Those may be the reasons, but they're not good enough. Sealed hardware is fine for something priced to be disposable, it's NOT fine for something priced such that you want to use it for a minimum of 3-5 years. It was excusable on the Air beacuse it was a new addition to their product line, and it was pretty clear from the outset what the goal was there. But they are majorly shooting themselves in the foot by doing this with their main product line. You don't buy a Macbook Pro for its portability, you buy it because you're a power user. Well, at least that's how it used to be. Now you'll only buy it if you've got too much money you don't know what to do with.
I think Apple kinda designed a few of its products to simply, as they became almost too utilitarian from a visual perspective.
Kinda? No, that's EXACTLY what they did, and that's why none of their design patents should ever have been granted. They stripped away anything and everything that would be unique and innovative enough to actually qualify for a patent, and yet they still applied for (and were granted!) these BS patents.
It doesn't matter how many different elements they list in their design patents because NONE of them are non-obvious or non-basic. It's all crap like two headlights, four doors, four wheels, a roof, two taillights, etc. on a car. You don't patent those things on a car. You might patent the shape of the taillights. So how about the buttons on a smartphone/tablet? They're going to be rectangular, round, square, or oval. It's too small to use anything fancy. You will also patent the overall shape of the car and its nuances. So what about the tablet? It's rectangular. With rounded corners. Again, it's too small to do anything fancy. Same thing with EVERYTHING that you would design uniquely on other types of products (like a car). On a tablet or smart phone, there's always only 1-3 good ways to do it. You can't allow patents on that. It's all well and good to suggest Samsung should have done something stupid like using beveled corners on their devices, but what about the next device manufacturer? Rounded and beveled corners are now out, what should they do? design everything oval? So they do that, and now what about the next company? This is why you can't allow anything basic and obvious like rounded corners to be included in a design patent. Any design patent that includes shit like that should be thrown out by default.
Honestly, I'm not sure it's possbile to design a full touchscreen handheld device in such a way that it truly qualifies for a design patent AND still have it sell well. The basic obvious design is just too good to substitute anything else. Anything to make them unique will probably end up being artwork that should be copyrighted, not patented.
No, I do understand that, but some of those elements are way too basic and obvious and should never even be part of a design patent. If you have to list things like that for it to qualify for a design patent then it should NOT qualify, period.
Your example of the "xSlate" is so basic and obvious, it shouldn't be patentable at all. Let me break it down: approximately 9" diagnonal, that means nothing as that's a very common size for such devices, and this size should be expected in every line of touchscreen devices at some point. Rounded corners should be expected on EVERY touchscreen device. It's the most sensible option, and again, hand-held devices have been designed that way forever. Beveled corners like a stop sign is a stupid idea because it wastes space, and no sane person would design such devices like that. Red shell and white front bezel are very basic colors; any manufacturer should be allowed to have a lineup with different color options. The only thing that should make yours unique at all is the pin stripe, which is nowhere near enough design to be patent-worthy. And yet that's exactly the kind of thing Apple is suing over. As ridiculous as software patents are, design patents are appearing more and more to be considerably worse.
It's called a design patent, which I can kind of understand the purpose of. But the ones being sued over appear to be far too basic and obvious. Things like rounded corners should never even be a possible component of a design patent. Sure there's more to it than that, but at the end of the day it's still like having a design patent on a car with four round wheels, four doors with windows, and a window front and rear. Rounded corners on hand-held devices have been around as long as hand-held devices, and using black as a possible color has been as well. Any design patent that mentions things like that should be thrown out by default as being too obvious.
And some "music" is just objectively more bland, boring, and low quality. All the stuff you mentioned that sounds the same to you all sounds the same because it IS all the same. It's all cheap, low-quality pop junk that passes for pop music these days, the same way all junk food is more or less the same (sweet and/or salty, and a little bit of powder added for "flavor"). We haven't had musical delicacies on the pop scene for a long time now.
But those are all industries much less encumbered by patents. Tech moves fast enough that patents generally don't expire until after they're useless anyway, hence the trend towards only a few big players.
Because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read all the books, I'll point out that I did say I've read all of them. And no, I don't believe Jon is dead, at all.
Exactly. The only two chracters I know of that I genuinely got to like and actually died were Ned and Robb. But that's probably because the focus on the Starks from the outset was an elaborate misdirection. Most likely the two key characters will end up being Daenerys and Jon Snow. (Yes, I've read all the books, including Dance.)
That said, the two actual deaths were completely unexpected at the time. I love those twists.
Even besides concerts, it's been demonstrated over and over again that piracy does a lot more good than harm. And not just for unpopular artists. And not just for music either. Even Microsoft has admitted that they've encouraged piracy of their own stuff in the past because it helped them out.
This is because piracy usually falls in 3 categories: 1. People who would never buy the item, for any reason, ever. 2. People who may have bought the item, but don't because they can get it for free. 3. People who pirate it because they can for free, then turn around and buy it because they liked it, OR convince their friends to buy it.
The people who fit in 1 and 3 vastly outnumber the people who fit in 2, and THAT is why piracy ends up a win for everyone involved.
I think another piece of the problem is that raises are a lot more rare than they used to be. Especially in IT, you can't start in at barely-living wage and expect to be where you need to be in 5 years. Odds are, you'll be making the same wage (or possibly less) in 5 years. Thus, workers are now looking for the wage they want up front.
I'd be willing to bet it has a whole lot more to do with the fact that Google gets no ad revenue while you are downloading it.
FTFY.
If they were giving Google free ad space on their sites, they would probably still be up. Instead, they're getting paid to host ads while giving people access to Google's stuff. Google doesn't care about the brower plugins, because most people go to the youtube page to use the plugin.
a content creator gets to set the terms of use for the content.
No, he doesn't. Copyright law sets that. Content creators conveniently like to forget how copyright originated, and what its true purpose is. But that's already been posted many times in the comments on this story before. The fact that you choose to ignore it changes nothing.
A content consumer has the choice of complying with those terms or doing without the content. Any alternative choices are unethical.
Wrong again. Copyright law in its current state is what's unethical.
Copyright law is so twisted and perverted we truly would be better off with no IP laws at all.
And which blog would that be? The same feces-covered rag featured in this story? Some blogger posting something doesn't make it true. I can make a blog myself tomorrow, posting the polar opposite of everything David Lowe claims, and it'd be closer to the truth.
You're trying to make this an "either or" question, but that is a false dichotomy.
The best stuff will be made either way, because the best stuff gets made by people who do it because they love doing it, not just for a buck. But right now it's nigh impossible to find the best stuff because there's so much dreck to dig through. Getting rid of the dreck would be a HUGE improvement.
That doesn't take into account the fact that you don't have to have a studio to record any more. DIY equipment is relatively cheap nowadays, and at MP3 quality, you probably can't tell the difference. Unless, of course, you're a talentless hack who needs someone else to do all your work for you.
Talk about apples vs oranges. Collecting rent for a building is the same as it's always been, and about 1,000% different from digital distribution. The landlord still has to pay taxes, still has to collect the rent (not always an easy task!) and has to pay for the upkeep on the building to keep it desirable to rent. There's lots of overhead and time or money involved in renting out a building. And while you're renting it out, you also can't use it for something else.
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Those may be the reasons, but they're not good enough. Sealed hardware is fine for something priced to be disposable, it's NOT fine for something priced such that you want to use it for a minimum of 3-5 years. It was excusable on the Air beacuse it was a new addition to their product line, and it was pretty clear from the outset what the goal was there. But they are majorly shooting themselves in the foot by doing this with their main product line. You don't buy a Macbook Pro for its portability, you buy it because you're a power user. Well, at least that's how it used to be. Now you'll only buy it if you've got too much money you don't know what to do with.
I think Apple kinda designed a few of its products to simply, as they became almost too utilitarian from a visual perspective.
Kinda? No, that's EXACTLY what they did, and that's why none of their design patents should ever have been granted. They stripped away anything and everything that would be unique and innovative enough to actually qualify for a patent, and yet they still applied for (and were granted!) these BS patents.
It doesn't matter how many different elements they list in their design patents because NONE of them are non-obvious or non-basic. It's all crap like two headlights, four doors, four wheels, a roof, two taillights, etc. on a car. You don't patent those things on a car. You might patent the shape of the taillights. So how about the buttons on a smartphone/tablet? They're going to be rectangular, round, square, or oval. It's too small to use anything fancy. You will also patent the overall shape of the car and its nuances. So what about the tablet? It's rectangular. With rounded corners. Again, it's too small to do anything fancy. Same thing with EVERYTHING that you would design uniquely on other types of products (like a car). On a tablet or smart phone, there's always only 1-3 good ways to do it. You can't allow patents on that. It's all well and good to suggest Samsung should have done something stupid like using beveled corners on their devices, but what about the next device manufacturer? Rounded and beveled corners are now out, what should they do? design everything oval? So they do that, and now what about the next company? This is why you can't allow anything basic and obvious like rounded corners to be included in a design patent. Any design patent that includes shit like that should be thrown out by default.
Honestly, I'm not sure it's possbile to design a full touchscreen handheld device in such a way that it truly qualifies for a design patent AND still have it sell well. The basic obvious design is just too good to substitute anything else. Anything to make them unique will probably end up being artwork that should be copyrighted, not patented.
No, I do understand that, but some of those elements are way too basic and obvious and should never even be part of a design patent. If you have to list things like that for it to qualify for a design patent then it should NOT qualify, period.
Your example of the "xSlate" is so basic and obvious, it shouldn't be patentable at all. Let me break it down: approximately 9" diagnonal, that means nothing as that's a very common size for such devices, and this size should be expected in every line of touchscreen devices at some point. Rounded corners should be expected on EVERY touchscreen device. It's the most sensible option, and again, hand-held devices have been designed that way forever. Beveled corners like a stop sign is a stupid idea because it wastes space, and no sane person would design such devices like that. Red shell and white front bezel are very basic colors; any manufacturer should be allowed to have a lineup with different color options. The only thing that should make yours unique at all is the pin stripe, which is nowhere near enough design to be patent-worthy. And yet that's exactly the kind of thing Apple is suing over. As ridiculous as software patents are, design patents are appearing more and more to be considerably worse.
It's called a design patent, which I can kind of understand the purpose of. But the ones being sued over appear to be far too basic and obvious. Things like rounded corners should never even be a possible component of a design patent. Sure there's more to it than that, but at the end of the day it's still like having a design patent on a car with four round wheels, four doors with windows, and a window front and rear. Rounded corners on hand-held devices have been around as long as hand-held devices, and using black as a possible color has been as well. Any design patent that mentions things like that should be thrown out by default as being too obvious.
I don't consider guys like the Piano Guys part of the pop scene.
This started before the internet was popular. It started when the big labels didn't want to take risks on anything non-mainstream any more.
And some "music" is just objectively more bland, boring, and low quality. All the stuff you mentioned that sounds the same to you all sounds the same because it IS all the same. It's all cheap, low-quality pop junk that passes for pop music these days, the same way all junk food is more or less the same (sweet and/or salty, and a little bit of powder added for "flavor"). We haven't had musical delicacies on the pop scene for a long time now.
Are you really that fucking stupid? Or just a pathetic troll?
We already have that. It's called hacking someone's PC and grabbing the passwords stored by the browser of choice.
But those are all industries much less encumbered by patents. Tech moves fast enough that patents generally don't expire until after they're useless anyway, hence the trend towards only a few big players.
Because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read all the books, I'll point out that I did say I've read all of them. And no, I don't believe Jon is dead, at all.
Exactly. The only two chracters I know of that I genuinely got to like and actually died were Ned and Robb. But that's probably because the focus on the Starks from the outset was an elaborate misdirection. Most likely the two key characters will end up being Daenerys and Jon Snow. (Yes, I've read all the books, including Dance.)
That said, the two actual deaths were completely unexpected at the time. I love those twists.
Even besides concerts, it's been demonstrated over and over again that piracy does a lot more good than harm. And not just for unpopular artists. And not just for music either. Even Microsoft has admitted that they've encouraged piracy of their own stuff in the past because it helped them out.
This is because piracy usually falls in 3 categories:
1. People who would never buy the item, for any reason, ever.
2. People who may have bought the item, but don't because they can get it for free.
3. People who pirate it because they can for free, then turn around and buy it because they liked it, OR convince their friends to buy it.
The people who fit in 1 and 3 vastly outnumber the people who fit in 2, and THAT is why piracy ends up a win for everyone involved.
I think another piece of the problem is that raises are a lot more rare than they used to be. Especially in IT, you can't start in at barely-living wage and expect to be where you need to be in 5 years. Odds are, you'll be making the same wage (or possibly less) in 5 years. Thus, workers are now looking for the wage they want up front.
I'd be willing to bet it has a whole lot more to do with the fact that Google gets no ad revenue while you are downloading it.
FTFY.
If they were giving Google free ad space on their sites, they would probably still be up. Instead, they're getting paid to host ads while giving people access to Google's stuff. Google doesn't care about the brower plugins, because most people go to the youtube page to use the plugin.
Just my .02.
Troll. And you know it.
but his overarching point is valid:
No it's not.
a content creator gets to set the terms of use for the content.
No, he doesn't. Copyright law sets that. Content creators conveniently like to forget how copyright originated, and what its true purpose is. But that's already been posted many times in the comments on this story before. The fact that you choose to ignore it changes nothing.
A content consumer has the choice of complying with those terms or doing without the content. Any alternative choices are unethical.
Wrong again. Copyright law in its current state is what's unethical.
Copyright law is so twisted and perverted we truly would be better off with no IP laws at all.
And which blog would that be? The same feces-covered rag featured in this story? Some blogger posting something doesn't make it true. I can make a blog myself tomorrow, posting the polar opposite of everything David Lowe claims, and it'd be closer to the truth.
I think if you're forced to write a song and release it for people to buy, you have an ethical right to demand compensation.
You're trying to make this an "either or" question, but that is a false dichotomy.
The best stuff will be made either way, because the best stuff gets made by people who do it because they love doing it, not just for a buck. But right now it's nigh impossible to find the best stuff because there's so much dreck to dig through. Getting rid of the dreck would be a HUGE improvement.
That doesn't take into account the fact that you don't have to have a studio to record any more. DIY equipment is relatively cheap nowadays, and at MP3 quality, you probably can't tell the difference. Unless, of course, you're a talentless hack who needs someone else to do all your work for you.
Talk about apples vs oranges. Collecting rent for a building is the same as it's always been, and about 1,000% different from digital distribution. The landlord still has to pay taxes, still has to collect the rent (not always an easy task!) and has to pay for the upkeep on the building to keep it desirable to rent. There's lots of overhead and time or money involved in renting out a building. And while you're renting it out, you also can't use it for something else.
This should be modded up. Clearly someone can't handle the truth.
Nice to see the troll shills have mod points again.
Just one small problem with that: most of what he posted is factually incorrect, and the rest is irrelevant.