I agree that business models should fit the times and technologies and of course if technology takes as backwards (i.e. we can't lend digital books like we did with physical books) then it's not good. However, I don't think DRM is fundamentally bad. Its implementations up till now were something between not good to real bad (i.e. Sony rootkit), but the logic behind DRM is, frankly, sound. If we have a theoretical DRM that makes sure that you pay for the book, but after that allows you to: 1) Read the book on any device. 2) Lend it to your friends without restriction, except that only one copy is active at any moment. 3) Doesn't give the publisher the right to take the book back at anytime. (Forgive me if I forgot any other requirement, but I believe these are the basics) then there is no problem. You get the benefit of technology (one small device, e.g. Kindle, that has all your books), with all the advantages of physical books (Except the experience of reading a physical book, but...).
After all, even if publishing costs are far less for digital media, there are still many people that need to get paid, especially the author, but also the editor, proofreader, graphics people, advertisement folks, etc. Maybe digital books should be cheaper than physical ones, but we should still pay for them. So no, I don't think the current model is fine, but I don't think that taking books without paying for them (AKA stealing) is acceptable. Don't like the current model? Buy a goddamn physical book.
P.S. Next time please try to divide your post into paragraphs, it's very hard to read as it is. Reminds me of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
You know, I can think of a better way to pass the books to my offsprings after I die: They can just take my goddamn Kindle! I'm not going to be buried with it, you know. And I can add a PostIt note to my will with the password to my Amazon account.
Now we are coming to the issue of informed consent. From Wikipedia:
An informed consent can be said to have been given based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the facts, implications, and future consequences of an action. In order to give informed consent, the individual concerned must have adequate reasoning faculties and be in possession of all relevant facts at the time consent is given.
In medicine, if I tell someone about a surgery and he consents, but later something bad happened that he says he did not appreciate beforehand, it is as if no informed consent was given. I doubt most JailbreakMe users understand the implications of the exploit used (heck, I sure as hell don't), and I am sure the site does not go into too many details to make the users understand. So from a legally binding viewpoint, there is no informed consent - the user has no appreciation and understanding of the facts, implications and future consequences of using the software.
Congratulations, you are one of the few people that change their mind when the situation changes. I am not sarcastic; I am totally serious. Most people frame an opinion about something (e.g. Apple), and that opinion usually is very hard to change, no matter what the company does. Even if Apple came out with a new iPhone that is completely open and you can install whatever you want, there will be some Apple-haters here that will find some reason why this is bad. And vice versa: If Apple decided that only fair-skinned, wealthy people who are veryvery nice to Steve Jobs can buy an iPhone, and even they cannot do anything outside some official rulebook with it, there will be some Apple-fanboys that will rationalize it. Oh, and by the way, changing an opinion from bad to good is harder than the other way around. So what is Apple left to do? Continue with the philosophy that brought it success up till now. You might be a potential customer if they changed their ways, but most of the naysayers are, and always be, non-customers.
And another thing, regarding your first paragraph: Apple does things that annoy you, but they are not immoral, just... annoying. Contrast that with MS.
Thanks for the post. I wanted to say something to the same effect, but you beat me to the punch. Anyhow, people here just don't understand that Apple (under Jobs) has always believed in controlling every aspect of its ecosystem (Citation). The only time the MacOS was licensed was when Jobs wasn't in Apple, and that was their worst years. People love Apple's products because they are easy to use from the get-go and part of that ease of use comes from controlling both the hardware and the software completely (or as much as possible). Yes, we geeks like it less, but we are not the main customers. Catering to us will bring about an OS that may be more powerful, but not as easy to use out of the box - I'm looking at you Linux. So, yes, some of the people at/. (can I say "the guys" or do we have representatives of the fair sex here also?) don't like Apple for their strong-armed tactics, but these are the same tactics that brought about the products that so many people like. Face it, we are a minority.
Hey man, I was talking about other people. Me, I have a hard drive! Damn, all those childhood stupid jokes just keep coming back. It's like riding a bicycle. Thanks Slashdot.
No, just that I believe most people here understood that the summery was talking about a trademark and not copyright, and the parent just came off as a show off.
Thanks for the insightful comment. Everyone here at/. was at loss without this important clarification. Now can we get back to nostalgic memories of childhood days and leave silly pedantics alone for a few minutes? Jesus, some people never quit.
BTW, "but not as poorly worded" is also a poorly worded sentence, but I'll leave it as an exercise for you to fix on your own. I don't believe in FTFYs.
I didn't mean to imply that the subject is closed and ready for practical implementations, just that it's nice to see a study that incorporates some practical aspect. Of course, there is room for lots more research before coming up with something that can be used, but for a primary research, it's pretty good (from the summery, didn't read the article itself).
Because it seems counter-intuitive, I really liked the following sentence:
...Keen to see if their findings actually worked in practice..."
Often times we see studies done in labs and, because it doesn't look reasonable to us, we quickly dismiss it by saying "Well, it would never work in real life." Here, at least, they tried it in real life. It's not a long-term study, so there are still shortcomings, but it's better than the usual Social Studies experiments.
Since you obviously read all the documents, what are the "great evils" that were done by the Armed Forces? I don't mean to imply that nothing bad was done, but I will venture a guess that you didn't read even one document and all you go by is what is written in summery, which includes the key words "may reveal". Please, before writing such strong praises for those exposing evils, try to find out what evil was really done and uncovered?
When the first batch of documents was released, the Pentagon was quick to condemn WikiLeaks because they said the documents exposed agents and informants. Later we found out this was not true and everyone was all over the Pentagon for making accusations without checking the facts. Please don't make the same mistake.
First of all I'll just say that I was giving general examples and that is why I left out most of the components of the equation and didn't refer to each one in particular. Second, I have to say that you also strengthened my point: All the information we have about the probability of life in other planets is hypothetical. Putting it into an equation doesn't make that information more concrete. And no, the equation doesn't make things more efficient. Every time Drake's equation comes up people write the equation and then write the definition of each part and only then we get to the actual discussion of what is the value of each part. Drake could just as easily written a theorem where a couple of sentences could have conveyed all the factors that go into finding life in other planets and it would be shorter than equation + definition of terms.
For reflection purposes you don't need an equation. I can just tell you that there are many, many stars and planets, but the chance that a planet will have life on it is low. Given the large distances involved the chance to contact said life forms is low. See? All clear. We have an equation to try and quantify the variables - Is the number of stars is larger than the chance to develop intelligent life is small? Since we don't have any useful estimates, the equation is just a fancy way to write down what can be summarized in a sentence or two. As geeks we like equations but here it's just razzle-dazzle,
And of course, all of this means that we are getting better estimates for the Drake equation as well. Everything used to be a complete unknown. But now the major room for variation are the biological variables not the astronomical ones.
OTOH, since the biological variables are such unknowns, the equation is still largely useless for any real-life calculation. I mean, Fi (the fraction that develop intelligent life) can range anywhere from almost 0 to almost 100% and L (the length of time such a civilization releases a signal to space) could be very long, but could also be extremely short, since we now see that on Earth most signals are not lost to space because the signals are focused to satellites and back to Earth.The time that we release signals to space was actually quite short and is almost over.
Slashdot Mirror
I mostly agree with you. You can see my post elsewhere in this thread which touched some of the points you mentioned.
Are you talking about restriction regarding books, or all areas of life? I feel a Libertarian wind blowing.
I agree that business models should fit the times and technologies and of course if technology takes as backwards (i.e. we can't lend digital books like we did with physical books) then it's not good. However, I don't think DRM is fundamentally bad. Its implementations up till now were something between not good to real bad (i.e. Sony rootkit), but the logic behind DRM is, frankly, sound.
If we have a theoretical DRM that makes sure that you pay for the book, but after that allows you to:
1) Read the book on any device.
2) Lend it to your friends without restriction, except that only one copy is active at any moment.
3) Doesn't give the publisher the right to take the book back at anytime.
(Forgive me if I forgot any other requirement, but I believe these are the basics)
then there is no problem. You get the benefit of technology (one small device, e.g. Kindle, that has all your books), with all the advantages of physical books (Except the experience of reading a physical book, but...).
After all, even if publishing costs are far less for digital media, there are still many people that need to get paid, especially the author, but also the editor, proofreader, graphics people, advertisement folks, etc. Maybe digital books should be cheaper than physical ones, but we should still pay for them.
So no, I don't think the current model is fine, but I don't think that taking books without paying for them (AKA stealing) is acceptable. Don't like the current model? Buy a goddamn physical book.
P.S.
Next time please try to divide your post into paragraphs, it's very hard to read as it is. Reminds me of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
You know, I can think of a better way to pass the books to my offsprings after I die: They can just take my goddamn Kindle! I'm not going to be buried with it, you know. And I can add a PostIt note to my will with the password to my Amazon account.
Problem Solved!
Damn, I need my mod points. +5 Funny (and thanks god for Google Translate's Latin alpha).
I tried real hard. Hey, at least I didn't go Firs# Pos# (I promised myself never to utter those words).
I just hope no one holds the database wrong.
Now we are coming to the issue of informed consent. From Wikipedia:
An informed consent can be said to have been given based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the facts, implications, and future consequences of an action. In order to give informed consent, the individual concerned must have adequate reasoning faculties and be in possession of all relevant facts at the time consent is given.
In medicine, if I tell someone about a surgery and he consents, but later something bad happened that he says he did not appreciate beforehand, it is as if no informed consent was given. I doubt most JailbreakMe users understand the implications of the exploit used (heck, I sure as hell don't), and I am sure the site does not go into too many details to make the users understand. So from a legally binding viewpoint, there is no informed consent - the user has no appreciation and understanding of the facts, implications and future consequences of using the software.
Actually, if you shoot someone then the gun is still not malware - it's a murder weapon. You need to get out of the basement more often.
Congratulations, you are one of the few people that change their mind when the situation changes. I am not sarcastic; I am totally serious. Most people frame an opinion about something (e.g. Apple), and that opinion usually is very hard to change, no matter what the company does. Even if Apple came out with a new iPhone that is completely open and you can install whatever you want, there will be some Apple-haters here that will find some reason why this is bad. And vice versa: If Apple decided that only fair-skinned, wealthy people who are very very nice to Steve Jobs can buy an iPhone, and even they cannot do anything outside some official rulebook with it, there will be some Apple-fanboys that will rationalize it. Oh, and by the way, changing an opinion from bad to good is harder than the other way around.
So what is Apple left to do? Continue with the philosophy that brought it success up till now. You might be a potential customer if they changed their ways, but most of the naysayers are, and always be, non-customers.
And another thing, regarding your first paragraph: Apple does things that annoy you, but they are not immoral, just... annoying. Contrast that with MS.
Thanks for the post. I wanted to say something to the same effect, but you beat me to the punch. Anyhow, people here just don't understand that Apple (under Jobs) has always believed in controlling every aspect of its ecosystem (Citation). The only time the MacOS was licensed was when Jobs wasn't in Apple, and that was their worst years. /. (can I say "the guys" or do we have representatives of the fair sex here also?) don't like Apple for their strong-armed tactics, but these are the same tactics that brought about the products that so many people like. Face it, we are a minority.
People love Apple's products because they are easy to use from the get-go and part of that ease of use comes from controlling both the hardware and the software completely (or as much as possible). Yes, we geeks like it less, but we are not the main customers. Catering to us will bring about an OS that may be more powerful, but not as easy to use out of the box - I'm looking at you Linux.
So, yes, some of the people at
You meant: Whoosh [citation needed].
Maybe future versions of the plug-in will use Flash to show HTML5 content. That could really be something!
I went for "Fixed That For You", but your definition also hold water, if needed.
Hey man, I was talking about other people. Me, I have a hard drive!
Damn, all those childhood stupid jokes just keep coming back. It's like riding a bicycle. Thanks Slashdot.
No, just that I believe most people here understood that the summery was talking about a trademark and not copyright, and the parent just came off as a show off.
Hey, my dog used it also, you insensitive clod!
Thanks for the insightful comment. Everyone here at /. was at loss without this important clarification. Now can we get back to nostalgic memories of childhood days and leave silly pedantics alone for a few minutes?
Jesus, some people never quit.
BTW, "but not as poorly worded" is also a poorly worded sentence, but I'll leave it as an exercise for you to fix on your own. I don't believe in FTFYs.
There are still lots of floppy disks, but at least now we have Viagra to fix it... /Rimshot
I didn't mean to imply that the subject is closed and ready for practical implementations, just that it's nice to see a study that incorporates some practical aspect. Of course, there is room for lots more research before coming up with something that can be used, but for a primary research, it's pretty good (from the summery, didn't read the article itself).
Because it seems counter-intuitive, I really liked the following sentence:
...Keen to see if their findings actually worked in practice..."
Often times we see studies done in labs and, because it doesn't look reasonable to us, we quickly dismiss it by saying "Well, it would never work in real life." Here, at least, they tried it in real life. It's not a long-term study, so there are still shortcomings, but it's better than the usual Social Studies experiments.
...do great evil to each other...
Since you obviously read all the documents, what are the "great evils" that were done by the Armed Forces? I don't mean to imply that nothing bad was done, but I will venture a guess that you didn't read even one document and all you go by is what is written in summery, which includes the key words "may reveal".
Please, before writing such strong praises for those exposing evils, try to find out what evil was really done and uncovered?
When the first batch of documents was released, the Pentagon was quick to condemn WikiLeaks because they said the documents exposed agents and informants. Later we found out this was not true and everyone was all over the Pentagon for making accusations without checking the facts. Please don't make the same mistake.
First of all I'll just say that I was giving general examples and that is why I left out most of the components of the equation and didn't refer to each one in particular.
Second, I have to say that you also strengthened my point: All the information we have about the probability of life in other planets is hypothetical. Putting it into an equation doesn't make that information more concrete.
And no, the equation doesn't make things more efficient. Every time Drake's equation comes up people write the equation and then write the definition of each part and only then we get to the actual discussion of what is the value of each part.
Drake could just as easily written a theorem where a couple of sentences could have conveyed all the factors that go into finding life in other planets and it would be shorter than equation + definition of terms.
But, hey, an equation is cool!
For reflection purposes you don't need an equation. I can just tell you that there are many, many stars and planets, but the chance that a planet will have life on it is low. Given the large distances involved the chance to contact said life forms is low. See? All clear. We have an equation to try and quantify the variables - Is the number of stars is larger than the chance to develop intelligent life is small? Since we don't have any useful estimates, the equation is just a fancy way to write down what can be summarized in a sentence or two. As geeks we like equations but here it's just razzle-dazzle,
And of course, all of this means that we are getting better estimates for the Drake equation as well. Everything used to be a complete unknown. But now the major room for variation are the biological variables not the astronomical ones.
OTOH, since the biological variables are such unknowns, the equation is still largely useless for any real-life calculation. I mean, Fi (the fraction that develop intelligent life) can range anywhere from almost 0 to almost 100% and L (the length of time such a civilization releases a signal to space) could be very long, but could also be extremely short, since we now see that on Earth most signals are not lost to space because the signals are focused to satellites and back to Earth.The time that we release signals to space was actually quite short and is almost over.