I also point out that FDA regulations stipulate that "only a drug may cure, prevent, or treat a disease".
1. Get some condition, perhaps easily preventable or curable, classified as a disease 2. Squash anyone from curing it without a license from the FDA 3. Develop some cock-n-bull pills that only treat the symptoms 4. Sell these pills to someone for the rest of their lives 5. Profit!
The usual collusive bullshit between a company and a regulator will ensure that this tidy arrangement persists.
Diabetes is considered a disease, and it happens to be easily cured by cinnamon, well known for its glucose regulating powers. You will not see anyone selling you cinnamon advertised as such, because that would be a federal offense.
For more scandals, check out People v. Nutrasweet. I'm not sure exactly what jurisdiction it happened in, but it's a prime example of collusion between government and company.
If you think that big pharmaceutical companies would actually try to CURE the very diseases they lucratively give mere TREATMENT for, then you are incredibly naive.
Case in point: The polio industry went bankrupt practically overnight once polio was cured. Sadly the market just shitcanned them when they were no longer needed, thus motivating them never to cure another disease again.
It's a two party system...you have to vote for one of us!
-- Kang
Seriously speaking, the fact that the current system gives us two shitheads to pick from gives the collusive political machine no incentive to vet their nominees for the sake of the people rather than the sake of the party.
Creators may or may not have a right to get paid. If their works suck so bad they aren't worth paying even a cent for, then they sure as HELL aren't worth pirating either.
Software piracy is theft not in the sense of depriving the creator of his dues, but it is theft in the sense of deriving an ill gotten benefit, and the creator DOES lose an opportunity to sell to you.
Piracy may not hurt you if your would-be user wasn't going to buy your product anyway. However, if the user would have paid even one CENT for your product, that is one cent that won't be going your way because of piracy.
Yes, stuff costs too much and has DRM up the wazoo, but that is NO excuse for users to freeride. It doesn't work, because all it does is give the publishers the excuse they need to continue their propaganda machine.
What makes piracy wrong is that it at its heart is the same big fat "fuck the law" that motivates REAL criminals, you know, the kind that actually cause harm to society. Allowing people to get away with cheating the system and getting stuff they're not entitled to breaks down order.
My proposal for rights is as follows:
Creator:
* The right to not have their product pirated * The right to not be screwed over by publishers * The right to give their product away for free if they choose
User:
* The right to enjoy what they paid for without having to run afoul of anti-circumvention laws * The right not to have their shit revoked on a whim even if they paid for it * The right not to be terrorized by a litigation monster and forced into a settlement.
You do realize that the more lucrative the insurance and litigation market becomes, the more pressure the lobbyists will put on *our* congress critters to keep things the way they are, right?
It's like trying to choke an anaconda with a huge deer...those jaws are bigger than you'd expect and all you get for your trouble is a curvetoothed snake happily trapping and swallowing away your day's hunt and leaving you with nothing.
You forgot to take into account the number of thefts that WON'T happen because of one of the following:
1) assholes who are sent to jail and knocked out of the fraud business by virtue of being behind bars 2) would-be assholes who get spooked out of the fraud business by virtue of being scared of going to jail
I would suggest it's part of the "No man may buy or sell unless he has the mark of the beast or the number of his name". Access to financial systems would fit quite well with those lines.
Call me a conspiracy nut though, but with the way things have been going to hell lately, it wouldn't surprise me one bit.
Knowingly sending you a bricking update is no different from them sending you a trojan horse...in fact that's exactly what it is.
The "purpose" of the update notwithstanding, if Sony willfully misrepresented the contents of the update, then any user consent is void.
Following the "egg" analogy, it's more like someone drilling a hole in an egg and filling it with limburger cheese, then asking you if they can throw the "egg" at your house.
Intentional damage to property is also known as vandalism regardless if you aggravate it by trying to charge to fix it.
Some bozo comes onto my property and starts tearing shit up with a sledgehammer, I can have him arrested even if he offers to have it professionally repaired at no charge.
Are you sure the PS3 doesn't phone home and force itself to either update or brick?
I imagine there might, just might, be circuitry inside the box that forces it to quit working if it's gone long enough without checking for new updates.
Slashdot Mirror
It's like everyone jumping overboard before they even know if the boat's sinking.
Then, the bankrupt captain, having lost all his passengers, has to scuttle the boat.
I also point out that FDA regulations stipulate that "only a drug may cure, prevent, or treat a disease".
1. Get some condition, perhaps easily preventable or curable, classified as a disease
2. Squash anyone from curing it without a license from the FDA
3. Develop some cock-n-bull pills that only treat the symptoms
4. Sell these pills to someone for the rest of their lives
5. Profit!
The usual collusive bullshit between a company and a regulator will ensure that this tidy arrangement persists.
Diabetes is considered a disease, and it happens to be easily cured by cinnamon, well known for its glucose regulating powers. You will not see anyone selling you cinnamon advertised as such, because that would be a federal offense.
For more scandals, check out People v. Nutrasweet. I'm not sure exactly what jurisdiction it happened in, but it's a prime example of collusion between government and company.
If you think that big pharmaceutical companies would actually try to CURE the very diseases they lucratively give mere TREATMENT for, then you are incredibly naive.
Case in point: The polio industry went bankrupt practically overnight once polio was cured. Sadly the market just shitcanned them when they were no longer needed, thus motivating them never to cure another disease again.
vBulletin's yearly licenses.
Simple.
He's not giving his all for a job, and it's made worse that his motivation is blatant ass-covering to hide a blunder.
He is not trustworthy, get rid of him before he sells you out.
Ads are a time tested method of subsidizing the price of a game that you may otherwise have to pay BIG bucks for.
It's the same reason that newspapers are so damned cheap.
Why the fuck isn't the first sale doctrine being used to kick Apple to the curb?
This bullshit shouldn't even be an issue.
Some shithead DID accuse ReactOS of pilfering diassembled code from windows.
The whole project got shut down for a good time while they performed an internal audit.
Right on with nailing "Promissory Estoppel" on the head.
It's a two party system...you have to vote for one of us!
-- Kang
Seriously speaking, the fact that the current system gives us two shitheads to pick from gives the collusive political machine no incentive to vet their nominees for the sake of the people rather than the sake of the party.
Hey now that sounds like a good idea.
Periodic maintenance fees in order to keep your app name.
Seeing as you are already getting free hosting by Apple for your app,
correction: China does not negotiate with people they think are criminals.
Tiananmen Square anyone?
The problem is that people will be assholes no matter what system you use.
Unfortunately that's true of any problem.
Which is also why piracy will never stop either.
Freetards without a leash will do whatever the fuck they want to no matter what the government says.
Spamming and pirating are both wrong...we the people just have more important things to worry about with our limited resources, that's all.
Creators may or may not have a right to get paid. If their works suck so bad they aren't worth paying even a cent for, then they sure as HELL aren't worth pirating either.
Software piracy is theft not in the sense of depriving the creator of his dues, but it is theft in the sense of deriving an ill gotten benefit, and the creator DOES lose an opportunity to sell to you.
Piracy may not hurt you if your would-be user wasn't going to buy your product anyway. However, if the user would have paid even one CENT for your product, that is one cent that won't be going your way because of piracy.
Yes, stuff costs too much and has DRM up the wazoo, but that is NO excuse for users to freeride. It doesn't work, because all it does is give the publishers the excuse they need to continue their propaganda machine.
What makes piracy wrong is that it at its heart is the same big fat "fuck the law" that motivates REAL criminals, you know, the kind that actually cause harm to society. Allowing people to get away with cheating the system and getting stuff they're not entitled to breaks down order.
My proposal for rights is as follows:
Creator:
* The right to not have their product pirated
* The right to not be screwed over by publishers
* The right to give their product away for free if they choose
User:
* The right to enjoy what they paid for without having to run afoul of anti-circumvention laws
* The right not to have their shit revoked on a whim even if they paid for it
* The right not to be terrorized by a litigation monster and forced into a settlement.
I consider spam to be a serious enough problem that ISPs SHOULD take proactive measures to put a stop to it.
Unlike terrorists, spam DOES cause a lot of damage every day in terms of wasting 90 percent of the resources that are used to deal with e-mail.
email is a well defined protocol going out on a fixed port. (just like HTTP, which is why proxy caching works so damned well).
You do realize that the more lucrative the insurance and litigation market becomes, the more pressure the lobbyists will put on *our* congress critters to keep things the way they are, right?
It's like trying to choke an anaconda with a huge deer...those jaws are bigger than you'd expect and all you get for your trouble is a curvetoothed snake happily trapping and swallowing away your day's hunt and leaving you with nothing.
Ah, yes, but then you'd have to face the confounding factor of people in prison unjustly.
Yes, people do get jailed even when innocent.
You forgot to take into account the number of thefts that WON'T happen because of one of the following:
1) assholes who are sent to jail and knocked out of the fraud business by virtue of being behind bars
2) would-be assholes who get spooked out of the fraud business by virtue of being scared of going to jail
I would suggest it's part of the "No man may buy or sell unless he has the mark of the beast or the number of his name". Access to financial systems would fit quite well with those lines.
Call me a conspiracy nut though, but with the way things have been going to hell lately, it wouldn't surprise me one bit.
No pun intended.
hydrogen:antimatter::refrigerator:electromagnet
That actually sounds like a viable idea for a cyber-terrorist, sadly.
I wouldn't put it past al-qaeda to pull off something like that.
Knowingly sending you a bricking update is no different from them sending you a trojan horse...in fact that's exactly what it is.
The "purpose" of the update notwithstanding, if Sony willfully misrepresented the contents of the update, then any user consent is void.
Following the "egg" analogy, it's more like someone drilling a hole in an egg and filling it with limburger cheese, then asking you if they can throw the "egg" at your house.
Intentional damage to property is also known as vandalism regardless if you aggravate it by trying to charge to fix it.
Some bozo comes onto my property and starts tearing shit up with a sledgehammer, I can have him arrested even if he offers to have it professionally repaired at no charge.
Are you sure the PS3 doesn't phone home and force itself to either update or brick?
I imagine there might, just might, be circuitry inside the box that forces it to quit working if it's gone long enough without checking for new updates.