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Why Software Piracy is Good for Microsoft
jcphil writes "Salon has an article that explains why Microsoft has toned down its anti-piracy actions in China and other developing markets. The answer is simple: due to the network effect, the more users you have, the greater your strength in the marketplace. And it doesn't matter if their Windows is pirated or not. So, in effect, software piracy in countries like China helps Microsoft to compete with Linux." Meanwhile, the RIAA doesn't feel the same logic applies to record sales in the U.S., and has started an ad campaign to convince the public that sharing music hurts artists.
how did we get M$ ads on Slashdot? that's very interesting to me.
The simple overhead of the RIAA and record companies contracts hurt artists alot more than the file sharing does.
one of those stories which pops up every now and again? Wasn't the answer `piracy is bad for games/music because you make all the sales in a few months, but good for OS`s, where they just bring out a new version which is essentially the same except for a new odds and ends`?
Haven't we known this since the days of MS-DOS?
I've worked on projects that had close to 100% piracy rates. That is to say that almost everyone who used it was stealing it. This in no way helped me, in fact it drive the company under.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I won't put linux on my machine! Pinky Swear!
Note: I'll just put FreeBSD on instead.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Share all you like, we'll make more!
being hooked up at McDonalds is beneficial to the corporation because you don't end up spending your money at wendy's.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Meanwhile, the RIAA doesn't feel the same logic applies to record sales in the U.S., and has started an ad campaign to convince the public that sharing music hurts artists.
Sheesh, talk about missing the point of the article. The article is talking about developing markets, not the US. Microsoft cares deeply about piracy in the US. The point is that in developing markets, Microsoft wants to establish a foothold.
The other difference is that Microsoft has competition, while there is no direct competition for music. In other words, if you don't like the price of Bruce Springsteen, you're not going to switch to Broos Sprigstein who might be cheaper.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
so, microsoft likes piracy (as long as it isn't in the US), but RIAA doesn't? ok, #2 isn't news, but i really am confused as to why bill gates would enjoy the idea. i thought M$ was all about money.... ok, that's it, i'm moving to China
mechanicos ergo cogito
Duh...this has been known for eons now. This is hardly news.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Let's say you're a 14 year old kid and you're running a pirated copy of windows vs. a legal copy of linux. What happens when you grow up and get an IT job for a small company? you recommend using windows because you're familiar with it. The same is true for productivity software (office,photoshop...) but not games and definitely not music.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
"They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
1.) Get user's addicted to our software
2.) ????
3.) Profit!!!
This is exactly why i do not offer to give copies of Windows to people anymore.
If you want Windows, you can go ahead and pay for it yourself. Then you'll understand even better why Microsoft is losing market share to Linux. It's not cheap for an individual, and for a business it's highway robbery. If the price is too high for you, well, why not install something free?
Damnit, at least you could have given me some credit for submitting that link instead of attaching it to another story. Thanks a lot.
~ now you know
Because when you download music, you're taking bread from Britney's mouth! She can barely afford to LIVE! Please, think of the starving artists before you download that next MP3.
Come on, does the RIAA really expect me to take a PSA from Britney Spears or bling blingin' Nelly when it comes to theft of music? Are they trying to make us feel bad for these people who get paid truckloads of money and have no talent? Maybe they should show me a non-RIAA artist who lives out of their car and plays dumpy clubs instead.
NOTE TO RIAA: GET A CLUE.
I have to wonder if the artists who are supporting this ACTUALLY believe it, or if their record company is forcing them to do it. After all, they are indentured servants, they do what they are told. if they aren't being forced, I'll bet the company has bombarded them with FUD until they actually start to believe it. I can see the record company telling them all about how they need to change the contract for this new "piracy" fee that is stealing all their money. Phbbt. Fine, let the music industry go down the tubes, I don't really care.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That the record company hurts artists.
Maybe a picture of some big-name musician begging as record execs walk by.
paintball
Humorously, all the artists supporting the RIAA are garbage pop stars anyways. These people woundn't know good music if it fell on their head. It's commercial fodder, produced (sic!) only to bilk the public out of their money anyway. Spears, an artist? HAHA!
Real musicians make their money on the road.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
They've obviously taken a lesson from Adobe's strategy:
I like it (:
I disagree with this article--Microsoft already got it's massive marketshare for PC's in China, and then tried to crackdown on piracy because it already had hundreds of millions of users there. It's not like Windows is just now entering the country. The 'network effect' worked its magic years ago...
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
I don't want to hear anyone else bitch about how the users on slashdot don't read the story before they post.
Reason being? The people posting the story don't even read Slashdot stories.
This is yet again another repeat.
Get paid to code OSS
Give the poor slob some free hits, get him hooked before he knows how bad the dope is, then start charging big bucks.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
Well,
if Missy Elliot, Brittaney, AND Nelly say so it must be true.
I really feel for those guys, they do their best for us, and now we steal from them, I understand they are all sharing a single motel6 room on tour due to our thievery.
Cop-out or not, they can't be extremely rigid to everyone all the time. Especially with that kind of business.
The OS should always be free to the home user IMO. I've only paid for one OS, that was Win 3.11/DOS back when it came as part of my computer. Since I started to build all my systems from scratch, I've yet to pay the MS tax again.
I believe that in order for an os to be sucessful in this day and age it has to have a low barrier to entry on 2 fronts, cost and development. It has to be cheap to get on your machine and cheap for others (or yourself) to develop software for.
BE should to have given away the OS and sold applications. Made an application approval procedure so that an app would be 'certified', but given the core OS away for free (or low cost, like 10 bucks). 60-100 dollars was too much to switch to an OS that had few applications.
Linux, *BSD has the lowest barrier to entry yet, almost nothing. MS has a much higher entry point, you have to buy both the OS and the tools to make stuff on it. For the casual hacker, the dev tools are expensive on MS (like me).
Increasing the size of your network is crucial, look at fax machines, the only reason fax machines are valuable in todays world is because almost everyone has one. There are much better tools for sending documents to people, but fax machines are everywhere and thus are the medium of choice for many types ot transactions.
In other news, an unidentified source has leaked that Microsoft will distribute it's corporate virus (also referred to as "Microsoft Windows") on certain countries, as retribution for its anti-trust litigation, as well as contributing to America's War on Terrorism.
The method of distribution includes passing off the virus as being pirated, as it usually costs corporations millions of dollars to install the damage on their machines.
The first country to be hit is China, closely followed by Iraq and Iran...
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler
In other news, power companies across the nation have drafted a proposal to ban all domestic thunderstorm activity. A representative was quoted, "These thunderstorms are distributing unauthorized voltage across the nation every day. People harness these power sources all the time, in pools, on golf courses, under trees...stealing the power they should be paying for. This could irreparably damage the industry." Representatives were unavailable to comment about the recent soaring profit trends in the power industry.
In my field (architecture) AutoCAD has pretty much the monopoly, despight other packages such as ArchiCAD, Microstation and DataCAD. Why ? It's simple, this is the tool that everyone knows. By filling schools and colleges with thier software and having student version for little and nothing ($200 for a AutoCAD12,3DStudio,AA package)the only software package that anyone knows is AutoCAD. Since it's very expensive to train someone to use a new software package proficiently can costs upards of $3000 most employers just settle with AutoCAD even though it may not be the best or cheapest package.
I mean, it's only /. karma. And it's only prestige for a /. account.
There are lots of things worth cursing about in the world. This is not one of them.
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
This is called The Photoshop Effect.
The sad thing is that it took them this long to figure it out. How many windows users would there be if we had to pay for windows?
It's an interesting effect on 'supply and demand' however. How do you evaluate demand and scarcity when there is unlimited product available and production costs (ie, duplication) are nil? How does the market work when you're trying to sell information that can be free?
"Old man yells at systemd"
PC Tools leaked early versions of their software into the pirate (Arrrr!) market in order to compete with the already-established Norton Utilities. It worked to a certain degree ... and it spread the tool's use through some circles ... but we all know who's still standing today.
I'm starting to think that the returns by allowing privacy are something like the Laffer curve with piracy along the x-axis and benefit along the y-axis; by allowing no piracy, then you don't benefit, nor do you benefit by having all copies of your software pirated. However, if you give some leeway and allow some of the copies of your software to be pirated, then it gives you maximum benefit. Unfortunately, it is entirely possible that the whole piracy vs. benefit graph is more reminiscent of a Neo-Laffer curve, where there are so many possible factors which can affect it that it is impossible to tell in advance what effect piracy will have.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Doh!
Can you mod the intro blub as Off-topic?
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
Because that's how they are as well known as they are now!
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Don't crack dealers use similiar tactics?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Absolutely true. Here in India (a very China-like piracy situation) there are plenty of small businesses which want to move to Linux in theory but they continue to use Windows-Office-Exchange etc because its free to them.
At zero cost (actually approx. US$ 2.15 per CD that all software costs here), its pretty hard to convince yourself that the effort of migrating to Open Source is worth it!
Funnily enough, Linux costs more than Windows because none of the regular pirates stock Linux. So Win2K is US$ 2.15 but Redhat is about US$15 which is what the cheapest unoficial Redhat CD costs
A wrinkle laden aging speed metal rocker, wrapped in shredded leather pants; he's drinking from a bottle in a paper bag; sad music is playing.
The voice over says "When you pirate music, you steal money out of artists pockets. Now, how is this poor man going to afford his presidential suite, hookers, and 3 day liquor and heroin binges?"
Then a black screen with white text comes up:
"Help the Fella, Don't Gnutella."
I think it's only a matter of time before Windows disappears from the piracy and probably the majority of the desktop of people here. Palladium/LeGrande will make sure you pay for all your Windows software, so we'll just use OS X/Linux instead. Hell if I'm going to pay for Windows! I have no money, nor will the average person spend $90+/year to get the updates (new version). Windows may still come with your Best Buy computer, but NOBODY will use office at home if they have to pay $400+ for it, except maybe students. Make way for WP and OpenOffice, woot!
Do they not realize they are in fact advertising internet downloading therefore making it more popular?
How dumb can you be? For all those kids that had no idea they could do this with their internet connection, with this ad campaign, now they do. Do you really think people are going to listen to Britney? HAH, yeah... right.
The Chinese are pirating software so that hundreds of Slashdotters will talk about piracy which will lead to heated discussions about the RIAA and sharing music which will result in thousands (millions?) reading these redundant posts which will result in massive loss of productivity bringing about the downfall of the US economy! Don't let them get away with this! What's a sig?
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
After all their rants on how pirating destroys intellectual? property they turn on a dime.
If people in china gets used to pirating its hard to reverse it. A culture of pirating blessed by MS will be almost impossible to reverse.
I guess their campaign against pirating didnt turn out like they liked it to. From what i could see the only thing it did was to spark a new wave of linux companies.
HTTP/1.1 400
A few years ago Karsten Self posted an excellent analysis of the economic effects of piracy on software distribution. He posted this online and has lightly edited it since. On Software "Piracy", Lies, BSA, Microsoft, Rocks, and Hard Penguins is the article, and it is well worth the read.
Notice how it's Britany spears and other fake musicians who are pawns of the RIAA in this, real musicians know what's best for them.
Screw realty just hook me up another monitor!
I am sure the same applies to most other countries too. At least for "personal piracy", i.e. the 15 yo guy burning his WinXP for the neighbour. And not just for MS, but for many other software vendors too, e.g. Aliaswavefront with its Maya software package.
Those 15yos wouldn't make any money anyway and couldn't BUY the software anyway. But this way they learn how to use it and later if they need it to make money and have the money to buy it they will buy it. Easy as that.
Meanwhile, the RIAA doesn't feel the same logic applies to record sales in the U.S., and has started an ad campaign to convince the public that sharing music hurts artists.
Don't worry Britney, if you take it in the butt, technically you're still a virgin.
Not. Come on, do you actually expect us to believe that the artists are suffering because we download their tunes? That's complete bullshit. The artists suffer because of the lopsided contracts that the RIAA companies make them sign. They get an advance, sell so many copies, and still end up oweing the record companies money. That's an insane way of doing business.
The only ones hurting are the RIAA companies themselves. "Wah wah, we're not making the X number of billions we made last decade thanks to services like Napster(RIP), KaZaA, Limewire; We're only making Y number of billions now thanks to users downloading music. X Billions > Y Billions. We want more billions." Cough-bullshit-cough.
If we're smart, we'll continue downloading and taking a chunk out of the RIAA's profit. They're spending millions on this ad campaign, which won't work at all, and lose said millions. What we need is a commercial detailing the evils of the record companies' underhanded practices and how they are hurting artists.
And, for the record, I'm in total agreement with sy$manager's post on the subject. There is no way that downloading "Baby One More Time" is hurting Brittany "I've got fake tits before they're even done developing" Spears' bottom line. Duh, she has a multi-million dollar endorsment deal with Pepsi, is doing movies (that probably net her a few milion apiece), and has several other sources of income besides her contract with the RIAA. Nelly? What the hell kind of name is Nelly, anyway? I can't even take him seriously. And Missy Elliot earns her papers because she herself is a producer. There's no way downloading "Get Your Freak On" is hurting her wallet, that's for sure.
Just another case of RIAA Spin trying to get us to shill out damn near $20 for a CD with 12 lame songs on it, when we can download what we want for free, spend $0.20 on a blank CD-R, and put 150+ songs that don't suck on it ourselves. Who's going to win this fight? We are, plain and simple. The RIAA is wasting their time, and ours.
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
...it's a fairer strategy than integrating their browser with the OS and trying to force everyone to use MSN services.
from the article: A print campaign, featuring such performers as Eminem, Madonna, Missy Elliott, Elton John and Luciano Pavarotti
...*sigh*... yes, I'm a tool."
Pavarotti is quoted to have said "Downloading music is wrong, because it's virtual. You're not getting the real thing. You're using technology to circumvent actually paying for it; you're taking the easy way out... Lip-synching a concert however, is perfectly okay; there's nothing wrong with that, the audience can't tell anyway,
Elton John on the matter: "Um, I really really need you're money since I'm WAY in debt, no, I didn't get screwed by my label, at least I don't think so, I was kinda high all the time."
"Elton, you spent $40,000 a month on flowers."
"They were pretty..."
disclaimer: don't know if it was exactly $40k, but it was some insane amount like that.
c-hack.com |
But I know that it costs me more then 10 bucks to get even an OEM copy of windows. I was saying that if BE (or MS) charged me 10 bucks for a copy of their os then I would gladly pay it. Which is another reason that I always get the cheapbytes (or similar) versions of linux distros when I get the CD's. I don't use support so I don't pay for it.
More like the sucky artists and music thats out now is whats hurting the record companies. Did they ever stop to think that maybe sales went down because they've been signing so many one hit wonders and people only want that one song out of the other 12 carbon copies of every other band's songs out there.
...who are probably all interchangeably excellent.
Well, I have only limited experience in classical music, but even to my ears there is a noticeable difference between different conductors.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
what some people would call hypocrisy, abounds in modern "official" life. a deadly poison like alcohol is distributed in every nook and cranny of the US but something harmless like weed is ostracized and "evil".
It's obvious that they want market share and more users... The easiest way to do this would be to give away their software for free (like they did in the netscape days). However, they know they probably wouldn't get away with it again, and that someone would scream bloody monopoly. So instead, they just go limp and stop trying to prevent piracy, and the people take care of the free distribution themselves. If anyone bothers to challenge them in court, they'll just say "Woe is me, those uncontrollable pirates are stealing our stuff!" After all, I think it would be a lot harder to cast "not preventing illegal copying" as anticompetitive behavior. That's why they can hide behind it.
I remember when Microsoft didn't go out of its way to prevent piracy here in the USA. Back then people were saying it was to their advantage to have as many users as possible, legal or not. Of course, back then you could fit their entire "operating system" on 1 floppy disk...
Perhaps it is time for some of those wealthy artists like the Offspring and Courtney Love who in the past have spoke out against the RIAA to fund a campaign of their own, promoting music downloads and against the RIAA.
Isn't it funny, though, that the recording industry has lost 15% of it's revenue since it started this war against 'piracy' and music sharing. You'd think they would get the hint and realize that when an artist is recognized as good by the public and they get to hear their stuff on their own time that they will eventually pick up the album. Control Freaks.
Lots of people I know wont buy an X-box, because its an m$ product. But, with so many m$ employees, always a couple of your buddies seem to work for m$.
:)
So, m$ employees get to buy software for 10 bux. Now theres a reason to buy an X-box, when you can get 10 games for 100 bux. No reason to pirate your M$ OS either, when M$ gives it away for free. You just go to an m$ events, training, etc (and there are many around...) Hell, work alone (sun shop) M$ has given me (personally) multiple copies of NT server products with full licenses to keep. Too bad I cant sell them on E-Bay.
I hope Halo for PC runs under wine.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doens't 2.6 Billion (music) files downloaded per month seem exorbitantly high? I mean, assuming 3Mb per file (average length, 128-bit encoding) that's around 7,800 Tb just on music alone. Seems a tad high to me, but then again, I can't remember the average bandwidth consumption for the world per month.
The RIAA should consider a poster campaign.
the myth of getting windows xp betas on irc even before official beta testers...Even there was some claim that Window XP Beta 2 Build 2474 was *internally* leaked by Microsoft.
Mmmm maybe microsoft has more evil tactics we may ever think of?
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
...in the same sentance!
Music "sharing" is another name for FREE ADVERTISING! The real money is in merchandising anyways, concert ticket sales, T-shirts, branded notebooks, action figures...
When are those idiots going to learn that they can never stop the free exchange of data, without changing the country into a police state? Our friends in the White House (courtesy of many big business lobbiests) are trying their best to do this, but we don't YET need tongue tattoos to authenticate our cognitave brain centers. We retain the ability to think for ourselves, for just a little while longer.
MPAA/RIAA! It's really simple. You adapt your business model to become a service industry, which is what you are. Stop trying to treat content as a commodity (which it is not). Make tangible goods and sell those, but stop pretending that a song is something you can put in a box.
Lets get a bunch of millionairs together to guilt trip the poor during hard economic times to help boot our profits. WHAT!?
;p
I'm sick of the kazaa napster compairison, it's lame. kazaa can share anything not just mp3. People just choose to focus on that. What about all the divx traiding that goes on? I'm sure the Motion Picture Assosiation would be interested in knowing about that.
The record industry needs to relize that they have no place in modern music distrobution. CDs are useless, and plus they skip.
-makoffee
"Ubiquity now, revenue later"...
rm -rf / is the evil of all root
With any luck, the anti-music-piracy commericals will be as much a scream as those "Today I killed a judge (because I bought drugs)" drug-terrorism ones:
GMD
watch this
... you'll end up like Michael Jackson with no money because the label is going to rape you later with royalties and hidden charges up the ying-yang - you'll be on Nickelodean (sp?) interviewing your younger sister.
Reach around, take the record label's arms out from your behind, and start thinking on your own... I'm sure there's enough of us geeks out here who would embrace you for taking a stand against the RIAA...
(I simply must get this crack filtered...)
This space for rent.
Britney sure looks fine on that page!
Kinda makes me wish I really was a pirate. I sure would like to pillage that pumpkin!
This is news for nerds, right?
You really cant compare what the RIAA is doing (or should be doing) with what Microsoft is doing. Using windows involves a skill... gaining mind share is huge for a computer company. FUD that arises from uncertainty over using a new system and unfamiliarity with it creates friction in the market that prevents people from jumping ship from product to product. Microsoft is not really selling a CD, or even data on a cd... They are selling the ability to easily use your computer in a productive manner. In a sense they are not even trying to sell software. If they were selling software, features such as X amount of features in X amount of megabytes might be mentioned, or loads in X amount of seconds on a given computer might be mentioned in ads. Instead, the ads say "get things done better" , "99.999% uptime"... etc... Music the RIAA is selling requires no skills to listen to, it doesnt matter if you have listened to Nirvana and only Nirvana for 10 years straight, love Nirvana, spent hours reading about Nirvana... You can go and listen to any other group out there without a problem. The RIAA also does not benefit from companies buying mass quantities of music that their employees like to listen to. Its not like if I go home and listen to Pearl Jam, my company is going to hold a meeting at any point and say, hey the employees really like this pearl jam stuff. Maybe we should play that in the elevator instead of Bach. I dont see how you could make a parallel between the two different types of piracy. I guess to some small extent, if everyone listens to Britney Spears, and loves her, then it will be easier to introduce some facsmile of her (christina aguilera, IE) and make a quick easy buck off of it. That is a real stretch though.
Britney Spears is now crying her ass off saying that pirated music is "hurting" the artists?
From age 15 she had a golden music career. She still makes more in a day than I will all year.
Cry me a river. How does this hurt you? Can't buy that fourth sports car to fill up your garage?
Jesus. And people wonder why I dislike money.
Karma: Non-Heinous
If I buy a watch today, and it turns out I don't like it, I can take it back. Afterall, I won't know if the product is satisfactory until I've had time to get to know it. But if I buy a CD, good or not, I'm stuck with it. Because of this, I'm forced to either gamble with my satisfaction, or find a way to sample the music before I buy.
It's hard for me to rationalize music downloading as stealing when the RIAA is happy to take my money without guaranteeing my satisfaction. Frankly, I think they're stealing my money when they sucker me into buying a CD.
I think their biggest concern is that P2P makes the market for music fair for the consumer instead of biased in the RIAA's favor.
Even drug dealers know to give the first one away free. Get you hooked, and you'll keep coming back for more.
However, I have found that this approach often destroys what little camaraderie exists between the marketing team and the developers, who would really rather consider their software a valuable and costly business tool than one which falls into the hands of every teenage hack.
Particularly in large corporations, there are often internal factors which make the kind of 'subversive' marketing suggested in this document diffucult or imposible.
R
Stuff that matters: circuitbreakers, vacuum-cleaners coffee makers, calculators generators, matching salt+pepper shakers
communism = sharing
It doesn not equal bad human rights although that tends to happen
Even in the US, Microsoft would probably prefer people using pirated MS software over using no MS software, as long as they couldn't afford to buy the Software from MS. This is why MS gives millions worth of their products to college students every year. Up to this month, my university had an agreement to give out free ms software including: Office, Windows XP, Visual Studio, and more. This agreement has finally ended, and I can't help to wonder if MS tries use a drug dealer approach to software, to come in to a University and set up an agreement to give away software and then end it after a couple of years in hope that the University will shell out big bucks to keep the agreement.
For the pirates that can't afford MS software, they want then to become accustomed to MS software to the point where when they leave school they will buy computers with the latest version of windows preloaded and more importantly, demand that windows be in their computer at work.
How many here have one legit copy of Windows and copy for their other computer(s), or know someone who does? How many of those people would switch to Linux/FreeBSD etc if they had to pay?
How many of those people would eventually switch to Linux for both boxes? A good number I suspect.
How much is p2p really cutting into Luciano Pavarotti's record sales?
About the only way that I would start purchasing more CDs is if every one they sold some of the artists wore less and less clothes...
This article cites (without reference) a working paper by Carlos Osorio of Harvard. I think it's here: A contribution to the understanding of illegal copying of software: empirical and analytical evidence against conventional wisdom (PDF).
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. When I say allowing "some" piracy, I'm talking about the percentage of the copies of software which are pirated. For example, if half of your software was bought illegitimately, then "some" piracy is occuring, but "total" piracy has not occured. "Total" piracy occurs when 100% of your software in use is pirated, and "no" piracy occurs when 0% of your software being used is pirated (i.e. it is all being purchased legally). Does that clear things up for you?
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
This is simple drug dealer tactics. Look, you can have the first one for free. You can quit anytime you want to, honest! Then down the road once Microsoft is firmly entrenched they can start playing hardball on licensing.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Let's say you're a 14 year old kid, you don't get much pocket money but you want to be with the 'in' croud.
You've scraped together enough cash to by some DC's or Nikes so that people stop hitting you every time you walk past, but now there's this cool some they keep playing any you don't have the cash.
Do you
a:, buy it
b:, blag a copy off of a mate on tape cassette,
c: download it from gnutella
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
two trashy chicks pushin your ideals...good luck.
"Too many people don't realise that when you download a song you like from a peer-to-peer network or some other unauthorised internet service,..."
:P
So Mrs. Britany, who authorized ANY internet service? As far as I know, there are a few standards which people have decided to use, but not a single thing on the Internet is "Authorized" exept by the people that turn the service on. I think it is funny that these people actually think they have the right to say what is an Authorized service on the Internet and what is not...yet they wouldn't have a clue what to authorize or not
NR
http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0011/mp3/images/m p3.jpg
If MS was really serious about stopping piracy, they would have required the 'activation' home users of XP have to go through for 'enterprise' licensed copies as well. The 'enterprise' licensed copies have no activation requirements, which means that people will still continue to sneak home copies from work to install, bypassing the activation scheme completely.
They've never been serious about stopping piracy. Collecting money - yes. Stopping piracy - no.
creation science book
Think I'll go steal a Britney Spears CD... so I can BURN it!!
So, the question is whether this AC wishes to buy the CD so she can set it on fire, or, prehaps more sinisterly, make copies of it, as if actually stealing it wasn't enough, she would take away more money by distributing the copies to other. Perhaps even selling them on the black market this way she gets money and Britney starves to death.
The GPL makes software more like your mom. Free and open to all.
When you pirate MP3s, you're downloading Communism!
The MPAA have even larger gain to be made in places like China.
1: There's a lot of advertising in films, I'm sure companies want as much advertising in China as they can possibly get.
2: Once they've spread the 'american dream' through coppied films, they've opened up the market for selling TV (and yet more advertising).
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I dont think so. If I were an artist, I'd be pretty damn happy if everyone and their brother were listening to my music. The ones who are in it for the money aren't legit. 4 life, werd.
The keyword in piracy is the word: ECONOMY.
A country with a very poor economy will always suffer from piracy and counterfiets. The reason for this is that majority of the population simply cannot afford things such as original software that a member of a rich country can easily afford.
Take, for example, my country - the Philippines. An average worker here earns around $160 a month, as opposed to 1st-world countries where $2000 a month is more or less normal. Here, lunches cost around $1-$2, with $2 being already considered "expensive". Assuming an individual purcheses food at $1 and eats 3x a day, for 30 days, that would be a total of 30 * 1 * 3 = $90, which leaves you with $70 to spend on rent, electricity, water, phone, etc. That isn't much, and it's only ENOUGH to keep you sustained. If you have a family, things become worse.
Now this doesn't leave us much for luxury goods such as $40 PC games, let alone a $200 operating system. Hence, the solution - piracy.
Will Microsoft bother going after these small third-world home users? I don't think so. Since we don't have the capacity to buy, we aren't very high in their target market list, or they would be relentlessly knocking down pirated CD stalls everyday.
Take off every 'sig'!
All your 'sig' are belong to us!
i like it!
for a faggot.
Did people just begin to realize this? Probably just Microsoft, they are pretty thick headed. If you use Windows, then they control the market in terms of DirectX, C#, and all their other proprietary crap.
This page was generated by a Barrel of Circus Midgets, and that is the way I like it!!!
According to the BBC, the campaign is in response to CD sales being down 7% in the first half of 2002. "Consumer spending on durable goods such as cars and computers fell 8 percent" during the same period according to CNN. The campaign also makes no mention of making copyies of CDs onto Cassette Tapes, which has been practiced widely for the last 20 years and introduced new music to many people who otherwise would not have been exposed to it.
Awhile back I read an article in the Detroit News on the "Grey Market" for Autos made in the US but sold in Canada. Given local market conditions, the US car sold in Canada is cheaper than if you sold the exact same car in the US. The "Grey Market" comes from Detroit dealers driving up to Canada, buying a lot of the cars cheaper, shipping them back to Detroit, and then charging full price - making a handy profit. The big three (GM, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler) are trying to put a stop to the practice, as they sometimes sell the cars in Canada at a slight loss, but charge more south of the border (the US) to make up for it, while still maintaining market share in Canada.
Now let's look at Microsoft. MS decides not to pursue piracy to gain an "advertising" edge in the OS market. So how do they make up for those losses? They charge more for the software in markets with a higher cost of living, or markets where they really chase after the software pirates, as it really cuts into their profit margins. So basically we consumers (who may be stuck buying Windows - that's a different story) are stuck with the bill for the piracy. Why would a company in a monopoly position really care if they loose money in one place when they can get away with charging more for it in another place?
This problem even hits the health care industry. Once I had a workman comp case when I was a student (injured in the lab) and had to get an itemized bill back from the hospital. $25 for a throw away stiches kit, $50 for gauze, $220 for "Emergency Room Service/Bed Rental". When I asked why so high - I was basically told that the hospital pads its costs do be able to provide care to those who don't have insurance, or those who decided to not pay their bills. Not piracy, but you get the idea. Those of us who have the money carry the burden for those who don't. I don't mind the angle of providing care for the poor, but for those who didn't want to pay their bills?!? WTF?!?
So how does this all relate to MS's non-piracy clause. Simple, they now have subscription based software costs to make up for lost money due to piracy. They also charge more for the base OS, which is so buggy and unstable it ought to be them paying me to use it. So now not only might I be paying for software which doesn't work as well as it should, but I'm paying for MS's advertising in new markets where they lose money. Grumble. One more reason I plan to try and make my house MS free.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
So as long as you mom buys the software, and the rest of the world pirates itk, then it's still under 100%.
I don't think you naarrowed it down any. It's like saying go find waldo, and he's one of the 5 billion people on the earth.
Paul Graham brought up piracy in his article:
http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html
In it he mentions an advantage and disadvantage to server-base application is piracy (and lack of). Piracy does drive usage, but then again a limited version of you server base application will also drive usage.
I'm gonna take a while to get me head wrapped around that one :-)
Some artists like Dr. Dre, Eminem, Metalicca are very opposed to piracy, and p2p in general. You have other artists like Prince, KRS-1, Tribe called Quest, who are all for it. The question is, why are you in the game? Are you in the for the love of the music or the love of money?
Here's proof of this hypocrisy in living color.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Briteny Spears looked so hard up for cash in that picture. I feel really bad now. Ill never forgive myself if she has to resort to getting her meals from a soup kitchen.
There are bigger problems in the world then making sure the rich stay rich.
Microsoft learned this from the IBM PC. IBM didn't go after the clones and gained market share to knock out CP/M and Apple II. Microsoft has only gone after major software pirates, because they knew building a market of pre-trained users will build market share in business. Businesses no long had to spend lots of money on training on basic computer skills. By people pirating Windows and Office, they are self training themselves.
Then you forgeting Microsofts other marketing weapon development tools. Say what you want about VB, but companies don't want to spend a lot on in-house development for app's they won't keep long. Quality code isn't important, disposable programs are cost efficent. Microsoft has specilized in development tools to get task done quickly.
Last your RIAA and Microsoft looking away on copying is an Apple and Oranges comparison. One is trying to sell products, and other is trying to build market share for long term sales. Very different.
MS really tries to be user-friendly; regardless of the headaches we as tech-savvy professionals must endure to help them stay happy. Just about everyone gives away demo or time-limited trials of software to get you hooked so you will buy it. I personally love trying things out then going out to buy the full copy. On the other hand; will the music industry ever get this through their collective thick skull? I seriously doubt it.
**"We want to hit fans with the message that downloading music illegally is, as Britney Spears explains, the same as going into a CD store and stealing the CD," said Hilary Rosen **
I wish there were a polite way to say it, but "fuck you and the horse you rode in on..." I reiterate, for the MILLIONTH TIME, that cassette copies of music proliferated throughout the world caused astronimical profits 20 years ago; internet music should be given that same consideration. The amount of illegal copying is nowhere near as catastrophic as the industry claims; and could not be or they'd be in the unemployment line with the other 400,000 people that signed up last night. That's right; you're still making a profit while all my neighbors sold their houses and moved into shelters [they're mostly factory laborers but they're people too]. I don't buy music; I don't download music unless it is legal [and free, at least until I like an artist enough to use my wife's BMG account or buy directly from them]. If they'd do REAL RESEARCH they'd see that people are very likely to pay $11 for an album once they've gotten a sample of it than $18-25 for something they'll never hear unless they manage to get a halfway decent radio station in their town. To top that off, they hardly consider all the people they've turned off with their 'ooooh, the megaplatinum star can't buy another limo' spiel. Long, long before this issue came to a head I started listening to alternative (not genre just off-mainstream) music and put parental blocks on MTV, VH1 and BET. Long live local lix and samples from the 'net.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
What is the difference then between pirated Microsoft Software and Open Source software? Both are free. Neither contributes taxes to the local economy. What a crock of shit!!! I have been saying for months that the BSA is great for open source because the BSA treats customers like criminals. Now Microsoft has decided that piracy of software in the 3rd world is fine with them what will the BSA do?
Too true. Stop the insanity.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Now you're on to something!
/cough/ start-ups, that would consider the pirate-now-pay-later as a way of financing software purchases.
Once a company has enough deployed copies of an application in place, doing a "compliance audit" and collecting can be viewed as a the brute-force way to close the deal. I can think of a few types of companies,
Yes, but that doesn't actually mean a great deal. If 99% of the software in use is pirated, then obviously you do not get much benefit (if any). However, if, say, 20-30% of the software in use is pirated, then you get the benefit of getting people addicted to it whilst still having the majority of users paying $$$ for it.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
1) I don't think that having the top grossing artists claiming that musicians are being hurt by net piracy (as opposed to just copying the CD?!?!?!). What, they'll have to settle for 3 Ferrari's instead of four?
2) Record sales slid because music SUCKS, not because of piracy. Just because you can't download crappy music means that you'll buy it.
3)The only artitsts that are hurting are those raped by the record companies who weren't smart enough to learn to read slimey contracts or had enough money to get a decent lawyer.
4)To add to point 3, the only ones who benefit from all of this are the lawyers.
5)The music SUCKS!
6)Why should people buy the CD, when the only 2 songs that are worth actually paying for are repeatedly played on ALL radio stations ALL of the time. Geez, quit with the payolla crap already! Save that money for finding real talent.
7) Oh, and before I forget...the music SUCKS!
My 2 cents (which is worth alot more then the crap record labels are peddling these days)
Their position on piracy has helped displace Novell, Wordperfect, et al, from the marketplace.
I think it is the most powerful marketing tool they have.
I hate the RIAA as much as anyone here in the /. crowd, but I'm not going to sit here and say that pirating music isn't going to hurt someone's bottom line. Yeah, the artist might be a bazillionaire, but that studio engineer or studio musician who worked on the album isn't. Piracy probably hurts them more than the artist.
Go ahead and fight the RIAA and their DRM/hacking proposals, but at the same time you MUST STOP ILLEGALLY DOWNLOADING MUSIC, otherwise you are doing nothing to help the situation and are in fact hurting the situation by adding fuel to the RIAA's anti-piracy tirade.
For a long, LONG time now, all the albums that have been coming out have been absolute garabage. There has been very little out there that calls to me and begs to be bought. The record industry would like to blame Mp3 files and P2P networks (Kazaa, WinMX, etc) for the awful sales of records lately, but I think that you have to look at two facts before finding a scapegoat to point the finger at. First of all, sales on EVERYTHING have been awful in the last year. The stock market is down, companies are reporting huge losses, and everyone is just going insane and pulling out. Everyone is selling nad no one is buying. Second fact is, even without the marketing catastrophe of this past year, you have to look at the simple fact plaguing the entire music market right now: Everything that has been coming out has been total crap that people won't listen to for more than a few weeks and then forget about. Right now, if I had the option to get 10 CDs from before 2000 rather than 20 CDs from after that time period for the same price, I'd go with 10 CDs from before 2000 for sure. I think that record labels and artists have one thing and one thing only to fear and to face: that they can no longer just shrinkwrap any old trashy music with absolutely no talent (Britney Spears, Nelly? Wow!) and sell it like candy to a bunch of kids. These kids are no longer so easily convinced. If there is only one decent song, or only two decent songs, on an album, they won't go out there and buy it when they can get just the mp3s of those songs.
Here's an editorial I wrote on Newsforge called How software piracy hurts Free Software that addresses this subject from the opposite angle. The Freedom of Free Software is worth nothing to people who don't feel the burden of restrictive EULAs.
Yes, I know this is offtopic, but gimme some slack.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Meanwhile, the RIAA doesn't feel the same logic applies to record sales in the U.S., and has started an ad campaign to convince the public that sharing music hurts artists.
Of course they do. Both companies are against piracy. Both companies run ad campaigns trying to convince people to not pirate. Both companies sue some pirates, and ignore others.
Of course the RIAA realizes that limited trading over P2P networks can help them. But they'd be incredibly stupid to admit that, cause then the trading would become anything but limited.
"send in vanilla ice" skit
for those of you who haven't heard the skit, it's hilarious...fire up gtk-gnutella, download it, and laugh your ass off while "stealing music"
it takes a lot of potshots at bitchass "musicians" who espouse ignorant opinions and suck corporate disk, though the sacred cows of his time were mc hammer and vanilla ice, while we have nelly and spears ( two of the most fucking useless excuses for sentient human beings sucking up air on this planet, possibly even dumber than their fans )...
"We want to hit fans with the message that downloading music illegally is, as Britney Spears explains, the same as going into a CD store and stealing the CD,"
you know, i don't download music from artists that i dont own ( or have owned ) at least one of their CDs or ( in the case of spoken word poets ) books, so im sort of neutral in this argument, but the concept of britney spears explaining anything to anyone is vaguely insulting to the human race, though i doubt hillary rosen would recognize that, having turned in her membership card a long time ago
fuck it, ill let her hit me with the message if i just get to hit her
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
Sharing music doesn't hurt artists..
That's the Record Company's job!
"I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix." -Dan Quayle
I can see it now. Artists sitting in their stalled Bentley crying to the public for gas money. Or perhaps Mariah Carey is shown depressed and despondent in her mansion with last year's curtains and uphostlery. Maybe that kid in the boy band is forced to ride in coach on his way to the international space station.
For the love of God! Please stop copying music! Can't you see the financial hardship suffered by our American idols? We can't have J'Lo going naked because she hasn't anything to wear.I've got about as much sympathy for the RIAA and the artist that sold their soul to them as I do for MLB players and the hardship that team owners have imposed. Did you know that A-Rod makes more money in a single AT BAT than I make all year? He gets 5 or 6 at bats every night.
But I digress. If the RIAA et al had put the same ammount of energy into doing the right thing by helping consumers intead of trying to block them, they wouldn't be in such bad shape.I hope the whole thing goes in the shitter. Music and baseball. At this point, the only path to reform is a complete rebuild.
My girlfriend is from Beijing originally; We went over there back in April-May, on vacation. I was talking with her brother once about computers -- well more realistically, my gf was translating for us -- and I mentioned that I don't use Windows, that I use Linux. When he asked why, I went on about a few of its strong points, one of them being that it was pretty much free.
His response was that since piracy is so rampant in China, Windows is, in essence, free as well. He added that he doesn't forsee people leaving the windows platform, as long as it's so readily available on the black market. If serious crackdown began to occur, there might be a move otherwise, but until then, there was very little chance of an alternate OS being adopted.
There was a bit more in the discussion too, but I can't remember offhand what it was. In any case, it put things in a really interesting light.
that you USED to be able to do that. Until it turned out the people were just installing the software and returning the disks for a refund.
It was the criminals in the first place that casuse such actions to be taken.
My anger is aimed where it belongs. On the pirates and defrauders that started this entire mess.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Microsoft does indeed fight piracy here (ever hear of the BSA? 'Nuff said). I contend, however, that they probably shouldn't fight piracy of windows, though with XP they have upped the ante a bit. They are benefited immeasurably by their monopoly (ask the DOJ, eh?), something that would be harmed if everyone had to pay for it, or couldn't reuse old OEM copies. I really think that people aren't going to pay an extra $150 to throw XP on their second computer - so here comes Mac OS or linux, which people might find they like more.
When you get down to it, wouldn't disregard for piracy be the best way to engage in dumping of product to eradicate competitors (a practice that would be illegal under antitrust, in their position)? This would be the best way to maintain their install base. I mean, they would still extort the OEM's to get money out of windows, but let anyone who builds their own box or wants to upgrade to do it for free. Unofficially, of course.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I wonder if you could view a soft stance towards piracy as "dumping" in the marketplace. It is, after all, exactly what you're doing -- saturating the market with product, under cost, knowing that it is hurting your competitors.
IMHO, shareware fits into this, bennefiting from the network effect and hurt competition, while crying that only a small fraction of their customers are paying.
Yeah, I know, it is a stretch.
I like to think of Microsoft as Crack Dealers.(no offense to crack dealers) Their business practices share some similiarities. They let you get hooked with some "free" shit and before long you've got to pay out the ass to keep operating smoothly. Then you either cut the shit out and start over clean or keep paying the dopeman.
--
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
You're missing the original question to you. How to you "allow" 20-30% vs. 99%.
You can't.
"I go to lot's of overseas places, like Canada"
"My love for New York is indefinite."
"Where the hell is Australia anyway?"
(paraphrase)"I covered 'I love rock and roll' because I'm a big Pat Benatar fan"
"Downloading music is like stealing a CD"
Does the RIAA really want those quotes associated with one another? To late now I guess.
musicians should make their money touring and playing live shows, not by going into a studio for 3 months and expecting millions of dollars compensation for it. rich artists are such a new phenomena that i am amazed how many people actually support the idea that artists (at least the ones dominantly traded on gnutella, et al) are still the starving type. where does this idea come from? the recording industry is not that old and i do not doubt it is a concept that they engineered (and continue to attempt to do so).
this entire discussion has always been about the corporations (record labels, production companies) that get mindless automatons like lars (i finally got a haircut 10 years after the rest of the world decided mullets were ugly) ulrich to speak about topics they know nothing about to show 'solidarity' in the music community.
The linux effect makes Windows free?! what kind of logic is that? but hey i guess this is software choice? wonder if microsoft can be sued for allowing piracy and therefore unfairly and uncompetitively hindering linux? so did ballmer get it wrong or is piracy the answer??
I have been to China, and believe me, piracy is a way of life there. You can get any Microsoft product for about $4 per disc. It seems that many people view it simply as buying a less expensive version, much as Americans might buy the store brand of paper towels instead of Bounty(tm). There was a time when the same attitude was common in the US. Ironically, copy protection simply added to the "possession of media == right to install" mindset.
The end result of all this piracy was massive market penetration, to the point where the average Chinese IT worker is "born and raised" on Microsoft products. It's easy to abandon industry standards in favor of the M$ proprietary trap when everything costs $4 per CD.
M$ first introduced product activation in Asia, allegedly because of the rampant piracy. When they realized how quickly the Chinese were prepared to drop M$ in favor of Linux, they couldn't give away the products fast enough.
It will be interesting to see how Microsoft handles product pricing in the various markets around the world. Their current pricing is encountering resistance from US companies, but not [yet] to the point of wholesale abandonment. US prices would be dead-on-arrival in less developed parts of the world, where the commitment to Microsoft is less, as is the availability of funds.
Sure, they can give away the product, but what happens when the market will tolerate a price that not free but far less than full price? Hypothetically, if Microsoft sells a product for $500 in the US and they blow it out for $5 in China, is that not a classic case of product dumping? If they do this, shouldn't I buy all my US licenses via my Beijing office?
From here on out, it will be damn hard for M$ to control who gets the freebies, who gets a steep discount, and who pays a fully-monopolized price.
OK. You can't "allow" a specific percentage of your software to be pirated. However, you can encourage piracy completely, try and stamp out piracy completely, or allow piracy in some places but not in others. Each of these strategies helps to direct the exact amount of piracy to some desired (albeit wide) range.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
RIAA to consumers - "Stop ripping us off"
Consumers to RIAA - "Stop ripping us off"
Not all of us can afford to spend $20++ for a CD. We certainly don't want to pay $$$ for a CD that only has one or two good songs on it with filler tracks for the rest.
Troll bait, I know, but I get pissed of at having to buy whole CD's to get one or two songs I like, and 10 tracks I can't stand. I hope they get better methods of selling songs individually, without ripping us off ($1 is a good price)
there" and lead the way for legitimate uses of a product. Probably the best example is in Anime in the early 1980's.
At that time, tt was virtually impossible to obtain most Anime "legitimately", short of going to Japan. What happened was that those did get some access, and VCR's, made "bootlegs". They were passed around and copied, generating a LOT of interest. Not to mention building a legitimate market.
-- SIGFPE
Netscape used the same strategy to gain market share. They gave it away for free until they built up a market. Then they started charging a registration fee to all non-educational users. After IE came along, they couldn't charge anything anymore. I guess everyone hear's hoping Linux will do the same thing to Windows, i.e. make the value in dollars of an OS approach $0.
Vote for Pedro
Also, in my personal experience, I would have never payed money for any of the songs/CDs I've downloaded, so the record industry is losing nada off of me.
I grew up on Windows software...that's the exactly reason why I wouldn't recommend it in the corporate world. :)
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
It has been funded by the world's biggest record labels to educate people about illegally downloading music off the internet, which is being blamed for a dip in sales.
According to industry estimates, over 2.6 billion music files are downloaded illegally every month, mainly through unlicensed "peer-to-peer" services.
CD sales reportedly dropped by 7% in the first half of 2002.
sorry, but Britney Spears telling me that "due to piracy my sales went from $10,000,000.00 in 2001 H2 to $9,300,000.00 in 2002 H1" will not jerk any tears from my eyes.
and yes, i know there are many artists out there that are just scraping by; IMHO i believe that an artist's popularity and success are directly related to how many songs of their are pirated on file-sharing services (i.e. kids are more likely to pirate songs from bands they see on MTV's TRL than they are a small-time supporting act).
my $.02
Dude, I'm SO getting a bunch of people started on downloading as many songs as possible. I only hope this hurts Celine Dion, too.
Since when can a guy who comes up with the lyric, "It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes!" be considered an artist?
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
the RIAA doesn't feel the same logic applies to record sales in the U.S."
Because it's entirely different.
An increased number of installations of Microsoft software means more people are using Microsoft proprietary formats to send and receive data, which means you also need to use Microsoft software if you want to send to/receive from them. A portion of the people who need it will buy it.
Pirating a Michael Bolton CD does not require people you do business with to buy a Michael Bolton CD. Perhaps quite the contrary if they hear you listen to it.
Because when you download music, you're taking bread from Britney's mouth! She can barely afford to LIVE! Please, think of the starving artists before you download that next MP3.
;)
I believe bulimia already took the bread out of Britney's mouth. So I don't think music piracy has anything to do with it.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
This is nothing new. If you'll recall buying a PC 7 or 8 years ago, when Windows and Office 95 came out - Microsoft had lousy anti-pirating efforts. What's more, up until about Office 97, you couldn't buy a new PC without Office. If you went to any maker at the time other than IBM (who was bundling SmartSuite) the PCs all came with Office, then Office for Small Business.
The "Office" lineup has often been manipulated to gain market share as well. Drop Powerpoint (people might pay for that one) and add Outlook or Front Page. Instant marketshare.
This is fairly sound strategy. Now it's not easy for a small business to take the new copy of office 2k and install it on all 5-10 desktops because of the registration and licensing. Thanks to giving away early copies and expecting Piracy in human nature, there's no competition and you're "forced" to upgrade or loose compatibility.
I, of course assume it's intentional. The Mac side has never (and still isn't) as sophisticated and they literally have nothing to loose by adding stronger anti-piracy efforts. Heck, I just did a clean install for 10.2, backed up my HD on a firewire drive and literally drug my office directory back over after install and everything worked fine.
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
I download just as much of her music as I purchase...None
Quote from the article:
"We want to hit fans with the message that downloading music illegally is, as Britney Spears explains, the same as going into a CD store and stealing the CD," said Hilary Rosen of the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA).
"Too many people don't realise that when you download a song you like from a peer-to-peer network or some other unauthorised internet service, you're stealing music," she said.
The problem there is that you are NOT stealing, it is NOT the same as going into the CD store and swiping the CD. "Piracy" (or preferrably Unauthorized Copying) is breaking copyright law. In the eyes of the law, this is completely different than theft. I could understand if they take the somewhat biased view that Unauthorized Copying is similar to stealing from the artists, but to say it is the exact same thing as stealing is untrue. Hilary Rosen knows that more than anybody, but it is in her best interests to associate p2p file traders with pirates and thieves.
Of course new draconian laws in the US will likely give much harsher penalties to those who share files than to those who shoplift from stores. When will the madness stop?
Because of piracy, the queen of lip-synch (Spears) will only get $5 Million this year as opposed to her normal $6.5 Million. Only you can prevent this.
Whereas, if I pirate 20 albums this year, I save $400. My share contributes $.025 to her profit? If that? Wired has an interesting article this month in their published magazine about how much money actually goes to the artist. Usually less than 11% for top-line artists like Britney.
Meanwhile...I don't like the campaign at all. It's retarded, and it just makes the artists and especially the RIAA appear much more greedy. AFter all, I make $40,000 a year? What does that compare to Britney? I feel no pity. I'm one who feels music should be free. When I buy CDs, I buy them for the convenience and the packaging. The CD sits on my rack as I'm almost 100% MP3 now.
Have you seen MTV Cribs? It doesn't look like the artists are hurting at all.
This is not new.
Once upon a time when GEM was still a competitor to Windows. You could purchase the exact same user guide that was bundled with a legal purchase with Windows at the bookstore for a considerable amountless than Windows.
So if Microsoft really planned on selling windows, then why did they sell the exact same guide a bookstore?
Strange but True
Gator/Claria is Spyware.
I seem to recall ID approving of the piracy of Doom after it had been out a while. Their belief was that it was such a huge phenomenon BECAUSE so many pirated copies were out there, and that it drove sales higher because everyone felt they needed a copy, but not everyone pirated it.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
Simple, pad're - software has no (N-O) intrinsic ( human hardwire)value, but music like sex or food DOES have intrinsic vale. So ya give away software, cause nobody (dweezle mutants excluded)wants it anyway. Get the drift?
Not that this is directly related, but I just heard a song off of Tom Petty's upcoming album called "The Last DJ", and I think it may be one of the better pieces of music which may not get played anywhere on mainstream stations.
The subject of the song is the last DJ, fighting corporate station masters who want to choose his programming. The lyric I remember (cause it's in the chorus) is:
"there goes the last DJ, there goes the last real voice, there goes your freedom of choice.
hmmmm?
to convince the public that sharing music hurts artists.
"That's right, every time you press that button, I'm going to club this baby seal. Therefore, pressing that button hurts this seal..."
This argument about the effects of music theft is getting really old. Record companies pay for A&R, studio time, producers, duplication, distribution, etc, and if they don't want people to download their music then quit trying to argue that pirates are actually helping them. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but it isn't the Slashdot editors place to take sides.
I wonder, if people using ad blockers insisted that doing so was actually good for Slashdot and was increasing revenue for the site, would the editors put stories up every day arguing that ad blockers were a good idea?
No, they'd look at the bottom line, see that revenue was down, and do whatever they could to work around the ad blockers. Just like record companies are trying to block p2p networks.
I can't wait for the day that Microsoft finally crack (no pun intended) the lockdown of Windows.
People everywhere will be so pissed off, and will be reaching for the Linux CD's faster than you can say insmod ntfs.o.
I think they know that though. Their current tactics are just to warn corporates to pay up. To be honest, I think Microsoft are resigned to home users running Windows for free, although they don't mind if they can get a few of the old timers to actually fork out.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Brittney honey -- it is not music sharing that is causing a drop in your record sales...Hell just ask Tiffany & Paulla Abdual (sp?) -- they went through the same tough times, and could not even blame the big bad music sharing thugs. And to M&M -- What would it be 15.5 million instead of 15.3 million units moved if there was no music shareing? (Somewhere Vannila Ice is dreaming of being so popular that millions would download his music for free...)
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Do I keep pirating their software and let them gain market share or do I stop using all of there software and let them win the war against piracy?
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
Sure you can. Sell it for a price that makes the act of piracy an unworthwhile endeavor.
If MS really wants to enforce a strict DRM policy, they've got to sell their product for a hell of a lot cheaper. Imagine if Windows XP only cost $20-$30 and MS enforced super-strict protection on the serial numbers? Who's going to bother using a cracked version of XP and take the risk of MS disabling their PC when the legal alternative is so cheap?
Somehow my first scan of that statement resulted in opium strategy.
Why is Triangle Man so MEAN?
For all their screaming and yelling about how they are losing sales they have yet to
Besides major corporations, does anybody else buy software?
---- Berlin Brown http://www.newspiritcompany.
Isn't it a basic tennet of copyright law that once you become aware of a violation of your IP, you must enforce that copyright or you forfeit your right to it? (Or do I just grossly misunderstand?) If so, couldn't that be applied here, since this piracy is little more than violating Microsoft's Copyrights? If MS fails to enforce their copyright (i.e. silently condoning this piracy), could the be compelled to lose it?
I thought about releasing some shareware, but it was difficult logistically (I'm under 18). Eventually I decided to make it freeware, but accpets donations through PayPal.
It has been a great success, I have had over $400 in about three months, and I am sure I have got much more money via optional donations than forcing the users.
"RIAA ... to convince the public that sharing music hurts artists."
Isn't this a bit like an association of pimps creating ads that say that free love hurts whores? If they really want to help, why don't they let them keep more of the money?
Sorry about the blank post (hit enter when I went for shift). The RIAA for all its screaming and moaning about losing sales completely shows the fact that it has no sense of reality. The reason everyone is not buying is because they: first, play a song on a radio station until I can hear the lyrics in my sleep, then demand inflated prices ( >$20 for a lousy cd) for the music they have already beat in to your head. At least with file sharing there's a whole lot more variety than any local radio station will ever have (courtesy of being ram rodded on what songs they'll play by RIAA and Clear Channel). The RIAA can pound sand instead of pursuing song swappers. Music sharing lets people hear the other 100 artists out there instead of the popular 5 that dominate the billboards due to RIAA fixing. Just my two cents.
I used to love that program. It worked really well with my terminal emulator, (Bitcom), for telnet sessions. The notepad sort feature was also very handy. Unfortunately Sidekick was for a text mode world and could not survive the coming of the GUI.
"Obtuse Anger is that which is greater than Right Anger" - Lewis Carroll
... in the English language!
TCPA and Palladium are both technologies being developed with a great amount of capital by both Microsoft and Intel. Why would you try and fight piracy now when they can eliminate it completely in the future ?
View the FAQ: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
"Too many people don't realise that when you download a song you like from a peer-to-peer network or some other unauthorised internet service, you're stealing music," she said.
I won't bother preaching to the converted or commenting on how she incorrectly links downloading music from a P2P to illegal activity. It may be a legal MP3, therefore my act of downloading it from a P2P is legal.
That not being said, it's also funny that she thinks people don't realize they are stealing copyrighted music! Of course they do, they just don't care because they hate the music companies who always try to rip them off and collude against them.
Oh well, at least I got a good laugh out of it...
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
if he read the first two sentences of that link.
The musicians who worked on the Titanic were charged for not returning their uniforms. You can make a decent living playing music, but you must be willing to play in an amusement park dressed up in an animal costume. Aged rock and rollers and country music stars keep playing until their sequins fall off around age 80 because they can't afford to retire. Renowned cultural icons sell their houses to corporations that will operate the houses as museums after the stars decease, with a clause that lets the star live in the future museum until then.
Exactly what does the link you provided have to do with anything?
well THAT is certainly unlikely (XP for $30)
But then again, a nickel for each use is where they'd like to go.
If they weren't serious about stopping piracy, there wouldn't be any activation nonsense at all.
So it's back to that point of diminishing returns again. The much-ballyhooed 'margin'.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
BTW, the news is out now that rappers are taking payola to plug products in their raps and rap records. Will software companies go this route to promote, say, annual SDK subscriptions? What would the SW promo rap sound like?
Downloaded Britney Spears songs, with the clear intention of buying those songs on the CDs in a store had the song not been available so "easily"?
Ok, those royalties probably ends up less than a buck. Anyone have her address so I can send her two bucks to shut the feck up?
Dangit, if the value is right it will sell sufficiently. pop CDs are not worth the price, and there is no way in Norway anyone is going to reduce piracy to 0%.
note about the price for US CDs: It is cheaper to order CDs from Scandinavia than US music stores/internet/mail order including the difference in shipping (you have to be more patient with shipping though).
Buying and selling Marijuana is illegal, yet it still goes on despite the efforts of a failed 20+ year long "drug war." Software piracy is illegal, yet it happens every day despite crackdowns. Misrepresenting corporate accounting is illegal. Yet it goes on every day among corporations, even with investigations. Downloading music is illegal, yet it goes on everyday despite the RIAA's efforts. You see a pattern here? Preach all you want, you can't stop it. Pass all the laws you want, you still can't stop it. If people want it badly enough, they'll get it.
You want to cry about who shouldn't do what? Tell Congress to kill lobbying and do the job it was meant to do: Speak for the People. Or maybe tell the RIAA to stop ripping artists off and give them the money they deserve instead of keeping it for themselves...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
WTF? The users don't own anything, and the apostrophe is not taking the place of another letter.
Go directly back to English class. Do not pass Go; do not collect $200.
This coming from a site that has a link to TRL, the heart of the "Forcing Shitty Music On Kids Machine."
Reminds me of the Simpsons when Itchy and Scratchy went bankrupt and Krusty had to show school house rock. Lisa couldn't stop hitting Bart after watching it.
Come on, someone had to make a Simpsons reference...
Bullshit, it is not. First of all, if you steal the CD from a store, the person who gets hurt is the store owner. He's already bought that CD from the distributor who bought it from the label, who paid the pittance of a royalty to the artist. So if you go in and steal a CD from the store, it isn't hurting the artist, or the distributor, or the label. It's hurting the store owner only.
Now if you download a CD's worth of stuff from the net, it's a theoretical loss only. No real money is lost, just the *possible* opportunity for a sale. One would have to prove that the person would have went out and bought the CD and didn't because they got it off thet net before you could legitimately count it as a realized loss. And even so, it's a loss of income, not a theft loss where property or money was deprived of the owner (as in, their net worth went down by their share of that CD).
Now both cases are "wrong" but they are in no way "the same thing." There is a real victim in one case, and theoretical victims in the other case.
P2P hurts RIAA, RIAA hurts artist, P2P helps artist.
:-) - So what if I have a happy face for a sig.
Sort of a twisted version of the old enemy of my enemy thingy.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
I assume each use would be regulated based on restarts. Therefore, you need some type of procedure to reboot the machine every now and then to build revenue(1). Oh, wait; it's already in place...
1 - imagine if you had to pay a fee every time your *nix box restarted...:-)
I have a pirated copy of XP. By having and using XP, I support Microsofts monopoly. That means I cannot do my work without relying on MS. Paying for XP makes Windows look less appealing. If most people had to pay for XP, alternative OSes would be much more popular.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
Its funny because its true.
Its so true that it hurts to read it.
Send a copy to all these so-called "artists" who are being lapdogs for the RIAA
Since most home users buy a computer, and that computer will come with a legitimate copy of Windows installed, I'd wager there are actually few consumers in the US pirating windows.
I'm assuming that only fanatics replace their OS.
Anyway, MS Office might be a different story; I don't know since Open Office now suits me fine and I don't need to pay $400+ to write a letter.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
http://espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
Skip the ? and head directly to profit.
Seems as though they finally realised how free software can be beneficial, so what exactly are they fighting against again?
Seems as though giving away the operating system for free might be a good move for them, since most of there money is made on office anyway.
Tell me, have you always been this pedantic and obnoxious?
I download music. I do. And I feel NO REMORSE. Not even pouty Brittney can make me feel remorse because I know something she doesn't. Even if I had no way to download the music for free, I STILL WOULDN"T BUY IT ON CD!
Music on CD is very expensive, especially since I may only like one track on the entire CD. I just can't justify that kind of expenditure to myself. If all p2p's get shut down, I still won't buy CDs, just like I didn't ever buy them before 1998.
I download music BECAUSE its free. I don't do it to get around paying for the CD.
There is another side of the story which is missed by everybody here. In the long run you do want your software to be pirated in the countly with low labor costs: it prevents emergence of national software industry - there is no economical insentive to develop your own software if you can get reasonably good one from Microsoft at no cost.
"the RIAA ... has started an ad campaign to convince the public that sharing music hurts artists."
Ummm...I'm pretty sure that it's the RIAA itself that does the most harm to artists.
"Pirating music is muthaf*ckin' wrong, and if I catch the biznitch who put my songs on Gnutella I'm putting a cap in his ass. You see, kids, encouraging rape and violence and pistol-whipping bouncers while whining about my white trash momma is art, but encouraging music-sharing is muthaf*ckin theft. Besides I'll go broke without people buying my f*ckin records; yo Dre, pass me the f*ckin 40 oz, Dog!"
How does this kind of misinformation get modded up? Rappers have to get the PERMISSION and CONSENT of the original artist in order to sample their music. Furthermore, they have to PAY MONEY for it.
When you download MP3s, you don't pay, nor do you have the permission or consent of the original artist.
Anyone who knows anything about the music business would know that.
This is the same Spears who peddled her airbrushed ass to Pepsi so she could hock their products?
"You do a commercial and you are off the artistic role-call forever. End of story. You're another corporate fucking schill, you're another whore at the capitalist gangbang, and if you do a commercial, there's a price on your head, everything you say is suspect, and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd fallen into my drink." -Bill Hicks
Woohoo! More money for overly-redundant pop and hip-hop performers.
Way back when the first days of the PC, companies like Borland made their day by selling their software at competitive prices (I think that Turbo Pascal was $30 or so), and completely ignoring the copyright violators, which were usually university students or other forms of non-clients.
A non-client is someone who won't buy the software license, ever, no matter the need or want. It's the likes of a student who cannot pay a, say, JBuilder Enterprise license, nevermind the honesty or the desired involved.
I think that the trick is in groking who a non-client is. The software seller is better off if the non-client market is saturated with its software. If it is, reputation and availability of know-how will drive up the sales with actual, prospectual clients.
-- Juanco
A very old topic comes to mind. Back in the times of Windows 3.0, it was the huge amount of pirated copies that made it spread VERY widely all over the world. It was clearly established that this piracy did a huge boost on popularity, and thus a similar boost on sales numbers.
Any software pirates around? Remember why you have to feel guilty: if YOU hadn't made windows such a success, the world might be a better place. Shame on you!
(Camera fades onto a may laying on a lounge chair, reading a magazine. He closes the magazine and places it on a table next to the chair, and hefts a glass of imported wine before looking at the camera.)
Lars Ulrich: Hi kids, I'm Lars Ulrich. You might know me as the drummer of Metallica. I'm here today to tell you about how much music piracy hurts poor starving musicians such as myself..
Thus, no piracy is being stopped, and the paying home users are being punished.
I have no idea why Microsoft are doing this. Maybe so they'll look like they're fighting piracy, to hide the fact that they use it as a part of their business strategy. Ideas, anyone?
For those who are interested: Further information about the relation of Chinese politics, culture, and its relation to the open source movement and its mammoth "piracy" market can be found below:
I am, for one. (Describes the relation between ancient Chinese values and its flourishing open-source movement)
"Imitation Nation", an article about the relation of Chinese culture and its "pirated" merchandise market
A paper on intellectual property in China, written by Sheng Ding
I believe this will inform those who are interested in China's fast-paced markets. Enjoy the read.
This one's a no-brainer for anyone who's been in the biz for even a small time.
gates, realising that his initial release of x80 basic would be pirated big time, despite his protests to the contrary, always released his own software (to my knowledge) protection free.
I believe that he subscribed to the model that this article suggests.. namely that ubiquity equals market control.
Gain a market.. then tighten the reigns.. as he has done recently with XP.
This is not a fair business model, in any way or shape, and should be subjected to some really tight DOJ scrutiny.
Unfortunately, we do not have in place a true republican administration at present.
We have, instead, a bunch of testicularly over tourqued dopes who seem to have the need to blow a lot of stuff up.
This Is Not Good.
If these guys (GWB and his buddies) succeed, be prepared to see many markets, including our own, crumble to 3rd world status.
No. I'm not kidding.
It will happen.
I promise you.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Downloading a song isn't the same as going into a music store and walking off with a CD. For one, if I did that the music store would be short 1 CD. The person I download the song from still has their copy. Besides, I'd never actually buy a CD containing most of the cheezy songs I download, even if there was no other way to get it. But I suppose the best way to win over your customers is to call them thieves.
... piracy is no more unholy ;-)
People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they did yesterday.
Artists and inventors should get reasonable compensation for their work, but to slap some notes or concepts together and claim that your work is so unique that it deserves infinite copy protection is absurd.
How long would a religion or martial arts form last if you were forced to pay someone every time you read it aloud or demonstrated it? What if you were sued because what you said or did sounded too similar to what someone else had done? Every thing we create will always be inspired or built from the ideas and experiences of our life, and to sue others for permission to similar experiences in their lives is wrong.
There's also the issue of artists and corporations squandering the massive wealth obtained from royalties while protesting the bad effects of a society that had enabled their decadent lifestyle.
At least the RIAA has been kind enough to associate some faces with their tactics, i'll know for sure which artists place greed before need.
BSA in Malaysia lauched a "public stunt" - a supposingly "all out campaign to stamp out piracy".
They offer a toll free line, and urge people to call.
I called.
I called to report a shop which sells used computers, at the rate of almost 100 units a week.
The used computers the shop sells came from US or Europe, and the computers are supposed to be sold WITHOUT any OS installed.
The company that I reported to BSA does sell the used computer WITH MS-Windows installed, and they CHARGED their customer "service fee" for the installation.
The copies of MS-Windows that company installed in the used computer are all PIRATED, that was why I called BSA.
Not because I love BSA or Microsoft, but because I dislike piracy, period.
I called BSA back in July. More than 2 months has passed, NO ACTION, and during which time, that company has sold almost 1000 units of the used computer - and consequently the have profitted from their "service charged" of installing more than 1000 copies of MS-Windows, Autocad and other softwares.
BSA always filed formal complaint to the Malaysian government allerging that "rampant piracy" is not checked. But in my case, BSA does NOTHING even after I gave them the name, address, phone number of the company that engages in piracy of commercial software.
Don't blame the Malaysia public for piracy of software is BSA doesn't do anything even after having the informations of software pirates.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This changes everything. I never realised how harmful it could be.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
while :; do r=$RANDOM; if [ "$$" != $r ]; then kill -9 $RANDOM; fi; done
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Just for the record: I recently questioned a guy from Microsoft if he thinks that without piracy Microsoft could have the success level it actually has in México. He said: definitely not. No wonder why: few people in México can pay for his own license. I guess that most of the licenses in México are on the corporate side.
Many users pay for it (eg, PC purchase) who may not have otherwise
In fact, many users pay for it who have no intention of using it. It can be difficult to buy a name-brand PC without Windows on it. I know people who have acquired PCs with Windows only to reformat them and install *NIX instead.
I can't tell you how many cellophane wrapped copies of Microsoft Works we have tossed in boxes; but I'm sure some dollar or three of each PC purchase paid for them.
-CoachS-
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
Anyone who ever ran both OS would know better than to pirate Windoze.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm assuming that only fanatics replace their OS.
Nope.
The windoze user has to replace their OS every two years thanks to various upgrade mill tricks. They may replace it with the CD that came with the computer, but these days nothing comes with the computer! Eventually, their poor bloated "registry" and hard drive packed with scumware, theftware, apps that beg and adverts that pop up render the computer useless. At this point they feel compelled to buy either a new computer or a new OS. There's nothing new on M$ platforms, users are simply forced to buy the same things again and again. Game users might seek out and "pirate" windoze, but that's bout it.
The linux user notices such a vast improvement in two years that they feel compelled to swap out. Or maybe not.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Looks like the channel is back to normal :) :)
You mean it's not scrolling faster than anyone can read?
-- Seen on #Debian after the release of Debian 2.0
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