What’s the PR value of being named as either a supporter or a dupe of a criminal action? (I grossly dislike the extent to which copyright infringement has been afforded draconian measures, but there was always criminal sanction in the law.) You could – and can – go up stream, if not getting past ISPs’ common carrier protections, but at least nix the transit for website traffic. Now imagine how that would affect the ad network?

Let alone the cost of actually dropping the traffic a core routers, which is non trivial. (Having managed a network or two, that’s something in engineering terms I would be vociferously against, it’s not trivial to muck with how anything truly internet facing works, but as ultimate sanction it is possible. Moreover now SDNs or software defined networks are more common, getting easier.)

My parentheses belie my own conflicts. But you should see how a agency defends what they assume is their copyright, claiming work for their client is theirs – so doing muscling out small brokers such as my ilk – without one iota of supportable fact behind the argument. (I’ve had to defend this practically against very well funded opponents. The thing is, they will only go to court, or to trial in particular, if they think you will fold, because a case against them would change a bit much to their dislike.) Why else would a space jockey know diddly about copyright law? Sometimes I feel I’m in a “industry” of one, and certainly you have tremendous hurdles learning enough to operate independently in between the gaps left by giants. Used to think of it like those birds who tend to hippopotamus complexions, at least in being fleet of flit, as it were. One has to avoid being accidentally crushed. However, increasingly I see a need for a independent role in the ad game, to call out the far more damaging conflicts such as noted here. If you had a real independent sector, there might be very real functional and effectively enacted opprobrium.

Another irony of avoiding being squished by a big fat agency is to make like those birds on the hippopotamuses, I had to learn the funny business of companies. I wish I could feel like George C Scott as Patton, yelling “Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!” but it’s early days . .

Was watching a lecture, very brilliant, though the very young – and clearly exceptional – researcher whose work showed the proof needed his prof really to do the high level explanations, to couch in broader meaning, about how there’s a Turing complete machine in the memory management unit of a x86 pocessor – wait a mo, there’s a point here believe it or not . . – and it was a super piece of research work. But what it made me think of, is if you wanted to translate French to Russian, or vice versa, no matter the relative language complexity on either side, you must attain the highest common denominator to be even okay. Inside the memory management of a process, a lot of things happen for safety that require a understanding of what the chip is trying to do at the time. So I thought that very similar to translation, and therefore a logical discovery the young researcher made. I could understand it at a different unit of reason. (Skipping I studied stack machines for a year, and know a bit about the guts of some chips, and did some highly analogous initial work, but absolute credit to the very young guy who delivered the lecture. Tip for the inexperienced at delivery, rude words are not befitting as a repartee with a audience, seeking commonality and appreciation even if the subject of a quip deserves crude observation . your insecurity is showing . . ) . . . .

I promised a point to this diversion: It’s that to figure out what is going on in a system like advertising, you have to be in another way “Turing Complete” (and that’s the most stretched metaphor I’ve used in years, see Hofstadter, Godel Escher Bach for starters) because you have to understand all sides of the argument at the highest denominator, not the lowest. Just because Russian uses umpteen constructions to give simple travel directions, and French uses far fewer, does not mean you can get by with the lesser comprehension and not get lost or send a poor stranger on a wild goose chase.

I think it’s high time there was some functional, active, and real, and operationally capable, middle ground in the advertising world.

Totally honest with you, I think much of my life suffered Stockholm Syndrome to one faction or the other, and when it didn’t I was riven with what I see very much as moral conflicts in business. A most perspicacious young man, having asked me to describe my “job”, said “You must hate your work, John.” Funnily, he worked for BBC Monitoring, translating Russian political broadcasts . . That was my 30th birthday, so I am using “young man” literally, he was about 21. “Job” is in parentheses equally, because I chose my own direction. Largely not knowing what that was. Just ricocheting from one unpalatable truth to another in a very fuzzy business.

I am plainly not sure at all whether anyone else has explored these contradictions, or their impact on publishing of well written word, or the negative cultural impact this has, in solely commercially functional terms. I don’t think a average career would support it, and I stated with a silver spoon wedged up my rear. Not that that amounted to a hill of beans, because actual commerce costs on a scale no but the largest of inheritances can tolerate. I’ve been stony broke plenty enough.

This comment probably should be on my company website. But it is relevant to here, and in it you find answer in part to why in 16 years since registration, I don’t have a company website. Too many constituencies to offend all too easily!

But it makes me angry, that bare faced profiteers conduct daylight robbery of a man’s work. That silver spoon up my rear came from my father’s writing. (Silver spoons are unfortunately not very useful in the real world, I could make you very seriously not jealous of my life, if I but recounted some parts.)

The problem remains, that even if I played poacher come game keeper (which because you play both anyhow, is a Mobius ellipse with its own danger) that would not have the effect that a intermediary constituency would have. Some case law would be good. There’s enough already though, that given the resources, Joe could seek redress easily. What I want to see is independent brokers looking at these thieving sites and downing their tools, saying “sorry mate, not touching you again.” As unlikely as it seems, that’s a aim I seek. I think it far better than making laws ever more draconian to compensate for the lack of access to practical law that already exists, because all of that still remains inaccessible to a busy small publisher. The expansion or arbitrary criminalization has created a parallel market for intellect and services that detract from the very issue of what copyright law is meant to protect, the literal freedom of speech, and right to freely make a living therefrom.

Nothing like the Gibson Motorsport equipe of the mid 80′s and ’90′s.. they were a full works outfit.