Economic Stimulus Package
I have a feeling that my check might get lost in the mail.
Tags: [economic stimulus]RIAA Piracy Tax?
On this week’s edition of Copyright 2.0, I learned of a new idea that is gaining interest among the heads of some record companies: A “piracy” tax. As reported by Wired:
At the music industry trade show MIDEM last year, John Kennedy, the head of IFPI — the RIAA’s international affiliate organization — offered modest support for the kind of licensing fee Griffin and Jenner propose. “It’s a model worth looking at,” he said at a press conference. “If the ISPs want to come to us and look for a blanket license for an amount per month, let’s engage in that discussion.”
Jonathan Bailey, one of the hosts of Copyright 2.0, was open to the idea. Charging a flat rate to everybody (five dollars is the amount being discussed today) for the “right” to download your music sounds better than the losing battle the RIAA is facing today, right? There is some precedent for the idea of forced royalties and compulsory licenses, too. Bailey didn’t totally endorse the idea, but he said that it might be a good place to start until a better idea comes along. I enjoy hearing and reading Bailey’s opinion, but this time I have to respectfully disagree. I think this is a horrible idea that completely shreds the idea of copyright and intellectual property.
I think the problem becomes self-evident once one brings the definition of “copyright” into the issue. A copyright is the right to control the distribution and use of a piece of intellectual property. This right is initially secured by the creator of that property simply by the fact that he created it. Since he did the work to create it, he or she gets to decide what is done with it. Like any right over material property, it can be sold, exchanged, or given away. The owner owns it, so he gets to decide. That’s what copyright is about.
Now apply this concept to the idea of allowing everybody to use a compulsory license to download whatever music they want, in exchange for a $5 tax that is collected and distributed to copyright holders according to some process. Obviously, there are some conflicts. Copyright says that the owner of a creation gets to decide how to use that creation, but a compulsory license says that paying a tax allows anybody can download the copyright holder’s property — with or without permission of the copyright holder. Copyright says that a the owner of a creation can charge whatever he or she wishes for his music, but the compulsory license establishes a set rate for everybody — with or without permission of the copyright holder. All of the “benefits” that a compulsory license might bring about are at the expense of the artist’s rights.
When copyright is discussed today, I think too much focus is placed on the idea of making sure that artists receive some form of “fair” compensation for their work (I don’t mean to include Bailey in this group, now I’m just talking in general). When they’re not constrained by the rights of artists, people are free to imagine all sorts of “new models” that might bring more money to the artist than today’s system. And the funny thing is, some of these imaginary systems might, in fact, bring in more money for some artists if they were ever put in action. Some artists might even prefer it over today’s sytem, too. I doubt it, but I guess it’s possible, especially if one cherry-picks the right examples. However, any additional income will be at the cost of something that’s priceless. Control over one’s work is something that nobody should be forced to give up.
There are a number of other problems with a tax like this. How is the appropriate rate established? How would an artist receive compensation from a tax like this? How can one accurately measure downloads, anyway? These are questions that have no good answer. Like most “new models,” the system becomes pretty arbitrary when the details are established. It probably doesn’t matter, anyway: I doubt the RIAA would ever agree to a blanket, compulsory license in exchange for this tax, even if they were allowed to control the income. If the RIAA pushed a tax, it would be to make up for their losses from illegal file sharing. In other words, it would still be illegal to download music, but you’d pay the tax anyway. Even if you didn’t illegally distribute or download music.
The main source of the music industry’s trouble is the lack of understanding and/or respect for intellectual property, by both consumers and the recording industry. Gimmicks like this tax aren’t going to solve anything.
Tags: [copyright 2.0, isp, isp tax, piracy, plagarismtoday, riaa, tax]Pre-eclampsia and health care
Late last January, in a post about how our next child was going to be a girl I wrote:
I’m really looking forward to the baby’s birth. I do tend to worry about most things, but after everything I’ve seen with our doctor, the hospital, the technology involved in bringing a baby into the world, and a few dozen episodes of Baby Story, I can honestly say that I’m not worried about this baby. Just a few more months to wait now!
The next day, my wife became so sick that I had to take her to the hospital. My wife developed pre-eclampsia, a serious condition which causes high blood pressure, excessive protein loss, and potentially worse symptoms in pregnant women. From what I understand, it’s basically caused when the placenta and the woman’s body start to fight, and the only way to cure it is to deliver the baby. Our pregnancy was only 22 or 23 weeks along, which was just too early for the baby to make it. We lost our baby that weekend, and it took nine full days in the hospital for my wife to reach the point where she could go home again. It was a horrible time for both of us, but the important thing is that my wife is going to make a full recovery and we will hopefully be able to try again.
There are a lot of things to say after something like this, but few that I’d want to share on a blog. One of those few issues have been swirling in my mind for weeks now, so I’m going to let it loose. For me, one of the biggest benefits from writing posts is that it forces me to organize and clarify my thoughts into something more concrete. Or put in another way, it makes me turn my opinion into a position. I might have more to say later, but for now I’m just going to write on our experiences with the health care system.
Health Care
Before this situation happened, I had hardly any experience dealing with hospitals and health care. I’ve never had anything serious happen to me, or most of my family for that matter. After seeing the experience my wife had to go through, I’m very concerned about what might happen in the future if America’s health care system becomes socialized (or more socialized…). Let me describe what happened.
My wife experienced shortness of breath, nausea, and swelling all around her body. She told me that it felt like her body was falling apart. When we went to the hospital, she was immediately admitted and checked over by her doctors. Tests were ordered, which were taken immediately in order to get the results back as soon as possible. From diagnosis to labor to delivery and to recovery, we had immediate assistance and advice from the appropriate specialists, all of whom put my wife’s treatment as the highest priority. Nurses watched her condition closely for the length of the entire stay, making sure that the doctors knew whenever something bad happened. Everything was done to make her better, and it worked. My wife and I were given great care, and I’m very grateful for the doctors, nurses, and medical staff that made us better.
I think that many people would look at this situation and say that we were lucky. After listening and reading most commentary on our country’s health care system, one would think that health care is something that is granted to you by someone, and it’s chance that separates those who don’t get it from those who do. These people are absolutely wrong. While many doctors and nurses played a big part in my wife’s recovery, I think that my wife and I were mostly responsible for it. Months ago, my wife researched local hospitals and picked the one that was the best at handling these types of emergencies. My wife and I are both hard workers who prove our worth every day and bring in steady income and health insurance. We spend our money in a way that allows us to pay for emergencies like this. My point is: We didn’t just happen to have all of this great care fall out of the sky; we made it happen.
If we’re fortunate of anything, it’s that we live in a country that has enough remnants of capitalism that allow us to transform our work into things we need. It’s pretty fantastic, if you think about it. My wife teaches elementary school and I program computers, but what do we get in exchange? Educated kids and computer programs? Hardly. We get anything we want. We get a house, two cars, plenty of food, things to entertain us, and in times of medical emergency we get the attention of incredible doctors who will make us better. No matter what we want, we just have to be able to put in the work to achieve it.
But how long will it be this way? I’m scared that in the next few years, America will adopt a fully socialized health care system that will prevent us from doing what we have to do to take care of ourselves. That’s the real cost of socialized health care: The right to choose what you do with your own life. If you want to choose your hospital… tough luck, you have to go to the one the government tells you. If you want to choose your doctor, too bad… the government tells you who to see. If there is a waiting line to see your doctor and you want to pay for another doctor out-of-your-pocket, don’t bother… that would be a crime. If you’re a doctor and you want to try a better treatment or work extra hours to see more patients… there goes your medical license. Instead of a system somewhat like today where patients and doctors are able to make their own decisions with their own intellect and free will (though, there is a lot of government influence today), everybody gets locked into a system where your only real choice is to comply with the law or not.
What would have happened if our system was socialized today? What if my wife had to wait an extra day before she was admitted to the hospital? What if they let her go early and told her to recover at home in bed? What if any of the great doctors we saw had left because they didn’t want to work in that system? Would my wife had been ok? Possibly, but that’s not a gamble that politicians or socialized-health-care advocates have a right to make.
I felt strongly about this issue before, but now whenever I see debates online or on tv I keep thinking back to this single, concrete example. And it infuriates me to think that anyone would get between us and the health care we arranged for, especially when that interference is done for the supposed purpose of helping us! If someone wants health care for everyone, then my suggestion is to find someone who doesn’t have health insurance and buy it for them. Find someone with a medical bill and pay it. Just whatever you do, stay out of our way.
[Update 2008-03-16: I’m disabling comments on this thread. I really appreciate everybody’s well wishes, and we’ve received a lot of them! I don’t want to make a thread where people feel they have offer condolences, and given the subject matter I’m guessing that most people who disagree with my stance on medical care aren’t going to argue with me here. Don’t worry about us, we’ve had some time and we’re going to be ok. Really.]
Tags: [health care, preeclampsia, socialized health care, universal health care]VGtdApi - .Net library for Vitalist
Some months ago, I wrote that I was going to give up Vitalist and write a GTD application of my own. While that application is still being worked on (but moved to .Net, instead of PHP), I’ve become extremely attached to my Vitalist account. Yes, Vitalist is a little more expensive than other sites, but I haven’t found a UI half as good as Vitalist. It’s simple, it’s fast, and it closely matches the GTD methods. It’s great, and it’s worth the $5 a month I spend.
I thought it would be nice to be able to pull my data into other applications. So, I wrote up a quick and dirty .Net library for interfacing with the Vitalist API. If you pass it your Vitalist API key, it will pull down your data and fill collections of easy-to-use objects for your programming pleasure. Below are some quick examples of how it can be used.
Here is loading data:
VGtdApi.MyVitalist myVitalist = new VGtdApi.MyVitalist();
myVitalist.ApiKey = “[YOUR VITALIST API]”;
myVitalist.LoadData();
Here is adding an item:
VGtdApi.Item item = new VGtdApi.Item();
item.Body = “testapi”;
item.DueDate = System.DateTime.Now;
item.Priority = VGtdApi.Item.PriorityOption.High;
item.ListId = VGtdApi.Item.ListIdOption.Waiting;
myVitalist.Items.Add(item);
myVitalist.Save();
And here is making a change to an existing item:
myVitalist.Items[0].Body = “testapi 1234″;
myVitalist.Save();
I think this API could be a great head-start to anybody who wants to write a .Net application that uses Vitalist data.
HOWEVER
There’s a basic fact about this API that there is no getting around: An API for a service can only be as good as the service itself. And frankly, there are a lot of things that can’t be done with the Vitalist API. Here are my biggest problems right now:
1.) When you get your data, you have to download everything. Now, there is a filter that lets you break things apart by major sections (Inbox, Waiting, etc.), but that’s it. If you want to get what’s due today, you have to download every item in your account. Even completed items! I don’t think this is a very efficient way of pulling data, especially for people who have lots of Vitalist data. As you use the system more and more, each download is just going to get bigger and slower. I don’t know of another way around it, though.
2.) You can only see projects, contacts, and contexts that are attached to items. The XML format of the download is basically just a list of items, so if something is not attached to an item it won’t be included in the export.
3.) You are very limited in what you can add. I documented what limitations I found in the project. My memory may be off, but I think you can just create the name, due date, priority, context(s), and the type of item. That’s all. Projects and contacts can’t be touched.
4.) You are very limited in what you can update. Again, I documented what limitations I found in the project. The biggest limitation is the fact that the API won’t let you set a complete date. This means that you can see your items, but if you want to mark them as complete you have to log in to the website. That was a huge disappointment to find after a few hours of development.
According to the Vitalist API page, the Vitalist API is in its first version and is subject to change. If it does, the VGtdApi could stop working. And if Vitalist updates some of the missing features in their API, this API could suddenly work better than it does today without any code changes! I hope this project might be a small example of what Vitalist could offer.
You can download the VGtdApi project below. Anybody is free to use it, but I put an Attribution Assurance license on it. Have fun!
Tags: [vgtdapi, vitalist]