Someone is still going to create the product that was previously protected. Just because a company can not monopolize the product does not mean they will not make any money off of it. Just look at cars. No one has a monopoly on car engines or bodies or airbags. You can get most features in any car in any other car. Yet when you look at the road, there are 100's of different types of cars from so many different manufactures.
No, someone is not necessarily going to. In fact, for many products that is simply untrue. Furthermore, your example is flawed. Car manufacturers have many patents of all different sorts. Although these many innovations may go without your notice (e.g., an engine, tires, brakes, etc), that does not mean you're not benefiting from their efforts, and consequently from patents. They spend millions of dolllars each every year improving their product or even licensing from each other. Cars have been continuously improving.
If IP rights were taken away from all companies, I don't see it as the Doom of the information age, I see companies having to compete for quality products. IP rights only cover an idea, companies then have to implement that idea into a product. Companies can then compete on the quality of their product, not just the one little idea the product holds. And for companies that fear people stealing their code if they open source it, you can't cut and paste quality out of a product.
Oh Hogwash. Companies in technology industries compete very much on the quality of their idea, not just on the quality of the finished product (the finished product ultimately derived from those idea(s)). If you kill IP, you may see lots of people competing on better manufacturing existing products, but there would be no incentive in the vast majority of cases to actually create new ideas/innovations. Although it may sound better if you can get the idea AND have competition in developing the idea, this ignores the fact that if they originator of the idea is competing on equal footing, they by definition have achieved no competitive advantage. In addition, contrary slashdot's belief, mere posession of a patent or two does not mean you no longer need to worry about quality. Take, for instance, the car industry. They own patents, but that does not mean they have no competition. They may have no competition on that ONE innovation, but there are thousands of others out there to draw the consumer with. To compete in most industries, competetive markets, you need idea AND quality.
In your totally unfleshed out world, WHY spend money on R&D? So why innovate at all if it costs you and you get no (or nominal) advantage? If competitors and/or consumers can easily and legally copy your innovation, then your efforts are wasted doing R&D. Make no mistake about it, if you kill IP, you kill technological innovation with it, for all intents and purposes. Although there may be some rare and notable exceptions, these are but a drop in the bucket.
Ah, yes, Dell, so very proud of wresting the education sales crown from Apple, I just can't wait until the first schoolkid gets burned by one of their laptops and the hordes of lawyers descend.
Why not? Dell is not a monopoly, they won it fair and square. The fact of the matter is that Dell is able to deliver a better value to the schools than Apple can with their propreitary systems. Just because Apple does some things very well does not mean they deserve endangered species status. While I do not agree with the "close down" sentiments entirely, you should realize that Dell was competing against Apple at the time and that there is some truth to that statement. The only reason that Apple has managed to stay alive is because they've been able to carve out a niche for themselves. If they had to compete neck and neck against Dell's wintel business model, they would have been utterly crushed long ago with their small economies of scale, proprietary hardware, higher inventories, lesser utilized OS, etc.
Also gotta love that they are continuing their stringent QC from a year or two ago when they shipped CD-ROM modules for their Latitudes that did not fit any Dell laptop that was in production at the time. That was a real fun time for me where I worked. What I don't understand is, when Dell is just a me-too cloner bolting parts together and not innovating a thing, how can they not even be able to do that right and still stay in business?
Dell is hardly just a "me too" cloner. The fact of the matter is that they dominate the OEM computer market. It is not accident. They have excellent manufacturing systems, very low inventory (a huge issue in the industry), testing technology, high reliability, etc. In short, they're an economic powerhouse that is worthy of considerable respect. Sure, they have had a few slipups, but so have other manufacturers. They, unlike others, have quickly and fairly resolved the problems, so what's the beef?
Furthermore, not all of their systems require zero innovation, their laptops and servers are all significantly customized and require a fair amout of engineering efforts.
No, my logic is not flawed. First, that would be a flaw in my premise, not in the structure of my logic. Second, I already know the labels sued over my.mp3.com and I stated that too. However, that issue is now largely resolved and was confined EXCLUSIVELY to my.mp3.com, not their entire business. mp3.com was operating for a long time before they started the my. service.
All of your arguments are totally unsubstantiated. You assume the labels' reasoning must be because both mp3.com and napster are possibly competing distributors. What's worse, you assume that no one can reasonably have a view point that differs since you assume it follows logically. Meanwhile you must ignore some simple and well established facts to make this assertion (you presume it naturally follows logically, when it does not):
a) The labels are primarily about capital and marketing, not about distribution. In other words, being distribution alone (assuming either Napster or mp3.com are even capable of assuming this role) is not enough to compete by a long shot. This is why the labels continue to succeed today and why no pure (or virtually pure) distribution scheme is going to takeover.
b) Both mp3.com and Napster gave the labels OTHER reason to file lawsuits, they stepped all over the labels' copyrights. (The ethics of these arguments are besides the point)
c) The existence of other potential and existing distributors, online and offline that are just as, if not more, viable that have NEVER been sued by the labels.
d) A minor point, mp3.com was operating a long time before my.mp3.com started and before they got sued. Besides the fact that the labels chose not to sue during that time, which is relevant to your assertion, it strongly implies that mp3.com needs something more than hype to succeed and carry their name. They knowingly took a big risk by employing copyrighted material, one does not take risks unless there is reward. If this kind of distribution has so much potential, why risk a supposedly lucractive distribution enterprise over something external and relatively small (compared to their supposed potentiality)?
If you really want to convince a skeptic, then show the previous 3 statements to be false. Otherwise, you're asking for nothing less than a leap from logic and reason to pure faith and paranoia.
Mp3.com is targeting what ANY startup in that business would target, unsigned artists, these tend to be small time bands. However, that does not by any means mean that that is their sole objective. In fact, I don't think that investment would make much sense if it were just that. Napster, on the other hand, has very little to offer an artist in terms of distribution. How can they possibly be stronger? (Not that I think either is particularly viable even, soley, as a distributor..)
Why does everyone on slashdot automatically assume that just because both mp3.com and napster were sued by the labels that their sole reason must be because they represent competition, despite the fact that both were very certainly treading on their copyrights. This, also, despite the fact that OTHER supposed potential distributors exist and have not yet been threatened. I would argue that the reason they are free from lawsuits is because they aren't getting stepping on the labels' copyrights.
Or the fact that only now has the RIAA realized the threat of things like Napster bypassing all the middlemen in terms of music distribution?
First, Napster undeniably represents an clear and direct threat to the labels' intellectual property. So it is unreasonable to jump to the conclusion that just because the labels are attacking napster that it must be because Napster represents a new form a distribution.
Second, if the labels are attacking Napster because it threatens their distribution channels, why not attack mp3.com (yes, I know about my.mp3.com, but that's a seperate issue) and the numerous other online services? Mp3.com represents a vastly more viable competitive threat than Napster does. Napster as a mainstream distribution channel is, at best, theoretical, at worst, a simply ridiculous theory.
Third, the very emphasis that you give raw distribution (ala Napster) implies that you do not fully understand the role of the major labels. The real unique value that the labels offer, over and above all these pure distribution arrangements (e.g., Napster, mp3.com, indy labels, direct mailing, etc.) is capital and marketing, not raw distribution. When I say raw distribution, I mean, the ability to get music from point A (the artist) to point B (the interested public). Sure, these other methods can do that, the problem is that selling records is a lot more involved than that, first consumers must be aware of the artists offering and they must want it. Put simply, the alternatives do not truely offer this. Hence, emerging artists and existing artists continue, by and large, to sign with established labels, not the trendy theories.
Your sample is skewed by considering only "widely recognized" artists. Obviously under current market conditions, one would *expect* that almost all widely known artists are under contract with major labels. The major labels made them well known. The major labels have a large degree of control over what is or isn't widely known.
None of this contradicts my point, that the real function and value of the labels is not distribution per se, it's capital and marketing. If anything it bolsters it, only those that recieve the benefit of the the label's functions become known, despite the presence of numerous alternative distribution channels. So what is your point?
The general gist of the publishers' argument is that closed markets are a requisite of intellectual production: limiting the supply of intellectual goods increases their value encouraging inferior (inefficient) producers to enter the market, thereby increasing the supply. So we have to restrict the supply in order to increase the supply. As unintuitive as this sounds, even if I accept it (which I probably would) as an accurate description of how things work, a description in no way implies a prescription -- in no way implies a vision of how things *ought* to work. While I can't just pull ideas out of thin air, discussions of what-ought-to-be need not be restricted to what-is.
Ok, besides the fact that the very nature of intellectual property is extraneous to my argument, with the existence of intellectual property laws as they stand today, the artists choose freely to sign with the labels, rather than any other "free" or "open" system. You may argue (although I would definetely contradict) that the artist's own self interest lies contrary to the general public's, but it is unreasonable and improbable to assume that the elimination of IP would somehow give the artist a better choice.
What do you mean by economically viable? If you mean viable in the more limited sense of "capable of being produced through private ownership for profit" then I agree that the scientists' demands are non-viable. But a publicly (sp?) funded system can be considered economically viable if the citizens who pay taxes can agree that scientific research is important enough to justify the required expenditure.
As an example of the narrowness of your definition of "viable", look at public education. The public education system is not economically viable in the sense of being profitable, but people (taxpayers) value the services provided by schools enough that they are willing to pay a non-profit body to run them. Privately owned profit-generating activities are not the only economically viable endeavors. Something is viable if people are willing to support it. If there are too many public initiatives, then there will not be sufficient revenue derived from taxes to pay for the public initiatives and the public will refuse to pay higher taxes. If there are not enough public initiatives -- as is now the case -- then people will begin to see civil infrastructure begin to crumble. This is indeed what is happening in most developed nations.
No where did I say that economic viability somehow excluded public subsidies. However, the fact of the matter is that if the companies are not economically viable and the public is unwilling to pay (quite probable) then the scientists are indeed SOL. What's more, government subsidized entities have a well established record of operating vastly less efficiently than private industry. In other words, it is very possible that the public would pay far more on aggregate to a subsidized publisher for the same (or less) end result, than the existing publisher's customers pay.
Yes, that's exactly my point. The more these essential sources of information are privately controlled, the higher the barriers to access. Thomson Corp, for instance, owns WestLaw, which is the exclusive source for Federal court transcripts in the United States (If i am not mistaken). Thomson is a Canadian company. Is it fair that Americans have to pay a Canadian to look at transcripts of their own court proceedings? The fact that Lexis/Nexis make a great deal of money from selling public records is more evidence for my side of the argument. They are not engaging in entrepreneurship of any kind. They are taking the output of a public institution and repackaging it for private sale. What benefit does the free market bring to this activity other than higher costs, less intellectual freedom, and more corporate secrecy?
No, although they may be the exclusive electronic provider, they do not have monopoly access to the documents themselves. They take PUBLIC information and essentially repackage and distribute it electronically in searchable databases and such. This addsvalue and it costs money to provide. The only thing they own is their resulting product, not the court documents themselves. In other words, you can still get them, and other competing corporations are free to create their own databases, they just can't pirate off the existing services.
No, because it's not your rights that we're talking about. We're talking about that natural rights of the fetus as a human being.
The logic, or rather lack thereof, is the same though.
Since a host is naturally required for human reproduction, then the process of reproduction creates a natural right to the host.
What you are in essense saying is that because X (naturally) depends on Y to reach point A, that X has a natural right to Y. That simply does not follow, mere dependency does not equate with right. The same can be said for sperm. Do my sperm of a natural right to a fertile women? Is a women necessarily immoral for denying any one of my sperm this right? Of course not. The logic is simply flawed.
No matter what your beliefs or your other arguments are, this one simply does not stand.
Since a host is naturally required for human reproduction, then the process of reproduction creates a natural right to the host.
That is a non sequitur. That's like arguing that because sex is required for natural reproduction, that I have a natural right to have sex with any women that I please.
No new 'technological innovations' should be foisted onto the general public until they have been proved safe by years (decades, if necessary) of scientific study.
That's fine and good to say, but years or a decade of additional waiting would economically un-feasible for the vast majority of the companies (not to mention products) out there. This is part of the reason why drug companies have to charge so much money and part of the reason why small companies are so rare and getting rarer in biotechnology; it takes about 10 years on average to bring a product to market. This drastically increases the risks and the costs of doing business, not to mention requiring a very large company, since very few startups can afford those kind of cash outlays. Now I'm not saying we should lower the testing standards for drugs, but if we put these same kinds of brakes in place on anything that runs across a consumers hand, we would absolutely put a brake on technological advancement.
Furthermore, I believe that when science can be reasonably certain that the risks are small, that individuals should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they want to take that risk. I would. Who are you to tell me that I can't use this product because it hasn't been proven safe (although they have done a studies already) in your opinion? Hell, we haven't "proven" Quake safe yet, it might cause convulsions or something, or cause us all to go postal, we haven't waited a decade yet... Is this the kind of world you want to live in?
Well I know some of the engineers and a physicist at the Bothell outfit, last I heard (as I recall), they're using laser diodes since brightness is an issue with LEDs. They modulate the three diodes, aim them at a single fiber, then direct that at some kind of scanning mirror...That said, I really don't have any more details to give you, it's been awhile since I last heard. I've heard a number of people say first hand that the technology works well, but at least one mentioned some disorientation. It's pretty promising stuff.
It's easy to say that "most motivated people in this country can gain access to the material through libraries and such". It's a bit harder to defend when you read that university libraries are currently slashing their subscriptions, precisely because the "traditional" model of publishing results in spiraling costs and diminishing returns.
Libraries change their subscriptions all the time, that does not mean there is a massive trend of cancellation or that these journals are too unavailable. Can you honestly tell me otherwise? Furthermore, if the subscription prices are rising this may well be the result of increased costs that have NOTHING to do with their business model. In other words, it may be completely irrelevant to the question.
I ask, "What good is the current model if it forces university libraries -- forget about individual researchers -- to drop the publication entirely?"
You have not established that that is really the case. Nor have you established that this business model in the cause. Nor have you established that any other methods are superior. The fact of the matter is that it costs money to produce these journals, someone either pays or it is subsidized, or both. The odds are that if the universities cannot afford to pay subscriptions (doubtful), then they cannot afford to subsidize the actual costs of publishing either.
Now if these scientists wish to strike out on their own, let them, it is their own work afterall. However, that does not mean they're right or that they really fully understand the problem. Only once they've established a viable and superior alternative will their case truely be proven.
The only protection you have from getting screwed is if you're 1% of the programming population? So then how do you justify that against the fact that the vast majority of the programmers are well paid and have decent working conditions? Don't make me laugh.
The fundamental truth is that the demand for more skilled programmers totally outstrips supply, as long as that is true companies will fight tooth and nail to attract them. This means that you CAN'T make programmers work 16 hours a day all the time and that you can't pay them 5 dollars a day.
I have a fundamental problem with any labor system that encourages the mentality that ALL you have to do is A, B, C, and D to get salary X. It is the best way to kill professionalism, innovation, efficient allocation of resources, hard work, and all other things that make this country thrive.
In what way? What hasn't the press publicized and made an issue of on his past? EVERYONE knows Bush drank too much and did other things in his youth, do you think that's pure chance? Lord knows the press has tried to get him.
his Reaganesque hiding from press conferences where he does not come off very informed.
Where is it written that the President must do dog and pony shows for the press, especially when they've exhibited such willingness to play up every little slipup. Anyways, I happen to have liked Reagan.
Clinton was racked by 24/7 MonicaStain-NBC deathwatches, Faux News/RNC rumor planting, yadda yadda.
The man lied under oath and had sex with an intern in the White House. If he were the chief executive of any company or even lesser government official he would be gone in a second. Don't even act like Clinton didn't bring it on himself. They couldn't find a thing on the man? Feh. They found out that he perjured himself. As for "finding" stuff, we have this thing called a court of law...it sorta makes things difficult. Clinton is dirty, you can deny it all you want, but he's dirty.
People skills? You mean he can charm his way past answering questions?
No, Bush clearly knows how to relate to people. That matters in politics. He may not have the rhetorical skills that Clinton has, but those are two entirely different things.
Better organized? You mean other people are running the presidency?
No, other people are running this government, unlike another certain president that thought he was some kind of genius, he didn't try to micromanage. He has very good people and he's using them properly as far as I am concerned.
Focus? on what?
Education reforms. Military reforms. Taxes. Etc. You may dislike his policy, but he's focused on them. Clinton on the other hand tried to be all things to all people and I frankly thing he didn't accomplish much as a result. If he had focused his energies on a few really important issues, he would have been far more effective.
LESS PARTY BAGGAGE: ARE YOU INSANE? I guess his objectives are yours then.
Yes his policy is largely alligned with mine, though not entirely. Although I couldn't care a rats ass about the Christian right, so to speak, I'd rather have them merely kept in a corner then have someone that is unwilling to, say, make any real changes in education for fear of pissing off the teachers' unions.
cocaine use tho he denies fed aid to students convicted of even pot
Totally unsubstantiated by ANY respectable media source. In fact, such drugs were not even in vogue when he was in school, it's nothing more than a rumor.
dirty tricks against McCain
Heh what dirty tricks would those be exactly? The one where he gets an endorsement?
his failed companies
Which, by all accounts, can hardly be blamed on him, but rather on the market and lack of oil.
the unbelievable dirty tricks campaign waged in Florida to get himself elected?
Uh, you do know that the media actually did inspect the ballots and found that even if they used Gore's proposed method, that Bush would have actually PICKED up votes overall? But that's besides the point? What dirty tricks specifically? Prove them.
Loyalty? To whom??
His people for one. You don't keep staff like that by being an asshole.
Anyways, this is pointless. You may be well to the left, but it is NOT a given that Bush is an idiot, stupid, unethical, or whatever. If you've been paying any attention to the "people", you'll find that a solid majority of the country STILL approves of him. So by the Democrat's meter during the impeachment, everything is peachy, right? Or are you going to say that some things matter more now? That's what I thought.
A reasonably educated lay person can at least hope to READ legal documents and gain some understanding, the same cannot be said for many scientific journals. Legal decisions also have a direct effect on the public. Not to mention the fact that it is GOVERNMENT, not private industry, that follows this rule.
We value the pursuit of scientific knowledge because it is a worthwhile human endeavor, not (solely) because it provides industry with better mousetraps. A large part of the benefit of scientific research is that any sufficiently literate person can avail themselves of the best research in the world.
I never said the only value was direct economic benefit. However, I do think it is the biggest concern. We don't spend billions of dollars a year subsidizing scientific research so that academics and a handful of people that actually venture to read the journals can enjoy themselves. Now this is to say that it must be direct, easily measurable, or even necessarily economic, but it must be more than just enlightenment and/or entertainment for those individuals. Although the enlightenment of even a few individuals may be a worthy goal, it must be weighed against other equally worthy objectives.
An informed citizen is a citizen that can participate in a rational way. Elitists, mandarins and aristocrats thrive on secrecy. Their political power depends on keeping the people in a state of ignorance.
And your point is?
I find your sentiments to be profoundly undemocratic.
Since when is democracy founded on the principle that everything must be free and easy? If the only means to achieve this nominal "democracy" is the destruction of that which you wish to democratize, then you are doing more harm than good. Yes, it may be good if you can increase actual readership by 10%, but if that comes at the cost of quality or even the publication itself, then it is not worth it. It seems to me that, what is at issue here is convenience, since most motivated people in this country can gain access to the material through libraries and such. So let's put this in perspective, this is truely no less democratic (not that it is technically a democracy) than our system of governance; you actually have to leave your house to get some thing that you want.
That said, I'm not necessarily arguing against it, I'm just playing devil's advocate. The finances are terribly important to this question and neither of us knows them.
No, paranoia is irrational or excessive fear, and that is not necessarily good. You should keep the cost/risk and benefit in mind. Although paranoia might deliver nominally more secure systems, it doesn't necessarily mean you're better off. For instance, you can spend 15k securing a 10k dollar server that have NO valuable data on them. Or you could spend thousands of dollars investing in a fancy alarm system, only to have the employees fail to properly arm it.
Or for a less obvious example, suppose you're a Fortune 500 company, well you could spend, say, 500 dollars installing alarms on each of the company's 5000 cars, let's even assume it stops all theft. If you know with a high degree of certainty that.5 percent of the cars will be stolen each year and each car costs 20k at purchase. In other words, the company would lose roughly 500k dollars to theft each year whereas if they invested in alarm systems it would cost them 2.5 million dollars upfront. If the cars and the alarm systems only last 5 years and the companies cost of capital is 10%, then they'd actually save, in financial terms, roughly 500k dollars by NOT installing alarms. The reason for this is because it costs the company real money to sink it anywhere; that money could be invested elsewhere in the company (or simply not borrowed) and return them more money.
Although this example is simplistic, it takes into consideration some of the actual concerns that are at issue for companies and people. Put simply, some money is better off invested elsewhere. Paranoia can cost you time and money.
Furthermore, I would argue that unbridled paranoia might actually result in worse security, because perspective is lost and the real threats are not properly analyzed and responded to.
Both of my parents are (were) also electrical engineers and they started up a couple companies in related fields. Needless to say, I've known a lot of engineers of those generation(s). While I agree with you that the majority of them (all except for the oldest ones) know assembly, machine code, fortran, and other languages well, I do not agree with the implication that they're all dry and/or geeky. Some of them were geeks, some of them were not geeks all [although I'd say that few of them were trendy in the marketing sense]; technical abilities tended to have little clear correlation to external appearances. I know a lot of non-geek engineers that are extremely capable and accomplished. In fact, the only thing I can really say for "geekiness" is that it tends to be more of a limiting factor--those that appear to be big geeks tend not to be capable of larger responsibilities like management and/or proper planning.
That said, the geeks tend to be more focused purely on technology, but it is neither necessary for skill nor a gaurantee of it by any extent of the imagination. Some of the worst geeks are merely techies....Also, somewhat back on topic, I think a lot of people forget that some people are more driven by results (non-financial) than by the technology itself.
If your goal is to mass-produce and distribute music by building "brand recognition", then you are correct in suggesting that capital and marketing on the scale provided by the major labels is required. If on the other hand you believe that the enjoyment of music doesn't require brand recognition, then good distribution systems can be built with very little capital. You must be one of those who prefers music in a can to music in the flesh. So "merely delivering music from point A to point B" is a very worthy objective.
You miss the point. The point is that artists consistently choose to sign with the labels under, what many regard as, tough contracts, not because it is the only way they can get music to interested parties [as i pointed out, there are many other ways that would allow them more control and larger profits per CD sold], but because the labels offer capital and marketing as their chief offerings. Now say of market success what you will, but it is no coincidence that the vast majority of widely recognized artists choose to sign, despite the presence of supposedly equal or superior distribution alternatives. To merely write it off as the product of a monopoly on distribution is intellectually dishonest.
This is a very narrow view of what benefits scientists. You are assuming that you know better what is in their interest than they do.
Again, you miss the point. My point is not that the scientists care for the publishers' financial well being; my point is that the artists clearly want those publishing functions and if their demands make the act of publishing economically un-viable, then no one wins, not the scientists, not the greater public, and certainly not the publishers. Put simply, I do not need to know precisely what their objectives are to reasonably this.
Court transcripts are not of concern to lay people either, but they are part of the public record because public trust in the justice system depends on the principle of public access to the evidence and arguments presented in court. The same holds true for scientific research. We value the pursuit of scientific knowledge because it is a worthwhile human endeavor, not (solely) because it provides industry with better mousetraps. A large part of the benefit of scientific research is that any sufficiently literate person can avail themselves of the best research in the world. An informed citizen is a citizen that can participate in a rational way. Elitists, mandarins and aristocrats thrive on secrecy. Their political power depends on keeping the people in a state of ignorance. I find your sentiments to be profoundly undemocratic.
I would argue that the barriers to court records are truely not that much lower. Although the courts may make them available, they are not all accessible online by any means. In fact, Lexis/Nexis and numerous other services make a great deal of money because they are the only effective way to get to them electronically. With a little effort in both cases though, virtually any motivated person can gain access without shelling out a small fortune. (e.g., universities, public libraries, etc.)
Firstly, you, and so many other slashdot posters, underestimate the importance of the music industry in producing today's music. To put it in as few words as possible, what sets the major labels apart from the myriad of other methods is CAPITAL and MARKETING. If merely delivering music from point A to point B were the sole objective, any artist today can do this online for next to nothing. Never mind independent labels, physically printing and mailing CDs, etc.
Secondly, the only way this protest will help scientists is IF this proposal does, indeed, make economic sense. This may well not be the case.
Thirdly, I would argue that the difference in RELEVANT accessability between expensive publication to scientists and free access to the public online is probably rather nominal. Most of these journals have quite narrow focus and deal with matters in such details that the vast majority of them really do not concern the person that does not specialize in that field. Those that do can simply afford to pay the subscription price. If any particular article or study is of great relevance to the outside world, the chances are that it will get picked up by the greater media. In addition, many of these journals can be picked up at university libraries and through like means.
Hahah, you do know that Indrema is now dead, right? (All this before it even hit the market) Yeah, the true "powers" of OSS, the ability to send millions of dollars in capital to a speedy demise.
Actually, beyond just that, kids are more disposed to buying video games and consoles, because they have very few other priorities in life. Whereas an older adult will weigh the purchase of a game/console against buying stereos, new computers, cars, apartment, house, paying tuition, health insurance, or what have you.
Actually something like 4 pokeman games EACH have a place in the top ten selling video games of the past year or two; I'd hardly say they're just hanging on there. That's something that ANY of the other game companies would kill for.
Haha surely this is a troll, but you've got to be kidding me. It would die and Nintendo wouldn't see a dime. The entire Open Source community is at best a drop in the ocean compared to the markets that any of these video games target. Even if you could get the entire Open Source community to buy it, it would not even cover Nintendo's costs. What's more, the Open Source community hasn't a clue or the equipment to develop modern video games (e.g., motion capture, sound and video recording studios, etc.), never mind skill, desire, and organization....
They'd do far better selling it to, say, Sega (not that that's likely).
Re:Efficiency GOOD, protectionism BAD.
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Fission in a Box
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Your arguments are largely incoherant and poorly researched. If you wish to refute well established theories and hundreds of empirical studies, you should at least be well aware of them.
That's not universally true.
So name a significant country that actually contradicts this trend. Then compare that to all the countries and times that confirm it.
And it could be argued that low job security may translate to better conditions locally, but worse conditions overall. If the neighbour works for less, you may be forced to match his better offer for the employer. Ie. a race to the bottom. Numbers alone tell little.
You can argue anything if you so desire, but that doesn't mean that the facts bear it out. All sorts of countries work for less than the United States (not to mention most of the Western world), yet we continue to have low unemployment and overall rising standards of living. The same goes for many other enlightened countries.
Assuming that the lower consumer purchase power doesn't trigger a slump... All that production has to go somewhere.
You're even assuming that consumer purchase power is reduced. That's simply not the case and it's been demonstrated time and time again. What generally happens is that consumer's purchasing power rises on the aggregate, because goods and services get produced for less.
More like you see production successfully disappearing in the markets... Or a market failure and a slump. What a theory, you are right even when you are wrong.
This is completely incoherant. Where are you getting this stuff from, off the back of a cereal box? How does a market failure result from continual innovation and increased efficiency? And wtf is slump supposed to mean in this context? How do you get from point A to point B? It does not follow.
What you can't get this way is more leisure time...
Yes, you do get more leisure time. When you extropolate this pattern of increasing efficiency out across all people, it means that people on the whole can work much much less and recieve far more. In other words, before the days of tractors, fertilizers, combines, and such, mere existence demanded that the vast majority of society work on a farm. Now with all these advances in technology, that have necessarily obseleted those previous jobs, people are free to pursue other tasks, knowing that if they work a couple hours a day they will at least have basic sustenance. Although it may be true that people _raise_ their standards of living, and thus keep on working just as hard (if not harder), this is a matter of personal choice. Because people are basically rational, we can reasonably assume that they are happier working hard.
... Some people cease to make some thing and instead start spending their time making some other stuff, or the markets crash. And stuff worship hardly mitigates deprived existance.
Some people stop making stuff and start making other stuff? Complete jibberish. Anyways, I am under the impression that you have a romantic view of previous centuries. If so you have little appreciation for history or economics.
The only shred of legitimacy that your argument has is that if innovation happens TOO rapidly and people get displaced TOO fast, then we could potentially have problems. But we are in no danger of that today. In fact, on the aggregate, the gains in efficiency that we have made in the past decade pale in comparison to others. What little oil workers there are would be READILY absorbed into today's economy. The vast majority of the people unemployed in this country (very low percentage by historical standards) today are unemployable and/or simply don't wish to work; it's not the jobs don't exist for the taking. In other words, if you're willing and able (as these most of these oil workers would be), you can find a decent job.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh Hogwash. Companies in technology industries compete very much on the quality of their idea, not just on the quality of the finished product (the finished product ultimately derived from those idea(s)). If you kill IP, you may see lots of people competing on better manufacturing existing products, but there would be no incentive in the vast majority of cases to actually create new ideas/innovations. Although it may sound better if you can get the idea AND have competition in developing the idea, this ignores the fact that if they originator of the idea is competing on equal footing, they by definition have achieved no competitive advantage. In addition, contrary slashdot's belief, mere posession of a patent or two does not mean you no longer need to worry about quality. Take, for instance, the car industry. They own patents, but that does not mean they have no competition. They may have no competition on that ONE innovation, but there are thousands of others out there to draw the consumer with. To compete in most industries, competetive markets, you need idea AND quality.
In your totally unfleshed out world, WHY spend money on R&D? So why innovate at all if it costs you and you get no (or nominal) advantage? If competitors and/or consumers can easily and legally copy your innovation, then your efforts are wasted doing R&D. Make no mistake about it, if you kill IP, you kill technological innovation with it, for all intents and purposes. Although there may be some rare and notable exceptions, these are but a drop in the bucket.
Dell is hardly just a "me too" cloner. The fact of the matter is that they dominate the OEM computer market. It is not accident. They have excellent manufacturing systems, very low inventory (a huge issue in the industry), testing technology, high reliability, etc. In short, they're an economic powerhouse that is worthy of considerable respect. Sure, they have had a few slipups, but so have other manufacturers. They, unlike others, have quickly and fairly resolved the problems, so what's the beef?
Furthermore, not all of their systems require zero innovation, their laptops and servers are all significantly customized and require a fair amout of engineering efforts.
No, my logic is not flawed. First, that would be a flaw in my premise, not in the structure of my logic. Second, I already know the labels sued over my.mp3.com and I stated that too. However, that issue is now largely resolved and was confined EXCLUSIVELY to my.mp3.com, not their entire business. mp3.com was operating for a long time before they started the my. service.
All of your arguments are totally unsubstantiated. You assume the labels' reasoning must be because both mp3.com and napster are possibly competing distributors. What's worse, you assume that no one can reasonably have a view point that differs since you assume it follows logically. Meanwhile you must ignore some simple and well established facts to make this assertion (you presume it naturally follows logically, when it does not):
a) The labels are primarily about capital and marketing, not about distribution. In other words, being distribution alone (assuming either Napster or mp3.com are even capable of assuming this role) is not enough to compete by a long shot. This is why the labels continue to succeed today and why no pure (or virtually pure) distribution scheme is going to takeover.
b) Both mp3.com and Napster gave the labels OTHER reason to file lawsuits, they stepped all over the labels' copyrights. (The ethics of these arguments are besides the point)
c) The existence of other potential and existing distributors, online and offline that are just as, if not more, viable that have NEVER been sued by the labels.
d) A minor point, mp3.com was operating a long time before my.mp3.com started and before they got sued. Besides the fact that the labels chose not to sue during that time, which is relevant to your assertion, it strongly implies that mp3.com needs something more than hype to succeed and carry their name. They knowingly took a big risk by employing copyrighted material, one does not take risks unless there is reward. If this kind of distribution has so much potential, why risk a supposedly lucractive distribution enterprise over something external and relatively small (compared to their supposed potentiality)?
If you really want to convince a skeptic, then show the previous 3 statements to be false. Otherwise, you're asking for nothing less than a leap from logic and reason to pure faith and paranoia.
Mp3.com is targeting what ANY startup in that business would target, unsigned artists, these tend to be small time bands. However, that does not by any means mean that that is their sole objective. In fact, I don't think that investment would make much sense if it were just that. Napster, on the other hand, has very little to offer an artist in terms of distribution. How can they possibly be stronger? (Not that I think either is particularly viable even, soley, as a distributor..)
Why does everyone on slashdot automatically assume that just because both mp3.com and napster were sued by the labels that their sole reason must be because they represent competition, despite the fact that both were very certainly treading on their copyrights. This, also, despite the fact that OTHER supposed potential distributors exist and have not yet been threatened. I would argue that the reason they are free from lawsuits is because they aren't getting stepping on the labels' copyrights.
Second, if the labels are attacking Napster because it threatens their distribution channels, why not attack mp3.com (yes, I know about my.mp3.com, but that's a seperate issue) and the numerous other online services? Mp3.com represents a vastly more viable competitive threat than Napster does. Napster as a mainstream distribution channel is, at best, theoretical, at worst, a simply ridiculous theory.
Third, the very emphasis that you give raw distribution (ala Napster) implies that you do not fully understand the role of the major labels. The real unique value that the labels offer, over and above all these pure distribution arrangements (e.g., Napster, mp3.com, indy labels, direct mailing, etc.) is capital and marketing, not raw distribution. When I say raw distribution, I mean, the ability to get music from point A (the artist) to point B (the interested public). Sure, these other methods can do that, the problem is that selling records is a lot more involved than that, first consumers must be aware of the artists offering and they must want it. Put simply, the alternatives do not truely offer this. Hence, emerging artists and existing artists continue, by and large, to sign with established labels, not the trendy theories.
Ok, besides the fact that the very nature of intellectual property is extraneous to my argument, with the existence of intellectual property laws as they stand today, the artists choose freely to sign with the labels, rather than any other "free" or "open" system. You may argue (although I would definetely contradict) that the artist's own self interest lies contrary to the general public's, but it is unreasonable and improbable to assume that the elimination of IP would somehow give the artist a better choice.
No where did I say that economic viability somehow excluded public subsidies. However, the fact of the matter is that if the companies are not economically viable and the public is unwilling to pay (quite probable) then the scientists are indeed SOL. What's more, government subsidized entities have a well established record of operating vastly less efficiently than private industry. In other words, it is very possible that the public would pay far more on aggregate to a subsidized publisher for the same (or less) end result, than the existing publisher's customers pay.
No, although they may be the exclusive electronic provider, they do not have monopoly access to the documents themselves. They take PUBLIC information and essentially repackage and distribute it electronically in searchable databases and such. This adds value and it costs money to provide. The only thing they own is their resulting product, not the court documents themselves. In other words, you can still get them, and other competing corporations are free to create their own databases, they just can't pirate off the existing services.
What you are in essense saying is that because X (naturally) depends on Y to reach point A, that X has a natural right to Y. That simply does not follow, mere dependency does not equate with right. The same can be said for sperm. Do my sperm of a natural right to a fertile women? Is a women necessarily immoral for denying any one of my sperm this right? Of course not. The logic is simply flawed.
No matter what your beliefs or your other arguments are, this one simply does not stand.
Furthermore, I believe that when science can be reasonably certain that the risks are small, that individuals should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they want to take that risk. I would. Who are you to tell me that I can't use this product because it hasn't been proven safe (although they have done a studies already) in your opinion? Hell, we haven't "proven" Quake safe yet, it might cause convulsions or something, or cause us all to go postal, we haven't waited a decade yet... Is this the kind of world you want to live in?
Well I know some of the engineers and a physicist at the Bothell outfit, last I heard (as I recall), they're using laser diodes since brightness is an issue with LEDs. They modulate the three diodes, aim them at a single fiber, then direct that at some kind of scanning mirror...That said, I really don't have any more details to give you, it's been awhile since I last heard. I've heard a number of people say first hand that the technology works well, but at least one mentioned some disorientation. It's pretty promising stuff.
You have not established that that is really the case. Nor have you established that this business model in the cause. Nor have you established that any other methods are superior. The fact of the matter is that it costs money to produce these journals, someone either pays or it is subsidized, or both. The odds are that if the universities cannot afford to pay subscriptions (doubtful), then they cannot afford to subsidize the actual costs of publishing either.
Now if these scientists wish to strike out on their own, let them, it is their own work afterall. However, that does not mean they're right or that they really fully understand the problem. Only once they've established a viable and superior alternative will their case truely be proven.
The only protection you have from getting screwed is if you're 1% of the programming population? So then how do you justify that against the fact that the vast majority of the programmers are well paid and have decent working conditions? Don't make me laugh.
The fundamental truth is that the demand for more skilled programmers totally outstrips supply, as long as that is true companies will fight tooth and nail to attract them. This means that you CAN'T make programmers work 16 hours a day all the time and that you can't pay them 5 dollars a day.
I have a fundamental problem with any labor system that encourages the mentality that ALL you have to do is A, B, C, and D to get salary X. It is the best way to kill professionalism, innovation, efficient allocation of resources, hard work, and all other things that make this country thrive.
Where is it written that the President must do dog and pony shows for the press, especially when they've exhibited such willingness to play up every little slipup. Anyways, I happen to have liked Reagan.
The man lied under oath and had sex with an intern in the White House. If he were the chief executive of any company or even lesser government official he would be gone in a second. Don't even act like Clinton didn't bring it on himself. They couldn't find a thing on the man? Feh. They found out that he perjured himself. As for "finding" stuff, we have this thing called a court of law...it sorta makes things difficult. Clinton is dirty, you can deny it all you want, but he's dirty.
No, Bush clearly knows how to relate to people. That matters in politics. He may not have the rhetorical skills that Clinton has, but those are two entirely different things.
No, other people are running this government, unlike another certain president that thought he was some kind of genius, he didn't try to micromanage. He has very good people and he's using them properly as far as I am concerned.
Education reforms. Military reforms. Taxes. Etc. You may dislike his policy, but he's focused on them. Clinton on the other hand tried to be all things to all people and I frankly thing he didn't accomplish much as a result. If he had focused his energies on a few really important issues, he would have been far more effective.
Yes his policy is largely alligned with mine, though not entirely. Although I couldn't care a rats ass about the Christian right, so to speak, I'd rather have them merely kept in a corner then have someone that is unwilling to, say, make any real changes in education for fear of pissing off the teachers' unions.
Totally unsubstantiated by ANY respectable media source. In fact, such drugs were not even in vogue when he was in school, it's nothing more than a rumor.
Heh what dirty tricks would those be exactly? The one where he gets an endorsement?
Which, by all accounts, can hardly be blamed on him, but rather on the market and lack of oil.
Uh, you do know that the media actually did inspect the ballots and found that even if they used Gore's proposed method, that Bush would have actually PICKED up votes overall? But that's besides the point? What dirty tricks specifically? Prove them.
His people for one. You don't keep staff like that by being an asshole.
Anyways, this is pointless. You may be well to the left, but it is NOT a given that Bush is an idiot, stupid, unethical, or whatever. If you've been paying any attention to the "people", you'll find that a solid majority of the country STILL approves of him. So by the Democrat's meter during the impeachment, everything is peachy, right? Or are you going to say that some things matter more now? That's what I thought.
I never said the only value was direct economic benefit. However, I do think it is the biggest concern. We don't spend billions of dollars a year subsidizing scientific research so that academics and a handful of people that actually venture to read the journals can enjoy themselves. Now this is to say that it must be direct, easily measurable, or even necessarily economic, but it must be more than just enlightenment and/or entertainment for those individuals. Although the enlightenment of even a few individuals may be a worthy goal, it must be weighed against other equally worthy objectives.
And your point is?
Since when is democracy founded on the principle that everything must be free and easy? If the only means to achieve this nominal "democracy" is the destruction of that which you wish to democratize, then you are doing more harm than good. Yes, it may be good if you can increase actual readership by 10%, but if that comes at the cost of quality or even the publication itself, then it is not worth it. It seems to me that, what is at issue here is convenience, since most motivated people in this country can gain access to the material through libraries and such. So let's put this in perspective, this is truely no less democratic (not that it is technically a democracy) than our system of governance; you actually have to leave your house to get some thing that you want.
That said, I'm not necessarily arguing against it, I'm just playing devil's advocate. The finances are terribly important to this question and neither of us knows them.
No, paranoia is irrational or excessive fear, and that is not necessarily good. You should keep the cost/risk and benefit in mind. Although paranoia might deliver nominally more secure systems, it doesn't necessarily mean you're better off. For instance, you can spend 15k securing a 10k dollar server that have NO valuable data on them. Or you could spend thousands of dollars investing in a fancy alarm system, only to have the employees fail to properly arm it.
.5 percent of the cars will be stolen each year and each car costs 20k at purchase. In other words, the company would lose roughly 500k dollars to theft each year whereas if they invested in alarm systems it would cost them 2.5 million dollars upfront. If the cars and the alarm systems only last 5 years and the companies cost of capital is 10%, then they'd actually save, in financial terms, roughly 500k dollars by NOT installing alarms. The reason for this is because it costs the company real money to sink it anywhere; that money could be invested elsewhere in the company (or simply not borrowed) and return them more money.
Or for a less obvious example, suppose you're a Fortune 500 company, well you could spend, say, 500 dollars installing alarms on each of the company's 5000 cars, let's even assume it stops all theft. If you know with a high degree of certainty that
Although this example is simplistic, it takes into consideration some of the actual concerns that are at issue for companies and people. Put simply, some money is better off invested elsewhere. Paranoia can cost you time and money.
Furthermore, I would argue that unbridled paranoia might actually result in worse security, because perspective is lost and the real threats are not properly analyzed and responded to.
Both of my parents are (were) also electrical engineers and they started up a couple companies in related fields. Needless to say, I've known a lot of engineers of those generation(s). While I agree with you that the majority of them (all except for the oldest ones) know assembly, machine code, fortran, and other languages well, I do not agree with the implication that they're all dry and/or geeky. Some of them were geeks, some of them were not geeks all [although I'd say that few of them were trendy in the marketing sense]; technical abilities tended to have little clear correlation to external appearances. I know a lot of non-geek engineers that are extremely capable and accomplished. In fact, the only thing I can really say for "geekiness" is that it tends to be more of a limiting factor--those that appear to be big geeks tend not to be capable of larger responsibilities like management and/or proper planning.
That said, the geeks tend to be more focused purely on technology, but it is neither necessary for skill nor a gaurantee of it by any extent of the imagination. Some of the worst geeks are merely techies....Also, somewhat back on topic, I think a lot of people forget that some people are more driven by results (non-financial) than by the technology itself.
Buhaha funny, moderate this up. Maybe we should replace OSS with Open Flesh -- "To really scratch an itch".
Again, you miss the point. My point is not that the scientists care for the publishers' financial well being; my point is that the artists clearly want those publishing functions and if their demands make the act of publishing economically un-viable, then no one wins, not the scientists, not the greater public, and certainly not the publishers. Put simply, I do not need to know precisely what their objectives are to reasonably this.
I would argue that the barriers to court records are truely not that much lower. Although the courts may make them available, they are not all accessible online by any means. In fact, Lexis/Nexis and numerous other services make a great deal of money because they are the only effective way to get to them electronically. With a little effort in both cases though, virtually any motivated person can gain access without shelling out a small fortune. (e.g., universities, public libraries, etc.)
A couple points:
Firstly, you, and so many other slashdot posters, underestimate the importance of the music industry in producing today's music. To put it in as few words as possible, what sets the major labels apart from the myriad of other methods is CAPITAL and MARKETING. If merely delivering music from point A to point B were the sole objective, any artist today can do this online for next to nothing. Never mind independent labels, physically printing and mailing CDs, etc.
Secondly, the only way this protest will help scientists is IF this proposal does, indeed, make economic sense. This may well not be the case.
Thirdly, I would argue that the difference in RELEVANT accessability between expensive publication to scientists and free access to the public online is probably rather nominal. Most of these journals have quite narrow focus and deal with matters in such details that the vast majority of them really do not concern the person that does not specialize in that field. Those that do can simply afford to pay the subscription price. If any particular article or study is of great relevance to the outside world, the chances are that it will get picked up by the greater media. In addition, many of these journals can be picked up at university libraries and through like means.
Hahah, you do know that Indrema is now dead, right? (All this before it even hit the market) Yeah, the true "powers" of OSS, the ability to send millions of dollars in capital to a speedy demise.
Actually, beyond just that, kids are more disposed to buying video games and consoles, because they have very few other priorities in life. Whereas an older adult will weigh the purchase of a game/console against buying stereos, new computers, cars, apartment, house, paying tuition, health insurance, or what have you.
But the facts don't bear it out. The kiddy market is actually much larger when it comes to video games.
Actually something like 4 pokeman games EACH have a place in the top ten selling video games of the past year or two; I'd hardly say they're just hanging on there. That's something that ANY of the other game companies would kill for.
Haha surely this is a troll, but you've got to be kidding me. It would die and Nintendo wouldn't see a dime. The entire Open Source community is at best a drop in the ocean compared to the markets that any of these video games target. Even if you could get the entire Open Source community to buy it, it would not even cover Nintendo's costs. What's more, the Open Source community hasn't a clue or the equipment to develop modern video games (e.g., motion capture, sound and video recording studios, etc.), never mind skill, desire, and organization....
They'd do far better selling it to, say, Sega (not that that's likely).
So name a significant country that actually contradicts this trend. Then compare that to all the countries and times that confirm it.
You can argue anything if you so desire, but that doesn't mean that the facts bear it out. All sorts of countries work for less than the United States (not to mention most of the Western world), yet we continue to have low unemployment and overall rising standards of living. The same goes for many other enlightened countries.
You're even assuming that consumer purchase power is reduced. That's simply not the case and it's been demonstrated time and time again. What generally happens is that consumer's purchasing power rises on the aggregate, because goods and services get produced for less.
This is completely incoherant. Where are you getting this stuff from, off the back of a cereal box? How does a market failure result from continual innovation and increased efficiency? And wtf is slump supposed to mean in this context? How do you get from point A to point B? It does not follow.
Yes, you do get more leisure time. When you extropolate this pattern of increasing efficiency out across all people, it means that people on the whole can work much much less and recieve far more. In other words, before the days of tractors, fertilizers, combines, and such, mere existence demanded that the vast majority of society work on a farm. Now with all these advances in technology, that have necessarily obseleted those previous jobs, people are free to pursue other tasks, knowing that if they work a couple hours a day they will at least have basic sustenance. Although it may be true that people _raise_ their standards of living, and thus keep on working just as hard (if not harder), this is a matter of personal choice. Because people are basically rational, we can reasonably assume that they are happier working hard.
Some people stop making stuff and start making other stuff? Complete jibberish. Anyways, I am under the impression that you have a romantic view of previous centuries. If so you have little appreciation for history or economics.
The only shred of legitimacy that your argument has is that if innovation happens TOO rapidly and people get displaced TOO fast, then we could potentially have problems. But we are in no danger of that today. In fact, on the aggregate, the gains in efficiency that we have made in the past decade pale in comparison to others. What little oil workers there are would be READILY absorbed into today's economy. The vast majority of the people unemployed in this country (very low percentage by historical standards) today are unemployable and/or simply don't wish to work; it's not the jobs don't exist for the taking. In other words, if you're willing and able (as these most of these oil workers would be), you can find a decent job.