‘(A) the offense consists of 10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works; and
‘(B)(i) the total retail value of the performances, or the total economic value of such public performances to the infringer or to the copyright owner, would exceed $2,500; or
‘(ii) the total fair market value of licenses to offer performances of those works would exceed $5,000;’; and"
It looks to me like this bill simply provides a punishment for profitable public performances of a copyrighted work. Lip-synching only qualifies here because presumably you're playing the song while you mime the lyrics. It's distribution of a copyrighted work. It has nothing to do with Lip-syncing. That's merely an example of one possible infringement. IMO, this is pretty poor journalism. Also, (again as near as I can tell) this applies to work where there is actual retail profit. B and C lay it out: "Total retail value", "Total economic value" or "Total Fair Market Value" greater than a few thousand dollars. This keeps people from riding their way up the fame wave on someone else's song without some sort of compensation.
All that said, I don't think we need to further enable IP abuse. I hope this one gets thrown out in committee.
The answer wasn't clear though. The Nexus One was "discontinued" the same week the Vibrant came out. All reports seemed to suggest that Google was getting out of the phone business altogether. The Nexus One had served it's purpose in encouraging better hardware for Android. That same month Eric Schmidt said Google would not be releasing a followup phone to the Nexus One.
So yes, it sounds like a good idea to buy Google, but at the time this particular phone was being sold that was totally impractical. The Nexus One was a generation behind in hardware and looking like it wasn't going to be around for more than another couple of weeks. Would you have bought a Nexus One knowing that? Especially if you were told Froyo was coming for this brand new phone in a matter of months?
I was concerned about something like this. The Behold II stopped at 1.6, despite only being on the market for a mere 9 months. I bought the Vibrant with the expectation the 2.2 was coming within a few months. That's what I was told. Then it was October, then it was December.
According to Cnet Samsung has said that they're still doing testing to make sure it works well. This is absurd. Is it going to take another year for us to move onto Gingerbread?
I bought this phone thinking that I was going to get a great phone with all of the features advertised. The GPS is still garbage *when* it works. "Media Hub" does nothing, even after being activated it doesn't work. These problems should have been solved before the phone was released.
I initially liked SG:U. I thought it was a good, clever mix of BSG and ST:VOY. I liked the characters, I liked the issues they were facing.
Then season 2 came along. It seemed all of the good-will and constructive storyline was thrown out the window. The show just got weirded, and I stopped watching. I'm not sad SGU was cancelled, I'm sad that they took it the direction they did...
I don't know if it qualifies as good, but the fact that it exists at all is a pretty incredible feat.
http://newtonpoetry.com/2010/09/15/finally-newton-einstein-project-on-iphone/
An iPhone is just a step away from an iPad.
Yup: Paywall bad idea. They will reap the consequences, blah blah blah.
The hardest thing they're going to have to learn to grasp in new media economics is that it's not just their business model that's changing. It's not just that they're going to have to stop expecting people to pay for their services like they did before. Their entire industry is going through a massive shift. Personally, the only way I see newspapers surviving is that they become tremendously small outfits. 10-man operations that produce solely for the web and offer a print-on-demand version for those who are interested. Your staff of a dozen reporters and the hundred people who support them aren't going to last here. Print journalism as an industry just can't support those people the way it used to.
Is journalism dead? No. But I think massive news companies are. Journalists and the "Ace Reporter" are going to become free agents. Newspapers are going to become aggregators of the information they collect, and they'll likely have to secure a story with a fee or a retainer. I have sympathy for the people whose jobs are disappearing, but I think every time a job disappears, a new industry grows and more jobs are created.
In a semi-related note, I think that DC should do a Superman storyline where Clark gets laid-off because the Planet can't support his job anymore.
"It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." -- Rick Obidiah