I look at the chart you linked and see significant, precipitous declines where the RIAA either ignored negative feedback or outright attacked customers:
Late '70s - disco was pushed on radio, tv, everywhere, and audiophiles (LP buyers) rejected it (the sale of hissing cassettes stayed flat unti CDs came along) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco
2005 - CD sales make a tiny comeback, along with digital, then both plummet as the RIAA lawsuit campaign focuses on university students and the MGM v. Grokster decision comes down http://www.eff.org/wp/riaa-v-people-years-later
Has the RIAA finally won the war against its customers?
Thank you for that very interesting anecdote. Please repeat it each time someone argues in favor of software patents.
Pick any purely software patent, get a gang of patent lawyers to translate it to some human-comprehensible language (such as C, ADA, etc.), then have someone "skilled in the art" of programming run a program representative of the patent's claims, except run it using a group of high school math teachers with pencils and paper instead of using a "digital computer".
If it involves a GUI, just ask the nearest kindergarten class to bring crayons to mark dots on a big piece of paper on the wall.
[...]
In fact, you could win on just one (most likely that there is no impact on the market for the work), as the analysis is one of equity, not mechanically adding up the factors and deciding in favor of whoever has the most on their side.
[...]
I suspect that the copyright holder could make a reasonable case that unauthorized publication on a website would have a negative impact on sales of the lyrics by authorized publishers, whether those authorized publishers sell sheet music, books or downloadable files. Any website with commercial activity, such as Google ads or click-throughs, in proximity to unauthorized publications is likely fried.
Here is a quickie reference to some fair use U.S. court case summaries, some of which illustrate your points about the factors and transformative works:
Amiga Trombone said: In the process of earning his money, Gates' licensing DOS and it's descendants to all comers created a standard hardware platform for personal computers, thereby forcing hardware vendors to compete on price and innovation.
Microsoft, which makes the MS-DOS and Windows operating
systems used in more than 120 million personal computers, was
accused of building a barricade of exclusionary and unreasonably
restrictive licensing agreements to deny others an opportunity to
develop and market competing products.
Gee, that doesn't quite match the version that makes Bill the great innovator that propelled the market, does it?
Amiga Trombone said: This in turn facilitated the growth of ancillary hardware, software, and tech support industries, providing thousands, if not millions, of people a living.
Well, let's see what happened a few years after the above agreement by Microsoft.
412. Most harmful of all is the message that Microsoft=s actions have conveyed to every enterprise with the potential to innovate in the computer industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft=s core products. Microsoft=s past success in hurting such companies and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and businesses that exhibit the potential to threaten Microsoft. The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft=s self-interest.
Doesn't exactly sound like MS "facilitated the growth of ancillary hardware, software, and tech support industries", to me. Ok, maybe the support "industries", but that's more revealing of the incompetence of Microsoft (which is why they needed to use illegal tactics to secure their market) rather than the "advancements" you say were made possible by Mr. Gates.
What advancements never got off the ground because they were precluded from the market by the monopolist? Cheap computing power was already available, as was a standard platform. No one can measure what was lost by the anti-competitive, market destroying actions Microsoft used to prevent being supplanted and replaced by better systems.
"Please! Love or hate microsoft, you can thank Bill Gates and company for making computers accessible to everyone. Without the sea change that was microsoft, most tech guys here would not have jobs - why you ask? Because there would be a lot less computers used by a lot less people."
Nice re-write of history to match your fantasy. Bill Gates and company didn't make computers accessible to everyone. Bill Gates and company opportunistically snatched a dirty clone of Gary Kildall's operating system after selling IBM something Bill Gates and company didn't have.
There was no "sea change that was microsoft" except for the change from collaborative computing to antagonistic computing, from a model following the scientific method of progress to a model of greed. Bill Gates and company have been holding computing back for twenty years. Evidence in the real world? Linux.
By the time Linux was 7 years old, it was already the number one threat to MS. (I'm sure you can search Google for those terms. Hint: Ballmer is the one who proclaimed the threat). MS had how many years by 1998? Yet the "upstart", using collaboration instead of secrecy, with enlightened self-interest to motivate instead of greed, and using a license that protects the USER instead of enslaving the user as a revenue generation unit, overtook Microsoft. They've been falling behind the penguin ever since.
I note while reading the comments that much of the whining against Linux and much of the promotion of MS comes right out of the CDs, handbooks and publications MS put out beginning in 1998 about how to deal with Linux. It's time to read Bill's memos at opensource.org/halloween and give up on the FUD. It doesn't work.
Business is waking up to the fact that it needs Linux. They are stampeding away from the ever-tightening cage that MS is attempting to lock around them. Microsoft's desperate rush to patent, while the USPTO is still rubber-stamping everything, will not be sufficient to stop the stampede.
Individuals have discovered that there are distributors of Linux who work very hard to make things easy. People are fed up with the continuous, expensive, damaging, time-consuming reminders of the low quality of MS products, which reminders come in the form of service packs that break existing "applications", viruses that eat data, exploits that allow MS "extensions" to standard HTML to hijack and control their computers. People are fed up with MS telling them they must not do this or that, with the threat of U.S. Marshals and the BSA kicking down doors. People are fed up with the increasing invasion of their privacy in return for the privilege of paying ever higher subscription fees for software that provides more functions for exploiters than those who pay the rental.
Linux works. Linux is easy enough for kindergartners to use, now. Linux has already revolutionized the industry. Linux sets individuals, businesses, governments and schools free from the illegally obtained, maintained and extended monopoly's choke-holds and its unwanted and unwarranted intrusions. Linux lets you own your computer, instead of being 0wn3d.
If Google has such an impact on business, can it affect U.S. policy? Is anyone else fed up with the hypocrisy of the FCC outrage over Janet Jackson during the superbowl while dozens of murders are shown on prime-time tv each night? What is morally wrong about a woman's breast?
Please link 'FCC policy' to http://www.breastfeeding.com on your website. Such as:
FCC policy (because I'm fed up with the hypocrisy)
1. - 7. look like a business opportunity. Good luck to you!
"8. Urge Free Software and Open Source developers to drop support for SCO Unixware across all softwares being developed. GNU Software (GCC, Emacs, libraries, autotools, base utils), Samba, Apache, OpenSSL, OpenOffice, XFree86, Gnome, KDE, etc."
The users of Unixware are not the problem. SCO and Canopy are the problem. FOSS developers generally do what they please; let them code.
9. - 11. are covered by Groklaw.
12., 13. look like jobs for volunteers on Slashdot or Groklaw.
This appears to be copied from groklaw.net, which is released under the Creative Commons License. So, where is the attribution required by that license?
Slashdot Mirror
I look at the chart you linked and see significant, precipitous declines where the RIAA either ignored negative feedback or outright attacked customers:
Late '70s - disco was pushed on radio, tv, everywhere, and audiophiles (LP buyers) rejected it (the sale of hissing cassettes stayed flat unti CDs came along)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco
1990s - CD sales flatten as the loudness war gets really noticeable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
2001 - CD sales take a nose-dive after the Napster decision (Feb. 2001)
http://gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/napster.htm
2005 - CD sales make a tiny comeback, along with digital, then both plummet as the RIAA lawsuit campaign focuses on university students and the MGM v. Grokster decision comes down
http://www.eff.org/wp/riaa-v-people-years-later
Has the RIAA finally won the war against its customers?
Thank you for that very interesting anecdote. Please repeat it each time someone argues in favor of software patents.
Pick any purely software patent, get a gang of patent lawyers to translate it to some human-comprehensible language (such as C, ADA, etc.), then have someone "skilled in the art" of programming run a program representative of the patent's claims, except run it using a group of high school math teachers with pencils and paper instead of using a "digital computer".
If it involves a GUI, just ask the nearest kindergarten class to bring crayons to mark dots on a big piece of paper on the wall.
Is this patented yet?
I suspect that the copyright holder could make a reasonable case that unauthorized publication on a website would have a negative impact on sales of the lyrics by authorized publishers, whether those authorized publishers sell sheet music, books or downloadable files. Any website with commercial activity, such as Google ads or click-throughs, in proximity to unauthorized publications is likely fried.
Here is a quickie reference to some fair use U.S. court case summaries, some of which illustrate your points about the factors and transformative works:
Key Court Case Summaries on Fair Use
Doesn't exactly sound like MS "facilitated the growth of ancillary hardware, software, and tech support industries", to me. Ok, maybe the support "industries", but that's more revealing of the incompetence of Microsoft (which is why they needed to use illegal tactics to secure their market) rather than the "advancements" you say were made possible by Mr. Gates.
What advancements never got off the ground because they were precluded from the market by the monopolist? Cheap computing power was already available, as was a standard platform. No one can measure what was lost by the anti-competitive, market destroying actions Microsoft used to prevent being supplanted and replaced by better systems.
"Please! Love or hate microsoft, you can thank Bill Gates and company for making computers accessible to everyone. Without the sea change that was microsoft, most tech guys here would not have jobs - why you ask? Because there would be a lot less computers used by a lot less people."
Nice re-write of history to match your fantasy. Bill Gates and company didn't make computers accessible to everyone. Bill Gates and company opportunistically snatched a dirty clone of Gary Kildall's operating system after selling IBM something Bill Gates and company didn't have.
There was no "sea change that was microsoft" except for the change from collaborative computing to antagonistic computing, from a model following the scientific method of progress to a model of greed. Bill Gates and company have been holding computing back for twenty years. Evidence in the real world? Linux.
By the time Linux was 7 years old, it was already the number one threat to MS. (I'm sure you can search Google for those terms. Hint: Ballmer is the one who proclaimed the threat). MS had how many years by 1998? Yet the "upstart", using collaboration instead of secrecy, with enlightened self-interest to motivate instead of greed, and using a license that protects the USER instead of enslaving the user as a revenue generation unit, overtook Microsoft. They've been falling behind the penguin ever since.
I note while reading the comments that much of the whining against Linux and much of the promotion of MS comes right out of the CDs, handbooks and publications MS put out beginning in 1998 about how to deal with Linux. It's time to read Bill's memos at opensource.org/halloween and give up on the FUD. It doesn't work.
Business is waking up to the fact that it needs Linux. They are stampeding away from the ever-tightening cage that MS is attempting to lock around them. Microsoft's desperate rush to patent, while the USPTO is still rubber-stamping everything, will not be sufficient to stop the stampede.
Individuals have discovered that there are distributors of Linux who work very hard to make things easy. People are fed up with the continuous, expensive, damaging, time-consuming reminders of the low quality of MS products, which reminders come in the form of service packs that break existing "applications", viruses that eat data, exploits that allow MS "extensions" to standard HTML to hijack and control their computers. People are fed up with MS telling them they must not do this or that, with the threat of U.S. Marshals and the BSA kicking down doors. People are fed up with the increasing invasion of their privacy in return for the privilege of paying ever higher subscription fees for software that provides more functions for exploiters than those who pay the rental.
Linux works. Linux is easy enough for kindergartners to use, now. Linux has already revolutionized the industry. Linux sets individuals, businesses, governments and schools free from the illegally obtained, maintained and extended monopoly's choke-holds and its unwanted and unwarranted intrusions. Linux lets you own your computer, instead of being 0wn3d.
If Google has such an impact on business, can it affect U.S. policy? Is anyone else fed up with the hypocrisy of the FCC outrage over Janet Jackson during the superbowl while dozens of murders are shown on prime-time tv each night? What is morally wrong about a woman's breast?
Please link 'FCC policy' to http://www.breastfeeding.com on your website. Such as:
FCC policy (because I'm fed up with the hypocrisy)
1. - 7. look like a business opportunity. Good luck to you!
"8. Urge Free Software and Open Source developers to drop support for SCO Unixware across all softwares being developed. GNU Software (GCC, Emacs, libraries, autotools, base utils), Samba, Apache, OpenSSL, OpenOffice, XFree86, Gnome, KDE, etc."
The users of Unixware are not the problem. SCO and Canopy are the problem. FOSS developers generally do what they please; let them code.
9. - 11. are covered by Groklaw.
12., 13. look like jobs for volunteers on Slashdot or Groklaw.
This appears to be copied from groklaw.net, which is released under the Creative Commons License. So, where is the attribution required by that license?