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 ..."

Comments

apple blocked software that China GOV made

[Joe The Dragon]

apple blocked software that China GOV made and or they don't like the 30% cut.

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[aliquis]

A country?

My first thought was "so what? What says the writer of the article agrees with the leaders of the country in general?", but then I saw that it was the paper of the communist party. And yeah, those are probably the people who want to lock down the Internet. Not "the country."

Though I do understand it was mostly written to be funny and may not correlate much.

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[icebike]

Its as official as anything ever is out of china.

And when China says you are too locked down, that says something.

Steve must be proud.

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[cbiltcliffe]

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.

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[pslytely psycho]

Damn! I spent all my mod points!
I think you hit the nail square on the head with this comment! Well played sir!

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[uofitorn]

That was an article from the state run news organization and you accepted it hook, line, and sinker: Its as official as anything ever is out of china..

We wonder how the Chinese people can so easily succumb to their goverments propoganda and yet there are Westerners like you who fall for the same thing.

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[vadim_t]

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.

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[Zeek40]

What exactly are you disputing about the article? Just because it's the Chinese party run newspaper doesn't mean that everything they say is a lie or propaganda. The article is an opinion piece, as all reviews are, and you may disagree with some of the reactions to specific features of the iPod, but there's no factual inaccuracies present in the article regarding what the iPod can or can't do.

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

A country?

My first thought was "so what? What says the writer of the article agrees with the leaders of the country in general?", but then I saw that it was the paper of the communist party. And yeah, those are probably the people who want to lock down the Internet. Not "the country."

The same newspaper of the Communist party that is censoring calls by Premier Wen Jiabao for greater political openness?

Re:apple blocked software that China GOV made

[nobodie]

I don't know when I will be able to stop laughing about this one, i mean, i mean, I MEAN, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah, etc

OMG, JC on a pogo stick, oh no, oh no.......

PwnageTool

[0100010001010011]

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?

Re:PwnageTool

[zach_the_lizard]

I don't see how you can 'pirate' physical property. If you mean violate IP laws that grant a monopoly, then that's something else. At least they wouldn't have to worry about software patents.

Re:PwnageTool

[tsahi]

then you haven't seen the Chinese yet. they literally make pirate copies of ipods, iphones, and even entire cars that would be difficult to distinguish from a genuine Mercedes.

Re:PwnageTool

[Dynedain]

No, the implication is that the knock-off clone with pirated iOS is a better value because it's already unlocked and doesn't need jailbreaking.

Welp.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now I am imagining China as a cat and Apple as a piece of bread, buttered on one side. Steve Jobs just taped the bread to the cat's back butter side up, and tossed it in the air. What will happen?

Re:Welp.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the tape will come off, the cat will land on its feet, and the bread will land butter side down.

Re:Welp.

[captainproton1971]

Next time, use staples.

Re:Welp.

[NatasRevol]

Screw that, solder them together.

Re:Welp.

[sirsnork]

No no, you had it right the first time... SCREW them together :)

Re:Welp.

[mjwx]

Clearly the tape will come off, the cat will land on its feet, and the bread will land butter side down.

Shortly there after Steve died of blood loss caused by trying to tape a cat to a piece of bread.

Re:Welp.

[jonbryce]

The cat will land on its feet and roll over allowing the slice of bread to reach the floor.

Re:Welp.

[straponego]

The bread will land buttered side down, then the cat will land on the bread and skate across the room. Buttercat becomes a youtube sensation. Three years from now your mom FW: FW: Fw: Fwds you the video.

The answer is, of course...

[Samantha Wright]

...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.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mellon]

The answer is that China is not America, and they don't believe the same things we do. Sometimes it's because they are wrong, and sometimes it's because we are wrong (for some value of wrong, of course). In this case it's quite interesting how differently they see it--they see the iPad as bad because they don't have any social norm at all in favor of copyright maximalism. To them, copyright maximalism is a bug to be worked around. It's kind of cool. I wish we (our culture) hadn't drunk that kool-aid. This is completely orthogonal to the great firewall (which, by the way, many members of the Communist party consider illegal).

You're right that Baidu probably beat Google by offering free searches for piracy sites. If you stop with the copyright maximalist viewpoint for a minute, that's exactly what you'd expect in a free-market situation. Baidu is better than Google, because it returns more useful results. This is only bad if you are a copyright maximalist, which most Chinese people are not.

Anyway, I'm not about to move to China--there are a lot of disadvantages to living there, particularly if you aren't Chinese. But I think it's worth thinking about this from a free market perspective, and not from the perspective of a system of law that is really not very widely accepted.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[timeOday]

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.

Yeah, they must be motivated by undermining us... it couldn't be that they simply want to enjoy movies and music and software without having to pay for them. Just like the millions of bittorrent users here in the US who seek to undermine the American economy by devaluing intellectual property in exactly the same way each and every day - clearly they're doing it to harm their own economic future!

Re:The answer is, of course...

[gutnor]

No country want to protect the IP of other countries. That is simply not profitable to do it ... unless you enter in vast trade agreements and you get compensated (your own IP is protected, access to market, you don't get nuked, etc)

China could destroy the US economy overnight (at the cost of its own economy) and seriously affect the bottom line of our great leaders. That means that the US has less bargaining chips and less will to bargain.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Intrinsic]

Intellectual Property is an illusion. You can't claim ownership over ideas no matter how many laws you make. People are always going to take someone else's Idea, change it, use it, make it better, what ever, get over it.

The real ecnomic future is when we stop claiming ownership over stupid things like ideas and in some cases expression of ideas and let the community work out the best way to make it work. You don't have a god given right to make money off of something you do, the people decide when, where and why you get to make that money. The internet is transforming the way we think about this and you better get on board before you get your ass left behind. Its as simple as that.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[hedwards]

Not really, the reason why China is less than enthusiastic about cracking down on piracy comes down to cost. If there citizens had to start paying for software they'd all of a sudden notice that they don't really have much money and discontent would likely result. The Chinese government cracks down hard on malcontents and so piracy is allowed.

Plus it's generally software that's produce overseas rather than domestically.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[witchman]

"You're right that Baidu probably beat Google by offering free searches for piracy sites. If you stop with the copyright maximalist viewpoint for a minute, that's exactly what you'd expect in a free-market situation."

This has nothing to do with a free-market. A free market says you have the choice to either make something or not make something, and also, the choice to purchase something or not purchase something. Doesn't say anything about the right to steal something, or in the case of Baidu, aid you in stealing something.

What if Baidu helped me find all your bank account numbers and I "downloaded" all your money? How would you feel about their service then?

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Samantha Wright]

That's a fair point, but again you must consider the Official Sanctionage that's going on here. This is a state-run newspaper, not merely popular opinion. Given that the state has the duty to set the polite status quo, especially in far-East cultures like China, this says quite a bit more than the abundance of counterfeiting does.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mangu]

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

You are assuming that protecting IP rights will help the interests of American companies. That implies the analyses of the *AA must be correct. A very big IF.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Samantha Wright]

I don't personally hold the "copyright maximalist" viewpoint, as you put it, but I urge you to not dismiss this as some kind of anarchist ideal situation. Remember all of those ugly stories about the Chinese government stealing the trade secrets of US companies? How about breaking into journalists' accounts at Google? And, on top of that, even if some (or "many") party members don't endorse the Great Firewall, it's still there and talking about Tienanmen Square is still illegal—and at least for a period, smoking was promoted as "healthy" because the government considered it a potential birth control option. This isn't merely culture that has different views on information security and privacy from us; this is a government—an organization made up of people who happen to live within that culture—which has demonstrated an active and repeated interest in manipulating information and undermining other countries.

Maybe, sure, the guy selling seedy DVDs with the inkjet label on the corner is culturally just not big on respecting the design work of others, absolutely. Same for the architects who built copies of various European landmarks to populate rich Chinese suburbs with. But it becomes a very, very different matter when the state acknowledges it as an end goal, especially a state that so consistently disrespects other countries when the culture of its people is so heavily driven by respect.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mrawhimskell]

Don't forget that japanese and americans did the same before they found their feet technologically. America now feels threatened and suddenly feels the need for IP protection and fair trade

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Samantha Wright]

That's not a disagreement, merely a differing. It's only a disagreement when your two choices are mutually exclusive—I want to go study for my midterm and people keep replying to my comment, for example...

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Samantha Wright]

While that's certainly true, China has demonstrated their interest in harming intellectual property-based American businesses as well, for instance by stealing trade secrets. General software and media piracy is a double win for them.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[nacturation]

So this really is towing the party line...

As an aside, the phrase is "toeing the party line" as in the military parade style of lining up side by side with your toe right at the line. Spelling it as "tow the line" makes it sound like you're attaching the party's ideology to your trailer hitch.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mellon]

The idea that a free market only accounts for costs of acquisition that are legal is nonsense, as anybody who's ever tried to create a managed economy can tell you. If you raise the price of an item above its cost of acquisition through illegal means, or decrease its availability sufficiently, a black market will form to serve the demand.

You can try to stop the black market; this raises the cost of acquisition of the goods on the black market (or not, c.f. the War On Some Drugs). But you can't eliminate the black market through any other means than allowing the legal market to function. Hence the black market is an aspect of the free market--it is how markets free themselves.

If Baidu gave you access to all my money, I'd sue my bank. It's a totally different situation--money is rivalrous; copyrighted material is not.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Samantha Wright]

But they're in those trade agreements: see WTO.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[LynnwoodRooster]

One thing often ignored is that China respects IP - that's registered internally. If it's external, then it's ignored. Most countries reserve that right, but most have at least a handshake agreement to be nice. China - like India - basically doesn't care if you have a patent or copyright outside of China - it means nothing INSIDE of China.

.
For the record, I do hold US and Chinese patents (I am a US citizen living half-time in Shanghai). I've never been able to come close to enforcing any US patent inside of China (but have in the US); however, I have successfully enforced my own Chinese patents a half-dozen times, including against some of the larger still-partially-State-owned companies.

Moral of the story: if you want your shit respected in a given country, make sure you properly declare and define your shit in the country of interest.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mellon]

Nope, I have friends in China who have good jobs and enough money to pay for movies. They're completely unembarrassed about pirating movies. They don't consider it wrong in any sense. They're a lot like us before we became a rich country--Charles Dickens used to be brutally pirated by American publishers, and couldn't do a thing about it.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[countertrolling]

What if Baidu helped me find all your bank account numbers and I "downloaded" all your money? How would you feel about their service then?

Bank's fault, not Baidu's

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Samantha Wright]

The *AA are American companies in that they control substantial portions of the American government, press, and culture. What is bad for them is bad for the overall economy. There aren't many big American businesses that do manufacturing any more—as John Sculley said in an interview posted here a few days ago, most American companies are advertising and some form of R&D, media production, retail, pharmaceuticals... They don't produce anything that can't be undermined by knowledge of the schematics, or the manufacturing process, or source code, or possession of the audio/video data. It's all information.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Samantha Wright]

But both Japan and the United States grew out of that role by becoming IP-based. China doesn't have anyone to hand it off to—but then, they're large enough to support the best of both worlds, and the rest of the world will have its money drained from it over time.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[biryokumaru]

I believe he was referring to this particular conversation.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mellon]

The company I work for doesn't have any trouble getting money from Chinese companies for our software product. The reason is that we offer service along with the software. Maybe your statement is true with respect to some part of the Chinese government--I don't know. But it's pretty clear that at least with respect to the companies we're dealing with, what's going on here is a difference in culture, not some concerted attempt to harm American businesses.

From my perspective as a software developer, it seems to me that what's harming American businesses is copyright and patent maximalism, not some effort on China's part to harm us. I'm much more personally worried about American patent trolls than I am about Chinese software pirates. Indeed, I'm not at all worried about Chinese software pirates.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[feepness]

u don't have a god given right to make money off of something you do, the people decide when, where and why you get to make that money.

You also don't have a god given right to clean air, water, and food free of rat feces.

The people (ie: society) gives us those rights through government.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[bmo]

But to bitch about it without recognizing the historical precedent we set here in the US is being disingenuous. For a very long time we ignore European copyright (Dickens was angry about this) and the Industrial Revolution being kicked off in Pawtucket, Rhode Island by Mr. Slater was a feat of "intellectual property theft" and he was a hero for it.

I can get as mad as I want at China, but once I step back a second, I can understand the motivations.

We taught them well.

--
BMO

Footnotes:
Slater's Mill: http://www.slatermill.org/
Dickens and Copyright: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva75.html

Re:The answer is, of course...

[martin-boundary]

But it becomes a very, very different matter when the state acknowledges it as an end goal, especially a state that so consistently disrespects other countries when the culture of its people is so heavily driven by respect.

Bwahaha! You should read up on history, you'll find that the USA systematically disrespected the copyrights of other countries for most of its own history.

This is nothing new, and it's great to see Americans get a dose of their own medicine for a change. It's actually perfectly normal behaviour for a country that wants to develop and join the world stage to assimilate the products of existing cultures. China isn't the first, and it certainly won't be the last.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Valdrax]

If I like vanilla and you like chocolate, we disagree, but neither of us is wrong.

It might be if one of you tries to take the other's favorite off the market.

We're not talking about mere taste here. We're talking about forms of government that dictate which choices their citizens get to engage in.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[biryokumaru]

Ya, and if I define "killing someone because I hate their stupid arguments" as "not murder," then I can kill you and it's not murder.

Just because you don't think copyright infringement isn't theft doesn't mean that copyright infringement isn't actually theft.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Reaperducer]

Even third-graders know that "two wrongs don't make a right."

And comparing the bad actions of a group/country/person a hundred years ago with someone making the same bad choices in the modern age is just silly. That's like saying that China should be allowed to have slavery while it ramps up its industrial age because the United States did, too.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mellon]

Actually, that's precisely what it means. If everybody agreed that copyright infringement were theft, then it would be theft. But everybody doesn't agree, so it's not.

I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't define "killing someone because I hate their stupid arguments" as murder. That's because we all say things that *someone* disagrees with, and we don't think it would be okay for that person to kill us because they disagree with us.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[RaymondKurzweil]

It's a good thing that in all of American history, no Americans have stooped so low to engage in industrial espionage and that all of the American accomplishments in industry were due entirely to American hard-work and ingenuity on American soil.

Nothing more, nothing less.

It is odd that Chinese people would set such a precedent and open up a dark chapter in civilization. Fuck them. Fuck the Chinese....

Ok... well this has been fun but I gotta go take my meds for being a fucking moron.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mellon]

I did say I didn't want to live in China. You might have missed that part. But I really think it's important to distinguish between people behaving in their own interest according to their culture, and people deliberately engaging in attacks.

If you look at American culture, you can find abuses as egregious as those in China without looking very hard. It's just that we have explanations for the abuses that are generally accepted by people in our culture, so we don't identify them as "human rights abuses" or "censorship" or "slavery."

How many Americans are incarcerated, and why, for example? Has America paid the judgment against it in a U.S. court for stealing money owed to Native American tribes? Has America tortured people? How does the $700 million settlement in the RIM patent lawsuits in favor of a patent troll compare to things Chinese companies have done to U.S. companies?

It's easy to point fingers and say the other guy is bad, but it's actually more useful to look at things we're doing that are mistakes, and try to do something about them, because we *can* do something about them. We have no control over China.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mellon]

Go down to the local FBI office lobby, light up a doobie, and then tell me our government doesn't try to dictate the choices their citizens get to engage in...

Re:The answer is, of course...

[bmo]

China is in the midst of its industrial revolution.

You say that our own industrial revolution is irrelevant. I don't think so and obviously the Chinese don't think so either. What you or I say is irrelevant to them, and if the Chinese started dictating to the US what we should do, you'd be telling them to piss off too.

Shoe, meet other foot.

--
BMO

Re:The answer is, of course...

[cbiltcliffe]

Hard to imagine how one would tow an abstract object..

Hard to imagine how one would steal an idea, too, isn't it?

Re:The answer is, of course...

[TheLink]

While that's certainly true, China has demonstrated their interest in harming intellectual property-based American businesses as well, for instance by stealing trade secrets.

Actually the fact is chinese companies copy each other's stuff whenever they can and they think it might make them money.

From what I see it's not really a concerted effort to rip the US off.

It's mainly about making money. If ripping off X will help they'd do it. Whether X is some US/German/Chinese/Japanese company doesn't really matter.

So saying they have an "interest in harming" american businesses is like claiming someone has an interest in harming american cows when they eat a burger. They just want a burger. I doubt most care that the patty is really made of american cows.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[dryeo]

Thing is they're not bad choices. They're the choices that helped make America a superpower and any other nation that also wants to be a superpower will make the same choices.
Wait till they do to you what you did to England during WWII when they were desperate to borrow.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[dryeo]

They probably see how the US honours the WTO and think to themselves why should we do more then America.
When a nation wants to be a superpower, they emulate the current superpowers raise to superpowerdom.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[dryeo]

They probably see how the US honours the WTO and think to themselves why should we do more then America.
When a nation wants to be a superpower, they emulate the current superpowers rise to superpowerdom.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Intellectual Property is an illusion. You can't claim ownership over ideas no matter how many laws you make. People are always going to take someone else's Idea, change it, use it, make it better, what ever, get over it.

Property rights are an illusion. You can't claim ownership over material objects no matter how many laws you make. People are always going to take someone else's property, change it, use it, make it better, what ever, get over it.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[drinkypoo]

While I agree with your main point, you can't deny they don't see copyright as we do, so from our (legal) point of view they ARE stealing movies.

Copyright troll, or media shill? From our (legal) point of view they are violating copyright, and not stealing anything.

It is, again, a fact that quite a few companies' ideas have been stolen.

So then they stopped writing them down in only one place, and now their ideas are only copied.

I think you are a shill. And a sneaky one. You are at minimum a tool, and yet another reason why AC posting should be disabled.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Cochonou]

You make an interesting point about different parts of the world having different beliefs.
And you are very right about it: when when you start to use expressions such as "free market perspective", everybody knows for sure you are from the USA. I wouldn't say that it is copyright maximalism which defines the US culture, i'd say it is really free market enthusiasm. And this is definitely not shared by everybody around the world.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[amorsen]

Copyright maximalism is pretty much the antithesis of free market enthusiasm.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[fishexe]

Anyway, I'm not about to move to China--there are a lot of disadvantages to living there, particularly if you aren't Chinese.

I would say there are a lot of disadvantages, particularly if you ARE Chinese. Foreign nationals don't typically have to deal with arbitrary arrest, torture, the one-child policy, live organ harvesting, the household registration system, attempts by the central government to erase their culture, et cetera. If you or I go to China and speak out about religion or politics, the worst that's likely to happen to us is we get a little roughed up and then deported. The government will also look the other way when we circumvent the Great Firewall, which is technically illegal but only enforced for Chinese nationals. Sure, as foreigners we can't open a business without a Chinese partner, but that's easy enough to solve. Also, we will have friends everywhere we go because many Chinese are so excited to meet foreigners; I've been repeatedly invited to dinner by complete strangers I met on the streets of Chinese cities and villages. Overall I'd much rather be an American citizen living in China than a Chinese citizen.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[fishexe]

Not really, the reason why China is less than enthusiastic about cracking down on piracy comes down to cost.

No.

Plus it's generally software that's produce overseas rather than domestically.

Yes.

Once Chinese music becomes big worldwide and the Chinese software industry starts to take off, expect the PRC line on piracy to make a complete 180. Cost to the typical Chinese man-on-the-street won't even be taken into account.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[republic]

There are tremendous economic advantages in participating in a division of labor economy. Private property rights are an essential component of the division of labor.

Anyone who individually violates these property rights will quickly be ejected from the division of labor and find himself as an outcast. If he gangs up with other bandits, they will still find themselves outnumbered and in a precarious position. If this brigand band succeed in bamboozling the productive class into paying monopolistic fees for "protection," this band still has to fear stronger bands of thieves or an internal uprising.

Finally if the band of thieves allows free entry into it's class through a universal suffrage democratic process, the line blurs between the political and productive class. This permits much higher levels of theft and regulation than would be accepted under a clear class distinction regime. The increasing theft and violation of property rights leads to the consumption of capital and the devolution of human society. With the loss of production capability, the health and longevity of members within such a society decreases until the point occurs that private property rights are rediscovered and respected once more.

The failure of a society to respect private property is that society's downfall. It is an economic certainty that this decivilizing effect will occur when property rights are systematically violated.

Democracy: The God that Failed

http://www.scribd.com/doc/37783635/Democracy-the-God-That-Failed

republic

Re:The answer is, of course...

[BiggerIsBetter]

The difference being that I can deprive you of your property, but I cannot deprive you of your ideas.

Nobody owes you anything for having those ideas though, so don't go thinking (ha) that they're intrinsically worth something; You have to put them into action first.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[ScrewMaster]

While I agree with your main point, you can't deny they don't see copyright as we do, so from our (legal) point of view they ARE stealing movies.

Copyright troll, or media shill? From our (legal) point of view they are violating copyright, and not stealing anything.

It is, again, a fact that quite a few companies' ideas have been stolen.

So then they stopped writing them down in only one place, and now their ideas are only copied.

I think you are a shill. And a sneaky one. You are at minimum a tool, and yet another reason why AC posting should be disabled.

I'm honestly not sure if he's a media shill or just an idiot. The reason I say that is because I personally know some people who think that way, and have no connection whatever with big media.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[mellon]

Sad, but true. The myth of the lone inventor striking it rich is very deeply ingrained in our cultural ethos, despite being a load of hooey.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Reaperducer]

China's going to defend our shipping lanes, arrange a trans-Atlantic flotilla of supplies, and save our butts from the Germans?

Re:The answer is, of course...

[dryeo]

I was thinking more of the conditions that were imposed on England, while you were defending your own shipping and watching the Russians save their butts.
The flotilla of supplies were supplied on the condition that England basically dismantle most of their industry in favour of America's industry.
Actually China already is sorta doing that, lending America the money to fight a couple of wars as long as America dismantles their industry and ships it to China.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[sabt-pestnu]

Of course they'd be upset!

Haven't you heard of the laws about smoking in public places? Take it out 30' from the entrance! Have some consideration for the rest of us! Jeez...

Re:The answer is, of course...

[Valdrax]

<blink blink>

Who said that I was only speaking about one side? I believe I used the plural, as we are in a discussion about copyrights and the US's hard anti-piracy stance.

Re:The answer is, of course...

[thejynxed]

Part of the problems showing up with plagiarism though in schools, are that there are only so many ways to write about a given subject. We've more than likely already crossed the threshold where there is no more way at all to write an original work on such topics, especially since most everyone is using the exact same research materials across the board.

I don't think too many people are taking this into account.

Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[tepples]

Quoting what appears to be a translation of The People's Daily:

For example you cannot install pirate software on them, you cannot download [free] music

I thought one could download Free recordings of public domain music on a PC and then sync them to the iDevices using iTunes. When did Apple disable that?

Re:Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[Lunix Nutcase]

You're either an idiot or being intentionally dense. By "free music" they mean music they download off a shady pirate site not public domain music.

Re:Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[itsdapead]

I thought one could download Free recordings of public domain music on a PC and then sync them to the iDevices using iTunes. When did Apple disable that?

There are certain lock-in aspects of the iDevices (particularly Apps) but the idea that you have to buy all of your media from the iTunes store is a complete myth.

iDevices can play MP3, unprotected AAC and MP4 video from any source, legal or otherwise. iTunes will happily rip your CDs (and there are third-party tools that will rip your DVDs into iDevice-friendly format) and the VLC media player was recently released for iOS. iBooks can read ePub and PDF, and there are several other reader Apps available.

You have to use the iTunes software - but not the iTunes store - to get the files onto the iPad but apart from that, the only lock-in is for Apps and firmware updates.

There are also various streaming apps - including YouTube. If the pirates aren't offering H.264 streams then complain to them, not Apple.

Re:Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[jedidiah]

> You're either an idiot or being intentionally dense. By "free music" they mean music they download off a shady pirate site not public domain music.

How can you tell the difference. It's going to look the same and work the same way.

Fair Use and piracy look exactly the same to a neutral observer.

Re:Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[techno-vampire]

Fair Use and piracy look exactly the same to a neutral observer.

In a word, no. Buying a CD, ripping it and putting the music in .mp3 format on your iPod is Fair Use. Posting those .mp3s to a warez site so that other people can use them for free is copyright infringement, often referred to as "piracy."

Re:Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[jedidiah]

Apple's appliance devices support a limited number of formats. They have meagre hardware to deal with anything non-standard even if you do jailbreak the device.

For the average n00b, this is very effective at separating the rest of the world from Apple. It's trivial to us Apple bought content with apple appliances and progressively harder to use "other" stuff.

This has the same effect as if Apple were using their own proprietary formats. All they need to do is use a peculiar subset of standards. The difficulty dealing with the rest will be a sufficient barrier to stop the n00bs from using alien stuff. This is why stuff like VLC is so handy on a Mac. Plus the Mac has the hardware to handle all the weird stuff.

Re:Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[biryokumaru]

Jedidiah likely meant a neutral observing watching someone use an iPad. Loading mp3s onto your little Apple toy is the same as loading mp3s onto your little Apple toy, regardless of where those mp3s came from.

Re:Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[mattack2]

ripping it and putting the music in .mp3 format on your iPod is Fair Use

You are misusing the term "Fair Use". This is a very basic explanation: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Note, I am not claiming you are breaking laws by ripping your CDs(*), and of course I do it with my CDs too. But using the wrong legal justification is not helpful.

(*) Though you can't rip your CDs then sell the CDs, and continue to use the ripped versions. Even having someone using the CDs at home while you were listening to the ripped versions is making use of two copies of them.

Re:Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[jimicus]

Unless they've blocked the iPad from playing MP3s, how exactly does it know the difference between one ripped from a CD and one downloaded from a shady site?

Re:Download free music and sync it with iTunes

[itsdapead]

Apple's appliance devices support a limited number of formats.

...including ubiquitous formats such as MP3, unprotected AAC, AIFF and WAV for audio and MPEG-4/H.264 for video. Given the iOS user-base, its hardly taxing for any supplier of media to offer it in these formats. If what you're saying is "Wah! iPad doesn't support Ogg Theora!" then, well, that's true, but its also true of most of the competition, because...

They have meagre hardware to deal with anything non-standard even if you do jailbreak the device.

You mean a tiny, battery-powered device doesn't have the grunt to run software-only video codecs, and can only play the limited range of formats for which it has hardware acceleration? No shit, Sherlock. Most mobile devices only work well with video that has been optimised for their hardware. There are plenty of free or cheap and easy-to-use transcoders around.

For the average n00b, this is very effective at separating the rest of the world from Apple.

Ever bought a MP3 file from Amazon? Or, if you've got a media file on your desktop, just double click on it and iTunes will file it for you, and sync it with all your iDevices next time you connect. Want to rip a CD? Insert CD and click "Yes" when you're asked whether you want to add it to your library.

I can assure you from bitter experience that many n00bs would have far more difficulty dealing with an "open" media player that presents as a USB storage device, because they are often incapable of copying files. Seriously - all they can do is "open" and "save as...".

The difficulty dealing with the rest will be a sufficient barrier to stop the n00bs from using alien stuff. This is why stuff like VLC is so handy on a Mac.

Sorry, what are you saying? That these n00bs will seek out and install VLC when QuickTime player won't open their files, but they won't seek out and install Handbrake (or similar) when iTunes won't open their files?

ungrateful bastards

[jollyreaper]

Next they'll be complaining about the amount of lead in the jobs we're shipping over there.

not surprised

[L3370]

This coming from a country where copying, stealing or selling other peoples ideas is not a crime, but a business model.

Color me surprised.

Re:not surprised

[geekoid]

How you steal an idea?

Re:not surprised

[Nikker]

Not sure but I bet it involves lawyers.

Re:not surprised

[mister_playboy]

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.

Re:not surprised

[icebraining]

You might want to ask Christopher Nolan about it.

Re:not surprised

[clarkkent09]

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.

Re:not surprised

[mrawhimskell]

most of the western world stole or disregarded patents till they found their feet. only Switzerland and maybe few others had some integrity in this matter.

Re:not surprised

[ChromeAeonium]

I think it's kind of funny how countries outsourced jobs to China telling themselves that they're innovating countries that develop things, not produce them, and now...whoops, China doesn't actually care about their IP.

Re:not surprised

[Valdrax]

That's really cute, but the majority of America's early IP conflicts with Europe had f' all to do with technology and everything to do with culture and entertainment -- books, sheet music, etc.

Which is what the author is complaining about with the iPad. He doesn't care about not being able to violate patents while using the thing. He wants music, movies, and games.

Re:not surprised

[clarkkent09]

Yes, China is growing quickly, but it still a developing country. Sorry, but I'll take UN statistics ahead of your anecdotal evidence. Certain areas have developed fast, others are still pretty grim. According to Human Development Index (these days the main gauge of how 'developed' a country is) China is 92nd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index My point was not to denigrate China but simply that when you have homegrown technology (actually the same applies to anything, movies, music etc) that the rest of the world wants to buy you tend to be more interested in protecting it than when you don't have any. China simply doesn't have much intellectual property worth protecting and until the day arrives when it does (which is not too far in the future) it is not in its interest to care about enforcing any IP laws.

Re:not surprised

[Duradin]

But your honor, his identity was right where he left it, I couldn't have stolen it.

What I want to know is how can you be so dense without affecting local gravity in such a way to be detected by scientists.

Re:not surprised

[fishexe]

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.

I think I know the solution: we invade them and force them to abide by a new set of Unequal Treaties. What could possibly go wrong?

Not ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

If you drew up one of those 2x2 matrices favored by MBA consultants, Apple would be in the "locked down, good taste" cell. China would also be in the lockdown side of the "Freedom" axis, but would be opposite Apple on the "Style" axis.

Re:Not ironic

[biryokumaru]

What are the other two? Rich Libertarians and Dirty Hippies?

Of course, I guess that depends on your definition of "style." I would probably have labeled that axis "wealth."

Re:Not ironic

[pslytely psycho]

What are the other two? Rich Libertarians and Dirty Hippies?

Be cool now, I resemble the latter of those two choices, with the exception of "dirty".

I would think that?

[MrCrassic]

Millions of computers in China are running pirated versions of Windows/Office/Microsoft software and the country itself maintains its own nationalized version of Linux. They, along with Russia, are the major contributors of malware and viruses, and are the one of the bastions of cyberterrorism today. With this kind of a status quo, they would clearly have no issues with a device that, by default, doesn't even let the user install apps from third-party vendors.

LOL

No, they wouldn't

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Well

[Mikkeles]

There's the Pol Pot calling the kettle black!

You missed their point.

[sosaited]

You missed the point. They are upset not because the device is locked in nature, but because Apple didn't consult them about what to lock in the iPads meant for China.

China needs free software to help local business

[newviewmedia.com]

China needs pirated software to help local business grow. Lived there for a while and couldn't find any person, company, or government organization that paid for licensing. All off the street corner for 10 kuai.

Margin notes in printed books

[tepples]

"Damn it! Pre-printed books are too locked down! You can't write your own stuff to them!"

On the contrary, printed books are ideal for writing notes in the margins because you don't have to worry about messing up the original. They're also ideal for spreading propa^W information to the masses.

Awesome irony.

[Lord Kano]

Apple is too totalitarian for the Chinese government's tastes.

LK

Re:Awesome irony.

[lennier1]

Glad I'm not the only one who sees the irony in that.

Re:Awesome irony.

[dwater]

I totally agree with them.

Re:Awesome irony.

[Lord Kano]

I jumped ship 10 years ago. I used to be all about Apple. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I was the #2 Apple technician/repairman in Pittsburgh in 2000. They drove me away with the bullshit that they started pulling then. The people that are left are true die hards.

LK

Re:Awesome irony.

[dwater]

I think I was a few years behind you. My first Apple was a TiBook...very nice h/w though the stupid windowing system didn't work for me and they made irritating changes to the OS to make it incompatible with everything else. Those issues made me realise what I was getting into. It took me a while to get out of it all, but I really felt free again when I went back to Linux.

I like to think of it like this....it's not accurate but I think it illustrates the point...

Chinese people don't complain about their government becuase it's all working out at the moment.

Apple users don't complain because it's all working for them at the moment.

They have both given away their freedom just because it's working for them at the moment. I predict the Chinese government will get a clue to change sooner than Apple.

Re:Awesome irony.

[Lord Kano]

I think I was a few years behind you. My first Apple was a TiBook...very nice h/w though the stupid windowing system didn't work for me and they made irritating changes to the OS to make it incompatible with everything else.

The incompatibilities between the iMacs /Blue & White G3s and everything else is what made me lose interest. I wasn't going to buy all of my peripherals all over just to use a new Mac. If I was going to go through all of that trouble, I was just going to switch to Windows/Linux.

LK

It's about who does the locking

[Tweenk]

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.

Re:It's about who does the locking

[h4rr4r]

A Catholic Church without the pope is not a catholic church. That would be the Anglican Church.

Re:It's about who does the locking

[cheekyjohnson]

"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."

Their power seems to be coming in a little bit slower. They're trying to push for hideous laws and treaties that so blatantly violate the freedom of the people. The worst part is that many of the people don't even know what they are.

Re:It's about who does the locking

[Scannerman]

Anglican style religion outside the countries where the British Queen is head of state is the Episcopal church. Protestant is a much more general term.

The Catholic church has always regarded the Pope as the head of its law, and all other controls as secondary. Which is why the Chinese don't like it, why we in Britain wouldn't allow Catholics to hold any office until a couple of hundred years ago, and why there are a lot more serial-Child Rapists running around the world than there would be if the Catholic Church didn't threaten to excommunicate anyone who reported them to the police.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Cambodia artard. Pun rejected with extreme prejudice.

That's not what they were trying to do

[commodoresloat]

They were trying to distinguish it from the ruling Libertarian Party there.

Foxconn?

[The Grim Reefer2]

Aren't iPads made at Foxconn? Maybe China should stop making these locked down products. Just sayin'.

Re:Foxconn?

[mjwx]

Aren't iPads made at Foxconn? Maybe China should stop making these locked down products. Just sayin'.

Here's your rope, that's $29.95, hanging pole is to your right.

Re:Foxconn?

[fishexe]

Aren't iPads made at Foxconn? Maybe China should stop making these locked down products. Just sayin'.

What's good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. It could even be part of their plot to take over the world. Just like how monarchs who bankrolled the original encyclopedia banned it within their own countries.

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[paxcoder]

So you claim Google filters out copyright-infringing content? Since when?
Perhaps if a company knows how to compete with Google, it knows how to win its own countrymen to their own service?

Variation on a theme

[PPH]

In Communist China, iPad locks you down!

Re:Variation on a theme

[skozsert]

In Capitalist America, Steve locks you down!

China Daily already on the iPad.

[Animats]

The amusing thing is that China Daily has an iPad app.

Counterfeit ipad endorsement?

[newviewmedia.com]

Sounds like an official government endorsement for Chinese companies to produce their own counterfeit version of unlocked Ipads.

Re:Counterfeit ipad endorsement?

[lyinhart]

Well, no not exactly. More like devices that *look* like iPads at first glance but don't really work at all. Like cheap tablets running some hacked together version of Linux with resistive touch screens.

Re:Counterfeit ipad endorsement?

[h4rr4r]

More likely WinCE since that is what they seem to run on all those cheap ARM laptops.

Did you look to see if this was in The Onion

[sizzzzlerz]

It took me a couple of scans through the article to believe this was real and not a parody news story.

Or pirate music and sync it with iTunes

[tepples]

And an iDevice owner can still use a PC to download music and movies "off a shady pirate site" and sync them to his iDevice with iTunes. So without a translation of the whole People's Daily article, I'm not sure exactly what is being complained about.

Re:Or pirate music and sync it with iTunes

[cbhacking]

PCs are a lot less common in most of China than they are in first-world nations. An iPad is an awfully expensive toy if you need a PC to go with it. Internet cafes are OK for a bit of email, IM, or gaming, but they aren't really suitable for downloading 10 GB of media for your iPad.

Re:Or pirate music and sync it with iTunes

[Laxori666]

An iPad is an awfully expensive toy.

Fixed that for you.

Original article???

[Amlothi]

Ok, so the Slashdot post links to Tech Dirt ad Tech Dirt links to Christian Science Monitor and Christian Science Monitor fails to link to the original article.

Anybody have a link to the ACTUAL article in the People's Daily? I want to see how badly those snippets were taken out of context, or if they are the result of glorified translation from the original Chinese.

Re:Original article???

[Amlothi]

Seriously, where is the actual article? I'm starting to think it is fake.

I have searched and searched.

If I search Google for the quote from the article, I only find Western media sites quoting that phrase. That quote doesn't seem to appear on the English version of the People's Daily.

I have also tried searching Google for "site:peopledaily.com.cn +ipad" and all I get are news articles or positive articles about the product.

If I add "disadvantages" to the above search, I get nothing...

Re:Original article???

[khchung]

The article can be found (in Chinese) here http://news.sina.com.cn/m/2010-10-08/092021231740.shtml, which directly attributes to People's Daily at the top, with the link to original, (but which need paid subscription to read) http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2010-10/08/nw.D110000renmrb_20101008_2-23.htm?div=-1 This is the top result when searching for People's Daily (in Chinese) + "ipad" from Baidu.

Searching for the same thing in Google gives you Xinhuanet http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/internet/2010-10/08/c_12637650.htm in the 4th link. While the top 2 results are iTunes link to People's Daily app.

The 5th paragraph is the portion quoted in the article, running it through Google translate give you this:

On the price, "Apple" thing is not cheap, and some even more expensive, but also a lot of inconvenience. For example, can not install pirated software, download music, movies, to pay, and so on. However, when these new gadgets become fashionable to beyond the "useful or useless," and the limitations of cheap, consumers can not help but get your wallet out.

BUT, the article's is misrepresenting the piece. The subject of the FA is roughly "People use iPad just because of chasing fashion", which, surprise(!) is what most /.ers here think. The disadvantages listed above actually made sense when you consider the alternatives available in China, where people routinely copies software, music and movies. Why would you buy a machine that restricts what you do most often, if not for chasing fashion?

Please mod this article -1 Flamebait.

Now, please mod me +5 Informative. Thanks.

Re:Original article???

[Anonymous Coward]

The original article is only available in Chinese: http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2010-10/09/c_12640540.htm
In case if you are still wondering, Xin Hua Net is the offical China news agency.

Re:Original article???

[VendettaMF]

The original article is only available in Chinese: http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2010-10/09/c_12640540.htm
In case if you are still wondering, Xin Hua Net is the offical China news agency.

Wrong newspaper, and nothing in the text remotely close to what the quotes in this slashdot submission say.

Re:Original article???

[Dak RIT]

The 5th paragraph (of black text) in the article clearly states: "Regarding price, Apple's" stuff is not cheap, a lot of its stuff is comparatively expensive, and there's many additional aspects of owning the device you have to pay for that are not cheap. For example, you can't install pirated software, download [free] music, you have to pay to watch movies, etc."

Re:Original article???

[Amlothi]

Thank you so much. I wish there was a way to sticky your post to the submission. Well deserved mod points for you.

Re:Original article???

[anarkhos]

> which directly attributes to People's Daily at the top, with the link to original, (but which need paid subscription to read)

mmmmm, irony?

Re:If reality doesn't match common sense...

[icebraining]

Makes perfect sense - it's just a different lock.

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[h4rr4r]

filetype:torrent Iron Man 2

Seems like that works just fine.

You know your tech is too restrictive

[Arancaytar]

When China calls you on it. :P

Re:Oh really?

[h4rr4r]

Please feel free to expand on this. What extra freedoms do the Chinese enjoy?

DVD DVD 5 dollar!

[kidtexas]

Sounds like China to me. When I went there, I was curious to see if one could find NON-pirated DVDs for purchase. Never saw one. All DVDs and CDs in the city I was were pirated.

They were all really cheap too. I think it was 10 CDs for $5 and 3 DVDs for $8 if I recall correctly.

Re:DVD DVD 5 dollar!

[jojoba_oil]

Sounds like China to me. When I went there, I was curious to see if one could find NON-pirated DVDs for purchase. Never saw one. All DVDs and CDs in the city I was were pirated.

They were all really cheap too. I think it was 10 CDs for $5 and 3 DVDs for $8 if I recall correctly.

You're using the wrong currency. The standard price of DVDs is simply 7 RMB per disc included in the package, and that's for complete strangers without bargaining. The most recent DVD purchase I made was a 16-disc set for 30 RMB, and the quality was fine. If you wanted legitimate DVDs, did you bother asking? They're really not that hard to find, even in some of the less-touristy cities...

That said, what this has to do with TFS is beyond me. The closest I can figure is that your comment talks about China. So you went to China for a vacation and came back with the same stereotypes you went there with, who cares?

Re:DVD DVD 5 dollar!

[LynnwoodRooster]

You're using the wrong currency. The standard price of DVDs is simply 7 RMB per disc included in the package, and that's for complete strangers without bargaining. The most recent DVD purchase I made was a 16-disc set for 30 RMB, and the quality was fine. If you wanted legitimate DVDs, did you bother asking? They're really not that hard to find, even in some of the less-touristy cities...

Precisely. My DVD guy gets an e-mailed list from me once a week, I stop by later that week when out and about, and I get my stack of what he could find, at 5 RMB a disc. If you want "real" DVDs and CDs, go to Xinhua bookstore or one of the bigger music/book stores downtown.

Heck, you can go buy "real" OSX and iWorks at the Apple store, for cryin out loud!

Re:DVD DVD 5 dollar!

[khchung]

They were all really cheap too. I think it was 10 CDs for $5 and 3 DVDs for $8 if I recall correctly.

I hope you meant $8 RMB (i.e. Chinese currency 1USD ~= 6.6 RMB) rather than $8 USD, because while the price of 8 RMB is right for pirated DVD, 8 USD would be enough for a legit DVD in China.

Or perhaps you really bought a legit DVD but you thought it is pirated because of the price?

Re:DVD DVD 5 dollar!

[DigiShaman]

I love it when they sell them in clear plastic comic book slipcovers. It's easy to organize, and they can carry more inventory.

BTW, what the hell is up with the fake Rolex watches being sold by just about every street corner merchant. When they spot a westerner, they holler if I want to buy? Funnier still, the merchant across the street sees and hears my reaction of saying "no". Yet, he tries to sell me the same shit. WTF? What? Like you thought I was going to say "yes" seconds later? Persistent bastards, I'll give em that!

Re:DVD DVD 5 dollar!

[fishexe]

Funnier still, the merchant across the street sees and hears my reaction of saying "no". Yet, he tries to sell me the same shit. WTF? What? Like you thought I was going to say "yes" seconds later? Persistent bastards, I'll give em that!

Saying you just don't want something is actually the best way of bargaining for a lower price in China. It took me a while to learn this. You never get them to offer their best deal until you're walking away. Once you appear interested they try to get more out of you, no matter how adamant you are about a lower figure.

Re:DVD DVD 5 dollar!

[fishexe]

In my experience $2 USD was enough for a legit DVD in China (Chinese-made movie, not Western)

Re:DVD DVD 5 dollar!

[fishexe]

Sounds like China to me. When I went there, I was curious to see if one could find NON-pirated DVDs for purchase. Never saw one. All DVDs and CDs in the city I was were pirated.

You have to go to department stores or big electronics stores. The little corner shops or open-air markets (not to mention random street vendors) will of course have pirated stuff. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, will not.

Re:DVD DVD 5 dollar!

[jojoba_oil]

BTW, what the hell is up with the fake Rolex watches being sold by just about every street corner merchant. When they spot a westerner, they holler if I want to buy? Funnier still, the merchant across the street sees and hears my reaction of saying "no". Yet, he tries to sell me the same shit. WTF? What? Like you thought I was going to say "yes" seconds later? Persistent bastards, I'll give em that!

It's because you responded at all. When you even respond with a simple "No", they have gotten more from you than they have from someone like me. Granted, it's a negative response but it means they've already gained ground. Since you don't want shop A's wares, you might be interested in the selection offered at shop B. Or maybe they think you didn't like the price, so their neighbor is going to take advantage and offer you a "good price" for slightly cheaper.

And sometimes persistence works. I was wandering around the Silk Street market in Beijing and a shop girl grabbed my hand, telling me I wanted to buy a pen. I didn't, but I was wasting time so I decided to talk to her. Ultimately, I bought one of the nicest pens in the shop at a dirt cheap price and used that to get the girl's number to boot. The shop keeper warned that the girl's husband would get upset if I called, but that didn't stop her from keeping contact with me... Long story short, selling and buying is a game with a lot to be gained for both participants, and the Chinese know this better than anyone.

Mods, +1 parent

[jojoba_oil]

After sifting through the anal discharge that people call comments to this story, here's one that is actually worthwhile. I really wish people wouldn't post these stories, because the typical /.er--while knowing a good bit about technology--is ignorant in topics of Asian politics/culture and just spews trash they think is somehow relevant and/or funny. Because of this, I'm grateful for the refreshing comment that shows a deeper understanding. If only I had a few more mod points...

In addition to what Tweenk said, when something the Chinese gov't dislikes becomes popular, China generates their own homegrown option very rapidly. Since they block social networking sites and blogs, they offer things like RenRen Wang ("People-People-Net"; formerly known as XiaoNei, or "Within Campus"), YouKu ("Exceptionally Cool", video posting site), QQ zones (Tencent QQ being the most popular instant messaging platform in China, and zones host blogs and pictures), and Sina Blogs.

To reiterate: these are all built inside the country specifically so that China can control them. Access to the popular global networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are blocked. (Which, by the way, Western media seems blind to that and continually cites Chinese twitterers as the voice of the common Chinese person. This clearly isn't true, as the common Chinese citizen either doesn't know or doesn't care about the Great Firewall. The ones we see on twitter are the ones who are willing to risk everything to bypass the Firewall and are somewhat radical)

Re:Mods, +1 parent

[kamochan]

This is also how Rome became the superpower of its time. They absorbed popular religions and trends from their newly-attached regions -- the Greek pantheon was adopted with suitable localization in Rome, for example. And later Christianity, with the Pope twist added for control.

The Chinese have done their homework...

Re:Mods, +1 parent

[fishexe]

Since they block social networking sites and blogs, they offer things like RenRen Wang ("People-People-Net"; formerly known as XiaoNei, or "Within Campus")

I like to think of it as "everybody-net". Given the way noun reduplication works in Chinese, I think that's closer to what they meant when they named it "RenRen", although "People-People" could also be considered literally correct.

Re:Mods, +1 parent

[jojoba_oil]

I wouldn't agree that they had any one interpretation in mind when they named it RenRen. I see it as a name similar to the Nintendo Wii: the Is next to one another are supposed to visually resemble people, while the spoken name suggests a sort of community.

Rather than trying to fit it into the mold of the English words "everybody" or "everyone"--which can easily be mistaken as "every single person" when it lacks context--I thought a more literal translation would semi-preserve the possible interpretations. Note that I did try to retain the generalized idea of "everybody" by using "people" as opposed to the more literal "Person-Person-Net".

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[blackraven14250]

Yeah, not as accessible though. Most people don't know about filetype: , so the button is easier. Also, doesn't necessarily work for straight MPG or MP3's that you may be looking for, while Baidu does.

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[NatasRevol]

But, but, but there's no Google Torrent (beta)!

"China"?

[emblemparade]

You would think that Slashdot could tell the difference between "China" and the person who reviewed the iPad for The People's Daily. Newspaper censorship in the PRC is much more intense than in much of the rest of the world, but that doesn't mean that individuals are mouthpieces for certain sectors of their government.

Re:"China"?

[cf18]

Yeah. This is like attributing any comment from a member of the ruling party in USA as the official US policy. The whole article is just another Apple envy BS.

Re:"China"?

[fishexe]

You would think that Slashdot could tell the difference between "China" and the person who reviewed the iPad for The People's Daily.

I can't find the part in the summary where they said "China" panned the iPad. It says China's Official Newspaper Pans iPad, but that's basically accurate. It's fairly typical to speak of a publication taking the stance of its individual reviewers, as in "I wanted to see that new Scorcese movie, until the Times panned it."

Newspaper censorship in the PRC is much more intense than in much of the rest of the world, but that doesn't mean that individuals are mouthpieces for certain sectors of their government.

The newspaper in question isn't just some independent paper subject to censorship; it's actually published by the CCP as the party's "mouthpiece" which "generally provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the Party." So yeah, that kinda does mean what you just said it doesn't mean.

It's usually legit to criticize Slashdot summaries, but you appear to be the first to criticize one for actually getting it right.

Re:"China"?

[emblemparade]

I wasn't criticizing the summary, I was criticizing the Slashdot community and its gung-ho reaction to the summary.

The summary, too, was submitted by an individual and doesn't necessarily represent the People's Republic of Slashdot. :)

All newspapers and almost all "companies" in China are party- (=government in their Leninist system) owned. There's no "independent" anything in that strict sense. That said, freedom does exist in Chinese media to various degrees. Anyway, there's an interesting discussion possible here that most Slashdot comments missed by simply slamming "China" for being schizophrenic.

Re:"China"?

[fishexe]

I wasn't criticizing the summary, I was criticizing the Slashdot community and its gung-ho reaction to the summary.

Ah. I guess I read "Slashdot" in your statement "You would think Slashdot could tell the difference..." to mean "the Slashdot editors" and not "the Slashdot community"...though one wonders if you're committing the same fallacy looking at a few of these posts that you accuse us of making looking at this People's Daily article.

All newspapers and almost all "companies" in China are party- (=government in their Leninist system) owned.

Not true. I don't know what rock you've been living under the last 20 years, but China has had rapid development of privately owned enterprise, including both foreign and domestic investment. What you said was true when Mao was alive. Now, however, China has over 85 million privately owned businesses. As for regulation, yes, there is immense government regulation of most business (certain industries like roadside food stands/carts seem to be exempt). And there are sectors of the economy which are still government owned; for example, the government owns all land, and private entities can only own leases. But all newspapers and almost all companies? No.

Re:"China"?

[emblemparade]

I was referring to ownership over media. The censorship apparatus is still strong, perhaps stronger than in Mao's time. Could Mao have imagined the Great Firewall?

The pot...

[witchman]

Man if this isn't a case of "The pot calling the kettle black" then I don't know what is!

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[Sponge Bath]

Most people don't know about filetype:

I do now. Honestly, I did not know. Thanks /. for helping America to keep up with the Chinese!

don't have to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

NO history of civil code in China

[ebusinessmedia1]

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.

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Qing_Legal_Code

There was no civil code separate from the criminal code, which led to the now discredited belief that traditional Chinese law had no civil law. More recent studies have demonstrated that most of the magistrates' legal work was in civil disputes, and that there was an elaborate system of civil law which used the criminal code to establish torts.

Who do I trust more, a Slashdot-poster or wikipedia? There's a coin around here somewhere...

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[Anonymous Coward]

"and the person with the most personal and networked power would win"
I found this line interesting when taken out of context and applied toward understanding human evolution/survival of the fittest in general.

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[Hognoxious]

In theory, the coin has an equal chance of coming up heads and tails. In practice, it might not work like it's supposed to.

A bit like the Chinese legal system.

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[moortak]

This is no time for I ching.

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

This is going to create a pretty big problem for the US as China transitions from developing to developed, actually. The trouble with IP in general is that it has a universality defect: If it isn't enforceable everywhere then the places where it is enforceable end up subsidizing the places where it isn't. So the US ends up subsidizing China. We pay to develop tons of interesting technology, then file patent applications which get published and which anybody in China can use to implement the technology without paying anything, while other US companies have the disadvantage of having to pay.

And the problem is, the only way for the US to fix it (since China is never going to actually enforce US IP against Chinese companies, even when they say they will) is for the US to "reciprocate" by not enforcing US IP against US companies. (Not enforcing Chinese IP against US companies wouldn't be worth a damn because there isn't much.)

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[ebusinessmedia1]

from: http://english.people.com.cn/200203/15/eng20020315_92153.shtml "China's key legislative body is expected to come up with a preliminary draft of the nation's first civil code this summer. "The code is scheduled to be presented to the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC) for a first reading in December after passing key tests. "It was revealed by Wang Shengming, director of the Civil Legislation Office with the Legal Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee."

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[vakuona]

It can happen. The rest of the world could gang up on China and impose heavy duties on Chinese products. They could also impose duties on products that are manufactured in China to encourage companies to move their industries out of China. Lets face it, wages in China are beginning to rise, fast. China will want its IP protected because soon, it will not be able to produce goods as cheaply as other even poorer countries. So it will have to play ball. They can get away with it while they are the world's production line, but not once the world can move production to some African country, or India, or Vietnam.

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[republic]

Hmm, I think it is time to bone up on the literature as central control leads to nothing but discoordination:

The Fatal Conceit
Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth

republic

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[gnasher719]

We pay to develop tons of interesting technology, then file patent applications which get published and which anybody in China can use to implement the technology without paying anything,

Chinese software development will be held back for many years by attempting to implement the technology behind all US software patents :-)

Re:NO history of civil code in China

[vertinox]

They could also impose duties on products that are manufactured in China to encourage companies to move their industries out of China. Lets face it, wages in China are beginning to rise, fast.

And move where?

There is India and Africa, but both of those two areas have serious issues for Capitalists.

India is not as sweat shop friendly as you would think (they have a democracy after all) and moving factories to Africa face issues of instability and lack of strong central governmental powers.

China provides both cheap labor (almost infinite supply of) and a single entity to deal with who won't be changing faces by a revolution or a popular vote anytime soon.

That said, I believe China will on the outward appearances agree to IP laws and put a few people in prison over it, but its not their problem so they won't put forth too much effort into it.

Mod parent up...

[mellon]

Won't be content, you mean.

Re:progress.

[herojig]

That's so true, with two of the largest grossing apple stores located there. And here, just a few miles from the border where I live, a nation of people who don't like being made to pay for things that should be free and open. They don't like the idea so much they have become the premier people of ripping CDs & DVDs, and reselling cracked software titles for 1$ a pop. Smart folks.

Re:progress.

[cheekyjohnson]

What progress?

Re:progress.

[sarhjinian]

Linux people wont buy them because they can't figure out who to use Handbrake to convert a movie into a format that iTunes can sync, or because they're too cheap to cough up for the developer license or sign the enterprise agreement that lets you put your own software on the iPad?

Re:Ironic

[Valdrax]

Considering the explicit job of the printing press is to make it easy to copy and widely disseminate the ideas of one author, that's not so much an irony as it is a logical cultural progression.

This is a GOOD thing

[iamhassi]

So the newspaper for the official ruling Communist party in China says bad things about the iPad.... isn't this a good thing? I'd be more concerned if they praised the device, the fact that they don't like it must mean it's wonderful.

Better than original article!!!

[neoshroom]

I couldn't find it either, but it may not even be in the online version, that website is very hard to search and the English search wasn't even working when I tried. It could even be some paper-only editorial or something. However, I did find this gem of an article:

Handsome man invented the world's first pieces of "anti-fart underwear" to filter cocky

According to Taiwan's "News Today" reports, you have a sphincter to blame, which led in public could not help you live "discouraged" embarrassing experience? Colorado man Buck - Weimer invented the world's first "anti-fart underwear", which has the function of filtering cocky, wear it even if the non-stop farting, people will not smell the next.

China Understands Freedom

[tuppe666]

I love this post. I have thought about posting about Apple a thousand times. I dislike Apple products because they do not have USB connectors; work as mass storage devices; run Linux in a GPL3 form so I can consume content in any format, or if you like prefer no proprietary connectors, no iTunes(locked to one content stream/Application), no tie-in to Apple stores/Formats. I find it funny Whenever I see a post that says "Your an Apple Hater, xxxx Fanboi/xxxxtard etc etc" or in this thread its about Pirating(sic), its really about hardware that allows you free access to your content. Having had an iPhone, Android, Maemo phone...Meamo is the best at accessing content in ANY form and with the exception of multitasking; the worst startphone. Android is awesome in a cloud never bring near a computer way...and the iPhone is a compelling(read slick) product for the uninformed(read single mums). I want Android and Meamo to have a baby I hope Meego is it. Windows Phone 7 seems to be very iPhone with more hardware backers

Ok I lied a little there is nothing more fun than seeing an idiot who bought a iPhone 3G(S) and saying "is that an iPhone4". Someone should tell people that an Apple product is for 3 months of cutting edge product at a premium, and then outclassed by the competition, your already seeing significantly superior hardware appear with alternative more open Smarts, and the same it true for the iPad.

Relax

[fyngyrz]

its ok man, there just using the phrase losely. you have to learn to except it and ignore the affects on you're sensibilities. you no what I mean? People in all woks of life make these mistakes; you just have to stuff them in your mental chester drawers and forget about them. that way, for all intensive porpoises, you donut run around with emotions all penned up.

Re:Relax

[cbiltcliffe]

Wow.

I've got mod points, but I've already posted a bunch in this story....

That's impressively obnoxious. Well done.

Re:Relax

[fyngyrz]

...I canna find me meds...

Re:Relax

[VendettaMF]

I hate you very much right now.

Re:Relax

[nacturation]

its ok man, there just using the phrase losely. you have to learn to except it and ignore the affects on you're sensibilities. you no what I mean? People in all woks of life make these mistakes; you just have to stuff them in your mental chester drawers and forget about them. that way, for all intensive porpoises, you donut run around with emotions all penned up.

I knew there was a reason I friended you, you brilliant bastard.

Thanks China!

[scottbomb]

Thanks for reminding me of why I don't buy Apple products. At least with Windows and Blackberry, I don't have to get my hardware maker's permission to do what I want with the product I own.

in other news....

[metalmaster]

China praises the glory and openness of the brand new eyePad

Re:in other news....

[tuppe666]

I would buy one of those. As long as it runs one of those dual core 64-bit 1.5Ghz Arm. Runs Android+Linux. Expandable to 4GB...but 2GB will be fine. Front Facing Camera. Wifi, and a decent screen 1080p not too much to ask for for about £200.

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[Compaqt]

Pay attention, 6-digit! I learned that a few years ago on Slashdot.

Actually, just typing "ironman torrent" will also get you much of what you want.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[cbiltcliffe]

It's "n00bz".

Hand in your "overbearingly obnoxious script kiddie wannabe geek" card on your way out.

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[shutdown -p now]

So you claim Google filters out copyright-infringing content? Since when?

They respond to DMCA take-down requests, which constitutes filtering. It's just not something automated, nor are they pro-active about it.

To see it in action, Google for "kaazaa", then look at the bottom of the page - the text which goes "In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed ..."

China is the new Arabs

[Chicken_Kickers]

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.

Re:China is the new Arabs

[Anonymous Coward]

While I appreciate an Arab friend defending my country, I think to say "China is now the fashionable country to hate" is too much of an exaggeration. A few years ago I had to bring up Charles Dickens to remind Americans of some of their lesser known history, now you can see many posters here are aware of that instance and seem to understand China more.

"they're stealing our jobs/innovations/money"

I actually think piracy is the new opium to us. I think we are clever enough to be able to create our own software industry. Piracy kills our own innovations too and poisons people's mind, because they can steal things and get away with it.

"their culture is a debased/derivative of our own superior culture"

That's kinda puzzling. What I've heard most often is the two cultures are very different and no one seems to say one is derived from another.

P.S. post as AC for I moderated.

Re:China is the new Arabs

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

"they're stealing our jobs/innovations/money/women"

Forget the rest, but we can do a straight swap for the women if you like.

Re:China is the new Arabs

[fishexe]

I think I've noticed an accompanying trend: people who know jack-shit about China tend to be the most vociferous about it. Not only are they, as you observe, fashionably hating on China, they also have suddenly all become experts.

I think the same trend applies to Islam as well. I can't count the number of times I've had people lecture me that "Muslims believe this, Muslims believe that..." who've never met a Muslim. If I go "Oh really? That hasn't been my experience," I'm told that it's in the Qur'an so it must be true. These are people who have definitely never picked up a Qur'an in their lives. Invariably it's people who want to convince me Muslims are a threat. Invariably it doesn't work because I know history and can think critically, but that doesn't stop them from trying.

It was especially funny when a tea-partier was recently trying to convince me that I would have no rights in China where all my property and my wife would be stolen, and that Muslims all want to murder infidels because the Qur'an says so. It didn't help to point out that I'd been to China twice and none of those bad things had happened to me, or that the Christian Bible also has passages instructing believers to kill infidels which, taken out of context, would be just as scary as the ones he'd taken out of context from the Qur'an. He just insisted that he's Catholic and Catholics don't kill people for their beliefs. The great irony is that I'm a Unitarian, and historically far more Unitarians have been killed for being infidels by Catholics than by any other faith. But apparently I'm supposed to believe I have more to fear from Muslims than from Catholics, because this expert told me so.

Re:China is the new Arabs

[kmac06]

If you don't think you have more to fear from Muslims than from Catholics in terms of physical harm, you might want to reconsider the facts.

Re:China is the new Arabs

[ScrewMaster]

. 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!.

No, what you are seeing there are actual RIAA "spokespersons" (and I use the term loosely) using Slashdot to spew their garbage.

I disagree with you that China is the big country to hate. Americans, by and large, don't understand the nature of their own industrial economy, don't understand enough of what China has been doing to that economy (or Japan either, back in the day) to generate any real feelings. Not like we had for the Russians during the Cold War, like a lot of us feel towards Iran (not that Iran is exactly doing anything to assuage the fears upon which those feelings are based, quite the opposite in fact.)

Most of us don't even understand that the wealth and power we accumulated since the dawn of the Industrial Age was due to our ability to make stuff. Honestly, I think my fellow citizens believe that consumer goods fall from trees, or are assembled by little forest fairies that work for free. All we see is that everything we buy, from shoes to clothing to consumer electronics has "Made in China" stamped on it, and because we only care about cheap we don't worry too much about where it comes from, or what throwing away our domestic manufacturing is gong to cost us. China is too distant a threat for us to take to very seriously, even though we should. If we're going to do business with the Devil, we should make an effort to understand how the Devil does business. Maybe then we'll stop getting burned.

But claiming that the bulk of Americans hate China is just ridiculous. Hell, one of my local auto repair shops is run by a Chinese gentleman and his son (both immigrants). I take my car there all the time: they do good work for very reasonable prices, and they are always busy. I doubt that they'd be doing so well if we hated Chinese people.

Now, having said that, I think you'll find very few Americans who will take an admiring stance towards the China's form of government. That's very different from hating an individual because he was born in China, and a lot of people do seem to be able to make that distinction.

The irony is that China has done a lot more damage to American lives (in terms of its destructive influence upon our economy) than 9/11 did, so if we were rational in our expression of hatred maybe we would hate the Chinese more than the Middle Eastern terrorists who knocked down the towers.

Re:China is the new Arabs

[pete6677]

Exactly. Christianity had its renaissance long ago and emerged from the Dark Ages, where Islam is still stuck.

Re:China is the new Arabs

[ScrewMaster]

You sounded totally rational until you throw your punchline.

Sorry if I didn't express myself well enough for you to get the point.

Re:China is the new Arabs

[fishexe]

If you don't think you have more to fear from Muslims than from Catholics in terms of physical harm, you might want to reconsider the facts.

Are you talking about physical harm generally, or terrorism? Because you said physical harm. I've seen Catholics start fights in bars and I've had Catholics get physically confrontational with me before in my life. Never had such an experience with a Muslim. If you count the risk of drunk driving accidents, then it gets much worse. Given that my probability of being harmed in a drunk driving accident is literally thousands of times greater than my probability of being harmed in a terrorist attack, you might want to reconsider your careless statement.

Re:China is the new Arabs

[fishexe]

Exactly. Christianity had its renaissance long ago and emerged from the Dark Ages, where Islam is still stuck.

Which is why one of the most active terrorist organizations in the 1980s was a Catholic organization that bombed Protestants, right? And why this organization existed to respond to a campaign of Protestant brutality against Catholics which enjoyed police protection and government sponsorship, too? Oh, I misunderstood you...by "long ago" you meant "20 or 30 years ago".

hold

[dlt074]

Western leaders want, but don't have the means necessary to get it.

wait for it...

Re:Ironic

[SudoGhost]

Hell, I think it's ironic that China, the "lock it down" country thinks the iPad is too locked down. If I lived in China I think I'd just [The rest of this post had been moderated by the People's Republic of China.]

Re:China is the new Capitalist ...

[tg123]

(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.

Nope we are still fuck the RIAA its just that its ironic that the Commie's are saying that the product is too restrictive. As to your suggestion that we here a slashdot have racist overtones in our postings. Lighten up this is slashdot do not take it seriously.

Simple Explanation:

[Tablizer]

The Chinese believe that only they can do tight-ass right.

So what?

[Bert64]

This is China, the country that sooner or later will be producing cheap clones of the ipad, for half the price, where the only visible difference is that the apple logo is twice as big.

Re:So what?

[andrea.sartori]

Not exactly. China is already producing a cheap iPad -- a rip rather than a clone -- it's called iPed: http://www.techi.com/2010/05/iped-launches-for-105-in-china-runs-on-android/
It's way less than half the price. It does not have an Apple logo on it btw...

Have you ever read the People's Daily?

[fishexe]

Anybody have a link to the ACTUAL article in the People's Daily? I want to see how badly those snippets were taken out of context, or if they are the result of glorified translation from the original Chinese.

Having read the People's Daily plenty of times, I have to say it's one of the few publications I know from which it's pretty hard to take snippets out of context and make them actually sound worse.

Also, the People's Daily publishes its own English edition so it's very likely the quotes were from that, rather than the Chinese.

Yum yum yum!

[Kireas]

The irony! It is so sweeeet.

Link?

[Zigurd]

I can't find a link to the original story, and the source cited for this post is a TechDirt post that cites a Christian Science Monitor article that doesn't, as far as I can tell, refer to the original article any more precisely than as "a rather snide commentary the other day about Apple products." A link to the original would be appreciated.

Re:progress.

[ScrewMaster]

or because they're too cheap to cough up for the developer license or sign the enterprise agreement that lets you put your own software on the iPad?

Better questions: why should I pay a hardware manufacturer more money to write software for a portable computer that I just purchased? Why should I pay a hardware manufacturer for the privilege of distributing said software on the same portable computers that other people have purchased? You seem to be buying into this whole idea that we don't really own the equipment we purchase, that we are, at best, only buying the right to use said devices according to whatever terms a corporate entity deems acceptable. You want to rent me an iPad, that's one thing. In exchange for my monthly fee I get to use it under whatever terms are in the rental agreement. Sell it to me, on the other hand, and you had best accept that I will do with it as I please. Otherwise, if you have rigged your product to limit my activities to suit your whim, don't claim you're selling it to me because you're not. The essence of ownership is control, and even if your smooth-talking marketing folks have convinced me otherwise, if I can't run the software of my choice, do the things that I want to do with my computing system, then I'm not really in control, and you still own the equipment.

Developers do not benefit from this, users do not benefit from this, only Apple does. Apple has fifty billion dollars cash sitting the bank. Explain to me why I should give that schlock outfit another penny of my hard-earned money to restrict what I can do with my own property?. This is not rocket science. This is a slick operator feeding millions of people (including software developers who should know better) a line, a fabrication, a lie, and convincing them that really, it's for their own good.

I get enough of that from Congress. I don't need it from the technology world as well.

Re:progress.

[ScrewMaster]

or because they're too cheap to cough up for the developer license or sign the enterprise agreement that lets you put your own software on the iPad?

You want me to pay money, and sign away my firstborn to the devil, for the privilege of devoting my time & energy to developing software for your nasty little locked down platform? Gross man, just gross.

I agree. As someone who started out on an IBM 360 and graduated to an Apple ][ Standard in 1978 or thereabouts, well, this kinda makes me want to throw up. I really thought very highly of Apple and the Steves at the time, but after the way Jobs dumped the Apple // user base in favor of that "computing appliance" known as the Macintosh I switched to the IBM PC world for my career (industrial controls and what not) and never looked back.The Mac wasn't a "personal computer", a general-purpose device that could be molded into whatever was desired. It was the forerunner of the iPhone, a beige box that would do certain things very well, but wasn't about freedom to do what you want. You may laugh, but when I found out that the Mac didn't have slots, no way to plug in a peripheral card of any kind, I lost interest. Hell, at that time I'd done stuff with the Apple ][ that the Mac couldn't begin to do. One contract I had was for sampling four analog inputs (EEG amplifier outputs) at 100 Khz and displaying wire-frame 3D of the results. I ended up using two machines with 3.6 Mhz turbo cards, one using a custom high-speed digitizer board for sampling, the other used for display and control. The two communicated through a bi-directional parallel port (used a couple of 6521s, if I remember right.) That's what the personal computer was all about, to me anyway. I perceived the original Macintosh as a major step backwards in capability, no matter how polished the GUI.

What disturbs me is not Apple Computer itself: I haven't owned anything from that company in twenty five years (other than an iPod Nano that I got as a gift, and find to be one of the most irritating and limited media players out there. Why can't I set the goddamn equalizer bars the way I want them? My $30 Sanyo lets me do that.) but the fact that Apple is setting a very, very bad example. Other companies are following in their rather disturbing footsteps, and that's bad for users.

It's a sad day...

[onemorechip]

when effing China thinks your device isn't open enough!

Re:Maximalism.

[mellon]

It's such a fun word--who can resist? :) It's like Maximilian, only it's a word instead of a name!

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[paxcoder]

I can't see it, but I have seen such things in the past now that I think of it.

Don't mod me bro!

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[xenn]

noobs = 16 yr old breasts.

Yes, perfectly legal in OUR rest-of-the-world country.

Re:progress.

[cheekyjohnson]

No, I'm being completely serious. What progress?

Re:The answer is, of course... CONFUSING OR UNTRUE

[Muad'Dave]

Do you know about site: ?

Working with market forces instead

[LongearedBat]

I've been told many times that I should patent my ideas. However...
- Patenting is very expensive for an individual and I simply don't have that money.
- Yet it would only apply to a part of the world. So to be effective, I'd have to patent each idea several times.
This are the very reasons why I won't be patenting my inventions.

I'd rather work with market forces and find ways to encorouge people to join the ecosystems I create, rather than give them incentive to compete.

Re:Working with market forces instead

[LynnwoodRooster]

I work with market forces as well, I make a good little income licensing my ideas. But with the patent law behind me, I can make sure companies and others CANNOT just take and steal my invention. That alone justifies the price of patenting, in my opinion. Yes, it was expensive, but I've made that back and am now "in the black".