I fail to see how using Firefox to ignore the ad banners and such is morally any different than throwing out the advertising supplements to the newspaper without glancing at the ads therein. You didn't even read the slashdot summary, much less the article obviously. The newspaper gets paid for including the ad, not for you viewing it. Websites often get paid by impressions, so if the ads aren't received by the customers then the revenue isn't received by the site. Totally different from the newspaper, who gets an "impression" with every paper sold guaranteed.
Still not necessarily wrong given how parasitic a lot of ads are now, hogging resources and making annoying sounds. But lets focus on the actual argument raised in TFA. In other words it would be like acquiring newspaper gnomes that take the ads out of your paper before you get it, and the newspaper being paid less by advertisers for every newspaper gnome known to be on the loose.
It's not theft to prevent download of ads, it's a market response.
Lets say a company wants to advertise and pays x amount for an ad run that's annoying and intrusive. As a result, it gets fewer hits and results in an ad revenue of y where y is much less than x. the gap between x and y are both a fault of the company for: A. poorly executing an ad causing a market reaction and B. overpaying for an ad-slot that may not have been worth that much in the first place.
The market always and always should have a right to react.
Firstly I would like to say not a great example. TVs are known to try to detect IR when they are off simply because they need to in order to function properly which has been the case since the inception of the remote
We'll go ahead and analyze what you meant to say by proposing that remote controls never required IR detection and until now the tv never used any power when it was off (let's say that remotes were always corded until 2007.) If Westinghouse introduced a brand-new IR remote control tv and someone noticed that their utility bill went up because of it, they would have a case. In order to prosecute this case they would have to show:
1)that Westinghouse did not disclose the increased power consumption.
2)that it was this exact device that caused the increase in power.
3)how much additional power was used and at what rate that power was billed.
In this case the lawsuit would be frivolous because you are arguing about a few milliwatt-hours (maybe even nanowatt-hours) over a month's time. I'm not sure about billing rates, but I'm sure it's in the range of pennies per month. Someone may think about litigating something like this, but in order to "win" not only would they have to make it a class action lawsuit against Westinghouse to be anywhere near worth the trouble and legal costs, the firm would also have to win legal costs in the trial itself, meaning the judge would have to agree the case was not a waste of time (which I doubt.)
The iPhone case is in a completely different ballpark from what you proposed though, because we're talking a potential customer loss of (potentially) millions per year with roaming data charges because the phone does not operate how one would normally perceive it to.
This was exactly the first thing I thought. I doubt there is a way they are legally liable for such charges when they occurred without the user's knowledge or interaction. The only way they can be charged is if somewhere it was stated that this can/would happen if they took the phones out of country and network range.
There was someone above who mentioned Trillian, but by far my favorite pick is Pidgin IM (formerly Gaim)
You avoid all of the bloat of AIM and MSN Messenger (which is now beyond ridiculous) plus you rid yourself of the need to install several messaging clients which further saves space and startup time plus it keeps your system tray (in windows) much cleaner. And the best part, it's available as open source for Windows and Linux!
Now if they can just apply this to ink jet cartridges...
Oh wait... who am I kidding... I just tried it out and your idea works well, but I'm wondering why my pr0n printouts have green nipples!
The glorious thing about having an economy is that the value of using that land as building space versus using it as farmland is openly weighed. One may tend to think that once a building is up, it's there to stay because in our economy, plant output has been getting progressively more efficient so the demand for farmland is slowly decreasing. This is why buildings that are put up tend to stay up. If we lived in a society where the demand for veggies was increasing and the only way to meet demand was to make more farmland, the price of veggies would go way up and people would do anything from growing them in any free backyard space to tearing down buildings when it becomes more profitable to use that land as farmland instead.
A good real-world example is the demand for parking in large cities is increasing. I know of quite a number of buildings which were torn down because they would be more profitable just to have a space to park a car.
I'd like to start by saying I definitely agree with most (perhaps all) of the DMCA not being constitutional, but because that's what we have to follow for now let's get into the meat of the debate. The point of my initial post was not to say that AT&T and Apple have this nifty contract so obviously the terms should be protected, it's that because they have this contract, they put software locks on the iPhone to assure the "proper" network is being used. Essentially what hackers are doing now is circumventing this copyrighted software in order to access other networks and redistributing these devices with the new/circumvented software lock. I do understand that you are saying the lock does not prevent access to copyright material and I do think that is valid, I'm simply proposing that AT&T also has a valid argument in saying that the lock itself is under copyright and hackers are circumventing the lock for redistribution and personal profit.
I am hoping litigation of the above case brings about some change to the DMCA as it stands now. It may not be groundbreaking, but it may help put it further on track.
Not just breaking or replacement, but upgrading. What if the manufacturer didn't deem it necessary to sell a stereo that had the features I wanted? Then I'd be out in the cold, period. Same kind of thing here... what if AT&T doesn't give the same network coverage that I want? You're out in the cold if you want the iPhone. It's locking, plain and simple. If AT&T wanted to sell the phone, and tie it to a contract, fine. Good on them. But since APPLE is selling the phones, there's no contract with AT&T signed at the outset, so I figure they can both go fuck themselves. As I said though, the reason car companies strictly limited what stereos were used was so they could charge whatever price they desired from the consumer. Yes it is true that you are left with fewer options, but the stereo law was overturned because of moral bankruptcy because of the monopolies created, not because stereo features were more conveniently gained for one provider.
The point is AT&T is still giving competitive pricing for all service and they are not charging more because they have the specific right to the iPhone. The second that happens, I think Apple/AT&T's case fall apart, but I think many fail to see both sides have very valid arguments.
The DMCA has a loophole for accessing different wireless networks, yes. It does not have a loophole for modifying copyrighted software that gives access to those networks.
It also prevents tampering with or editing copyrighted software for profit. Their software (in part) is what accesses the networks. My main point wasn't that a business agreement would become unprofitable, but that they embedded protection in copyrighted software in order to fulfill the business agreement.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see the DMCA changed and for the Apple / AT&T partnership to go down in flames so the iPhone becomes available to all networks, but there are definitely two valid sides to this case.
I bought a computer and have the right to modify it and subsequently turn around and sell it? Amazing!
What will I do with this new-found freedom?...the same thing we do every night, Stimpy: try to take over the world! The issue isn't necessarily as simple as that. While I do think the DMCA is mostly crap to begin with, it's what the country is currently abiding by so it's what we have to look at.
FTA:
Experts believe that AT&T and Apple will point to the DMCA's section 1201, stating that "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Apple did take technological measures to assure their business agreement with AT&T was fulfilled and they do have technological measures to assure their device is not tampered with so there is actually quite a bit of room on Apple and AT&T's side for debate.
The article does make a good point though that this is similar to car stereo manufacturers purposely producing stereos that would only work with their cars and preventing others from making such stereos. Because the carmaker was the only manufacturer of the stereo, they could charge whatever they wanted because of their forced monopoly in the market.
The case is similar because of the control circumvention, but one point the article did not point out is that case is also very different because there is no forced monopoly.
The car was the initial base cost and the stereo (when it breaks or needs replacement) was an uncompetitive and forced monopoly. In the case of AT&T, the iPhone is the base cost, but you still are given competitive rates. If AT&T began charging much more than usual rates strictly for iPhone customers, then the case would be identical, but because of other offerings it does not produce the same monopoly. If this were any other phone but the iPhone with network circumvention nobody would even care (I know because almost all phones are only made to run on one network.) Some may also argue this to be a bad business decision and plan to "liberate Apple from themselves" by hacking the iPhone, but if they made a bad decision, the best way to let them know is to not invest in their product which is already being done looking at iPhone sales.
Nevertheless, I think this case may be more of a nail-biter than most slashdotters would like to think.
Wait a minute. Are you saying that ANY streaming audio (video too?) on the internet is subject to paying SoundExchange? What if I am streaming my own personal music? What about if a band I'm in, streams out songs (assuming unsigned band)? Can I be reading this correctly? I find it hard to believe that if I stream audio that isn't copyright protected...I have to pay anybody squat.... um, his point is radio should be free, I agreed with is point in that case. In summary, no, you aren't reading that correctly.
I think I know a good amount most net radio stations should be paying... $0
I still can't believe SoundExchange has the right to do what they're doing. While you do have a reasonable point when considering independent material which is placed on the internet specifically to be openly available to everyone, there is a distinct problem when dealing with copyrighted material. Additionally I feel that the root of your post deals with SoundExchange making money off of material that isn't specifically theirs which I do agree is a problem. I do feel however, that your post deals with the issue in the incorrect manner.
In the music industry anymore there are so many middlemen and markups that everyone is being charged way too much and it seems like the profits are going to everyone except the artist. I feel that internet radio playing music under copyright shouldn't be free, but the ad revenues should go directly back to the artists and not the scum (like SoundExchange) that are trying to make something from nothing. There are advertisers and such along the way that actually provide a valuable service which increase the overall cost, but other than that the music industry has reached the point of ridiculousness.
Well, if you RTFA and saw this:
Del Cardayre estimates that cellulosic biomass could produce about 2,000 gallons of renewable petroleum per acre. or this:
Producing hydrocarbon fuels is more efficient than producing ethanol, del Cardayre adds, because the former packs about 30 percent more energy per gallon. And it takes less energy to produce, too. The ethanol produced by yeast needs to be distilled to remove the water, so ethanol production requires 65 percent more energy than hydrocarbon production does. you may realize that after everything is up and running the price would actually be better than ethanol because it doesn't need to be processed.
Microsoft has bet significant bucks on the success of Vista, in both R&D and research. On the other hand, XP is nearing the "end" of its product cycle (in theory), having been supplanted by Vista. Or, to use a different turn of phrase, "old and busted" versus "new hotness." You're right they have, and while XP is at its planned end, it is still fully functional, stable (relative term for windows), and very quick (compared to Vista, once again relative for windows.) It may be old, but it is in no way busted. In fact Vista is much more busted at this point.
Imagine you have an old and busted car, and you're buying a new sexy one. For some reason, you need to hang on to both, but you fully plan to get rid of the old & busted one at your earliest convenience. But it turns out that the new car has some serious problems with it, and it's constantly in the shop: but because of your family's needs, you can't just ditch it and start over. Now you're stuck with two cars, and paying upkeep on both of them... Anyway, it's a flawed analogy, but suffice it to say that MS stands to lose a hefty chunk of change if Vista dies on the vine. You're very correct that your analogy is flawed. To lend credit to your comparison we will instead say that the dealership you go to has either a used Corolla about halfway through its lifetime or a liquid hydrogen Ferrari for 12 times the price. Now while the Ferrari does have many more options, it has some major compatibility issues at the pump and is very, very expensive. The Corolla on the other hand is guaranteed to be compatible almost everywhere and has far fewer problems on the road. While some people are interested in going with the "new hotness" right out of the gate, the average user is much more likely to chose the Corolla because it's far cheaper and is functional for their day-to-day needs. Now whether you buy the Corolla or the Ferrari, the dealership is still making money. Additionally, because XP has sold so many copies, there is very little software overhead they're averaging per copy now.
Sure Microsoft will hurt if Vista dies because of the software overhead that wasn't accounted for, but Microsoft has plenty of time to make Vista stable and usable before it goes out of production.
XP continues to be in demand Oh yeah, they'll be brought under very quick with all those sales they're making. Vista doesn't need to be quick to the gate for Microsoft to do well. What would hurt them is if the demand for XP dropped too.
Slashdot Mirror
so here's the Youtube version.
So how about price vs. performance
Hmm, I seem to keep getting an overflow error.
I'm going to invent the Pirated ringtone single
I'll call it a Pringle
Still not necessarily wrong given how parasitic a lot of ads are now, hogging resources and making annoying sounds. But lets focus on the actual argument raised in TFA. In other words it would be like acquiring newspaper gnomes that take the ads out of your paper before you get it, and the newspaper being paid less by advertisers for every newspaper gnome known to be on the loose.
I hope that clears things up.
It's not theft to prevent download of ads, it's a market response.
Lets say a company wants to advertise and pays x amount for an ad run that's annoying and intrusive. As a result, it gets fewer hits and results in an ad revenue of y where y is much less than x. the gap between x and y are both a fault of the company for:
A. poorly executing an ad causing a market reaction and
B. overpaying for an ad-slot that may not have been worth that much in the first place.
The market always and always should have a right to react.
Looks like all the other nominees just got pwned.
Maybe the Emmy commitee was a bit boared?!
I'm just glad I never gave up on the world...
of warcraft.
Firstly I would like to say not a great example. TVs are known to try to detect IR when they are off simply because they need to in order to function properly which has been the case since the inception of the remote
We'll go ahead and analyze what you meant to say by proposing that remote controls never required IR detection and until now the tv never used any power when it was off (let's say that remotes were always corded until 2007.) If Westinghouse introduced a brand-new IR remote control tv and someone noticed that their utility bill went up because of it, they would have a case. In order to prosecute this case they would have to show:
1)that Westinghouse did not disclose the increased power consumption.
2)that it was this exact device that caused the increase in power.
3)how much additional power was used and at what rate that power was billed.
In this case the lawsuit would be frivolous because you are arguing about a few milliwatt-hours (maybe even nanowatt-hours) over a month's time. I'm not sure about billing rates, but I'm sure it's in the range of pennies per month. Someone may think about litigating something like this, but in order to "win" not only would they have to make it a class action lawsuit against Westinghouse to be anywhere near worth the trouble and legal costs, the firm would also have to win legal costs in the trial itself, meaning the judge would have to agree the case was not a waste of time (which I doubt.)
The iPhone case is in a completely different ballpark from what you proposed though, because we're talking a potential customer loss of (potentially) millions per year with roaming data charges because the phone does not operate how one would normally perceive it to.
This was exactly the first thing I thought. I doubt there is a way they are legally liable for such charges when they occurred without the user's knowledge or interaction. The only way they can be charged is if somewhere it was stated that this can/would happen if they took the phones out of country and network range.
There was someone above who mentioned Trillian, but by far my favorite pick is Pidgin IM (formerly Gaim)
You avoid all of the bloat of AIM and MSN Messenger (which is now beyond ridiculous) plus you rid yourself of the need to install several messaging clients which further saves space and startup time plus it keeps your system tray (in windows) much cleaner. And the best part, it's available as open source for Windows and Linux!
Oh wait... who am I kidding... I just tried it out and your idea works well, but I'm wondering why my pr0n printouts have green nipples!
I am an avid TV watcher and have no problems pa...
Oh look a bunny!
Not completely true...
The glorious thing about having an economy is that the value of using that land as building space versus using it as farmland is openly weighed. One may tend to think that once a building is up, it's there to stay because in our economy, plant output has been getting progressively more efficient so the demand for farmland is slowly decreasing. This is why buildings that are put up tend to stay up. If we lived in a society where the demand for veggies was increasing and the only way to meet demand was to make more farmland, the price of veggies would go way up and people would do anything from growing them in any free backyard space to tearing down buildings when it becomes more profitable to use that land as farmland instead.
A good real-world example is the demand for parking in large cities is increasing. I know of quite a number of buildings which were torn down because they would be more profitable just to have a space to park a car.
I'd like to start by saying I definitely agree with most (perhaps all) of the DMCA not being constitutional, but because that's what we have to follow for now let's get into the meat of the debate. The point of my initial post was not to say that AT&T and Apple have this nifty contract so obviously the terms should be protected, it's that because they have this contract, they put software locks on the iPhone to assure the "proper" network is being used. Essentially what hackers are doing now is circumventing this copyrighted software in order to access other networks and redistributing these devices with the new/circumvented software lock. I do understand that you are saying the lock does not prevent access to copyright material and I do think that is valid, I'm simply proposing that AT&T also has a valid argument in saying that the lock itself is under copyright and hackers are circumventing the lock for redistribution and personal profit.
I am hoping litigation of the above case brings about some change to the DMCA as it stands now. It may not be groundbreaking, but it may help put it further on track.
The point is AT&T is still giving competitive pricing for all service and they are not charging more because they have the specific right to the iPhone. The second that happens, I think Apple/AT&T's case fall apart, but I think many fail to see both sides have very valid arguments.
The DMCA has a loophole for accessing different wireless networks, yes. It does not have a loophole for modifying copyrighted software that gives access to those networks.
It also prevents tampering with or editing copyrighted software for profit. Their software (in part) is what accesses the networks. My main point wasn't that a business agreement would become unprofitable, but that they embedded protection in copyrighted software in order to fulfill the business agreement.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see the DMCA changed and for the Apple / AT&T partnership to go down in flames so the iPhone becomes available to all networks, but there are definitely two valid sides to this case.
Yes, but the software that gives access to the network is copyright which is what is being circumvented. That's the point that was outlined in TFA.
What will I do with this new-found freedom?
FTA: Experts believe that AT&T and Apple will point to the DMCA's section 1201, stating that "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Apple did take technological measures to assure their business agreement with AT&T was fulfilled and they do have technological measures to assure their device is not tampered with so there is actually quite a bit of room on Apple and AT&T's side for debate.
The article does make a good point though that this is similar to car stereo manufacturers purposely producing stereos that would only work with their cars and preventing others from making such stereos. Because the carmaker was the only manufacturer of the stereo, they could charge whatever they wanted because of their forced monopoly in the market.
The case is similar because of the control circumvention, but one point the article did not point out is that case is also very different because there is no forced monopoly.
The car was the initial base cost and the stereo (when it breaks or needs replacement) was an uncompetitive and forced monopoly. In the case of AT&T, the iPhone is the base cost, but you still are given competitive rates. If AT&T began charging much more than usual rates strictly for iPhone customers, then the case would be identical, but because of other offerings it does not produce the same monopoly. If this were any other phone but the iPhone with network circumvention nobody would even care (I know because almost all phones are only made to run on one network.) Some may also argue this to be a bad business decision and plan to "liberate Apple from themselves" by hacking the iPhone, but if they made a bad decision, the best way to let them know is to not invest in their product which is already being done looking at iPhone sales.
Nevertheless, I think this case may be more of a nail-biter than most slashdotters would like to think.
I still can't believe SoundExchange has the right to do what they're doing. While you do have a reasonable point when considering independent material which is placed on the internet specifically to be openly available to everyone, there is a distinct problem when dealing with copyrighted material. Additionally I feel that the root of your post deals with SoundExchange making money off of material that isn't specifically theirs which I do agree is a problem. I do feel however, that your post deals with the issue in the incorrect manner.
In the music industry anymore there are so many middlemen and markups that everyone is being charged way too much and it seems like the profits are going to everyone except the artist. I feel that internet radio playing music under copyright shouldn't be free, but the ad revenues should go directly back to the artists and not the scum (like SoundExchange) that are trying to make something from nothing. There are advertisers and such along the way that actually provide a valuable service which increase the overall cost, but other than that the music industry has reached the point of ridiculousness.
Anyway, it's a flawed analogy, but suffice it to say that MS stands to lose a hefty chunk of change if Vista dies on the vine. You're very correct that your analogy is flawed. To lend credit to your comparison we will instead say that the dealership you go to has either a used Corolla about halfway through its lifetime or a liquid hydrogen Ferrari for 12 times the price. Now while the Ferrari does have many more options, it has some major compatibility issues at the pump and is very, very expensive. The Corolla on the other hand is guaranteed to be compatible almost everywhere and has far fewer problems on the road. While some people are interested in going with the "new hotness" right out of the gate, the average user is much more likely to chose the Corolla because it's far cheaper and is functional for their day-to-day needs. Now whether you buy the Corolla or the Ferrari, the dealership is still making money. Additionally, because XP has sold so many copies, there is very little software overhead they're averaging per copy now.
Sure Microsoft will hurt if Vista dies because of the software overhead that wasn't accounted for, but Microsoft has plenty of time to make Vista stable and usable before it goes out of production.