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Gartner Survey: Consumers Don't Want Crippled CDs
robkill writes "According to GartnerG2, 77% of consumers believe they should be allowed to copy CD's for personal use in another device. 82% believe they should be allowed to make personal backup copies of CD's. Let's hope Senators Hollings and Berman are paying attention. More details can be found in this PC World article."
return true
100% of RIAA and their cronies *want* Crippled CDs. Whose $ do you think politicians are going to listen to?
Michael Loves Me!
that constituents don't want corrupted congressmen.
let's see, who do you think will have more influence - a poll that shows roughly 80% of constituents don't want a certain 'feature' (half of those constituents will likely be democrat, half republican. halve that again for the actual numbers that will vote..)
OR
the HUGE amounts of contribution money donated by industry to congressional representatives to ensure their voice is heard fairly.
In order to clear up consumer rights issues, you must first clear up congressional responsibility issues. Stop allowing corporations to be treated as more important citizens than the actual voting citizens first.
I dont think those senators or the RIAA really care at all about what the general public thinks is fair/not-fair use of the products purchased. All these senators care about is the bottom dollar, and how many ben franklins are in their pocket. It would be nice if they really did care what their constituants (sp) thought, but the truth is they dont, wont, and never really did.
IIRC, the people at that debate were involved with music more that normal people would be. This survey is of ordinary people, of the sort that the RIAA will pay attention to. The RIAA has mostly ignored the protests of Slashdot, no matter how vehement, but they are more likely to pay attention to this.
Let's hope Senators Hollings and Berman are paying attention.
The vast majority of voters won't care a bit. Yes, they'd like non-crippled CDs, but that won't sway their voting. People usually vote based on whether someone is Republican or Democratic - the stance the candidate takes on important issues is (depressingly) unimportant to most people.
Honestly, I've never met anyone that felt that they shouldn't be able to copy their music to another format. I realize I'm just a sheltered GNU/Linux geek and all that, but really...what did the other 23% or 18% (resp.) of people mean when they said they shouldn't copy music to other formats or make backups? Were they just ignorant that such things could be done? Were they really so afraid of some boogeyman of copyright enforcement that they think exists to track down and kill so-called pirates? Or do the RIAA and MPAA really account for that large of a chunk of our population?
Has anyone on
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
3 types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics :)
Unless you have a graph or some history showing the increased popularity of the inability to copy cd's AND have solid proof it's the RIAA... I'll attribute the other 23% to other factors as well as the riaa.
-s
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
To put it simply, it doesn't matter how many people believe this. What matters is, how many of the cited percentages are active voters, and for that matter, are willing to vote for someone else because of their Senator's stance on the issue.
We can cite polls and percentages all day, but until more people start excercising the right to vote, Hollings stance on the issue wont change.
I may be slightly off here, but I believe less than half the eligible population voted in the last presidential election.
In other news, 99.92% of all customers don't want their products broken, according to a recent survey.
and around 99.99% of all citizens don't want to pay taxes...
100% of RIAA member companies don't give a damn what consumers think about crippled CDs as long as they keep shelling out $18.99 a crack for Britney et al.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
You should show at least a little sympathy for them. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Can you imagine what it must be like to spend your whole life stuck in a CD caddie?
Sorry but I'm drawing the line. First crippled CDs, then they'll push deaf Walkman players and blind monitors.
Trolling is a art,
I think it's sad that the RIAA already has 23% of the population convinced that they shouldn't be able to make a copy of a CD they own for personal use.
Not necessarily. My guess is that the majority of the 23% that said nay simply didn't care. Turn on the TV and watch some Jerry Springer - do you think people of such intellectual caliber would even know how to make a copy of the CD? If they don't even know how to make copies, why would they even care if they can make one or not?
i think those numbers could be a little misleading. I want to know how the poll was conducted. I'm sure if it was an online deal, more people would think that they should be able to copy cd's. If, however, they surveyed kiddies at the local walmart, i don't think most people would care!
:)
on the flip side, though, who would say that they don't think they should be able to backup their music, unless they worked for the record companies?
So really the bottom line is - the poll is rather pointless. It's, like, duh
I doubt they give a shit about what the consumers want. Since they are so deep in the pocket of big bussiness, they will just dismiss the %77 as pirates, say that the polls are wrong as well as rigged, say it is proof they need more control, etc.
The truth is that they don't give a fuck about the what the regular consumer wants or thinks unless it is in theif favor such as giving them more control, more cash, a garentee of profit, etc.
I do not think there is anything we can do to change their views and say in the matter besides voting them out. You might be able to with Hollings, but unfortenitly Berman is in an area controlled by hollywood.
Or on the other side: "Do you believe that artists are entitled to payment for every copy of their work that gets distributed to a different individual?"
Or
"Do you believe that businesses should be allowed to distribute media that prevents the illegal copying and re-distribution of their content?"
With art as in politics, it's all in where you draw the line.
from the article (yes, i read it)
d -players .
>The copy-protected CDs limit users options--preventing them from making a copy of the CD to play in their car, for example, as one could with a cassette tape.
this is 100% BS.
Copy-protected CD do NOT stop someone from making a copy of the CD to play in their car, for example.
There is NO CD that can stop you from doing this.
1. Get a 1/8" to 1/8" cable from Radio Shack
2. Plug one end into a CD player that the CD plays in
3. Plug the other end into your computer
4. Hit "play" on the CD player at the same time you hit "record" on your computer's audio recording program.
99% of people will NOT be able to tell the difference when listening to the "unmakable" CD in their car.
They will, also, be able to make mixes.. that is, they can put tracks from MULTPILE "copy protected" circular-shiny-thingies-that-only-play-in-older-c
The only copy-protected music CD is the one that doesn't play in ANY CD player.
There is no way to stop me from copying the information from a media which allows me to hear, see, smell or taste. At least, not a copy which is "close enough" for me not to care that its a "perfect" copy.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
It's good to see the industry shaman/guru/fortune tellers at Gartner stick to their comfortable pattern of stating the obvious:
* Desktop computers cost a wad of cash to support
* Servers cost a wad of cash to support
* Companies want their computer stuff for cheap (TCO or Total Cost of Ownership)
* Losing cusotmers is expensive (Customer relationship management)
* Huge databases will be the norm in a few years (I love how this one is always true)
and joining Gartner's other brilliant flashes of the obvious:
* Consumers want to be able to use the software/music/movies/whatever they buy!
Maybe I should write a few cheesy white papers like "Controling the transaction cost of email" or "Why having an accounting system is important" and put on a few webinars... the boom, I could hire a bunch of marketing flunk outs and sell seats in "executive briefings" or cobranded reports for big $$$...
I suppose I should lighten up on Gartner - they do serve a purpose: they make people want to spend inordinate ammounts of money on trendy software and therefore keep a lot of us slashdot types employed.
$G
-- $G
But, by the same token, if no one is buying cds anymore, what impetous is there for your favourite band to bother making one?
How does that square up with all the indie artists out there selling CDs on indie labels that NEVER even break even, or just turn a slight profit? Are they just stupid?
And how about their fans, who buy their CDs and go to their shows, even though the MP3s are easy to get (sometimes off the label's web site!). Are they stupid too?
As for the backup CD issue, well, we all know what they're talking about, so why not just put it out in the open. People want to copy and share music. That's not going to ever change. Any law or scheme that gets in the way is not as good as one that doesn't.
Also, folks like me treat CDs like software: I buy it, "install" the tracks on the computer, then put the CD in the closet.
1. Too costly
2. I can get (sometimes) lower quality stuff from free via P2P.
3. I'm afraid that it will be crippled
Combine #1 and #3 and #2 is the only choice left for me.
Some business models are just not meant to survive forever. The Recording Industry should have begun to realize this 4 or 5 years ago, when MP3's first began to become popular, but instead they missed the boat, and decided to fight anyone that got on the boat. Hurt your consumers. Hurt your musicians. Given the fact that many people see the Recording Industry as dishonest (anyone remember the fact that they were recently found guilty of price fixing?), it's no wonder why we don't feel the least bit guilty about downloading from Kazaa, Morpheus, etc.
Nevertheless, most people prefer to be honest, overall. If the music industry starts selling new MP3 songs for $1/song and old ones for $0.25/song, they would likely see their profits higher than ever before, and kazaa would simply become a fringe group of people.
Those questions are all fine and dandy, and I'd vote 'yes' on both. But they're not the same as the parent poster's question OR the question that the article is based on. We're talking copies for personal use here, so your first question is invalid. And I have no problem with them trying to prevent illegal copying and distribution, so long as it doesn't infringe on my legal copying. If their idea of 'prevent illegal copying' is 'prevent all copying' then they are infringing on my rights.
do not read this line twice.
LEAD PIPES!
Come to NYC and drink the tap water that has been sitting in 100 year old lead pipes before it comes out of your faucet. You will LOVE bottled water. Plus, you actually don't get free water unless you are sucking up the scummy lake or river water filled with parasites. Tap water is paid for by taxes. No matter what, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Or on the other side: "Do you believe that artists are entitled to payment for every copy of their work that gets distributed to a different individual?"
Yeah, but what does that have to do with the RIAA?
Thomas Galvin
that distributing mp3s on the net can help sales the same way that radio airtime helps increase an artist's exposure and boosts sales?
Case Study:
My mom comes by my appartment once in a while to say hi, and drop off a basket of fresh home baked muffins (thanks Mom). She hears, and likes the celtic songs playing on the stereo and asks who the artist is.
"It's a mix of artists I downloaded from the internet." I reply. Then burn a copy of the mp3s to a cd, and give it to her.
About a month later she has become hooked on a couple artists and has bought their cd's.
Variations of this scenario have played out a couple times and my mom has complained that every time I give her a CD of MP3s she ends up spending 100 bucks at A&B Sound.
I believe this is a common scenario. People download a bunch of songs and then every once in a while a particular artist strikes the right chord and they look for more music from that artist. The problem with the internet is that there is a lot of junk, and it is nearly impossible to download a whole album from one artist and get decent quality for every song. So many of us go out and by the CD.
I do.
Really. I own two collector's editions of some very obscure music and I'd much rather play the backups than the original disks. So I make exact backups of them and then safely put the originals away.
I don't give them away to friends, I don't share them online through a P2P service, I don't do anything like that. I make a copy for the car and that's that. I want to keep the originals nice and safe; I use a copy for the car and Ogg for the computer.
When I buy a video game that requires me to use the CD, I try and use a copy as well, since I'd much rather risk accidently destroying a copy of my Warcraft III Collector's Edition (yeah, I know, Vivendi=Evil - quiet) then the original disk itself.
If I can figure out how to make a copy of UT2003 I'd do it to so I can let the original disks sit out of harms way (especially with the stupid "must have CD in the drive" shenanigans that often have disks out on top of the case during the burn of another disk or the install of something else - the joys of being a software developer under Windows - *sigh*).
Copy prohibition is only annoying for the legitimate purchases of content. The developers for UT2003 understood that and have admitted it in interviews. It's too bad that the publishing houses haven't figured that out yet and that I'm forced to have the stupid CD in my computer just so UT2003 can be convinced that even with a valid CD key I'm not some evil pirate.
When I buy music, I want to make an Ogg on my computer and a copy for my car. I then leave the disk safely away for potential future re-ripping and encoding to Ogg2 or the next great codec.
When my Dad buys a CD, he uses Roxio Easy-CD Creator to encode it to MP3 and then makes mixes of them for his car. My mother also encodes every CD she wants for easy access (although I don't know exactly what program she uses).
But notice that in these cases, we all legitamitely have the CD! I bought my copy of UT2003 and would be much obliged if Atari would trust me enough to use the game without the CD in the drive.
I have yet to see any of these restrictions doing anything to harm pirates. It just harms the honest consumer. I still buy CDs (a full four this year - and I haven't illegally downloaded anything else - and of those four, only two were through RIAA members) and support the companies that make games I like to play. But I still see the tracks available online, and know people who make copies of "copy protected" CDs simply to prove it's possible. And I'll bet all the real pirates of content and still happily selling their illegal $2 CDs out on the black market, laughing at means that only serve to force the honest user to either spend more money on additional CDs or give up functionality they've come to expect from their computers.
It annoys me.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Well, since the parent post was talking about a hypothetical question, I don't understand why my equally hypothetical questions (both examples of loaded survey questions) are invalid, but you are free to argue as you like. Also, the question asked in the Survey is never explicitely stated, so your argument that my question isn't the same as the one in the survey is correct, but irrelevant.
The questions I asked were posed to demonstrate that surveys tend to use loaded questions. In the case of the parent poster, the question is obviously loaded in favour of the 'consumer's rights' cause. The questions I proposed were obviously loaded in the other direction, and yet phrased in such a way that answering 'yes' doesn't appear disagreeable.
As for my first question. I understand fair use rights. I think they're good. However they do pose a problem, and that is what my first question is pointing to.
And I have no problem with them trying to prevent illegal copying and distribution, so long as it doesn't infringe on my legal copying.
Then you have a problem, as that is exactly what they are trying to do.
How much did they pay (or what were they offering in exchange) for that 23%?
The other question: How many of those 23% knew that they were talking about information CDs and not CDs that generate interest??
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Okay, who on Earth thinks that they should "backup audio cds"?
Well here in NZ where charting CDs cost as much as $35 each, backing them up onto a $1 CDR constitutes cheap insurance against damage.
If you argue that it's not worth spending a buck to protect $35 then chances are your house and other posessions are also uninsured -- after all, why spend money to protect your assets?
Of course the RIAA could kill the need/right/claim to backup CDs by offering an "at cost media replacement" service...
If they were prepared to replace a scratched or otherwise unusable original CD for just the price of the media (say $1) then they could say "you don't need to back them up" -- and that would add huge weight to their copy-protection pitch.
However, as we well know, the RIAA isn't interested in being fair.
Which leaves us wondering exactly what you're buying when you purchase a music CD.
It can't be a license to listen to the music or they'd be happy to replace the media at cost should it get damaged.
That means you must really be paying a significant amount of money just for the plastic and aluminum that make up the disk itself. In which case -- who the hell do they think they are trying to tell us that, having paid for it, we can't do whatever we want with it (including duplication for fair use purposes).
It strikes me that the RIAA want to have their cake and eat it to.
How can so many really stupid people be in control of so much money? Me thinks it can't be simply by virtue of hard work.
The difference here is that none of the things you mentioned are constitutional rights, whereas fair use is. I'm sure if I asked everyone if they want a million dollars, they'd all say yes, but that's not in the constitution either. I'm not entirely sure how you got modded up "insightful", so if anyone can tell me which part of this post provoked that mod, let me in on the secret.
do not read this line twice.
Heh, that's technically legal here in the US too, odd isn't it?
sic transit gloria mundi
The they all want to make copies for personal use, that isn't the real issue. It't the 95% of of those 82% who want make copies for others who didn't pay for the original material. If the rest of you had to make a living off royality per sale or use of your work instead of getting paid a salary or hourly you'd change your mind real quick.
Yeah, but what does that have to do with the RIAA?
Uhm... Nothing... ?? But then, neither does the article... Who said ANYTHING about the RIAA within the context of the post or article?
The RIAAis trying, thorugh various means, to push copy-protected CDs on us. Therefore, any discussion about copy-protected CDs automatically involves the RIAA.
Now, this particular thread is about how the wording of a question can alter the responses recieved. For instance, as you pointed out, asking "do you think artists should be compensated..." would make people morelikely to answer in favor of copy-protected CDs; I was merely pointing out that the RIAA, and therfore copy-protected CDs, have absolutly nothing to do with ensuring artists are fairly compensated.
Thomas Galvin
First thing you learn in advertising is how you ask a question is just as important as the derived statistic. I want to know if they asked "do you think you should be able to copy a CD for yourself" (relatively neutral), "Do you think copying a CD should be allowed, as it is protected by US copywright law" (weighted for) or "do you think stealing music is wrong" (weighted against). I'd wager good money on the second. It's all about the quality of the questions, not the merit of the issue. 'Tho it's good to see we can throw meaningless numbers around just as much as the other guys.
Triv
"I have already voted, several times..."
RIAA has a tough time of counting the votes. If you buy crippleware, that counts as a "yes" vote for crippleware. If you don't buy crippleware, it's not really a "no" vote for crippleware, because any "no" votes are considered piracy.
An honest comparison would be the sales of otherwise identical albums, selling the crippled and uncrippled side-by-side for the same price. Until that happens, it's really like Saddam running against nobody in the Iraqi "election".
Until I can take my scratched CD back to Best Buy and get a new copy for the cost of media - since I've already purchased a license to listen to the damn thing - then YES i want to be able to make a backup as is my right under the law.
And on a related topic -- if the stupid CD/Book/game is now longer avaailable because it's "out of print", then all talk of copyright is moot. If I make an unauthorized copy, how is it piracy when the origional isn't avaialble for sale?
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
77% of consumers believe they should be allowed to copy CD's for personal use
Yeah but 99% of consumers will be totally unaware whether the CD in their hot little hands at Best Buy is "crippled" or not. Nor will they care enough to put it back if you pointed out the warning label. It's one thing to ask a question and to have people agree in principle...and quite another to gague the extent to which such an agreement might influence actual behavior. My guess is that it won't influence it enough to deter the RIAA from making a good go of crippled CDs.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
I have Phillip Glass' Candyman soundtrack, a limited edition of which only 1000 were made. Do you think I shouldn't back this up simply because the RIAA feels insecure? I don't want to be limited in my freedom, but your argument that I 'see nothing wrong with ripping off the argument' doesn't have any logical basis ... also, if I can rip my CD collection, then I can make a backup of many CD's onto one single CDR. That's a fair use of my own property.
just like the humble blood clot... turboporsche@telus.net
Sorry to tell you this, but the RIAA has shown it's intent to only listen to the music labels. Hell, they don't even listen to the Artists who create the music in the first place.
1) If you think artists are "better compensated" for their work than programmers are, you must not know any artists or programmers. The statement is so wrong it's irrefutable--you should start a religion. But, an example: I'm an "artist." I write books, and make music for films. That's my job. And I make more money than anyone I know--except my friends who are programmers. My hourly wage for writing a book, I've calculated, runs about $2.20 US. Dollars. Two of them, and twenty cents. Years of work for a few thousand dollars--the high life indeed. (In case you don't like the analogy: I'm also in a band that's "critically acclaimed" but not famous; we lose money every time we even think about music.) My most successful programmer friend guesses he makes about $200 US per hour. He "guesses" that because he works so little and makes so much, he can't stop laughing long enough to bust out his calculator. Neither of us are typical, I'm sure, but there's more of him and me than there are of Britney Spears and RMS. Still, explain to me in detail how sickeningly overpaid and lazy I am, please.
2) Royalties exist so that artists can make whatever they want, and if people buy it, they can get paid for having worked--just like telemarketers and strippers. Ideally, this takes artistic decisions out of the hands of patrons and media corps--for artists willing to risk being utterly destitute should their work not sell--and puts them the hands of...whoever. Isn't that neat? It's, like, an almost-ideal version of capitalism or something.
(As for the whole "playing live" argument: Movies, paintings, books, and irreproducible studio-created music all exist; should they not? Because that's all "doing nothing," right? DVDs, reproductions of paintings, books, and records are already cheap, because they're easy to make once all the work is done. Like any other manufactured good is. I mean, should Ferraris cost $1000 each? Because all the "real work" was done before the first one went off the assembly line, and those greedy car-designing bastards expect you to spend a hundred grand on a pile of scrap-metal while they're off on vacation--right? The nerve.)
3) Everything you said above is a justification for your being a cheap and envious person. I admit I probably have much better luck with the art-hotties than you do, but you're rather too rabid about all this, don't you think? You're spitting bold tags all over the screen. Sigmund Freud wrote some books you should probably read. And you can steal them without guilt--dead men collect no royalties.
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
In order to more accurately reflect the reality of crippled media, and since pirates probably don't buy those CD's, I'll rephrase your second one as
Why?
They know people will still buy the CD's even if they can't be copied. Take for example DVD's when they were first released, how many slashdotters bought DVD players and discs before they could copy them? My bet would be a good portion of us, and we are the ones that go looking for ways to copy them. Do you think the average consumer even knows it's possible to copy a DVD disc?
So again I ask, why will the RIAA care what people want with regards to copying CD's. They know full well, even if CD's can't be copied they aren't going to lose sales. All those people that bought CD's before are still buying them now and will continue to do so in the future. With perhaps the exception of a few slashdotters we all still buy CD's, although we bitch and moan about it. Have a significant amount of us actually stopped buying CD's outright?
I doubt it. The RIAA also believes (rightly or wrongly), that at least a portion of those people pirating music will fork over for the CD's if they can't find the music they want.
Normal people worry me!
maybe they thing that making a tape is breaking the law (due of course to RIAA brainwashing)
if someone called you up and said "do you think J-walking should be legal" and even though you J-walk every day, you would probably say no just so you don't get in trouble.
if the question was formed like "would make make a bootleg tape of a cd you purchased?" some people might hear bootleg and think "illegal" and say no. america is stupid like that.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
If a CD won't rip to MP3 I won't buy it, because I won't be able to listen to it the way I prefer to (on iPod). There are millions others like me.
sulli
RTFJ.
So, if it's too easy to download an album, how about make the album bigger?
For example: I like quality in my CDs, so though I download music at 128kbps MP3s (or 192, if I can find it), if I find an album with three or more songs I like, I go out and buy it - then I get the higher quality, uncompressed 44.1kHz, 16-bit audio.
So, you ask, what happens when connection speeds are such that I can just download the entire uncompressed album?
Well, sure, that will happen, but how about the music industry stepping up to the challenge and offering more - more incentive to buy the full version? For instance, DVD-A (or SACD) with high resolution, multi-channel audio, and with some of the extra room on the album, maybe include a video or two. That would be worth purchase, 'cause either you have to compress the whole thing down horribly, or wait for a 9 GB download.
People will still strip off the audio and compress it to MP3s, or submix down to 2-channel and downconvert it, but the loss of quality becomes equivalent to the loss of quality with MP3s now... or even worse.
The RIAA wants me to buy more CDs rather than downloading them? Then, how about offer me something that makes it worthwhile for me to go purchase CDs.
-T
The reason why people buy DVDs even though they can't copy them is because there is little point in copying them for the average member of the public. You can't watch movies while you do something else as you can with music, so there's no need to really copy it; ever heard of a portable DVD player that lets you watch DVDs in high quality on the go? No, neither have I.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Don't be so quick to give up rights you don't use today... you may use them tomorrow.
I personally have never taken a pressed disc into my car. Since I don't have a changer if I want to change a disc at a light I may need to drop everything if the light changes too soon (or whatever). Most of the discs in my car are scratched up, but it's ok because they're all CD-R and I can replace the copy if one gets ruined. Not to mention that in Arizona summers the interior of the car goes way over 120 degrees in the middle of the day. I'm not throwing away $15 to buy a new disc that I already own, just because I can't make a backup!
And friends with kids have discovered that keeping the discs at home won't necessarily protect them.
So, you're saying that some people copy music onto CDs, that it should be illegal to own a cd player? Where do you draw the line?
Freedom comes with responsibility and sure, people these days aren't fulfilling their responsibilities so well but that doesn't mean that I should loose my freedoms.
Also keep in mind that the lack of sales has little to do with piracy, it's more closely related to the economy and the RIAA's business model. I've purchased more cds since mp3's and internet radio came around than I did before.
-Thorn
Now, whenever I use that term, most people assume it's a nice way of saying "pirate copy." Thing is, many of my cds are imports or out-of-print obscurities, and I don't want to leave them in the car, where they get exposed to heat, scratching or possible theft. In fact, at $18USD a pop, I don't want to leave my regular cds in the car either, which is why I've got a holder with about 40 CDRs under my seat. It just makes life easier.
Since I'm already paying a hidden fee that the RIAA's been building in to the cost of cds since the PMRC hearings in the '80's, and I'm paying an extra tax built into the cost of the CDR discs thanks to RIAA lobbying, they're already gouging me twice for the privelege of doing something to which I'm legally entitled anyway.
With the advent of these "copy-proof" cds, I have yet to see any mention of either of those taxes going away. As far as I can tell, I'd still be paying both those premiums, even if every cd on the market was 100% copy-proof. God bless America.
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
For God's sake people, chlorinated tap water will likely contain fewer microbes than spring water, which comes out of the damned GROUND. If you're lucky.
I call bullshit.
The house I've lived in for the last while is supplied by a well (yes, the water comes out of the "damned GROUND"). Every six months we send a sample of the water to a local lab to test for parasites and bacteria. It always comes back with zeroes across the board; zero E. Coli, zero coliform, etc. And this is without one drop of chlorine, bromine, or anything else.
Know where aquafina and dasani come from? Chlorinated tap water with some salts added. So you're paying $2 a bottle for what you can get for (essentially) free. Morons.
Take chlorinated tap water and run it through a heavy-duty reverse osmosis filter (among other filters) like Coca-Cola does with Dasani, and you end up with basically nothing but dihydrogen monoxide (pure water). Then they add some minerals back into the water to give it some taste (otherwise it would be like drinking distilled water, which actually isn't as good for you and also tastes yucky).
Chlorine and fluorine don't taste good, which is why many people in areas with heavily-treated (or high-iron-content, for example) water prefer bottled water to their tap water. Yes, it costs more, but it's more pleasant.
Now who's the moron?
You do not have a right to fair use.
Untrue. I direct you to the 9th Amendment to the US Constitution, Amendment IX, which reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Just because they don't say you have the right to it doesn't mean you don't have the right to it. The US government has legislated a great many things, among them the specifics of copyright law, and you do have the right to make copies of any copyrighted work which you have purchased, so long as those copies are for personal or fair use.
I think you are arguing a semantic distinction where none exists. If I am allowed to do something by law, I have the right to do it. The fact that there are conditions on that act does not mean I do not have a right to do so. I have the right to have a million dollars. That doesn't mean the government has to give me $1e6, but I do still have the right to have it.
-Terralthra...
When you introduce a confounding variable into an experiment, it can screw up your findings big time. In this survey for instance, adults (18+) vs. kids (under 18). Chances are you'd get a very different percentage if you seperated these groups.
That's just the way it is. If your purchase receipts would not only break out sales tax, but advertising and promotion costs, corporate debt service cost, legal costs, corporate income tax, production cost, R&D cost, exec perk costs, blue collar labor and benefit costs, plant maintenance&operations costs, and bad karma costs, then we'd have a lot better idea of what we're doing when we buy something.