...when the US had a SHORTAGE of skilled workers in an area...
And that's the rub. It's a supply and demand ecconomy. There's always a 'shortage' - if you go back to economics 101. Scarcity (and need/desire to a degree) determines price. Programmers or other tech workers aren't universally available so there's never going to be 'enough' to fill every job with the perfect applicant immediately every time at the cost of peanuts
So in the eyes of a hiring company of course there is a perpetual shortage of employees. Their bottom line benefits immensely from a larger, and thus cheaper, labor pool. So yes, big business prefers H1-B and lobbies for it at the expense of the "little guy" and for the profit of executive staff and shareholders.
Grats to them... the country continues to go downhill in favor of the rich ruling class.
And there's one big difference. Something in the US that i actually agree with too.
If you sold a product/service based on an untrue claim you can (and will if the $ is big enough for the vultures, erm lawyers) be sued for damages. Heck, companies have been sucessfully sued for millions, even billions for falsely representing securities and investments.
This is why every time you hear an add on the radio or see one on TV there's some sort of disclaimer or explanation. "Number one car!!" says the add. Then in a quiet, hushed voice speaking quickly 'sales based on xyz data for cars in it's class with equal standard equipment for under $15k that come in purple, green and teal'. So they can't outright lie - they just have to stretch the truth!
When did ANY use of a logo - even circumstantial - suddenly become an infringement? It's insane. Retarded lawyers (no offense) and even stupider judges have used/allowed nonsense, obscure, and unrelated copyright/patent law to get courts to essentially enforce their own PR campaigns.
Companies are required to accurately STATE their liability/risk/performance/etc. to shareholders. In a public company the board of directors has the ultimate ability to remove the CEO and change business direction.
A company has the "duty" to shareholders to protect and advance their investment. If every company functioned around limiting their liability as the primary business goal then nothing would get done. No one would take risk. Yes, shareholders can sue senior management if they think inappropriate actions are being taken. In the end though if you don't have a majority of the board and/or voting stock you don't have much to say. The exception is illegal activity. e.g. a director who knowingly gives business to an inferior company for a kickback which results in financial loss for the company. You can't seriously expect to sue every manager when, in hindsight, the decision they made turned out to not be the best one.
As for your willful argument: One could argue that holding out and protecting consumers' (customers!) first ammendment rights is a BETTER business decision than turning into the nazi (chinese?) media police. Willfull yes. Willfully detrimental to the business's long-term goals? Perhaps not. Good luck there.
And finally... A company can not simply make any statements that they like. 'a few trading standards constraints' is like calling the US national deficit pocket change. A company can not make a statement that's known to be factually false without expecting (rightfully imho) to be sued into oblivion over it.
And i've got a P.S. - "If the customer stops buying, they change what they are doing." No!?!? If you're the MAFIAA you simply fight for new laws and sue people till you turn blue to perpetuate your out-dated business model. Ok, so that one was a bit troll-ish but still accurate after all:)
Am I the only one who things most of this tracking, signed, digital watch-where-you-go is meant to keep those who are mostly law abiding in their place instead of picking out the one in 10-million (or more) that means to do harm?
Really, this lets the gov't track the millions of people who use passports easily but has no effect on criminals or those NOT from the USA. Personally I'd be more worried about the 20-something male muslum flying in to the US and then around from city to city than grandma taking a vacation to canada which now requires a passport. Yes, it's profiling. But when was the last time someone's mid-western 68 year old white grandmother went on a shooting/terror spree?
How about we get the gov't to start doing somethign USEFUL instead of spending so much time and money figuring out where their own citizens come and go?
Unfortunately, the calculations on cardio equipment are usually off by about a factor of 2x, meaning that they're giving a figure which is typically about double the number of calories actually being burned.
Citation needed here. I've found cardio equipment to be somewhat LOW over a 30 minute jog compared to a polaris heart monitor. Granted anything without a heart rate monitor is not going to be particularly accurate.
This is exactly why aneorexic girls (well, people in general but the majority....) stop losing weight after a certain point despite an extremely low caloric intake and quickly gain weight when they do eat anything of substance.
It's not impossible, it's just a bad way to treat your body.
You're mixing two separate things - weight gain/loss and calorie intake/usage. They're linked, but not the same.
Regular weight training builds muscle mass assuming you eat properly. If you don't eat properly you can potentially LOSE muscle mass instead of fat mass which is even worse (especially from a 'visual' perspective).
However muscle weighs more than fat...so you potentially eat MORE food and GAIN weight (or at least maintain) while still achieving the goal (assuming it is) of looking thinner and less fatty, more muscled, and overall being in better shape.
Reducing your caloric intake also lowers your metabolism. Yes, you can most certainly lose weight by lowering your intake vs. burned kcals. In fact, for many people who cry about their weight that's exactly what I tell them. However, you get diminishing returns on this and your metabolism will STAY low(er) after your diet is done. This is one reason people often gain back some weight after a diet.
I know adults who never eat more than 1000kcal a day and 5-700 is typical but do not lose weight (yes, aneorexics). They're an extreme example but it does make the point.
Metabolism is a wonderful thing. I used to be like this in my teens and early 20's. Breakfast, lunch, mcdonalds for "snack" in the afternoon, full dinner...and whatever else came my way in between. Lots of it was junk foot and unhealthy too. Calories? Psh...yeah i'll just eat the whole bag of chips and who cares.
Then i got a fscking office job. Ugh, several years later trying to get back on track. It sucks.
Actually you're exactly right and that's why i believe you're wrong.
Over a period of time a person's overall metabolic efficiency can rise. This results in a lower energy consumption for the same (well, hopefully greater) energy output. Heart rate combined with age, height, weight, and sex should provide a fairly accurate measure of calories expended. e.g. an olympic runner wouldn't expend nearly as much energy on a brisk 2 mile walk as a man who's daily excercise is walking to the fridge a few times. Their heart rates would match this difference.
While I don't consider PopSci to be the ultimate authority, they (or was it PopMech? ) have a very interesting article this month about fittness training.
Good luck building muscle on a calorie deficiency.
There's tons of advice floating around the first few pages and it varies from very good to very, very poor. Of course, everyone is an expert:)
Weight loss and body shaping is not, and will never be, just a simple math equation as above. Is doing something better than doing nothing? Of course. Is lowering your calorie intake and weight lifting 2 hours a day going to help? Not much.
1) Li-Ion and Li-Po batteries have internal chips that can tell exactly how much charge is in a battery (you've never over-charged a Li-based battery). The curves are much more flat but under load it's not especially difficult to know the charge state quite accurately. Heck, IBM even will tell you the charge/discharge current to two decimal places with some of their utilities.
2) You're guessing. In addition, noise is often more dynamic than signal levels. SNR is a MUCH more accurate determination of quality of bandwidth.
Gas guages, yes they're inaccurate - likely because manufactureres assume people are stupid. I just watch the pump and see how much gas i put in, subtract from the full-tank size and it's not so hard to determine how accurate the guage is. Speedo's are allowed to be a certain % off of actual but you have to take into account that the diameter of the tires on a car change as they wear. So yes, consipracy theory this and that but a speedo is not going to be perfectly accurate by measuring the drive shaft rotation.
Did you even glance at TFA? You're simple repeating much of what was said. The rest - assuming people are incapable of reading a simple guage frightens me. I mean, if you have to coddle the general population because they're all THAT stupid we've got bigger issues than the last 3 minutes of talk time on your cell.
Interesting. I've pulled apart several phones and blackberries with pull-out antennas and they all DID make contact with the antenna trace when extended. Granted I rarely, if ever, say a noticable difference in signal level from extending an antenna.
Though, our scientists can measure the charge on a single electron, move single atoms around to make company logos, and put a billion transistors in something I can carry in one hand...
You'd think they could have more than 50% accuracy on battery, wireless, and gas guages.
But hey...'more bars in more places' is accurate and legal advertizing. They didn't, after all, say more ANTENNAS or better signals! Maybe those "antenna booster" things should come with a firmware hack to show more bars.
Well there are nifty phones that will tell you all this. Unfortunately they're not exactly useful as... phones. T-Mobile's been to our offices to set up repeater systems and they have a cool Sony Ericsson (i'm pretty sure) that's got special firmware. It does real-time signal strength, noise, number of towers, etc.
Kinda cool toy but the guy said it doesn't actually make calls. I wonder if the battery meter is accurate on it.
Just to throw some accurate financial information in here. I suppose I should put a flamebait/troll warning too. FWIW it's at least accurate information.
WMG has some overall increases in revenue and gross profit over 4 out of the last 5 quarters. They're also spending 3-400million *per quarter* on "research and development". Amzing how a billion dollars a year can't bring their business model to more than 5-10 years behind the modern world. Cry me a river that they posted a loss of 14c per share for 2007. For a company to behave as they (and other of the MAFIAA) have and still be in business at all is astounding.
So yes, it cost more than $1 to get a CD onto the shelf in target. How much more though is a serious question. What it comes down to is a band could easily put CDs in a store in a for $5 each and make more money than they do by feeding the MAFIAA beast and selling for $13.
Adapt or die. Darwinism. A team of over-paid lawyers should not make your company an exception to this rule.
Oh, i'm sure they're deathly afraid of someone showing up and not being perfectly civil or clapping on queue. Understandable, but then it's their job to control who they let in. Lawsuits to find out who's trading slips of paper around are another example of the abuse our legal system allows.
The better question - is CL going to just ignore the judgement like they did the subpoena?
Besides this, has anything illegal actually happened?
They say 'our tickets can not be resold'. That's not a law, that's not a court order, that's not anything other than a company whining about someone doing something they don't like with a piece of paper they gave away or sold themselves.
This isn't even software with a stupid license agreement. It's a physical ticket.
Going further, one has to assume the 'seller' really does have the ticket and really will make a sale. Why do you think they wait on drug busts until AFTER an undercover has completed the purchase? Even if the sale were somehow illegal, it hasn't actually happened.
All this in addition to their insane claims about 'security'. If it was so important they WOULD be checking ID.
Going to disagree there. Common use of computers was...uncommon. Your average person didn't know what Windows was (i'm talking 3.11 era). Heck, most people didn't know how to type except secretaries.
Not to mention there was Apple, NeXT, Unix, Commodore (wtf was that even called?), VAX/VMS, OS/2...need I go on? Was windows the "common choice" largly due to MS pushing into the PC arena? Sure. Would the computer industry be the same today if they had a draconian licensing policy like they do today? Very much so.
There was no heavily discounted educational versions of software. No schools giving out copies of software. Not many people would drop the cash on software they really didn't understand or have a direct need for. There wasn't the 'learn this because most jobs will want it' impetus that we have today. It was a very expensive proposition learning about computers and there wasn't many career options in a field most considered a hobby outside of big corporate mainframe systems...that didn't run windows mind you.
You're right. Piracy in many cases increases profit. I point to 1) Windows 2) MS office
Back in the 90's the fact that Windows and MS Office were so ways to pirate (111-1111111 and I still almost remember a W95 key... 20195-oem-62195-00697 perhaps?) is a large reason behind their popularity.
Business and OEM's provide the majority of MS's income from windows and Office. Businesses will use whatever is most convinient for them - and not having to train people on an OS and office suite outweighs the cost savings of open office in most situations (based on emperial evidence in corporate america). So yes, that copy of windows 3.11 and Win95 I may have found in my younger years has provided MS a lot of increased profit. Speaking of, I think it's almost time to renew my corporate Select agreement...
There are other situations - standalone, individual games with no follow-up - that this may not work as well for if the owners don't plan properly. Consider, however, the shareware model. Take this game, free...and play. If you like it we'll give you more (levels, time, etc.) for a fee. Shareware essentially advocates "piracy" of the initial copy and derives profit from the follow-on use/upgrade/expansion.
Contrary to your statements, this is quite common in a number of industries: airline travel, cruise tickets, parking facilities, cellular service contracts, cable TV, high-speed Internet access, and credit cards, just to name a few off the top of my head.
Dead wrong. There are contractual agreements on most/all of the above but they are all provided PRIOR to sale. In addition, every one of them makes you SIGN except (usually) parking where there are extremely limited terms they simply post in an obvious place. Heck, my credit cards even send me lovely booklets every now and then when they update their terms.
No, because it's a ridiculous assertion. You used the software. When they change the terms of the online service, you are free to discontinue the online service, but you're not entitled to a refund for the software license itself because you received the benefit of that bargain. Further, unless I'm mistaken, you can continue to use the offline portions of the software without consequence
Sorry, but yours is the ridiculous claim. Based on that I can sell something for whatever price and then change the terms of service to anything I want - up to and including prohibiting use - and just keep the money i made. Warcraft is an intersting example as there is NO offline use. However if it was usable offline: Their EULA was updated (which, per the original EULA, they can do at whim) and I declined to accept the changed contract. According to your entire argument, I can not use that software any more. Or are you going to argue that a company can write into an EULA that accepting the original form is equivilant to a perpetual acceptance of any terms they state in the future?
You either treat a EULA like a real contract or it's nothing more than a suggested agreement with little to no legal standing. You can't have it both ways.
Sorry but your argument fails. If a store is free to set it's own return policy then they can reject returns bla bla bla.
You continue to ignore my point. The after-the-fact contract (i.e. EULA) is not a stipulation of sale. Forcing someone to accept it's terms (which you do - the terms require action in either of two ways: returning or use according to rules) does not follow accepted practice in any other situation.
You can't call a consumer irresponsible for companies assuming s/he agrees to an unmentioned and indeterminite contract, sight-unseen, at the time of sale. No other industry would even attempt such a thing.
Besides all that and speaking from a realistic perspective...why should i have to fight to return software (or hire an atty) because the mfg has a set or rules that conflict with their resellers rules? Or one better, when companies update their EULA or TOS that *should* give me the right to reject the change and cease using the software. Every OTHER industry accepts that fact even though they don't like to. I'd like to return my copy of warcraft because they updated their EULA last week. You think anyone is going to even listen for more than 3 seconds?
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And that's the rub. It's a supply and demand ecconomy. There's always a 'shortage' - if you go back to economics 101. Scarcity (and need/desire to a degree) determines price. Programmers or other tech workers aren't universally available so there's never going to be 'enough' to fill every job with the perfect applicant immediately every time at the cost of peanuts
So in the eyes of a hiring company of course there is a perpetual shortage of employees. Their bottom line benefits immensely from a larger, and thus cheaper, labor pool. So yes, big business prefers H1-B and lobbies for it at the expense of the "little guy" and for the profit of executive staff and shareholders.
Grats to them ... the country continues to go downhill in favor of the rich ruling class.
And there's one big difference. Something in the US that i actually agree with too.
If you sold a product/service based on an untrue claim you can (and will if the $ is big enough for the vultures, erm lawyers) be sued for damages. Heck, companies have been sucessfully sued for millions, even billions for falsely representing securities and investments.
This is why every time you hear an add on the radio or see one on TV there's some sort of disclaimer or explanation. "Number one car!!" says the add. Then in a quiet, hushed voice speaking quickly 'sales based on xyz data for cars in it's class with equal standard equipment for under $15k that come in purple, green and teal'. So they can't outright lie - they just have to stretch the truth!
Agree (tho IANAL).
When did ANY use of a logo - even circumstantial - suddenly become an infringement? It's insane. Retarded lawyers (no offense) and even stupider judges have used/allowed nonsense, obscure, and unrelated copyright/patent law to get courts to essentially enforce their own PR campaigns.
Companies are required to accurately STATE their liability/risk/performance/etc. to shareholders. In a public company the board of directors has the ultimate ability to remove the CEO and change business direction.
A company has the "duty" to shareholders to protect and advance their investment. If every company functioned around limiting their liability as the primary business goal then nothing would get done. No one would take risk. Yes, shareholders can sue senior management if they think inappropriate actions are being taken. In the end though if you don't have a majority of the board and/or voting stock you don't have much to say. The exception is illegal activity. e.g. a director who knowingly gives business to an inferior company for a kickback which results in financial loss for the company. You can't seriously expect to sue every manager when, in hindsight, the decision they made turned out to not be the best one.
As for your willful argument: One could argue that holding out and protecting consumers' (customers!) first ammendment rights is a BETTER business decision than turning into the nazi (chinese?) media police. Willfull yes. Willfully detrimental to the business's long-term goals? Perhaps not. Good luck there.
And finally... A company can not simply make any statements that they like. 'a few trading standards constraints' is like calling the US national deficit pocket change. A company can not make a statement that's known to be factually false without expecting (rightfully imho) to be sued into oblivion over it.
And i've got a P.S. - "If the customer stops buying, they change what they are doing." No!?!? If you're the MAFIAA you simply fight for new laws and sue people till you turn blue to perpetuate your out-dated business model. Ok, so that one was a bit troll-ish but still accurate after all :)
Am I the only one who things most of this tracking, signed, digital watch-where-you-go is meant to keep those who are mostly law abiding in their place instead of picking out the one in 10-million (or more) that means to do harm?
Really, this lets the gov't track the millions of people who use passports easily but has no effect on criminals or those NOT from the USA. Personally I'd be more worried about the 20-something male muslum flying in to the US and then around from city to city than grandma taking a vacation to canada which now requires a passport. Yes, it's profiling. But when was the last time someone's mid-western 68 year old white grandmother went on a shooting/terror spree?
How about we get the gov't to start doing somethign USEFUL instead of spending so much time and money figuring out where their own citizens come and go?
Citation needed here. I've found cardio equipment to be somewhat LOW over a 30 minute jog compared to a polaris heart monitor. Granted anything without a heart rate monitor is not going to be particularly accurate.
This is exactly why aneorexic girls (well, people in general but the majority....) stop losing weight after a certain point despite an extremely low caloric intake and quickly gain weight when they do eat anything of substance.
It's not impossible, it's just a bad way to treat your body.
You're mixing two separate things - weight gain/loss and calorie intake/usage. They're linked, but not the same.
Regular weight training builds muscle mass assuming you eat properly. If you don't eat properly you can potentially LOSE muscle mass instead of fat mass which is even worse (especially from a 'visual' perspective).
However muscle weighs more than fat...so you potentially eat MORE food and GAIN weight (or at least maintain) while still achieving the goal (assuming it is) of looking thinner and less fatty, more muscled, and overall being in better shape.
Yes...but...
Reducing your caloric intake also lowers your metabolism. Yes, you can most certainly lose weight by lowering your intake vs. burned kcals. In fact, for many people who cry about their weight that's exactly what I tell them. However, you get diminishing returns on this and your metabolism will STAY low(er) after your diet is done. This is one reason people often gain back some weight after a diet.
I know adults who never eat more than 1000kcal a day and 5-700 is typical but do not lose weight (yes, aneorexics). They're an extreme example but it does make the point.
Metabolism is a wonderful thing. I used to be like this in my teens and early 20's. Breakfast, lunch, mcdonalds for "snack" in the afternoon, full dinner...and whatever else came my way in between. Lots of it was junk foot and unhealthy too. Calories? Psh...yeah i'll just eat the whole bag of chips and who cares.
Then i got a fscking office job. Ugh, several years later trying to get back on track. It sucks.
Actually you're exactly right and that's why i believe you're wrong.
Over a period of time a person's overall metabolic efficiency can rise. This results in a lower energy consumption for the same (well, hopefully greater) energy output. Heart rate combined with age, height, weight, and sex should provide a fairly accurate measure of calories expended. e.g. an olympic runner wouldn't expend nearly as much energy on a brisk 2 mile walk as a man who's daily excercise is walking to the fridge a few times. Their heart rates would match this difference.
While I don't consider PopSci to be the ultimate authority, they (or was it PopMech? ) have a very interesting article this month about fittness training.
Good luck building muscle on a calorie deficiency.
There's tons of advice floating around the first few pages and it varies from very good to very, very poor. Of course, everyone is an expert :)
Weight loss and body shaping is not, and will never be, just a simple math equation as above. Is doing something better than doing nothing? Of course. Is lowering your calorie intake and weight lifting 2 hours a day going to help? Not much.
1) Li-Ion and Li-Po batteries have internal chips that can tell exactly how much charge is in a battery (you've never over-charged a Li-based battery). The curves are much more flat but under load it's not especially difficult to know the charge state quite accurately. Heck, IBM even will tell you the charge/discharge current to two decimal places with some of their utilities.
2) You're guessing. In addition, noise is often more dynamic than signal levels. SNR is a MUCH more accurate determination of quality of bandwidth.
Gas guages, yes they're inaccurate - likely because manufactureres assume people are stupid. I just watch the pump and see how much gas i put in, subtract from the full-tank size and it's not so hard to determine how accurate the guage is. Speedo's are allowed to be a certain % off of actual but you have to take into account that the diameter of the tires on a car change as they wear. So yes, consipracy theory this and that but a speedo is not going to be perfectly accurate by measuring the drive shaft rotation.
Did you even glance at TFA? You're simple repeating much of what was said. The rest - assuming people are incapable of reading a simple guage frightens me. I mean, if you have to coddle the general population because they're all THAT stupid we've got bigger issues than the last 3 minutes of talk time on your cell.
Interesting. I've pulled apart several phones and blackberries with pull-out antennas and they all DID make contact with the antenna trace when extended. Granted I rarely, if ever, say a noticable difference in signal level from extending an antenna.
Hey now - they said NOTHING about signal strength or SNR. Just "more bars". If (bars > 0) then bars++
Though, our scientists can measure the charge on a single electron, move single atoms around to make company logos, and put a billion transistors in something I can carry in one hand...
You'd think they could have more than 50% accuracy on battery, wireless, and gas guages.
But hey...'more bars in more places' is accurate and legal advertizing. They didn't, after all, say more ANTENNAS or better signals! Maybe those "antenna booster" things should come with a firmware hack to show more bars.
Well there are nifty phones that will tell you all this. Unfortunately they're not exactly useful as ... phones. T-Mobile's been to our offices to set up repeater systems and they have a cool Sony Ericsson (i'm pretty sure) that's got special firmware. It does real-time signal strength, noise, number of towers, etc.
Kinda cool toy but the guy said it doesn't actually make calls. I wonder if the battery meter is accurate on it.
Just to throw some accurate financial information in here. I suppose I should put a flamebait/troll warning too. FWIW it's at least accurate information.
WMG has some overall increases in revenue and gross profit over 4 out of the last 5 quarters. They're also spending 3-400million *per quarter* on "research and development". Amzing how a billion dollars a year can't bring their business model to more than 5-10 years behind the modern world. Cry me a river that they posted a loss of 14c per share for 2007. For a company to behave as they (and other of the MAFIAA) have and still be in business at all is astounding.
So yes, it cost more than $1 to get a CD onto the shelf in target. How much more though is a serious question. What it comes down to is a band could easily put CDs in a store in a for $5 each and make more money than they do by feeding the MAFIAA beast and selling for $13.
Adapt or die. Darwinism. A team of over-paid lawyers should not make your company an exception to this rule.
Oh, i'm sure they're deathly afraid of someone showing up and not being perfectly civil or clapping on queue. Understandable, but then it's their job to control who they let in. Lawsuits to find out who's trading slips of paper around are another example of the abuse our legal system allows.
The better question - is CL going to just ignore the judgement like they did the subpoena?
Besides this, has anything illegal actually happened?
They say 'our tickets can not be resold'. That's not a law, that's not a court order, that's not anything other than a company whining about someone doing something they don't like with a piece of paper they gave away or sold themselves.
This isn't even software with a stupid license agreement. It's a physical ticket.
Going further, one has to assume the 'seller' really does have the ticket and really will make a sale. Why do you think they wait on drug busts until AFTER an undercover has completed the purchase? Even if the sale were somehow illegal, it hasn't actually happened.
All this in addition to their insane claims about 'security'. If it was so important they WOULD be checking ID.
Going to disagree there. Common use of computers was...uncommon. Your average person didn't know what Windows was (i'm talking 3.11 era). Heck, most people didn't know how to type except secretaries.
Not to mention there was Apple, NeXT, Unix, Commodore (wtf was that even called?), VAX/VMS, OS/2...need I go on? Was windows the "common choice" largly due to MS pushing into the PC arena? Sure. Would the computer industry be the same today if they had a draconian licensing policy like they do today? Very much so.
There was no heavily discounted educational versions of software. No schools giving out copies of software. Not many people would drop the cash on software they really didn't understand or have a direct need for. There wasn't the 'learn this because most jobs will want it' impetus that we have today. It was a very expensive proposition learning about computers and there wasn't many career options in a field most considered a hobby outside of big corporate mainframe systems...that didn't run windows mind you.
Is it bad that I don't think people are *entitled* to food or clothing?
You're right. Piracy in many cases increases profit. I point to 1) Windows 2) MS office
Back in the 90's the fact that Windows and MS Office were so ways to pirate (111-1111111 and I still almost remember a W95 key ... 20195-oem-62195-00697 perhaps?) is a large reason behind their popularity.
Business and OEM's provide the majority of MS's income from windows and Office. Businesses will use whatever is most convinient for them - and not having to train people on an OS and office suite outweighs the cost savings of open office in most situations (based on emperial evidence in corporate america). So yes, that copy of windows 3.11 and Win95 I may have found in my younger years has provided MS a lot of increased profit. Speaking of, I think it's almost time to renew my corporate Select agreement...
There are other situations - standalone, individual games with no follow-up - that this may not work as well for if the owners don't plan properly. Consider, however, the shareware model. Take this game, free...and play. If you like it we'll give you more (levels, time, etc.) for a fee. Shareware essentially advocates "piracy" of the initial copy and derives profit from the follow-on use/upgrade/expansion.
Dead wrong. There are contractual agreements on most/all of the above but they are all provided PRIOR to sale. In addition, every one of them makes you SIGN except (usually) parking where there are extremely limited terms they simply post in an obvious place. Heck, my credit cards even send me lovely booklets every now and then when they update their terms.
Sorry, but yours is the ridiculous claim. Based on that I can sell something for whatever price and then change the terms of service to anything I want - up to and including prohibiting use - and just keep the money i made. Warcraft is an intersting example as there is NO offline use. However if it was usable offline: Their EULA was updated (which, per the original EULA, they can do at whim) and I declined to accept the changed contract. According to your entire argument, I can not use that software any more. Or are you going to argue that a company can write into an EULA that accepting the original form is equivilant to a perpetual acceptance of any terms they state in the future?
You either treat a EULA like a real contract or it's nothing more than a suggested agreement with little to no legal standing. You can't have it both ways.
Sorry but your argument fails. If a store is free to set it's own return policy then they can reject returns bla bla bla.
You continue to ignore my point. The after-the-fact contract (i.e. EULA) is not a stipulation of sale. Forcing someone to accept it's terms (which you do - the terms require action in either of two ways: returning or use according to rules) does not follow accepted practice in any other situation.
You can't call a consumer irresponsible for companies assuming s/he agrees to an unmentioned and indeterminite contract, sight-unseen, at the time of sale. No other industry would even attempt such a thing.
Besides all that and speaking from a realistic perspective...why should i have to fight to return software (or hire an atty) because the mfg has a set or rules that conflict with their resellers rules? Or one better, when companies update their EULA or TOS that *should* give me the right to reject the change and cease using the software. Every OTHER industry accepts that fact even though they don't like to. I'd like to return my copy of warcraft because they updated their EULA last week. You think anyone is going to even listen for more than 3 seconds?