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There are a number of things at work here.

First, let us draw a careful line between Bill Gates' charity and Microsoft's. Bill Gates, and his wife Melinda, have indeed, given away quite a lot of money. What's more, Bill has pledged to give away 95% of his wealth, focusing mainly on combatting disease. (Get yourself a Salon Day Pass before clicking that link.) We're talking 43 billion dollars, here. That's some major moola, and it is coming from Bill's private coffers, not that of his company.

On the other hand, we have Microsoft's charity. Microsft is not giving away money. It's giving away copies of its software. Those copies cost it very, very little to produce -- just a few bucks per unit, most of which is actually to print the box and manual. The CD containing the software itself is less than dollar in the volumes they produce them.

So they actually are paying very little to produce this, but in their press releases they can claim to be giving away the amount it would total if all those copies of the software were purchased at full retail price. Major PR coup. What's more, it makes sure that their OS is the one the company is using, not Linux or Mac or BSD or anything else.

End result -- MS comes out looking like a saint, it helps maintain their market dominance, and it costs them next to nothing in actual money. It's a positively brilliant move.

There are a number of things at work here.

First, let us draw a careful line between Bill Gates' charity and Microsoft's. Bill Gates, and his wife Melinda, have indeed, given away quite a lot of money. What's more, Bill has pledged to give away 95% of his wealth, focusing mainly on combatting disease. (Get yourself a Salon Day Pass before clicking that link.) We're talking 43 billion dollars, here. That's some major moola, and it is coming from Bill's private coffers, not that of his company.

On the other hand, we have Microsoft's charity. Microsft is not giving away money. It's giving away copies of its software. Those copies cost it very, very little to produce -- just a few bucks per unit, most of which is actually to print the box and manual. The CD containing the software itself is less than dollar in the volumes they produce them.

So they actually are paying very little to produce this, but in their press releases they can claim to be giving away the amount it would total if all those copies of the software were purchased at full retail price. Major PR coup. What's more, it makes sure that their OS is the one the company is using, not Linux or Mac or BSD or anything else.

End result -- MS comes out looking like a saint, it helps maintain their market dominance, and it costs them next to nothing in actual money. It's a positively brilliant move.

a mixture of semen, sweat, funyuns, doritos, and mountain dew.

Salon.com did a story on it back in 2000.

For those who might propogate the urban legend presented in the parent post, I suggest reading this first.

You speak as if you are an insider at the NYT, know everything on the subject, and can even then definitively state that you know the exact cause for all actions in this snafu. I'm sorry to say this, but no one is omnipotent, and you are jumping to conclusions that you simply cannot. If you want a good discussion about BOTH sides of the race issue in question salon has an excellent article on the subject. To say that it is just about race is reactionary and absurd as saying that the editors insist they were doing their jobs correctly- they screwed up, they admitted it. To say they should beat themselves up until they give a signed confession supporting your view of the story is immature.

No, they can screw, just not love....

According to Lucas...

the matrix was more synonymous of capitalist society than religion.

You're not the only one to think that

• Crewmember on the USS Enterprise
• Codes and maintains his own website
• Uses Linux instead of Windows on his home machines
• Worked on the Video Toaster
• Obsessive blogger
• Posts on Slashdot
• Free Speech activist
• Frequent (but not frequent enough) guest and sometimes guest host of The Screen Savers
• Host of Arena on G4
• Gamer, both video and role-playing

i agree with both of you. read this article.

are answered here. it's lies by microsoft vs lies by sun to make $$$

Michael Moore is pretty funny at times, but he is not exactly a reliable source of information. If you want to learn something about American politics you would be better off reading a good biography of a President or two. You will find plenty of sensational dirt to keep you entertained, and you might actually learn something.

Seriously, saying that you learned about US politics from "Stupid White Men" would be like me saying that I learned everything I need to know about German politics by listening to "Die Gerd Show".

The multimillion-dollar deal is a milestone for the game industry, which traditionally has paid to use other companies' logos in their games.

Sony Corp., for example, has paid tens of thousands of dollars to car manufacturers such as Honda Motor Co. to use real-world race cars in its driving games

Real life product brands have been featured in video games increasingly since Pole Position, but this [inclusion of McDonald's and Intel logos in The Sims] is being hailed as the first time a company has paid to have its products placed in a game. It's also being hailed as the latest step the video game market has made towards the lucrative product-placement schemes that are common in the Hollywood film industry.

Until now, video game makers have taken it upon themselves to add corporate brands to their games to add authenticity. Believe it or not, video game makers say they have even paid outside companies for the use of recognizable logos inside their games.

...product placement is relatively new to games....

While video game companies traditionally have had major brand names in their games, usually those brands have been licensed for a fee by the publishers, rather than the brands paying to be placed in the game.

The main argument for using recognizable products is that they lend a realistic flavor to gameplay.

What gamers may not know, however, is that this kind of brand exposure doesn't necessarily bring developers rolls of cash. More likely, companies swap advertising, as with the "Super Monkey Ball" deal.

Most of the time that you see a product in a Sega game no money has changed hands.

But although commercial products have appeared in games in the past--mostly as "Easter egg" surprises buried in the games (such as the Coke cans that rolled out of a vending machine in the game Half Life), or as authentic touches (such as the Pennzoil ads on cars in NASCAR racing games)--there have been no cases of paid product placement, or at least none that a survey of game publishers can recall. And it's not that developers haven't tried.

You obviously haven't seen the "Simply Porn" Palm ads.

...out of my mind was that this looks familiar.where have I seen that b4?Then I remembered surfing to Salon,where u get a 'free' subscription to the articles for 'enduring' a minute of advt. Thanks no thanx. When r these morons going to learn that what works for one medium may not work for another.Why not put a commercial on radio that requires visual acuity of the listener:-)?

Here's a nice salon.com (fictional) story about this topic, fast forwarded and given a bigger picture.

Soundproofing board is now a commodity, inexpensive to purchase, easy to work with. This stuff is basically cellulose; it will absorb stray ambient sounds well enough, at least for today's music.

Yes, you still need to build it. And you'd need some nice microphones, but again, for today's music, $20K seems overkill. Even if it weren't, you could rent/lease or affiliate with other bands and split the cost.

The point is that the studio alone is hardly the kind of barrier to entry that justifies the enormous profits the labels are making. For instance, I wouldn't make this argument about movies, not yet. The production of a movie requires some genuine capital. I don't see that with music today.

And yes, if we adopt your definition of the word advertising then it does matter a good deal, but I would consider more like airplay. The label doesn't have to spend any money for this kind of advertising, so it isn't a capital expenditure, which means, that it isn't something a band needs a label to do.

I'm sure you've read this already.

If I were a kid who was inclined towards this industry, and I had a garage, I would make it my calling to turn that garage into a recording studio. Recruit the family iMac; get a good deal on some microphones... do some real damage in this world, and have a lot of fun in the doing.

There is a somewhat old, but still very good article about this kind of problem on salon. Worth a read I think.

Anyway, the number of deaths that can be attributed to software failure is quite small, and just as importantly no one has a clue as to how many lives have been saved by software reliability. For the most part software is used to replace human activity, and humans are notoriously unreliable. We really need to know what the trade-off looks like because if we delay the use of software with regulation, and are forced to live with even more unreliable humans in the meantime, then more people will wind up dead rather than fewer.

I would also note that there is no need to have a uniform policy on software reliability. Consumers may prefer flashy over reliable, but unless they are performing heart surgery with their mp3 players, who cares?

The implications for it are pretty chilling, if you really get down to think about it as David Brin did in this article. George Lucas seems to think that those 26 people are destined to control the fate of the galaxy, and all us peons, with our "free will", don't matter one whit. Just one more reason why Star Trek kicks the hell out of Star Wars.

Actually, I have. You know what I decided to do? Wait a week for the excitement to die down.

Yeah, I'm sure you do that even if there are a bunch of new security vulnerabilities fixed in the release. The script kitties must love you.

after all, it's not copyrighted material, no reason for someone to take it off their FTP site anytime soon!

This is something wankers like you don't understand: open source projects and Linux/FreeBSD ISOs are copyrighted. The authors just license them so anyone can legally distribute them.

As for mp3.com, soon after Universal bought them, they made some wanky policies. They stopped paying royalties unless the artist paid a monthly fee--back then, I believe it was $20/month. Their policy seems to be more relaxed now, but it's not as good as before the takeover. Artists pay them, and they get ad revenue. Doesn't seem fair to me. Sounds like they applied the principles Courtney Love and friends have been complaining about.

Uh, what exactly have they done to you? All I've ever known Yahoo to do is provide free services. I like Yahoo. What have they done?

I'm not going to waste five hours of my time telling why Yahoo has become bad. I'll just say they will do anything to make money, no matter how unethical. Even if you use their store (which pays them money), they'll still sell your private information to the highest bidder. If you do some reasearch, you'll see what I am talking about.

I said:

If you think bandwidth is so cheap, why don't you just pay for the entire world?

You said:

When did I say that?

You implied it. You seem to think anyone who is willing to put forth the effort to create content should foot the bill or have it displayed with tonnes of ads--of which the author doesn't even get paid. That is how the "free" hosting systems work--they get ad revenue to pay for bandwidth, and anything above that is their profit.

If anything, P2P folks think bandwidth is free, as they sit there saturating their pipes 24/7

That is because of the "unlimited" internet access scam. ISPs say their customers have "unlimited" access, but then write their AUP to limit what services are allowed--often to the point only email and the web are permitted. They bait everyone with absurd "unlimited" promises, then switch on confined policies. This isn't limited to P2P. You should see all the bandwidth my roommates waste. If users had to pay for the bandwith they use, they will do something about spyware, viruses, crap filled web pages, and all the other things which waste bandwith. You don't need a P2P program to waste bandwidth.

The whole point of the argument is that with technologies like cars, telephones, guns, knives, etc. we DON'T have 9 out of every 10 users committing crimes with them.

I guarantee you, if people driving cars were treated like P2P users, the situation would change to 9/10 of people who drive cars are criminals. If auto manufacturers were sued into the ground, only organized crime would make cars. If there were snipers on every roof shooting out random car tires, most people would walk. If every time a car drove by, a shopkeeper (or someone claiming to be a shopkeeper) called the police and insisted the driver of the car stole something, only thieves would want to drive a car.

Because of the RIAA, anyone who uses P2P gets shit on. It doesn't matter if they are using it to infringe copyrights or not. In fact, P2P can be used for much more than just trading files. Email and Usenet can be considered P2P systems, would you say they should be illegal too?

Obligatory link to an article by Courtney Love:

Courtney Love does the math

The final score?

Band: $0.00

Record Label: $6,600,000.00

Hmmmm.... I guess Tom Tomorrow was right.

Check out this site: Black Box Voting

With the rise of computerized voting systems, there follows a greater opportunity to cheat in elections. In the past election [for congress], voting districts started using computer voting systems. The problem with this is the lack of accountability. The voting machines are not open source [which in itself is not a problem]. However in the last election, there were a couple incidents in which the vendors "upgraded" [or modified] the code after it was inspected by the accounting people.

In addition, in the last election, one of the candidate owned great number of shares in the voting machine production companies of his state. This is a great potential for conflict of interest.

Lastly, hackers found that the binary files and certain voting data files were found on the company's public FTP site. It was improperly configured so that you can upload your own data files to overwrite the official ones.

Anyways, until we get a more secured system that is more accountable, we should not jump into computerized voting.

Read more about this at: Salon.com Hacking Democracy

A while ago, I remember seeing some news specials about teen and preteen girls who get strangers to buy them gifts from their public Amazon wish-lists. There was also an article about it on Salon Candy From Strangers . I don't think Amazon is targeting underage girls to do this, but those girls have sure figured out how to exploit it. I wonder if giving users the ability to send presents to kids, if the kids' names and addresses are hidden violates a security policy. Its kind of scary.

It is well that we should, for the moon is a serious menace.

First, your link had a space in it.
Second, People like to click once, not 3 times.

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2003/01/13/tomo /i ndex.html

This Modern World

"Because the moon may someday break out of orbit and crash into the earth -- I have decided to use our nookyalur arsenal to destroy it now"

Or, consider another possibility:

"In other news today, a U.S. scientific mission to search for lunar water deposits revealed that the moon actually has a vast, hollow void in its center, occupying nearly 90 percent of the volume of the moon as a whole. This void is (or was) filled with water. Unfortunately, the hole left in the moon's north pole by the mission's explosive primary payload is allowing the water to rapidly boil off into space. Mission scientists estimate that it will be completely empty within a year.

"Meanwhile, officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are said to be studying the feasibility of depositing nuclear waste in the now-vacant interior of the moon. Frightened residents of countries over which the moon passes are reportedly organizing to oppose this effort."

Salon has been writing about this for a while for example take a look here: Will Congress Tackle Pay for Play

Now that Debian is "Trusted" (like everyone else in the freaking industry picking up the same buzzword), it's time to remember Anti-Trustworthy Computing.

And like an oppressive government, The RIAA doesn't want their distribution and king-maker monopoly to crumble. It would be one thing it it were artist's interests that they were truly protecting, but it's obviously not. This 1999 Salon article is about who owns the digital rights (such as the website, customer database and merchandising). Guess who wants to get their hands on it?

This quote from the article:
"Traditionally, record labels have brought in the lion's share of their revenues by selling records, often using Draconian contracts to minimize the artists' take of the profits. Record labels took ownership of the music, its marketing and sales, reserving only a tiny percentage of the take for the artists. So, the artists made their money by merchandising ancillary products, like concert tickets or T-shirts."
...
But most record labels salivate over the idea of a mailing list of 100,000 fans, for multiple reasons. A list of fans of the Backstreet Boys, for example, could easily be used to promote another upcoming pop boy band -- this is what is known as data mining, and is a hot topic within the record industry. As Marc Schiller, CEO of Electric Artists, puts it, "The label wants the data not necessarily for the artist -- they are looking for that data for their artists who are similar to that artist. Should you use one artist's leverage to create a database of consumers that is used for other artists? That is going to become more controversial."

One question: Isn't Canada also one country that charges a tax on CD-Rs allegedly to pay back record companies for MP3 trading? Which leads to independent artists are being taxed for doing their own records instead of playing the record contract game.

Here's a good analysis on eugenics from salon.com from 3+ years ago.

Good information, but also important is the fact that things haven't changed much in the last 3 years in spite of everyone's fear of things moving too fast for the ethical consequences to be considered.

From TCPA / Palladium / NGCSB / TCG Frequently Asked Questions:

TCPA stands for the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, an initiative led by Intel. Their stated goal is `a new computing platform for the next century that will provide for improved trust in the PC platform.' Palladium is software that Microsoft says it plans to incorporate in future versions of Windows; it will build on the TCPA hardware, and will add some extra features.

This means that this whole Palladium/TCPA monstrosity requires support from both hardware and software. It is entirely up to the end-user whether or not he wants this. However, senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina is working on getting a law that will make TCPA mandatory, see here. Until such time that this bill becomes the law:

1. Don't buy the hardware. Unless there is a compelling reason to do so. Well if you are working for the military then go knock yourself out.

2. Don't buy^H^H^H lease/rent/license/WTF the software. There is no compelling reason to do so.

It will only be compelling to use Palladium/TCPA software and hardware only if it becomes illegal not to use it.

Secure computing is not the aim of Palladium/TCPA. Its aim is to provide a way for software peddlers like Microsoft and content pushers like Disney to monitor what you run on your computer and assert control over your computer. In the long run, it will provide them a way to assert control over you.

Secure computing can be achieved through a combination of secure computing practices, secure operating systems running secure applications, and plain-old common sense.

If Intel, Microsoft and their cohorts push through with this stupidity it could spell the end for them. Just think, why in the hell would I want to run this sort of crap? Unless it's mandated by law, there's no reason for me to do so. With the recent slew of news about stupid laws being implemented in the U.S. it's a real possibility.

0xB00F, stands in front of Bill Gates, raises hand, extends middle finger.

While he has admittedly been standing on the shoulders of giants, there is also a smattering of true visionary in all the things he has done. The Salon article on him, although old, is a fascinating read.

If you don't like the price, you don't pay it, but you're not entitled to take something just because you disagree with the price. The price being charged is not your decision to make, it is the decision of the person providing the good or service, end of story.

That's not entirely true either. A purchase is made only when both the buyer and the seller agree on a price. At that time, they then both exchange something of value.

Now, I realize this doesn't entirely defeat your statement, but many of your statements are starting to come off as sounding like the RIAA makes the rules, and we can either accept them or do without. I realize you've also offered alternatives, but I don't know that mp3.com is an acceptable alternative. I recall some bad shit with them happening, but I don't remember exactly what. Something unethical, for sure, though.

Anyway, the point is, the market is supposed to influence the price, and the price would then be an agreed-upon amount. I do not agree to pay the prices of CDs (for a lot of reasons, not just because the music sucks). But even if they made the CDs for a reasonable price, you know what? DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT?

If you read this article, you'll find that if you actually want to support the artist, you'll steal the music and pay for the concert tickets.

As I hinted at before, this is a way of protesting the way record companies treat their musicians. It's also a way of protesting an unjust set of laws (or rather, an unjust abuse of a set of laws that were created with good intent).

> You saw the sanitized war which is exactly what
> the DOD wanted you to see.

This is a good point. Salon recently had an interesting article that featured an interesting observation from Dennis Dunleavy, a professor of photojournalism at San Jose State University in California on the media's coverage of the war.

He said that there are basically 3 "angles" for the news stories and photos:

1. Technology: "It's our power against the rest of the world and these images reflect that. Tanks, soldiers, shots from aircraft carriers, night-vision pictures. That's all about technology."

2. Victims: "But not casualties. It's images of refugees, displaced people squatting on the ground while soldiers stand above them. The dominant interest is the coalition troops against a background of helping the homeless or disenfranchised."

3. Soldiers: "Lots of clear pictures of soldiers giving directions, on the move. They're technically beautiful photographs and amazingly well shot for being in a war zone."

So from the American press's standpoint, this is a war about America's soldiers, not really the war itself. Contrast this with the view that other countries, particularly in the Arab world, which are seeing a more complete picture: dead and injured civilians, bombed cities, dead soldiers, as well as the other stuff we see.

America is seeing a sanitized view of the war, which is part of the reason it feels so remote from our daily lives.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of po

The Daily Show rules! TV's boldest news show

... though I'm a Democrat I think Bush won Florida ...

I don't.

Consider the thousands of people who were illegally denied the right to vote because a private company incorrectly listed them as felons. (There was probably no way to recover those votes after the election.)

Consider the so-called Brooks Brothers Riot, a Republican-sponsored mob that deliberately interfered with the vote count.

Consider the unambiguous overvotes that would have been counted in Gore's favor if Florida's election law ("clear intent of the voter") had been followed. (This is probably the clearest indication that Gore won the election.)

This CNN article is typical of the reports on the NORC recount study. The headline and the first few paragraphs tell you that Bush still would have won -- but if you read the entire article you'll find that they examined several possible scenarios, some of favored Bush and some of which favored Gore.

We've been told repeatedly, by people who should know better, that we should just "get over it". We do need to move on (there's no realistic hope of correcting the results of the 2000 election) but I will not "get over it". There is no statute of limitations for stealing a Presidential election.

Here's a question that I'm mulling over as a result of reading the synopsis of this article. With all the literary and cinematic works that have been made which deal with a Big Brother-like state [for lack of a shorter term], why is it that the governments of the world are still able to move in the directions outlined in those works? It seems like no matter how embedded in our culture the idea that certain traits of governments are bad and that we must rally against them, these traits continue to crop up. Consider this, has the U.S. become more or less like the vision of 1984 since publication?

I have been thinking about that quite a bit, lately, in part because I am reading Social Justice in Islam by Qutb (see this Salon article for why).

It seems to me the answer -- and a very overlooked and under-appreciated answer it is -- is that totalitarianism is massively seductive, even to the average man on the street.

Those of us who self-conceive as outsiders -- whether because of ethnicity, religion, sexuality, eccentricity, etc. -- we look to conformism as an obvious threat. But to people who self-conceive as "normal", who take identity and comfort from their "averageness", who enjoy majority privilege and a sense of entitlement, conformity looks comforting and comfortable.

Totalitarianism is, really, the ultimate dream of conformity -- state imposed, pushishable-by-death conformity. That idea has considerable appeal to people who consider themselves safely within the mainstream. Not only is it not any skin off their nose if a few statistical outliers get trampled, they see it as a relief -- whether emotional or finanacial.

Totalitarianism is inevitably sold as a panacea. Totalitarian movements sell themselves by presenting a vision of how, if everyone just co-operated, transcended their differences, were willing to submit themselves to a little bit of hardship and sacrifice, they could improve the Commonweath -- to build heaven on earth. If we all just pulled together, we could feed all the hungry, eliminate crime, cure disease, and be ensured a pleasant afterlife appropriate deity.

That's a seductive vision. It's even more seductive to people who have an unconsidered conviction that they, being good, loyal citizens doing their part for the the common good, would not be the people who would have to make significant sacrifices. Indeed someone who thinks they are an "average guy" looks at those people who object to going along with the totalitarian regime and resents bitterly that he is going to be deprived of the good life by some weirdo going on about a right to privacy.

Bill Gates loves to talk about the economic transformation that is happening in China. - "China is just in a league of its own and it's like no one else is paying attention" . I wonder does it bug him that the transformation is happening mostly on pirated software?

As it is happening 92% with pirated software - what does that say about software's role in economic development? Go out and pirate - 75-cent copies of XP and Office for everyone! Perhaps developing countries should mandate piracy?

Bill Gates and Steve Balmer are smart men. Why aren't they and Microsoft forcing the software piracy issue like they have done in Taiwan? Presumably they are not doing it out of goodwill. If they did we would see large write-offs on the donations in the MS Annual Report.

The real driver is that Microsoft wants to get market share to lock-in the market. In ten years time when China is far wealthier their lawyers will come calling - much like they have done in Taiwan. Despite China's "one china" policy - Microsoft obviously has a three-china intellectual property protection policy (HK, Taiwan, & Mainland).

This smacks of illegal dumping. Dump your product on the country to effectively eliminate the chance of any local competition appearing and shut out your competitors. Once the country can afford to pay the $1000 a user MS Office + MS CAL + MS XP fees send in the lawyers. The switching costs at that point will be too high and they will be forced to pay. This is exactly what Microsoft did in Taiwan - supposedly a part of China.

What should developing countries do? Sue Microsoft for dumping. How can the company be held accountable for the actions of other people selling pirated products? In Canada recently, Tobacco Companies were held accountable for allowing smuggled tobacco to be illegally dumped from the US. Microsoft is playing an equally sinister game. It is obvious that Microsoft will in the long gain from piracy in China, much like a company illegally dumping products below cost can profit in the long term.

Software piracy is the number one problem for Linux and Open Source software in developing countries and something must be done about it.

Boy, I'm sure glad you straightened me out on that one. I was under the mistaken impression that the music industry was still deeply involved in payola, only now using "independ agents" to pass the money to the stations in an end-run against the FCC rules that forbid it. I was under the mistaken imperssion that the payola problem was so bad now that rather than a few bucks under the table, it's openly tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and has the direct effect of keeping independent artists releases from being played, only the songs of the major recording companys being able to afford air time. Thanks for setting me straight, I was confused about this just like most of the news industry including ABC News and Salon, as well as the 1600+ other hits you get when you type clear channel and payola into google.

I'm glad to know that if a man is a public speaker and a golfer and has produced offspring then he must be an honest and good person, too. I didn't know that. I can now eat any price the industry demands, even if the stores would want to charge less but are stopped by the RIAA'a Minimum Advertised Price , and not be concerned that it's just a form of illegal price fixing . Some might think the whole industry is run by a bunch of crooks, but an Anonymous Coward telling us that the ringleader has white hair certainly dispells that thought.

And this is why Clear Channel and all the rest of them are kissing up to the current government. Michael Powell, Colin Powell's son head up the FCC. Now with this big bill coming up, and nepotism at it's extreme throughout the current government, everyone has to kiss ass.

I have no doubt what-so-ever that they will loosen the restrictions, and eventually the radio stations will come down to two different conglomerates owning 95% of all stations.

If you're thinking they're gonna realise this and do anything about it, remember that this is the administration that basically gave microsoft a slap on the wrist.

When Clinton was bombing Baghdad the day of his impeachment, where were the protesters? Where were the demonstractions? Where where the cries of "career politician?"

The liberals sure love to be cynical when it's not their administration anymore.

The last article was blocked by my school's filter!

• Oooh! What the fuck? Their press-release is written as if its a drama. Now we gague how offensive a product is on the
• # of clicks?
  Surely Amazon is also lining up to sue these kids. They stole their valuable intellectual property!
  

But I wonder if it really has to cost $500k to produce an album. How much did it cost Wilco to produce "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot?" According to this article it cost $300k. But according to this story, it only cost $85k.

The labels have until now had a cartel on album production, which has kept both production and distribution prices artificially high. So if you can cut production costs and cut distribution costs, why do you need the labels at all?

Ah, for promotion!

But what if you're not one of the top ten stars in a label's roster? What sort of promotion do you get? Go into a music store and see how many of the hundreds of artists whose albums are on the shelves actually have any promotional posters or other advertising. The percentage is quite small.

So again I ask, why does anyone need the labels?

There's always the "Bill Gates is tracking this email" nonsense, but I think the best long-term one is the hunt for the fortune or Sir Francis Drake.

Here's more info:

article at Salon

I've been doing a lot of reading on the singularity lately, and I've become more and more convinced that it is certain to happen.

The beauty of the situation, of course, is that there should be nothing anyone can do to stop violent gaming, at least for adults. Our lovely Bill of Rights protects forms of expression like video games...barring stupid, myopic federal court decisions.