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Piracy vs. Privacy: MP3, Microsoft And Real People
Napster, Mp3s, & Burning CDs
I download MP3s. I burn MP3s to CD. I do not burn complete albums to CDs; I buy those, but I love to make compilation CDs. I also love the inserts and lyrics and stats on the band that come with purchasing a CD; nothing can replace that. Is that so dishonest?
I don't see what I do as so horribly wrong. I buy about three CDs per month, and I use about two BMG subscriptions per year, so I am legally purchasing between 30 and 50 CDs per year, which is a very significant portion of my income. (College income sucks, you know.) Before MP3s, I bought maybe ten CDs per year, but I made about the same amount of money.
Hmm. What's going on here? Could it be that my interests have changed? I think not. I've always loved music, and I've always had the money to buy it. The difference is, now that MP3s make it possible to hear music that horrible local radio stations would never allow me to hear, I am exposed to literally hundreds of different bands and scores of styles of music that I wasn't before. I find out about new stuff that isn't played locally, I download a few singles from the album -- and if it's worth buying, I somehow find the CD and buy it. If the album sucks, but one or two songs are good, I'll download them to my hard drive and possibly burn them to a CD of random songs that fit into that "like the song, not the album" category. Is that so wrong?
The Napster issue has been blown way out of proportion, and the music industry (read: RIAA) is only in it for money. CDs are overpriced as they are, and the price is only rising, yet people are buying more and more!
Conclusion: Napster has not only not hurt CD sales or the music industry, but I would also argue that Napster has even helped the music industry by allowing millions of users a much greater exposure to music in general, thus the increase in CD sales. Sure, CD singles sales are bound to drop, but with full albums and MP3 singles, what's so bad about that? We're not screwing them over; the music industry is screwing itself. And they're not the only ones.
The Windows milleu for real people
I never buy a brand new OS, ever. They are severely overpriced, and only businesses with their business budgets can really afford to buy them. What I do is buy Windows OSes that are a little over a year old, usually, and I get them pre-installed on a new system.
- August 1996: bought a Pentium 166 with Windows 95.
- September 1998: bought a Pentium II 300 with Windows 98.
- August 2000: bought an Athlon T'bird 800 with Windows Me.
Note that each of the above systems were fast for their time, but not the fastest, and Windows wasn't brand new (except perhaps Me) when I bought the systems, so I got great performance for decent prices.
However, when Windows 95 began to destroy my 166, I upgraded it to Windows 98 using my 300's Win98 disc. And when my dad took the 300 back in September (he let me have the fast one; yay!), he upgraded to WinMe using my system's disc. We have spent several hundreds of dollars for Windows on each computer, why should upgrading and duplicating our newer OSes be considered wrong in any way? We have paid for the products that we have. We have three Windows OSes and three systems. Let us configure them how we like. I don't think Microsoft has a problem with that.
Upgrading an OS should not cost $80, or even $40. If I buy Windows Me, and Microsoft brings out Windows Me2 [heh] a year later, a very minimal fee or no fee at all should be required to upgrade to Me2. This is already somewhat implemented through Windows Update online.)
And applications? Some applications can be priced at up to $600 for a single CD. As if someone of college age has $600 to spend on a CD. I suggest that some of these applications drop in price -- like down to $60. There we go!
Closing Arguments
WPA (Windows Product Activation) is not a bad thing. It is meant to protect Microsoft's investment in its own endeavors. Microsoft is a software developer (among other things) and has the right to implement such a feature on their own software. When we have cold, hard proof of abuse of such features, that is when we should lash out in defense. Until then, let's not get bent out of shape over hypotheticals, okay?
This is _seriously_ debatable. You are overstating things ridiculously. IP is not _alienable_: as the distribution costs drop to next to nothing, the inherent value of IP drops as well. In the future, IP as such will mean nothing. What IP says about what you are able to create will mean everything. It will be a 'record club' world where, just like RIAA 'record clubs', you get nothing whatsoever out of the distribution of your IP (you _are_ aware the artists get nothing from those?) except for the publicity in an increasingly competitive battle for people's attention.
Furthermore, it's astonishing to see anyone on this side of the year 2000 blithely state that "The more we respect intellectual property, the more of it will be available for us to enjoy and use at reasonable prices". Have you been paying any attention at all to the increasingly crazy world of patents and IP rights? It is absolutely self-evident that there is a limit to how much we should respect intellectual property. We may disagree on where that limit is, but to suggest that 'more respect' is always better is astonishing and deeply questionable. In effect, it completely discounts the idea of social benefit and a public domain. This is unacceptable thinking.
Before you characterise Napster as handguns and copying as theft, you had better look at record clubs, promotion, and ask yourself how much the record company pays to proliferate and publicise musicians through those means, versus how much (0$) the record company pays to have listeners swapping tunes over Napster while paying the bill for the networking themselves.
If you object that the record company controls the former and does not get to control the latter... then you're getting very close to the real issue... but also close to the long history of record company involvement with the Mafia and organized crime, in exerting this control over radio and other media. You see, it's not necessarily a good thing to have that kind of control...
It's a peculiar sort of mindset that insists, "This $600 CD has the same value as this $600 computer!" when a buck's worth of plastic and cyanine dye can perfectly duplicate the former, and it'd take years of labor and piles of electronic parts to perfectly duplicate the latter- if you even could, I don't think I could build computer PC boards from scratch.
God help us when we manage to invent the Star Trek Replicator: owning one will be punishable by death. So you want to use it to replicate soup to feed your family? NO SOUP FOR YOU! :P
Yes, most college students can't afford $800 for a product such as Mathcad professional.
They should price it at like 1/6th that cost, like maybe $130!
Then maybe students could afford it. They'd learn to use it and when they graduated they might be inclined to suggest the company they work for buy it.
Oh wait, these companies already offer educational pricing...
But it's still a good argument for why they do it!
Yep, I'm with you. It doesn't affect me in the slightest. I don't use windows, and if a windows app doesn't run under Wine, I don't use it. But for the general (and for the most part, ignorant) population, it's a nightmare. They're not aware that their rights are being eroded and the things they used to do in the past (quite legitimately, as fair use) they will no longer be able to do. The worst bit is, they won't even become aware of it until it's too late.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
But RIAA and similar organisations do a lot to show that if you don't buy their CDs then you are a marginal, an outlaw, a freak, a antisocial abortion. Come on! You know how millions of kids are poisoned by MTVs and radio stations to buy another major singer or run for another major hit. And tell me, under these hunts after mp3.com and similars, which somehow supported independent artists, what are the remaining alternatives? Everyone needs society and society demands that you go for Manchester United, Barcelona or Chicago Bulls. Noooo, of course you are free to choose. But are these things really a choice? After I saw two member meetings at a major european club I just stopped seeing soccer at all. It is too disgusting. And that makes me an alien...
Stop playing the "good citizen" game ok? You perfectly know that we are dealing with companies who are far from being ethical. Your argumentation even shows this. You mention "overpricing". Now Mr. "Good citizen" please tell me who they overprice? The all-abstract miserable consumer? No, they overprice what I, you and Tim buy. And you perfectly know that they do not overprice for the cents but over the dollars. And this income usually does not go to artists pockets but to those of their "protectors": record companies and agents.
Frankly your comment is the typical face of that mirror that RIAA and alikes try to put on the consumer. Yeah, well CDs are overpriced but it is bad to pirate them. So RIAA and Co. can rob me and other consumers by the millions of dollars, but I should go to jail to for making an unauthorised copy costing a few dollars... XXI century Charles Dickens somewhere?
Spaniards also claimed that gold can be only of their own, but pirates should be hanged... If England had accepted such rule of the game, then the USA would be speaking spanish today. And it would have been name EUA.
You actually have the only right that matters. The right that copying can be done. Without a law, or disregarding the law, it is.
That law is trying to control natural behaviour.
Who the hell do they think they are to regulate the actions of the people by calling upon the government and their backing of deadly force?
Copyright law is a TRADE between the 'people' and the 'producers', saying that we offer them protection (which they could not expect otherwise) in trade for them producing things which we get limited access to for a while, then the full NATURAL access to.
Every idea is based off of other ones. Nobody is where they are today truly on their own. They didn't invent the language they use, the insturments they use, these are all ideas they get from the rest of society, for free, so why do they have the right to forbid other people access to their ideas?
They don't. If they don't live up to their end of the bargain, as the people wanted it, and they bribe politicians to pass stupid copyright extensions, they lose the right to claim anything. Copyright is mutually beneficial, or was. If it stops being that way, why should the people still be bound by it when the producers aren't?
Furthermore, RIAA does NOT represent artists' interests AT ALL. They represent record companies, and they buy legislation that HARMS artists (see the "work for hire" rider in the Satellite Home Viewing Improvement Act). These are the people that, by locking up the market as a cartel, demand onerous contracts in exchange for "access" to the payola market, without which an artist gets no coordinated radio exposure and no career. While it may be ethical to pay for music, the balance of evils clearly favors cutting the RIAA members out of the deal.
Why are Americans these days such unquestioning tools? Mama's-boys don't keep a free country free, and you sure aren't helping.
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
what kind of stuff do you have? email me if you want to trade.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
I suggest that some of these applications drop in price -- like down to $60. There we go!
ms offers most of their applications to students via educational discounts. not that i want to pimp off ms or anything, but if you are a student you can get (or could get when i used ms stuff) visual studio, office, etc. for about $100 each. here at university of pittsburgh they have a deal with ms. you can walk into any computer labs flash your id and walk out with office, vstudio, windows upgrades, and some other stuff. so the point is that it can be really cheap for students-free (as in beer) for some and still legal.
you still shouldnt use something that is free as in speech in my opinion.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
ah, but there is another facet of the capitalist system which you are missing - the ability to create your own toy, with your own rules.
This is definitely true of the "consumer-grade" stuff these companies put out, but don't lump Vectras and Deskpros in with Pavilions and Presarios (and Brios, which are rebadged Pavilions for the most part). The business-grade stuff is somewhat better. (Nothing beats building your own, unless you need to send a computer a couple thousand miles to a remote location. If it breaks on the other side of the country, it's cheaper to call IBM, Compaq, or whoever and have them send their people out than to hop on a plane and fix a homebrew box.)
You must be joking. Back when I fixed computers for The Man, I always dreaded taking in Dells. I got the impression that they took whatever seconds Intel had that week and slapped them together into something that resembled a computer. Upgrading them and fixing them was a cast-iron b*tch compared to nearly anything else. I would rather have worked on Packard Bells...at least they didn't pretend to be high-end, and if you worked on enough of them, you could figure out their quirks and deal with them reasonably well.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Darn, I thought this was gonna be about that funny show NBC used to have in the late '70s.
Boy you could just cut the sexual tension between Sarah Purcell and Skip Stephenson!
Sound redundant? It is as is most of the comments on this whole Napster/RIAA issue. AgentX argues Napster is good AgentY argues it's evil.
I use Napster to often find the names of a song because I expect to buy the album and I want to be sure that I'm buying the correct album so I don't look like an ass or a thief returning it (thief being the record store is likely to hink I bought it burned it and am now returning it... I live in a big city)
So why should I not be allowed to look for songs in this method? I'm sure there are a slew of others who use Napster for similar reasons, adding validity for the uses of Napster. The whole argument is beginning to become a waste of time because when the shit hits the fan, no one is listening. Coincidently record sales have increased and not decreased since the inception of Napster.
Could it be that more people actually are using the same methods I described, hearing a cool song on Napster and buying it? Its possible but we'll never know, since the RIAA is now attempting to create its own Napster-style service for those that don't know, which is an underhanded method of calling a criminal a criminal when your doing the same shit, so any arguments can be rebutted with ease when you look at things from all perspectives.
Want Root?
It's their decision to make -- what's more important to them, time or money? And, of course, whether or not they *need* the upgrade in the first place -- and the answer is not an automatic yes.
And even if they go the Linux/BSD/etc route, nothing says that the effort has to be done by themselves.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Did you read the license agreement that your University / College had to sign? I attend the University of Chicago, and we, too, have an educational agreement with Microsoft. However, before I thought about buying software, I took a look at the license that our computing organization put out about it. According to the license, if I were to buy the Microsoft software using via this educational agreement, I would be forced to give back the software at the end of my undergraduate time here! Long story made short: I decided not to purchase the software, even with the drastic markdown in price. Make sure you read all of the pertinent licenses.
In 1992 Congress passed the Audio Home Recording Act to (and this is off the RIAA site) "ease access to advanced digital audio recording technologies". Isn't that exactly what we are doing? I am much like Crashnbur, I am a college kid, who's music purchases has gone up simply because we can hear music that the commercial radio stations aren't playing. I buy ~30 cds a year, I rip them, I burn them to MP3 CDs, and I take them with me. Isn't this exactly what Congress foresaw? I think this is, or at least should be, well within our "fair use" rights.
-OctaneZ
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
I agree. Why is this an article? At first, it sounded like a troll, but later in the text it just sounded like a college kid trying to get moral absolution to pirate software and download music.
According to the "submit article" thing, there are 162 articles in the queue, and this gets posted?
Hey Crashnbur, among the people who decide what becomes an article on Slashdot, whose ass do you have pictures of?
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I can't believe Slashdot refuses to run a lot of very newsworthy pieces, but they publish this crap.
I don't agree with the author at all, but I've seen much better essays that actually gave decent, well thought out arguments for these positions rather than the "I can't afford [insert application here], so therefore it must be overpriced" nonsense this person is offering.
when they go to the local chain store, not only will they be forced into the latest upgrade, but also not be informed of alternatives (Linux/BSD/etc) to the package they have signed into for their great rebates to afford their new toy.
This is ludicrous. When I go the local chain, they have numerous copies of various flavors of Unix on the shelves next to the Windows OS.
Average people like me don't buy Linux not because it's not available but a) it doesn't have the application support I need and b) it's still too complex to install/maintain for a desktop OS.
my god man! Someone who understands a free market economy! Copying music / software is *PRICE COMPETITION* in a monopoly market.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
You'll be able to ahve them but you'll have to pay a royalty to the campbels soup consortium ... :)
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
The other artists you mentioned are on major labels (RIAA members).
It's probably true that artists (well let's face it, companies) resting on their back catalogs have the most to fear from Napster. But in the end I think society is better off if artists actually create art to get paid.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Jive claims to be "part of the Zomba Group of Companies which is the world's largest independent music company" on their website, which oddly enough is hosted on getmusic.com, which is owned by Universal. But the MAXIMUMROCKNROLL "Who Owns Who" chart puts them under BMG as you suggested.
However, all the references to No Limit I can find on the web connect them to Virgin, which would put them under EMI/Capitol. One would think if they were owned by a major they could afford a better website, though. And you were right about it being P, not Snoop.
Thanks for setting me straight. Records labels are some fucked up shit, you know?
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Sure, it takes some training and study in order to install and maintain a really useful open source computer. And that is the true worth of commercial software: if you are unwilling to spend time studying in order to be able to install and use open source software, then you should pay for someone to sell you a computer with pre-configured software, or for self-installing software that don't need all that "tar xzvf file.tar.gz; cd directory; ./configure; make; make install" stuff.
True. Compare what artists get from live presentations to what they get from recordings, and you will see that it's the recording that brings the cash rolling, not the performance itself. The dream of every musician at the start of his/her career is to record a song. So it's fair and reasonable that the recording industry gets the lion's share.
The companies can't do without the programmer. They will have nothing to sell. However, the college student can do without the CD. There's always something else available for him. Supply, meet mr. Demand. Watch him go away if you cost too much.
First off, excellent article - it's a bit like preaching to the converted, but nonetheless, a solid bit. A few things though:
;)
Napster has not only not hurt CD sales or the music industry, but I would also argue that Napster has even helped the music industry by allowing millions of users a much greater exposure to music in general, thus the increase in CD sales. Sure, CD singles sales are bound to drop, but with full albums and MP3 singles, what's so bad about that? We're not screwing them over; the music industry is screwing itself. And they're not the only ones.
True enough, but it's also just as easy to preview music using cdnow, amazon, etc - any of the online shops with streaming audio versions of the albums. It's also cheaper, if you decide to buy anything.
And applications? Some applications can be priced at up to $600 for a single CD. As if someone of college age has $600 to spend on a CD. I suggest that some of these applications drop in price -- like down to $60. There we go!
You said you're a college student - as long as you're still enrolled, you're eligible to purchase academic versions of software for about 50-75% off. Photoshop 6 is around $250 that way. I personally use micromaster (here) And not everyone needs photoshop
-arbitrary
However, they are careful to dance around inconsistancies, as well as nicely avoiding actually taking responsibility for anything wrong that they might be doing themselves.
The result is a pleasant mishmash of fractured logic.
The problem not spotted is that there are several layers and levels of non-ethical behavior here on the part of all concerned.
You have
- the business and marketing practices of MS. In a perfect world, MS would get fair exchange for their work and their products, and they would not see possible independance from the MS as a deathly threat to them. The flaw in the MS model is that anyone who is getting ahead who is not under their control is viewed as a threat, or a competitor. MS talks about the danger of competition. The problem here is that a number of MS flacks take this to the level approaching paranoia.
- As above for MS, but instead insert the recording and film industries.
- The individual patron of the arts and of computer products, has the ethical problem of how to deal fairly and rightly with business that have adopted some of the mafia mentality, and who have bought the law makers so that ripoffs are considered fair business practice under the law (the copyright act, etc)
It is no consolation that under innumerable religious systems such people, no matter how much they explain away their deeds and misdeeds, condemn themselves to any number of the commonly described hells, many of their own making.It is also very inviting to go ahead and go along with the petty ripoffs, because the system has been set up this way. And many common actions have been suddenly made illegal under this abusive system. this is a trap by itself.
The real ethical quandry lies in not recognizing the ethical trap that has been sprung. and then, to step into it, and then to explain away everything you are doing because of all thos bad men over there.
The real ethical solution is to recognize the trap, not step into it, and to then work with others to make a better system that is truly fair and not booby trapped for the benefit of the greedy.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
We, the listeners and "consumers" of music, suffer. Where I live, the top 19 FM radio properties are owned by 3 companies. (Infinity owns one, the rest are split between Capital Cities and Clear Channel) The situation has degenerated to the point that I simply cannot listen to radio anymore. There are only 4 stations that aren't explicitly oldies or c&w. And of those 4, 3 are Urban Pop and the fourth plays 80% old material while screaming that it's committed to "new music, new names".
It's not a coincidence that the lead singer for Coldplay sound like Dave Matthews. It's not chance that the recent Train single sounds like Hootie and the Blowfish (albeit with a full string section... ish!).
It's gotten so bad that I was actually going to write a (paper) letter to the PD of the last remaining listenable station. Only, in web-searching for her name, I turned up an interview on the Gavin site where she was discussing the consequences of aiming "downmarket" in the station's demographic. She shrugged off the upmarket attrition as a natural consequence. It left me seething.
Triple-A stations are all aiming for post-teeners. There are no more progressive stations. Listeners like me are completely disenfranchised and the industry simply doesn't care.
</rant>
Sorry... this has been pissing me off for a while, and I just had to get it out.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
If the average user is able to send email to Aunt Ethyl with the mess-that-is-Outlook, then these same people should have no problem using, say, Kmail (KDE's included email client).
Crashnbur is hardly the dunce of a user that you describe. Just by reading his rant I can see that: he downloads, he burns CDs, and he actually cares about computing upgrades. The high-priced software he speaks of is likely development software. He should have very little difficulty trying out Linux on his desktop. I think my suggestion to him was valid.
-Justin
Can we not use UCITA to our advantage, claiming that we were nearly forced to purchase Windows under duress? I'm sure that wouldn't bode well with the DOJ. We had no choice at the time of purchase of a new system to say "I'd like that operating system you sell over there on the shelf instead, yes I'll pay for it." I'm not talking ordering out of a catalog I'm talking retail where a whole heap of computers get sold. (I build my own systems btw)
Huh? The RIAA is the paralegal arm of the recording/distribution companies. They don't give a rat's arse about artists, and most artists whore away the copyright of their tracks to their publishers. The issue is We the People vs five publishing megacorps.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This is what i've been saying all along about Napster. MP3s are great, and i have a lot of them, but they will never replace the real albums. I have 160 CDs, which means i've paid (doing a bit of averaging) about $2000 for cds... oh, did i mention, that before i began using Napster, i had about 12?
:)
Sure there are abuse cases.. anyone can abuse anything. But this doesn't mean that EVERYONE freeloads! Down with Generalizations!
To smash a single atom, all mankind was intent / Now any day the atom may return the compliment
It doesn't matter whether you burning MP3's onto a CD, or using Napster, helps or hurts the music industry, despite what Lars says. That's not the issue. The issue is: Are artists / programmers / whomever allowed to create a product, and then distribute a product as they see fit. My arguement is yes. If artists don't want their art used for something, even if it promotes their cause, they should be able to restrict it's distribution to what they want. For instance: If a painter creates a picture of a landscape or something, and sells the images as prints, for a price... can't he build some sort of license agreement, whereas if you purchase this picture, you promise not to photocopy and distribute it?
The problem is, it is very easy now to duplicate art... and all the artists are saying is, "let us control how it is used. We made it, after all" ... I hate the RIAA, too... because it's acting like some lawmaking body, and it's not. But I support people who wish to sign their art over to companies to help sell it. I support people who work hard and want a fair market, where their work won't be stolen or used without their consent. I don't think that I'm being unreasonable.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
"I am exposed to literally hundreds of different bands and scores of styles of music that I wasn't before."
Better for the industry to buy, own, and pimp a small number of BubbleGum androids. Hoes cost money you know, do you want to put all those Indi groups on YOUR payroll? You can only consolidate so much though, then your alternative bitch becomes mainstream pop, and you have to go find a new Insane Clowne Posse to sell out and make money for you.
Anyone who really prefers the self-serving whining that the doubtless noisome slashdottie wrote... well, I pity y'all, okay? Now run along and go ferment in the street like good trailer park trash.
How they can imagine that they'll ever grow up to be good coders with such sloppy habits of thought...
Adobe, however, has done an unusually terrible job of this. The smart thing to do would be to remove the fine color control needed for professional printing. Those of us dumping photos to our inkjets wouldn't give a crap. The second smart thing to do would be to remove really slick controls for reducing image size, to separate out the web developers. They didn't do these things.
Instead, they ignored the first smart thing, and screwed up the second smart thing (first by putting it in a separate product, Image Ready). Instead, they've produced special Adobe Photo Extra Lite Dumbass Express for Losers products that get bundled with other apps or products (like digital cameras). I'd be surprised if those are really profitable. So Joe College wants "real" Photoshop so that he can actually do something cool. So he pirates it, making Photoshop one of the most pirated products ever.
And once someone makes an Aqua port of The Gimp, Adobe will have lost the best way to make millions instead of losing them. Hell, the Gimp has better JPEG export control than I remember using on Photoscrap. Screw that, I'll use The Gimp.
A bit more on-topic; the direction XP is etching in stone for Microsoft isn't all terrible, but a few years from now, OS X has the ability to make Windows seem like a very, very downmarket product. Trailer park computing.
This is more likely if Apple does two things; hustle to get games out on OS X, and be very, very nice to developers. Which pretty much comes down to the same thing; be very nice to developers. Keep decent developer tools available for free or damn cheap. Don't make crazy power plays with them by keeping it clear what is part of the OS and what is free territory.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
The article starts with a very good, yet oft-stated point about mp3s and Napster. That is, the only reason why the RIAA could possibly be upset at the habits of mp3 users is that they're obsessed with gouging us as much as possible... mp3 files don't reduce album sales, they simply help people avoid bad purchases (and sometimes help them make better ones too).
Then he rants about MS and their OS pricing policy - actually, he's not happy with ANY company that sells an OS, he feels they're all too expensive. He states that he does pay for them, but only once and with the intent of using them multiple times. This is apples to oranges when compared to the first story... the first story should have been something about wanting the right to buy a CD and make copies to keep in the car, at work, at home, backup, etc...
Then the third point has nothing to do with the other two, and philosophically disagrees with the first two: WPA has the indirect effect of removing the priviledges that he expects in the first two stories!
Perhaps the author should try posting three separate, complete, philisophically agreeing essays about each topic rather than provide us a grab bag of snippets. I would be more interested in seeing that.
Ah, if we could only moderate stories posted to the front page... there's some good stories on the main page that need some bumping up today.
your answer is... the us is nowhere near free market and getting worse because of all the new laws which regulate the economy.
I got my OS free, too. Oh... wait...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You call for the removal of government from the economic system completely. False. Deregulation has been negative in almost every case. Do you remember why government got involved in the first place? Because people were eating rat meat and doing nothing about it. Are you aware of the fact that if you buy a piece of children's sleepwear, that you have no way of knowing if it's flame retardant or not? A decade ago you knew it would be, because it's required. Today, it's not required, nor is it required that it be labeled. That's what the removal of government does.
I will agree with you that the current legal system is grossly flawed. But the answer is not to remove the law and the government. It is to alter the law (not expand, alter) to make it less biased towards the manipulator, towards the glutton, and towards the finagler.
The control-freaks know that. Witness the DMCA, the UITCA, the Napster lawsuit, the 2600 lawsuit, and so on. They know how to abuse the legal system and its holes for their own ends. Don't abandon the government. Don't pull the law out of it, because you can't. That's called anarchy, and then nobody wins.
Do your part to plug the holes in the law, and to fix the problems. If the problem is the law, you don't try and fix it through a boycott (aka "voting with your dollars"). You fix a legal problem through the legal system. That means get up off your arse, stop whining on newsboards that no one in a position of power reads, get involved in your own government, and get people elected who will work to fix the problems in the system. If you can't find one, run yourself. Government is YOU.
Yes, candidates are bought, by campaign contributions for advertising to automitons who will vote for whoever gives the best sales pitch. That is, the best marketing. Use the system right back. Ignore the marketing, get behind a candidate you support, and push. Campaign. We have a popularly elected government. If you let it create loopholes for control-freaks and conglomerates to abuse, then it is no one's fault but your own. That is what I mean by fighting back through the law. Not by removing it, but by altering it to be protective, rather than abusive.
--GrouchoMarx
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
I don't see what I do as so horribly wrong. I buy about three CDs per month, and I use about two BMG subscriptions per year, so I am legally purchasing between 30 and 50 CDs per year, which is a very significant portion of my income
:)
It's my understanding that BMG and other record clubs don't pay the artists for those albums, but chalk them up as a marketing expense. I could be wrong, but I thought I remembered reading that. Doesn't really matter how many you buy - you're still taking stuff that isn't yours. My own use of Napster has been pretty limited to searching out bootlegs and live copies of stuff that I CAN'T buy, but even then, I'm pretty hypocritical.
And applications? Some applications can be priced at up to $600 for a single CD. As if someone of college age has $600 to spend on a CD. I suggest that some of these applications drop in price -- like down to $60. There we go!
As many other people pointed out, you get college discounts. One of the guys who used to work here had a son in college - he got MS Office for something like $50. The guy here was asking why we didn't use Office. I told him what it costs for me as a small business owner to go buy it retail. He said I should just go to the university and try to buy the $50 copy.
Further to the point, however, is that just because you can't afford it doesn't mean it should be cheaper. Do you have any idea how long it might have taken to develop that $600 package? It's not priced on a whim - generally there's some research or surveying of the marketplace to see what they can charge, but there's a cost of development that has to be recouped as well.
Some applications can be priced at up to $600 for a single CD.
DON'T USE THE SOFTWARE THEN. Is there some mandate in your life that you HAVE to use that package? Will your existance end if you don't? It's probably geared toward a business. When you start working for one, if they have a need to use that package, they will provide it for you.
For goodness' sake, there's too much good FREE stuff out there already - free in the legal sense - to whine about high-priced stuff. If you want the $600 package, get a job, save your money, and buy it.
creation science book
It also seems to be a little bit conflicted. "Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to charge for multiple installs" but "Microsoft should implement restrictive technological measures to potentially allow for this" seems conflicted. I guess this guy really doesn't want the government telling him whether it's ok to use multiple copies, but he's ok if Microsoft does it the same?
And by the way, there's nothing wrong with jumping the gun expressing your concern with a new feature that a company is putting into their product. That's the best way to send them a message that they are likely to encounter customer resistance, and maybe they might want to reconsider before committing themselves-- staying silent and waiting until it's a done deal does nobody any good.
And who are you to know how much things should cost? This is, after all, a free market. If you think something is too expensive, you can go ahead and record your own music, write your own operating system, and give it away. Or find someone who did exactly that.
How did it get promoted to an article?
:)
Hugs, Cyke
Ok, after sounding like a flamebait, let me apologise and congratulate the author on this interesting comment.
Now, I justify why I consider it overrated:
It... is... too... superficial. Do not understand me wrongly. All I mean is that it is so light headed that all its points become just as simple as any average >3 comment on RIAA articles in slashdot.
Hey, Crashnbur, please reedit, make it longer, more to the point and make it a comment!
Closing Arguments
Closing argments? Where were the opening arguments? What was the question?
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
How did this make a headline story? I'm not sure that you read this before posting it Timothy, or if you did then you have just as much a distorted view as this kid.
For one, it doesn't matter how many CDs you purchase a year it doesn't justify pirating ANY amount of other music. Sure, CDs are overpriced and that's not good but you are still depriving the artist of their well deserved income. Buying 30 CDs a year doesn't mean anything to an artist whos CD you -didn't- buy.
I agree that by downloading random tracks you might come across something you like and go out and buy that CD. But realistically (across a good spectrum of Napster users) how often did this happen? I know that I usually target music that I -know- I have heard and like rather than wasting time downloading random tracks.
While the RIAA may be protecting a large income, they do also happen to stand for a lot of artists. Without the RIAA, how the hell would any amount of artists got where they are today? Music piracy would be rampant, and there would be no controlled way to licence the playing of music to the masses. All governing bodies have some amount of evil, and it's easy to overlook the good when all you care about is what they are depriving you of (free music).
What makes you think that Micorosoft should give away upgrades to their software, simply because you personally gauge the price to be too high? I know it's a fair whack, but to think that you are getting all that product (consider the developer's time that went in to making this stuff) and you just think you are welcome to free upgrades? Try that at your local car dealer...(I hate to use that analogy.. but everyone else seems to relate to it all the time...). And then, you go on to say that WPA is not a bad thing and it's Microsoft's right to include it. Two faced?
Everyone's entitled to an opinion I guess, but this is clearly just a college kid that's pissed he doesn't get enough pocket money. Hardly ground breaking news Tim.
Seriously... you like to burn CDs? Go burn yourself a GNU/Linux ISO.
-Justin
I think that the above scenarios are certainly likely to be found legal (within limits) if tried, which is why Microsoft and other software companies back UCITA. I see the license verification program that Microsoft has chosen to impliment as an attempt to technologically do what they have been unable to get lawmakers to pass-- complete enforcement of licensing practices.
I think that this is a good thing. It gives people more incentive to use open source if UCITA continues to flounder (or if passed at least except Linux from mandatory warrantee clauses). It also shows the courts that Microsoft is in the face of stiff competition only from the secondary software market (i.e. piracy) meaning that they are, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I have a whole collection of vintage punk records on vinyl. They're scratched to hell, and I'd love to have them on CD quality, except that the record companies rarely release them on CD format. And when they do, I don't feel like paying royalties a second time for records I already bought once. So I'll just download them as MP3s.
But think about the copy protection issues a little closer. If I record an original mp3, like for example, I want to sing Happy Birthday to my niece and email it to my sister so she can play it on her computer to my niece, with content protection, I'd have to buy a license from Microsoft to allow the mp3 to run on a different machine. And Paul McCartney would certainly want a royalty too, he owns the music performance rights to the Happy Birthday song!
The RIAA's accountants know that their profits have increased in the past few years. The RIAA's lawyers know that their profits have increased in the past few years. But there are people out there that are not using officially sanctioned music in officially sanctioned ways at officially sanctioned times with officially sanctioned equipment. That means there are people out there who are not under the control of the company, the mythical "consumer." This cannot be tollerated.
Microsoft has been making money hand over fist for two decades. Someone installing WinME on three of their computers when they bought one copy is not doing them any harm. If anything, it means fewer copies of Win98 in use, which means less old stuff for them to support. That's good for them. But it means that there are people out there not using the product in the officially sanctioned way on the officially sanctioned number of systems. Microsoft (and Bill Gates in particular) simply cannot deal with the concept of someone not using the product on their terms.
All of that goes back to one of the fundamental flaws in the capitalist mindset: The consumer. The mythical consumer is not a person. The mythical consumer is a machine that stands on the other side of a cash register and accepts input (products) and returns output (pictures of George Washington). They can be reduced to a mathematical equation of supply and demand. They can be manipulated by marketing. They can be made to fit into nice little cells on a spreadsheet. In short, the consumer can be controlled.
It fits nicely into the whole financial theory. Passive object Consumer (C) is convinced by active object Marketing Department (M) to purchase passive object Product (P), created by passive objects Employees (E) under the employ of the active object Owner (O). Add it all up, and you get a nice tity profit (n) for the Owner.
(C + M) + P(E) = O(n)
(A very efficent method, eh?)
There's just one problem: Not all human beings are passive objects C. Humans are not a mathematical equation. The equation works when it is not possible for a person to function otherwise. You force them into playing the role of C or E, and the equation comes out nicely. Everying is predictable, profitable, and controllable.
But as soon as something comes along that threatens the stability and controllability of that equation, panic mode sets in. The printed book would be the death of learning. TV would be the death of radio. VCRs would be the death of movies. DAT would be the death of radio. Cable would be the death of movies. E-books will be the death of learning. The Internet will be the death of civilization. And so on. A little control slips away, and the end is nigh, defend the System to the last lawyer.
No one likes uncertainty (except possibly Shrodinger), and no one likes surprises (except at birthdays). It's not your money that the RIAA or the MPAA or Microsoft want. It's your passivity. They want to know that you can be controlled, not because they want power or greed or world domination but because then you are predictable, and they can wrap their minds around something predictable. Everyone likes things to be predictable. Everyone likes knowing where their next meal is coming from.
So what do we do? Don't be a consumer. Don't be passive. Don't be swayed by marketing. Don't be a part of a machine, however well intentioned and genuinely useful it is (and it is). Most importantly: Don't take your business elsewhere. That doesn't work, it only makes your life more difficult. Saying "we'll just use open source software" doesn't do anything about the continued growth of draconian attempts at regaining control with their collateral damage. Turn and take the issue head on, at its core level: The law.
--GrouchoMarx
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?