Thank you for your researched and objective spin. Clearly many people on slashdot have not heard of a settlement.
I got called into jury duty a few months ago and when I showed up I was assigned to a case. But they had all of the potential jurors just stand out in the hallway for what seemed like an hour. The whole time there was this nervous looking group of people down the hallway from us.
Eventually the judge called just the jurors into his chamber and gave us a very friendly talk about how we had just saved the tax payers money. He said that the nervous looking group was the defendant and legal team, and when they actually got to see the jury pool in person, the reality of the situation hit them. They decided to settle because maybe their case wasn't so good after all.
Settlements happen every day. A real attorney will tell you that very few cases actually get litigated all the way to the end.
So it should be of no surprise that most people who download from p2p will not buy the content they pirate, despite claims to the contrary. Actual consumer data shows this "try before you buy" theory is false, but that doesn't stop people from claiming it's true. It is nice to see some hard data from the software world that backs this up.
Gary Shapiro always complains about the music industry, that's part of what he's paid to do. Gary knows very well that the music industry is talking directly to the broadcasters on this, and he's feeling left out.
Why did you pirate a game and play it, if you didn't intend to buy it in the first place? If you cared enough to play it, then shouldn't you have bought it? If not, are you saying you pirated it because you didn't think you'd get enough enjoyment out of it to warrant paying full price?
How many physical CDs have you stolen because you didn't feel like paying full price for them?
And the difference here is...? Don't you see you're just rationalizing illegal behavior because you want something for free?
Thanks for the great example. Look at the p2p track data for a popular release (e.g. from BigChampagne), and then total up the sales figures for that album and singles combined across all legitimate formats (CD, iTunes, Napster, etc.). When I've done this, the data shows that many more people pirate than purchase. Surprise, but people are not inherently honest, they'll take free if it's easy and they don't think they'll get caught. There needs to be both a carrot and a stick.
Stumbled across this relevant speech from Michael Crichton. The upshot is that he laments the emergence of science and scientific critique shaped by politics rather than rigorous scientific method.
Article 1, section 8 of the US constitution explicitly describes the rights of content creators to control their works. Congress is supposed to promote the arts and sciences so that "authors and inventors [get] the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
Yeah, don't know how anyone can support a long standing concept that even made it into the document that is the foundation of the United States. Sorry for the sarcasm, but seriously!
So you're saying everyone who pirates movies and music has no intention of buying it anyway, they're just law breakers? Well, that sounds like reason enough to shut down piratebay to me.
Wrong. If I shop lifted a DVD, why do I need to buy it from the retailer? The retailer is losing sales. This isn't good for anyone in the business chain: artist, retailer, recording engineers, distributors, stock-boys. The only one it benefits is the shop-lifter.
The artist doesn't want their music to be sold, nor do the people making the movie. So why are you justifying this?
I live in Socal, where someone joked our seasons are fire, riot, flood, and earthquake. The recent Katrina disaster prompted me to get a license (I'm in category 5) and I picked up a hand-held radio, but in reality I haven't spoken to a single person. Why? I feel like I need someone to show me the ropes, but I haven't really found anyone I can relate to (e.g. in my age group). I looked into some clubs, but they're mostly older people (like 50+) or they seem to be on hiatus.
Just looking at the pictures in the ham radio books demonstrates that this hobby's high point passed back in the 70s. Read some QST magazines: yawn. So until I stumble upon someone local who's roughly my age (30s), I'm unlikely to actively participate. Back in the day the geeks were into radios, but now they're into the internet, so I predict ham radio will continue it's slow decline.
To nit pick, it's not a keeper for the majority. As you say in your final sentence, the purpose of the government is to protect everyone, and this includes the minority. The majority usually does not require protection.
New HD-DVD player: $980 HD-DVD titles: priceless (there aren't any, yet) Not being able to record: priceless Owning a player for a soon-to-be dead format: priceless
If only more people would pick up on this point! Maybe the game industry lobby needs to step up and call someone out over this. An interesting statistic would be the risk of a gun owner killing someone vs the risk of a gamer killing someone.
Note the labels set wholesale pricing, not retail pricing. This means Steve Jobs is the one who determines tracks will be $.99. There are, in fact, different price points for the same music if you go to other legitimate download stores. For example, Walmart.com charges $0.88 for the same tracks iTunes has.
If the majors sold inaudibly watermarked but non-DRMed MP3 files, would people buy them? My friends say no because they think people will find this too "big brotherish" but I think that the only ones at risk are the people violating copyright (i.e. sharing on p2ps). I'm willing to buy an INAUDIBLY watermarked mp3 file, because then I can do whatever I want with it, I don't have to worry about DRM, and I'm not at risk because I'm not infringing copyright.
Though it's late, I thought you deserved and answer. The question is not whether Google should follow China's laws or not, the question is whether Google should get into business in China, if doing so means compromising their morals (i.e. breaking their goal to "do no evil"). I imagine most, if not all, Google board members and share holders feel pretty strongly about freedom of speech, but they are not involved in Google for the sake of promoting civil liberties, they're in for the money. Everyone loves Google because they're so "good", and my point was only that they're like every other company with a profit motive. I'm not saying that's bad, I'm just trying to turn off their reality distortion field.
Originally I was a big fan of this concept, but I'm now skeptical since I've yet to see anything on the most important part of this project, namely the educational materials that will run on or be made available via the laptop. Providing Squeak is not sufficient. What material will help kids learn to read/type, basic math, history, art, etc.? Why has there been no mention of that?
And for those of you who would link to wikipedia, etc., that's not a suitable starting place for young kids. Who is supplying the basic educational material the laptop recipients will need to get started?
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for your researched and objective spin. Clearly many people on slashdot have not heard of a settlement.
I got called into jury duty a few months ago and when I showed up I was assigned to a case. But they had all of the potential jurors just stand out in the hallway for what seemed like an hour. The whole time there was this nervous looking group of people down the hallway from us.
Eventually the judge called just the jurors into his chamber and gave us a very friendly talk about how we had just saved the tax payers money. He said that the nervous looking group was the defendant and legal team, and when they actually got to see the jury pool in person, the reality of the situation hit them. They decided to settle because maybe their case wasn't so good after all.
Settlements happen every day. A real attorney will tell you that very few cases actually get litigated all the way to the end.
The only thing I see proof of here is a dark server...
So it should be of no surprise that most people who download from p2p will not buy the content they pirate, despite claims to the contrary. Actual consumer data shows this "try before you buy" theory is false, but that doesn't stop people from claiming it's true. It is nice to see some hard data from the software world that backs this up.
Gary Shapiro always complains about the music industry, that's part of what he's paid to do. Gary knows very well that the music industry is talking directly to the broadcasters on this, and he's feeling left out.
Why did you pirate a game and play it, if you didn't intend to buy it in the first place? If you cared enough to play it, then shouldn't you have bought it? If not, are you saying you pirated it because you didn't think you'd get enough enjoyment out of it to warrant paying full price?
How many physical CDs have you stolen because you didn't feel like paying full price for them?
And the difference here is...? Don't you see you're just rationalizing illegal behavior because you want something for free?
Thanks for the great example. Look at the p2p track data for a popular release (e.g. from BigChampagne), and then total up the sales figures for that album and singles combined across all legitimate formats (CD, iTunes, Napster, etc.). When I've done this, the data shows that many more people pirate than purchase. Surprise, but people are not inherently honest, they'll take free if it's easy and they don't think they'll get caught. There needs to be both a carrot and a stick.
Wii!
Stumbled across this relevant speech from Michael Crichton. The upshot is that he laments the emergence of science and scientific critique shaped by politics rather than rigorous scientific method.
q uote04.html
http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speeches/speeches_
Article 1, section 8 of the US constitution explicitly describes the rights of content creators to control their works. Congress is supposed to promote the arts and sciences so that "authors and inventors [get] the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
Yeah, don't know how anyone can support a long standing concept that even made it into the document that is the foundation of the United States. Sorry for the sarcasm, but seriously!
So you're saying everyone who pirates movies and music has no intention of buying it anyway, they're just law breakers? Well, that sounds like reason enough to shut down piratebay to me.
Wrong. If I shop lifted a DVD, why do I need to buy it from the retailer? The retailer is losing sales. This isn't good for anyone in the business chain: artist, retailer, recording engineers, distributors, stock-boys. The only one it benefits is the shop-lifter.
The artist doesn't want their music to be sold, nor do the people making the movie. So why are you justifying this?
The "Mo' Money" version?
I live in Socal, where someone joked our seasons are fire, riot, flood, and earthquake. The recent Katrina disaster prompted me to get a license (I'm in category 5) and I picked up a hand-held radio, but in reality I haven't spoken to a single person. Why? I feel like I need someone to show me the ropes, but I haven't really found anyone I can relate to (e.g. in my age group). I looked into some clubs, but they're mostly older people (like 50+) or they seem to be on hiatus.
Just looking at the pictures in the ham radio books demonstrates that this hobby's high point passed back in the 70s. Read some QST magazines: yawn. So until I stumble upon someone local who's roughly my age (30s), I'm unlikely to actively participate. Back in the day the geeks were into radios, but now they're into the internet, so I predict ham radio will continue it's slow decline.
To nit pick, it's not a keeper for the majority. As you say in your final sentence, the purpose of the government is to protect everyone, and this includes the minority. The majority usually does not require protection.
New HD-DVD player: $980
HD-DVD titles: priceless (there aren't any, yet)
Not being able to record: priceless
Owning a player for a soon-to-be dead format: priceless
I second the motion. We have 5 tall book cases worth of books, and this is what we do. Works great.
If only more people would pick up on this point! Maybe the game industry lobby needs to step up and call someone out over this. An interesting statistic would be the risk of a gun owner killing someone vs the risk of a gamer killing someone.
Note the labels set wholesale pricing, not retail pricing. This means Steve Jobs is the one who determines tracks will be $.99. There are, in fact, different price points for the same music if you go to other legitimate download stores. For example, Walmart.com charges $0.88 for the same tracks iTunes has.
No kidding. I feel motivated to perform the obligatory chant:
U!
G!
L!
Y!
You ain't got no alibi,
You UGLY!
Yah, yah,
You UGLY!
FYI, the SDMI system served a different purpose. It was used to embed copy control information, not forensic information.
If the majors sold inaudibly watermarked but non-DRMed MP3 files, would people buy them? My friends say no because they think people will find this too "big brotherish" but I think that the only ones at risk are the people violating copyright (i.e. sharing on p2ps). I'm willing to buy an INAUDIBLY watermarked mp3 file, because then I can do whatever I want with it, I don't have to worry about DRM, and I'm not at risk because I'm not infringing copyright.
What do others think?
"... like a crowd."
Though it's late, I thought you deserved and answer. The question is not whether Google should follow China's laws or not, the question is whether Google should get into business in China, if doing so means compromising their morals (i.e. breaking their goal to "do no evil"). I imagine most, if not all, Google board members and share holders feel pretty strongly about freedom of speech, but they are not involved in Google for the sake of promoting civil liberties, they're in for the money. Everyone loves Google because they're so "good", and my point was only that they're like every other company with a profit motive. I'm not saying that's bad, I'm just trying to turn off their reality distortion field.
Originally I was a big fan of this concept, but I'm now skeptical since I've yet to see anything on the most important part of this project, namely the educational materials that will run on or be made available via the laptop. Providing Squeak is not sufficient. What material will help kids learn to read/type, basic math, history, art, etc.? Why has there been no mention of that?
And for those of you who would link to wikipedia, etc., that's not a suitable starting place for young kids. Who is supplying the basic educational material the laptop recipients will need to get started?
Right, despite their slogan of "Do No Evil" Google is still a corporation. Maybe their reality distortion field will start to lose its strength now.