A quote of him in TFA answers several of your questions.
He asked several Toronto retailers if they would object to him buying tickets and then exchanging the unused, unscratched tickets. "Everybody said that would be totally fine. Nobody was even a tiny bit suspicious," he says.
So basically, he could buy a whole roll, take it home, check the tickets at his leisure, then return the unscratched tickets for a refund.
I'm surprised it's even necessary to post something like this here. You'd think slashdotters would be savvy enough to figure this out on their own. I know I did. It doesn't take much to figure out that wireless interference has nothing to do with it.
However, most people are stupid and so the only way to get them to behave safely is to scare them into it. "Wireless interference" for most people is something mystical that they have no control over, and thus it works for a scare tactic. "You won't be able to hold onto your crap in a crash" doesn't work, because they're stupid and overestimate their personal capabilities.
Guild Wars doesn't really push MicroTransactions like most such games do though. There's no item shop, and almost all the additional purchases are once per account. The only ones that aren't are character re-customizations.
And run-on sentences ftw, because who needs to worry about periods or any punctuation besides commas, just keep writing until you're done, I'm sure everyone will understand just fine.
It's just as true now. PCs see too much use for things like email, document creating, etc. where a smaller ultra-high resolution screen is so much easier to use than a bigger screen from further away. Not to mention the impact ergonomics have on the overall setup of PCs and design of peripherals. And then of course there's the fact that laptops are now outselling desktops for home use by leaps and bounds. There's a reason it's called a personal computer.
So yes, it's possible to design a media center + gaming PC that could replace a video game console, but it's not going to happen because the demand just isn't there.
Not so much an edge case I think. It's one of the reasons Halo is still as popular at it is. When you have 1-3 friends you regularly hang out with and you want to do a little gaming, sometimes it's more fun to team up and play against other players. Especially when there's 3 of you and you want to play a team game.
And, of course, PC games have been this way for ages (one computer and display per concurrent player). I'm not aware of any two-person FPS PC games which use a split-screen method, even though Windows has supported multiple input devices for an eternity. In fact, the only PC games I can think of which involved two or more players on one system were all turn-based.
That's because PCs have never really lent themselves well to having multiple players on the same system. Everything is designed for one person sitting on a chair approximately 2-3 feet away from the screen.
For myself, I have no reason to buy a console game with no same-screen mutiplayer support. If I want single-player-per-screen I'll choose the PC every time.
Not necessarily. I know for myself, I have a much harder time staying focused and getting work done at home than when I'm "on the job" somewhere. To give you an idea how drastic it is, when I'm trying to "work from home" I barely get anything worthwhile done. When I'm "on the job", I'm one of the best, most efficient guys on the team. I get twice as much done as some of the other guys.
I really wish that weren't the case, because I'd much prefer working from home.
One of the main reasons for using all-caps is adding emphasis, since like forever. This isn't something new that we've just recently been "conditioned" for. So yes, a post in all-caps IS the online equivalent of yelling. That is reality. Whether you like it or not.
Alright. What is it that pirates are stealing? We know they aren't stealing the software itself, as they're just copying data, which doesn't deprive anyone of anything. So,what is it that they are 'stealing'?
There's one glaring flaw with GW, and it's the reason I quit playing. If your account gets hacked (no matter how it happens) and you lose *anything* at all, it can't be replaced. That's right, ArenaNet has NO means of replacing anything that gets lost, stolen, hacked, accidentally deleted, or any other scenario that might cause you to lose your shit.
To add icing to the cake, if you tie your GW account to your Play NC account your email address becomes your account ID and you can't change it. Ever.
This became such a big problem they finally started adding a third step to the login process: asking for the name of a character on the account. Of course, if you've ever created an account on a GW forum with the same email as you have for your PlayNC account and gave your character name (which thousands if not hundreds of thousands of players have done) then you're still sitting there only a brute-force attack away from having your account hacked. And on top of that, last I checked (about 6 months ago) there was still nothing in place to stop a brute force attack.
They are very unlike Jason Brown's situation. If one person bought your kid's CD for ten bucks, then burned thousands of copies (or photocopied the cocktail napkin) and gave them out for free while you're still trying to sell the originals for 10$, that would be his situation.
No, the situation is that he arbitrarily decided his one piece of sheet music that he probably spent less than a week's work on is worth $3.99 for each digital download. And even though he's already made far more than a week's wages on it, he's whining about a strapped-for-cash student who isn't paying for his junk, even though she explained why she can't, etc. This is not to say that what she's doing is in any way ethical or legal, but what he's doing just makes him a scumbag and a douche. The whole "pick your battles" thing. This is not a battle he should have picked, unless he wants to look like a greedy jackass.
I do agree that modern copyright terms (it lasts for 70 years after the artist dies or something like that) are way too long, but your original argument was that once an artist has made as much profit as he originally intended then he should lose his copyright, not that copyright terms are too long.
No, my argument is and always has been that the primary goal of copyright is "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" exactly as is stated in the US Constitution. The means by which it attempts to accomplish that is "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". As soon as an artist (or any other type of content creator) has made sufficient money off a work to make him feel it was worthwhile and to get him to create another work, any further period of copyright on that first work in fact has a negative impact on the primary goal of copyright, by virtue of the fact that other artists are very limited on how they can use his work to create more works of their own. It's a very fine balance. In its most ideal form, copyright would give the bare minimum of securing of rights needed to do the promoting. Of course, hitting that ideal is not really possible, so they did the best they could, in setting a duration that would be sufficient to provide plenty of incentive in any reasonable situation but without being so long as to be absurd. What we have now is so far skewed from the original that it's quite safe to say it does more to hinder the progress of Science and useful Arts than to promote it.
I understand where you're coming from. And I'd really like to sympathize with the "genuine artists" being hurt, but I just can't. This is because, as I said above, we have a huge glut and excessive supply of "art". Most of those guys are trying to sell something that currently has about as much value as the air in an empty cup. They wouldn't be able to make a living off their art, piracy or no. If that's a problem for them, they can get a real job doing real work like most people in the world.
The only reason there's as many successful "artists" as there are is because of the artificial value created by the BS that is current copyright duration. It's like a huge bubble just waiting to burst - and that's coming one way or another, either by legal or illegal means. The market will eventually return it to an equilibrium, no matter how many hurting artists desire otherwise.
Someone agreed to pay me a certain amount of money for a certain amount and quality of work. We both signed a contract. I do the work, and they pay me the money.
Can you see how this is different from setting an arbitrary "value" on something you created and then demanding people pay that?
Imagine making a quick sketch on a napkin and demanding someone pay you five bucks for it. Imagine spray-painting graffiti on a wall and demanding a hundred bucks for your hard night's work of art. Imagine making a recording of your kid singing some shit song and demanding people buy the CD for ten bucks. All of these things are not so very unlike Jason Robert Brown's situation. However, they are entirely unlike the situation you describe.
When you enter an employment agreement with someone, there are laws to protect your right to a fair wage. When you create "art" and try to sell it, the only right you have is for the reproduction and distribution of your work. When it comes to the actual selling and money-making part, you are entirely at the mercy of your prospective customers. (This is why smart artists try to get paid before creating their art... at least if it's really worth their time. Thing is, we have such a glut and excessive supply of "art" these days, it's no wonder most "artists" can't accomplish that. It's so much so that it's rather like taking an empty cup and trying to sell the air in it.) In fact, that's why copyright exists at all: so people have some monetary incentive to create something. The ideal copyright would allow the lowest amount of profit necessary to provide that incentive, and then put the work in the public domain so others can use it to create more new work, further adding to the creative pool. Unfortunately, not all types of created works are identical, and some types take a little more time than others to realize a fair profit, so the fine people who created the law set the duration long enough to cover any legitimate situation.
If anything, thanks to improvements in producing, advertising, and distributing works that duration today should be a fraction of its original span. Instead we see the opposite, to lengths so far beyond ludicrous it's really no wonder the general public has little to no respect for copyright anymore. What a difference it would make to piracy if works would enter the public domain as soon as they had generated a fair profit. But people know that none of these things will enter public domain in their lifetime, and they won't be able to get it for free "legally" no matter how long they wait, so is it any wonder they just don't care?
Content producers and publishers have been saying "fuck you" to their customers for decades now, and at last they're finally getting back a taste of their own medicine. And boy, do they hate it. Payback's a bitch.
People who want the benefit of my work have to pay for it.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Generally you'll get paid what your work is worth. Unfortunately, in some cases that may be zero.
Sorry, I DO in fact have the right to be paid for it, no matter what it is.
Wrong. Actually, no one has a right to "be paid". There's such a thing as a right to a fair wage, when you enter an employment agreement. Creating "art" and then trying to sell it isn't remotely the same thing. That's the reason copyright exists at all: it's to give you an opportunity to make money in those cases when you don't have a right to wages. However, the money you make on such work is still going to depend on a variety of factors such as its quality, the demand for it, and how well you market it. Just because you have sole copy and distribution rights in no way means you have any right to get paid for it.
1. How many hours did he spend on the particular sheet music in question?
2. What is his net profit on it so far?
3. What is the minimum net profit for him to consider the piece worth his time?
Once the answer to #2 is equal to or greater than the answer to #3, the entire purpose of copyright has been fulfilled, and in reality (if you want to stay true to the actual purpose of copyright) his work should already be public domain. I'd be willing to bet in his situation the answer to #2 has already far surpassed his answer to #3, in which case he ends up looking like a whiny, greedy kid who needs to learn when to STFU and quit making a big deal out of nothing.
This quote sums up his position nicely, and really demonstrates why the underpinnings of his entire rationale are flawed:
that doesn't mean I surrender my right to get paid for providing the sheet music.
Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a "right to get paid".
He tries to hide it, but ultimately he still reveals himself to be a dick. Honestly, I'm not sure why he even bothered posting his "experiment". I guess he has no shame.
Slashdot Mirror
A quote of him in TFA answers several of your questions.
He asked several Toronto retailers if they would object to him buying tickets and then exchanging the unused, unscratched tickets. "Everybody said that would be totally fine. Nobody was even a tiny bit suspicious," he says.
So basically, he could buy a whole roll, take it home, check the tickets at his leisure, then return the unscratched tickets for a refund.
I'm surprised it's even necessary to post something like this here. You'd think slashdotters would be savvy enough to figure this out on their own. I know I did. It doesn't take much to figure out that wireless interference has nothing to do with it.
However, most people are stupid and so the only way to get them to behave safely is to scare them into it. "Wireless interference" for most people is something mystical that they have no control over, and thus it works for a scare tactic. "You won't be able to hold onto your crap in a crash" doesn't work, because they're stupid and overestimate their personal capabilities.
Yes it is I got it too.
Guild Wars doesn't really push MicroTransactions like most such games do though. There's no item shop, and almost all the additional purchases are once per account. The only ones that aren't are character re-customizations.
Yes, I'm that horrible.
Also apparently not very observant. He wasn't flagged for PvP.
Read TFA.
Or are indie developers supposed to develop only single-player games and games in genres whose multiplayer is traditionally online?
If they want a large market, yeah. It sucks, but sometimes that's how it is.
And run-on sentences ftw, because who needs to worry about periods or any punctuation besides commas, just keep writing until you're done, I'm sure everyone will understand just fine.
It's just as true now. PCs see too much use for things like email, document creating, etc. where a smaller ultra-high resolution screen is so much easier to use than a bigger screen from further away. Not to mention the impact ergonomics have on the overall setup of PCs and design of peripherals. And then of course there's the fact that laptops are now outselling desktops for home use by leaps and bounds. There's a reason it's called a personal computer.
So yes, it's possible to design a media center + gaming PC that could replace a video game console, but it's not going to happen because the demand just isn't there.
Not so much an edge case I think. It's one of the reasons Halo is still as popular at it is. When you have 1-3 friends you regularly hang out with and you want to do a little gaming, sometimes it's more fun to team up and play against other players. Especially when there's 3 of you and you want to play a team game.
And, of course, PC games have been this way for ages (one computer and display per concurrent player). I'm not aware of any two-person FPS PC games which use a split-screen method, even though Windows has supported multiple input devices for an eternity. In fact, the only PC games I can think of which involved two or more players on one system were all turn-based.
That's because PCs have never really lent themselves well to having multiple players on the same system. Everything is designed for one person sitting on a chair approximately 2-3 feet away from the screen.
For myself, I have no reason to buy a console game with no same-screen mutiplayer support. If I want single-player-per-screen I'll choose the PC every time.
Not necessarily. I know for myself, I have a much harder time staying focused and getting work done at home than when I'm "on the job" somewhere. To give you an idea how drastic it is, when I'm trying to "work from home" I barely get anything worthwhile done. When I'm "on the job", I'm one of the best, most efficient guys on the team. I get twice as much done as some of the other guys.
I really wish that weren't the case, because I'd much prefer working from home.
One of the main reasons for using all-caps is adding emphasis, since like forever. This isn't something new that we've just recently been "conditioned" for. So yes, a post in all-caps IS the online equivalent of yelling. That is reality. Whether you like it or not.
There's a lot more to innovation than looks.
I highly doubt that. Ever heard of DST?
Alright. What is it that pirates are stealing? We know they aren't stealing the software itself, as they're just copying data, which doesn't deprive anyone of anything. So,what is it that they are 'stealing'?
Imaginary sales.
There's one glaring flaw with GW, and it's the reason I quit playing. If your account gets hacked (no matter how it happens) and you lose *anything* at all, it can't be replaced. That's right, ArenaNet has NO means of replacing anything that gets lost, stolen, hacked, accidentally deleted, or any other scenario that might cause you to lose your shit.
To add icing to the cake, if you tie your GW account to your Play NC account your email address becomes your account ID and you can't change it. Ever.
This became such a big problem they finally started adding a third step to the login process: asking for the name of a character on the account. Of course, if you've ever created an account on a GW forum with the same email as you have for your PlayNC account and gave your character name (which thousands if not hundreds of thousands of players have done) then you're still sitting there only a brute-force attack away from having your account hacked. And on top of that, last I checked (about 6 months ago) there was still nothing in place to stop a brute force attack.
They are very unlike Jason Brown's situation. If one person bought your kid's CD for ten bucks, then burned thousands of copies (or photocopied the cocktail napkin) and gave them out for free while you're still trying to sell the originals for 10$, that would be his situation.
No, the situation is that he arbitrarily decided his one piece of sheet music that he probably spent less than a week's work on is worth $3.99 for each digital download. And even though he's already made far more than a week's wages on it, he's whining about a strapped-for-cash student who isn't paying for his junk, even though she explained why she can't, etc. This is not to say that what she's doing is in any way ethical or legal, but what he's doing just makes him a scumbag and a douche. The whole "pick your battles" thing. This is not a battle he should have picked, unless he wants to look like a greedy jackass.
I do agree that modern copyright terms (it lasts for 70 years after the artist dies or something like that) are way too long, but your original argument was that once an artist has made as much profit as he originally intended then he should lose his copyright, not that copyright terms are too long.
No, my argument is and always has been that the primary goal of copyright is "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" exactly as is stated in the US Constitution. The means by which it attempts to accomplish that is "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". As soon as an artist (or any other type of content creator) has made sufficient money off a work to make him feel it was worthwhile and to get him to create another work, any further period of copyright on that first work in fact has a negative impact on the primary goal of copyright, by virtue of the fact that other artists are very limited on how they can use his work to create more works of their own. It's a very fine balance. In its most ideal form, copyright would give the bare minimum of securing of rights needed to do the promoting. Of course, hitting that ideal is not really possible, so they did the best they could, in setting a duration that would be sufficient to provide plenty of incentive in any reasonable situation but without being so long as to be absurd. What we have now is so far skewed from the original that it's quite safe to say it does more to hinder the progress of Science and useful Arts than to promote it.
I understand where you're coming from. And I'd really like to sympathize with the "genuine artists" being hurt, but I just can't. This is because, as I said above, we have a huge glut and excessive supply of "art". Most of those guys are trying to sell something that currently has about as much value as the air in an empty cup. They wouldn't be able to make a living off their art, piracy or no. If that's a problem for them, they can get a real job doing real work like most people in the world.
The only reason there's as many successful "artists" as there are is because of the artificial value created by the BS that is current copyright duration. It's like a huge bubble just waiting to burst - and that's coming one way or another, either by legal or illegal means. The market will eventually return it to an equilibrium, no matter how many hurting artists desire otherwise.
Someone agreed to pay me a certain amount of money for a certain amount and quality of work. We both signed a contract. I do the work, and they pay me the money.
Can you see how this is different from setting an arbitrary "value" on something you created and then demanding people pay that?
Imagine making a quick sketch on a napkin and demanding someone pay you five bucks for it. Imagine spray-painting graffiti on a wall and demanding a hundred bucks for your hard night's work of art. Imagine making a recording of your kid singing some shit song and demanding people buy the CD for ten bucks. All of these things are not so very unlike Jason Robert Brown's situation. However, they are entirely unlike the situation you describe.
When you enter an employment agreement with someone, there are laws to protect your right to a fair wage. When you create "art" and try to sell it, the only right you have is for the reproduction and distribution of your work. When it comes to the actual selling and money-making part, you are entirely at the mercy of your prospective customers. (This is why smart artists try to get paid before creating their art... at least if it's really worth their time. Thing is, we have such a glut and excessive supply of "art" these days, it's no wonder most "artists" can't accomplish that. It's so much so that it's rather like taking an empty cup and trying to sell the air in it.) In fact, that's why copyright exists at all: so people have some monetary incentive to create something. The ideal copyright would allow the lowest amount of profit necessary to provide that incentive, and then put the work in the public domain so others can use it to create more new work, further adding to the creative pool. Unfortunately, not all types of created works are identical, and some types take a little more time than others to realize a fair profit, so the fine people who created the law set the duration long enough to cover any legitimate situation.
If anything, thanks to improvements in producing, advertising, and distributing works that duration today should be a fraction of its original span. Instead we see the opposite, to lengths so far beyond ludicrous it's really no wonder the general public has little to no respect for copyright anymore. What a difference it would make to piracy if works would enter the public domain as soon as they had generated a fair profit. But people know that none of these things will enter public domain in their lifetime, and they won't be able to get it for free "legally" no matter how long they wait, so is it any wonder they just don't care?
Content producers and publishers have been saying "fuck you" to their customers for decades now, and at last they're finally getting back a taste of their own medicine. And boy, do they hate it. Payback's a bitch.
People who want the benefit of my work have to pay for it.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Generally you'll get paid what your work is worth. Unfortunately, in some cases that may be zero.
Sorry, I DO in fact have the right to be paid for it, no matter what it is.
Wrong. Actually, no one has a right to "be paid". There's such a thing as a right to a fair wage, when you enter an employment agreement. Creating "art" and then trying to sell it isn't remotely the same thing. That's the reason copyright exists at all: it's to give you an opportunity to make money in those cases when you don't have a right to wages. However, the money you make on such work is still going to depend on a variety of factors such as its quality, the demand for it, and how well you market it. Just because you have sole copy and distribution rights in no way means you have any right to get paid for it.
Very well-put. Should be modded up.
1. How many hours did he spend on the particular sheet music in question?
2. What is his net profit on it so far?
3. What is the minimum net profit for him to consider the piece worth his time?
Once the answer to #2 is equal to or greater than the answer to #3, the entire purpose of copyright has been fulfilled, and in reality (if you want to stay true to the actual purpose of copyright) his work should already be public domain. I'd be willing to bet in his situation the answer to #2 has already far surpassed his answer to #3, in which case he ends up looking like a whiny, greedy kid who needs to learn when to STFU and quit making a big deal out of nothing.
This quote sums up his position nicely, and really demonstrates why the underpinnings of his entire rationale are flawed:
that doesn't mean I surrender my right to get paid for providing the sheet music.
Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a "right to get paid".
He tries to hide it, but ultimately he still reveals himself to be a dick. Honestly, I'm not sure why he even bothered posting his "experiment". I guess he has no shame.