>How about "a music service that doesn't impose draconian so-called copy-protection measures on its audio files" for those of us that dont but enough to make subscriptions worth while? or one where we can keep the music after the subscription is up?
Hmmm, ok. Here it is. Sorry you didn't hear about it the first time.
Oh boy, not the Godwin excuse again. Let's review what he said and why people overuse it so often.
Check sections 5 and 6 in particular:
5. What should I do if somebody else invokes Godwin's Law?
The obvious response is to call them on it, say "thread's over", and declare victory. This is also one of the stupidest possible responses, because it involves believing far too much in the power of a few rules that don't say exactly what you wish they said anyway. The proper response to an invocation is probably to simply followup with a message saying "Oh. I'm a Nazi? Sure. Bye" and leave, and in most cases even that much of a post is unnecessary.
6. "Hitler!" Ha! The thread is over!
Nope, doesn't work that way. Not only is it wrong to say that a thread is over when Godwin's Law is invoked anyway (Usenet threads virtually always outlive their usefulness), but long ago a corollary to the Law was proposed and accepted by Taki "Quirk" Kogama (quirk@swcp.com):
Quirk's Exception: Intentional invocation of this so-called
"Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.
So, you see, unless you are going about and suggesting "Group XYZ are Nazis" or "You are a Nazi", it really just doesn't cut it. The AC prior to my post simply stated what he believed to be a fact, he insulted no one (and anyone who has taken offense to it has far too thin a skin):
Hitler would have been right if he had just fought a little harder.
Which, surprisingly, you seem to agree with. I don't...
I stated a scientific fact (that, IMHO, is correct) in rebuttal. How can he possibly have been right if his way would have led to intolerable suffering *to his own people*, and eventual death to everyone?
Right for people isn't what is right for a government. Right for people is what keeps people healthy and alive.
>If you want to justify the mass graves or gas chamber because the UN or league of nations would rather pick their pud than confronting, then that's your choice.
That's deceptive. I've said nothing about any stance on such things. Stay on topic, which, in this thread, is a scientific analysis of the results of Hitler's "final solution".
>You might think differently if you lived in Baghdad or were jewish.
Are you suggesting that people from Baghdad, and the Jewish are somehow of sub-par intellect, and are unable to understand what problems are present for most monocultures?
>Hitler would have been right if he had just fought a little harder.
No, he wouldn't have been. His plan would have led to eventual inbreeding problems, and a sicker, weaker society as a result. A single disease could wipe out all of Hitler's world in days.
Keep "trusted" internal machines on one leaf, and have untrusted, unknown, machines on another. Don't let traffic pass, and the only machines that get infected are users laptops/personal machines!
Problem solved if you keep up with patches on the servers (and you damn well should).
A "medical" site that advertises "Alien Identities" and "The plot against civilisation / World Revolution" does NOT inspire confidence in the information presented.
Look, Jehovah's Witnesses bug me because they waste my time, but this is a wee bit over the top:
"Subliminal Mind Control & Manipulation Archive Features -- Jehovah Witnesses' Subliminal Covert Mind Control
And, just do let David Icke know, for future bullshit sessions, there is no CIA in Canada. We have CSIS instead. Therefore this little rant is a little pointless (and funny!) to us in Canada.
I do have to read more there, I haven't seen such a good wacko site in a LONG time.
That's what consumers do in a capitalist society. Sure, the shopkeep is free to set prices as he wishes, but it doesn't count if it doesn't sell. And things are only sold at prices consumers are willing to pay. Ergo, consumers set the price.
>Where do we draw the line?
*We* don't draw any lines. That's the RIAAs job. One could say they're trying, and failing horribly.
Perhaps they need to ask what people would be willing to pay and see if it's profitable. If they ask me, it certainly is. If they ask you, well, then there'll be no online music, ever.
>I said that piracy (or, to be charitable, whatever you want to call it) is an INDICATOR of nothing except the convenience of and lack of consequences for getting something that costs money without paying for it.
Okay, and I disagree with that, for reasons already stated.
>I've got an idea, maybe the RIAA is trying to become like Ferrari. Their new motto: "You want the cool music, the status symbol music, you gotta pay for it."
Sounds great! Did you know that Ferrari makes almost the least amount of cars as compared to any other factory?
Comparing the RIAA to Ferrari is like suggesting your high-school garage band is trying to become the hottest, most expensive, most sought after band on the planet. Okay, you can have delusions of grandeur, but lets get real. The music coming from the RIAA is common. It isn't special in any way. If the RIAA cut production to, oh, say 100 CDs a year, they probably *COULD* sell them for a few thousand each.
>Who am I to argue? I'm a consumer and I can buy / not buy what I see fit, but where is it any of my business to tell the RIAA what to do? "No RIAA, you can't sell CDs that cost this much, you have to sell them cheaper, because I said so."
Exactly! Now your getting the hang of it! Bartering is a fundamental part of capitalism. I'm so happy you understand that!
You see, I run a computer business. If you walked in here and said, "That price for that item, it's too high. I'd give you $xxx for it." I'd consider it. I'd look at my cost for it. Then I'd tell you "Yeah, I can do that." or I'd say "Nah, sorry, can't do that." I wouldn't say "If you don't pay $yyy for it, I'll sue you. Or you can buy a knock off from me at *ever* so slightly less. But if you sell that knockoff, I'm sending goons after you." I'd never survive.
>Why is it that the pricing practices of the RIAA must conform to your mathematical formula?
Uhhh, because I'm using their own data?
>Why do they have to make sense, or be based on anything at all?
Because it is illegal to sell items below their cost. Also, it is generally illegal to run a corporation for the purpose of *not* making a profit, unless you're registered to do so.
>If I'm whoever is in charge at a record company, and I want to charge $52.99 for the next Nelly album (let's say I'm a total dazed cokehead), why should I not be allowed to do this?
Because you have shareholders and this will destroy your profit line. There's no "in charge" at such businesses. Sure, there's a president. He won't be president for long if all the investors jettison their stock.
And if you want to charge that price, again, it isn't illegal, because it's certainly above cost. However, expect that within 1 week you'll be out of business.
>Let's say I want to outsource the printing of all my CD booklets to some print shop in Tibet where each booklet is individually blessed by the Dalai Lama, and as a consequence, each booklet costs me $152, causing the price I charge for the final product to increase to $169.99.
Go ahead and enjoy!
I really don't see where this has a bearing on my argument, though. What are you getting at? I only see this as strengthening my original argument:
They have failed to provide a popular product (while I like emusic, rarely is there a lot o
>Contrary to what one of those articles says, Dvorak is designed to keep alternating from the left to right hand - which should obvious to anyone who looks at the layout.
I can neither confirm nor deny that which I have not experienced, nor has particularly solid evidence one way or another.
In that case, if it's working for you, great.:-) Otherwise, you take a gamble, you lose some you win some.
>Basically you want the entire Beatles back catalog, no no, all music ever recorded, in 96kHz 24-bit uncompressed 6-channel PCM for $1.
I suggested nothing of the sort.
I want the same level of quality currently available from P2P networks. That's usually a 128 kbit 2 channel MP3. I stated I would take this with full art for $6.99. I would take it without art for $5. I would take it DRM encumbered for $2.50.
Is that so difficult to understand?
>Heavy piracy is an indication of NOTHING except the convenience of and lack of consequences for getting something that costs money without paying for it.
Incorrect. The consequences of piracy are being shown to the world, possible jail sentences for 12 year olds and elderly people who may be left destitute. As a computer store owner I am reminded of these by common people who bring their worries to me. None of them intend to quit pirating, though.
>If an album at the iTunes Music Store cost $5, you'd be bitching about how it didn't cost $4, and if it cost $4, you'd complain that it didn't cost $2.50.
A specious argument. I have an account with eMusic right now, as they offer the music I want, and at a price and format that make sense. I only need to download 3 albums a month (far less than I do) to satisfy my requirements at their current prices. Interestingly enough, that is what their download manager limits you to per session.
>Guess what? What I think a Ferrari F355 should cost doesn't mean a god damn motherfucking thing.
I assume that a surprisingly low dollar figure was eaten by slashdot between cost and doesn't.
I don't think a Ferrari F355 should cost any less than it does. It's current cost is what keeps it an elite status symbol. If it were to cost less, it not only wouldn't be manufactured to its amazing standards, but, more importantly, would become a common vehicle, and no longer an oddity to be in wonder at. That would be quite depressing.
>I have no idea how your voodoo math with regards to CD and digital music prices is supposed to work
Did I not make it clear? I am sorry. Allow me to further eludicate my position.
As you can see, this article states a popular CD costed about $17.99. It appears one company now sells them at $12.98. Also, a popular cassette now costs $8.98. The article does not make clear what the price of a cassette was. From my personal experience, it was $9.99. You may disagree.
Since both items contain the same music, one must assume the licensing of these items is below the cost of the cassette ($8.98). The wholesale margin is $3.89. Assuming the profit is intended to be in the cost of licensing, and not the cost of the media (the RIAA have gone to great lengths to convince us of this), the cost of licensing the music wholesale, including everything such as advertising, etc. is below $5.09. Let's call it $5 even.
So, we now know that the cost of licensing is below $5. It isn't unusual for advertising to be more than half the cost of a product when the product is solely dependent on advertising as a means for sales, so we'll slash the wholesale price to $2.50 in licensing fees.
So, we are left to consider, how much does it cost to run a webserver? How much is a 100 MB download?
The downloading, I can answer easily. I presently pay $0.70 per GB. I can only hope that the music industry would enjoy a bulk deal on internet service. So, the transfer of the music would cost $0.07.
Considering such an operation would require no more than 2 persons to operate (one to design the website, the other to deal with encoding/support) and 1 contract personnel to deal with finances, they will need to pay about $100,000 in wages. Another $199 a month is required to finance the rackmount server.
The total fixed cost therefore becomes $102,388 per year. We'll tack on another $100,000 to
>P2P is not about the music industry failing to provide.
It is, though. They have failed to provide a popular product (while I like emusic, rarely is there a lot of current top ten hits availible) in a format people like (iTunes DRM + AAC Mac only? Blech).
They have also failed to provide it at a reasonable price. According to the RIAA, when CDs were first made, they justified the price divide between CDs and casettes as an extra cost to produce CDs. According to them this almost doubled the cost of the product, from $8.99 to $17.99.
Therefore, considering a decent casette costs $2.00, the cost of a digital music download, which incurrs only a minor ($0.01) penalty for transfer should be $6.99 or less per album.
It isn't.
Also, with the lack of physical art a digital download has, and the reduced quality, another rebate should be made for the consumer. I propose $1.99. The price for an album online should therefore be $5.
But wait, media companies want to further denigrate their online music by introducing DRM and proprietary formats. I believe an album that cannot be resold should sell for half price, like most AS-IS sales on working items. The price for an online album is now $2.50.
Media companies have failed to bring to market goods that are cost representative.
P2P is all about trying to rationalize costs. While free is far less than consumers are willing to pay, it isn't free. The cost to the user is working for various marketing departments. A value which I say equals the proper cost of a legally downloaded album, $2.50.
Heavy piracy is always an indication of failed market attempts.
I suppose the big question to be answered here is, "what is communism?"
>In a society where people are given a fair percentage of the wealth they produce I'll disagree.
Now that, THAT is communism. Or at least it is to me. And probably Karl Marx...
>IMO it encourages people to take all that they can take.
Perhaps so. However, taking in our society is akin to helping. Yeah, that's confusing Reaganomics, but on most scales, it makes sense. Most taking requires employment and production, which is what helps the vast majority of others.
>There is no balance to it.
Does there need to be?
>There is little encouragement to give back to society. There is no moral that when you make it to the top you should reach down and help others up.
Yes and no. While I still consider it giving back swag, many, many people even here comment on how nice it is that Bill Gates is running a charity foundation, and giving millions away to help others in field that don't directly benefit Microsoft. A large group of people think that makes Bill Gates a better man. Those people are far less likely to have an urge to beat the hell out of him.
So the moral is, be a jerk, get treated like one... Help others and be remembered like Mother Theresa or Ghandi. I'd take being remembered favourably over being remembered as a pariah.
However, on the small donation scale, the only impetus one has is their own sense of self-worth. Fortunately, that's pretty strong in most people.
>Your dad must have worked for a pretty decent company. I've never known any factory worker that made hardly anything.
Perhaps. I can say that having checked out factory wages for various companies in my area, for full time workers who haven't just started out, wages range between $10 CDN and $40 CDN per hour, the average being about $17 CDN per hour. That's still much better than most people make, although it doesn't make one rich. Just well off.:-)
>A lot of companies that laid off workers weren't even at risk of tanking though. They just wanted to take advantage of the down economy to let loose employees and hire them back at lower wages.
That's the company's choice. Of course they risk (and always do) losing the best workers and being poorer skilled for that.
>Oh well, who cares if the workers children go hungry as long as the stock holders didn't lose any money.
No working family has hungry children unless the family has serious societal problems. ALL and I mean ALL families with poor children were either extremely overpopulated (that ALWAYS causes famine), usually with 9+ children per parent, or had parents with law problems (taking drugs instead of feeding the family), or debt problems from bad decisions (Gambling, buying boats, etc, etc). These problems are not solved by throwing money at them. The parent wasting money on weed simply spends it on crack instead. It's a specious argument to suggest that a "starving" family with a minimum possible income of $16 per hour cannot feed themselves. Even without overtime, that's over $2000 a month, virtually tax-free if you have enough kids. In bulk, one could EASILY even a very large family for under $500 a month. "Expenses" are NOT $1500 a month!
($CDN, of course)
>Very few did anything so drastic as cutting the wages of upper management. Of course laying off so many workers has caused the recession to be considerably worse than it otherwise would have been.
Agreed, and as a result these companies are now going out of business. You can only delay the inevitable.
>You think people working together is always communism?
No. I believe people who begin to "wage share" are participating in communism. Wage sharing starts at taxes, and ends at government ordained salaries. This soft form of communism (taxes) is often dubbed "socialism".
>So if the community forms a library by donating time, money,
The keyboard arrangement was considered important enough to be included on Sholes' patent granted in 1878 (see drawing), some years after the machine was into production. QWERTY's effect, by reducing those annoying clashes, was to speed up typing rather than slow it down.
Anything else and you simply don't sound as British.:-)
Impune Impugner! Only dead languages have no grammar and spelling misteaks! Computers get virii! The world comes to an end! Watch ITV News for more disinformation.
>Who pays employees? The consumer. Who is the consumer? Employees.
Without going into too much detail, let me sum it up for you:
It's a symbiosis. Without rich people, the poor have no chance. Without poor people, there are no rich people.
Perhaps you think that sucks but that's how it works*.
Personally, I think it's great. It's an encouragement for everyone to be all they can be.
>When is the last time you worked in a factory?
My dad worked in one, unionized of course.
>Very few of those working class people could be considered fat cats.
He has just retired comfortably without any debt a couple of months ago. He came to Canada penniless in 1976. He, and my mom, lived on charity for at least 2 years. I now live with him and my mother (in my case it only makes sense). We live on a 1/2 acre lot in a 3000 sq ft. home in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. We've never won the lottery, we'd be lucky to have made more than $10,000 on investments.
You tell me. Not that I'm complaining all that much, of course I'm enjoying the benefits of that, but again, you tell me.
>Funny, I saw a lot of CEO's laying off workers so they could get hefty bonuses
Yes, they did during the dot bomb. Shortly after their companies tanked, which is why it was named the dot bomb (not because of jettisoning employees). Do you disagree with that?
>Do you think people can't work together without wealthy people telling them how to do it?
No. Communism isn't impossible to make work, it is simply unethical.
>Who built the homes? Working class people. Who builds cars? Working class people.
The question is still why? My dad worked in an auto factory. He didn't do it for fun. He wouldn't do it if it didn't pay. So why did he put bumpers on Mercedez, and frames on Jeep Cherokees?
Well, not because cheap people wanted cars, that's for sure!
>That other 80% of people aren't still going to need the essentials of life? Sure.
Again, that's communism. Rarely would you see a factory in a communist country make a luxury vehicle (except for corrupt fatcats). Normally you'd see Ladas. In fact, Ladas were made in a communist country!
So, we can spend our life surfing the internet on a 14.4k dial up connection, or we can let the rich enjoy a 100 mbps circuit, and be happy that a lot of "regulars" are able to afford and enjoy a "luxury" of 3 mbits DSL.
As compared to cars, the rich get driven around in limos. You get to drive a Toyota Corolla with Air Conditioning. Which still beats the HELL out of driving a Lada.
Life isn't about meeting essentials. It's about enjoyment.
* - That's if you want to enjoy non-essential things, like your current internet service!
>We tax income because income is what you have left over after failing to reinvest your money in projects and enterprises that benefit society as a whole.
Then why is it when you invest in such things you are taxed?
Your thinking would require a negative sales tax, which I believe exists nowhere on earth; although I agree, it would make complete sense to make sales tax operate in such a fashion. Either that or work it the other way around, tax sales, don't tax income. But double dipping just isn't right.
>Employees think of the ideas, engineers and scientists make it possible
Who pays them?
>artists make it look good
Who buys expensive art?
>factory workers make the parts
Who pays the fatcat union wages?
>construction workers build it
For whom are they building it?
All those questions are answered quite simply:
They're doing it for the man with the money. Because they want some of that money.
>The CEO and stock holders aren't contributing much of anything to the project.
You really might want to look at how a corporation operates. I'm thinking you don't have a grasp of it.
>They might be clever but they aren't contributing much to society.
I disagree. Without the wealthy, those other jobs wouldn't exist.
Notice that whenever the wealthy do better, there's more jobs? It's easier to get money?
Notice that whenever there's a recession, the wealthy get screwed first, then you?
>Released from the ritual robbery by the wealthy many working class artists, scientists, and engineers would act those needs out in real life.
Highly unlikely. None of these people could afford the tools necessary for their jobs. None of these people individually have the skills to produce those tools themselves. The only solution to that conundrum is communism, and that doesn't work.
>It helps society a lot that they can afford three large homes and a dozen fancy cars.
Who built the homes? The cars?
If they didn't buy homes and cars, it seems it would satisfy you, but it would put a LOT of people out of work.
>We'll ignore the fact that on the same day, Gates donated $168 million to fund malaria research, but funnily enough, I doubt we'll see that reported here.
I'm happy to hear Bill Gates is giving back to the people what he criminally, fraudulently, wrongfully, and illegally took away. He's nothing more than an ingenous mountebank using chicanery to plunder swag.
Only another $40 billion or so to go, right?
Okay, okay, they say never ask a man about his first million. So let's make that $39.999 billion.
Slashdot Mirror
>How about "a music service that doesn't impose draconian so-called copy-protection measures on its audio files" for those of us that dont but enough to make subscriptions worth while? or one where we can keep the music after the subscription is up?
Hmmm, ok. Here it is. Sorry you didn't hear about it the first time.
>Better yet, don't even have a land-line phone.
Even better yet, keep your house from being broken into by boarding up all the windows and doors!
Just send off an email to the contact info on my website, info (at) beamon.ca, or, better yet, try sales (at) beamon.ca (the one I check). HTH! :-)
As this is a new product (to us), we don't yet have any info online for it yet...
>Can I get modded up for quoting numbers from my calculator? 2 + 2 = 4 7 * 8 = 56
I seriously hope you didn't have to use a calculator to come up with those...
This would fit your bill.
:-)
They also make one with 3 serial ports.
Want one? Ask me!
>Godwin if you please?
Oh boy, not the Godwin excuse again. Let's review what he said and why people overuse it so often.
Check sections 5 and 6 in particular:
5. What should I do if somebody else invokes Godwin's Law?
The obvious response is to call them on it, say "thread's over",
and declare victory. This is also one of the stupidest possible responses,
because it involves believing far too much in the power of a few rules that
don't say exactly what you wish they said anyway. The proper response to
an invocation is probably to simply followup with a message saying "Oh.
I'm a Nazi? Sure. Bye" and leave, and in most cases even that much of a
post is unnecessary.
6. "Hitler!" Ha! The thread is over!
Nope, doesn't work that way. Not only is it wrong to say that a
thread is over when Godwin's Law is invoked anyway (Usenet threads
virtually always outlive their usefulness), but long ago a corollary to
the Law was proposed and accepted by Taki "Quirk" Kogama (quirk@swcp.com):
Quirk's Exception: Intentional invocation of this so-called
"Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.
So, you see, unless you are going about and suggesting "Group XYZ are Nazis" or "You are a Nazi", it really just doesn't cut it. The AC prior to my post simply stated what he believed to be a fact, he insulted no one (and anyone who has taken offense to it has far too thin a skin):
Hitler would have been right if he had just fought a little harder.
Which, surprisingly, you seem to agree with. I don't...
I stated a scientific fact (that, IMHO, is correct) in rebuttal. How can he possibly have been right if his way would have led to intolerable suffering *to his own people*, and eventual death to everyone?
Right for people isn't what is right for a government. Right for people is what keeps people healthy and alive.
>If you want to justify the mass graves or gas chamber because the UN or league of nations would rather pick their pud than confronting, then that's your choice.
That's deceptive. I've said nothing about any stance on such things. Stay on topic, which, in this thread, is a scientific analysis of the results of Hitler's "final solution".
>You might think differently if you lived in Baghdad or were jewish.
Are you suggesting that people from Baghdad, and the Jewish are somehow of sub-par intellect, and are unable to understand what problems are present for most monocultures?
That's not very nice, is it?
>Just wondering, do you pay for and maintain your TV set also?
Yes, and I have complete control of what may and may not be viewed on it. If I don't want to watch stations with advertising, I simply don't.
>How about your computer with your web browser?
Again, yes, and I have complete control. Websites with horrid advertising I just don't visit.
How can I make my phone not ring if a telemarketer calls it, yet still have it useful for incoming calls?
>Hitler would have been right if he had just fought a little harder.
No, he wouldn't have been. His plan would have led to eventual inbreeding problems, and a sicker, weaker society as a result. A single disease could wipe out all of Hitler's world in days.
Better yet, do what I did.
Keep "trusted" internal machines on one leaf, and have untrusted, unknown, machines on another. Don't let traffic pass, and the only machines that get infected are users laptops/personal machines!
Problem solved if you keep up with patches on the servers (and you damn well should).
>lets lobby to require a license to plug into a network ;) ...licensing. Because nothing beats making $100 to plug a cable into a computer!
Did you know water is also toxic? Heck, even your blood could be toxic!
Convincing people it's good for them is a clever trick.
Or is it?
A "medical" site that advertises "Alien Identities" and "The plot against civilisation / World Revolution" does NOT inspire confidence in the information presented.
Look, Jehovah's Witnesses bug me because they waste my time, but this is a wee bit over the top:
"Subliminal Mind Control & Manipulation Archive Features -- Jehovah Witnesses' Subliminal Covert Mind Control
And, just do let David Icke know, for future bullshit sessions, there is no CIA in Canada. We have CSIS instead. Therefore this little rant is a little pointless (and funny!) to us in Canada.
I do have to read more there, I haven't seen such a good wacko site in a LONG time.
>Oh I see, YOU are setting the price.
That's what consumers do in a capitalist society. Sure, the shopkeep is free to set prices as he wishes, but it doesn't count if it doesn't sell. And things are only sold at prices consumers are willing to pay. Ergo, consumers set the price.
>Where do we draw the line?
*We* don't draw any lines. That's the RIAAs job. One could say they're trying, and failing horribly.
Perhaps they need to ask what people would be willing to pay and see if it's profitable. If they ask me, it certainly is. If they ask you, well, then there'll be no online music, ever.
>I said that piracy (or, to be charitable, whatever you want to call it) is an INDICATOR of nothing except the convenience of and lack of consequences for getting something that costs money without paying for it.
Okay, and I disagree with that, for reasons already stated.
>I've got an idea, maybe the RIAA is trying to become like Ferrari. Their new motto: "You want the cool music, the status symbol music, you gotta pay for it."
Sounds great! Did you know that Ferrari makes almost the least amount of cars as compared to any other factory?
Comparing the RIAA to Ferrari is like suggesting your high-school garage band is trying to become the hottest, most expensive, most sought after band on the planet. Okay, you can have delusions of grandeur, but lets get real. The music coming from the RIAA is common. It isn't special in any way. If the RIAA cut production to, oh, say 100 CDs a year, they probably *COULD* sell them for a few thousand each.
>Who am I to argue? I'm a consumer and I can buy / not buy what I see fit, but where is it any of my business to tell the RIAA what to do? "No RIAA, you can't sell CDs that cost this much, you have to sell them cheaper, because I said so."
Exactly! Now your getting the hang of it! Bartering is a fundamental part of capitalism. I'm so happy you understand that!
You see, I run a computer business. If you walked in here and said, "That price for that item, it's too high. I'd give you $xxx for it." I'd consider it. I'd look at my cost for it. Then I'd tell you "Yeah, I can do that." or I'd say "Nah, sorry, can't do that." I wouldn't say "If you don't pay $yyy for it, I'll sue you. Or you can buy a knock off from me at *ever* so slightly less. But if you sell that knockoff, I'm sending goons after you." I'd never survive.
>Why is it that the pricing practices of the RIAA must conform to your mathematical formula?
Uhhh, because I'm using their own data?
>Why do they have to make sense, or be based on anything at all?
Because it is illegal to sell items below their cost. Also, it is generally illegal to run a corporation for the purpose of *not* making a profit, unless you're registered to do so.
>If I'm whoever is in charge at a record company, and I want to charge $52.99 for the next Nelly album (let's say I'm a total dazed cokehead), why should I not be allowed to do this?
Because you have shareholders and this will destroy your profit line. There's no "in charge" at such businesses. Sure, there's a president. He won't be president for long if all the investors jettison their stock.
And if you want to charge that price, again, it isn't illegal, because it's certainly above cost. However, expect that within 1 week you'll be out of business.
>Let's say I want to outsource the printing of all my CD booklets to some print shop in Tibet where each booklet is individually blessed by the Dalai Lama, and as a consequence, each booklet costs me $152, causing the price I charge for the final product to increase to $169.99.
Go ahead and enjoy!
I really don't see where this has a bearing on my argument, though. What are you getting at? I only see this as strengthening my original argument:
They have failed to provide a popular product (while I like emusic, rarely is there a lot o
>Contrary to what one of those articles says, Dvorak is designed to keep alternating from the left to right hand - which should obvious to anyone who looks at the layout.
:-) Otherwise, you take a gamble, you lose some you win some.
I can neither confirm nor deny that which I have not experienced, nor has particularly solid evidence one way or another.
In that case, if it's working for you, great.
>Basically you want the entire Beatles back catalog, no no, all music ever recorded, in 96kHz 24-bit uncompressed 6-channel PCM for $1.
I suggested nothing of the sort.
I want the same level of quality currently available from P2P networks. That's usually a 128 kbit 2 channel MP3. I stated I would take this with full art for $6.99. I would take it without art for $5. I would take it DRM encumbered for $2.50.
Is that so difficult to understand?
>Heavy piracy is an indication of NOTHING except the convenience of and lack of consequences for getting something that costs money without paying for it.
Incorrect. The consequences of piracy are being shown to the world, possible jail sentences for 12 year olds and elderly people who may be left destitute. As a computer store owner I am reminded of these by common people who bring their worries to me. None of them intend to quit pirating, though.
>If an album at the iTunes Music Store cost $5, you'd be bitching about how it didn't cost $4, and if it cost $4, you'd complain that it didn't cost $2.50.
A specious argument. I have an account with eMusic right now, as they offer the music I want, and at a price and format that make sense. I only need to download 3 albums a month (far less than I do) to satisfy my requirements at their current prices. Interestingly enough, that is what their download manager limits you to per session.
>Guess what? What I think a Ferrari F355 should cost doesn't mean a god damn motherfucking thing.
I assume that a surprisingly low dollar figure was eaten by slashdot between cost and doesn't.
I don't think a Ferrari F355 should cost any less than it does. It's current cost is what keeps it an elite status symbol. If it were to cost less, it not only wouldn't be manufactured to its amazing standards, but, more importantly, would become a common vehicle, and no longer an oddity to be in wonder at. That would be quite depressing.
>I have no idea how your voodoo math with regards to CD and digital music prices is supposed to work
Did I not make it clear? I am sorry. Allow me to further eludicate my position.
As you can see, this article states a popular CD costed about $17.99. It appears one company now sells them at $12.98. Also, a popular cassette now costs $8.98. The article does not make clear what the price of a cassette was. From my personal experience, it was $9.99. You may disagree.
Since both items contain the same music, one must assume the licensing of these items is below the cost of the cassette ($8.98). The wholesale margin is $3.89. Assuming the profit is intended to be in the cost of licensing, and not the cost of the media (the RIAA have gone to great lengths to convince us of this), the cost of licensing the music wholesale, including everything such as advertising, etc. is below $5.09. Let's call it $5 even.
So, we now know that the cost of licensing is below $5. It isn't unusual for advertising to be more than half the cost of a product when the product is solely dependent on advertising as a means for sales, so we'll slash the wholesale price to $2.50 in licensing fees.
So, we are left to consider, how much does it cost to run a webserver? How much is a 100 MB download?
The downloading, I can answer easily. I presently pay $0.70 per GB. I can only hope that the music industry would enjoy a bulk deal on internet service. So, the transfer of the music would cost $0.07.
Considering such an operation would require no more than 2 persons to operate (one to design the website, the other to deal with encoding/support) and 1 contract personnel to deal with finances, they will need to pay about $100,000 in wages. Another $199 a month is required to finance the rackmount server.
The total fixed cost therefore becomes $102,388 per year. We'll tack on another $100,000 to
>P2P is not about the music industry failing to provide.
It is, though. They have failed to provide a popular product (while I like emusic, rarely is there a lot of current top ten hits availible) in a format people like (iTunes DRM + AAC Mac only? Blech).
They have also failed to provide it at a reasonable price. According to the RIAA, when CDs were first made, they justified the price divide between CDs and casettes as an extra cost to produce CDs. According to them this almost doubled the cost of the product, from $8.99 to $17.99.
Therefore, considering a decent casette costs $2.00, the cost of a digital music download, which incurrs only a minor ($0.01) penalty for transfer should be $6.99 or less per album.
It isn't.
Also, with the lack of physical art a digital download has, and the reduced quality, another rebate should be made for the consumer. I propose $1.99. The price for an album online should therefore be $5.
But wait, media companies want to further denigrate their online music by introducing DRM and proprietary formats. I believe an album that cannot be resold should sell for half price, like most AS-IS sales on working items. The price for an online album is now $2.50.
Media companies have failed to bring to market goods that are cost representative.
P2P is all about trying to rationalize costs. While free is far less than consumers are willing to pay, it isn't free. The cost to the user is working for various marketing departments. A value which I say equals the proper cost of a legally downloaded album, $2.50.
Heavy piracy is always an indication of failed market attempts.
This has been attempted with DirecPC satellite internet. A search on deja retuns thousands of unhappy users, which would make a majority of users.
Any ISP choosing to follow similar politics will be commiting suicide.
I suppose the big question to be answered here is, "what is communism?"
:-)
>In a society where people are given a fair percentage of the wealth they produce I'll disagree.
Now that, THAT is communism. Or at least it is to me. And probably Karl Marx...
>IMO it encourages people to take all that they can take.
Perhaps so. However, taking in our society is akin to helping. Yeah, that's confusing Reaganomics, but on most scales, it makes sense. Most taking requires employment and production, which is what helps the vast majority of others.
>There is no balance to it.
Does there need to be?
>There is little encouragement to give back to society. There is no moral that when you make it to the top you should reach down and help others up.
Yes and no. While I still consider it giving back swag, many, many people even here comment on how nice it is that Bill Gates is running a charity foundation, and giving millions away to help others in field that don't directly benefit Microsoft. A large group of people think that makes Bill Gates a better man. Those people are far less likely to have an urge to beat the hell out of him.
So the moral is, be a jerk, get treated like one... Help others and be remembered like Mother Theresa or Ghandi. I'd take being remembered favourably over being remembered as a pariah.
However, on the small donation scale, the only impetus one has is their own sense of self-worth. Fortunately, that's pretty strong in most people.
>Your dad must have worked for a pretty decent company. I've never known any factory worker that made hardly anything.
Perhaps. I can say that having checked out factory wages for various companies in my area, for full time workers who haven't just started out, wages range between $10 CDN and $40 CDN per hour, the average being about $17 CDN per hour. That's still much better than most people make, although it doesn't make one rich. Just well off.
>A lot of companies that laid off workers weren't even at risk of tanking though. They just wanted to take advantage of the down economy to let loose employees and hire them back at lower wages.
That's the company's choice. Of course they risk (and always do) losing the best workers and being poorer skilled for that.
>Oh well, who cares if the workers children go hungry as long as the stock holders didn't lose any money.
No working family has hungry children unless the family has serious societal problems. ALL and I mean ALL families with poor children were either extremely overpopulated (that ALWAYS causes famine), usually with 9+ children per parent, or had parents with law problems (taking drugs instead of feeding the family), or debt problems from bad decisions (Gambling, buying boats, etc, etc). These problems are not solved by throwing money at them. The parent wasting money on weed simply spends it on crack instead. It's a specious argument to suggest that a "starving" family with a minimum possible income of $16 per hour cannot feed themselves. Even without overtime, that's over $2000 a month, virtually tax-free if you have enough kids. In bulk, one could EASILY even a very large family for under $500 a month. "Expenses" are NOT $1500 a month!
($CDN, of course)
>Very few did anything so drastic as cutting the wages of upper management. Of course laying off so many workers has caused the recession to be considerably worse than it otherwise would have been.
Agreed, and as a result these companies are now going out of business. You can only delay the inevitable.
>You think people working together is always communism?
No. I believe people who begin to "wage share" are participating in communism. Wage sharing starts at taxes, and ends at government ordained salaries. This soft form of communism (taxes) is often dubbed "socialism".
>So if the community forms a library by donating time, money,
>QWERTY was designed to slow typists down, since old typewriters couldn't keep up with ultra-fast typists.
:-)
That's actually just a joke, not fact.
Some light reading.
The keyboard arrangement was considered important enough to be included on Sholes' patent granted in 1878 (see drawing), some years after the machine was into production. QWERTY's effect, by reducing those annoying clashes, was to speed up typing rather than slow it down.
Which really only make sense... The Straight Dope on this.
Furthermore, because hey, someone will bring it up, there are no quality studies that show the superiority of Dvorak layouts over QWERTY.
It's co.uk.
:-)
Anything else and you simply don't sound as British.
Impune Impugner! Only dead languages have no grammar and spelling misteaks! Computers get virii! The world comes to an end! Watch ITV News for more disinformation.
>Who pays employees? The consumer. Who is the consumer? Employees.
Without going into too much detail, let me sum it up for you:
It's a symbiosis. Without rich people, the poor have no chance. Without poor people, there are no rich people.
Perhaps you think that sucks but that's how it works*.
Personally, I think it's great. It's an encouragement for everyone to be all they can be.
>When is the last time you worked in a factory?
My dad worked in one, unionized of course.
>Very few of those working class people could be considered fat cats.
He has just retired comfortably without any debt a couple of months ago. He came to Canada penniless in 1976. He, and my mom, lived on charity for at least 2 years. I now live with him and my mother (in my case it only makes sense). We live on a 1/2 acre lot in a 3000 sq ft. home in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. We've never won the lottery, we'd be lucky to have made more than $10,000 on investments.
You tell me. Not that I'm complaining all that much, of course I'm enjoying the benefits of that, but again, you tell me.
>Funny, I saw a lot of CEO's laying off workers so they could get hefty bonuses
Yes, they did during the dot bomb. Shortly after their companies tanked, which is why it was named the dot bomb (not because of jettisoning employees). Do you disagree with that?
>Do you think people can't work together without wealthy people telling them how to do it?
No. Communism isn't impossible to make work, it is simply unethical.
>Who built the homes? Working class people. Who builds cars? Working class people.
The question is still why? My dad worked in an auto factory. He didn't do it for fun. He wouldn't do it if it didn't pay. So why did he put bumpers on Mercedez, and frames on Jeep Cherokees?
Well, not because cheap people wanted cars, that's for sure!
>That other 80% of people aren't still going to need the essentials of life? Sure.
Again, that's communism. Rarely would you see a factory in a communist country make a luxury vehicle (except for corrupt fatcats). Normally you'd see Ladas. In fact, Ladas were made in a communist country!
So, we can spend our life surfing the internet on a 14.4k dial up connection, or we can let the rich enjoy a 100 mbps circuit, and be happy that a lot of "regulars" are able to afford and enjoy a "luxury" of 3 mbits DSL.
As compared to cars, the rich get driven around in limos. You get to drive a Toyota Corolla with Air Conditioning. Which still beats the HELL out of driving a Lada.
Life isn't about meeting essentials. It's about enjoyment.
* - That's if you want to enjoy non-essential things, like your current internet service!
>We tax income because income is what you have left over after failing to reinvest your money in projects and enterprises that benefit society as a whole.
Then why is it when you invest in such things you are taxed?
Your thinking would require a negative sales tax, which I believe exists nowhere on earth; although I agree, it would make complete sense to make sales tax operate in such a fashion. Either that or work it the other way around, tax sales, don't tax income. But double dipping just isn't right.
>Employees think of the ideas, engineers and scientists make it possible
Who pays them?
>artists make it look good
Who buys expensive art?
>factory workers make the parts
Who pays the fatcat union wages?
>construction workers build it
For whom are they building it?
All those questions are answered quite simply:
They're doing it for the man with the money. Because they want some of that money.
>The CEO and stock holders aren't contributing much of anything to the project.
You really might want to look at how a corporation operates. I'm thinking you don't have a grasp of it.
>They might be clever but they aren't contributing much to society.
I disagree. Without the wealthy, those other jobs wouldn't exist.
Notice that whenever the wealthy do better, there's more jobs? It's easier to get money?
Notice that whenever there's a recession, the wealthy get screwed first, then you?
>Released from the ritual robbery by the wealthy many working class artists, scientists, and engineers would act those needs out in real life.
Highly unlikely. None of these people could afford the tools necessary for their jobs. None of these people individually have the skills to produce those tools themselves. The only solution to that conundrum is communism, and that doesn't work.
>It helps society a lot that they can afford three large homes and a dozen fancy cars.
Who built the homes? The cars?
If they didn't buy homes and cars, it seems it would satisfy you, but it would put a LOT of people out of work.
>We'll ignore the fact that on the same day, Gates donated $168 million to fund malaria research, but funnily enough, I doubt we'll see that reported here.
I'm happy to hear Bill Gates is giving back to the people what he criminally, fraudulently, wrongfully, and illegally took away. He's nothing more than an ingenous mountebank using chicanery to plunder swag.
Only another $40 billion or so to go, right?
Okay, okay, they say never ask a man about his first million. So let's make that $39.999 billion.