Does anyone know how much actual content was stolen? I'm wondering why someone would pay a minimum of 15 million in cash to acquire a company where most of the property has been stolen. It looks like the legal penalties have been basically inconsequential for Eric.It also looks like HandHeld Entertainment has a good chance of keeping the content/stealing, but if that is what they plan on doing, I really question their ethics.
New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
21–30 of 77 posts
Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
So Eric Bauman makes a site that profits from stealing other people's content. A song is written insulting him. An entire website blames their mayhem on him in revenge. He is caught altering watermarks and removing citations. He gets enough money to buy an apartment building and sponsor a boxer. His father writes insulting emails. Then suddenly another shady company buys him out and ruins his company, and it's proof…
"This is excellent evidence that the system regulates itself." As it regulated itself with the current financial and economic crisis? Like AIG regulated itself? Like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, et al.?
Actually none of those companies regulated themselves. The federal government took on the role.
Regulation has caused part of this crises via procyclical mark to market and capital requirements. Regulation also stipulated what kind of assets banks should have creating an enormous market in the deliberate obfuscation of risk.
What is your suggestion? Just because you create regulation doesn't cause people to want to follow it. Nor do the affects end with or necessarily include the stated goal.
Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally don't think it was caused by those things, though I am sure that there are those who do. I think the five major factors that contributed to it, in rough order of importance: 1) Too much leverage, without understanding the risks. 2) Trade imbalances causing capital flow imbalances. 3) Complete lack of regulation and lack of enforcement of existing regulation. 4) A culture of "gotta have it now." 5) Produc…
I think you are missing the systemic causes -- the low cost of money and its devaluation through inflation cause makes taking risks more economical (safe investments lose money). The markets are more regulated now than they've ever been. The cause of this crises has been building for a long time, and goes back to the 70s when the united states went off the gold standard. Additionally, there were things that happened…
Ah, the old gold standard canard again. Not even worth refuting these days, so I won't try.
" As for CEOs if they were acting wrongly then their board, or shareholders should revolt."
Hasn't happened yet, but it's a nice pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
I'm perplexed by many people's ideas here that the best way the system self-corrects is by effectively allowing the system to self-immolate.
Is there no better way?
"Productivity is constantly increasing, and will be increasing at faster rates."
Doubtful, but even if true, when will that productivity lead to better standards of living for all but the wealthy few? Incomes of the richest Americans more than doubled in the past eight years. Do you think they got twice as productive?
Before you answer, remember that in the financial sector at least, in the last two years, banks have lost more money than they have made in profits in the last 2,500 years of banking — even adjusted for inflation.
Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
#24The more I read about it, the less I am convinced that capitalism is all ponies and manna from heaven, like some here believe. And it's close to its end, anyway, at least as we know it. No, I am not some raving conspiracy theorist. Automation and innovation almost guarantee that the world in 100 years will look drastically different than it does now.
So Eric Bauman makes a site that profits from stealing other people's content. A song is written insulting him. An entire website blames their mayhem on him in revenge. He is caught altering watermarks and removing citations. He gets enough money to buy an apartment building and sponsor a boxer. His father writes insulting emails. Then suddenly another shady company buys him out and ruins his company, and it's proof…
Bottom line: Eric Bauman got rich by stealing other people's content. I don't know how this provides evidence that the system regulates itself.
Of course, in a truly self-regulated system, there would be no such thing as copyright, so Eric Bauman wouldn't have been stealing in the first place.
Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
#25The more I read about it, the less I am convinced that capitalism is all ponies and manna from heaven, like some here believe. And it's close to its end, anyway, at least as we know it. No, I am not some raving conspiracy theorist. Automation and innovation almost guarantee that the world in 100 years will look drastically different than it does now.
Capitalism I think is as much a necessary evil as democracy, we know it isn't perfect but we've found it to be very very hard to come up with a working alternative.
The best way to prove your point of course is to live it, and I'm very curious what proposal you have to replace capitalism. Socialism has been tried in the sovblock countries and it failed (due to greed and incompetence), so it seems that capitalism is better capable of dealing with those two human qualities.
The financial crisis - as bad as it is - is not nearly as bad as the situation that existed in the former USSR and its satellite states. China may come to some middle ground between capitalism and communism/socialism but they have some way to go before they can call themselves an open society.
What is your alternative ?
Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
#26You may or may not like eBaum. But I think his new company will prevail in the long run. The modern worlds companies are extremely different from an old taylorism-ideology. You need the right people. Now eBaum is just going to rebuild the new sites in a couple of days, which is easy since they've done it before. They will probably make it better as well. They know how to gather content (legality of this content i'll rather not comment on).
Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
So Eric Bauman makes a site that profits from stealing other people's content. A song is written insulting him. An entire website blames their mayhem on him in revenge. He is caught altering watermarks and removing citations. He gets enough money to buy an apartment building and sponsor a boxer. His father writes insulting emails. Then suddenly another shady company buys him out and ruins his company, and it's proof…
"This is excellent evidence that the system regulates itself." As it regulated itself with the current financial and economic crisis? Like AIG regulated itself? Like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, et al.?
I view it as, above all else, a failure of education.
People can't teach their children what money really is, if they themselves don't understand fiat currency and the power that the central banks have to expand and contract money supply.
Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would agree with most of your reasons, but for each of them you need to ask "why" until you get to the real source of the problem. For the most part, the greediness of people is why we had such ridiculously leveraged financial securities and special-purpose vehicles etc. designed to stuff as many fistfuls of cash as possible into the pockets of those who could game the system the best. Greed was the cause, and insa…
I agree with you. Well-stated. And that's why I feel that even if regulation isn't perfect, and even if it sometimes is counterproductive (which it is!), it can often help to stave off such things as this.
Well, then just how much did regulation helped prevent this whole fiasco?
Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
The system was trying to regulate itself. Thats why the economic crisis is happening. The companies that are in trouble are ones that can not be maintained that either need to restructure them selves or die. In the infinite wisdom of our leaders they decided to stray from the theory of capitalism and interfere. Everyone likes to think that capitalism means that everything is happy daisy, but its not. If things go wro…
And meanwhile, what happens to the people who are bankrupted, ruined, cannot eat or get health care, while the system self-corrects? Reasonably happy, non-malnourished people make better employees, you'll have to admit.
The system doesn't self-correct everywhere at the same time (unless there is a central bank point of failure, if you see where I'm going...), so if your company is bankrupt you can find a job elsewhere.
Mind you, people who were careful with their money and didn't believe in the pipe dream of ever increasing home equity need not worry about what's going on (well, they need to worry about what the government is doing, but that's another matter).
Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
The system was trying to regulate itself. Thats why the economic crisis is happening. The companies that are in trouble are ones that can not be maintained that either need to restructure them selves or die. In the infinite wisdom of our leaders they decided to stray from the theory of capitalism and interfere. Everyone likes to think that capitalism means that everything is happy daisy, but its not. If things go wro…
And meanwhile, what happens to the people who are bankrupted, ruined, cannot eat or get health care, while the system self-corrects? Reasonably happy, non-malnourished people make better employees, you'll have to admit.
Exactly; The system, left completely unregulated, will find the most efficient/optimal path, but at what cost? The optimal path may involve ruining the lives of 100 million people. The optimal path may bankrupt many countries, causing its citizens to starve to death. There is nothing wrong with reasonable regulation to ensure a certain amount of stability in life.