy that small payments will save publishers as they move online is really a fantasy that monopoly pricing power can be re-established over we users.
Having read the article, I can see I misunderstood what you meant by micropayments. I was talking more, I think, about digital cash, than micropayments per se which can be linked to external currencies.
The issue with micropayments is that they generally don't scale very well. Paypal has made it work sort-of, but it's been a bumpy ride. And they're sort of 'medium"-payments rather than the cent-a-page sort of stuff that's been proposed in various newspaper models.
Dubner's point is a good one:
This is what happens when an existing business model begins to collapse: alternative models are desperately invented, debated, attempted, rejected, etc.
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I truly believe in micropayments, Jon, but I've been a believer since 1995, and they haven't cracked it yet. It's the final disintermediation, where by I can pay the artist directly, like cash, without a middleman. Various schemes have been tried - all have failed so far, or run out of investor funds as they were seemingly on the verge.
But that doesn't resolve the scenario we were discussing some pages back, as I said to Keir.
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Any offense is in your misquoting.
What I actually said was "No-one is guaranteed a living" which is not the same thing as "deserves" at all.
I write. Occasionally (very) I get some money for doing that. I don't expect to make a living just by doing that in a micro -economy like New Zealand, even though I write pretty well, when I put my mind to it. I certainly don't expect to make money just because I write.
Weelll, in that case it's one of your classic positive externalities; there's sfa you can really do to help in that specific instance in a strict economic sense
So, why would Adam Smith be weeping, Keir?
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We were talking about recompensing, say, a writer for the increased tourism that may or may not have been engendered by something they wrote. How do "property rights" come into this?
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Keir wrote:
Adam Smith wept.
Perhaps you could share your ideas on how it might work, Keir.
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That must be where Arthur's "80%" comes from...
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Great post Simon. I agree completely.
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Then again, the NZ industry is so small that not having substantive conflicts of interest is the exception.
True, and there's nothing inherently wrong with having a conflict, as long as it's disclosed.
Okay, I'll leave it there too