Author: Shawn K. Quinn

Shining light on abuse of copyright for censorship

ReadWriteWeb recently reported on the EFF’s launching of its Takedown Hall of Shame. One of the most notable parts of this site-within-a-site is that there is a specific guide to YouTube video removals. (Aside: yes, I noticed the EFF is yet another organziation that insists upon using the loaded term “intellectual property” and maybe they are unaware of why it is so bad).

It’s sad that we even need something like this. Copyright is not inherently evil; as originally implemented, the Statute of Anne accomplished a quite noble goal when originally passed back in 1710. However, somehow, someway, we as a society (and it’s not just the US anymore, but most of the world) have gone from a reasonable, single 14-year term to what is a nominally limited term that in reality, may as well be perpetuity (70 years from the author’s death, 95 years from publication, 120 years from creation).

In addition, the entire concept of fair use has gone out the window. I wrote a bit about the NFL’s heavy-handed abuse of copyright back on 2009 January 15. (It’s been almost ten months, long enough for the next NFL season to have started, and nobody ever sent me a URL of a video of this play that is still online.) This is a clear example of fair use, about as clear as they get. And yet, YouTube yanks it because the NFL says “that’s copyrighted.”

I could go on and on. It’s time we move to restore copyright to some modicum of sanity: fourteen years, plus a fourteen year renewal, and then public domain. We also need more exceptions to allow for the preservation of works that would otherwise just disappear due to decay of the media onto which they are recorded.

Otherwise, we have something intended to encourage innovation, but which in fact discourages and destroy it. We don’t need that, and it’s time to wake up and realize that’s where we are headed. Don’t believe me? Patents are already being abused this way against computer software.

The evil Side(wiki) of Google

It took me a while to get to this one (most of a month), but I finally did. And I’m wishing I had dropped a few things to get to it sooner.

A recent Talkbiz.com blog entry details the dark side of Google’s new Sidewiki application. This real life example is perhaps the most shocking abuse of a technology with Google’s name on it ever recorded (and yes, this quote is a bit long):

A gentleman I know is a really hard working guy, who’s busted his butt for more hours in a day than I ever want to work, for years, to provide a good living for his wife and daughter. I mean, 14 hours a day in the long term, building a business that’s based on providing value to his customers.

This guy has a medical condition that results in one eye pointing off at an angle that’s not even with the other. The picture he uses on some sites makes this obvious.

Some ignorant, malicious, psychopathic, deranged, bored, sadistic bastard of a man-child (sorry, but that’s the most polite description I can use and still convey the merest surface of my contempt) used that as the basis for a “wiki-note” implying that this guy was a pedophile.

On Sidewiki, right next to the guy’s own business web site.

If there’s any lie a person can tell online that warrants having a 6-inch hole put in them that the sun will shine through, that’s the one.

This… mindless, soulless, stupid creature told that lie for nothing more than his own amusement. Because his victim has one eye that didn’t track right in a photograph.

Google got rid of that one pretty quickly, but how much will their response time slow down as the service grows?

Lessons to be learned from this:

  • I would opt all of my domains out of Sidewiki were such a thing possible.

  • That not being possible (yet), I believe my readers are intelligent enough to realize that Sidewiki is a separate site which I do not control.

  • Since this was written, it’s now possible to use a bookmarklet to view Sidewiki entries. So, at least you don’t actually need to install Google’s toolbar and thus agree to the obnoxious EULA. That said, I still may not be aware of some or even most Sidewiki comments. I may soon take advantage of the comment from the site owner which stays on top. (Though, I shudder at the implication that indeed, in order to do even this, one must have a Google account and register the Web site with Google. This really should be opt-out at minimum, and it should not require the creation of a Google account to do so.)

To be fair, the bookmarklet does make it a bit more obvious that the comments are not hosted on the same site. Google needs to make this clearer to the toolbar users of Sidewiki. It’s one thing to allow someone to post comments about other sites; it’s another entirely to not make it obvious the comments are in fact on a third party site. I don’t think Google is the first to implement something like this, but Google’s implementation is clearly the most dangerous of all.

The article goes on to express grave, perhaps deserved, concern that Google Wave will fuel widespread adoption of Sidewiki. The only reason I am remotely excited about Google Wave is that I have been told this will not remain proprietary to Google, that one can set up their own Wave server instead of using Google’s. Of course, this may be like Microsoft telling us that .NET is cross-platform, when the reality is it’s completely portable across any OS Microsoft makes, and if one wants .NET for anything else one must port it themselves. But, that’s another rant for another day.

I’d like to think Google is a little less evil than Microsoft or Apple, if only because the thought of a truly evil Google is terrifying. I’m not sure how much benefit of the doubt is left.

Don’t lose your marbles after reading this

This is completely different from the stuff I usually post about. Normally I’d just Twitter these, but this one’s too good to be lost in the middle of the thousands of Twitter updates I’ve posted.

I was doing some research on early calculators, and I found first a YouTube video, then a Web site describing a marble-based binary adding machine.

The video is just over three and one-half minutes and is a rather thorough demonstration of the machine the author built (which can tally results up to 63 or six bits), including an intentional overflow.

To say I was awe-struck is an understatement. This is probably one of the ultimate geek toys.

Ticket scalping: My commentary on Trent Reznor’s post

It dates from 2009 March, but I just recently found a nin.com forum post where Trent Reznor rants a bit about ticket scalpers. Trent really explains everything that’s wrong with the current system of Ticketmaster, Live Nation, and the venues they partner with.

Loaded or not, I’m using the word “scalpers” to refer to ticket resellers. I believe ticket resale above face value is bad for the fans of artists who just want to see the show and is inherently an evil and greedy practice.

I’m going to quote bits and pieces of the post here and add my thoughts:

NIN decides to tour this summer. We arrive at the conclusion outdoor amphitheaters are the right venue for this outing, for a variety of reasons we’ve throughly considered*. In the past, NIN would sell the shows in each market to local promoters, who then “buy” the show from us to sell to you. Live Nation happens to own all the amphitheaters and bought most of the local promoters – so if you want to play those venues, you’re being promoted by Live Nation.

This smacks of anti-competitive behavior. Except for the fact this appears to primarily be occurring on a local level, I’m surprised the DOJ hasn’t stepped in to stop these shenanigans. Maybe they still can.

Now we get into the issue of secondary markets for tickets, which is the hot issue here. The ticketing marketplace for rock concerts shows a real lack of sophistication, meaning this: the true market value of some tickets for some concerts is much higher than what the act wants to be perceived as charging. For example, there are some people who would be willing to pay $1,000 and up to be in the best seats for various shows, but MOST acts in the rock / pop world don’t want to come off as greedy pricks asking that much, even though the market says its value is that high. The acts know this, the venue knows this, the promoters know this, the ticketing company knows this and the scalpers really know this. So…

As usual in the music business, the actual artists are the good guys here. The venue, promoters, and ticketing company who also know this are the ones that see nothing but dollar signs. How many of you would honestly pay a $500 to $1,000 face value plus fees (the latter of which I have ranted about before)?!

“Market value” is a rather touchy subject. I believe the so-called market value does not always represent a truly fair deal for everyone. The scalpers love being able to resell tickets at markups approaching 80% of face value, or beyond in some cases (that is, $250 for $50 tickets, where the markup is 80% of the scalper’s price). In fact, a 95% markup for scalpers is not entirely unheard of.

The venue, the promoter, the ticketing agency and often the artist camp (artist, management and agent) take tickets from the pool of available seats and feed them directly to the re-seller (which from this point on will be referred to by their true name: SCALPER). I am not saying every one of the above entities all do this, nor am I saying they do it for all shows but this is a very common practice that happens more often than not. There is money to be made and they feel they should participate in it. There are a number of scams they employ to pull this off which is beyond the scope of this note.

Note Trent’s use of the word “scams.” I think that more than adequately summarizes what is going on here, but of course, the real devil is in the details because that’s where we figure out what can be done about it.

Here’s the rub: Ticketmaster has essentially been a monopoly for many years – certainly up until Live Nation’s exclusive deal ran out. They could have (and can right now) stop the secondary market dead in its tracks by doing the following: limit the amount of sales per customer, print names on the tickets and require ID / ticket matches at the venue.

So we know there’s a solution. Ticketmaster has the power to make the concert ticket buying experience a much better and fairer one for fans who are honestly getting screwed by the current system.

We know this works because we do it for our pre-sales. Why don’t THEY do it? It’s obvious – they make a lot of money fueling the secondary market. TicketMaster even bought a re-seller site and often bounces you over to that site to buy tickets (TicketsNow.com)!

So, it’s not enough for Ticketmaster to make their money by being in cahoots with the scalpers these days. They now own some of the scalpers too! Can you say “greedy?”

NIN gets 10% of the available seats for our own pre-sale. We won a tough (and I mean TOUGH) battle to get the best seats. We require you to sign up at our site (for free) to get tickets. We limit the amount you can buy, we print your name on the tickets and we have our own person let you in a separate entrance where we check your ID to match the ticket. We charge you a surcharge that has been less than Ticketmaster’s or Live Nation’s in all cases so far to pay for the costs of doing this – it’s not a profit center for us. We have essentially stopped scalping by doing these things – because we want true fans to be able to get great seats and not get ripped off by these parasites.

I assure you nobody in the NIN camp supplies or supports the practice of supplying tickets to these re-sellers because it’s not something we morally feel is the right thing to do. We are leaving money on the table here but it’s not always about money.

The NIN camp is doing a commendable thing here. It’s not always about money. To be fair, even Ticketmaster, in the months since this was written, appears to have rolled out paperless ticketing at least for some shows. I’d like to think this is not just a passing fad.

The bitter irony here is that the arts scene (orchestra, ballet, opera, etc.) has always fought the perception of being expensive. The most expensive ticket for a SPA (Society for the Performing Arts) show this season is $65; it wouldn’t surprise me if something somewhere goes into triple digits ($100+) per ticket, but I’d expect that to be rather rare.

On the other hand I’m pretty sure $100 for a rock concert ticket is frighteningly common.

My guess as to what will eventually happen if / when Live Nation and Ticketmaster merges is that they’ll move to an auction or market-based pricing scheme – which will simply mean it will cost a lot more to get a good seat for a hot show. They will simply BECOME the scalper, eliminating them from the mix.

I certainly hope this doesn’t happen. This would be a truly bad thing for the fans. I believe tickets should be available at a fair, fixed, affordable price.

I don’t see arts organizations ever doing this. You rock concert guys want to go to auction-based pricing? Fine. I’ve always wanted to see the Wortham Center and similar venues sell out for a ballet or opera. And it’s not to say that most of the younger set will suddenly dump rock for Bach. It certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing, however, for the evil concert cartel to shoot themselves in the foot and for a few in the younger set to wind up really getting some culture in the process (and I don’t mean a fad yogurt diet, either).

The ultimate way to hurt scalpers is to not support them. Leave them holding the merchandise.

I feel for the artists that will play to half-empty venues because the fans that just want to pay a fair price to see the show are unable to because the scalpers have bought up all the tickets, and refuse to support a system that is so corrupt it almost makes the Mafia look squeaky clean.

In summary, I wish Trent and NIN the best of luck in the good fight, and hope that Ticketmaster is truly serious about stopping scalpers instead of just making a token effort to try to shut up people like me. My regular readers should know by now how I feel about censorship and insincerity; if I encounter either, this won’t be the last rant about the industry.

An e-mail too good not to show off

I recently responded to an e-mail from an advertising bureau, asking if I was offering advertising opportunities on this blog right here.

I sent this reply, suspecting this might well be thinly veiled spam, but offering the benefit of the doubt that it might actually have been hand-typed and hand-sent.

This may or may not apply to the direction this blog will take in the future; it certainly applies to the way I’ve been posting to this blog over most of the past year. Of course, by the time some of you see this in the archives, it’ll no longer be at shawnkquinn.com but at some other domain name I’m still deciding on.

The original text portion of my reply follows. I simply felt it too good not to post and share. Comments are welcome, as always.

Most of the brutal honesty in my blog comes from the fact I do not have to worry about annoying sponsors. Were I to consider monetizing this blog, it would be done in other ways such as merchandise sales.

I also have serious doubts that advertising will “enhance [my] online users experience” as you put it. The people I have talked to seem to indicate they are more annoyed than attracted by ads.

Thanks for your interest, but I simply don’t see selling ads on shawnkquinn.com as viable.