* Posts by Andrew Orlowski

1435 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Sep 2006

UK could have flooded world with iPods - Sir Humphrey

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Posted right here

That will have done wonders for Brennan's sales :)

Victimisation is central copyfighters psychology. They need to feel picked on by The Man / The System. It is a seige mentality. The little guy is being oppressed.

See:

"Kick me again, RIAA. Please!"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/19/consumer_focus_spart/

and

"Dying quango says Britons oppressed by the Man"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/19/consumer_focus_spart/

There is no chilling effect, and nobody is oppressing you. It exists in your head, because you prefer it that way.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Which unelected government?

On this occasion, it's not the EU.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Hmmm. Hmmm, I say.

As factors go, it's not even "negligible", it's non-existent. The High Court ruling was quite clear, and established the liabilities.

Cloud music-locker ruling: MP3tunes claims '99% victory'

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Yes.

" There may not exist many legitimate music sharing sites"

Just the one, alas.

Free Ride: Disney, Fela Kuti and Google's war on copyright

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: yarp

Good post, but MC is not the only factor. Piracy is an option because like sending spam downloading it is consequence free.

The cost of the 1,900,001st copy of the Daily Mail printed today was about the same as the 1,900,000th. The 2 billionth bottle of Evian cost as much to produce as the one before it. People pay much more to send SMS than the marginal cost of transmission.

The value of something is not set by production costs, but by what the market is prepared to pay for it. When an alternative is substitutable and free (as you rightly say, Mr Grumpy) and acquiring it is consequence-free, then it's hard to find the true value.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Separate "Distributors" from "Creators"

"My question is, do the distributors still deserve to take a cut?"

I am guessing you don't mean huge distributors of culture like BT, Google(YouTube) or {YourWarezSiteHere}, most of whom return £0.00 to the creators or investors in art. Apple and Amazon and Spotify are "distributors" who return something.

Choice of the word "deserve" implies morality - and a desire to control the market. Remember that a creator's time is finite. If a middleman allows the creator to focus on their work rather than spending all day raising money and marketing and updating their Facebook page, then that value may (or may not) be worth paying for. It's the creators choice.

Record labels may be transient but whatever replaces them will still do investment, career development and marketing, which looks a lot like a good record label to me.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Levine?

You usually disclose your affiliation with the Pirate Party when you post, Andrew. It must have slipped your mind here :)

My experience over ten years is that the music industry *exaggerates* losses from P2P and underestimates factors such as unbundling. Robert points this out in the book too. Piracy isn't the only reason for the decline in revenue for recorded music.

But the militant freetards do more a quite a bit more than exaggerate, they refuse to acknowledge there's any net substitution at all. There's absolutely no way they can acknowledge their behaviour is in any way, even slightly, harmful. It isn't a tenable position.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

"People usually don't pirate in order to save money"

Well, for an argument to be convincing, it has to be based on facts.

1) "They pirate because they cannot get a paid copy"

Go and correlate the most popular music downloads on Pirate Bay with the current Top 40.

You can do this now.

What do you see?

2) "Many movies will probably never come out on DVD"

The opposite is true. Most movies only ever come out on DVD. cf "straight to DVD" The limited theatrical release of many movies is to "prove" it's a movie to foreign distributors, but even that isn't necessary any more.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Re: Worldwide services

I presumed the OP is in the USA.

http://www.spotify.com/us/get-spotify/overview/

Spotify is open for business and will happily take his money. So maybe he needs lessons in how to use the interwebs. Or how to pay for things. One or the other.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Worldwide services

Spotify won't let you give them money?

Are you sure?

Sky Movies too expensive, says Competition Commission

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: @Jim Booth

Ofcom passed it over to the CC. See last paragraph: UV is coming, and things can change fast.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: yo ho !

Sky mention P2P in their submission to the Competition Commission. It's not a legal alternative, but it's most definitely an alternative, as we all know.

Explaining the Chocolate Factory's Patent Panic

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Short time?

" I don't think that is justified any more where products go through a generation change in 2-3 years. "

People change their dishwashers and vacuum cleaners every 2-3 years?

Yes, vague patents are really "ideas" and shouldn't be granted.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Ludicrous

Yes but the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Many patent problems are caused by the cost and difficulty for the small innovator to defend them, and the short (20 year) time frame to recoup. Ask James Dyson. It took 13 years from filing the patent to launching the product.

BBC explains 'All your Twitter pics are belong to us' gaffe

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Is it?

Yes, I've cited these often. eg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/19/consumer_focus_spart/

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"everyone has the right to protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author"

Signatories agree that the individual creator, no matter how poor, must have access to redress violations of this right.

There is a good discussion of them here:

http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/did-mr-la-rue-miss-the-elephant-in-the-room-a-critique-of-the-report-of-the-special-rapporteur-to-the-u-n-human-rights-council-complete-post/

Has Google wasted $12bn on a dud patent poker-chip?

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: $12B to Defend Andriod Makes Oracle Damage Claim Seems Reasonable

+1

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Credibility

Fair point. Go isn't necessarily the best language for a mobile platform.

But if you can hire the best, you have a great talent pool which can innovate. You don't need to copy. Google didn't innovate.

Google SHOCK! Snaps up Motorola phone biz for $12.5bn

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: How long before Motorola don't make handsets?

Obviously.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: a

Maybe it matters less than it once did, but you don't rely on a key supplier that directly competes with you. It's not a level playing field.

Samsung's lovely illegal tablet: Why no one wants to know

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: There is no tablet market, stupid

"Landscape only"

Eh? Portrait and landscape, you can soft lock it in either.

Sky wins TV riot battle

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Useless maybe because ....

That incident took place many hours after the article was published. Maybe somebody sent them it? :-)

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: [utterly pointless title field]

Its reliance on Twitter and The Great British Public means the BBC reported riots in Manchester which never happened. That's a Fail.

Grow up, Google: You're threatening IT growth

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: RE: So what innovation is really being killed by patents?

Many of Qualcomm's important CDMA patents have already run out. It's 20 years from filing.

Your argument is really for longer patent terms, lower barriers to protection, and fairer enforcement.

BT on site-blocking: Every case will need a court order

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Dream on

BT already offers commercial movies over IP on its Vision service, and needs to make money. None of that is a conspiracy, I believe the phrase is "business model".

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Censorship in the UK

"So in effect that judge just compromised net neutrality in the UK"

Unicorns don't exist.

ITV eyes micropayments for Corrie specials

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Micropayments

Yes, last year ITV talked about Oyster-card style payment, which is a pre-pay model.

News leech loses appeal on High Court copyright case

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Is Google paying up?

Perhaps. But it's not charging money for Google News.

Film studios thrash BT in Newzbin site-block test case

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: "Things were so much better"

Souza was talking about phonographs (record players), not player pianos. The part of the story never told is that Souza became a big supporter of the record player once a royalty agreement was reached that rewarded composers.

See? There's a moral in there somewhere, that even a 'tard can see.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: MP Ed Vaizey, Culture Secretary, laughing all the way

Er, site blocking is already law. Has been for a year. The ISPs are already exposed to litigation.

Vaizey wants voluntary industry self-regulation to *replace* the clauses in the Digital Economy Act. This will certainly be cheaper than Hollywood picking them off one by one in the High Court.

You need to be aware of the facts before ranting.

Digital singles all the rage in Europe

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: eh?

Punters have a lot of choices when it comes to spending money on entertainment. I think the spending is over £90 per household per month now.

It's amazing anyone pays for music when pinching it is consequence-free. But most people do.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: just let it die

It's hard to pirate your way into Glastonbury.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Need a credit card?

You're over 18 though. Few teenagers have a debit card. You can get one if you're under 18, but it needs be set up by an adult and the account requires a parental guardian.

Most teens can't just decide on a whim to blow their pocket money or dinner money on some digital music, like they could with cash on physical singles at Woolies or HMV. So the point stands.

Rupert Murdoch was never Keyser Soze

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: It's contrarian revisionism

No revisionism here, it was never true in the first place:

>> Two years later the truth emerged in the definitive study of that election. Labour's Last Chance?, edited by Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell and John Curtice, contained the results of a panel survey in which people who were interviewed after the 1987 election were re-interviewed in 1992.

Not surprisingly, it found that most Sun, Mail and Express readers voted Tory, while most Mirror readers voted Labour. The question is, did they cast their vote because their newspaper told them to, or did they choose the paper that matched their outlook? The evidence is overwhelmingly the latter.

The data showed that the shift in attitudes between 1987 and 1992 among the readers of the Sun and other pro-Tory tabloids was much the same as among the rest of the electorate. In both groups, Labour's support rose by four percentage points. The authors concluded: "Neither the Sun nor any other of the pro-Conservative tabloid newspapers were responsible for John Major's unexpected victory."

So why did the myth of the Sun's influence take hold? One reason is that the opinion polls made a mess of that election, exaggerating Labour's support for months. The Tories were always on course for victory.

The academics repeated their exercise in the 1997 election, when the Sun backed Blair. Did that make a difference? No, according to John Curtice: 'The pattern of vote switching during the campaign amongst readers of the Sun or any other ex-Tory newspaper proved to be much like that of those who did not read a newspaper at all.' Curtice concluded, to paraphrase, that the Sun may have helped Labour - but only slightly and only before it publicly backed Blair <<

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23971834-dont-be-afraid-of-rupert-murdoch-the-sun-never-won-it.do

The "1990s News International War Machine" is a myth.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Three Words:

Nobody watches it.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Missed the point of the article

Yes, exactly.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Oh Andrew...

Mostly irrelevant, but one of your anecdotes is interesting:

>> funds.... keeping the Murdoch organisation going through a strike or two with no newspaper revenue <<

The Times shut down for almost a year 1978-1979 when it was owned by Thomson. Murdoch didn't acquire it until 1981.

When News Int moved to Wapping it didn't miss a day because of the strikes.

Shale gas frees Europe from addiction to Putin's Pipe

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Just burning up more stuff

> I was put off the idea of shale gas extraction by a Johann Hari podcast where he explored the local environmental impact of the process <

Mmm.

MPs probe science behind bogus gov booze guidelines

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Don't you mean

Yes. Mea gulpa.

I mean, culpa.

The Cube: Apple's daftest, strangest romance

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: love the retro review

Well, I have HAD five Cubes but all sequentially: two of those never even powered up, and the third spluttered for a few weeks before it had to be returned.

So I've never had more than one concurrently- the last cost me about £60.

I'll rephrase to make myself look a bit less tragic.

ICO orders release of (mostly useless) weather station data

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Pass the fainting salts, please

"Data integrity - who needs it?"

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Hypocrisy and abuse of Copyright

Your time would be better spent reading the ICO ruling, rather than speculation, red herrings and repetitive ad hominems on the author.

copsewood: "private emails illegally put into the public domain following an offence under the Computer Misuse Act."

So much for "Open data" :-)

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Why let lack of evidence get in the way of a conspiracy theory ?

A man confused by an "abuse" of copyright, and in quite a quandry because the "good" guys invoked it.

Much poorly-informed speculation of motives follows.

Your taxes at work.

BT wary of rights holders' site-blocking proposal

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Only Fools and Horses

Roads aren't a great analogy. Someone pops up and says "Speed cameras - monitoring you for your own good".

(As I just have).

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Thanks for the credit... not.

Thanks James, credit where it's due.

MeeGo and the Great Betrayal Myths of tech history

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: MS bought the world floppy production for 6months

They also bought up every use of the number "2" for a year - which hit OS/_ and PS/_ and the 199_ Barcelona Olympics very hard.

No, really.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: The lesson (call it myth if you want) of MS vs OS/2 is vitally important today

"And we are seeing exactly the same kind of campaign today against Android. All the lawsuits, all the astroturfed press, all the backroom arm-twisting for royalties from Android device manufacturers, the buying off of Nokia: it's all part of the campaign to give MS a chance to catch up on the mobile market they missed."

It's all a giant conspiracy.

The myth lives on, hatching new myths.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Countering the Ministry of Truth

There's little point in posting incorrect dates and facts when you can check them on Google in a couple of seconds.

"In 1992 Microsoft's version of OS/2 still had the old program manager / file manager interface, looking just like Windows 2.1 or MS OS/2 1.2"

Microsoft was still selling the old 16-bit OS/2 Lan Manager and would continue to sell it well into the mid-90s. Relevance?

"In 1993 Microsoft renamed the OS/2 3.0 project to Windows NT"

Nope. See InfoWorld January 21 1991:

"Microsoft is preparing to announce a 32-bit version of the Windows package - one that will obviate the need for OS/2 for many users... Microsoft said last fall the first completely 32-bit version of OS/2, which has alternately called 3.X and 'NT' (for New Technology) would run Windows applications"

and InfoWorld July 8 1991:

"Microsoft has veered away from OS/2 and will ship next year Windows NT, its 32-bit New Technology operating system, with only Windows and DOS programming interfaces, the company confirmed last week. The company began shifting gears on its committment to OS/2 last summer on the heels of the explosive growth of Windows 3.0. Previously, Microsoft said the New Technology (NT) kernel would be the core component of OS/2 3.0 - a pure 32-bit version of OS/2 that would run code written for DOS, 16- and 32-bit Windows, and 16- and 32-bit OS/2...

... in January, Microsoft broadly hinted it was leaning toward abandoning its OS/2 path"

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: OS/2

OS/2 developer kits were £3,000 - Microsoft practically gave the Windows dev tools away.

UK taxpayer 'fleeced' in spectrum selloff windfall

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Does Watson read El reg?

"‘Does Watson read El reg?’"

Yes.

Nokia E6 smartphone

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Deja vu all over again

Once that call bug is fixed, the E6 is the natural upgrade to the E71 and vastly superior in almost all respects.