Never said they did. I will point out however, that the people suggesting that African countries should allow software patents are, from the point of view of people in African countries, the cultural descendants of those who did exploit africa. Which is why the history of colonialism enters the discussion, I suspect.
"So any argument that they must make some sort of amends by allowing Africa to use their property (intellectual or otherwise) for free are based on nothing but an attempt to get a free lunch by appealing to guilt. It is dishonest."
Um, I'm not making the argument that Africa should get a free ride on software patents, I'm making the argument that software patents are a bad idea, for basically everybody except Microsoft et. al.
You seem to be coming from a point of view that IP rights are the same as any other property rights, a position that fails on many levels. (for starters, your car or your house is exclusive, if I steal your car, you no longer have it.) Intellectual property isn't a natural right, like human rights or property rights or something, it's an attempt to do social engineering (create incentive for producing creative/useful works) via government interference in a free market system by granting monopolies.
We'd all like to think of patents as a way to protect the little guy from being walked all over by big players, but I haven't ever seen a case of that happening. I'm sure there might be a non-zero number of cases where that happens, but if you look at the big picture, I see software patents as causing more harm than good by orders of magnitude.
Seriously, aside from creating an artificial barrier to entry, and a method for large companies to prevent competitors for entering the market, what purpose do software patents serve?
No, no, c'mon, let's be fair, depending on who's doing the math, 80 cents per CD is perfectly reasonable.
They just have the same accounting firm that the movie studios use to show that Forrest Gump didn't break even.
This sort of thing is such lovely poetic justice. Wal-mart is just doing to the labels what the labels have been doing to artists for decades - get people to sign a contract with you, not based on a mutually beneficial exchange, but because you're the only game in town. (and the game is rigged, btw)
"What I think is very wrong is the interpretation that anyone that screws the record industry, the movie industry, or the software industry is somehow a hero. Somehow the slashdot crowd has gotten the impression that these industries are composed completely of useless middlemen who don't deserve to make any profit from their work."
Well, I can't speak for the slashdot crowd, whoever that is, but, when an industry believes that a certain price per unit is guaranteed to them in the constitution or something, I'm quite happy to see them taken down a notch or two.
Really, wal-mart is just doing to the record labels what the labels have been doing to artists for decades. Get people to sign a deal based not on a mutually beneficial contract, but by being the only game in town. Wal-mart does this to all it's suppliers. As I said above, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
"That said, I don't even really think that Walmart is a villain exactly (most of the time), they are just an extremely well run business optimizing their profits."
I don't know when exactly maximizing profits by any means necessary became ethically ok. I think profit is great, but when you can't run your business without paying your employees a wage that keeps them in grinding poverty, I say we can do without that company.
To say that maximizing profits, come what may, deserves no ethical considerations is to legitimize applied amorality.
Never mind the fact that, if everybody took the attitude that wal-mart does ("Let other people hire employees, we'll just sell them stuff!"), what happens to your society? You wipe out the middle class, for starters.
I don't know about you, but basically everything that I like that came out of the 20th century, in terms of tech, books, movies, music, whatever, mostly came out of the middle classes. If you get rid of the middle classes, you have a society that looks more like mexico city. That sound appealing to you?
Well yeah, much as I never thought I'd say this, you're right, wal-mart is in the right. What's that thing from economics 101 that an efficient free market is reached when the price is about equal to the marginal cost of production? So, computer hardware is probably a pretty good example.
I'm not sure what the marginal cost of producing a CD is, but I strongly suspect that it's under ten bucks.
Now, that said, what the fuck did they expect would result from getting into bed with wal-mart? If there's one thing that they're good at, (aside from union-busting) it's becoming the primary retail distributor for any given product, then once they're in a strong bargaining position, they tell their supplier, "If you don't wanna lower the price you're giving us, I guess you could always find some other retailer to deal with, take it or leave it."
Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
They should've seen this coming when they were selling CDs to wal-mart for 12 bucks and wal-mart was selling them for $10. Did they think wal-mart had some magical method of creating money out of thin air?
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you saying that Africa was never in any way shape or form exploited, oppressed, or otherwise treated badly by European nations/civilizations?
Or are you saying that if that sort of thing did happen, it's too far back to matter/water under the bridge?
I get that you seem to disagree with the above poster, but I'm not clear on why.
Speaking as somebody who always used to say "Vista and it's DRM and god knows what else? Never.".
Then I bought a new laptop, and it came pre-loaded with Vista. So I got it dual-booting with ubuntu no problem, and then I started thinking, well, we're going to have to support it at work, (most of our customers are on XP or 2K, but they're gonna buy new PCs eventually, right?) so I figured I'd better get used to it, if nothing else, for the 10% of my time where I have to coach a brain-dead end user on something.
Overall, I can't find a reason to hate it, try though I might. Can't get it to chug no matter what I do. Now, a couple of qualifiers to my grudging endorsement. 1) this is a dual core processor with 3 gigs ram and a nvida 8600 GS. So on a entry-level system, it probably sucks like an electrolux. It shouldn't require a PC that can run Crysis just to get a freakin' OS to run without irritation. 2) My girlfriend's dad has a similar laptop, and while it runs ok, he's baffled by the arbitrary changes to the user interface. 3) If I try to think about how much I'd pay for the things I like about vista, I come up with a figure of about 10 bucks or so, i.e., on a par with what I'd pay for a game on my cell phone. 4)I haven't been down the road of things like replacing my hard drive yet, but if I have to call Microsoft to get permission to run it on a new hard drive, I'm gonna chuck vista in the river, metaphorically speaking. Same goes with DRM stuff.
Even worse than the belief in that specific variation of libertarianism that boils down to "slave owners who want police protection from their slaves", is the belief in meritocracy amongst IT types. Maybe it's a representative viewpoint maybe it's a vocal minority, I don't know.
Believing that you got where you are just on your own hard work and ambition, that there was no luck to the circumstances you were born into or the draw you got at the "genetic lottery", (as if, had a person been switched at birth and raised in sub-saharan africa, or an inner-city slum, they'd still be a CIO or something) is one of the strangest beliefs for a population with an understanding of statistics to have.
But I guess it makes one feel better about themselves.
Part of the problem with IT people is a spirit of libertarianism, this specific breed reminds me of that line about how libertarians are just slave owners who want police protection from their slaves.
Y'know what I want from a phone? Text and voice. Sure, it's fun to have a camera sometimes and all that, but that's really it. The Eee PC is nice, but a bit too overpriced right now. So making an Eee PC competitor that's wedded to the smartphone market, and does nothing without a smartphone, for about the same price as an Eee PC?
Meh, maybe it was a lack of balls, it certainly was in some cases, but another analysis is that the democrats were giving the republicans enough rope to hang themselves.
Now, I don't think that strategy is working, except possibly on economic issues. The state of the economy is going to be a lot bigger problem for the republicans than the situation in Iraq.
The reason I ask is, 'cause you kinda make a similar argument.
"I'm not so sure about that. Without God, you must explain moral codes in practical terms. The most basic (lie, cheat, steal)are easy enough. Some of the less obviously explained moral codes are both very important and not easy to explain the practicality thereof. (Envy, gluttony, etc.)"
C'mon, this one's a no-brainer. Take the seven deadly sins for example.
Every single one of them, you're probably better off not doing.
So there's an "evolutionary advantage" to behaving a certain way. Those individuals who behave "ethically" generally have an advantage over those who don't. Now some of those situations are debatable, like, for example, in the short term, if we're in the middle of a famine, there's an (at least in the short-term) advantage to me if I steal your dinner.
However, a community/population/tribe that behaves "ethically" has an ENORMOUS advantage over a tribe of sociopathic anarchists (for example). So those tribes that behave in a way that we'd call ethically, when they go to war with that hypothetical tribe of sociopathic anarchists they kick ass and take wallets.
Nothing mysterious here, just natural selection/evolution. There's no reason to assume that religion is necessary for a society to develop an ethical code.
"Humans are not fundamentally morally superior now as compared to 5,000 years ago. The only thing that has provably changed in that time is the societal indoctrination methods, and churches are the majority of those methods."
Hold the train there, we might be "morally superior" to our ancestors from 3,000 years ago when armies would invade and slaughter entire populations (although I suspect that the residents of Dresden or Hiroshima or Fallujah might argue with you on that claim), how 'bout comparing ourselves to our pre-agriculture ancestors?
Pre-agriculture societies generally tend to have values more similar to what we'd call today "democratic values" like equality and freedom and all that good stuff. Plus, they generally won't do things like let someone die for lack of medical care if somebody lacks funds the way we will today.
I guess what I'm saying is, given the history of the 20th century, when 100 million humans were killed by other humans, (about 60% of them civilians to boot) you're on very shaky ground to assume that humans in our current form are "morally superior" to anything.
It's not really google being mistreated that's a cause for concern, you're absolutely right, it's not like they can't afford it.
Let's say, Yahoo works out a deal in a non-neutral world, with Comcast, AT&T, and 2 or 3 others. Google eventually bows to inevitability, and makes the same deal with ISPs.
Then you're in a situation where, to get decent service, you HAVE TO be able to afford that sort of deal. So you've created a barrier to entry for the little guys.
So what I'm worried about is not about google being mistreated, I'm worried about, say, wikisecrets not being able to afford decent service.
Right now we have a remarkably low barrier to entry for publishing on the web. Given concentration of ownership for mainstream media, this is a VERY good thing.
I understand the points you raise about inefficiency, but politics is always a compromise.
I see net neutrality as being a way to keep ISPs (many of who are cable companies) from turning the internet into cable TV.
Take a look at "Digital Imprimatur" by John Walker, for some of the concerns I'm worried about:
"What's the fairest way to hand out bandwidth preferences?"
It's very simple.
I can't speak for other net-neutrality advocates, but all _I_ want is that you can "discriminate" on the basis of type of traffic, or basically anything else you like for QoS.
You just can't do it on the basis of source or destination. i.e., you can't decide to make yahoo work faster than google 'cause of a side deal you have with Yahoo.
Maybe some others are advocating some draconian, ultra-statist, level of regulation, but all I'm asking for is a guarantee in law that the internet keeps functioning the way we all basically take for granted.
Let me just say that I can't speak to what other net neutrality supporters are saying, but I take exception to my pro-net neutrality stance being categorized as "FUD".
All I want, in terms of 'net neutrality', is a rule/law/social convention/however the hell we accomplish it/ that says you can 'discriminate' by TYPE of traffic, but not by source or destination.
Specifically, what I'm worried about is things like how Telus (ISP up here in Canada) was blocking access to it's union's website while said union was on strike. That should be illegal. Discriminating on the basis of where you're going or where you're coming from. So there's one where we got specific examples of bad behavior by telcos.
What I'm also worried about is what's-his-name, CEO of one of the ISPs, alleging that "Google's getting a free ride".
It seems to me that the idea that ISPs want to go back to a billing model more like long distance phone calls is a quite reasonable concern.
That's a logistical question to be worked out, that may be um, "non-trivial".
But hey, this is an idea I came up in 2 minutes while reading slashdot, I'm sure somebody smarter than me spending a little more time thinking about this should be able to come up with something.
Hell, even if the case of you having copyrighted songs available on your ad-revenue-supported website was not covered by the definition of "private non-commercial copyright infringement", I think it'd still be worth my X number of $$ per month.
That's a really good idea. After all, my grandmother is just getting her head around this whole "e-mail thing" and "that googling thing", P2P downloads are a way off for her.
So people like her paying this crap isn't fair.
Thinking of it as "insurance" is a great way to get this idea across.
But $5/month is INSANE! That's 1/8 of my ISP bill. And if the RIAA gets this, well, I don't see any reason why the MPAA or the BSA shouldn't get it too.
How about somewhere between 25 cents and a dollar? Maybe as much as 2 bucks a month.
To effectively decrminalize private non-commercial copyright infringement for around 3-5 bucks a month, that's a bargain.
Also, I like the insurance model, 'cause then you could decide to opt out or not. Somebody who really genuinely does no P2P downloads (I suppose there's a non-zero number of those individuals, although I can't name any, not even my mother...), they can opt out if they choose.
"How about the bit where they have no content I am interested in, but I still have to pay? How about the bit that a private group now gains the right to tax all broadband users just
on a suspicion that they might some day download something?"
I entirely agree with you. I don't think this is fair, I don't think they ought to get this any more than a pimp "deserves" his money. But what do you think of these modifications: 1) Let's get a reasonable fucking amount. How about 25 cents. The BSA or the MPAA or anybody else can get in on this deal too
2) Anybody who receives one red cent from this 'levy' agrees that they can never again object to any form of private (i.e., private citizens, not somebody's business idea like allofmp3.com) non-commercial copyright infringement, forever, for their entire catalog, in all jurisdictions;
3) Anyone who receives one red cent from this levy is expressly prohibited from employing, developing, or distributing any form of DRM tech, forever, in all jurisdictions.
4) Anyone who violates (2) or (3) shall pay a fine equal to the amount they've received from the levy X 1000.
While I don't think this is fair either, there hasn't been anything I felt was worth buying from the RIAA for about 10 years or so, I think of it as a trade-off. I pay say, 2 or 3 bucks more a month and never again have to worry about any of these copyright conflicts.
How about this: First of all, I don't think this is "fair" in any sense, but to end all the copyright nonsense these days I'd be willing to entertain this.
First of all, let's get a reasonable amount. Like, say, 25 cents a month. Maybe as much as a buck. The BSA and the MPAA can have the same. So can anybody else who feels their Imaginary Property rights are being violated. But in exchange, two conditions: 1) they accept that they can never again object to any form of private, non-commercial copyright infringement in any way, shape, or form, in any jurisdiction this side of the outer rings of Jupiter.
(2)that they are expressly prohibited from producing, distributing, or employing any form of DRM technology in any way shape or form, in any jurisdiction.
Violation of either of these two conditions will result in them having to repay the amount of money they have received from this "statutory license" (or whatever we decide to call it) X 100.
Let me repeat myself. I don't think this is 'fair', but politics, like life, is compromise. I don't think the RIAA deserves this money any more than a mobster "deserves" his protection money. But to be 100% sure that we'd never again have a single case of grandmother being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars over a dozen top 40 tracks that'll be forgotten in 10 years, and be able to back up my box set of "Band of Brothers" that I paid $150 for, it'd be worth it.
But not at $5/month. I haven't averaged spending $5/month on CDs since about 1993.
I was thinking about pointing that out myself, but I wasn't really sure if that's fair. Maybe it's a fair comparison if you bought a bigger TV just for your 'gaming room', or if you're the kind of person who didn't actually own a TV and only bought one for gaming purposes, but otherwise, I'm not sure it's fair. I mean, really, what percentage of households in the western world lack a TV?
But, on the other hand, that $850 laptop that will play COD:4 out of the box, does a bunch of stuff out of the box, and I'd be awfully pissed off if I bought a laptop and then discovered I had to buy the screen as an "optional add-on", right?
So I guess you could make a case either way...
Hey, for a standard of comparison, I was just checking out a freakin' LAPTOP for $850 cdn, intel core 2 duo, 2 gigs ram, and a NVIDA 8600 video card, for $850.
Compare that to a PS3 for $600 bucks, considering how much more you can do with the pc laptop than you can with the PS3, and, well, you see where I'm going, right?
And thanks for pointing out what an utterly appalling POS console controllers are. Who in the name of all that is holy thought that those goddamn useless twin-stick controllers was a good idea for FPS should be beaten to death on the front lawn of the white house to the sound of thunderous applause.
But check out the Wii for FPSes. Functionally nearly identical to the mouse+keyboard.
You can choose what kind of gaming experience you want (and can afford) with a PC. Can't do that with a console. Gotta spend $600 for the latest and greatest or you get NOTHING. With a PC, you can spend $60 for something adequate, or spend $600 for the latest and greatest... your choice.
Um, where you getting those numbers for? My nintendo wii was ~300 bucks, my copy of Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 was ~60 bucks.
Where did you find a PC that can play any sort of FPS game released in 2007 for $300?
Now, that said, I think that the interface, especially for FPS, is an appalling POS on every single console game ever made in history, except for the Wii. And the wii interface for FPS is virtually identical to a PC interface of keyboard and mouse. So yeah, overall, I still rate the PC as a better platform overall.
Hell, for a standard of comparison, I was just looking at a LAPTOP with an intel core 2 duo, 2 gigs ram, and a NVIDA 8600 card for $850 cdn. Compare how much more I can do with that than say, a PS3 for $600 bucks, and the PC wins hands down...
Slashdot Mirror
"though I haven't heard anything recently about power lines, I would not buy a house near high voltage lines."
Dude, 1995 called, they want their health scare back...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line#Health_concerns
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/285/5424/23b
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs205/en/
"but MS as an entity never exploited Africa. "
Never said they did. I will point out however, that the people suggesting that African countries should allow software patents are, from the point of view of people in African countries, the cultural descendants of those who did exploit africa. Which is why the history of colonialism enters the discussion, I suspect.
"So any argument that they must make some sort of amends by allowing Africa to use their property (intellectual or otherwise) for free are based on nothing but an attempt to get a free lunch by appealing to guilt. It is dishonest."
Um, I'm not making the argument that Africa should get a free ride on software patents, I'm making the argument that software patents are a bad idea, for basically everybody except Microsoft et. al.
You seem to be coming from a point of view that IP rights are the same as any other property rights, a position that fails on many levels. (for starters, your car or your house is exclusive, if I steal your car, you no longer have it.) Intellectual property isn't a natural right, like human rights or property rights or something, it's an attempt to do social engineering (create incentive for producing creative/useful works) via government interference in a free market system by granting monopolies.
We'd all like to think of patents as a way to protect the little guy from being walked all over by big players, but I haven't ever seen a case of that happening. I'm sure there might be a non-zero number of cases where that happens, but if you look at the big picture, I see software patents as causing more harm than good by orders of magnitude.
Seriously, aside from creating an artificial barrier to entry, and a method for large companies to prevent competitors for entering the market, what purpose do software patents serve?
No, no, c'mon, let's be fair, depending on who's doing the math, 80 cents per CD is perfectly reasonable.
They just have the same accounting firm that the movie studios use to show that Forrest Gump didn't break even.
This sort of thing is such lovely poetic justice. Wal-mart is just doing to the labels what the labels have been doing to artists for decades - get people to sign a contract with you, not based on a mutually beneficial exchange, but because you're the only game in town. (and the game is rigged, btw)
"What I think is very wrong is the interpretation that anyone that screws the record industry, the movie industry, or the software industry is somehow a hero. Somehow the slashdot crowd has gotten the impression that these industries are composed completely of useless middlemen who don't deserve to make any profit from their work."
Well, I can't speak for the slashdot crowd, whoever that is, but, when an industry believes that a certain price per unit is guaranteed to them in the constitution or something, I'm quite happy to see them taken down a notch or two.
Really, wal-mart is just doing to the record labels what the labels have been doing to artists for decades. Get people to sign a deal based not on a mutually beneficial contract, but by being the only game in town. Wal-mart does this to all it's suppliers. As I said above, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
"That said, I don't even really think that Walmart is a villain exactly (most of the time), they are just an extremely well run business optimizing their profits."
I don't know when exactly maximizing profits by any means necessary became ethically ok. I think profit is great, but when you can't run your business without paying your employees a wage that keeps them in grinding poverty, I say we can do without that company.
To say that maximizing profits, come what may, deserves no ethical considerations is to legitimize applied amorality.
Never mind the fact that, if everybody took the attitude that wal-mart does ("Let other people hire employees, we'll just sell them stuff!"), what happens to your society? You wipe out the middle class, for starters.
I don't know about you, but basically everything that I like that came out of the 20th century, in terms of tech, books, movies, music, whatever, mostly came out of the middle classes. If you get rid of the middle classes, you have a society that looks more like mexico city. That sound appealing to you?
Well yeah, much as I never thought I'd say this, you're right, wal-mart is in the right. What's that thing from economics 101 that an efficient free market is reached when the price is about equal to the marginal cost of production? So, computer hardware is probably a pretty good example.
I'm not sure what the marginal cost of producing a CD is, but I strongly suspect that it's under ten bucks.
Now, that said, what the fuck did they expect would result from getting into bed with wal-mart? If there's one thing that they're good at, (aside from union-busting) it's becoming the primary retail distributor for any given product, then once they're in a strong bargaining position, they tell their supplier, "If you don't wanna lower the price you're giving us, I guess you could always find some other retailer to deal with, take it or leave it."
Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
They should've seen this coming when they were selling CDs to wal-mart for 12 bucks and wal-mart was selling them for $10. Did they think wal-mart had some magical method of creating money out of thin air?
OK, I'll bite.
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you saying that Africa was never in any way shape or form exploited, oppressed, or otherwise treated badly by European nations/civilizations?
Or are you saying that if that sort of thing did happen, it's too far back to matter/water under the bridge?
I get that you seem to disagree with the above poster, but I'm not clear on why.
Speaking as somebody who always used to say "Vista and it's DRM and god knows what else? Never.".
Then I bought a new laptop, and it came pre-loaded with Vista. So I got it dual-booting with ubuntu no problem, and then I started thinking, well, we're going to have to support it at work, (most of our customers are on XP or 2K, but they're gonna buy new PCs eventually, right?) so I figured I'd better get used to it, if nothing else, for the 10% of my time where I have to coach a brain-dead end user on something.
Overall, I can't find a reason to hate it, try though I might. Can't get it to chug no matter what I do. Now, a couple of qualifiers to my grudging endorsement.
1) this is a dual core processor with 3 gigs ram and a nvida 8600 GS. So on a entry-level system, it probably sucks like an electrolux. It shouldn't require a PC that can run Crysis just to get a freakin' OS to run without irritation.
2) My girlfriend's dad has a similar laptop, and while it runs ok, he's baffled by the arbitrary changes to the user interface.
3) If I try to think about how much I'd pay for the things I like about vista, I come up with a figure of about 10 bucks or so, i.e., on a par with what I'd pay for a game on my cell phone.
4)I haven't been down the road of things like replacing my hard drive yet, but if I have to call Microsoft to get permission to run it on a new hard drive, I'm gonna chuck vista in the river, metaphorically speaking. Same goes with DRM stuff.
Even worse than the belief in that specific variation of libertarianism that boils down to "slave owners who want police protection from their slaves", is the belief in meritocracy amongst IT types. Maybe it's a representative viewpoint maybe it's a vocal minority, I don't know.
Believing that you got where you are just on your own hard work and ambition, that there was no luck to the circumstances you were born into or the draw you got at the "genetic lottery", (as if, had a person been switched at birth and raised in sub-saharan africa, or an inner-city slum, they'd still be a CIO or something) is one of the strangest beliefs for a population with an understanding of statistics to have.
But I guess it makes one feel better about themselves.
Part of the problem with IT people is a spirit of libertarianism, this specific breed reminds me of that line about how libertarians are just slave owners who want police protection from their slaves.
Here, here.
Y'know what I want from a phone? Text and voice. Sure, it's fun to have a camera sometimes and all that, but that's really it. The Eee PC is nice, but a bit too overpriced right now. So making an Eee PC competitor that's wedded to the smartphone market, and does nothing without a smartphone, for about the same price as an Eee PC?
Meh, maybe it was a lack of balls, it certainly was in some cases, but another analysis is that the democrats were giving the republicans enough rope to hang themselves.
Now, I don't think that strategy is working, except possibly on economic issues. The state of the economy is going to be a lot bigger problem for the republicans than the situation in Iraq.
The reason I ask is, 'cause you kinda make a similar argument.
C'mon, this one's a no-brainer. Take the seven deadly sins for example.
Every single one of them, you're probably better off not doing.
So there's an "evolutionary advantage" to behaving a certain way. Those individuals who behave "ethically" generally have an advantage over those who don't. Now some of those situations are debatable, like, for example, in the short term, if we're in the middle of a famine, there's an (at least in the short-term) advantage to me if I steal your dinner.
However, a community/population/tribe that behaves "ethically" has an ENORMOUS advantage over a tribe of sociopathic anarchists (for example). So those tribes that behave in a way that we'd call ethically, when they go to war with that hypothetical tribe of sociopathic anarchists they kick ass and take wallets.
Nothing mysterious here, just natural selection/evolution. There's no reason to assume that religion is necessary for a society to develop an ethical code.
Hold the train there, we might be "morally superior" to our ancestors from 3,000 years ago when armies would invade and slaughter entire populations (although I suspect that the residents of Dresden or Hiroshima or Fallujah might argue with you on that claim), how 'bout comparing ourselves to our pre-agriculture ancestors?
Pre-agriculture societies generally tend to have values more similar to what we'd call today "democratic values" like equality and freedom and all that good stuff. Plus, they generally won't do things like let someone die for lack of medical care if somebody lacks funds the way we will today.
I guess what I'm saying is, given the history of the 20th century, when 100 million humans were killed by other humans, (about 60% of them civilians to boot) you're on very shaky ground to assume that humans in our current form are "morally superior" to anything.
It's not really google being mistreated that's a cause for concern, you're absolutely right, it's not like they can't afford it.
Let's say, Yahoo works out a deal in a non-neutral world, with Comcast, AT&T, and 2 or 3 others. Google eventually bows to inevitability, and makes the same deal with ISPs.
Then you're in a situation where, to get decent service, you HAVE TO be able to afford that sort of deal. So you've created a barrier to entry for the little guys.
So what I'm worried about is not about google being mistreated, I'm worried about, say, wikisecrets not being able to afford decent service.
Right now we have a remarkably low barrier to entry for publishing on the web. Given concentration of ownership for mainstream media, this is a VERY good thing.
I understand the points you raise about inefficiency, but politics is always a compromise.
I see net neutrality as being a way to keep ISPs (many of who are cable companies) from turning the internet into cable TV.
Take a look at "Digital Imprimatur" by John Walker, for some of the concerns I'm worried about:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
"What's the fairest way to hand out bandwidth preferences?"
It's very simple.
I can't speak for other net-neutrality advocates, but all _I_ want is that you can "discriminate" on the basis of type of traffic, or basically anything else you like for QoS.
You just can't do it on the basis of source or destination. i.e., you can't decide to make yahoo work faster than google 'cause of a side deal you have with Yahoo.
Maybe some others are advocating some draconian, ultra-statist, level of regulation, but all I'm asking for is a guarantee in law that the internet keeps functioning the way we all basically take for granted.
What about when the Canadian ISP, Telus, blocked access to the website of their union, when said union was on strike?
Isn't that a cause for concern on this topic? Or are we OK with ISPs bringing in their own brand of censorship any time they like?
Let me just say that I can't speak to what other net neutrality supporters are saying, but I take exception to my pro-net neutrality stance being categorized as "FUD".
All I want, in terms of 'net neutrality', is a rule/law/social convention/however the hell we accomplish it/ that says you can 'discriminate' by TYPE of traffic, but not by source or destination.
Specifically, what I'm worried about is things like how Telus (ISP up here in Canada) was blocking access to it's union's website while said union was on strike. That should be illegal. Discriminating on the basis of where you're going or where you're coming from. So there's one where we got specific examples of bad behavior by telcos.
What I'm also worried about is what's-his-name, CEO of one of the ISPs, alleging that "Google's getting a free ride".
It seems to me that the idea that ISPs want to go back to a billing model more like long distance phone calls is a quite reasonable concern.
What in this position is FUD, exactly?
That's a logistical question to be worked out, that may be um, "non-trivial".
But hey, this is an idea I came up in 2 minutes while reading slashdot, I'm sure somebody smarter than me spending a little more time thinking about this should be able to come up with something.
Hell, even if the case of you having copyrighted songs available on your ad-revenue-supported website was not covered by the definition of "private non-commercial copyright infringement", I think it'd still be worth my X number of $$ per month.
Damn good idea. The goal is getting stuff in the public domain, let's use that as the club to beat them with.
That's a really good idea. After all, my grandmother is just getting her head around this whole "e-mail thing" and "that googling thing", P2P downloads are a way off for her. So people like her paying this crap isn't fair.
Thinking of it as "insurance" is a great way to get this idea across. But $5/month is INSANE! That's 1/8 of my ISP bill. And if the RIAA gets this, well, I don't see any reason why the MPAA or the BSA shouldn't get it too. How about somewhere between 25 cents and a dollar? Maybe as much as 2 bucks a month. To effectively decrminalize private non-commercial copyright infringement for around 3-5 bucks a month, that's a bargain. Also, I like the insurance model, 'cause then you could decide to opt out or not. Somebody who really genuinely does no P2P downloads (I suppose there's a non-zero number of those individuals, although I can't name any, not even my mother...), they can opt out if they choose.
I entirely agree with you. I don't think this is fair, I don't think they ought to get this any more than a pimp "deserves" his money. But what do you think of these modifications:
1) Let's get a reasonable fucking amount. How about 25 cents. The BSA or the MPAA or anybody else can get in on this deal too
2) Anybody who receives one red cent from this 'levy' agrees that they can never again object to any form of private (i.e., private citizens, not somebody's business idea like allofmp3.com) non-commercial copyright infringement, forever, for their entire catalog, in all jurisdictions;
3) Anyone who receives one red cent from this levy is expressly prohibited from employing, developing, or distributing any form of DRM tech, forever, in all jurisdictions.
4) Anyone who violates (2) or (3) shall pay a fine equal to the amount they've received from the levy X 1000.
While I don't think this is fair either, there hasn't been anything I felt was worth buying from the RIAA for about 10 years or so, I think of it as a trade-off. I pay say, 2 or 3 bucks more a month and never again have to worry about any of these copyright conflicts.
I'd buy that for a dollar or two a month.
How about this: First of all, I don't think this is "fair" in any sense, but to end all the copyright nonsense these days I'd be willing to entertain this.
First of all, let's get a reasonable amount. Like, say, 25 cents a month. Maybe as much as a buck. The BSA and the MPAA can have the same. So can anybody else who feels their Imaginary Property rights are being violated. But in exchange, two conditions:
1) they accept that they can never again object to any form of private, non-commercial copyright infringement in any way, shape, or form, in any jurisdiction this side of the outer rings of Jupiter.
(2)that they are expressly prohibited from producing, distributing, or employing any form of DRM technology in any way shape or form, in any jurisdiction.
Violation of either of these two conditions will result in them having to repay the amount of money they have received from this "statutory license" (or whatever we decide to call it) X 100.
Let me repeat myself. I don't think this is 'fair', but politics, like life, is compromise. I don't think the RIAA deserves this money any more than a mobster "deserves" his protection money. But to be 100% sure that we'd never again have a single case of grandmother being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars over a dozen top 40 tracks that'll be forgotten in 10 years, and be able to back up my box set of "Band of Brothers" that I paid $150 for, it'd be worth it.
But not at $5/month. I haven't averaged spending $5/month on CDs since about 1993.
I was thinking about pointing that out myself, but I wasn't really sure if that's fair. Maybe it's a fair comparison if you bought a bigger TV just for your 'gaming room', or if you're the kind of person who didn't actually own a TV and only bought one for gaming purposes, but otherwise, I'm not sure it's fair. I mean, really, what percentage of households in the western world lack a TV? But, on the other hand, that $850 laptop that will play COD:4 out of the box, does a bunch of stuff out of the box, and I'd be awfully pissed off if I bought a laptop and then discovered I had to buy the screen as an "optional add-on", right? So I guess you could make a case either way...
Hey, for a standard of comparison, I was just checking out a freakin' LAPTOP for $850 cdn, intel core 2 duo, 2 gigs ram, and a NVIDA 8600 video card, for $850.
Compare that to a PS3 for $600 bucks, considering how much more you can do with the pc laptop than you can with the PS3, and, well, you see where I'm going, right?
And thanks for pointing out what an utterly appalling POS console controllers are. Who in the name of all that is holy thought that those goddamn useless twin-stick controllers was a good idea for FPS should be beaten to death on the front lawn of the white house to the sound of thunderous applause.
But check out the Wii for FPSes. Functionally nearly identical to the mouse+keyboard.
You can choose what kind of gaming experience you want (and can afford) with a PC. Can't do that with a console. Gotta spend $600 for the latest and greatest or you get NOTHING. With a PC, you can spend $60 for something adequate, or spend $600 for the latest and greatest... your choice.
Um, where you getting those numbers for? My nintendo wii was ~300 bucks, my copy of Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 was ~60 bucks.
Where did you find a PC that can play any sort of FPS game released in 2007 for $300?
Now, that said, I think that the interface, especially for FPS, is an appalling POS on every single console game ever made in history, except for the Wii. And the wii interface for FPS is virtually identical to a PC interface of keyboard and mouse. So yeah, overall, I still rate the PC as a better platform overall.
Hell, for a standard of comparison, I was just looking at a LAPTOP with an intel core 2 duo, 2 gigs ram, and a NVIDA 8600 card for $850 cdn. Compare how much more I can do with that than say, a PS3 for $600 bucks, and the PC wins hands down...