As another poster said there are plenty of forms to fill out, for a measly 20-60 USD. GIVE ME A BREAK! I know I would not and it is not because I am happy with MS.
Frankly what the settlement should do is give the left over money to some charities.
Wow, that is really insightful! I mean that in all seriousness. I do agree that our society in the quest of being "equal" has become unequal. Frankly one thing can be blamed, the judge that allowed the bone headed lawyer to succeed!
I am neither a supporter nor a nay-sayer of missile defense. I just find it missing the point. Lets say that this actually works. The enemy has twenty missiles and you have fifteen anti missiles. Well, there are five missiles that will get through. If those five missiles are nuclear, we have a problem! Ok, less than twenty, but five is enough.
I would rather promote a strong and agile military. For example, you attack us, we kick your butt. I have seen some of the things the military is investing in, eg networked soliders, person-less tanks, or planes. That is the way to go. Imagine a full army of robots! No loss of life and we still get to kick your butt. Imagine having an enemy think about attacking you, and the response is an army of kamakazi robots. The enemy thinks twice at that moment.
Or I would even prefer to think about long term space travel, like going to Mars....
I think you are incorrect here. Intelligent liars are not people who just lie. Intelligent liars create stories around their situation. To an intelligent liar the lie is the truth, and hence they are not lying. This means if an unexpected question arises then the question will be unexpected like a person who is not lying. There will be no difference in reaction.
It is not possible to catch intelligent liars using machine detection. This is the crux of my problem with the use of technology to catch criminals.
And where the problems will arise are with those people who can lie. After all a lie is only a lie if the person telling the lie thinks it is. When the person thinks they are telling the truth then the lie is not a lie anymore. Its all relative!
Where I see serious problems with this is when people use it to test for terrorists. They will only catch those people who cannot lie. Those that can lie will pass through with flying colors and bomb everything. Great, I can see the excuses now, "But he was telling the truth..."
I wish there would be a little less technology and more reliance on common sense!
Well, the value of art does not follow the scarcity rule. It applies, but only if one other criterion is fufilled, namely interest.
For example, when a painting is considered a fake the value plummets, EVEN though the painting is still very nice. The value of the painting starts by the person who paints it. If society has deemed that DaVinci is interesting then DaVinci's value will follow the scarcity rule. Like you say, if there are not many paintings for sale then the prices are high. However, if society were to say, "DaVinci sucks", you might as well use the Mona Lisa as toilet paper.
> How many times have you heard "a 6 year old could have painted that"
Whenever I hear that I say to the person, fine, so please go find a 6 year old to paint that! Just because it "looks" easy does not mean it is easy. Also remember that sometimes the act is not as hard as getting the idea.
Ok, once I was caught because there was a 6 year old how could paint. My friends son was a good artist.
No this wont work... What it will do is give a false sense of security. Recently on Discovery Channel Europe they ran a set of documentaries about art theft and art forgery.
The problem with art forgery is that there are some REALLY good forgers. The one that they interviewed could produce "original" pieces of art in the name of the original artist. The people who were to supposed to catch his forgeries could not because he was that good.
When they interviewed this Dutch forger he actually studied, and set himself in the frame of mind of the artist. EG he had a Picasso room with Picasso paint brushes, paints, etc. What was brilliant about him is that he was like an actor. You know how an actor does a role play and makes themself become the person. With someone who is that clever all that the computer analysis will do is make his work legit! And that is a bigger problem!
*) As my wife says, "Ok so who created God?" Please answer with a answer other than, "He was there".
*) Why do we have sex? Why did the Big Bang happen? For the same exact reason you break bones, drop a glass, or accidentally run over something with the lawnmower. In simple English terms "Shit happens!" Evolution is an interesting beast in that there "evolution" and "shit happens". Combine the two and we get life, and why we have sex the way we do.
*) Why do we have math? Gee, why do we have anything? There is a theory on why humans are the way they are. Humans unlike other mammals evolved the ability to communicate and ask questions. Think hard of the difference between your dog and you. Mammals can communicate, but not to the degree we can. That is an evolution over apes, whales, etc. But this this communication thing is also our downfall. You see apes will be content to just climb a tree and start munching. Humans are "dumb" in that they ask, "So why is there a sun, why is there earth, why are we here", yada, yada, yada! As we cannot answer these questions we have to somehow answer them. Result? We cope out and say, "There was this thing!..."
Don't believe me that we cope out? Ask yourself this. Ever had your kid do twenty questions? Did you answer all of them with thinking? Or did you like everybody else just cope out with answers like "Because it is!"
Oh yeah, why do we wear clothes? Well last I look in the rainforest most indigneous people still don't. Remember many moons ago kids used to get the National Geographic BECAUSE it had nude indigneous people in it. We in colder climates wear clothes because otherwise it gets damm uncomfortable.
While I see what Tim Bray is trying to get, and your explanation makes sense, it does not solve the prime problem of patents.
In the beginning of his article Tim wrote that somebody would invent something, and then build it. The patent would protect the original inventor from having his ideas "stolen". Big companies could build the idea more efficiently and you would be out of business. Folks this is bogus as has been shown very often in industry big companies go out of business because they cannot adapt fast enough. I also disagree that there is more innovation and cheaper products.
Take a look at the following url: http://www.bpmlegal.com/wselden.html. Ever heard of George Selden? Probably not. Ever heard of Henry Ford? Probably yes. You see George Selden invented the car, which he never built. He just invented it and then sold the license rights. In fact because of George Selden's patent the car industry was slowed down. It was not until Henry Ford re-invented the car industry that the car industry came to life. Henry Ford did not see the point of paying license fees, fought George Selden, and eventually won. BECAUSE of Henry Ford average people could own and drive a car.
My point is that patents are problematic and they are monopolies that slow down the adoption of technology. If the inventors were reasonable and said "We only want our invested money back and 15%" then all would be ok. The problem is that inventors use patents to become instant millionaires or billionaires. Many consider the patent lawsuit like a lottery ticket, and THAT is bad in the industry. As the ZDNET Steven Nichols (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1666755,00.a sp) says, only the lawyers win with software patents.
Nope have not held an OQO in my hand. In fact if I did I would say, "COOOL", then ask for the price, and promptly put the device down again. Regarding underpowered CPU. My PowerBook is actually very powerful, has lots of diskspace, REALLY long battery life, and if you get the 12" size is pretty darn small.
My point about the Tablet is that people who would want a tablet, do not just want the tablet. They will want the notebook first and tablet second. This is why essentially all Tablet makers switched to a rotating clam shell design. So by wanting the tablet second, it is a nice to have complementary device. More important are the notebook features.
Lets say that I like the OQO and want to buy one. Ok, here is my pricing. I do without a desktop and second notebook. The OQO is my only device. In that case at my desktop I will need an additional screen, keyboard, and mouse. Most likely also a secondary harddisk, and DVDROM/Writer. Add these things and you have another 1K added to the price tag.
Ok, lets say that OQO is not your primary device. Then you either need a desktop, or notebook. In that case you are probably looking at another 1K minimum.
In either scenario the OQO is a complementary device that is nice to have. If the OQO is a primary device then it is specific to a vertical market much like the UPS computer.
Looking at it from any perspective the OQO priced at 1899 USD is too expensive to be mainstream where a company can earn a half decent living.
Sure you will sell SOME, but the question is if you can make a business of it. I find it interesting how you are making the comparison, "If you're making a few hundred thousand bucks a year an OQO is cheap". These days there are not that MANY people making that kind of money, or at least those that have that kind of disposable income. These days people actually have budgets and have to account their monies spent.
[Sarcasm]Gee whiz for only 1899USD you get a unreadable screen, with an underpowered CPU, too small harddisk, and battery life that does not exceed many lightweight notebooks![/Sarcasm]
On a serious note, what I do not understand about these companies, like the Tablet PC companies is that these devices are ideal complementary devices. Price the device at less than 1K and people will buy these devices. Price them near 2K and they will be niche devices that people will look at, comment as interesting, and move on.
Re:low unemployment compared to europe
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
Lets clarify this one. They in Europe have a ton of social programs that NOBODY can pay for that the US does not.
Lets be very clear about this, Europe is going through some major problems themselves. The left leaning folks are making it difficult for Europe to restructure.
Overall the problem is one where the Western Societies have to find a place for themselves. This is the globalization coming back to bite us in the butt.
Take a look at his filmography http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000229/. There is Shrek 2, Jurassic Park 4, Men in Black 2, etc. To the movies you mentioned it is kind of hard to make a second version. Ok, not impossible, but not easy.
ET: Made before the Version x craze. Sort of hard as well since the alien, well did leave.
Minority Report: Not easy, the main characters were split apart and the entire program destroyed. Part 2 would be an entirely new movie.
Schindler's List: Not even possible. This was a factual movie and part two would seem REALLY tacky.
Exactly, my point... You don't like closed source or do not want to pay, well there is Open Source. There is legitamite NO REASON for anyone to pirate software.
This is where I say "Who are you to make such a judgement?". The law is the law. If you don't agree with it, fine! But to break the law is wrong.
Instead why not be productive and use or listen to those people who believe in the same ideals like you. There is Open Source, and there are bands who believe in a looser copyright. By doing that you are sending a message that copyrights should be less, etc.
You know that is NOT YOUR CHOICE to make. If somebody wants to sell their software for 50 USD then it is their right. If they don't end up selling anything then it is their problem. It is NOT your right to share that software.
Just like it is not the right of any corporation to take GPL software integrate it into their software without giving the changes or deriviations back. The copyright knife cuts two ways.
What scares me is that you actually believe this. First copyright was introduced in England to promote the ability of the publisher to recoup their costs when creating a work. Prior to that publishing houses in the 17'th century would copy like manics thus depriving the artists of their income. So please check your history a bit. In fact copyright was considered in Roman times. Just nothing was done about it, until printing presses made it cheap to pirate literature. You see before copyright the king and queen dictated who printed what, when and how!
The solution to piracy is not to consider everything as sharing. The solution is to either buy or not buy. If you don't buy then use Open Source.
About making money by offering support is a model that some can take advantage of. However, it is not a right that you enforce. It is choice of the software provider.
You raise a point on something that does not exactly relate to the point. Yes piracy is a problem, and maybe it is overstated. But the results of piracy is that small business owners are being hurt more often than the big business owners.
In fact the pirates are only making it easier for the big corporations to squash the smaller companies. The big companies can deal with piracy because it is a calculated factor. The small companies cannot deal with piracy as you are literally taking the food of the software vendor off the table.
Pirates no matter how it is spun are hurting everybody involved. The only not hurt are the big coporations, which I think is ironic!
Software in general is covered by copyright, whether it be closed source or open source. Piracy is breaking copyright laws because you are using software that you are not entitled to. Therefore a pirate is no better than those corporations that steal Open Source software.
The problem with the analogy of putting something illegal into the contract is that it is not illegal. For example the program rm can be used to delete your home directory, and yet it is not considered illegal. If you delete your home directory you cannot sue the creators of the rm program.
So now consider if a program that has a button that can be used to delete the files in your home directory. Well that is legal, just don't press the button. Now if the license of the program states that if you use an illegal copy it will delete your home directory, then that is fine as you are being warned. Murder and slavery are illegal by definition, deleting your files in your home directory is not. What is illegal is to do delete the files without having stated the conditions ahead of time.
1) The shareware can charge whatever price they feel is right. If the price is too high then nobody will register. It is the shareware author's choice.
2) If you have a copy of the software that does not work as you expect it, then DON'T BUY IT, and don't ask for support. If you use the software then buy it! It is that simple.
3) Piracy has NO justifications whatsoever. If you don't like it, use open source and don't pay a cent. But don't pirate because you are a cheap ass.
I read your post and wondered are you being serious? It sounds a bit sarcastic, but I am not sure. In fact I wonder about DMail in the first place. Am I the only person who sees dejavu all over again? Ever heard of Compuserve? Compuserve had mail that could only be sent among Compuserve users. Then later gateways were created, and eventually the Internet became popular. Why are we even considering this "brilliant" DMail solution? It just brings us back to before the Internet, and all associated problems.
Imagine a society that does not see the value of intellectual property? Copyright was developed quite recently, something like 200 years. The Asian culture is MUCH MUCH older than ours. While we were still hitting each over the head with clubs Asian's had gun powder and fireworks.
So a society like this would have already wrestled with the idea of copyright and intellectual property. And probably they came to conclusion that we tend to think a bit too highly of our ingenuity. Intellectual property rests on the assertion that only one person can have a unique thought. Maybe Asians see this as a silly idea.
Consider the following. A European develops gun powder and patents it. OOOPS Asian's had already thought of it several thousand years earlier!
I have no idea how much truth there is, but the parent poster was trying to illustrate that there is a bit of a culture clash.
Slashdot Mirror
As another poster said there are plenty of forms to fill out, for a measly 20-60 USD. GIVE ME A BREAK! I know I would not and it is not because I am happy with MS.
Frankly what the settlement should do is give the left over money to some charities.
Wow, that is really insightful! I mean that in all seriousness. I do agree that our society in the quest of being "equal" has become unequal. Frankly one thing can be blamed, the judge that allowed the bone headed lawyer to succeed!
I am neither a supporter nor a nay-sayer of missile defense. I just find it missing the point. Lets say that this actually works. The enemy has twenty missiles and you have fifteen anti missiles. Well, there are five missiles that will get through. If those five missiles are nuclear, we have a problem! Ok, less than twenty, but five is enough.
I would rather promote a strong and agile military. For example, you attack us, we kick your butt. I have seen some of the things the military is investing in, eg networked soliders, person-less tanks, or planes. That is the way to go. Imagine a full army of robots! No loss of life and we still get to kick your butt. Imagine having an enemy think about attacking you, and the response is an army of kamakazi robots. The enemy thinks twice at that moment.
Or I would even prefer to think about long term space travel, like going to Mars....
I think you are incorrect here. Intelligent liars are not people who just lie. Intelligent liars create stories around their situation. To an intelligent liar the lie is the truth, and hence they are not lying. This means if an unexpected question arises then the question will be unexpected like a person who is not lying. There will be no difference in reaction.
It is not possible to catch intelligent liars using machine detection. This is the crux of my problem with the use of technology to catch criminals.
BINGO!!!!
And where the problems will arise are with those people who can lie. After all a lie is only a lie if the person telling the lie thinks it is. When the person thinks they are telling the truth then the lie is not a lie anymore. Its all relative!
Where I see serious problems with this is when people use it to test for terrorists. They will only catch those people who cannot lie. Those that can lie will pass through with flying colors and bomb everything. Great, I can see the excuses now, "But he was telling the truth..."
I wish there would be a little less technology and more reliance on common sense!
Well, the value of art does not follow the scarcity rule. It applies, but only if one other criterion is fufilled, namely interest.
For example, when a painting is considered a fake the value plummets, EVEN though the painting is still very nice. The value of the painting starts by the person who paints it. If society has deemed that DaVinci is interesting then DaVinci's value will follow the scarcity rule. Like you say, if there are not many paintings for sale then the prices are high. However, if society were to say, "DaVinci sucks", you might as well use the Mona Lisa as toilet paper.
> How many times have you heard "a 6 year old could have painted that"
Whenever I hear that I say to the person, fine, so please go find a 6 year old to paint that! Just because it "looks" easy does not mean it is easy. Also remember that sometimes the act is not as hard as getting the idea.
Ok, once I was caught because there was a 6 year old how could paint. My friends son was a good artist.
No this wont work... What it will do is give a false sense of security. Recently on Discovery Channel Europe they ran a set of documentaries about art theft and art forgery.
The problem with art forgery is that there are some REALLY good forgers. The one that they interviewed could produce "original" pieces of art in the name of the original artist. The people who were to supposed to catch his forgeries could not because he was that good.
When they interviewed this Dutch forger he actually studied, and set himself in the frame of mind of the artist. EG he had a Picasso room with Picasso paint brushes, paints, etc. What was brilliant about him is that he was like an actor. You know how an actor does a role play and makes themself become the person. With someone who is that clever all that the computer analysis will do is make his work legit! And that is a bigger problem!
I read some of the other posts and your posts...
So here I will introduce some of my points.
*) As my wife says, "Ok so who created God?" Please answer with a answer other than, "He was there".
*) Why do we have sex? Why did the Big Bang happen? For the same exact reason you break bones, drop a glass, or accidentally run over something with the lawnmower. In simple English terms "Shit happens!" Evolution is an interesting beast in that there "evolution" and "shit happens". Combine the two and we get life, and why we have sex the way we do.
*) Why do we have math? Gee, why do we have anything? There is a theory on why humans are the way they are. Humans unlike other mammals evolved the ability to communicate and ask questions. Think hard of the difference between your dog and you. Mammals can communicate, but not to the degree we can. That is an evolution over apes, whales, etc. But this this communication thing is also our downfall. You see apes will be content to just climb a tree and start munching. Humans are "dumb" in that they ask, "So why is there a sun, why is there earth, why are we here", yada, yada, yada! As we cannot answer these questions we have to somehow answer them. Result? We cope out and say, "There was this thing!..."
Don't believe me that we cope out? Ask yourself this. Ever had your kid do twenty questions? Did you answer all of them with thinking? Or did you like everybody else just cope out with answers like "Because it is!"
Oh yeah, why do we wear clothes? Well last I look in the rainforest most indigneous people still don't. Remember many moons ago kids used to get the National Geographic BECAUSE it had nude indigneous people in it. We in colder climates wear clothes because otherwise it gets damm uncomfortable.
While I see what Tim Bray is trying to get, and your explanation makes sense, it does not solve the prime problem of patents.
a sp) says, only the lawyers win with software patents.
In the beginning of his article Tim wrote that somebody would invent something, and then build it. The patent would protect the original inventor from having his ideas "stolen". Big companies could build the idea more efficiently and you would be out of business. Folks this is bogus as has been shown very often in industry big companies go out of business because they cannot adapt fast enough. I also disagree that there is more innovation and cheaper products.
Take a look at the following url: http://www.bpmlegal.com/wselden.html. Ever heard of George Selden? Probably not. Ever heard of Henry Ford? Probably yes. You see George Selden invented the car, which he never built. He just invented it and then sold the license rights. In fact because of George Selden's patent the car industry was slowed down. It was not until Henry Ford re-invented the car industry that the car industry came to life. Henry Ford did not see the point of paying license fees, fought George Selden, and eventually won. BECAUSE of Henry Ford average people could own and drive a car.
My point is that patents are problematic and they are monopolies that slow down the adoption of technology. If the inventors were reasonable and said "We only want our invested money back and 15%" then all would be ok. The problem is that inventors use patents to become instant millionaires or billionaires. Many consider the patent lawsuit like a lottery ticket, and THAT is bad in the industry. As the ZDNET Steven Nichols (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1666755,00.
Well, no and yes...
Check here...
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/North_America
What you are including is traditionally refered to as Central America.
Nope have not held an OQO in my hand. In fact if I did I would say, "COOOL", then ask for the price, and promptly put the device down again. Regarding underpowered CPU. My PowerBook is actually very powerful, has lots of diskspace, REALLY long battery life, and if you get the 12" size is pretty darn small.
My point about the Tablet is that people who would want a tablet, do not just want the tablet. They will want the notebook first and tablet second. This is why essentially all Tablet makers switched to a rotating clam shell design. So by wanting the tablet second, it is a nice to have complementary device. More important are the notebook features.
Lets say that I like the OQO and want to buy one. Ok, here is my pricing. I do without a desktop and second notebook. The OQO is my only device. In that case at my desktop I will need an additional screen, keyboard, and mouse. Most likely also a secondary harddisk, and DVDROM/Writer. Add these things and you have another 1K added to the price tag.
Ok, lets say that OQO is not your primary device. Then you either need a desktop, or notebook. In that case you are probably looking at another 1K minimum.
In either scenario the OQO is a complementary device that is nice to have. If the OQO is a primary device then it is specific to a vertical market much like the UPS computer.
Looking at it from any perspective the OQO priced at 1899 USD is too expensive to be mainstream where a company can earn a half decent living.
Sure you will sell SOME, but the question is if you can make a business of it. I find it interesting how you are making the comparison, "If you're making a few hundred thousand bucks a year an OQO is cheap". These days there are not that MANY people making that kind of money, or at least those that have that kind of disposable income. These days people actually have budgets and have to account their monies spent.
[Sarcasm]Gee whiz for only 1899USD you get a unreadable screen, with an underpowered CPU, too small harddisk, and battery life that does not exceed many lightweight notebooks![/Sarcasm]
On a serious note, what I do not understand about these companies, like the Tablet PC companies is that these devices are ideal complementary devices. Price the device at less than 1K and people will buy these devices. Price them near 2K and they will be niche devices that people will look at, comment as interesting, and move on.
Lets clarify this one. They in Europe have a ton of social programs that NOBODY can pay for that the US does not.
Lets be very clear about this, Europe is going through some major problems themselves. The left leaning folks are making it difficult for Europe to restructure.
Overall the problem is one where the Western Societies have to find a place for themselves. This is the globalization coming back to bite us in the butt.
Take a look at his filmography http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000229/. There is Shrek 2, Jurassic Park 4, Men in Black 2, etc. To the movies you mentioned it is kind of hard to make a second version. Ok, not impossible, but not easy.
ET: Made before the Version x craze. Sort of hard as well since the alien, well did leave.
Minority Report: Not easy, the main characters were split apart and the entire program destroyed. Part 2 would be an entirely new movie.
Schindler's List: Not even possible. This was a factual movie and part two would seem REALLY tacky.
Exactly, my point... You don't like closed source or do not want to pay, well there is Open Source. There is legitamite NO REASON for anyone to pirate software.
This is where I say "Who are you to make such a judgement?". The law is the law. If you don't agree with it, fine! But to break the law is wrong.
Instead why not be productive and use or listen to those people who believe in the same ideals like you. There is Open Source, and there are bands who believe in a looser copyright. By doing that you are sending a message that copyrights should be less, etc.
You know that is NOT YOUR CHOICE to make. If somebody wants to sell their software for 50 USD then it is their right. If they don't end up selling anything then it is their problem. It is NOT your right to share that software.
Just like it is not the right of any corporation to take GPL software integrate it into their software without giving the changes or deriviations back. The copyright knife cuts two ways.
What scares me is that you actually believe this. First copyright was introduced in England to promote the ability of the publisher to recoup their costs when creating a work. Prior to that publishing houses in the 17'th century would copy like manics thus depriving the artists of their income. So please check your history a bit. In fact copyright was considered in Roman times. Just nothing was done about it, until printing presses made it cheap to pirate literature. You see before copyright the king and queen dictated who printed what, when and how!
The solution to piracy is not to consider everything as sharing. The solution is to either buy or not buy. If you don't buy then use Open Source.
About making money by offering support is a model that some can take advantage of. However, it is not a right that you enforce. It is choice of the software provider.
You raise a point on something that does not exactly relate to the point. Yes piracy is a problem, and maybe it is overstated. But the results of piracy is that small business owners are being hurt more often than the big business owners.
In fact the pirates are only making it easier for the big corporations to squash the smaller companies. The big companies can deal with piracy because it is a calculated factor. The small companies cannot deal with piracy as you are literally taking the food of the software vendor off the table.
Pirates no matter how it is spun are hurting everybody involved. The only not hurt are the big coporations, which I think is ironic!
Software in general is covered by copyright, whether it be closed source or open source. Piracy is breaking copyright laws because you are using software that you are not entitled to. Therefore a pirate is no better than those corporations that steal Open Source software.
The problem with the analogy of putting something illegal into the contract is that it is not illegal. For example the program rm can be used to delete your home directory, and yet it is not considered illegal. If you delete your home directory you cannot sue the creators of the rm program.
So now consider if a program that has a button that can be used to delete the files in your home directory. Well that is legal, just don't press the button. Now if the license of the program states that if you use an illegal copy it will delete your home directory, then that is fine as you are being warned. Murder and slavery are illegal by definition, deleting your files in your home directory is not. What is illegal is to do delete the files without having stated the conditions ahead of time.
1) The shareware can charge whatever price they feel is right. If the price is too high then nobody will register. It is the shareware author's choice.
2) If you have a copy of the software that does not work as you expect it, then DON'T BUY IT, and don't ask for support. If you use the software then buy it! It is that simple.
3) Piracy has NO justifications whatsoever. If you don't like it, use open source and don't pay a cent. But don't pirate because you are a cheap ass.
I read your post and wondered are you being serious? It sounds a bit sarcastic, but I am not sure. In fact I wonder about DMail in the first place. Am I the only person who sees dejavu all over again? Ever heard of Compuserve? Compuserve had mail that could only be sent among Compuserve users. Then later gateways were created, and eventually the Internet became popular. Why are we even considering this "brilliant" DMail solution? It just brings us back to before the Internet, and all associated problems.
Well, lets spin this one...
Imagine a society that does not see the value of intellectual property? Copyright was developed quite recently, something like 200 years. The Asian culture is MUCH MUCH older than ours. While we were still hitting each over the head with clubs Asian's had gun powder and fireworks.
So a society like this would have already wrestled with the idea of copyright and intellectual property. And probably they came to conclusion that we tend to think a bit too highly of our ingenuity. Intellectual property rests on the assertion that only one person can have a unique thought. Maybe Asians see this as a silly idea.
Consider the following. A European develops gun powder and patents it. OOOPS Asian's had already thought of it several thousand years earlier!
I have no idea how much truth there is, but the parent poster was trying to illustrate that there is a bit of a culture clash.