Your only chance this round to help at all is to vote with Republicans
Damn straight! If you're fed up with the Bushist, kleptocratic policies of the Establishment Party, your best and only recourse in the next election is to vote for the Establishment Party.
Also they send you things. Usually fake money orders, of course, and that must cost them even more.
I convinced one scammer to send his fake money order to Boston Police HQ.. probably not particularly useful in stopping the scammer, but I thought it was amusing.
Can't speak to the startup time of a cable box, since mine is only hooked up to a Roku player. The Roku takes about 3 minutes to boot up. Sure, that 3 min is annoying, but I think overall it's worth it.
Why are we as a generation willing to pay a little bit more for fair trade coffee, or purchase clothing from sweatshop-free clothing manufactuers, in order to make sure that the people working in those industries are fairly compensated, yet we don't feel the same way about compensating our musical artists?
The examples you list are smallish mass-luxury markets. Many of those same consumers also pay for copies of music from iTunes.
Now as to the question of whether I would pay extra to see the performance of a fair trade, sweatshop-free musician... well, maybe if she were also all organic and free range..
Why? It's our culture. It is a different thing to say that it has no value, than to say some must be excluded for lack of funds.
Sometimes I think that's what a lot of copyright lovers really want: to keep the bad old system where access to (some forms of) culture was dependent upon, and an outward sign of, wealth.
Your right to listen to my song ends where my right to protect my work begins.
Your wish to profit handsomely from work you enjoy is of trifling import - petty even - compared with the social value of universal, equal access to cultural data.
So just to be clear, since you've released this comment "to the world," if I could hypothetically find a way to turn it into a very successful pamphlet, and I sold millions of copies, and then turned it into First Sale: The Motion Picture, which grosses $300 million at the box office, and I don't give you a single penny---you would be okay with that, because for you to be able to stop me from doing any of that would require you to "restrict my liberties"?
I would be more than okay if you turned this comment into a blockbuster movie - I would be gratified that my work had been so useful. Clearly I wasn't able to make any money off it, and neither was anyone else - but if you figured out how, then it rocks to be you.
Are you an avid atheist?
Pretty much.
Would you be okay if I used quotes from your post to promote evangelical Christianity?
Have at it! Use my words as you like - they're just text, and clearly I didn't mind publishing them on the internet. Do not, however, falsely claim to the public that I support your kooky religious ideas. That's defamation, and unrelated to Imaginary Property issues.
You already do not really turn off your TV or cable box any more...
Sure, the button on the remote doesn't actually turn off the teevee. I was able to work around this using a $3 power strip with mechanical power switch. When my teevee is off, that fucker is OFF.
I'm thinking my next application will use Go for the API, and Ember.js for a fully decoupled client. The client needs to rely 100% on the public API not any special backend magic. Python & Ruby are both good solutions, and have lots of useful libraries; but both have some performance issues, and I'm getting less & less enamored of dynamic typing. Go gives me all the stuff I liked about Python, plus the typesafety and speed I was craving. Ember.. well, I dunno, it looks cool. Javascript is gross tho.
Unfortunate you were modded you down, because the truth is just as you say. Slashdot's troll- and shill-per-capita counts have risen a great deal since CmdrTaco stepped down and the bigcorp drones took over.
It's true, patent licensing and litigation is expensive. You know what's also expensive - product liability. Or medical malpractice. In fact, any time someone loses a lawsuit, it's expensive... and that money could be spent creating new ideas instead. Clearly, what we need to do is abolish the entire court system, right?
Just as you say, the legal system is expensive overhead. Money spent on lawyers is obviously no longer available for more productive uses.
Few people, however, would agree with your straw man solution of abolishing the entire court system. Most folks who are opposed to idea monopolies advocate fundamental reform of the legal system. The solution is fewer & less invasive laws, not anarchy.
Every dollar spent vying for monopoly control of an idea, is a dollar not spent creating new ideas. The chilling effect of Intellectual Serfdom laws - felt keenly by those who are "skilled in the art" of creating software, as opposed to the art of litigation - is indeed difficult to quantify. However some the direct financial cost of the patent regime, and its cancerous growth rate in recent years, are documented in this nicely-produced infographic.
For example, Hacker News, where the demographic is mostly made up married, financially established programmers and Silicon Valley investors>
Seriously dude, the you're comparing/. with Y Combinator news site? HN seems mostly full of bloodthirsty B-school twits. Can't recall the last time I read an actually-insightful comment there.
The DNA Lounge in SF has had live webcams for years. Definitely useful for checking out whether a show is worth the $ they are asking. Fortunately they put on fairly good stuff, so looking at their webcast often makes me get off my ass and go out. Might not work so well for a venue that sucks..
Certainly, if found valid, those monopolies would indeed be useful for stifling competition and extracting rent from the public. However afaik, so far no court has actually upheld them.
Slashdot Mirror
Due some research before posting blanket statements.
In fairness to the AC, your anecdote does not count as "research" either.
Which I suppose raises the question: are there any non-extradition countries that also manage to maintain sovereignty over their airspace?
Your only chance this round to help at all is to vote with Republicans
Damn straight! If you're fed up with the Bushist, kleptocratic policies of the Establishment Party, your best and only recourse in the next election is to vote for the Establishment Party.
You're comfortable with such an obviously illegitimate, anticompetitive law?
Have you ever been to Galveston?
No. Care to elaborate?
Also they send you things. Usually fake money orders, of course, and that must cost them even more.
I convinced one scammer to send his fake money order to Boston Police HQ.. probably not particularly useful in stopping the scammer, but I thought it was amusing.
Can't speak to the startup time of a cable box, since mine is only hooked up to a Roku player. The Roku takes about 3 minutes to boot up. Sure, that 3 min is annoying, but I think overall it's worth it.
Why are we as a generation willing to pay a little bit more for fair trade coffee, or purchase clothing from sweatshop-free clothing manufactuers, in order to make sure that the people working in those industries are fairly compensated, yet we don't feel the same way about compensating our musical artists?
The examples you list are smallish mass-luxury markets. Many of those same consumers also pay for copies of music from iTunes.
Now as to the question of whether I would pay extra to see the performance of a fair trade, sweatshop-free musician... well, maybe if she were also all organic and free range..
Why? It's our culture. It is a different thing to say that it has no value, than to say some must be excluded for lack of funds.
Sometimes I think that's what a lot of copyright lovers really want: to keep the bad old system where access to (some forms of) culture was dependent upon, and an outward sign of, wealth.
Your right to listen to my song ends where my right to protect my work begins.
Your wish to profit handsomely from work you enjoy is of trifling import - petty even - compared with the social value of universal, equal access to cultural data.
So just to be clear, since you've released this comment "to the world," if I could hypothetically find a way to turn it into a very successful pamphlet, and I sold millions of copies, and then turned it into First Sale: The Motion Picture, which grosses $300 million at the box office, and I don't give you a single penny---you would be okay with that, because for you to be able to stop me from doing any of that would require you to "restrict my liberties"?
I would be more than okay if you turned this comment into a blockbuster movie - I would be gratified that my work had been so useful. Clearly I wasn't able to make any money off it, and neither was anyone else - but if you figured out how, then it rocks to be you.
Are you an avid atheist?
Pretty much.
Would you be okay if I used quotes from your post to promote evangelical Christianity?
Have at it! Use my words as you like - they're just text, and clearly I didn't mind publishing them on the internet. Do not, however, falsely claim to the public that I support your kooky religious ideas. That's defamation, and unrelated to Imaginary Property issues.
You have more faith than I in
"What! will you never cease prating of laws to us that have swords by our sides?" - Pompey
Try a drone strike inside the US and see where that gets him.
Just curious - where would that get him?
You already do not really turn off your TV or cable box any more...
Sure, the button on the remote doesn't actually turn off the teevee. I was able to work around this using a $3 power strip with mechanical power switch. When my teevee is off, that fucker is OFF.
I'm thinking my next application will use Go for the API, and Ember.js for a fully decoupled client. The client needs to rely 100% on the public API not any special backend magic. Python & Ruby are both good solutions, and have lots of useful libraries; but both have some performance issues, and I'm getting less & less enamored of dynamic typing. Go gives me all the stuff I liked about Python, plus the typesafety and speed I was craving. Ember.. well, I dunno, it looks cool. Javascript is gross tho.
We do? I thought America had pretty much given up on manufacturing anything...
A very apt analogy.
Unfortunate you were modded you down, because the truth is just as you say. Slashdot's troll- and shill-per-capita counts have risen a great deal since CmdrTaco stepped down and the bigcorp drones took over.
It's true, patent licensing and litigation is expensive. You know what's also expensive - product liability. Or medical malpractice. In fact, any time someone loses a lawsuit, it's expensive... and that money could be spent creating new ideas instead. Clearly, what we need to do is abolish the entire court system, right?
Just as you say, the legal system is expensive overhead. Money spent on lawyers is obviously no longer available for more productive uses.
Few people, however, would agree with your straw man solution of abolishing the entire court system. Most folks who are opposed to idea monopolies advocate fundamental reform of the legal system. The solution is fewer & less invasive laws, not anarchy.
Every dollar spent vying for monopoly control of an idea, is a dollar not spent creating new ideas. The chilling effect of Intellectual Serfdom laws - felt keenly by those who are "skilled in the art" of creating software, as opposed to the art of litigation - is indeed difficult to quantify. However some the direct financial cost of the patent regime, and its cancerous growth rate in recent years, are documented in this nicely-produced infographic.
For example, Hacker News, where the demographic is mostly made up married, financially established programmers and Silicon Valley investors>
Seriously dude, the you're comparing /. with Y Combinator news site? HN seems mostly full of bloodthirsty B-school twits. Can't recall the last time I read an actually-insightful comment there.
All the things bigmedia wants them to do and...
FTFY
The DNA Lounge in SF has had live webcams for years. Definitely useful for checking out whether a show is worth the $ they are asking. Fortunately they put on fairly good stuff, so looking at their webcast often makes me get off my ass and go out. Might not work so well for a venue that sucks..
Certainly, if found valid, those monopolies would indeed be useful for stifling competition and extracting rent from the public. However afaik, so far no court has actually upheld them.