New Google Map feature
There is a somewhat new feature with Google Maps that many people may not be aware of. Google Maps now lets you adjust the driving directions it provides by dragging the line on the map to new locations. The line will automatically adjust to where you move it and give new directions.
It may not seem like a big deal, but it makes adjusting and fixing online directions much easier. My home address is a great example of the potential uses for this new feature. I know better than to list my address here, so I’ll just say that there has been recent construction around my home that makes giving directions difficult. The road most mapping software tells people to turn on no longer exists and the new route doesn’t show up on some maps, so I usually tell people to call me once they get close. Now, I can drag the directions around the missing roads and to an alternate, simpler (but slightly longer) route.
Try this link to see it for yourself. This route is from Arrowhead Stadium to my old apartment in downtown Kansas City. Normally the directions would have you take I-70 most of the way, but I drug the route north to take Independence Ave.
Check it out!
Tags: [google map]Major Hosting Issues
I’ve been having major issues with my hosting provider today. I’ve wasted most of my evening on the phone and on the computer trying to take care of everything. The site is up now, apparently, but it’s probably going to go down again sometime soon as more changes are made.
Until everything is fixed, I’m taking away all of the “extras” on this site. Sorry for the problems!
Tags: [downtime]More on royalty rates
So, I received a few responses (here, here, and here) from my post last week in response to Dismuke’s post about the free market. I’ve explained my position on the issue and I don’t want to fan any flames, so instead of repeating myself or going point-by-point through the responses, I’m just going to write a few general comments and leave it at that.
First, to the claim that I misrespresented his position, I just want to say that on the post I replied to, the “So long as the government is setting the rates…” clause was the only inkling I could have that he was against statutory rates, especially since he was asking for more government regulation. After I wrote my post, he released an essay criticizing statutory rates. It would have been nice to read that essay along with the others on his blog, so I have to admit that I was wrong to throw Dismuke in with the rest of the webcasters who are pushing the Internet Radio Equity Act. I still disagree with his position and many points in that essay, but so far as he is against statutory rates and government interference in the music industry I’m with him.
Second, I believe I’ve been misrepresented when he tied my position to his “MilkExchange” example in one of his rebuttals. It seems that a big point of contention between the two of us is the the idea that SoundExchange constitutes a monopoly. I don’t believe it is a monopoly because copyright holders and webcasters are still able to negotiate rates independent of SoundExchange. I think one can deduce logically from that fact that copyright holders can form their own licensing organizations to offer broadcasters the ability to negotiate rates for music in bulk (if one person can do it, why can’t a group of people?). Dismuke asked me if I knew that for a fact, and I admit that I don’t. If it is true that the law forbids such organizations, the situation is even more messed up than I knew and I might even agree with call to lower royalty rates as an intermediate step to fixing the situation.
I’m not the one that is advocating for more government regulation, though. If I should ask my representatives to vote for the Internet Radio Equity Act because there are government barriers that prevent private licensing organizations, where are they?
(Note: I asked if the law forbids such organizations, not the RIAA. How the RIAA would feel about such organizations or whether they would fight them legally is not relevent to the question of whether a monopoly really exists.)
For the record, my position on “MilkExchange” is not what Dismuke claims it is. I think there are essential differences between his example and this royalty situation, but I don’t want to get into it right now.
Third, I’ve stated repeatedly that the basis for my position on this issue is my belief in the concept of intellectual property rights. The existence of SoundExchange and the CRB are violations of those rights, and the final solution to this issue is to get the government out of the music business. I’ve side with the CRB ruling only because I feel it is the least-restrictive option for copyright holders. I’ve been dismissive of points not related to the rights of copyright holders because I don’t think they are relevent. Yes, I think the rate jump was excessive. Yes, I would like to have more access to music I like. Yes, I don’t want small webcasters to lose their shirts to pay retroactive royalties. Yes, I think copyright holders will make more money if they let internet radio stay online. Do I think that copyright holders - even if they’re the RIAA - should have to lose control of their property for the sake of others? Absolutely not, and I think that’s what this debate is all about.
If the government passed a law that eliminated SoundExchange and the CRB and brought a real free market to the music business, I bet we’d see the same “Save Net Radio” movement that we see today. Dismuke might not be a member, but everything else would stay the same.
Fourth, I have to stop staying up past midnight writing on this subject. It’s time for bed.
Tags: [dismuke, internet radio, royalty rates, soundexchange]Yahoo Pipes
Have you heard of Yahoo Pipes? It is a neat little service that’s been around for a while, but I don’t know if many people know it even exists. Yahoo Pipes lets you grab existing data feeds, manipulate them to give you what you want, and then read them on your favorite RSS reader. For example, you could have a RSS feed of every first-edition copy of Atlas Shrugged that appears on eBay or Google Base below $100, or a RSS feed of every time a certain blogger mentions “Seinfeld,” or you can even convert your favorite Spanish blogs into English. Or better yet, you can combine all of these into one big data feed and use it however you want. If you check out the site, I’m sure you will be able to find better examples than the ones I gave.
You don’t have to be a programmer to set up the service, either. You build these datasets by dragging, dropping, and linking objects together. You will have to read the instructions, but for basic use it is not very hard to pick up. But if you are a programmer, you can get your data feed in JSON format for use on practically any web applet you want to write.
Right now, I’m using Yahoo Pipes to consolidate the RSS feeds from bloggers who have introduced themselves on the OBlogger list that started recently. I was introduced to 20 or so bloggers in a matter of a couple weeks, so rather than dump them into my already-bulging RSS reader, I build a Yahoo Pipe that consolidates all of their blogs into one handy feed that I can read at my leisure. If you are interested, you can see the feed for yourself here.
Tags: [yahoo, yahoo pipes]Some praise for Microsoft
About three weeks leading up to our wedding, Ashley and I started to have second thoughts about not hiring a videographer. I preferred to put our money in photography, which I think can capture special moments better than videography. We were only going to get married once, though, so we decided to buy a relatively inexpensive miniDV camcorder and have a friend record the wedding and the reception. We did it, and now we have a video of our big day.
The day after the wedding, we wanted to watch the video. The video was stored on a miniDV tape and only miniDV player we had was the camcorder itself. I wanted to get the video on a computer (and from there, a DVD), but I had absolutely no experience doing so. Here is where some thanks to Microsoft and Windows XP is due.
I knew that the camcorder had a firewire connector, so I went to target and bought a firewire cable. When I plugged in the camcorder to the computer, Windows XP immediately popped up the Windows Movie Maker software and a dialog box asking if I wanted to copy my video to the computer. I clicked yes, told it to record it at the highest video quality, and the computer did the rest. Now I have a 8+ gig high-quality video of my wedding that’s ready to be copied to DVD.
I didn’t have to mess with finding and buying new software to handle this one-time need. All I had to do was plug the camcorder in to my computer, and Windows did the rest. My problem was solved before I knew I had the problem! Thank you, Microsoft!
Tags: [microsoft, video]Everybody wins!
No matter how you feel on the issue of net neutrality, you might find this amusing.
Recently, the state of Maine passed legislation that instructs Maine’s Office of the Public Advocate (whatever that means) to “monitor state and federal activity relating to full and fair access to the Internet” and release a report on it next year. The original intent of this legislation was to pass net neutrality law in Maine, but this is all they could get.
So how do the pro-net-neutrality and anti-net-neutrality sides treat this issue? They both announce victory!
For the anti-net-neutrality side, we have Hands Off the Internet: It’s Official, Maine Rejects Net Neutrality.
For the pro-net-neutrality side, we have Save the Internet: Maine Leads the Way on Net Neutrality.
I think the HOTI guys got it right.
Tags: [maine, net neutrality]First wedding photos
Who wants to see my wedding photos?
We’re still waiting for the ones from the photographer, but in the meantime here are a couple taken by a friend at our cake-cutting.
Evan Almighty
During my honeymoon, I had the time to do something I’ve never found the time to do before: Read Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear.” The book was a big deal when it came out a few years because the villians in the book were environmentalists who were trying to cause deadly weather events to try to scare people into believing that man-made global warming was real. I hope I’m not giving away anything here, but one of the events the environmentalists were trying to plan was a giant tsunami that would have killing thousands.
After finishing the book, I saw a preview for “Evan Almighty.” For those that don’t know, the movie stars Steve Carell as a man who is instructed by God to build an ark like Noah. At the end of the preview, there is a short clip of a huge wave taking the completed ark. Then it clicked in my mind:
This is going to be an environmentalism movie.
Here’s my prediction: God comes down to Steve Carell to tell him to build the ark as a way to raise awareness of how we’re damaging the environment. It will end with some type of “abrupt climate change” in the form of an enormous flood or tsunami, which will conveniently also have no casulties.
The movie is being billed as a comedy with no reference to environmentalism, but just watch.
I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to pick up on this without a big clue like Crichton’s book, but at least I figured it out before I was halfway through the movie.
Tags: [environmentalism]Dismuke on “free markets”
A couple months ago, someone on the webcaster-side of the net radio royalty rate debate suggested that I read a post titled “An Unfree Market” written by Dismuke. I read it then, along with many other posts and articles on the issue, but I always remembered Dismuke’s response because of the way he tried to defend the idea of a “free market” while also trying to argue that the government should force low music royalty rates on music labels.
The two positions contradict one another, so in order to do so he twisted the idea of a “free market” into one that better suited his pro-government-regulation position. There are some arguments Dismuke made that I would like to address.
What is a free market?
A free market is a market where transactions occur only when the seller and buyer voluntarily agree to make the sale. The price for any product is ultimately up to the seller to set, and the amount that any buyer is willing to pay for that product is ultimately up to the buyer to set. The only way for a sale to occur is when the two sides can agree to terms. The only role the government plays in this type of market is to protect the freedom of all parties involved.
I’ve written this before, but that’s where the “free” in “free market” comes from. All parties are free to exercise their own judgment without being coerced into any deal.
This is where webcasters break with the ideas behind a free market. In a free market, the owner of a copyrighted song would be able to set his own publishing rate for any webcaster to play the song, and the webcaster would be free to accept the rate, walk away and never play the song, or negotiate a lower rate. Unfortunately, current U.S. law does not operate this way. Currently, if a webcaster does not like the rate the song-owner asks for, the webcaster can ask for “permission” from the government to play the song without the song-owner’s permission. The government has arbitrarily established a royalty rate that all webcasters can pay music labels, regardless of whether the music labels agree to the rate or not.
This special deal webcasters can make with the government violates the principles behind a free market. It takes away the freedom music owners have to set their own rates.
Webcasters love this arrangment, though, because the rates established by the goverment were much lower than major music labels wanted. That is, they were lower until the CRB’s recent decision to dramatically raise the royalty rates. So, when webcasters ask you to “save net radio” they’re not trying to bring back the free market. They’re really asking is that you pressure your government representatives to continue government intrusion into the free market.
So, how did Dismuke explain a free market? He doesn’t, except to throw out three facts about free markets:
1.) Free markets don’t allow prices to be set by judges on a government board,
2.) Free markets do not allow special privilege for certain industries to be set by the government, and
3.) In a free market, prices fluctuate according to supply and demand.
These are all true facts, but these facts by themselves do not define what a free market is. He never explains what he means by “free market,” leaving it to the reader to assume it is what he says it is. But if the the term “free market” is explained simply as a system where people are allowed to make their own agreements with one another without government influence, it’s easy to see how Dismuke’s call for government coercion in the music royalty rate business is in direct conflict with the free market.
Now, I can see how the first fact he gave could be considered an acknowledgement that the government should not be setting royalty rates. He wrote:
For the judges to attempt to cloak their rationalizations using free market verbiage is absurd and drops context in a massive sort of way because the entire process they are part of and the results of their decision is the exact opposite of a free market.
The results of the CRB decision are the exact opposite of a free market precisely because the process is the exact opposite of a free market. No matter what decision the CRB makes, it will be a result of a process that takes away the freedom of the owners to establish their own rates. Dismuke does not elaborate on this nor argue for the abolishment of the CRB and the special privilege they give webcasters.
Special privilege for certain industries?
Dismuke, like many webcasters, believe that is is unfair that the CRB’s royalty rates are much higher for internet streaming than the rates established for AM/FM radio. They claim that this is an example of the government giving the over-air radio industry advantages over the online radio industry. Dismuke wrote:
On what twisted logic can one say that the value of a given recording being streamed is somehow different depending on whether the stream originates from an FM broadcaster or whether it originates from a station such as mine?
The value is different because the owners of the music being streams want a higher rate for internet transmissions.
If they were able to set the royalty rate for broadcasting their music (as they would be able to in a free market) they would set a higher rate. In setting the higher rate for internet broadcasting the government is not giving over-air radio a special privelege. It is refusing to grant internet radio a special privelege over the music owners: The ability to set their own royalty rate for somebody else’s music.
It can be argued that the music owners should want to lower royalty rates for music broadcast over the internet, but the final decision to allow the broadcast should be theirs to make.
Fluctuating Prices
Dismuke explains how prices fluctate in a free market, and correctly points out that it is not a guarantee that rates would increase every year (like the CRB ruling has declared) in a free market. He wrote:
For a person to know what the market price for a given good or service in the year 2010 ought to be would require nothing short of psychic powers or omniscience.
What’s missing here is the fact that the violation of the free market is not in the CRB’s rate increases, but the fact that the CRB exists at all. Would Dismuke maintain his objection to the CRB’s psychic powers if they set the 2010 royalty rate to what he wished instead of what the music owners wished?
If so - then the next question is this: which copyrighted sound recording?
Do the judges on the CRB actually mean to suggest that the market value of all copyright sound recordings is identical?
Again, what’s missing here is the fact that the violation of the free market is the CRB’s blanket royalty rate for all music, but the fact that the CRB exists at all. Yes, in a free market the rates for unpopular music would probably be lower than rates for popular music, but in such a market the government would be setting royalty rates at all. But he wants the CRB’s lower rates, not a free market.
Pricing smaller labels out of the market?
For the CRB to price such copyright holders out of the market for Internet radio airplay does them a profound injustice - especially since the purpose of the CRB is to look out for the property rights and best interests of all copyright holders, not just copyright holders who happen to be the major mass market labels which control the RIAA.
The government pricing someone out of the market sounds bad, and definitely anti-free-market. But there is one little fact that Dismuke is not telling you:
Copyright holders are still able to negotiate their own royalty rates with whomever they wish.
In other words, music owners are still free to negotiate their own deals with broadcasters. If a band wanted to play their music on Radio Dismuke for a rate that is much lower than the CRB’s rates, they are free to do so (assuming they haven’t already sold their music to another party). If a deal can’t be worked out, though, the webcaster can go around the music owner and broadcast under the government’s rate.
So, nobody has been “priced out of the market” by the CRB’s higher rates. Music labels can still charge lower rates if they wish.
Freeloaders?
Aside from the implication that small webcasters such as myself are a bunch of mooching freeloaders, on the surface, this almost sounds reasonable.
I think this is a case where the term “freeloader” deserves to be defined. The dictionary.com definition of freeloader is “someone who takes advantage of the generosity of others.” Freeloaders do not steal from people, they just take everything that is offered. When I think of a freeloader, I think of the irresponsible cousin or uncle on television whose asks to stay for a few days to “get back on his feet,” but stays for weeks because the family doesn’t know a polite way to ask him to leave.
I definitely agree that the term “freeloader” does not fit webcasters who are trying to “save net radio.” In fact, freeloader is too good of a term to describe them. These webcasters are not taking advantage of the music owner’s generosity, they are trying to steal the music out from under the music owner. The tool they are using for this heist is not a lockpick, a crowbar, or a club. Their tools are the government, which they want to use to invalidate the music owner’s right to control their intellectual property, and you, who they plan to use to pressure the government to do what they want.
Webcasters will be quick to point out that they pay royalty rates, and their payment is money the industry would not have received had they not started their internet broadcast. What they’re not telling you is that the record companies don’t want them to sell their music at them at the rate they’re paying, and the issue at hand is whether the record companies should have the right to tell them no.
Here’s a quick example: Imagine two guys, Dan and Mike. Mike buys a brand new car for $20,000. Dan steals the car one day, sells it for $500, walks home, and gives the money to Mike while saying “I helped you out, this is money you didn’t have before I sold it.” The problem between Dan and Mike would not be the amount of money Dan sold the car for, but the fact that Dan sold Mike’s car without permission.
I don’t know enough about how the creation of the compulsory license for internet broadcasting has affected that industry to know if it is wrong for webcasters to take advantage of the license to play music without first getting permission from the owner. So long as the webcaster pays the royalty rates dutifully, I’m inclined to believe that they’re just mixed up in this mess of a system our government has created. However, if a webcaster - or anybody else - takes another step forward and becomes an advocate for this system that steals the private property from music owners, he has become part of the problem.
“Beyond Disgusting”
Dismuke wrote (emphasis mine):
The task of the Library of Congress and the Copyright Royalty Board is to protect the property rights and interests of all copyright holders. The fact that the judges on the CRB chose to use their authority to create an arbitrary rate scheme which will price a great many copyright holders out of the market for valuable Internet radio airplay so that some copyright holders with political pull can be protected from emerging forms of competition - well, that is disgraceful. And the fact that they attempt to use the honorable term “free market” as a rationalization for their decrees is beyond disgusting.
If it is “beyond disgusting” that someone would misuse the term “free market” when issuing their ruling, then how should one describe the way that webcasters argue for a completely anti-free-market system? The paragraph above is just like his entire post. His first sentence states that the task of the Library of Congress and the CRB should be to protect the property rights of all copyright owners (which should mean that property owners should be able to set their own rate for their own property), and then in the next sentence he complains that the arbitrary rate the judges picked is not low enough for webcasters (nevermind what the property owners want). He complains about the political pull of some record companies, all the while trying to build up political pull of his own. And all of this is surrounding a statement that is completely false (the idea that anybody will be priced out of internet radio).
If Dismuke was really concerned about the property rights of music owners and if he really believed that the free market was “honorable,” he would advocate for the elimination of the CRB and the compulsory license for internet broadcasts.
Why I Wrote This
I know I’ve written a lot about the internet radio, even before writing this huge post. One of the things that motivates me to keep doing it is the frustration I feel in when essential points in issues like these are ignored in favor of emotion-based arguments or outright lies. Instead of arguing whether intellectual property owners should have the right to control their own property, we get “Save Net Radio!” What is “net radio?” Who are we saving it from? How will it be saved with this government action? The questions raised by a context-dropping call like “Save Net Radio” lines up the issue perfectly for those who want to fill in their own answers without really addressing the issue at all.
Edit 6/21/2007: Very stupid spelling errors fixed.
Edit 6/22/2007: I should have probably made this clear above, but the link to Gus Van Horn’s site is not meant to imply that I’m replying to something he wrote. I’m linking to a comment someone else wrote.
Apple privacy concerns?
This story is a little old, but for those that haven’t heard about it:
According to some bloggers, Apple violating your right to privacy!!!
How, you ask? Well, if you purchase a DRM-free song on iTunes (the ones that do not have copy protections and cost a little more than the regular song rate), Apple will embed your full name and email address in the song. What this basically means is that if you throw the non-copyrighted-protected file onto a “file sharing” system, Apple or music labels might be able to track you down. If you keep your song library private (like you’re legally obligated to), it won’t affect you.
When this was discovered, there was a lot of complaints that embedding this information in a file violated customer’s privacy rights, but that is not true. The only thing that customers have a right to is what they purchase.
If I purchase a chair that I know to be broken, I cannot claim that the seller violated my right to a non-broken chair.
If I purchase a computer that states that it does not have an operating system, I cannot claim that the seller violated my right to a working computer.
If I purchase a song that says “DRM-protected, only works on iPod,” I cannot claim that the seller is violating my right to play the song on my Zen.
In other words, you only have a right to own what you purchase. Except for cases of fraud, you are responsible for what your purchase, and for what you do with that purchase.
So it does not matter if Apple sells its music in DRM-free, unencrytpted music that works on all players, or whether it sells the music in reams of paper containing the 0’s and 1’s of the song, your only choice is to accept what they offer or not accept it.
Tags: [apple, drm]