5 ms·

It seems like the work where a dedicated minority (who stand to collect royalties) pushes against an issue that mildly benefits the majority. Taxi medallions w

It seems like the work where a dedicated minority (who stand to collect royalties) pushes against an issue that mildly benefits the majority. Taxi medallions were a similar phenomenon pre-Lyft and pre-Uber.

aikah 12y ago
try "disrupting" copyright,be ready for a swat team raiding your house. http://mashable.com/2012/08/08/kim-dotcom-raid/ http://mashable.com/2012/08/08/kim-dotcom-raid/ > Taxi medallions were a similar phenomenon pre-Lyft and pre-Uber. Neither Uber nor Lyft put an end to Taxi medallion system.
- click170 12y ago
  I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but civil disobedience is a valid and legitimate form of protest. If you disagree with a law, ignore it. If enough people do the same, the burden from enforcing the law becomes too much and it simply stops being enforced or is legislated away due to the societal harm it causes. An arguable example of this in action is the War On Drugs. This war has been waged for years, and the black market has not only survived, it has thrived in the economy of scarcity that is created and maintained by said war. People and legislators all over the country (the world?) are beginning to see that this war isn't benefiting anyone and have begun legalizing marijuana. Marijuana is one of many drugs, but it's a step in the right direction.
  - gknoy 12y ago
    The key with civil disobedience is that you have to be willing to face the penalty. The GP was right that doing so is risky, and one should not engage in civil disobedience without a full grasp of the consequences (and willingness to submit to / fight them legally).
  - amagumori 12y ago
    this is a kamikaze approach to reform and requires countless people sacrificing years of their life (or their entire life) to the prison system. for instance if LSD is your drug of choice instead of cannabis, possession is a class B felony with up to $100K in fines and up to 10 years in prison (OR).
- soperj 12y ago
  That's not what Kim dotcom was doing.
  - unreal37 12y ago
    The point stands that there is a well-established, well-funded and well-connected group protecting copyright, so going against it in any form will not be easy. If a citizen tries to get copyright law amended through the courts, they will face an epic battle from all sides.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/how-an-ebay-bookseller-defeated-a-publishing-giant-at-the-supreme-court/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/how-an-ebay-books... "Sometimes all it takes to alter the course of history is one pissed-off person. Supap Kirtsaeng wasn’t a crusader or lone nut; he was just an eBay trader who got backed into a legal corner and refused to give up. To help pay for grad school at USC, he sold textbooks online—legitimate copies that he’d purchased overseas. But academic publishing behemoth John Wiley & Sons sued Supap, claiming that his trade in Wiley’s foreign-market textbooks constituted copyright infringement. ... Once Supap’s struggle hit the spotlight, powerful supporters such as eBay, Public Knowledge, Costco, and Goodwill Industries joined the fray. But the forces pitted against Supap were arguably more powerful: the movie and music industries, publishers of books and software, and even the US Solicitor General."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- fragmede 12y ago
  > Neither Uber nor Lyft put an end to Taxi medallion system. Maybe not just yet, but a 20% price drop is likely only the beginning. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/upshot/new-york-taxi-medallion-prices-fall-again.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/upshot/new-york-taxi-medal...
  - mathattack 12y ago
    Exactly. The alternative is now there, and it's coming with a lobbying force of it's own. Once people are used to Taxi alternatives, they may start fighting back against the medallions.
- bbcbasic 12y ago
  But isn't the permissive licences such as MIT, GPLv3, CopyLeft etc. also a disruption to copyright? Yes the original author will retain copyright, but the intent of it, to prevent free distribution and collaboration disappears. Now we see the mighty MS open sourcing the server side of .NET. IMO they are forced to do so because of the pressure from awesome platforms like Ruby on Rails, Python, Node.JS etc. that would soon make them irrelevant unless they follow suit. In 50 years time, the best creative work both art, writing and tech will be available freely on permissive licences, and we won't care if it enters the public domain, even though it probably will anyway. The great thing is the stuff you need (tools, information) is available this way. The stuff you want but don't need (awful Hollywood films, etc.) is protected by copyright and you have to pay for it. Also the illegal file sharing has disrupted music massively. We now have so many songs you can listen to on Youtube for free. Imagine telling someone in 1990 you can listen to unlimited free music legally (albeit with ads!).
  - joepie91_ 12y ago
    GPLv3 and "copyleft" are not permissive licenses. They are copyleft licenses. MIT, BSD, etc. are permissive licenses. Aside from that, there is a considerable difference between public domain and 'freely licensed'. The latter involves an absolute nightmare of tracking down licenses and understanding the interactions between licenses, when working on a project of significant size (and influence). And licenses like the GPL make this even harder by being very restrictive. > Also the illegal file sharing has disrupted music massively. We now have so many songs you can listen to on Youtube for free. Imagine telling someone in 1990 you can listen to unlimited free music legally (albeit with ads!). The majority of music on Youtube is not there legally.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- mathattack 12y ago
  *Neither Uber nor Lyft put an end to Taxi medallion system.* The legal difficulty of Lyft and Uber denting the medallion system highlights what a small but highly organized minority can do again a large unorganized mass. That said, Uber and Lyft seem to have at least reduced the cost of a medallion.

aikah 12y ago

try "disrupting" copyright,be ready for a swat team raiding your house. http://mashable.com/2012/08/08/kim-dotcom-raid/ http://mashable.com/2012/08/08/kim-dotcom-raid/ > Taxi medallions were a similar phenomenon pre-Lyft and pre-Uber. Neither Uber nor Lyft put an end to Taxi medallion system.

click170 12y ago
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but civil disobedience is a valid and legitimate form of protest. If you disagree with a law, ignore it. If enough people do the same, the burden from enforcing the law becomes too much and it simply stops being enforced or is legislated away due to the societal harm it causes. An arguable example of this in action is the War On Drugs. This war has been waged for years, and the black market has not only survived, it has thrived in the economy of scarcity that is created and maintained by said war. People and legislators all over the country (the world?) are beginning to see that this war isn't benefiting anyone and have begun legalizing marijuana. Marijuana is one of many drugs, but it's a step in the right direction.
- gknoy 12y ago
  The key with civil disobedience is that you have to be willing to face the penalty. The GP was right that doing so is risky, and one should not engage in civil disobedience without a full grasp of the consequences (and willingness to submit to / fight them legally).
- amagumori 12y ago
  this is a kamikaze approach to reform and requires countless people sacrificing years of their life (or their entire life) to the prison system. for instance if LSD is your drug of choice instead of cannabis, possession is a class B felony with up to $100K in fines and up to 10 years in prison (OR).
soperj 12y ago
That's not what Kim dotcom was doing.
- unreal37 12y ago
  The point stands that there is a well-established, well-funded and well-connected group protecting copyright, so going against it in any form will not be easy. If a citizen tries to get copyright law amended through the courts, they will face an epic battle from all sides.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/how-an-ebay-bookseller-defeated-a-publishing-giant-at-the-supreme-court/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/how-an-ebay-books... "Sometimes all it takes to alter the course of history is one pissed-off person. Supap Kirtsaeng wasn’t a crusader or lone nut; he was just an eBay trader who got backed into a legal corner and refused to give up. To help pay for grad school at USC, he sold textbooks online—legitimate copies that he’d purchased overseas. But academic publishing behemoth John Wiley & Sons sued Supap, claiming that his trade in Wiley’s foreign-market textbooks constituted copyright infringement. ... Once Supap’s struggle hit the spotlight, powerful supporters such as eBay, Public Knowledge, Costco, and Goodwill Industries joined the fray. But the forces pitted against Supap were arguably more powerful: the movie and music industries, publishers of books and software, and even the US Solicitor General."
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
fragmede 12y ago
> Neither Uber nor Lyft put an end to Taxi medallion system. Maybe not just yet, but a 20% price drop is likely only the beginning. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/upshot/new-york-taxi-medallion-prices-fall-again.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/upshot/new-york-taxi-medal...
- mathattack 12y ago
  Exactly. The alternative is now there, and it's coming with a lobbying force of it's own. Once people are used to Taxi alternatives, they may start fighting back against the medallions.
bbcbasic 12y ago
But isn't the permissive licences such as MIT, GPLv3, CopyLeft etc. also a disruption to copyright? Yes the original author will retain copyright, but the intent of it, to prevent free distribution and collaboration disappears. Now we see the mighty MS open sourcing the server side of .NET. IMO they are forced to do so because of the pressure from awesome platforms like Ruby on Rails, Python, Node.JS etc. that would soon make them irrelevant unless they follow suit. In 50 years time, the best creative work both art, writing and tech will be available freely on permissive licences, and we won't care if it enters the public domain, even though it probably will anyway. The great thing is the stuff you need (tools, information) is available this way. The stuff you want but don't need (awful Hollywood films, etc.) is protected by copyright and you have to pay for it. Also the illegal file sharing has disrupted music massively. We now have so many songs you can listen to on Youtube for free. Imagine telling someone in 1990 you can listen to unlimited free music legally (albeit with ads!).
- joepie91_ 12y ago
  GPLv3 and "copyleft" are not permissive licenses. They are copyleft licenses. MIT, BSD, etc. are permissive licenses. Aside from that, there is a considerable difference between public domain and 'freely licensed'. The latter involves an absolute nightmare of tracking down licenses and understanding the interactions between licenses, when working on a project of significant size (and influence). And licenses like the GPL make this even harder by being very restrictive. > Also the illegal file sharing has disrupted music massively. We now have so many songs you can listen to on Youtube for free. Imagine telling someone in 1990 you can listen to unlimited free music legally (albeit with ads!). The majority of music on Youtube is not there legally.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mathattack 12y ago
*Neither Uber nor Lyft put an end to Taxi medallion system.* The legal difficulty of Lyft and Uber denting the medallion system highlights what a small but highly organized minority can do again a large unorganized mass. That said, Uber and Lyft seem to have at least reduced the cost of a medallion.