Slashdot Mirror
China's Official Newspaper Pans iPad — Too Locked Down
An anonymous reader writes "The People's Daily newspaper, which is the official news organ of the ruling Communist party in China, apparently recently posted a review of the iPad, where it complained about the locked down nature of the device, noting that 'There are many disadvantages. For example you cannot install pirate software on them, you cannot download [free] music, and you need to pay for movies you watch on them.' You would think a country that is in favor of locking down the internet so much would like a locked up device ..."
http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/tag/pwnagetool/
Really? Your country spends so much effort pirating even physical cars, factories, etc, you can't be bothered to run a jailbreak?
...only when it benefits them. Consider how Baidu beat Google: by offering free searches of copyright-infringing content in addition to the legitimate services that Google provides. If I'm reading the stereotypes correctly, the Chinese government has no interest in protecting IP rights, especially those of American companies, since it ultimately seeks to undermine the American economy by devaluing it. So this really is towing the party line, if you assume that the movies, software and music are all seen as tied to America and American-allied countries (Japan, South Korea...) from the Chinese perspective.
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You would think a country that is in favor of locking down the internet so much would like a locked up device
It depends, as it always does, on who holds the key to the lock.
The Chinese government likes lockdown only as long as they're the ones doing the locking. Once someone else is in control, it interferes with their own power.
Catholic Church is a good example. A variant of it can exist in China on the condition that it dissociates itself from the Pope, so it is not controlled by a foreign entity. Chinese don't like lockdown and censorship, they like a monopoly of power and influence on the public. Once you think about it, that's also what many of the Western leaders want, but don't have the means necessary to get it.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
China isn't bowing to the current Imaginary Property system because it only hurts them, just as they resisted Britain's attempts to get them all hooked on Opium in the 19th century.
The USA did the exact same thing in the early stages of its rise to power, ignoring the Imaginary Property of European countries.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
In a sense you are right. Intellectual property is important to advanced economies which primarily rely on innovation in order to grow. It is less important to countries whose economy is based on plentiful supply of humans who can cheaply and mindlessly stamp out parts for products that other countries invent. China is still a primitive country by Western/Japanese standards with per capita GDP 1/13th that of the USA. It is still desperately trying to catch up. This is because being a production hub for foreign companies will only take you so far, the next step is for Chinese home-grown companies to begin to flourish and produce original innovative technology and that's when China will also start caring about intellectual property.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
You don't have to pay, or even hack or anything to watch movies or listen to music that you didn't get through the itunes store. Just needs to be in you itunes library duh... China doesn't like stuff locked down because they are the kings of piracy, they have no respect for intellectual property. They sell clones, copies of everything American. Not just stealing, but SELLING what they have stolen. So you are siding with China? Typical slashdot pro-piracy.
The fact is that there is *no* history of civil code in China. The law has historically been punitive *only* when an activity upsets the natural order of things. For instance: if you carried a flag into Bejing in 1968 that said "Capitalism is Good", you were guaranteed to die or suffer in prison for years. China has, for its entire history, been controlled from the center, by emperors, despots, etc. At the same time, the absence of civil code has meant that when someone steals you property, or copies your invention, it was between you and the perpetrator, and the person with the most personal and networked power would win. That tendency continues to live in China, today. Things are changing, slowly, but it will be a long time before China embeds the private property meme, protected by civil laws, rules, authority, etc. into its society. Also, it will be a long time - if ever - before the Chinese end control from the center. So, their current criticism about the iPad fits perfectly fits their cultural and legal DNA. They think one should have easy/free access to a neighbor's (or a company's) IP, and that all control over a population should emanate from the center.
Yeah. Tag this story "irony".
But I think what China is really saying here is this:
There's nothing wrong with locked down, as long as we hold the keys.
In this case, Steve Jobs & Co. hold the keys, therefore it sucks.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I have been looking back at my posting history on Slashdot and noticed a trend. I have been more and more "defending" if you can call it that, China here. I then realized that, China is now the fashionable country to hate by many Westerners, mainly Americans, usurping Arabs and Muslims and possibly even the Iranians (who are not Arabs, despite what many bigots here like to say). Being a Muslim myself and weathering through horrible post-September 11 outright bigotry and hatred has made me more alert. All the classic signs are here in this thread. You know, the "they're stealing our jobs/innovations/money/women", "their culture is a debased/derivative of our own superior culture", "they have {insert negative racial trait} while we don't. I am also surprised to see about half of Slashdot suddenly turning into RIAA spokespersons about piracy in China when usually it's fuck the RIAA!. I guess it's "their piracy is inferior to our piracy" thing. More disturbingly, further down the thread someone tried to find the purported original article and couldn't find it, possibly making this story a racist smear campaign as well. There is even the "White man's burden" argument where China's human rights record had something to do with pirating the latest movies (the irony here is that Chinese citizens can freely copy any movie they like while you couldn't). Guess, even among geeks there are hypocrites, racists and bigots.
Perhaps it has something to do with lower wages and greater acceptance of pirate/fake goods in China. Compared to a Chinese company's iPad clone that comes with loads of free/pirate software and costs 1/5th as much the iPad doesn't look so good once you remove the stigma of piracy and cheaper Chinese goods.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Precisely. That's the same way I see the iPad and similar devices.
If I bought it, I own it, therefore any keys to be had must be mine. Anything else is unacceptable.