Howard Stern Learns: Going Behind A Paywall Is A Good Way To Lose Influence

from the the-price-of-influence dept

We've talked for years about the danger any media makes in focusing on setting up a paywall. In an age where openness and the ability to get others to spread and promote the content for you is often a key barometer of success, locking yourself up behind a paywall takes you out of the wider conversation, and by its very nature, decreases your overall ability to influence. The LA Times has an article noticing that this seems to be exactly what's happened with Howard Stern, who famously made the jump from terrestrial radio to satellite radio -- and in doing so, appears to have lost a large percentage of his audience, and with it much of his influence. Of course, he was paid handsomely for doing so, but Sirius almost certainly expected Stern to bring a larger percentage of his audience with him. Yet, as the article notes, Stern's waning influence due to the switch means that even he's having trouble getting the level of celebrity that he used to command to even bother coming on his show. Amusingly, the article also notes that the very reason why Stern claimed he was moving to satellite -- his troubles with the FCC -- may be contributing to his lack of influence with the new show. In the past, every time Stern got in trouble with the FCC, it boosted ratings, giving him plenty of free publicity. Without that foil, he loses much of the free publicity. Such is life behind the paywall, apparently.

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EU Will Do More Harm Than Good In Banning The Incandescent Bulb

from the backwards-thinking dept

The EU has now followed the US and Australia in coming up with plans to ban incandescent lightbulbs in favor of more efficient bulbs, such as compact fluorescent bulbs or LED-based lighting. I understand why these bans are being put in place. The incandescent bulbs are inefficient and wasteful, and the thinking is that forcing the move to CFLs or other types of bulbs will be good for the environment.

However, this doesn't take into account the unintended consequences of this move. Already, there's been a big push to move people to CFLs, and that's created a situation where the makers of CFLs have worked hard to improve the quality of the bulbs (a big complaint) as well as add in features that used to not be found in CFLs, such as dimming. It's also pushed the makers of CFLs to find efficiencies by which they can make the bulbs cheaper. They're doing this because they know they need to compete with incandescent bulbs -- and in many cases it's working.

Yet, banning incandescents from the market place means that the makers of CFLs now have a lot less competition. They don't have to work as hard to make the lights better. They don't have to work as hard to make them more efficient and cheaper. They've basically been given a gift that means they can slow down the process of making those bulbs that much better for the environment. That seems like a mistake.

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Germany Finds Google Images A Violation Of Copyright Law

from the needing-safe-harbors dept

US courts have recognized, reasonably, that an image search engine like Google's is not infringing on copyrights when it displays thumbnail images as a result of a search. However, it appears that German courts are not quite so understanding. Two new rulings in Germany say that thumbnail images are, in fact, copyright infringement. The German court's reasoning was: "It doesn't matter that thumbnails are much smaller than original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution. By using photos in thumbnails, no new work is created." While I'm certainly not as familiar with German copyright law as I am with American copyright law, this statement still doesn't make that much sense.

The purpose of copyright law shouldn't just be concerned with whether or not a new work is created, but the purpose of what's being done. So it's difficult to see, for example, how a thumbnail that links to the original can possibly do any harm. If the "artist" behind an image doesn't want it found in Google, don't put it online. If the complaint is that someone else put the image on Google allowing it to be indexed, that's not Google's fault, but whoever put it online. Suing Google makes little sense -- and a judge finding against Google makes even less sense. Google has made it clear it intends to appeal, but it's troubling that a court would rule this way in the first place. It suggests, at the very least, a less than complete understanding of how an image search engine works. It also should raise questions about whether or not this ruling effectively makes any sort of inline hotlinking of images copyright violations as well.

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McCain Campaign Sends Letter To YouTube Defending Fair Use

from the what-the...? dept

This is impressive, and somewhat unexpected. It's rather rare to see politicians (other than maginal ones, at least) showing any sort of recognition of fair use. It's certainly not an issue you'd expect to see raised by a presidential candidate (of either party). However, John McCain's campaign has sent a letter to YouTube complaining about the site's unwillingness to consider fair use in videos before taking them down. You can read the whole letter at that link or below (if you're not reading via a feed):

The letter basically notes that YouTube seems a bit too fast on the trigger in pulling down content based on DMCA takedown notices, in part parroting the some of the recent ruling where a judge said that those sending DMCA notices need to at least take fair use into consideration. Of course, that was directed at the sender of the DMCA takedown notice, not the recipient, as in this case. I'm sure the McCain campaign recognizes that YouTube is completely within its legal rights to automatically pull down the content, but in sending this letter the campaign is suggesting that, specific to videos put up by either political campaign (the letter cc's the Obama campaign), that YouTube take into account fair use.

The letter is addressed to YouTube's founder, Chad Hurley, as well as Google's Senior Copyright Counsel, William Patry (who we've talked about and quoted here many times) and Zahavah Levine, who is General Counsel for YouTube, who I've met and spoken with in the past. Both Patry and Levine are well aware of the legal issues here (probably better than just about anyone else), so it will be quite interesting to see how they respond. The real issue here has almost nothing to do with Google/YouTube -- but with the way the DMCA itself is structured. Since it provides clear safe harbor for a recipient of a takedown notice if they take down the content, it's a reasonable business decision to simply take down the content and then follow the proper procedures for letting the uploader file a response notice.

While it certainly would be nice for YouTube to take into account fair use before deciding whether or not to pull down the content, the real problem is with the law itself, and the incentives it puts in place for any recipient of such a letter. If the McCain (or Obama) campaign were really concerned with that, they should not just ask for this special exception to YouTube's official policies, but should promise to push for a change to the DMCA that makes an explicit point that recipients of such takedown notices shall retain their safe harbor protections even if they refuse to take down content, if they have a reasonable belief that the content in question is being used in accordance with fair use rules.

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Microsoft Sues DHL Over Trainload Of Dropped Xboxes

from the big-or-small,-they'll-break-them-all dept

Over the years, I've certainly had my fair share of bad experiences with both UPS and FedEx, but for me, personally, no delivery company has been worse on a regular basis than DHL. Almost every time I've had to deal with the company the experience has been somewhere between bad and ridiculous -- and I've heard similar stories from friends as well, from undelivered packages, to crushed packages -- even to a story of a phone shipped via DHL that arrived with the box torn open and the phone missing. It appears that we individuals aren't alone in our annoyances with DHL. Microsoft is now suing the company for how it dealt with a shipment of Xboxes that were on a train that derailed. Consider this a scaled up version of the old "crushed box" delivery that you or I might be used to. Apparently, the train had six containers full of Xboxes that were damaged -- with DHL refusing to pay for the damages or missing Xboxes that didn't make the rest of the journey.

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President Signs ProIP Bill Into Law; White House Gets Copyright Czar

from the don't-you-feel-safer? dept

Apparently, having our elected politicians completely lie to the President, combined with various business groups using totally made up numbers about the so-called "costs" of piracy was enough to convince President Bush to sign the ProIP bill into law, and accept the addition of a "Copyright Czar" position to the White House. It also strengthened copyright laws, yet again, despite little evidence they needed any strengthening. This law is nothing more than a weak attempt to prop up some struggling businesses who made the mistake of clinging to an obsolete business model far too long. All it will actually serve to do is to limit more creative forms of expression and much more innovative business models from being allowed to thrive.

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Larry Lessig On How To Save Remix Culture

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Larry Lessig has a fantastic op-ed essay in the Wall Street Journal that tries to defend "remix culture" from draconian copyright laws that have made it illegal to build new creative works on the works of others. Not surprisingly, he makes some important points:

This war must end. It is time we recognize that we can't kill this creativity. We can only criminalize it. We can't stop our kids from using these tools to create, or make them passive. We can only drive it underground, or make them "pirates." And the question we as a society must focus on is whether this is any good. Our kids live in an age of prohibition, where more and more of what seems to them to be ordinary behavior is against the law. They recognize it as against the law. They see themselves as "criminals." They begin to get used to the idea.

That recognition is corrosive. It is corrupting of the very idea of the rule of law. And when we reckon the cost of this corruption, any losses of the content industry pale in comparison.

Copyright law must be changed.

It's definitely worth reading, and then considering the five suggestions he puts forth for how copyright can be fixed, though I disagree with him on whether or not his suggestions would actually work. I think they would significantly improve things from the way they are today, but Lessig still seems to think that there's a way to "thread the needle" by distinguishing between commercial works and non-commercial works. The more I look, the less possible I think it is to distinguish between the two in any meaningful way.

Furthermore, Lessig's solutions are focused very much on trying to "balance" the rights of amateur creative types with professional creative types. However, I think if you look at the economics and historical record, there's no need to create "balance." If content creators started adapting new business models, both can succeed tremendously, without having to worry about any kind of balance. A true solution suits both sides perfectly, benefiting both, without either side having to "balance" with the other.

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Norwegian Consumer Council Wants Special Complaint Board For Copyright Lawsuits

from the interesting-proposal...-but... dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about how the Norwegian Consumer Council, an independent organization financed by the Norwegian government, was telling people not to sign letters the recording industry was demanding ISPs send to users, which would put liability for file sharing on those users without any sort of due process. Now the NCC is back suggesting a special independent committee to handle copyright infringement cases. From what's written, it sounds like it would act as a separate process for copyright holders to bring charges of copyright infringement, that avoids an expensive and overcrowded court systems, while still allowing individuals due process and a guarantee of other basic rights. The NCC proposes that this is a much better solution than, say, cutting off accused file sharers with no due process.

The idea definitely sounds a lot better than what's out there now -- but there could be unintended consequences as well. Here in the US, for example, we set up a special Federal Appeals court for patent lawsuits (CAFC), because of complaints about patent lawsuits clogging up courts where judges knew little about patent law, leading to bad outcomes. However, what happened was that CAFC became dominated by former patent attorneys (if not in numbers, in terms of influence) who significantly shifted the scope of patent law towards patent holders. In setting up a special court or arbitration system to deal with copyright infringement, there's a risk that it, too, could become dominated by interests focused solely on strengthening copyright law. While I definitely think it's a more interesting and productive proposal than most others out there, it's worth wondering if there would be unintended consequences. It still seems like the better long-term solution is for copyright holder to simply start embracing better business models.

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Dear Newspapers: Locking Up Archives Shrinks Your Business

from the let's-try-this-again dept

Plenty of folks have pointed this out for years, but newspapers that try to lock up their back archives and charge for viewing those articles are very likely hurting their bottom line more than helping it. That's because those archives are a treasure trove of info that people would be interested in finding via a search engine -- but they almost never want to pay for it. For many years, the NY Times tried locking up its archives and charging to read stories, but eventually did the math and realized it made a lot more sense to put all its archives online for free, and make money off the ads. Since removing the barriers, the NY Times has seen its traffic spike significantly, and its archives have become a significant portion of the overall site's traffic.

However, some newspapers still can't see the forest for the trees, and think that the answer is to charge high prices to view old articles. That most likely just gets people to look elsewhere, and diminishes ad revenue as well. Parker Mason has written an open letter to the Toronto Globe & Mail decrying its continued practice of charging $5 for access to a single archived article (for just 30 days of access). It's a good read, and I'm guessing that folks like Mathew Ingram, who works at The Globe, have been pushing for changes to the paper's policy, but until then, the company seems to be hurting itself. Mason's letter is well worth reading, but here's a snippet:

But then you go and do something like trying to charge me $4.95 for a newspaper article that I've already paid for and read, and this hurts me (telling me that this content will only be available for 30 days only adds insult to injury).

Your greatest asset is the thousands and thousands of pages of information and news stories that you have in your archives. People want to view this content, and just as they have endured advertising in your print publications, they'll endure the same kind of advertising on your website.

I understand your thinking when it comes to locking up this content behind a pay wall: it is valuable information, so people will pay to see it.

The problem is, you are only half-right. It is valuable information, but only when it is easy to access. In the age of Google, people will quickly move on and find the information elsewhere, somewhere where it easier to get at.

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UK Takes One More Step Towards Software Patents

from the can-bilski-cross-the-pond? dept

As we eagerly await the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruling in the Bilski case -- which could greatly cut back on the ability of the US Patent Office to grant software and business model patents, it looks Europe may be moving in the opposite direction. We had earlier reported on a ruling in the UK which said that the UK Patent Office had gone too far in tossing out a Symbian patent application because it was software. Now, a UK appeals court has agreed with the earlier ruling, effectively saying that Symbian can, in fact, patent software in the UK, despite earlier policies that did not allow software patents.

The reasoning behind the ruling is a little odd, as it seems mostly based on aligning UK patent rules with the rest of Europe's. However, that doesn't mean that the ruling actually makes sense or does anything towards promoting innovation (and, plenty of recent studies show quite clearly that software patents appear to do exactly the opposite). This is definitely bad news for the software industry in the UK, which will now find more tollbooths to deal with, and more patent thickets to pick through. Money is going to be wasted going after legal fights, rather than on research, development and actually serving customers.

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xkcd Speaks Truth To DRM: You're A Criminal Either Way

from the and-so-it-goes dept

People sure do love xkcd. I saw the latest comic last night, thinking it was amusing, but I've never been this deluged with submissions from people saying that we absolutely need to post it here. Either way, it does make the universal point about why you shouldn't buy anything that includes DRM. Since any change to the DRM (such as shutting down DRM servers) means you'll probably need to break the law to actually keep using the content you thought you "bought," at some point, people realize they're going to be considered a criminal either way and just vote to pirate stuff in the first place:

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Australian Internet Filters Have No Real Opt-Out; Only Opt-In To Fewer Filters

from the can-i-have-my-porn-license-please? dept

We've covered the long history of Australian politicians looking to set up their own censored internet "to protect the children" (of course). The plans have changed over time, but the end goal has always been the same: to force ISPs to block a list of sites provided by the government. In the latest incarnation, the plan supposedly included an "opt-out" option, where a web surfer could specifically ask to opt-out of the filters (effectively asking someone to sign up for a "porn-surfing license"). That, on its own, might scare some people off, but now it turns out that the opt-out isn't really an opt-out. Instead, it's just opting you in to a somewhat less restrictive blacklist. Once again, this idea of mandatory filtering out of "bad" sites on the internet sets a dangerous precedent. Whoever has control over that list has tremendous power, and it will be abused. On almost every "filter" list we've seen sites that certainly don't belong there, and this will be no different. If a site is doing something illegal, then charge whoever is responsible for the site. Trying to deal with it through filters and blocklists is both bound to fail and dangerous to free speech.

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Rock Band Video Game Selling T-Shirts Of Fake Bands

from the lotttttts-of-t-shirts dept

When critics of our analysis of the economics of infinite and scarce goods want to mock our ideas or make fun of us, they often fall back on the false claim that the business model we advocate is "give away everything and make it up by selling t-shirts." Or, rather, if they're really in a mocking mood, they usually write "llllllloooooooooooooooooootttts of t-shirts." It's quite amusing, though, of course, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what we mean by scarce goods.

That said, t-shirts can make up one part of the scarce goods that someone sells, though, it will almost always be a small part of it. And, there's no reason to mock the contribution that selling t-shirts can make as part of a larger business model. Reader Aaron de Oliveira points us to the interesting news that the super popular video game Rock Band is now letting players who have uploaded their own fake rock band logo order t-shirts, keychains and other merchandise from their fake band. As de Oliveira correctly notes, not only does this make some money, but it also makes the gaming experience better, connects fans more closely to the game and their own fake rock band in the game:

The company realizes it's not in the music business or in the t-shirt business. Its business model is the custom experience and it uses music (fun & free or cheap) and t-shirts to improve that experience in such a way that people are willing to pay for it.

Bingo. So go buy llllllooooooooottts of t-shirts to make it work.

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MPAA's Suit Against Real About Control And Innovation -- Not Piracy

from the clarifying dept

As we've been writing about the MPAA's odd lawsuit against RealNetworks for its RealDVD DVD ripping product, we've pointed out (multiple times) how it doesn't make much sense. The problem was that there are tons of much more effective DVD ripping products out there. Unlike RealDVD, they don't hobble the ripped copies. So, shutting down RealDVD doesn't do anything to stop piracy -- and if anything only increases it, as those who want to rip DVDs are more likely to just download one of those free products that don't encumber the resulting rip with more DRM. Thus, people will still be copying DVDs, and will do so in a way that is a lot more "piratable" than if the MPAA let RealDVD live.

So why is the MPAA doing what it's doing?

The EFF has stepped up with theory that makes a lot of sense: this has nothing to do with stopping piracy, and everything to do with controlling how innovation happens in the movie market. The movie studios that make up the MPAA believe that they own the movie business, and thus any innovation in the industry needs to come through them and get their approval. What Real is doing with RealDVD is ignoring the MPAA's "approval" process, and effectively taking the path of innovation out of the studios' hands.

If this sounds familiar, it's because this has what's been going on with almost all of the "anti-piracy" battles over the last decade. Napster wasn't so much about stopping piracy (which of course, didn't work in the slightest), but about the RIAA record labels freaking out that someone else (a college kid, no less) had established a much better and more efficient distribution mechanism without getting their approval and running it through their filter first.

Effectively, the Big Content players believe that they own their industries, and innovation should come from the top down through the paths that they choose. Thus, these sorts of lawsuits will continue until the management of these firms recognize that innovation is a bottom-up phenomenon. Or, the big firms go out of business. Whichever comes first.

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Useless Studies: Given The Choice Of No File Sharing Or No Internet, Guess What People Choose?

from the what-do-people-do,-not-what-they-say-they'd-do dept

A study by Entertainment Media Research claims that 72% of file sharers would stop file sharing, if sent a letter by their ISP threatening to cut them off the internet. This, obvious, supports the entertainment industry's effort over the past couple of years to get ISPs to act as their enforcers. It also ignores the fact that the EU has rejected such three strikes policies as a violation of users' rights. If someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to do something, plenty of people will probably do it, but that doesn't mean that it's right. Furthermore, what the study is really asking is, which of these two scenarios is preferable: no file sharing or no internet (which, by definition would mean no file sharing). Guess which people are going to say?

Unfortunately, results like this just mean that the industry will probably keep up its campaign to push for ISP enforcement, rather than actually coming up with better business models that embrace file sharing as promotion and a natural part of the market. They'll claim, of course, that this shows such an "educational campaign" will be effective -- ignoring the implicit "gun-to-head" part. However, as we recently discussed, there's little to indicate that the educational campaign has actually succeeded at all over the past decade, and there's little to believe that letters from ISPs will really be particularly effective in the long run. In a survey, of course people will say that they'll stop the activity to avoid getting cut off the internet. But that won't be because they think it's right or are comfortable with it. So the second a new, more secure or more underground method of file sharing comes along, they'll jump on that as well. If the entertainment industry wants to keep pursuing three strikes rules by promoting delusional studies like this one, that's it's choice, but it won't get the industry any closer to solving its business model problems.

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Lexus Gets Into The Video Hosting Business...?

from the apparently dept

So, we were a little confused recently when Toyota sued a nude model for using the name Alexus, as it seemed difficult to believe there would be any "confusion" between the two. However, who knew that Lexus was getting into the entertainment business? We've talked in the past about BMW's famous BMW Films effort, as an example of how the future of advertising needs to recognize the blurring lines between content and advertising. In BMW's case, each film was directed by a famous filmmaker, starred actor Clive Owen, and included a BMW that tended to act as something of a co-star. The films were entertaining as pure content, rather than as traditional advertising.

Since then, we've seen plenty of other companies try similar things, with varying degrees of success. For example, the recent set of Microsoft ads involving Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates received a very mixed reaction -- in part because people expected them to be like traditional ads, pitching a specific product, rather than creating a story line that was entertaining in its own right.

Now, one of our readers, William Jackson, points us to an experiment apparently by the car company, Lexus (a part of Toyota). It's called L Studio, and appears to be something of a web video platform, showing a bunch of professionally produced videos. As Jackson notes, some of them do involve a Lexus, such as this documentary about an artist creating a piece of artwork out of a Lexus:

However, others seem to have absolutely nothing to do with Lexus automobiles at all, and often star recognizable actors, such as this video starring Famke Janssen trying to juggle her dating life with her dog: I'm sure some will complain that these sorts of videos don't make any sense, as they do nothing to promote the vehicles -- but it may be worth seeing where this campaign goes from here. Some of the videos are entertaining and help put Lexus' brand around "lifestyle" content, and that could get people to start associating the Lexus brand with a certain type of lifestyle. Sure, it might not be as "in your face" as sponsoring a TV show or doing product placement, but if the content is good and gets people to seek it out rather than intrude on what they're doing, this could be a very effective branding campaign.

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What If We Put Lie Detectors On Politicians During Debates?

from the it-wouldn't-work dept

It's political silly season these days as we get closer and closer to election day, and with the various campaigns ratcheting up their attempts to win over voters, the inevitable campaign spin reaches the point where the connection between the message being pushed out and the truth often seems increasingly hazy. That is, politicians start lying about each other. Or, if you want to be generous, being extremely misleading in their characterizations. Some worse than others. This, in part, has resulted in the rise in popularity of various "fact checking" sites over the past few campaign seasons, as many people are fed up with campaigns lying and not being called on it.

Some challengers to an Indiana congressman have come up with an amusing suggestion for how to deal with this, with two challengers to the incumbent agreeing to wear lie detectors during a planned debate. The incumbent has refused, with his party chair calling it ridiculous.

Of course, it's all really a stunt to get some press coverage for the challengers. As polygraph experts well know, a polygraph in a debate setting would be useless. Beyond not always being perfectly reliable, polygraphs are designed to work under very specific circumstances, not in a public debate setting, where the results would be entirely meaningless.

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The Rise Of Anti-Spam Lawsuit Entrepreneurs

from the give-me-spam-so-i-can-sue-you dept

I'll admit that many years ago, when I first heard about people trying to sue spammers for profit, it sounded like a pretty cool idea. No one likes spammers, and being able to sue them and make some money off of it sounds good, right? But it appears that it's becoming a bigger business these days, and in a story about a specific case from one such person, Eric Goldman reasonably questions the tactics of some of these "anti-spam litigation entrepreneurs," noting that they often seek out spam, just to have more to sue over. That seems highly problematic. If they're purposely putting their email address out there just to get spam, with the intention of suing over it, it's difficult to see how they have much of a claim to complain about the spam received. Now, it appears that some judges are starting to fight back against clear profiteers, who are clearly not using the law as a way to fight spam, but just to profit.

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What Are 'Community Standards' When It Comes To Obscenity Online?

from the time-to-fix-the-definition dept

With a guy found guilty of distributing hardcore pornography online sentenced to 46 months in prison, plenty of people are beginning to question obscenity laws and how they apply to the internet. As you probably know, the standard for "obscenity" is a bit subjective -- as it's supposed to be based on local "community standards." That may have made sense when a local community was clearly definable, but it becomes a lot trickier when communities are a lot more complex. Not only does the internet challenge traditional concepts concerning legal jurisdiction, but it also changes how you define a "community." Choosing a local community based on geography makes very little sense when it comes to an online obscenity case, as there's probably not much of a chance that folks in that community were actually impacted by the content. Yet, in this case, prosecutors did some jurisdiction shopping, and found a conservative local community in which to file the case. That could lead to some very dangerous precedents, where "community standards" are based on the lowest common denominator, rather than the actual community involved.

What makes this tricky, also, is the fact that obscenity laws, like copyright laws are actually designed for a "broadcast media" world, where the worry is how a "publisher" produces some kind of content and pushes it out to a mass audience. Yet, the internet isn't designed as a broadcast media, but a communications one -- and suddenly the line gets a lot more blurry. Can you be thrown in jail for sending an obscene joke to a friend? Most people would think that's silly. But when the "audience" gets bigger, then the questions start to creep in, and the law is not equipped to handle it. If this content is only seen by those who seek it out, then is it really doing any actual "damage" to innocent people who are worried about being corrupted by obscenity? Either way, it looks like we may once again need to struggle with adapting laws to the very different nature of the internet.

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Watch Neil Gaiman Read His Whole Latest Book Online For Free... And Note That It's Still A Best Seller

from the yeah,-but,-free-doesn't-work dept

Famed author Neil Gaiman certainly is no stranger to embracing the economics of free infinite goods to help sell more not-free scarce goods. Richard now points us to yet another way that's working for Gaiman. In a new blog post about a just completed book tour for his new children's book, The Graveyard Book, Gaiman notes two interesting points. First, during the book tour, at each stop he read a different chapter of the book outloud -- and each of those stops was filmed and put online. So, as he notes: "For now, the whole book is up online for free and I have no plans to take it down."

At the same time (or, actually, just before that), he also mentions that the book is number one on the NY Times' bestsellers' list for children's books. As Richard notes, this seems to fit the model we discuss all the time: "Give away a transient copy in one medium, while selling lots and lots of copies in another, more natural and permanent medium? Who'd have thought that would work...?" Indeed.

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