While I certainly see how access control to certain documents is beneficial to many entities, I do not understand how this product would be beneficial to companies with real security concerns.
For example, if all one wishes to do is help insure that internal memos are not leaked to f*ckedcompany, this technology will provide a useful barrier. However, if you are trying to protect patient transcripts, one would hope that a suitable technology is already implemented. After all, MS Office, and MS Office, has many insecurities because it tries to be a business and consumer level jack of all trades. To me, security is enhanced by having only the necessary features integrated into a packaged built for the type of security mandated by the regulations
Even for stopping leaks, success is probably dependent upon enforcement of DCMA. Anyone who copies and pastes will be guilt of circumvention.
The level of proof a bank needs to win is not all that great. In my one experience, the bank went through an interrogation script with a member of family until that member said something that would open up the possibility that the bank was not liable. It was explianed that this possibility meant the bank was not responsible.
Yes, if the case was taken to court the money could be retrieved, but most of time such action is not justified.
The actual significance of the alleged secrurity problem is that it opens up expensive and potentially lucrative litigation, which brings in the lawyers and class action lawsuits, which can actually change the alleged irresponsible behaviour. Citibank wants this problem hidden so the lawyers can't use it, and they will not have to change expensive equipment.
I would agree with this, but when I installed the update my pointers in my dock to iChat and iCal broke. Since these are Apple products, and I installed them using default settings, I can only assume that the update is in fact unnecesarily changing some system information.
I am not sure if what you say is correct. If one needs to get a low level explosive permit from the ATF that would certainly restrict access. Explosives appear to be unavailable to people under 21, people who have served time of one year or more, known drug addicts, and people who have violated ATF regulations. The over 21 thing really sucks. On the other hand, the licensing fee appear to $100 for the first year, and $50 for renewal, and the NAR claims you can apply for a permit without also applying for permission to store the explosive. Finally, it is unclear that these regulation affect the existing exemption for sporting and recreational use.
I think this would really potentially affect the hobby shops. If all rocket engines are going to be classified as explosives, then they would need to get the ATF permits, build proper storage facilities a certain distance from inhabited structures, and run background checks on their customers. Therefore, I assume that if what you say is true this would put an incredible burden on retailers, and we would see some significant backlash. While big box retail stores may have some facilites set up to handle explosives, I think most hobby shops do not.
The restriction is that a carrier cannot accept shipment of explosive materials unless the employees dealing with those specific shipments pass certain background tests. Therefore shipping companies, who quite reasonable want to hire the cheapest people at the cheapest rates, are not going to increase their costs and difficulty of finding employees by imposing such addition background checks. As an example of how difficult this is, just look at the increased requirements for the airline baggage checkers. There really are not enough qualified people who are willing to work for the pay and hours the job requires. The article states that only UPS is currently restricting shipments.
Obviously model rocketry needs engines so that the hobbyist can test their designs, or check if they glued together the prefab cutouts properly. Because there is demand, this restriction opens up some business opportunities. Certain less popular shippers, like Airborne, could hire employees with proper security clearance and advertise the fact. A small surcharge could be added to help defray the added employee cost. Local rocketry enthusiast could work part time building model rocket engines for their friends. There are companies that supply kit that allow you to construct model rocket engines. These could be shipped without the propellent, which could be then be obtained locally. This would allow the individual to build the engines.
Of course, some of the above solutions my be worse than the problem, resulting in kids blowing off fingers and damaging eyes, but it is all in the name of fear based legislation!
The reality is that each copy of VPC does not represent another Windows license. VPC emulates an x86 and therefore can be used run any number of OSes that use the x86.
My copy of VPC, running under OS 9, is mostly used to run Linux. VPC is an very effective way to install and run Linux, either on a Windows machine or Mac, without having to permanently alter your file system. Installation creates a single hard disk image which can be simply deleted. I do not know why MS would want to enable and encourage their customers to run other OSes, but perhaps they have some grand plan.
The really nice thing about Virtual PC, over the old Real PC, is that Virtual PC tries very had to be x86 emulator, rather than a windows, linux, or whatever enabler. This means that it is going to try to emulate a set of hardware, which is necessarily going to be limited. On the up side, you will potentially be able to run a wider variety of OSes.
The problem with OS installation in VPC is the same of OS installation in a real computer. The hardware has to react in a manner that does not confuse the installer. The sad fact is that Linux installers are sometimes easily confused. I have always been able to install a Linux in real hardware and VPC, but it was often not the Linux with which I started.
The article is quite short on details of exactly what threat characteristics we are to catalog. My understanding is that the two most important characteristics that threaten us is that the object has mass and will likely collide with earth. Both of these can be estimated quite well in enough without a mission to the object. Any characteristics beyond that, be it shape or chemical composition, does not seem to be so critical.
Now, one might argue that if we knew things like chemical make up or density or the like we might know how to destroy the object or perhaps could change it's trajectory with engines or a tractor beam or something. However, this implies that we know the object exists with enough advance notice to do something. To plan a research encounter, that might be a year. To plan a destructive encounter, I think that might be a month. I seem to remember that the in the last near miss, we did not detect the object until after it had passed.
Which is to say that we need better detection technology coupled with serious research of how to change trajectory. I do not believe converting a single projectile into hundred of projectiles is a reasonable solution. And of course, if we don't know the object is coming, there is nothing we can do
It is interesting to speculate the exact nature of this limit, be it an implicit limit in the structure used or an explicit #define. However, the limit does not seem to have an immediate practical effect for most people who use iTunes as a simple consumer jukebox. How many of us have 150GB worth or hard disk space. To me this would imply you had a new fangled maxed out Xserve streaming you audio, in which case one would hope you might have a more sophisticated player.
Of course, from programming elegance point of view, I hope that this is not one of those limits that require the entire codebase to be rewritten when it needs to be changed
If one is going to act like a school child, then one needs to be treated as a school child. This principle applies to everyone. If a high school student wants to be treated as an adult, then he or she cannot act like an out of control child. If a middle school child doesn't want to be treated a a elementary school kid, that child must show the ability to work independently.
Likewise one would like to hire adults, but often for the available money that can be difficult. There are poeple who will spend the whole day on the phone. There are people who see the company broadband as a source for free porn and other content. With freedom comes responsibility. Abuse of the freedoms result in thier loss.
Science pretty much only shows that something probably doesn't exist. For instance, we are pretty certain an aether is not necessary for the conduction of EM radiation.
OTOH, science does provide a mechanism to show that a given explanation is consistent enough with all known data so that we may use that explanation to do useful things within a given domain. Science also provides mechanism to test predication resulting from the explanation against nature. The process generally leads to the simplest explanations, as those tend to be easiest to test and exploit.
In this case, if the organic material in the rock can be adequately explained with terrestrial sources, then we must accept the terrestrial explanation until such a time that we might get more data necessitating the complication of extraterrestrial life. By prematurely assuming extraterrestrial life, one runs the risk of contaminating the process.
Putting all this together, if we limit our 'truth' to a minimal set of useful and testable explanations, such as which we might get with the strict adherence to Occam's razor, god is unnecessary. After all, we turn on a light by completed a path for electrons, not praying. We insure our food supply by cross breeding plant and the application of chemical fertilizer, not by ritualistic acts of sex. We know the earth has an eccentric orbit, so see no need to dance to entice it's return on the winter solstice.
Amazingly enough the biggest problem I have had lately are government, especially local government, sites. They seem to have small budgets and the developers have little skills or experience. As such they seem to use exclusively MS products and apparently take web pages directly from the examples in the MS documentation. As such, these pages work only with IE.
Worse still are medium sized non-profits that code pages that only work with IE on Windows.
While I totally sympathize with the authors dilemma and desires, I found the article to be unfocused and disorganized. I would think a librarian would be more capable of organizing information.
For example, the author claims that adequate legal information is not available through online resources. The author then cites a case where she successfully researched a topic using various University online resources. The author then complains it would have faster if she could have used the commercial resources. Well, duh,. It would have probably been even faster if she had just hired a lawyer in the first place.
Another example of this lack of focus is the need for such packaged information for the general public. In one place the author complains that older court cases, say before 1990, are often unavailable to the general public. The author later states the statistic that in 88% of divorces at least one litigant is self represented, which in 52% both parties were self represented. First, this statistics says nothing about the number of litigants that would have benefited from 20 year old case law. Second, this is very close to lying with statistics as it says nothing of the people who would have benefited from any legal representation at all. I suspect that many of these cases involved no children and no significant property, in which case the litigants may have decided to file the routine paperwork themselves rather than hiring a lawyer.
As I have mentioned before, a library is primarily a place where professionals assist the general public in accessing information. Access of said information is beyond the ability of the general public, which is why we need people with an MLS to help us. A library should have a wide array of free information available to the public. However, the information will necessarily be limited and perhaps even not as transparent as it could be. It is true libraries are critical to out democracy, and public information should not be allowed to become private information for the purposes of denying such information to the public. However, it does not seem that does not seem to be what is happening in this case
Your analogy is invalid. The lawsuit does not directly involve a complaint about return policy or customer service. It involves an allegation that a sales contract is modified after the fact by one party without the ability of the other party to gain full remuneration. A more apt analogy would be if a company sold thongs, but had a secret restriction that no fat person could lawfully wear it.
However, you statement does bring up a two good points. First, although we may base our system on buyer beware, we protect consumers from outright fraud. For example, though most car sales are final, there are lemon laws and three day return policies. Likewise, most sales will be voided if fraud can be proven.
Second, retail returns are a service. Underwear and swimwear are a particularly good example because, like software, the cost of producing product is often a small percentage of the sale price. As such, there are retailers that will accept underwear and swimwear returns, even though they, or the vendor, must eat the cost of the product. However, when on is charging $30 for a 4 inch piece of lycra that cost $1, that is not much of an issue. Likewise if one is charging $200 for a $3 worth of plastic, the cost of the return is not that much of an issue. Additionally, if you are imposing the strict licensing and registration protocols, like those that are so popular with MS of late, there is really no substantial cost to the company. It should be possible to revoke the registration of the returned software so that it cannot be used and support is not given.
So yes I would say that changing the contract after the sale and not accepting retail returns should be illegal for software. The cost of the returned product is not an issue. The registration process provides a process to protect copyright and provide that support is not given for the returned product. The vendors are more than capable of providing procedures so that the return process does not become an excessive burden to the retailer.
It is my experience that store policies are based on vendor policy. Most stores do not want to eat the cost of product, so they will only take product back it the vendor will take the product back. I had an issue with this a few years ago with Comp USA. They had a general 1 week return policy on computers. However, Apple had a 30 day return policy, so I got them to take back a computer that I returned two weeks after purchase.
I am sure the official policy is that vendors in some cases might accept open product directly from customers, however I doubt vendors would routinely accept open media products from retail outlets.
Your statement is not incorrect. Spam, like most things, is a technical problem. A technical solution might be possible. However, the issue would still boil down to coding, implementing, and enforcing standards. In either case we will still have to define what spam is and enforce rules that insure spam is not sent or delivered.
In the technical realm this might take the form of statements defining the characteristics of software allowed to connect to the network. There would have to be some authentication to insure the software was compliant, and some mechanism to revoke the authentication of software that was not compliant. If the software was modified, it would automatically lose it's privileges and have to go through a new round of authentication. When the standards changed, all software would be invalidated and people would not be able to connect until they had an undated copy of the software. To simplify this process, we might have automatic updating of the software. This entire process would, of course, be overseen by some worldwide body of regulators.
OTOH, a legal solution might look like a law stating that commercial email headers must be valid and truthful, contain a valid physical address and phone number of all companies associated with the product, and only contain statements consistent with generally accepted advertising standards. There would be some monetary damages associated with each email sent, and payable to the owner of each server that the mail transgressed.
You are correct in assuming that the US congress would never pass something so simple and effective. They would be much more likely to try to pass a law specifying the legal technological means by which spam may be sent. This is of course what the DMCA and the like try to do. Rather than allowing the free market to reconfigure the business landscape to be consistent with current technology, they create socialist limitations on technology to protect vested business interests.
The paper does not seem to refer to a telegraph as we know it. In fact claiming the 1753 paper "invented" the telegraph leaves said paper open to unfair criticism and minimizes the importance of the paper.
The true relevance can be seen from this quote
because other scientists experimenting with electricity at the time could not see any use for it in communications.
In other words, this CM was the first to imagine and publish this application for electricity. It was a great leap of intuitiveness. I do not believe it was, however, the telegraph, which needed other leaps of intuitiveness.
A quick response to your statement. I hope no one has a problem with eating vegetable. They are important. The problem is that fresh good tasting vegetables and complete carbohydrates are almost impossible to come by.
I am a vegetarian but see no problem with others eating meat. If one chooses to eat several ounces of meat a day, along with the vegetables and grains, then that make a balanced diet. In the U.S. we are, on average, somewhere around 11 ounces of meat.
What I do not think is useful is trying to create a perfect meat substitute. Such a thing would require so much processing and chemical additives that it would be more of a drug than a food. I myself do not like meat, so it is not an issue.
I think we would be better off convincing people to eat 3-4 ounces of meat, an egg, and some legumes. At this level we may be near a point where the family ranch might once again be allowed to use traditional techniques. This of course assumes the unlikely circumstance that the agribusiness would allow such a thing, or that consumers would give up the $1 hamburger.
This was a brilliant tag line for the 'X-Files'. The viewer was simultaneously shown the venerability and Achilles heel of the Mulder character. We appreciate his ability to accept implausible explanations, but know his desire to believe will deliver him to repeated failures, without regard to the nobility or validity of his search.
Anyone who has seriously massaged data knows the dangers of 'wanting to believe' It is very hard to limit oneself to error correction and legitimate pattern enhancement. This is especially true when one is using off the shelf, not fully understood, tools. It is so easy to introduce artifacts that can be mistaken for reality.
This is exactly what happened to these images, the Man on the Moon image, Man on Mars image, and will continue to happen. People want to believe. They consider themselves cosmopolitan for their ability to accept improbable explanations, but forget the first step was to extinguish all possible conventional explanations, the first of which is systematic error.
The universe does not lie, but it is vague enough so we can easily lie to ourselves. It is as easy to create UFOs out of fuzzy images as it is to create animals out of passing clouds. We can not use either to prove or disprove the existence of anything.
I think the situation is insanely more complicated than you suggest. In any product that I have seen, pricing based on what the market will bear. Some product is sold at the cost to manufacture the product. Some product is sold at cost plus administrative expenses. Some product produces a profit. I think amazingly few companies know the actual cost to them of product. If they did we would see many fewer bankruptcies.
I think the same holds true with CDs, There is a market price for CDs. There is not much price elasticityto charge more for an album that might be especially expensive to produce. An artists either dips into personal funds, sells T-Shirts, or borrows money from a label to produce the music. The artist then pays more money to manufacture the CD, which, from the ads I have seen, costs like $3 each in small quantities. Hopefully through CD sales, more T-Shirt sales, and concerts they make enough to cover production.
So, to answer you question, I don't think anyone can come with a real average to produce an album, and i don't see that the labels have any incentive to even accurately investigate such a number. Any numbers they produce are going to include generous administrative and profit padding, which is only reasonable. Therefore, we can say that labels need about $500K to be generated on each album to 'break even'. If we believe your numbers(which I would guess to be inflated), about half of this is generated by sales. The rest is generated by other artist activity.
I did not follow this story closesly, but what I do know is that a lot of people in Houston now have access to a computer through the public library. I also know that the BSA can exact a steep penalty for any software piracy, penalties that could reach into the millions. I do not think that it is reasonable to expose the city to that liability.
What i also know is that the model promoted by the BSA and MS is unworkable for widely distributed PCs. They would want the city to 100% liable for any unlicensed software that may be found on your machine. They want the right to have root access to all your machines, have at will acess to your technicians, and have the ability to arbitrarily inconvience any of your employees at any time. I have seen it.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The previous business model was to release songs. On popular artists one could expect to make money on greatest hits compilations, boxed sets, and even rerelease in new formats. With MP3s, those days are over. The people have music, and they can convert it to whatever form they wish. You may get to sell one copy of a song. That is it.
So, the music industry needs to do what the movie industry did with DVDs. Although comparing prices between music and movie is flawed, movies are more or less dead product by the time they reach the home market, the music industry can still learn something by the way the movie studios add value to the movie. As you say the music DVD can contain the music videos, making of coverage for the song and the videos, interviews with the artists, and perhaps some advertising tie-ins. The DVDs can be rented out.
OTOH, perhaps the main purpose of the RIAA is to create an environment in which Mega Pop stars can exist. Perhaps we would be better off with a more diverse group of performers who just love to make music, and figure out the best way that those can maintain a middle class living off their music.
There are two practical upshots of this that I use in my own code. First, it is best to treat all warnings as bugs. Warnings are an indication that the compiler or programmer can get confused with the code. Neither is a good situation. Code that generates warnings should be rewritten in a more understandable manner. Some would say this stifles creativity. This may be true, but we can't all be James Joyce, and, as much as we may like to read his work, few of us would enjoy wading through such creative code.
Second, use standard idioms. For some, that may mean learning the standard idioms. These should become second nature. Programmers should express their creativity in the logic, structure, and simplicity of the code, not the non standard grammar. Standard forms allow more accurate coding and easier maintenance.
Just to mention this again, there is an alternative theory to 'turn the other cheek. Some people believe it was a way to use social norms to protect yourself. Some say that if you turn the other cheek, your attacker has to accept you as an equal if they are to continue to attack.
Slashdot Mirror
For example, if all one wishes to do is help insure that internal memos are not leaked to f*ckedcompany, this technology will provide a useful barrier. However, if you are trying to protect patient transcripts, one would hope that a suitable technology is already implemented. After all, MS Office, and MS Office, has many insecurities because it tries to be a business and consumer level jack of all trades. To me, security is enhanced by having only the necessary features integrated into a packaged built for the type of security mandated by the regulations
Even for stopping leaks, success is probably dependent upon enforcement of DCMA. Anyone who copies and pastes will be guilt of circumvention.
Yes, if the case was taken to court the money could be retrieved, but most of time such action is not justified.
The actual significance of the alleged secrurity problem is that it opens up expensive and potentially lucrative litigation, which brings in the lawyers and class action lawsuits, which can actually change the alleged irresponsible behaviour. Citibank wants this problem hidden so the lawyers can't use it, and they will not have to change expensive equipment.
I think I head it was People Can't Memorize Complicated Industry Acronyms?
Any want to confirm/correct this?
I would agree with this, but when I installed the update my pointers in my dock to iChat and iCal broke. Since these are Apple products, and I installed them using default settings, I can only assume that the update is in fact unnecesarily changing some system information.
I think this would really potentially affect the hobby shops. If all rocket engines are going to be classified as explosives, then they would need to get the ATF permits, build proper storage facilities a certain distance from inhabited structures, and run background checks on their customers. Therefore, I assume that if what you say is true this would put an incredible burden on retailers, and we would see some significant backlash. While big box retail stores may have some facilites set up to handle explosives, I think most hobby shops do not.
Obviously model rocketry needs engines so that the hobbyist can test their designs, or check if they glued together the prefab cutouts properly. Because there is demand, this restriction opens up some business opportunities. Certain less popular shippers, like Airborne, could hire employees with proper security clearance and advertise the fact. A small surcharge could be added to help defray the added employee cost. Local rocketry enthusiast could work part time building model rocket engines for their friends. There are companies that supply kit that allow you to construct model rocket engines. These could be shipped without the propellent, which could be then be obtained locally. This would allow the individual to build the engines.
Of course, some of the above solutions my be worse than the problem, resulting in kids blowing off fingers and damaging eyes, but it is all in the name of fear based legislation!
My copy of VPC, running under OS 9, is mostly used to run Linux. VPC is an very effective way to install and run Linux, either on a Windows machine or Mac, without having to permanently alter your file system. Installation creates a single hard disk image which can be simply deleted. I do not know why MS would want to enable and encourage their customers to run other OSes, but perhaps they have some grand plan.
The problem with OS installation in VPC is the same of OS installation in a real computer. The hardware has to react in a manner that does not confuse the installer. The sad fact is that Linux installers are sometimes easily confused. I have always been able to install a Linux in real hardware and VPC, but it was often not the Linux with which I started.
Now, one might argue that if we knew things like chemical make up or density or the like we might know how to destroy the object or perhaps could change it's trajectory with engines or a tractor beam or something. However, this implies that we know the object exists with enough advance notice to do something. To plan a research encounter, that might be a year. To plan a destructive encounter, I think that might be a month. I seem to remember that the in the last near miss, we did not detect the object until after it had passed.
Which is to say that we need better detection technology coupled with serious research of how to change trajectory. I do not believe converting a single projectile into hundred of projectiles is a reasonable solution. And of course, if we don't know the object is coming, there is nothing we can do
Of course, from programming elegance point of view, I hope that this is not one of those limits that require the entire codebase to be rewritten when it needs to be changed
Likewise one would like to hire adults, but often for the available money that can be difficult. There are poeple who will spend the whole day on the phone. There are people who see the company broadband as a source for free porn and other content. With freedom comes responsibility. Abuse of the freedoms result in thier loss.
OTOH, science does provide a mechanism to show that a given explanation is consistent enough with all known data so that we may use that explanation to do useful things within a given domain. Science also provides mechanism to test predication resulting from the explanation against nature. The process generally leads to the simplest explanations, as those tend to be easiest to test and exploit.
In this case, if the organic material in the rock can be adequately explained with terrestrial sources, then we must accept the terrestrial explanation until such a time that we might get more data necessitating the complication of extraterrestrial life. By prematurely assuming extraterrestrial life, one runs the risk of contaminating the process.
Putting all this together, if we limit our 'truth' to a minimal set of useful and testable explanations, such as which we might get with the strict adherence to Occam's razor, god is unnecessary. After all, we turn on a light by completed a path for electrons, not praying. We insure our food supply by cross breeding plant and the application of chemical fertilizer, not by ritualistic acts of sex. We know the earth has an eccentric orbit, so see no need to dance to entice it's return on the winter solstice.
Worse still are medium sized non-profits that code pages that only work with IE on Windows.
For example, the author claims that adequate legal information is not available through online resources. The author then cites a case where she successfully researched a topic using various University online resources. The author then complains it would have faster if she could have used the commercial resources. Well, duh,. It would have probably been even faster if she had just hired a lawyer in the first place.
Another example of this lack of focus is the need for such packaged information for the general public. In one place the author complains that older court cases, say before 1990, are often unavailable to the general public. The author later states the statistic that in 88% of divorces at least one litigant is self represented, which in 52% both parties were self represented. First, this statistics says nothing about the number of litigants that would have benefited from 20 year old case law. Second, this is very close to lying with statistics as it says nothing of the people who would have benefited from any legal representation at all. I suspect that many of these cases involved no children and no significant property, in which case the litigants may have decided to file the routine paperwork themselves rather than hiring a lawyer.
As I have mentioned before, a library is primarily a place where professionals assist the general public in accessing information. Access of said information is beyond the ability of the general public, which is why we need people with an MLS to help us. A library should have a wide array of free information available to the public. However, the information will necessarily be limited and perhaps even not as transparent as it could be. It is true libraries are critical to out democracy, and public information should not be allowed to become private information for the purposes of denying such information to the public. However, it does not seem that does not seem to be what is happening in this case
However, you statement does bring up a two good points. First, although we may base our system on buyer beware, we protect consumers from outright fraud. For example, though most car sales are final, there are lemon laws and three day return policies. Likewise, most sales will be voided if fraud can be proven.
Second, retail returns are a service. Underwear and swimwear are a particularly good example because, like software, the cost of producing product is often a small percentage of the sale price. As such, there are retailers that will accept underwear and swimwear returns, even though they, or the vendor, must eat the cost of the product. However, when on is charging $30 for a 4 inch piece of lycra that cost $1, that is not much of an issue. Likewise if one is charging $200 for a $3 worth of plastic, the cost of the return is not that much of an issue. Additionally, if you are imposing the strict licensing and registration protocols, like those that are so popular with MS of late, there is really no substantial cost to the company. It should be possible to revoke the registration of the returned software so that it cannot be used and support is not given.
So yes I would say that changing the contract after the sale and not accepting retail returns should be illegal for software. The cost of the returned product is not an issue. The registration process provides a process to protect copyright and provide that support is not given for the returned product. The vendors are more than capable of providing procedures so that the return process does not become an excessive burden to the retailer.
I am sure the official policy is that vendors in some cases might accept open product directly from customers, however I doubt vendors would routinely accept open media products from retail outlets.
In the technical realm this might take the form of statements defining the characteristics of software allowed to connect to the network. There would have to be some authentication to insure the software was compliant, and some mechanism to revoke the authentication of software that was not compliant. If the software was modified, it would automatically lose it's privileges and have to go through a new round of authentication. When the standards changed, all software would be invalidated and people would not be able to connect until they had an undated copy of the software. To simplify this process, we might have automatic updating of the software. This entire process would, of course, be overseen by some worldwide body of regulators.
OTOH, a legal solution might look like a law stating that commercial email headers must be valid and truthful, contain a valid physical address and phone number of all companies associated with the product, and only contain statements consistent with generally accepted advertising standards. There would be some monetary damages associated with each email sent, and payable to the owner of each server that the mail transgressed.
You are correct in assuming that the US congress would never pass something so simple and effective. They would be much more likely to try to pass a law specifying the legal technological means by which spam may be sent. This is of course what the DMCA and the like try to do. Rather than allowing the free market to reconfigure the business landscape to be consistent with current technology, they create socialist limitations on technology to protect vested business interests.
The true relevance can be seen from this quote
because other scientists experimenting with electricity at the time could not see any use for it in communications.
In other words, this CM was the first to imagine and publish this application for electricity. It was a great leap of intuitiveness. I do not believe it was, however, the telegraph, which needed other leaps of intuitiveness.
I am a vegetarian but see no problem with others eating meat. If one chooses to eat several ounces of meat a day, along with the vegetables and grains, then that make a balanced diet. In the U.S. we are, on average, somewhere around 11 ounces of meat.
What I do not think is useful is trying to create a perfect meat substitute. Such a thing would require so much processing and chemical additives that it would be more of a drug than a food. I myself do not like meat, so it is not an issue.
I think we would be better off convincing people to eat 3-4 ounces of meat, an egg, and some legumes. At this level we may be near a point where the family ranch might once again be allowed to use traditional techniques. This of course assumes the unlikely circumstance that the agribusiness would allow such a thing, or that consumers would give up the $1 hamburger.
Anyone who has seriously massaged data knows the dangers of 'wanting to believe' It is very hard to limit oneself to error correction and legitimate pattern enhancement. This is especially true when one is using off the shelf, not fully understood, tools. It is so easy to introduce artifacts that can be mistaken for reality.
This is exactly what happened to these images, the Man on the Moon image, Man on Mars image, and will continue to happen. People want to believe. They consider themselves cosmopolitan for their ability to accept improbable explanations, but forget the first step was to extinguish all possible conventional explanations, the first of which is systematic error.
The universe does not lie, but it is vague enough so we can easily lie to ourselves. It is as easy to create UFOs out of fuzzy images as it is to create animals out of passing clouds. We can not use either to prove or disprove the existence of anything.
I think the same holds true with CDs, There is a market price for CDs. There is not much price elasticityto charge more for an album that might be especially expensive to produce. An artists either dips into personal funds, sells T-Shirts, or borrows money from a label to produce the music. The artist then pays more money to manufacture the CD, which, from the ads I have seen, costs like $3 each in small quantities. Hopefully through CD sales, more T-Shirt sales, and concerts they make enough to cover production.
So, to answer you question, I don't think anyone can come with a real average to produce an album, and i don't see that the labels have any incentive to even accurately investigate such a number. Any numbers they produce are going to include generous administrative and profit padding, which is only reasonable. Therefore, we can say that labels need about $500K to be generated on each album to 'break even'. If we believe your numbers(which I would guess to be inflated), about half of this is generated by sales. The rest is generated by other artist activity.
What i also know is that the model promoted by the BSA and MS is unworkable for widely distributed PCs. They would want the city to 100% liable for any unlicensed software that may be found on your machine. They want the right to have root access to all your machines, have at will acess to your technicians, and have the ability to arbitrarily inconvience any of your employees at any time. I have seen it.
So, the music industry needs to do what the movie industry did with DVDs. Although comparing prices between music and movie is flawed, movies are more or less dead product by the time they reach the home market, the music industry can still learn something by the way the movie studios add value to the movie. As you say the music DVD can contain the music videos, making of coverage for the song and the videos, interviews with the artists, and perhaps some advertising tie-ins. The DVDs can be rented out.
OTOH, perhaps the main purpose of the RIAA is to create an environment in which Mega Pop stars can exist. Perhaps we would be better off with a more diverse group of performers who just love to make music, and figure out the best way that those can maintain a middle class living off their music.
Second, use standard idioms. For some, that may mean learning the standard idioms. These should become second nature. Programmers should express their creativity in the logic, structure, and simplicity of the code, not the non standard grammar. Standard forms allow more accurate coding and easier maintenance.
Controversial, but there it is.