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Millions out of billions is still a tiny fraction, that doesn't preclude elitism. There are millions of millionaires in the world, does that mean they're not an elite either?

The benefits to storing your music collection online are so great that many people must already be doing it, including the intersection of rich and record collector. Karl Lagerfeld must get tired of lugging his Louis Vuitton trunk-ful of iPods around, I'm sure Elton John is back to acquiring vinyl, I doubt Music Man Murray is going to delete the MP3s of his 300,000 records.

I don't see what's illegal in storing your legally-purchased music in your own online storage. I don't think the record companies can force you to keep the username and password of your online music folder private, any more than your car company can force you to lock your car up. The reason people don't share a read-only password is they'd have to pay their ISP big bandwidth fees when huge crowds come to freeload. But the rich can afford it. When will some celebrity, Russian oligarch or Chinese billionaire, mad at the record companies and eager for infamy, go anarchist value-destroying Robin Hood for us and let slip that the username:password for http ://RomanAbramovich.ru/AllMyMusic is boris:Chelsea ?

You mean this place?

Tube: In london the tube is the most expensive public transport of the world. To eradicate privacy concerns you are told that you've got no privacy: the tube is covered with cameras. They are there just to easen your feelings of unsecurity and keeping souvenir videos of dead kamikaze bombers for later inspection.

Deceptive at best there - this is (a) from 2007, (b) solely in reference to 'cash fares' which represent something like 4% of tube journeys.

Most people here seems to regard parking meters as normal and acceptable devices. Fact is that the SOIL is public. That means that the SOIL is YOURS. Now would you like to be charged for living into your house? I doubt it. So why can you accept that someone is renting your land? Here now you are debating which form of stealing is better for you. Like debating whatever is better to be eaten by a lion or a tiger.

*LONDON CASE* - Just in case my points need proof. London is the best example that the government is not able to get public transport done in a decent way. Those who had the pleasure to visit London had the pleasure to witness the outcome of this resignation policy, where citizen don't question for a long time the actions of their governors.

Tube: In london the tube is the most expensive public transport of the world. To eradicate privacy concerns you are told that you've got no privacy: the tube is covered with cameras. They are there just to easen your feelings of unsecurity and keeping souvenir videos of dead kamikaze bombers for later inspection.
Congestion Charge: You can't use your car if you don't pay. Basically 16$ flat rate to get into the city. Cameras with number plate recognition software will note every car entering the charging zone. At the end of the day number plates will be cross referenced against a database of payments made -and don't forget to fuck privacy.
Parking: Public parking in central london is practically non existant. Where it is available the rates are so high that made possible for a private parking industry to florish (usually 36$ per day, 3,60$ per hour). With the advent of decriminalised parking the practice is becoming much more widespread and as evidenced by the TV docu-soap 'Clampers', can be very arbitary: "clampers using threatening behaviour". Insane measures to clamp even bikes: Inside the Greater London area all footway parking is prohibited unless it is specifically exempted and signs indicate that you may park partially or wholly on the footway. -

Conclusions: In london there is no other options but to be raped insane charges by local authorities. You take a bike, you can't park and risk clamps - You take a car you pay for using (congestion charge) and parking (if and when you find a spot) - You take the tube you are going to pay the most expensive transport system of the world AND you are still uncertain if you can reach your destination in time or whatever (It's like lotto, if you're lucky you get in time, if youre not lucky you're screwed since anything can happen, from detours to surface lines, delays or anything else - Also take for granted that when it happens you will find yourself dumped in parts of the city you never knew they existed before).

If UA wants to get back at the Google guys I think their only option will be to butt in front of them in line to take off:

http://www.luxist.com/2007/10/14/google-founders-get-yet-another-new-jet/

Most importantly: People don't generally pay sales tax when purchasing across state lines, and most people don't bother paying the use taxes they're obligated to pay. It seems in general that if you don't pay sales tax on an object because you bought it out of state, you're then technically liable for use tax. Most people just don't realize it. Since we're talking about Ohio, here's what Ohio's site has to say:

The most common situation that gives rise to a use tax liability is when an Ohio customer makes a mail order purchase from an out-of-state seller. Use tax is also due when the purchaser improperly claims exemption from the sales tax or if the sales tax paid is less than the total use tax in effect in the county where the item is used or benefit of the service is received.

One of the main reasons for the use tax is to protect Ohio vendors from unfair competition from out-of-state sellers, since the in-state merchant is required to collect sales tax when selling to an Ohio resident or business. All states that have a sales tax have a use tax.

There was a big stink about use tax in recent months, when Maine started enforcing its use tax against folks flying into the state in their personal planes and leaving their planes in the state longer than 20 days, thereby making them liable to the state's use tax.

I think what you're missing is that the value in real things comes from the real needs that they meet, not the fact they can be converted to money.

No, that's how it starts. Valuable item -> Food. Now we have valuable item -> money -> food. Since money can buy food, anything that can become money has real value.

And we can certainly agree that there are some quite unnecessary things that people are willing to spend money on -- more money, in fact, than they could possibly need for food or shelter in their entire life. So value != necessity.

Toy money in games has value because a small number of people like to play games with toy money. But it only has value to them, and maybe to speculators who have noticed this. But in general, it doesn't have value because in general no-one is interested in it...

Well, in general, no one is interested in the work that I do, and I doubt anyone outside the company I work for would care to pay me. But they do pay me.

Maybe it all comes back to real needs, but in reality, I can buy food, medical care, etc, with money. Thus, money has real value, because we all agree it does. My work has real value, because someone agrees it does and is willing to pay me money for it.

Money is just the universally agreed representation of the value humans, as a whole, place on real things. It's a symbol of value, not actual value.

Wrong. It's a container of value, and a universally agreed upon benchmark of value.

Anyway, the reason I say game money has value, and stealing game money should be a crime, is you can do this: Steal game money -> Sell game money for real money -> stop (real money == value). You can also do this: Work in-game -> generate in-game money -> sell in-game money for real money -> feed your family. This does happen in reality -- there are gold farmers in China who feed their families exclusively by making and selling World of Warcraft gold.

Now, the difficult question is, how do we define what things are legally allowed to have value, and how to punish them in the real world? I imagine most games make it illegal to buy and sell in game items for real money to avoid questions like these, because then -- well, what if they ban you? They're suddenly responsible for more than just your subscription fee -- you could sue them for all of your in-game possessions. And virtual worlds change and evolve so quickly, and they can die so easily, that it becomes a real challenge figuring out how to define, clearly, when a virtual item has real value and when it doesn't.

We should start by looking at our banking system, and figuring out why it is that money in a bank is real, but money in, say, Dope Wars, is not real, and never will be.

Maybe you should stop by this place before eBay makes their phone calls free.