Intellectual property and material property are dual concepts in many ways, and that is why trying to morph the former into the latter, mostly through government granted monopolies does not work.
For example, if I own one Toyota Camry, I'm happy because I'm on wheels. If I own two of them, I still feel richer. If I own three of them, I feel richer. If I own 500 of them, I open a couple of dealerships and I cash out on them. I'm linearly as rich as many Camrys I own and there is no limit to that.
However if I'm granted the right by the 20th Century Fox to watch the original star wars trilogy, by owning the DVD for example, I'm richer that if I didn't have that right, but I'm not interested in getting that right one thousand times.
But while I can own virtually any number of Camrys , I only have a limited movie watching bandwidth, that is I can only watch that many movies. Having the right to watch more movies tha n I can actually absorb is worthless.
So there you are : material goods have a scarcity on the supply side, and no scarcity on the receiving side. It costs much more to produce one thousand cars than one, but one individual can enjoy receiving as many car as available to him. Intellectual goods have a scarcity on the receiving side : people's bandwidth is limited, but no scarcity on the supply side : it does not cost more to grand one thousand licenses than one.
I fully agree. While material property is firmly rooted in nature, because of the scarcity of material goods, IP is a purely artificial and ad-hoc concept. It might be acceptable for pragmatic reasons, but in no way questionning its fitness to a particular technological era amounts to questioning the concept of property in general, as some proponents of the status quo would have us believe.
All Atari systems were too primitive. Actually the most interesting period for nostalgy playing is the late 80s-early 90s 16/32 bit systems. Their games were seriously designed (often in Japan) for playability and are therefore still fun to play even today. Their 2D graphics were still abstract and cartoony enough so as not to shock someone used to contemporary 3D like for example a PS1 or a Dreamcast would, yet not as ridiculously blocky and ugly as on a 2600. And they are abundant, and hence dirt cheap, on eBay. A functionning system and tens of games for under $75, shipping included.
To me they did : I consider it ethically all right to violate the copyright of works that are made unavailable otherwise by the unwillingness of the rights owner to "copy" them anymore.
I don't have celebrity game creators in very high esteem. In almost 30 years, they have failed to make gaming a recognized art form, which cinema had achieved at the same age by the 1930s. They leave no legacy, since video games mostly disappear with the platform they were running on. And game designers, instead of concentrating on the entertainment value of their games, like to hype BS "artificial intelligence", "real virtual worlds that interract like the real real world", and armchair philosopher's mumbo jumbo.
The reason for DRM in Europe
on
European DRM News
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Copy-protected audio CDs are much more present in Europe mostly because it is made of small, insulated markets where people are culturally much less litigious, and where the legal system often does not offer the possibility of class-action lawsuits.
Imagine launching a copy-protected CD on the US market and ending up with a 1 or 2 million people demanding damages.
This just shows how judicially insecure media companies feel on that subject.
By the way, did you know that the life expectancy in the US is lower than in most other industrialized nations, and that the infant mortality rate is significantly higher ? It must be that the US is closer to the soviet system than most others.
How people can show up to a job day in and day out and fuck the dog all day every day is beyond me. In my experience this leads to the LONGEST days imaginable
What do you mean by "in your experience" ? What the hell did you do to that dog ?
European "rocket science" in general is indeed in effect, French. Other ESA countries contributions to the Ariane program falls far behind the French industry's and CNES'. Before Ariane, France was the only European nation to have launched a payload into orbit on its own. Italy does lead the effort for ESA's new, lightweight booster Vega, but Ariane is a French thing.
For example the British don't even make the ballistic missiles that carry their strategic nuclear force : they are American Trident and the White House keep a tight control over them.
As for Airbus, obviously it couldn't have happened without the contribution from the European partners. But the French contribution is worth being proud of, and includes some of the most high tech aspects of the design. And Airbus's home is the French city of Toulouse.
By experience, my impression is that when you translate a _well written_ text from any language into any other, the translation will usually be longer, since the nice colloquialisms efficient structures have to be paraphrased.
Of course that applies mostly to languages based on the Roman alphabet or other equivalent writing systems. I have always considered Chinese ideograms to be a superior writing system for its compactness and elegance.
Several French cities, including Paris, are available at www.pagesjaunes.fr (France Telecom's yellow pages). I used it to see the building in Bordeaux where my brother had found an appartment, and to check out the hospital where I was born according to my birth certificate, etc... fun.
On the City of Paris' website http://www.paris.fr/FR/Environnement/bruit/carto_b ruit/default.ASP also gives you a 3d map of the amount of street noise received by each building. Useful before you buy an apartment.
Since the rise of the EUR/USD rate was mirrored by the rise in the USD-quoted rate for crude oil, you can already say that oil is priced in euros : American refineries saw the price of their supply rise much more sharply than their European counterparts.
Americans have this delusion that the presence of their brands in popular culture worldwide amounts to a political statement that people actually like the US government.
Think for example : whenever you turn on your Nintendo GC or your Sony PS2, when you go eat in a sushi bar, does it amount to a hail to the Emperor of Japan ?
Each time you drive out of a Wall Mart parking lot with your trunck full of Chinese products, does it amount to a statement of loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party ?
I completely agree with your boss. Programming is one of these activities, along with research in mathematics or artistic creation, where experience is worthless.
If I were to hire programmers, I would test of thoroughly they know the standards, tools, patterns and algorithms. Past experience can only be a source of inflexibility due to adherence to alien practices. The only value of experience is to contribute to wire the details of standards, tools, etc better into the programmer's brains.
Protection of free speech is included in the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights, which is itself made part of the preamble of the 1958 constitution.
However one must understand that the constitution in France has a function that is radically different than it has in the US.
In France the constitution's role is solely to give a framework for the functionning of political institutions, including the legislative and executive branches of government. It is not meant to directly regulate the functionning of society itself. Such questions are exclusively dealt with by the law.
The only way to leverage the constitution is to have a bill vetoed by the Constitutional Council after it is voted by the parliement, on the grounds that it is unconstitutional, including that it is countrary to the 1789 preamble. Appeal to the Constitutional Council can only be made by members of the parliement, usually the opposition. (and by members of the cabinet, which is irrelevant in practice since the cabinet is the origin of most of the laws).
Such vetoes on part of important laws are relatively routine (say once or twice a year), but I cannot recall a specific case of free-speech issue. Constitutionnal principles that are invoked are usually the fact that the law cannot augment the financial burden of the government, the principle of equality between citizens or the presumption of innocence.
But there's no way you can use the constitution in courts. Courts only care about the law itself.
The only thing that one can do to appeal a court order on the basis of "constitutional" principles is to go to European instances.
Meanwhile, speaking of fresh water, Coca Cola has just given up selling Dasani tap-wapter-in-a-bottle in the whole Europe, hence stopping the only American attempt to dent this market dominated by Swiss-based Nestle and French-based Danone, who sell SPRING water under various brands.
Dasani tap water is good enough for some people, and the brand will still be sold in the US. And Russia.
the US *IS* International Trade Law. The worlds most important economy protected by the worlds biggest guns.
It is debatable wether today the US is bigger an economy than the EU, and it certainly is not bigger enough to fix the rules, as you can see with the steel tariffs, the export tax breaks disputes in the WTO, the GE and Microsoft anti-trust rulings, etc.
In any case, be sure to enjoy your own arrogance, because within two decades the US will be at most the third economy in the world, after China (internal growth) and the EU (external growth).
A country that failed to economically strong-arm Nigeria and Mexico into a supporting war they didn't give a damn about should notbe too delusionnal about its economic influence.
According to my experience with loyalty (of the buy 3 for $10 with the card, or else one is $5) cards in the US (I'm originally from Europe), a good rule of thumb to know if a grocery supermarket chain is any good is to see if it has a loyalty card program. All those that have one are not good, and most of those that don't are a good place to shop for food (whether they're cheaper like Winco, or they taste better like Whole Foods).
According to EU rules, it is illegal for a European country to have a main VAT rate of less than 15%.
France is far from being the worst in Europe. And last time it was increased, it was by a conservative government. Last time it was decreased, it was by a socialist government.
And the problem with Apple price is that they inflate their price even before VAT. Prices before VAT correspond to about EUR1 = USD1.05 while the market price is at least EUR1=USD1.22
That is the third post where I explain that, but apparently that's what it takes to dispel the misunderstandings due to the original article's inaccuracy : the blank media levy is not a compensation for an illigal activity (piracy), but for a legal activity (fair use). And you pay taxes for many government services that you don't use (roads you will never drive on, public schools even if your children attend private schools, etc). It is a problem of economic efficiency and common good.
To begin with, there is the gaping flaw that there is simply no fair way to determine how to apportion the money back to the individual artists.
That is the problem of the artists' unions (such as the SACEM, which in France represents composers and musicians), which are private, independent organizations. My guess is that they distribute the money in the same proportions as the rest of the royalties, which are based on the declarations of the businesses that owe royalties (a bar, restaurant, movie producer would declare to have used this or this). They could also use CD sale figures. I don't know what they do.
No : the whole intelectual property system is artificial, and based on what the law says people can do and cannot do. In such a setting, nothing is a natural right and everything is a priviledge and we could very well imagine that fair use would be suppressed, which some in the US have been trying to do.
That's where the blank media levy comes from : in negociating with right holders, trade-offs have to be found between efficiency, enforceability and the interests of the different parties. The common ground that has been found includes the blank media levy in France, while in the US they would rather take steps to suppress fair use.
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For example, if I own one Toyota Camry, I'm happy because I'm on wheels. If I own two of them, I still feel richer. If I own three of them, I feel richer. If I own 500 of them, I open a couple of dealerships and I cash out on them. I'm linearly as rich as many Camrys I own and there is no limit to that.
However if I'm granted the right by the 20th Century Fox to watch the original star wars trilogy, by owning the DVD for example, I'm richer that if I didn't have that right, but I'm not interested in getting that right one thousand times.
But while I can own virtually any number of Camrys , I only have a limited movie watching bandwidth, that is I can only watch that many movies. Having the right to watch more movies tha n I can actually absorb is worthless.
So there you are : material goods have a scarcity on the supply side, and no scarcity on the receiving side. It costs much more to produce one thousand cars than one, but one individual can enjoy receiving as many car as available to him. Intellectual goods have a scarcity on the receiving side : people's bandwidth is limited, but no scarcity on the supply side : it does not cost more to grand one thousand licenses than one.
I fully agree. While material property is firmly rooted in nature, because of the scarcity of material goods, IP is a purely artificial and ad-hoc concept. It might be acceptable for pragmatic reasons, but in no way questionning its fitness to a particular technological era amounts to questioning the concept of property in general, as some proponents of the status quo would have us believe.
but who in their right mind would still want to put hours into beating an 8-bit game
That is precisely what I'm saying. 8 bit systems are not the optimal choice for having fun with obsolete video games. Sega Genesis, SNES and NEC are.
All Atari systems were too primitive. Actually the most interesting period for nostalgy playing is the late 80s-early 90s 16/32 bit systems. Their games were seriously designed (often in Japan) for playability and are therefore still fun to play even today. Their 2D graphics were still abstract and cartoony enough so as not to shock someone used to contemporary 3D like for example a PS1 or a Dreamcast would, yet not as ridiculously blocky and ugly as on a 2600. And they are abundant, and hence dirt cheap, on eBay. A functionning system and tens of games for under $75, shipping included.
To me they did : I consider it ethically all right to violate the copyright of works that are made unavailable otherwise by the unwillingness of the rights owner to "copy" them anymore.
I don't have celebrity game creators in very high esteem. In almost 30 years, they have failed to make gaming a recognized art form, which cinema had achieved at the same age by the 1930s. They leave no legacy, since video games mostly disappear with the platform they were running on. And game designers, instead of concentrating on the entertainment value of their games, like to hype BS "artificial intelligence", "real virtual worlds that interract like the real real world", and armchair philosopher's mumbo jumbo.
Copy-protected audio CDs are much more present in Europe mostly because it is made of small, insulated markets where people are culturally much less litigious, and where the legal system often does not offer the possibility of class-action lawsuits.
Imagine launching a copy-protected CD on the US market and ending up with a 1 or 2 million people demanding damages.
This just shows how judicially insecure media companies feel on that subject.
By the way, did you know that the life expectancy in the US is lower than in most other industrialized nations, and that the infant mortality rate is significantly higher ? It must be that the US is closer to the soviet system than most others.
What do you mean by "in your experience" ? What the hell did you do to that dog ?
European "rocket science" in general is indeed in effect, French. Other ESA countries contributions to the Ariane program falls far behind the French industry's and CNES'. Before Ariane, France was the only European nation to have launched a payload into orbit on its own. Italy does lead the effort for ESA's new, lightweight booster Vega, but Ariane is a French thing.
For example the British don't even make the ballistic missiles that carry their strategic nuclear force : they are American Trident and the White House keep a tight control over them.
As for Airbus, obviously it couldn't have happened without the contribution from the European partners. But the French contribution is worth being proud of, and includes some of the most high tech aspects of the design. And Airbus's home is the French city of Toulouse.
By experience, my impression is that when you translate a _well written_ text from any language into any other, the translation will usually be longer, since the nice colloquialisms efficient structures have to be paraphrased.
Of course that applies mostly to languages based on the Roman alphabet or other equivalent writing systems. I have always considered Chinese ideograms to be a superior writing system for its compactness and elegance.
And what about these sodomy laws in some states ?
Several French cities, including Paris, are available at www.pagesjaunes.fr (France Telecom's yellow pages). I used it to see the building in Bordeaux where my brother had found an appartment, and to check out the hospital where I was born according to my birth certificate, etc... fun.
b ruit/default.ASP also gives you a 3d map of the amount of street noise received by each building. Useful before you buy an apartment.
On the City of Paris' website http://www.paris.fr/FR/Environnement/bruit/carto_
Since the rise of the EUR/USD rate was mirrored by the rise in the USD-quoted rate for crude oil, you can already say that oil is priced in euros : American refineries saw the price of their supply rise much more sharply than their European counterparts.
Americans have this delusion that the presence of their brands in popular culture worldwide amounts to a political statement that people actually like the US government.
Think for example : whenever you turn on your Nintendo GC or your Sony PS2, when you go eat in a sushi bar, does it amount to a hail to the Emperor of Japan ?
Each time you drive out of a Wall Mart parking lot with your trunck full of Chinese products, does it amount to a statement of loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party ?
I completely agree with your boss. Programming is one of these activities, along with research in mathematics or artistic creation, where experience is worthless.
If I were to hire programmers, I would test of thoroughly they know the standards, tools, patterns and algorithms. Past experience can only be a source of inflexibility due to adherence to alien practices. The only value of experience is to contribute to wire the details of standards, tools, etc better into the programmer's brains.
House burglars in Japan are probably often caught while they are putting their shoes back on after they leave the crime scene.
Protection of free speech is included in the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights, which is itself made part of the preamble of the 1958 constitution.
However one must understand that the constitution in France has a function that is radically different than it has in the US.
In France the constitution's role is solely to give a framework for the functionning of political institutions, including the legislative and executive branches of government. It is not meant to directly regulate the functionning of society itself. Such questions are exclusively dealt with by the law.
The only way to leverage the constitution is to have a bill vetoed by the Constitutional Council after it is voted by the parliement, on the grounds that it is unconstitutional, including that it is countrary to the 1789 preamble. Appeal to the Constitutional Council can only be made by members of the parliement, usually the opposition. (and by members of the cabinet, which is irrelevant in practice since the cabinet is the origin of most of the laws).
Such vetoes on part of important laws are relatively routine (say once or twice a year), but I cannot recall a specific case of free-speech issue. Constitutionnal principles that are invoked are usually the fact that the law cannot augment the financial burden of the government, the principle of equality between citizens or the presumption of innocence.
But there's no way you can use the constitution in courts. Courts only care about the law itself.
The only thing that one can do to appeal a court order on the basis of "constitutional" principles is to go to European instances.
Meanwhile, speaking of fresh water, Coca Cola has just given up selling Dasani tap-wapter-in-a-bottle in the whole Europe, hence stopping the only American attempt to dent this market dominated by Swiss-based Nestle and French-based Danone, who sell SPRING water under various brands.
Dasani tap water is good enough for some people, and the brand will still be sold in the US. And Russia.
It is debatable wether today the US is bigger an economy than the EU, and it certainly is not bigger enough to fix the rules, as you can see with the steel tariffs, the export tax breaks disputes in the WTO, the GE and Microsoft anti-trust rulings, etc.
In any case, be sure to enjoy your own arrogance, because within two decades the US will be at most the third economy in the world, after China (internal growth) and the EU (external growth).
A country that failed to economically strong-arm Nigeria and Mexico into a supporting war they didn't give a damn about should notbe too delusionnal about its economic influence.
According to my experience with loyalty (of the buy 3 for $10 with the card, or else one is $5) cards in the US (I'm originally from Europe), a good rule of thumb to know if a grocery supermarket chain is any good is to see if it has a loyalty card program. All those that have one are not good, and most of those that don't are a good place to shop for food (whether they're cheaper like Winco, or they taste better like Whole Foods).
According to EU rules, it is illegal for a European country to have a main VAT rate of less than 15%.
France is far from being the worst in Europe. And last time it was increased, it was by a conservative government. Last time it was decreased, it was by a socialist government.
And the problem with Apple price is that they inflate their price even before VAT. Prices before VAT correspond to about EUR1 = USD1.05 while the market price is at least EUR1=USD1.22
That is the third post where I explain that, but apparently that's what it takes to dispel the misunderstandings due to the original article's inaccuracy : the blank media levy is not a compensation for an illigal activity (piracy), but for a legal activity (fair use). And you pay taxes for many government services that you don't use (roads you will never drive on, public schools even if your children attend private schools, etc). It is a problem of economic efficiency and common good.
That is the problem of the artists' unions (such as the SACEM, which in France represents composers and musicians), which are private, independent organizations. My guess is that they distribute the money in the same proportions as the rest of the royalties, which are based on the declarations of the businesses that owe royalties (a bar, restaurant, movie producer would declare to have used this or this). They could also use CD sale figures. I don't know what they do.
No : the whole intelectual property system is artificial, and based on what the law says people can do and cannot do. In such a setting, nothing is a natural right and everything is a priviledge and we could very well imagine that fair use would be suppressed, which some in the US have been trying to do.
That's where the blank media levy comes from : in negociating with right holders, trade-offs have to be found between efficiency, enforceability and the interests of the different parties. The common ground that has been found includes the blank media levy in France, while in the US they would rather take steps to suppress fair use.