AP Proposes ASCAP-Like Fees For the News 146
eldavojohn writes "Techdirt directed my attention to an article where the AP discussed pressure from new devices and mediums today giving them cause to create a clearinghouse for news — much like the music industry's ASCAP — to 'establish an enforcement and payment system.' You'll notice that the story I am linking to and quoting is an AP story ... would Slashdot then be required to pay these fees? We have seen DMCA take down notices and fee discussions before from the AP."
And so the AP pulls the trigger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:And so the AP pulls the trigger... (Score:5, Interesting)
I keep hearing this, but what do you plan on replacing traditional news with? You may not have noticed, but all the bloggers and sites like Slashdot or Reddit? They're all aggregators. They don't investigate news in any traditional sense. They troll around newspaper and news sites and read stuff. If they're a full on aggregator like /. then they just post links to the stuff they read (or that people submitted to them). If they're a blogger then they write an opinion piece and share the info out. When a liberal or conservative blogger "breaks a story" it just means that they read it in some local newspaper. They were the first nationally read source to break the story, but mostly they didn't actually create it. With a very, very small number of exceptions (usually where some source calls a blogger and gives them info), these guys don't produce news. They consume it and regurgitate it at you (Which sounds really gross, I didn't necessarily mean that in a bad way).
If traditional news sources disappear, there will be no revolution where "new media" wanks will take over and do thing better and more accurately. They will have nothing to comment on. There will be no news for them to "break". Real investigative news requires a staff and a budget. You can't fly to Afghanistan to report on the ongoing war effort using the money you got from Google ad-sense this month. You can't run a month long investigate effort into discovering that the local government is embezzling the city retirement fund when you have to produce a new blog entry twice a day to pay the bandwidth bill.
Re:And so the AP pulls the trigger... (Score:4, Insightful)
I keep hearing this, but what do you plan on replacing traditional news with?
Nothing?
There's maybe one news story a week that I actually care about outside my own community, so I honestly can't see what I'd miss if 'traditional news' vanished tomorrow. Do I really need to know that the new Celebrity Chainsaw Massacre competitor has a bit of a cold today, or read regurgitated press releases that I could find direct on the web?
Re:And so the AP pulls the trigger... (Score:4, Insightful)
The bigger issue you're pointing at is the 24 hour news cycle, even with all the technology and resources available, there just isn't 164 hours worth of news each week. Even if you discount for the commercial breaks, there's more time than there is news to cover.
Ultimately, the scariest thing is that we won't know what we're missing because nobody will be there to dig it up.
Re: (Score:2)
Just wondering, how does wikileaks and groklaw do it? What's their business model?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ultimately, the scariest thing is that we won't know what we're missing because nobody will be there to dig it up.
That's the case now, actually.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> I keep hearing this, but what do you plan on replacing traditional news with?
I don't plan on replacing it with anything. I'm saying that requiring payment for a service that has been ad supported for decades, at a time when distrust of said service has never been higher, is suicide. What replaces it, if anything, the market will decide.
Re: (Score:2)
What replaces it, if anything, the market will decide.
Sadly, you're probably right. And what will replace it will be paid advertisement, government propaganda, and ignorance. Hooray! The free market works again!
For those who love the free market, just remember three limit points that it always devolves to: If an individual has no immediate incentive to pay for it, no one gets it - even if it is in everybody's best long-term interest - because humans are social only up to a point; The market provides ine
Re: (Score:2)
> Sadly, you're probably right. And what will replace it will be paid advertisement, government propaganda, and ignorance. Hooray! The free market works again!
And that's different from now in what way?
Re: (Score:2)
I think the parent's point isn't that AP is good or bad, just that this doesn't sound like a good idea.
AP is making the same stupid mistake that others have made over and over again. At a 20% cut they don't want, whats coming to them, they want to be the App Store of News.
Re: (Score:2)
Donation Link needed (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe that would work better?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Donations do not work well like this. They work well for massive fundraising, but as for a steady income? Forget about it. The product (the new story) is consumed and forgotten about. When I ran my own forum for my own niche interest, if I needed to upgrade something, I put out the word, and I would say only 1 or 2 users stepped up and gave 90+% of the donation money, and the others either gave nothing or cheaped out the other 10%. As the site got bigger (more followers), one would think it got better
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Donations work pretty well for public radio. My local NPR station has a fundraising drive every quarter. They manage to raise about 2-3 million dollars every time this way. It is work though, and requires a lot of preparation and harassment of the listeners. Not to mention that it only covers about 60% of their budget, with the large majority of the rest coming from contributions from corporations. There has been some talk for newspapers to copy this model.
Here's the issue though: it requires people to care
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Donations could work if micro-payments were fast, easy, and efficient: I get my news from all over the web, so it doesn't make sense for me to donate significant sums (say $10 or $25). But donating 10 cents with a quick click would not feel like a waste or a burden to me; I'd donate 10 cents on impulse all the time if I knew that it would actually end up in the intended recipient's pockets.
It's tough to be appropriately rewarding in such a sea of uncertainty and flux.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Here in America, nobody believes in donating money; we are all supposed to be subverting each other, trying to extract as much money from each other as possible. Anything else is clearly "socialism."
From the studies I've seen, the American right give plenty of donations, it's the left who don't believe in donating money. I believe that's generally true across the West, and not really surprising as the right believe in personal responsibility whereas the left believe that 'the government ought to do something about that'.
Please provide links to studies (Score:2)
Please provide FACTS to back up your assertions, and please tell us who participated, who ran the study, how many individuals were studied and how were the questions framed?
Huh? (Score:2)
If you want more, you can read the comment right above yours. I'm not here to spoon-feed you...oh enough of the condescending comments.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not here to spoon-feed you...oh enough of the condescending comments.
Yet you apparently expect the rest of us to do that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I see this argument a lot, and I don't find it
Re: (Score:2)
Here in America, nobody believes in donating money; we are all supposed to be subverting each other, trying to extract as much money from each other as possible. Anything else is clearly "socialism."
From the studies I've seen, the American right give plenty of donations, it's the left who don't believe in donating money. I believe that's generally true across the West, and not really surprising as the right believe in personal responsibility whereas the left believe that 'the government ought to do something about that'.
That seems to be a bit of a generalisation. Look at all the left wing organisations that run on donations.
Re: (Score:2)
That seems to be a bit of a generalisation. Look at all the left wing organisations that run on donations.
Don't a lot of them run on corporate donations and government funding? I know there's been a scandal in the UK recently because so many left-wing 'charities' turn out to get most of their funding from the taxpayer through the British government or the EU.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>>>From the studies I've seen, the American right give plenty of donations
I'd like to see these studies too. Can you share the link? From what I've observed with shareware, pretty much everyone takes and does not donate, regardless of their politics.
.
>>>Feedback on this comment system?
It sucks. I hate this dynamic index and can't get back to the classic (plain text) index.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, can no one on Slashdot google anymore?
http://www.gordon.edu/ace/pdf/Spr07BRGrinols.pdf [gordon.edu]
2006 Arthur Brooks analyzed 10 datasets "such as the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (University of Michigan Survey Research Center), the SOcial Capital Community Benchmark Survey (collaborative of American universities with Roper Center for Public Opinion Research), America Gives (Center on Philanthropy of Indiana University) and 7 others"
His 4 main conclusions are in the PDF above.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That is not a fact based piece at all. Hell it is full of slant and makes the claim that donations to church is charity instead of a voluntary fee for service.
The entire first paragraph makes claims about presidential candidates donations based on their tax filings. I donated $15 to the humane society today, in cash. Do you think I will bother to put that on my tax forms?
Re: (Score:2)
I think a distinction needs to be drawn between donating to a cause (charity) and donating for goods or services provided. When I donate to a charity I don't expect anything in return. I also am selective about who I donate to - the reason they are collecting the money has to line up with my own beliefs. Donating for a good or service just doesn't feel right. Why should I donate to you? What are you doing with the money? If you think (as the seller) the thing has some value, but a price on it and I ca
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
These studies are all bullshit. They compare people making $40k in LA with people making that in bumblefuck Iowa. No shit the guy in Iowa donates more his rent is a tenth as much. They claim donations to churches are charity instead of a voluntary fee for service.
Possibly Maybe (Score:2)
I'd like to think this would encourage more of the smaller news websites to get actual reporters out there, rather than just being news aggregators. It would be a shot in the arm for the industry, create jobs, and provide us with more varied reporting instead of having the same story repeated 10k times.
I Don't See It Improving Things That Way (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to think this would encourage more of the smaller news websites to get actual reporters out there, rather than just being news aggregators. It would be a shot in the arm for the industry, create jobs, and provide us with more varied reporting instead of having the same story repeated 10k times.
Since they're comparing this to the fees that are charged by ASCAP [ascap.com], for say a bar to play recorded music for its patrons, I would imagine your assumption would be equivalent to a bar wanting to play Metallica for its patrons and instead of paying the $400 a year (and I'm just taking a stab at this, I think it depends on the size of the bar and frequency of music) they go out, put together a band, have them write their own music, record it for the bar and then the bar plays it for the patrons. Now, when you
Re: (Score:2)
I see where you're coming from, but Slashdot isn't really a good example to use...by design, it's mostly a news aggregator, and it's presented as such.
In my OP, I'm referring to news sites that are aggregators, but present themselves as news sites.
Re: (Score:2)
Depending upon the terms of this, the AP doing this could ultimately be g
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with ASCAP is that it considers itself the rightful collector for any music being played, without checking whether that music is part of the ASCAP catalog. This means that bars can find themselves faced with paying an ASCAP fine or challenge the fine in the court of law - which is more expensive than the ASCAP fine.
An organization like this will turn into a racket just like ASCAP has. I can tolerate this for music - I can live without live music - but I won't tolerate this for news.
Flawed logic (Score:5, Interesting)
ASCAP exists to collect royalties for creative works. "News" articles are a collection of facts (at least that's what they are supposed to be), and those facts are not copyrightable. This is the reason in the old days news papers busted their asses trying to "scoop" on another. They knew once the information was out there, it was fair game for anyone to report on it.
Opinion columns, features, photos etc are a different matter. But simply reporting the fact that AP has cooked up a hair-brained scheme to try to extract money out of Google - and linking to your source for that "fact" - wouldn't require a royalty payment in any sane copyright law.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
...simply reporting the fact that AP has cooked up a hair-brained scheme to try to extract money out of Google - and linking to your source for that "fact" - wouldn't require a royalty payment in any sane copyright law.
Welcome to America. I take it this is your first time visiting our lands?
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that an event happened can not be copyrighted. A particular description of an event is not a fact, and can be copyrighted. And that has nothing to do with why newspapers try to scoop each other. They do that because they want people to buy their paper, and being first with the news is a good way to make that happen.
Ass Cap (Score:2)
What I found most interesting (Score:2)
The clearinghouse also intends to fight piracy by relying on a tracking system, called a “news registry,” that the AP began developing more than a year ago.
Besides detecting unauthorized use of content, the registry’s tagging system can provide insights about the people who are viewing content or the frequency with which a specific company or expert is mentioned in news coverage.
I value my privacy. My preferences are my opinions, my decisions, and my content. Perhaps they should be paying me for use of my preferences...after all I am the original content producer here!
I don't particularly like the ASCAP idea, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
reporting news outside the comfort of our homes does cost money. I don't like ASCAP because they usually go ape-shit over stuff like how many radios you have in your workplace or the radio station you play as your music on hold.
I do like the idea of a non-profit being a clearinghouse for news reports and media outlets including bloggers can become paying members and as such have access to the late-breaking news first. This can be done without threatening anyone's fair use rights, and allow reporters in the field to continue to have the necessary resources they need.
Old business model (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm pretty much convinced that the current generation of managers and corporate officers in media companies are just not capable of changing enough to forge a new business model in the internet age.
A while ago I would have predicted that they'd eventually have to give up their attempts to slow the change, or to find ways to keep their pay for content models working the same way, and eventually start experimenting to find something new or listen to their younger, more flexible peers.
Now, however, I'm thinking that they just can't change... change in their companies won't happen without a rollover of management, like in so many other organizations run by the "me" generation. They won't give up and they won't give in. They'll have to die off.
More to the point of the article, I predict if all news articles get charged for from the wire services, there'll be a period of rampant ignoring of the fee, followed by a period of cut and paste disguising of the origin of an article, or paraphrasing to hide a source, followed by independent sourcing of news from readers local to a story, and maybe eventually a new kind of news reporter, whose business model I don't know, but who travels the world collecting news to publish on the Internet.
Maybe in some part of all this we'll get back to unbiased, true news reporting and not political spin. I hope so.
Re: (Score:2)
So what do you suggest they do? Listen to their 'younger, more flexible peers'? Who would that be? Where is this source of news from younger, more flexible peers?
Re: (Score:2)
It's hard to draw a line arbitrarily, given the varying skills of new graduates, but most folks coming out of the better business schools in the last 6-8 years have a good handle on what works in the Internet age.
Of course, it'll be years until enough of the old guard retire from officer positions in the really big media companies for the newer generation to get a chance to run things...
Re: (Score:2)
They cannot change. The entire business model of the last couple of centuries has been altered drastically. Their existing models is founded and based on how things USED to work, that no longer work. They are dead and dying. This is nothing more than the buggy whip manufacturers in the age of automobiles. They cannot change their model because what they are selling is no longer needed.
This isn't to say that news isn't needed, because we're getting news. It is just that it is unfiltered, unedited and raw. We
Re: (Score:2)
Are you really that naive? The second link just ran a little longer and showed some people with cameras. How do you know that if your supposedly 'raw, unfiltered, and uneditted' footage started earlier or ran even longer it wouldn't show something else that changed the situation even more?
As for calling that second link 'news' - are you kidding? All you can get from that video is that some children, somewhere, were throwing rocks at a car, and the car hit one of them, and people were filming it. Where w
Re: (Score:2)
Ask yourself this:
Your questions regarding the second source, did you ask the same questions of the first?
Because the basic information you're asking is the same. I'm not the naive one, I question everything, which is how I found the analysis article that gives a better expose' of what really happened that day.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course you should ask yourself the same questions in either case. No-one disputes that. What I do dispute is your suggestion that the first link is no longer needed, because we have the second one. The second link is no more trustworthy than the first one. In fact, since it is on a site called 'hipsterjew' I am very inclined to suspect that the version it presents is somewhat more biased than the first one (not that it is necessarily wrong, but somehow I suspect that if the roles in that video were r
Re: (Score:2)
I never said the first article is not needed, but rather is misleading at best, and worst is pure propaganda.
"Car Fleeing Palestinian Rock Attack strikes boy" doesn't incite the right kind of emotion as the original headline. But it is far more representative of what happened.
Re: (Score:2)
They cannot change their model because what they are selling is no longer needed.
Certainly looks to me like said it wasn't needed.
Re: (Score:2)
We don't need the MSM explaining YouTube Videos to us, do we?
I would comment on this (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Not the Same as Music (Score:2)
This isn't going to work (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Getting Modded into the Ground (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd classify it as flamebait by the sheer fact that the OP singled out a politician, rather than the general "politicians". That will automatically bring out other trolls against/shills for said politician.
Generalized absolutes are rarely the way to go, unless the topic is politics.
Re: (Score:2)
Spoken as someone who has no clue as to what the "Fairness Doctrine" was.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think they got it right.
I remember the old days of the 70's before it was repealed. You had news, sports, and occasionally nutter shows that espoused crazy ideas. By crazy, I mean like Art Bell doesn't buy it crazy, the Truthers and Birthers of their day kind of crazy.
But the "public interest" of controversial ideas were rare. No radio station wanted to lose their license if they violated the Fairness Doctrine (that you must present an opposing view of a given subject) covering subjects of public interest
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nice to see you have the courage of your convictions, AC
Re: (Score:2)
Nice to see you not refute anything AC said.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The people in power, the rich, already have complete control over the media. They don't need to grant the government control over it, because they already use it to control the government.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you asked him?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Even better: (Score:4, Interesting)
Dude the AP already gets money from the Govt for operations.
They can charge fees as soon as they give back ALL the money they have taken from the public.
Oh and covering a war? get your OWN ass over there and your own armor.. No you're not riding in the Tank with us nor will we waste bullets to keep your butts alive... OR we can charge you a fee for that.
Problem is our current leaders are too stupid to do this.
Re: (Score:2)
No, our current leaders are too smart to do that. Why alienate the media when you can feed them the news you want them to report?
Re: (Score:2)
Like PBS/NPR? Partially tax payer funded, and more truthful than any other news source.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, now, every teabagger out there can tell you you're full of shit, NPR is part of the liberal controlled media and as such treats Obama as the messiah and hangs on his every word to fawn over it. The only truly factual news media is our friends at Fair and Balanced FOX News (Where more Americans get their news than any other source!), who have no liberal bias.
PBS/NPR biases (Score:3, Insightful)
I once encountered one of those "where do you get your news" surveys, and one of the options was "conservative talk radio". I checked that one, and identified the stations as "NPR" and "BBC" - because they really are conservative. They're high-quality news, but they're biased.
They're not right-wingers like Limbaugh, they're Official Establishment News, and while they're not highly biased toward whichever Administration is currently in power, they're still clearly working for The Government. When the gove
Re: (Score:2)
NPR and BBC Official Establishment news? Have you been so taken in by the demagogery against media that you think that anything that isn't an opinion, isn't authoritative? You completely fail to understand that an important part of news reporting is to report exactly what someone said. If the government is talking about enhanced interrogation, I want the news blurb to say "Government agent said they're doing enhanced interrogation", not "Government agent said they're doing torture". It is up to me to figure
Re: (Score:2)
Stop blaming the president and start acting in an adult manner and deal with this issue as if you are an adult capable of understanding it.
The issues associated with this obviously vastly outweigh your ability to understand them. The right to a free press is one issue. The hot news doctrine is another. Both have involved legal and business stand points that have to be addressed here.
This has nothing to do with the president. And get it through you head, he's your president too.
Run for president yourself
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey, is that different than stuff pulled by the Bush White House [wikipedia.org]? Or for that matter, Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller having his security team handcuff reporters for asking questions he didn't want to answer [alaskadispatch.com]?
How Angle answers their questions before they ask (Score:2)
It's pretty obvious how she knows the questions the reporters are going to ask - she's a Witch!
She even turned one of the reporters into a newt!
Re: (Score:2)
She even turned one of the reporters into a newt!
She got better.
Re:Even better: (Score:4, Insightful)
"sex with adolescents, zoophilia,"
Because for one, by law adolescents cannot legally consent to a sexual relationship with an adult (depending on various states law)
and animals are incapable of consenting.
This is an old, tired, and idiotic argument.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The group marriage point still stands.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that ignorance like yours still exists is stunning.
What does two people that are in love have ANYTHING to do with polygamy? What makes gay marriage comparable to polygamy, while heterosexual marriage isn't?
Signed,
Happily married heterosexual male whose marriage won't be ruined by two guys or gals tying the knot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why stop at the arbitrary "two people" ? When law defines marriage as between one man and one woman, the first and primary argument is that defining marriage between one man and one woman is arbitrary distinction that is an anachronism. However, historically, there is much more support for polygamy than there is for homosexual marriage.
Replace all the arguments for gay marriage with polygamous ones and they still stand. WHICH really shows what the agenda is. It isn't about defining marriage, it is about est
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with everything you say.
I think people should only be legally granted civil unions, while marriage should be "granted" solely by religious institutions.
Also, Polygamy doesn't bother me at all, so long as it is consentual and not forced ("consensual not forced" applies to almost everything, tho...so yeah...)
Re: (Score:2)
What exactly am I ignorant of?
Signed,
Happily married heterosexual male whose marriage won't be ruined by two guys or gals tying the knot, or by two guys and a gal or two gals and a guy or four guys or the entire adult population of Walla Walla, WA.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
All I am implying here is that if you have no problem with allowing two people to fill out paperwork to provide the same protections as marriage then you should have no problem allowing three people to fill out paperwork to provide the same protections as marriage, so long as they are all consenting adults.
I have no problem with either.
Re: (Score:2)
It implies that I think petitioning for government expansion of the definition of marriage to include two men is similar to petitioning for government expansion of the definition of marriage to include two men and a woman.
For the requisite car analogy - I do not equate motorized bicycles with hovercraft, but petitioning to have them classified as motor vehicles for the purpose of traffic laws would be similar.
Re: (Score:2)
My apologies, then...it sounded like you supported the OPs method of equating homosexual marriage to a variety of things it has nothing to do with (specifically the part regarding polygamy.)
Sorry again!
Re: (Score:2)
No more so than with heterosexual marriage.
"Gay marriage" is really about two consenting adults of the same sex wanting to share the same legal rights & responsibilities as two consenting adults of the opposite sex.
If you would like to lobby that (n>2) consenting adults should have the same legal rights as (n=2) consenting adults, by all means -- go for it! There are probably [small] groups out there lobbying for it.
But let's not pretend these are in any way related.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They are both related in that they are attempting to extend the traditional definition of marriage to include an arrangement between consenting adults not consisting of exactly one male and exactly one female.
Disclosure: I think the government should stop granting and recognizing marriages entirely and grant and recognize civil unions between any consenting adults who fill out the requisite paperwork. Then perhaps we can focus on more important issues.
Re: (Score:2)
If you would like to lobby that (n>2) consenting adults should have the same legal rights as (n=2) consenting adults, by all means -- go for it! There are probably [small] groups out there lobbying for it.
"small"? Let's see... Muslims: 1.6B. Mormons: 14M.
Supporters of gay marriage: ~400M worldwide.
Of course, they want one man:multiple women, but in order to give equal rights to both sexes you'd have to allow polyandry as well. And allowing 1:4 and 4:1 but not 2:2 would be unfair as well...
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not touching this sex/ child debate with a ten foot penis...... er, I mean... pole. ;-) Okay fine I'll touch it. Sex with children? Absolutely not. They lack the maturity level to give consent - that's why they have adults making decisions for them. Nudity? Fine. Sex with same sex? Cool. Sex with multiple wives or husbands? Also cool. I think the US Government overstepped its authority when it outlawed polygamy in Utah. (searches constitution). Yep the 10th gives UT supremacy in this area,
Re: (Score:2)
It sucks. I hate this dynamic index and can't get back to the classic (plain text) index.
I had that same problem this morning as well. Fixed it by logging out on my PC, logging in on my phone, changing the options, logging out on my phone, logging back in on my PC.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, so then why is sex with someone their own age allowed suddenly? If they can't consent, it is no less rape then with an older person.
Re: (Score:2)
In short, it's totally arbitrary. However, there needs to be a cutoff somewhere to prevent those who would seek to influence the impress
Re: (Score:2)
Just to play Devil's advocate here, doesn't this mean that the inability to consent is merely an arbitrary limit that has nothing to do with actual capacity for consent?
Not "nothing to do with actual capacity for consent" -- it's strongly positively correlated. But it's not 100% correlated, so different limits reflect varying preferences for type 1 errors over type 2 errors or vice versa. It's not ideal, but it seems to be better than any alternative anybody has come up with. "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
Re: (Score:2)
Especially since it differs state-by-state or country-by-country - for example, are 17-year-old North Dakotans somehow less capable of consent than 17-year-old South Dakotans?
This is where things get murky. States have the right to make their own laws regarding this topic, but at the same time it creates an arbitrary discrepancy not based on reality, but rather based on legislation.
Well of course it's murky, and we know that. Rule based systems create highly defined, black and white partitions. They are most accurate in 2d space and when there is only one parameter to focus on. Any more dimensions/parameters and the result will be inaccurate. Life is messy so "things get murky".
Thing is, we create rules like this (age of consent) to protect those who would be exploited. If some people who are more mature have to wait for the freedom to make choices that we say must be made by
Re: (Score:2)
Conseravtive does not equal anti-personal rights
Re: (Score:2)