I totally agree. In all the discussion during the trial about the "fact" that Microsoft doesn't show "monopoly pricing", piracy is never addressed. If Microsoft could enforce anti-piracy laws or create workable anti-piracy technology, I'm sure their pricing would be closer to a level that would reflect their monopoly status.
Microsoft also has some incentive to allow for some piracy as it helps them become the "standard" application and they know that business customers, which actually have assets to protect will want to use "the standard" and pay for the licensing. Most home users don't and wouldn't, which is why they played such hardball with hardware manufacturers in terms of assuring ALL machines shipped with the OS--knowing that if people could by a blank machine and put a pirated copy of the OS on it, they would.
Also, it must be noted that this came from UT. I don't know about the Management School in Dallas, but here in Austin the UT School of Business couldn't be more Microsoft friendly. UT used to be the biggest Macintosh network in the world and the business school stopped supporting Macintosh in any fashion about 4 or 5 years ago. They were a (large) beta site for Windows 2000 and while the rest of the school's email and web servers are Sun/Unix, the business school is all Exchange and IIs (the "I Love You" virus hit UT Business hard).
If you are interested in the concepts of where SETI, VR, consciousness, etc intersect there is an interesting book by Timothy Ferris titled "Mind's Sky: Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context". He basically postulates the existance of just such a "universal network". I don't know if this is where Master Switch got the idea, but they are quite similar. Some of the reviews on Amazon explain the idea further. Check out: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553371339/ qid=956623453/sr=1-24/103-3385224-495581 9
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I totally agree. In all the discussion during the trial about the "fact" that Microsoft doesn't show "monopoly pricing", piracy is never addressed. If Microsoft could enforce anti-piracy laws or create workable anti-piracy technology, I'm sure their pricing would be closer to a level that would reflect their monopoly status.
Microsoft also has some incentive to allow for some piracy as it helps them become the "standard" application and they know that business customers, which actually have assets to protect will want to use "the standard" and pay for the licensing. Most home users don't and wouldn't, which is why they played such hardball with hardware manufacturers in terms of assuring ALL machines shipped with the OS--knowing that if people could by a blank machine and put a pirated copy of the OS on it, they would.
Also, it must be noted that this came from UT. I don't know about the Management School in Dallas, but here in Austin the UT School of Business couldn't be more Microsoft friendly. UT used to be the biggest Macintosh network in the world and the business school stopped supporting Macintosh in any fashion about 4 or 5 years ago. They were a (large) beta site for Windows 2000 and while the rest of the school's email and web servers are Sun/Unix, the business school is all Exchange and IIs (the "I Love You" virus hit UT Business hard).
Someone needs to obtain the "digital rights" to the "Plaster Caster's" work. Women could just download Jimi Hendrix's dick and print it up.
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http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2000/07/12/
If you are interested in the concepts of where SETI, VR, consciousness, etc intersect there is an interesting book by Timothy Ferris titled "Mind's Sky: Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context". He basically postulates the existance of just such a "universal network". I don't know if this is where Master Switch got the idea, but they are quite similar. Some of the reviews on Amazon explain the idea further. Check out: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553371339/ qid=956623453/sr=1-24/103-3385224-495581 9