Contrary to what it's become popular to spout, gamers today aren't a bunch of fuckin' morons. Nor, for that matter, is Halo a bad game. Ironically, I find the people that spout these opinions to be the unintellent ones, since they're almost always hating on the game just because it's popular, or the kids these days just because they can. Very seldom is there an actual, valid, reason to back these sentiments up.
The problem is, an operating system is an interesting project. A game is not. Writing a graphics engine may be, but balancing, texturing, all of that... it's just not very interesting work, so saying that people release Linux versions doesn't really address the issue.
Not to mention, OSS is driven basically by ideology. While that keeps it going for now, I doubt that it's going to be that sustainable as a driving force. People aren't going to be frothing at the mouths forever, and what then?
But software makers don't charge for "making the thing"; they charge for distribution...
No. Charging for "making the thing" is exactly what they're doing! The difference is, they're charging lots of people an affordable price instead of charging one person an exorbitant price... which requires controlling the distribution.
Then maybe they should stop charging for reproduction, and charge instead for the work they do that isn't effortless.
They are. There is no other way to support large efforts like AAA games, or big movies, other than the current model, at least none that I see. If you try to charge someone on a commission basis for it, no one will be able to afford it, because of the huge numbers of people that work together on these projects (and hence, a high cost for the project).
Ah, I see. So, tell me then: who is going to finance the next Bioshock, the next Lord of the Rings, etc, without the ability to turn a profit on it by re-selling it to lots of other people at a low price?
Morality concerns aside, you still have to solve that issue.
You create a high barrier for entry, but you remove all the fun in the process. Some people would play an MMO where there was permadeath and you had to go through various mundane classes to become a hero, but not many.
Not only that but IP industry is the horse and buggy industry of the 21st century, why exactly do these people deserve our protection? Should we have protected the horse and buggy industry from going obsolete?
Oh, please. This analogy gets brought up into every single fucking IP discussion on this site, and it is always way the hell off base. There is no brave new industry that is making something better than what the software makers are making now... people are just taking what they make for free. When someone is making a new type of thing which obsoletes software, get back to me, and then you can use the buggy whip analogy. Until then, stuff it, because it doesn't apply one bit.
In any other area if we were capable of replicating matter and energy for food so entire industries would collapse over night, they would be seen as horrible people from trying to stop such technology from being used by people.
Yes, and that is because the work in those areas is the reproduction of the product. The work in IP is actually creating the thing you wish to sell, reproduction is and always has been effortless. When someone comes up with a way to instantly and effortlessly create a new piece of software which you want, then your analogy will apply.
Good God, why is is that no one on/. who opposes IP even understands the issue at hand?
I'm not saying that Mozilla should support FF2 indefinitely, or that FF2 users shouldn't upgrade. I am saying that Mozilla shouldn't nag them. That's just rude.
Irrelevant. What's odious about both of these examples is that the vendor is trying to push a new version, that you (presumably) don't want or need, on you. Who cares if it's free? People have what they need right now, and trying to shove a new version at them is disrespectful of their customers.
I applaud his forward thinking in trying to get rid of stupid people, but I really don't think jail is an option. We're just gonna have to put up with them. Sorry man.
After reading TFA (I know, I know), that seems pretty damn in line for Atari. Any time someone started making games that competed with theirs, they sued.
Again, "trial and error" is NOT the same as guessing. Trial and error is when you know basically what you need to do, you just need to figure out the finer points of it. Guessing is when the puzzle is so obscure, you have no idea even where to begin, and just start trying random things, getting it right in the process.
Oh please. If I like the way you've decorated your yard, then I can decorate mine exactly like it. I don't care how hard you worked to come up with that particular arrangement. If I like it, I can copy it. That's to illustrate the idea that you can most certainly enjoy the fruits of another's labor without their permission. Nothing but the law makes written works a protected class.
a) When decorating someone's yard is a creative work, get back to me.
b) When I decorate my yard, I'm not doing it to make money, so I don't give a damn what anyone does with respect to my yard decorations (except insofar as I'll be annoyed if they mess my decorations up, and I have to re-do them).
Copyright most certainly is an inherent right, but not at first glance. It is the application of an inherent right (you get to do business how you want, free of other people's interference) to creative works, to make it easier to punish violations of this right.
Nothing but the law makes written works a protected class.
The law, and basic morality. If you think we should throw authors to the wolves, effectively ruining their ability to turn a profit from their work, so be it, but know that it's a blatantly immoral thing to do.
Yes, it is. Every man, woman, or child has the right to set their terms for doing business with them. You are obligated to accept the terms, or not accept the fruits of their labor. Pick one (or negotiate, I suppose). Copyright merely makes it easier to apply this right into the realm of creative works.
Cry me a river. I wish I could make money from reading Dilbert all day, but since society has decided that it doesn't consider that a profitable career, guess I'll have to find more productive employment.
If one doesn't like someone else's business model, they have every right to not do business with them. However, not doing business with them does not mean "ignoring their business model because it doesn't suit me, but taking the end product anyway". Those who support reasonable copyright aren't demanding that you pay money for their work, they're demanding that you either agree to their stipulations, or don't take their work. I fail to see what's particularly unfair about that.
Fair Use is not a defense for copyright infringement
HA! Jolly good show, old chaps. I sure hope the judge got a laugh out of their ludicrous claim, because I know I did. The other claims are just ridiculous... this one blatantly contradicts the law.
Where are you getting flash drives? I paid $20 for my 2GB drive (not on sale). On sale, I see a 4 GB for $20. That's really cheap if you want to use one for yourself, but for disposable storage it's still kinda pricey.
When every commercial developer cares primarily about the quality of their games. Some do that now, and they make great games (Blizzard, for example). It'll never happen that all developers are like that, though.
It isn't all bad, though. Even studios who are primarily profit-oriented can still put out great games, it just isn't as common as it is with studios who give a damn about their games. Even EA puts out legitimately good games now and then.
Your acquaintance is not the one out of touch, it's you. As has been noted, CDs make excellent one-off, disposable storage. Their capacity isn't great, but it's enough that if you need to send a few files over someone's way, you can do so without worrying about them losing your flash drive.
Well, they didn't really say it didn't require trial and error, they said it didn't require guessing. Which is true: you have to try different methods to solve a puzzle sometimes, but you're never reduced to pure guesswork--you always have an inkling to go on, you just need to figure out how to develop it.
Braid was an amazing game. It was rather like Portal, but it didn't have any of Portal's shortcomings: it was a good value (longer game, yet cost less), and had an actual half-decent plot (although it was a bit too complex). Unfortunately, it doesn't have Portal's witty dialogue and brilliant voice acting, but I guess that's life.
The game mechanics were absolutely brilliant, too. I particularly loved the "shadow" mechanic in world 5, those were by far the richest puzzles for me.
Off the top of my head (I'm level 73 or 74 in the beta):
Arthas
The Cult of the Damned infiltrating an Alliance town
Malygos, and his assault on magic
The Ashbringer
The continuation of Tirion Fordring's story
The evolution of the Scarlet Crusade
The continuation of the Infinite Dragonflight story (including the revelation of who their leader is)
...and that's just off the top of my head. WoW is chock full of story, you just have to pay attention. If all you really bother knowing about the story is what boss you're killing (which is all most players do), you've missed 80% of the story.
Slashdot Mirror
Contrary to what it's become popular to spout, gamers today aren't a bunch of fuckin' morons. Nor, for that matter, is Halo a bad game. Ironically, I find the people that spout these opinions to be the unintellent ones, since they're almost always hating on the game just because it's popular, or the kids these days just because they can. Very seldom is there an actual, valid, reason to back these sentiments up.
The problem is, an operating system is an interesting project. A game is not. Writing a graphics engine may be, but balancing, texturing, all of that... it's just not very interesting work, so saying that people release Linux versions doesn't really address the issue.
Not to mention, OSS is driven basically by ideology. While that keeps it going for now, I doubt that it's going to be that sustainable as a driving force. People aren't going to be frothing at the mouths forever, and what then?
But software makers don't charge for "making the thing"; they charge for distribution...
No. Charging for "making the thing" is exactly what they're doing! The difference is, they're charging lots of people an affordable price instead of charging one person an exorbitant price... which requires controlling the distribution.
Then maybe they should stop charging for reproduction, and charge instead for the work they do that isn't effortless.
They are. There is no other way to support large efforts like AAA games, or big movies, other than the current model, at least none that I see. If you try to charge someone on a commission basis for it, no one will be able to afford it, because of the huge numbers of people that work together on these projects (and hence, a high cost for the project).
Ah, I see. So, tell me then: who is going to finance the next Bioshock, the next Lord of the Rings, etc, without the ability to turn a profit on it by re-selling it to lots of other people at a low price?
Morality concerns aside, you still have to solve that issue.
You create a high barrier for entry, but you remove all the fun in the process. Some people would play an MMO where there was permadeath and you had to go through various mundane classes to become a hero, but not many.
Not only that but IP industry is the horse and buggy industry of the 21st century, why exactly do these people deserve our protection? Should we have protected the horse and buggy industry from going obsolete?
Oh, please. This analogy gets brought up into every single fucking IP discussion on this site, and it is always way the hell off base. There is no brave new industry that is making something better than what the software makers are making now... people are just taking what they make for free. When someone is making a new type of thing which obsoletes software, get back to me, and then you can use the buggy whip analogy. Until then, stuff it, because it doesn't apply one bit.
In any other area if we were capable of replicating matter and energy for food so entire industries would collapse over night, they would be seen as horrible people from trying to stop such technology from being used by people.
Yes, and that is because the work in those areas is the reproduction of the product. The work in IP is actually creating the thing you wish to sell, reproduction is and always has been effortless. When someone comes up with a way to instantly and effortlessly create a new piece of software which you want, then your analogy will apply.
Good God, why is is that no one on /. who opposes IP even understands the issue at hand?
Kittens are evil. Fuck 'em. ;)
I'm not saying that Mozilla should support FF2 indefinitely, or that FF2 users shouldn't upgrade. I am saying that Mozilla shouldn't nag them. That's just rude.
Irrelevant. What's odious about both of these examples is that the vendor is trying to push a new version, that you (presumably) don't want or need, on you. Who cares if it's free? People have what they need right now, and trying to shove a new version at them is disrespectful of their customers.
An upgrade nag is not progress, it's an annoyance to the user.
We don't like it when Microsoft pressures us to upgrade to Vista, why the hell should we like it when Mozilla pressures us to upgrade to FF3?
I applaud his forward thinking in trying to get rid of stupid people, but I really don't think jail is an option. We're just gonna have to put up with them. Sorry man.
After reading TFA (I know, I know), that seems pretty damn in line for Atari. Any time someone started making games that competed with theirs, they sued.
Again, "trial and error" is NOT the same as guessing. Trial and error is when you know basically what you need to do, you just need to figure out the finer points of it. Guessing is when the puzzle is so obscure, you have no idea even where to begin, and just start trying random things, getting it right in the process.
Oh please. If I like the way you've decorated your yard, then I can decorate mine exactly like it. I don't care how hard you worked to come up with that particular arrangement. If I like it, I can copy it. That's to illustrate the idea that you can most certainly enjoy the fruits of another's labor without their permission. Nothing but the law makes written works a protected class.
a) When decorating someone's yard is a creative work, get back to me.
b) When I decorate my yard, I'm not doing it to make money, so I don't give a damn what anyone does with respect to my yard decorations (except insofar as I'll be annoyed if they mess my decorations up, and I have to re-do them).
Copyright most certainly is an inherent right, but not at first glance. It is the application of an inherent right (you get to do business how you want, free of other people's interference) to creative works, to make it easier to punish violations of this right.
Nothing but the law makes written works a protected class.
The law, and basic morality. If you think we should throw authors to the wolves, effectively ruining their ability to turn a profit from their work, so be it, but know that it's a blatantly immoral thing to do.
Yes, it is. Every man, woman, or child has the right to set their terms for doing business with them. You are obligated to accept the terms, or not accept the fruits of their labor. Pick one (or negotiate, I suppose). Copyright merely makes it easier to apply this right into the realm of creative works.
Cry me a river. I wish I could make money from reading Dilbert all day, but since society has decided that it doesn't consider that a profitable career, guess I'll have to find more productive employment.
If one doesn't like someone else's business model, they have every right to not do business with them. However, not doing business with them does not mean "ignoring their business model because it doesn't suit me, but taking the end product anyway". Those who support reasonable copyright aren't demanding that you pay money for their work, they're demanding that you either agree to their stipulations, or don't take their work. I fail to see what's particularly unfair about that.
Fair Use is not a defense for copyright infringement
HA! Jolly good show, old chaps. I sure hope the judge got a laugh out of their ludicrous claim, because I know I did. The other claims are just ridiculous... this one blatantly contradicts the law.
Where are you getting flash drives? I paid $20 for my 2GB drive (not on sale). On sale, I see a 4 GB for $20. That's really cheap if you want to use one for yourself, but for disposable storage it's still kinda pricey.
When every commercial developer cares primarily about the quality of their games. Some do that now, and they make great games (Blizzard, for example). It'll never happen that all developers are like that, though.
It isn't all bad, though. Even studios who are primarily profit-oriented can still put out great games, it just isn't as common as it is with studios who give a damn about their games. Even EA puts out legitimately good games now and then.
Your acquaintance is not the one out of touch, it's you. As has been noted, CDs make excellent one-off, disposable storage. Their capacity isn't great, but it's enough that if you need to send a few files over someone's way, you can do so without worrying about them losing your flash drive.
Well, they didn't really say it didn't require trial and error, they said it didn't require guessing. Which is true: you have to try different methods to solve a puzzle sometimes, but you're never reduced to pure guesswork--you always have an inkling to go on, you just need to figure out how to develop it.
Braid was an amazing game. It was rather like Portal, but it didn't have any of Portal's shortcomings: it was a good value (longer game, yet cost less), and had an actual half-decent plot (although it was a bit too complex). Unfortunately, it doesn't have Portal's witty dialogue and brilliant voice acting, but I guess that's life.
The game mechanics were absolutely brilliant, too. I particularly loved the "shadow" mechanic in world 5, those were by far the richest puzzles for me.
Informing people that a product has capabilities is not shilling. Learn the difference.