Posts by Kyle Matthews
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I am certain that Telecom would be responsive to complaints of obscene phone calls
Actually, speaking as someone who received an obscene phone call once, and phoned up Telecom to ask them to do something, they were next to useless. Not only did they refuse to do anything, they weren't even sympathetic.
They do have web pages and information about it now, maybe I just got a bung call center staffer.
Obscene phone calls aren't always a crime, in much the same way that yelling swear words out to a stranger isn't necessarily a crime. Making threats of violence etc is a crime.
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If GM does go bankrupt, they might as well make things more exciting by rotating half the cars 180 degrees on the starting grid.
Actually, I suspect it's more exciting for the crowd if the drivers do that themselves part way into the race by crashing into the walls/each other.
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But the general principle is that you aren't responsible for what people do with services you provide.
I don't think anyone is arguing that the ISPs are responsible. They're not being taken to court for breach of copyright.
I think it's a valid point that the ISPs should have some involvement and commitment to a system which upholds laws in the countries they're in, on their network.
How to make that practical and viable for both ends of the issue, I have yet to hear what seems like sensible solutions.
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Kyle, well, I'm with McCain (and John Key for that matter) on the stifling of freedom of speech thing.
Yeah, I'm with Russell. This isn't fair use, or incidental use of stuff in the background, or sampling to create something new. He's using people's songs wholesale as the backing music for his adverts and not even having the decency to contact the artists.
There's nothing preventing McCain putting adverts up on youtube, it's not 'freedom of speech', it's these adverts that are the problem.
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Turnover != Profit.
That doesn't mean that turnover isn't important in business, particularly relatively new areas where growth and expansion is important.
ISPs wouldn't be pushing and providing broadband with bigger caps if there wasn't something in it for them.
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It costs money to deal with all the C&D letters and legal crap, for starters
Which is precisely my point about taking some responsibility for the service you provide.
do you think there is more margin in Russell's high-cap broadband connection that he is flatlining the crap out of 24/7 or a suburban granny that pays for a 1GB cap and only uses it to occasionally email her grand kids?
I think the margin entirely depends on the user. I have a 20GB cap which I pay for all year around, in the northern summer (ice hockey off season) I'd top out at about 2GB a month. On season, I'd push up near 20 GB for 7 months.
A decent proportion of the move from dialup to broadband (dialup, where it's still available, is dirt-cheap) relates to download speed and amount, and a decent amount of that relates to the downloading of music, tv shows, movies etc. It's also a factor for people upgrading their broadband accounts. It's not the only factor, but it's not a stretch to say "ISPs would have less total income if their users weren't downloading copyrighted material".
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Why should the ISP be involved beyond passing on the notice from the alleged rights-holder (I say "alleged" because we've seen plenty of cases from the US of take-down notices being sent without any colour of right)? Why should they take an extra-judicial enforcement role? We don't expect them to do it when their customers are viewing objectionable material, we just expect them to pony up the info when presented with a search warrant. If you want people to sympathise with you, stop trying to drag third parties into your actions. Your beef is with the ISP's customer, not with the ISP. We don't hound Transit/councils and the car manufacturers in the event of a fatal car crash (except where the crash was actually caused by some negligence on their part), but they're clearly enablers of the driving that lead to the crash.
I'll come back to this again.
The idea that "I provide a service, I don't need to have any responsibility for how people use that service" is not always true in our society. Government provides roads and policing for those roads.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that there's a limit to what ISPs can and should do about copyright breaches that occur using their service.
But there's no principle in our society that says that provision of a service separates you from any responsibility at all for how that service is used. In some instances that's the case, in some it's not.
But a considerable portion of ISP's business is built on the fact that people are now on the internet more, and downloading more, and spending more money on accounts at ISPs for downloading which is often involving a breach of copyright. It's not stretching things too far to say that most ISPs have and will benefited from the activities of their customers in breach of copyright.
Surely there must be a sensible middle ground or new model which recognises that the world is changing and artists still need income to produce their work.
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Relevant to the discussion: Stifled By Copyright, McCain Asks YouTube to Consider Fair Use
(translation: McCain never sought permission from copyright holders to use their stuff, getting pissed that it keeps getting taken down off youtube)
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Did no-one tell him he was the Moderator?
I suspect both candidates had a policy of:
1. Letting the other person cut in on you and take over when you're talking is going to look really bad.
2. Trying to cut in on the other person and have them stop talking is going to look really good.A. If situation 1 starts to happen KEEP TALKING DON'T STOP FOR ANYTHING.
B. If situation 2 presents an opportunity GO FOR IT, START TALKING, DON'T STOP FOR ANYTHING.If I'd been advising either of them, I would have definitely told them both 1 & 2. Sainsbury should have had about 3 times as much control and stopping them interrupting each other, but pulling their plug if necessary. A couple of "Excuse me Mrs Clark/Mr Key, don't interrupt, you'll have your turn."-s wouldn't have gone astray early to set the tone.
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Obviously not, but I find it amusing that people who wouldn't accept this kind of b.s. from a tradesman ("I'll give you the estimate for the job after you've hired me"), but go into raptures when it's being fed to them by a politician.
Sounds like every election, in pretty much every country.
Is there any country where political parties either voluntarily, or by law, have to submit their promises to some sort of independent assessment as to its cost?