suraj.sun writes with news that European publishers are also seeking ways to "protect" their content from the big bad intertubes. Their rant, termed the "Hamburg Declaration," asks the government to step in with a legislative fix. "Most of the statements in the relatively short declaration, which will surely take its place among thousands of other European declarations on intellectual property and other matters that have come out over the past few years, hinge on the idea that 'universal access to news' does not equal 'free.' In this respect, the publishers want to maintain the democratic ideal of a 'fourth estate' that provides news to an informed citizenry, while simultaneously restricting access to that news to those who can pay for it directly. What sets this declaration apart from the other Hamburg declarations out there, or from the various Geneva declarations or Berlin declarations, is that this one is intended to give the publishers' favorite solution to the news-stealing problem, the Automated Content Access Protocol, the force of law."
'people will gravitate towards free. If they go pay... people will just go elsewhere its simple as that, law or no law.'
Well, I think we should at least consider the terms of their proposal carefully. Check out the full text below:
"Hamburg Declaration regarding intellectual property rights
The Internet offers immense opportunities to professional journalism - but only if the basis for profitability remains secure throughout the digital channels of distribution. This is currently [ERROR! ACAP VIOLATION IN PROGRESS! YOU HAVE EXCEEDED THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CHARACTERS ALLOCATED TO THIS NEWS AGGREGATOR! PLEASE DEPOSIT EUR 50 TO READ THE NEXT 100 WORDS OF THIS ARTICLE!]"
You misunderstand their argument. Of course they want it indexed, just look at how many thousands of people look at their news everyday that wouldn't if it weren't indexed. They desperately want that readership... to pay them for the service. They aren't saying "we don't want people to read us", they're saying "we want everyone who reads us to pay for it".
Saying robots.txt is like telling a hungry 2 year old that they can't have a Popsicle and should go eat a green beans instead. Yeah, the green beans will make them not hungry, but it's the damn Popsicle that they want (incidentally, you'll get about the same response from either group).
In many parts of Asia, green bean popsicles are popular with all ages. Where is your god now?
Asia is already full of copyright scofflaws and I forsee a huge business opportunity for whatever Asian country is willing to host search engines and tell the publishing industry to go fuck themselves.
The big dogs like google could start charging these guys to index their precious. I wish they would have done something like that rather than cave into AP, etc, for just quoting little snippets to have *something* to show where this news link was coming from. Do it on a case by case basis, the various news websites want their news paywall to be indexed, they should pay for that professional servgice, if they don't throw up a paywall, then they get indexed for free, like today. Ball is in the news orgs court then when it comes to what they think things are worth or not.
I have mixed feelings about google, but sometimes I think they are too nice and cave in too readily. It can't be that much fun to be the biggest of the big dogs and not get to bite some ass once in awhile.
You misunderstand their argument. Of course they want it indexed, just look at how many thousands of people look at their news everyday that wouldn't if it weren't indexed. They desperately want that readership... to pay them for the service. They aren't saying "we don't want people to read us", they're saying "we want everyone who reads us to pay for it".
Not sure why they can't do this.
Just post indexing info and excerpts for free, and put the rest behind a pay-wall. Google News will still carry it, and everyone (except readers like me) will be happy.
It goes beyond just selfishness, the whole point of the free market is the buyer chooses of his own will, making a law to force people to pay for something that they don't want and did not choose freely is the anti-thesis of that.
Not really true. Only the minority are truly greedy, those that no matter how much they have always want more. The majority truly do share and care, whilst the greedy minority try to hide their psychopathy behind the claim that the everyone else that struggles for a comfortable place to live, healthy and satisfying food for the family, a future for their children basically trying live healthy and happy life with good neighbours, is somehow greedy, a real lie.
FYI, robots.txt can be ignored by anything that chooses to ignore it. In fact, many web crawlers have caused problems because of this. If directory "huge_downloads_in_here" is marked to disallow, it's annoying when a web crawler starts downloading everything in there 10 times per day.
Bush didn't appoint a ton of "czars" that were accountable to no one. Yes, the Bush administration had a lot of flaws, but Obama'a administration looks to be expanding on them.
Yes, the Bush administration had a lot of flaws, but Obama'a administration looks to be expanding on them.
Exactly. The funny thing is that now the Obama supporters are pulling the "But Bill Clinton did !!" that they were all complaining about the right doing it with regards to Bush's bullshit, but now they are doing the same thing with Bush to make excuses for Obama's bullshit.
Millions? Really? Even the most outlying figures for the death tolls have never been in the millions.
war over large parts of the planet,
This was something new only to the 8 years of the Bush presidency? Last time I checked there was also war over large parts of the planet during the Clinton years too.
mass alienation and destabilisation,
That's new?
worldwide economic collapse...
Wow, so Bush is no single-handedly responsible for the worldwide economic collapse? Hyperbolic much? I was against Bush all throughout his stay in office but even I spot this as being total fucking bullshit. The economic collaps
yes, millions. i do not count only "allied" soldiers. several million civilians are known to have died.
...Yet many the counters let people put in whatever number they feel like. Some are even sponsored by anti-war groups. Yes, many civilians have died, but you would be a fool to call the counters accurate.
i always chuckle a little when people like dismiss the idea that the several trillion dollars spent on wars of aggression, surveillance and CIA torture camps could not possible have contributed in any way to the economic meltdown...
...Because we all know that whenever the government spends money on wars it never goes to anyone it just vanishes into thin air right? I mean, we don't pay our soldiers, nor buy military equipment from any contractors. Nope, whenever the government spends money on a war it just ends up getting tossed into
...As opposed to people who would have died during Saddam's rule? Yes, the intelligence Bush got was faulty about the WMDs in Iraq, but you have to remember this is a dictator who not only invaded other countries but launched chemical warfare on his own people (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack [wikipedia.org] ). The invasion of Afghanistan really should have happened sooner and with a more powerful attack. But after the 9/11 attacks, you couldn't exactly ignore a huge terrorist group that very
I'd like some clarification about that last paragraph. Exactly how is Obama's administration preventing him from getting a loan? Can't anyone with money lend it to anyone they want, as long as the recipient isn't involved with something criminal that would make the lender an accessory to a crime? Or have the rules changed somehow?
Yes, the intelligence Bush got was faulty about the WMDs in Iraq
There's practically incontrivertible documentary [guardian.co.uk] evidence [timesonline.co.uk] that Bush knew WMDs would not be found and wanted to provoke the war on any grounds he could. (In case you want to talk about political bias and slanting in my sources there, The Guardian is a left-leaning paper, but The Times is a right-leaning paper owned by News Corporation, the same people who own Fox News.)
Really, it started with Clinton and Clinton's desire to have every American own a home. Sure, its a noble idea but it went way to far. For example, a person who would ordinarily qualify for a $150,000 loan would be bumped up to getting a $1750,000 loan... So then eventually they couldn't pay it back because they borrowed more than they could afford.
It's amazing how Clinton even managed to cause excessive lending and a property price crash in the UK, where he had no legislative power at all.
Or perhaps these have nothing to do with governments and everything to do with banks who were too greedy and got their hands burned when the inevitable property price slide (which should have come as no surprise, as financial experts have been predicting it since about 2005) started to happen. Here's news for you: an extra 15% on top of people's loans makes little difference when prices fall by over 30%. Most people who bought close to the top were still in serious financial trouble because of it. And there was no obligation on the banks to take that funding -- if they believed the customer wouldn't be able to repay, they were obligated under various codes of practice (let alone plain and simple commercial sense) not to offer the loan.
The banks thought they could make loans that they knew had a good chance of never being repaid, bundle them up into financial instruments and sell them for more than they were actually likely to get back. And for a while the scheme worked. But of course, in the end, it failed.
Obama's plan seems to be lets spend our way out of an economic collapse!
It's a good plan, to be honest. Government spending has a way of finding its way back to the government via taxes, so isn't as expensive to the economy as it at first appears. And it does get people spending money, which is the whole problem.
Mixed with tons of regulations.
Yes. The financial services industry has shown itself to be too irresponsible to be able to manage the significant chunk of the economy it currently does manage. Something needs to be done to tighten that up.
For example, I have a good friend who runs a home building business, he has been in business since 1982 and hasn't defaulted on a single loan and hasn't been late on any of his bills in the past 20 years. Today, he can't get a loan to build another house because Obama's administration says that he is "too big of a risk" WTF!?!
This has nothing to do with Obama or any regulations. This is just banks' typical overreaction to any property price crash. The same thing happened in the UK in the late 80s. Banks lose a whole string of money on property development projects that suddenly find themselves in negative equity, so decide not to invest in property development because the entire industry has a huge risk rating associated with it in any statistical analysis. Quite simple, really.
Yes. Multi-trillion dollar deficits, continued flushing of money down the toilet on bailouts to shitty companies, pardoning the telecos for helping in illegally wiretap citizens.
inherited from the previous administration, nothing to do with obama...
No, they are a direct result of his budgets. He's even admitted to so.
entirely ordered and operated by the previous administration. condemned, ceased and genuine efforts made to find the best way to put it into the past with the least damage. original controversy nothing to do with obama...
But he definitely made sure that no one could ever hold them responsible by giving them immunity and as such providing tacit approval.
so let me get this straight... your entire criticism is based around blaming every single thing on bush, then saying:
No, I blame them both since Obama has taken what Bush has done and expanded it and made the situation that much worse.
which may or may not be a good idea, but is 100% entirely, confessed by you, obama's best efforts to clean up the mess that bush left america in...
Sorry, but I've confessed no such thing. I disagreed with it under Bush and I disagree with it even more with Obama's huge expansion of the bailouts.
i am waiting for the part where you show obama to be worse...
I already did. The fact that you attempted to hand wave it all away doesn't change that fact.
Oh and just as a further note, Enron's fraud and corruption happened during the Clinton Administration. Their big pump-and-dump happened in the last year of Clinton being in office so lumping that failure on Bush is pretty unfair and disingenuous.
so the clinton family are the oil family that were filthy with the corruption of that scandal and still to this day have not wiped that particular stink off and the bush family were totally clean, having little to nothing to do with oil investments, right?
This is a great non sequitur. All of Enron's scams and corruptions happened years before Bush was even in office. Their big stock pump-and-dump happened in August of 2000 before he was even elected. This grasping at straws to blame anything and everything on Bush is both sad and laughable.
only on the condition that there is ZERO reportage of "celebrity" nonsense
i would not pay a single penny if their inanity were infecting a news source i was paying for, it's bad enough seeing their crap all over the BBC news site (which i suppose i actually AM directly paying for already, but we don't have a choice but to pay for that).
Many governments publish gigabytes of CSV files, PDF files, and database files. I assume that's what you're referring to when you say you just want facts published. Should the New York Times just be filled with tables of data?
If you want that information translated into written English, the author of that text is going to have a point of view and a context within which they write. It's the way language works. And everyone wants other people to share their understanding of events.
But if you look at American televised news, you see that it really isn't news but rather a bunch of opinionated people trying to create A) Panic so more people will tune in (look at how they handled Swine Flu) B) A "shocking" story that isn't news or C) Things that paint their company in a positive light. Electronic and print news has bias, but it is less of opinion and more on the selection of stories. While some of it could be justified (people reading TorrentFreak aren't going to really care about how some guy got busted selling bootlegged DVDs in China) a lot of it is to spin the "facts" towards one side.
Many governments publish gigabytes of CSV files, PDF files, and database files. I assume that's what you're referring to when you say you just want facts published. Should the New York Times just be filled with tables of data?
No, they should describe the contents of those documents in English and in an unbiased manner. That's what "the news" is. It's not sensationalist crap with a slant on the writers/editors/publishers view.
If you want that information translated into written English, the author of that text is going to have a point of view and a context within which they write. It's the way language works. And everyone wants other people to share their understanding of events.
Then they shouldn't be writing it. It has nothing to do with the language. What you are describing is a blog. The news is not a blog. If I read a news article that says, "this reporter thinks", "our analyst thinks", "our correspondent thinks", and I gave a fuck about what any of those people think, I w
I find the BBC's world news to be pretty unbiased as for the part of opinions. Though I do think they publish stories with only a few "facts" to sway one side or another.
The BBC definitely are biased. The thing about bias is that you only tend to notice it when it jars with your own personal world view. That's when it really stands out, and you think "OMG WTF, how can you say that?"
I often find this on the BBC, but then, I disapprove of their predominant ideology, and that of the government they serve (see my sig). I live in Britain.
The newspapers are trying to establish ownership of the underlying INFORMATION, not just the words they use to convey that information.
Newspapers who actually go out and "get" news are trying to establish control over that information so that those who re-report do not compete directly with the original report.
This isn't about copyright, it is about establishing a new 'estate' of IP which establishes ownership over directly sourced/reported information.
Which is hilarious, since most newspapers have been axing their writers left and right. Something like 3/4 of your major local rag is probably AP stories.
Like the AP needs help sucking money out of newspapers.
While that is true for many American newspapers it's not the same for European newspapers. And Europeans read more newspapers than the average US American (according to the int'l newspaper association).
Then again Europe is not a country and with over 47 countries there are a whole lot of variety in newspapers (and sources).
In my own country newspapers are seen as an important public function and are subsidized to support independent, varied and local reporting [ejc.net]. It's given to support political views and cultural issues such as publishing in the regional language (official language, not dialect). Small, regional newspapers are seen as part of the democratic foundation of my country. I suppose that's why my countrymen and I read the most newspaper per capita in the world.
It probably doesnt hurt that norway is dark and encased in ice for a huge chunk of the year.
Nope. That's a simple and untrue depiction of my country. If you knew anything about Norway you would know that there is a great deal of variety from arctic Finnmark county to the summer paradise of our southern coastal regions. It's a very long country. You seem to think there's some kind of total winter darkness here? That's only in the far north, the majority of the country experiences four regular seasons. And the winters vary a lot, some regions don't even experience snow.
You do realize we do not have polar bears in our streets? The last weeks we've had great sunny days with temperatures above 86 F (30 C) - 95 F (35 C). Winters can be cold of course.
In fact the major factors behind newspaper readership in Norway is the high levels of education, grassroots political and organizational involvement. It helps living in a country where the majority of the population is college educated [for generations], and education is free. Even the least academic workers attend vocational schools here.
Also volunteering and involvement in organizations from sports clubs to the Red Cross/Lions/Kiwanis is extremely common. Everyone takes part. It helps create debate and involvement on issues and politics from local to national levels. Remember, it's a "socialist" country.
Just another special privilege which the government will grant to special interests and the less-free-with-each-passing-moment market will be blamed for.
I wouldn't go that far. The (much less ironic) observation is that different governments have different priorities and their policing tactics reflect this.
China doesn't much care about bourgeois western "intellectual property", so you can send spam hawking pirated software all you want. Send out invites for your next falun gong meeting or democracy protest, though, and you'll discover what 'so called "unfree"' really means.
The US is quite solid on speech that doesn't upset major corporations, and is an excellent spot for saying mean things about religious figures, expressing all kinds of fun political theories, hosting your "handguns I have known and loved" archive or whatever. Not such a good place to host "WareZ and DeCSS 4LyFE!", though.
There are plenty of locations(though exactly where they are tends to drift over time) where the state is weak enough, or enough in need of foreign investment/aid, that(as long as you maintain a polite disinterest in local politics, and pay the occasional bribe) they won't really bother you at all.
Pretty much any government will come down on you like a ton of bricks in response to some class of actions on your part and pretty much any government has another class of activities of which it approves, or simply doesn't care.
This won't Work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This won't Work (Score:5, Insightful)
'people will gravitate towards free. If they go pay... people will just go elsewhere its simple as that, law or no law.'
Well, I think we should at least consider the terms of their proposal carefully. Check out the full text below:
"Hamburg Declaration regarding intellectual property rights
The Internet offers immense opportunities to professional journalism - but only if the basis for profitability remains secure throughout the digital channels of distribution. This is currently [ERROR! ACAP VIOLATION IN PROGRESS! YOU HAVE EXCEEDED THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CHARACTERS ALLOCATED TO THIS NEWS AGGREGATOR! PLEASE DEPOSIT EUR 50 TO READ THE NEXT 100 WORDS OF THIS ARTICLE!]"
Parent
Re:Help me Rob Malda you're my only hope! (Score:4, Funny)
Help me Slashdot! Me and Steve Jobs were jacking each other off
Disgraceful. It should be "Steve Jobs and I".
Parent
If you don't want it indexed, then either (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Don't put it on the web
2. Learn how to use robots.txt
Re:If you don't want it indexed, then either (Score:5, Insightful)
You misunderstand their argument. Of course they want it indexed, just look at how many thousands of people look at their news everyday that wouldn't if it weren't indexed. They desperately want that readership... to pay them for the service. They aren't saying "we don't want people to read us", they're saying "we want everyone who reads us to pay for it".
Saying robots.txt is like telling a hungry 2 year old that they can't have a Popsicle and should go eat a green beans instead. Yeah, the green beans will make them not hungry, but it's the damn Popsicle that they want (incidentally, you'll get about the same response from either group).
Parent
Re:If you don't want it indexed, then either (Score:4, Funny)
Saying robots.txt is like telling a hungry 2 year old that they can't have a Popsicle and should go eat a green beans instead.
In many parts of Asia, green bean popsicles are popular with all ages. Where is your god now?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
In many parts of Asia, green bean popsicles are popular with all ages. Where is your god now?
Asia is already full of copyright scofflaws and I forsee a huge business opportunity for whatever Asian country is willing to host search engines and tell the publishing industry to go fuck themselves.
Search engine retaliation (Score:5, Interesting)
The big dogs like google could start charging these guys to index their precious. I wish they would have done something like that rather than cave into AP, etc, for just quoting little snippets to have *something* to show where this news link was coming from. Do it on a case by case basis, the various news websites want their news paywall to be indexed, they should pay for that professional servgice, if they don't throw up a paywall, then they get indexed for free, like today. Ball is in the news orgs court then when it comes to what they think things are worth or not.
I have mixed feelings about google, but sometimes I think they are too nice and cave in too readily. It can't be that much fun to be the biggest of the big dogs and not get to bite some ass once in awhile.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You misunderstand their argument. Of course they want it indexed, just look at how many thousands of people look at their news everyday that wouldn't if it weren't indexed. They desperately want that readership... to pay them for the service. They aren't saying "we don't want people to read us", they're saying "we want everyone who reads us to pay for it".
Not sure why they can't do this.
Just post indexing info and excerpts for free, and put the rest behind a pay-wall. Google News will still carry it, and everyone (except readers like me) will be happy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It goes beyond just selfishness, the whole point of the free market is the buyer chooses of his own will, making a law to force people to pay for something that they don't want and did not choose freely is the anti-thesis of that.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not really true. Only the minority are truly greedy, those that no matter how much they have always want more. The majority truly do share and care, whilst the greedy minority try to hide their psychopathy behind the claim that the everyone else that struggles for a comfortable place to live, healthy and satisfying food for the family, a future for their children basically trying live healthy and happy life with good neighbours, is somehow greedy, a real lie.
In this case the fourth estate who sold 'truth
Re: (Score:2)
FYI, robots.txt can be ignored by anything that chooses to ignore it. In fact, many web crawlers have caused problems because of this. If directory "huge_downloads_in_here" is marked to disallow, it's annoying when a web crawler starts downloading everything in there 10 times per day.
Re: (Score:2)
What garbage (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, the Bush administration had a lot of flaws, but Obama'a administration looks to be expanding on them.
Exactly. The funny thing is that now the Obama supporters are pulling the "But Bill Clinton did !!" that they were all complaining about the right doing it with regards to Bush's bullshit, but now they are doing the same thing with Bush to make excuses for Obama's bullshit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
millions needlessly dead
Millions? Really? Even the most outlying figures for the death tolls have never been in the millions.
war over large parts of the planet,
This was something new only to the 8 years of the Bush presidency? Last time I checked there was also war over large parts of the planet during the Clinton years too.
mass alienation and destabilisation,
That's new?
worldwide economic collapse...
Wow, so Bush is no single-handedly responsible for the worldwide economic collapse? Hyperbolic much? I was against Bush all throughout his stay in office but even I spot this as being total fucking bullshit. The economic collaps
Re: (Score:2)
yes, millions. i do not count only "allied" soldiers. several million civilians are known to have died.
i always chuckle a little when people like dismiss the idea that the several trillion dollars spent on wars of aggression, surveillance and CIA torture camps could not possible have contributed in any way to the economic meltdown...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
millions needlessly dead,
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What garbage (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the intelligence Bush got was faulty about the WMDs in Iraq
There's practically incontrivertible documentary [guardian.co.uk] evidence [timesonline.co.uk] that Bush knew WMDs would not be found and wanted to provoke the war on any grounds he could. (In case you want to talk about political bias and slanting in my sources there, The Guardian is a left-leaning paper, but The Times is a right-leaning paper owned by News Corporation, the same people who own Fox News.)
Really, it started with Clinton and Clinton's desire to have every American own a home. Sure, its a noble idea but it went way to far. For example, a person who would ordinarily qualify for a $150,000 loan would be bumped up to getting a $1750,000 loan... So then eventually they couldn't pay it back because they borrowed more than they could afford.
It's amazing how Clinton even managed to cause excessive lending and a property price crash in the UK, where he had no legislative power at all.
Or perhaps these have nothing to do with governments and everything to do with banks who were too greedy and got their hands burned when the inevitable property price slide (which should have come as no surprise, as financial experts have been predicting it since about 2005) started to happen. Here's news for you: an extra 15% on top of people's loans makes little difference when prices fall by over 30%. Most people who bought close to the top were still in serious financial trouble because of it. And there was no obligation on the banks to take that funding -- if they believed the customer wouldn't be able to repay, they were obligated under various codes of practice (let alone plain and simple commercial sense) not to offer the loan.
The banks thought they could make loans that they knew had a good chance of never being repaid, bundle them up into financial instruments and sell them for more than they were actually likely to get back. And for a while the scheme worked. But of course, in the end, it failed.
Obama's plan seems to be lets spend our way out of an economic collapse!
It's a good plan, to be honest. Government spending has a way of finding its way back to the government via taxes, so isn't as expensive to the economy as it at first appears. And it does get people spending money, which is the whole problem.
Mixed with tons of regulations.
Yes. The financial services industry has shown itself to be too irresponsible to be able to manage the significant chunk of the economy it currently does manage. Something needs to be done to tighten that up.
For example, I have a good friend who runs a home building business, he has been in business since 1982 and hasn't defaulted on a single loan and hasn't been late on any of his bills in the past 20 years. Today, he can't get a loan to build another house because Obama's administration says that he is "too big of a risk" WTF!?!
This has nothing to do with Obama or any regulations. This is just banks' typical overreaction to any property price crash. The same thing happened in the UK in the late 80s. Banks lose a whole string of money on property development projects that suddenly find themselves in negative equity, so decide not to invest in property development because the entire industry has a huge risk rating associated with it in any statistical analysis. Quite simple, really.
Parent
Re:What garbage (Score:4, Funny)
really???? worse than bush???
Yes. Multi-trillion dollar deficits, continued flushing of money down the toilet on bailouts to shitty companies, pardoning the telecos for helping in illegally wiretap citizens.
cough, cough... ENRON... cough...
cough, cough... GM... cough...
Parent
Re:What garbage (Score:4, Insightful)
inherited from the previous administration, nothing to do with obama...
No, they are a direct result of his budgets. He's even admitted to so.
entirely ordered and operated by the previous administration. condemned, ceased and genuine efforts made to find the best way to put it into the past with the least damage. original controversy nothing to do with obama...
But he definitely made sure that no one could ever hold them responsible by giving them immunity and as such providing tacit approval.
so let me get this straight... your entire criticism is based around blaming every single thing on bush, then saying:
No, I blame them both since Obama has taken what Bush has done and expanded it and made the situation that much worse.
which may or may not be a good idea, but is 100% entirely, confessed by you, obama's best efforts to clean up the mess that bush left america in...
Sorry, but I've confessed no such thing. I disagreed with it under Bush and I disagree with it even more with Obama's huge expansion of the bailouts.
i am waiting for the part where you show obama to be worse...
I already did. The fact that you attempted to hand wave it all away doesn't change that fact.
Parent
Re:What garbage (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh and just as a further note, Enron's fraud and corruption happened during the Clinton Administration. Their big pump-and-dump happened in the last year of Clinton being in office so lumping that failure on Bush is pretty unfair and disingenuous.
Parent
Re:What garbage (Score:4, Insightful)
so the clinton family are the oil family that were filthy with the corruption of that scandal and still to this day have not wiped that particular stink off and the bush family were totally clean, having little to nothing to do with oil investments, right?
This is a great non sequitur. All of Enron's scams and corruptions happened years before Bush was even in office. Their big stock pump-and-dump happened in August of 2000 before he was even elected. This grasping at straws to blame anything and everything on Bush is both sad and laughable.
Parent
I suppose I will start getting my news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hamburg Declaration (Score:4, Funny)
"I'll have mine with cheese and bacon."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Here I was imagining Obama flying to Germany making a famous "Ich ben ein Hamburger!"
Oh how I would love him to say that...
Re: (Score:2)
FWIW, I get your joke and think it's very funny.
BTW, it's "bin", not "ben".
Re:Hamburg Declaration (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
The Internet Says "No" (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry.
I wish they'd focus on the news (Score:5, Interesting)
Just the facts as best you can report them please. Leave your opinions at home.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
only on the condition that there is ZERO reportage of "celebrity" nonsense
i would not pay a single penny if their inanity were infecting a news source i was paying for, it's bad enough seeing their crap all over the BBC news site (which i suppose i actually AM directly paying for already, but we don't have a choice but to pay for that).
Re:I wish they'd focus on the news (Score:4, Insightful)
Many governments publish gigabytes of CSV files, PDF files, and database files. I assume that's what you're referring to when you say you just want facts published. Should the New York Times just be filled with tables of data?
If you want that information translated into written English, the author of that text is going to have a point of view and a context within which they write. It's the way language works. And everyone wants other people to share their understanding of events.
Parent
Re:I wish they'd focus on the news (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Many governments publish gigabytes of CSV files, PDF files, and database files. I assume that's what you're referring to when you say you just want facts published. Should the New York Times just be filled with tables of data?
No, they should describe the contents of those documents in English and in an unbiased manner. That's what "the news" is. It's not sensationalist crap with a slant on the writers/editors/publishers view.
If you want that information translated into written English, the author of that text is going to have a point of view and a context within which they write. It's the way language works. And everyone wants other people to share their understanding of events.
Then they shouldn't be writing it. It has nothing to do with the language. What you are describing is a blog. The news is not a blog. If I read a news article that says, "this reporter thinks", "our analyst thinks", "our correspondent thinks", and I gave a fuck about what any of those people think, I w
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ABC
So Disney is considered a government now?!
Australian Broadcast Corporation. Funded directly by the Australian federal government. Otherwise, run like a smaller version of the BBC.
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The BBC definitely are biased. The thing about bias is that you only tend to notice it when it jars with your own personal world view. That's when it really stands out, and you think "OMG WTF, how can you say that?"
I often find this on the BBC, but then, I disapprove of their predominant ideology, and that of the government they serve (see my sig). I live in Britain.
People are mis-understanding this issue: (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't about free web content, or copyright.
The newspapers are trying to establish ownership of the underlying INFORMATION, not just the words they use to convey that information.
Newspapers who actually go out and "get" news are trying to establish control over that information so that those who re-report do not compete directly with the original report.
This isn't about copyright, it is about establishing a new 'estate' of IP which establishes ownership over directly sourced/reported information.
Re:People are mis-understanding this issue: (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is hilarious, since most newspapers have been axing their writers left and right. Something like 3/4 of your major local rag is probably AP stories.
Like the AP needs help sucking money out of newspapers.
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American newspapers (Score:5, Interesting)
While that is true for many American newspapers it's not the same for European newspapers. And Europeans read more newspapers than the average US American (according to the int'l newspaper association).
Then again Europe is not a country and with over 47 countries there are a whole lot of variety in newspapers (and sources).
In my own country newspapers are seen as an important public function and are subsidized to support independent, varied and local reporting [ejc.net]. It's given to support political views and cultural issues such as publishing in the regional language (official language, not dialect). Small, regional newspapers are seen as part of the democratic foundation of my country. I suppose that's why my countrymen and I read the most newspaper per capita in the world.
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Simple depiction (Score:4, Interesting)
It probably doesnt hurt that norway is dark and encased in ice for a huge chunk of the year.
Nope. That's a simple and untrue depiction of my country. If you knew anything about Norway you would know that there is a great deal of variety from arctic Finnmark county to the summer paradise of our southern coastal regions. It's a very long country. You seem to think there's some kind of total winter darkness here? That's only in the far north, the majority of the country experiences four regular seasons. And the winters vary a lot, some regions don't even experience snow.
You do realize we do not have polar bears in our streets? The last weeks we've had great sunny days with temperatures above 86 F (30 C) - 95 F (35 C). Winters can be cold of course.
In fact the major factors behind newspaper readership in Norway is the high levels of education, grassroots political and organizational involvement. It helps living in a country where the majority of the population is college educated [for generations], and education is free. Even the least academic workers attend vocational schools here.
Also volunteering and involvement in organizations from sports clubs to the Red Cross/Lions/Kiwanis is extremely common. Everyone takes part. It helps create debate and involvement on issues and politics from local to national levels. Remember, it's a "socialist" country.
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"You do realize we do not have polar bears in our streets?"
Bummer, that's one country I won't be going to on my vacation.
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And the internet will route around them....
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The governments have a plan for that.
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Vampires, sadly, have nothing to do with it. Although, most articles on DRM make me want to impale someone, so I suppose there's a connection.
Re:freedom will not be found in "free" countries (Score:5, Interesting)
China doesn't much care about bourgeois western "intellectual property", so you can send spam hawking pirated software all you want. Send out invites for your next falun gong meeting or democracy protest, though, and you'll discover what 'so called "unfree"' really means.
The US is quite solid on speech that doesn't upset major corporations, and is an excellent spot for saying mean things about religious figures, expressing all kinds of fun political theories, hosting your "handguns I have known and loved" archive or whatever. Not such a good place to host "WareZ and DeCSS 4LyFE!", though.
There are plenty of locations(though exactly where they are tends to drift over time) where the state is weak enough, or enough in need of foreign investment/aid, that(as long as you maintain a polite disinterest in local politics, and pay the occasional bribe) they won't really bother you at all. Pretty much any government will come down on you like a ton of bricks in response to some class of actions on your part and pretty much any government has another class of activities of which it approves, or simply doesn't care.
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