As far as I can tell the problem is people who don't know what they're talking about miscommunicating about the IP clauses in it. For example, how much of that downstream patent licensing stuff applies to people who merely use the software without redistributing it? Does any of it apply?
Its toxic to any company trying to even maintain a defensive IP portfolio.
Then why did Apple fight so hard to sell DRM free music?
Apple wanted to get rid of the DRM the record companies wanted, not the DRM that Apple wants. You still can't run programs not approved by Apple on your iPod/iOS device without jailbreaking. They each want different forms of DRM because they each sell different products. That doesn't mean either of them actually expects it to stop "piracy" or is interested in it primarily for that reason.
Can you get music without Apple? Yes. If you wanted to use Apple's DRMed music you had to use Apple. Can you get Unix servers? Yes. Can you get an AIX without IBM. No.
OK, let's try this.
Premise: DRM is useful and necessary for distributing content. Premise: The only DRM supported by iPods is Apple DRM. Premise: Only Apple (or those with Apple's permission) can distribute music with Apple DRM. Conclusion: Only Apple (or those with Apple's permission) can sell music for iPods, because DRM is required and Apple has the only DRM supported by iPods.
To escape the conclusion one of the premises must be wrong, most plausibly the first one. If DRM is not required then it should be discontinued. In some cases (music) it has been -- great. In those cases the DRM doesn't exist so it stops being anti-competitive (obviously). But to the extent that it still exists, the analogous conclusion still applies -- he who controls the DRM controls the market.
Did you read above? MS did not get in trouble for lock-in per se. They got in trouble for anti-competitive acts to protect that lock-in. Threatening OEMs not to install Netscape was one example. Threatening Intel not to create a Java VM was another. Apple has never threatened it's users not to use Real. What they did was prevent Real from using their iPod system as it was not intended.
Why do you think that what Apple intended has anything to do with anything? If Microsoft intended that no browsers competing with Internet Explorer should run on Windows, and implemented technical measures to prevent it, you would not see that as an anti-competitive act to protect lock-in? And you would accept that competing browsers trying to work around it are doing something wrong? How is Apple's behavior different?
Can you install Solaris on an AIX machine? As a user, yes. Can you run a business that does it? I think Oracle and IBM would both send their lawyers against you.
Nobody can install Solaris on an "AIX machine" because they run on completely different processor architectures, no Solaris drivers exist for IBM hardware, etc. But let's say that I, as a business, go to IBM and order up an x86-based xSeries server and then I buy myself a copy of x86 Solaris to run on it. You think they're going to send lawyers? IBM will be happy for the hardware sale and Oracle will send a promotional brochure for "Oracle Solaris Premier Subscriptions for Non-Oracle x86 Systems".
Can you today walk into any Best Buy and get a non-Apple music player? Can you today get music online or offline without ever dealing with Apple? The answer to both is yes. There is a difference in being number #1 because everyone selects your product and being #1 because consumers had no choice. You seem to think it is the former and not the latter.
You're thinking about the wrong side of the market. The device purchaser gets to decide if they want an iPhone or a Droid. The app developer doesn't get to decide which of their customers buy which device -- and if a majority of their customers buy an iPhone and then Apple rejects the app because it competes with Apple's own offerings, that will have an extremely anti-competitive effect in the app market.
Phones that run software do have uses for these things. I can't believe you just stated that security and licenses are only there for "overly controlling and anti-competitive" purposes.
In what way is that not true? By "security" I am obviously talking about security against the user rather than against outside attackers. And software license agreements of the variety included with almost all commercial software provide the customer with basically nothing and take many things away -- I don't need any EULA controlling what I do when I buy a book at the store, so why do I need one when I buy software on the internet?
Outside of the jurisdiction being discussed. I.e., it doesn't apply.
OK, so the remedy was the EU remedy rather than the US remedy. It was the same conduct that got them into trouble in the US.
The iPhone is not "any part of the trade or commerce", it's a product. It's fucking insane to say a company or person can't control their own products.
What's "fucking insane" is to say that a company can control their products after selling them. They sold it, someone paid them, it isn't theirs anymore.
You still haven't explained why this should be illegal.
You don't understand why it should be illegal for a company to leverage a dominant market position in one market into a dominant market position in another market?
It's because we like competition. Monopolies are great for monopolists and horrible for everyone else. We want choice -- choice in web browsers for Windows as well as for iOS, choice in whether we use VOIP over WiFi or cellular voice service, choice in whose app store we buy apps from or sell our apps through, etc. We don't want a single entity or a concentrated oligopoly having control over who wins and loses in the marketplace. We don't want app developers to have to choose between paying 30% to Apple or losing access to half their customers. It's basic free market theory -- capitalism only works when there is competition; monopoly and oligopoly "capitalism" is nothing but corporatocracy.
Music sales suddenly skyrocket right? Right?? Oh, they're still abysmal. Never mind then.
You're using logic. This is politics, logic is not accepted.
The point of the anti-P2P pro-DRM campaign is so that the old distributors can maintain control over the distribution channel. It has nothing to do with piracy. It has to do with demonizing P2P as an alternative distribution channel for artists. You mustn't put your own music on the Pirate Bay, even if that means you'll sell more concert tickets, because they're evil! Evil people who are stealing from you, the artist! We must stop them. Also, we must lock all music behind DRM which, incidentally, is patented by us, the recording companies, so that anyone who wants to distribute music has to license it and therefore have our permission.
But they can't just go to Congress and say that, can they? So it's all about piracy.
There's no way this number is true. I bet it was paid for by the RIAA's lawyers so they can say, "See! The lawsuits are working!!!"
That or they're just measuring it wrong because they're idiots. The article is highly unclear -- 16% of what? If people start using sneakernet and private trackers that they don't have access to measure, did the amount of sharing go down? Or did it go up because downloading 1TB of music from a private tracker once and then passing it around a school or an office on an external hard drive is way more efficient than sucking it through the straw of US broadband a thousand different times?
The copyright holders would disagree with you. Whether you think DRM is evil or not, it has a purpose from the standpoint of those that own the copyrights.
It seems to me the copyright holders want it for only the reason that Apple does -- because it suppresses competition. It's not like DRM actually stops music or movies from getting on The Pirate Bay. It does, however, allow concentration of the distribution channel -- if everybody has an iPod and iPod music only comes from iTunes and the RIAA can get good placement in iTunes for their artists over perhaps better independent artists, hey, that's great for them compared to having to contend with a thousand independent music outlets where indie bands get a fair shake.
Depends on what you consider an alternative. You can get music in a variety of different ways none of which involves Apple. You just can't get Apple DRMed music without Apple.
One way or another you're contradicting yourself here. Is it that Apple et al need DRM because you can't sell music without DRM? Because if so then "can't get Apple DRMed music without Apple" is pretty much the same thing as saying "can't get music without Apple." And if not then the DRM is only there for the benefit of Apple.
Apple never said you can't use RealPlayer or their music; they said you have to use iTunes to use their iPods.
Microsoft never said you can't use Netscape; they said you have to use IE to use Windows [without a Netscape tax]. It seems to me what Apple does is worse -- Microsoft was making it more expensive, Apple is just prohibiting it outright.
Apple breaking Real's hack of their system may not be enough.
Maybe, but that is hardly the only thing they've done. Again, trying to leverage iTunes to dominate music players and iPod to dominate music stores, then trying to use iPod/iOS to dominate app stores, etc.
Screwdrivers do not have DRM or security measures or license agreements. Your analogy makes no sense.
Of course screwdrivers don't have any of those things -- that's the point. Phones have no actual reason for them either, other than to allow manufacturers to be overly controlling and anti-competitive.
1. MS still distributes IE with Windows.
You didn't hear about the whole browser ballot thing? Microsoft is required to offer their competitors as an alternative. As in, the thing Apple is refusing to do with competitors' apps they deny.
2. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in smartphones. They can't use their position to force Angry Birds, for example, to only run on iOS.
Sherman Act Section 2:
Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony...
I don't know what that means to a lawyer, but it sure sounds like you don't actually have to have a monopoly to violate it.
As for not being able to keep Angry Birds off of Android, that's not the problem. The problem is that they can keep Chrome off of iOS (or disadvantage it vs. Safari), or prohibit competing app stores for iPhone (thereby making Apple the exclusive distributor, with it's 30% cut), or prevent you from using Skype or Skype features in exchange for consideration from AT&T, on and on.
This is why I advocate negative copyright. If you notice, big time actors and record executives are millionaires. I think we can all agree that they're unjustly overcompensated. Notice also that the more popular their works, the more overcompensated they are. It seems clear that we have copyright backwards -- anyone who copies it should be paid by the authors.
This should be just enough to correct the injustice, and in addition to that it serves the constitutional goal of promoting the progress, by increasing the incentives for dissemination of information, which in the existing copyright system is significantly impaired. It also corrects the market failure whereby music consumers consume music by performers, and thereby are induced -- without being compensated for the unwanted inducement -- to go out and buy concert tickets. Reverse copyright will help to recover some of the outlay that consumers are induced to make on those tickets.
I think we can all agree that a bill on this matter should be taken up by Congress immediately.
If the companies are breaking the law then it should be enforced. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't tell you whether they are all as a matter of law doing something illegal. But they're certainly doing something unsavory -- using products in one market to control another.
People are talking about it more with regard to Apple because Apple is the more serious case. They have a stronger market position in their market than their competitors -- none of the three consoles is unambiguously the market leader in that market, whereas iTunes could easily be described as such for music download stores and iPod/iOS for music players. And having two related markets makes the problem worse, because they make it so iOS only works properly with iTunes and vice versa. They're also applying the DENIED stamp to a lot more apps than any of the console makers, and especially problematic is that they deny apps that compete with their own.
But they are all in the same boat. What Sony is doing with the PS3 right now in my opinion should be getting them in hot water -- they're essentially blocking third parties from making software for the PS3 without their approval, and they're denying software that competes with their own. Imagine the Linux people get the SPUs unlocked and then small game publishers start making PS3 games that run on PS3 Linux without needing Sony's permission -- that would increase competition in the marketplace. Outwardly trying to prevent it sounds pretty anticompetitive to me.
You're supposed to have a "monopoly" over your own products.
I think you're confusing "their own products" with everything in the entire world that can be used with their products. Sears has a "monopoly" on Craftsman screw drivers. They don't have a monopoly on screws that can be used with Craftsman screw drivers. And if they tried to leverage their strong market position in screw drivers to monopolize the market for screws, well, did you see what happened when Microsoft included Internet Explorer with Windows? And Microsoft didn't even try to prohibit you from using other browsers.
I know that you jest, but "[forcing] the record companies to accept his tyrannical 99 cent pricing policy" sounds like something that someone in a monopoly position could do.
It sounds like something anyone with a store could do. "Let me sell for my price or I'm not buying anything."
The fact that the record companies gave in only means that they wanted to be in the store more than they wanted to charge something other than 99 cents. That could be because Apple has OMFG XBOX HEUG market control, or it could just be because the record companies weren't really that opposed to it.
I can get the latest hollywood flick off The Pirate Bay fast, doesn't mean it "works".
Depends what you mean. There is a serious question as to what effect a film being on TPB has on people going to theaters -- it's very difficult to measure. Do people watch movies using TPB instead of going to theaters, or does it being on TPB make more people aware of it so that more people go to theaters? Nobody really knows. The problem is that no two movies are the same, so you can't really have a control group unless you take a large sample of movies and put a random half of them on TPB and the other half not -- and then the other half ends up there anyway. But especially for more obscure films, it seems likely that the exposure would help far more than any amount of sales displacement could hurt -- because if you weren't going to make anything before then you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing something different.
We're still dealing with the fact that all the people who worked on this project could have gone out and taken a minimum wage job for a week and paid for the entire project.
I don't see why this is relevant? You have to make a decent movie if you want a return. If you can make a good movie on a low budget, great. If you can't, either you'll have to spend more to make it better or your movie is going to suck, nobody will want to pay for it and you won't make any money. It's a question of people -- some people can make a good movie on a low budget, but some people can't. Doesn't mean the ones who can't won't still try and fail, as we see every day in the independent film industry.
The problem is that we don't know what would have happened under a traditional model. A large fraction of independent films fail to break even under the traditional model -- they get like five screens in obscure theaters and nobody shows up. The fact that the analogous thing can happen here too doesn't show that a movie with better writing and a real advertising budget would go the same way.
Plus, this model is a little bit silly. It would work a lot better if they had it in theaters for money while they were distributing it for free on the internet -- people are way more likely to contribute if they get something (like a theater showing) in exchange for it, even where it is available for free elsewhere. Notice how people still go to theaters even if the movie is already on The Pirate Bay.
The problem is as I see it, the same claims of safety were made about the existing reactors.
I don't think that's accurate. Nobody in the west have claimed that RBMK reactors like the one in Chernobyl were safe -- many Soviet reactors were markedly unsafe. They were designed to be cheap and make plutonium for bombs. In Soviet Union reactor safety is number three priority.
So then you have US reactors -- and by what metric are they not safe? Newer reactors may be safer, but how about some reality -- deaths attributed to the industry by terrawatt-hour produced: Wind power: 0.15 Nuclear power: 0.0009 (including TMI and Chernobyl)
Their goal is to make $40,000, not to make $40,000 in two days. If they can maintain even half the current rate of donations for a month they'll more than meet their goal, and anything they make after that is gravy.
0.04% of all people donated.
Isn't that what I said in the first place? If you make it free then millions of people will download it. That has precisely nothing to do with how many of those people would have paid if you had charged money.
But the reality is, if these people had worked at a minimum wage job, they'd have more to show for their efforts.
I don't know about you, but I know which one I would rather have on my resume.
The Solicitor General's position, though, has support in actual legislation. (See 35 USC 282: "A patent shall be presumed valid.") If patents are entitled to a presumption of validity, what possible presumption could be said to exist in a system where mere preponderance of the evidence can render it invalid?
The presumption that it is valid unless the defendant can bear the burden of showing that it isn't by the preponderance of the evidence?
Which defendant settles if they think they have some chance of crossing the 50% line?
Which plaintiff litigates? A patent troll doesn't want to risk a larger probability of having their patent invalidated -- better to just move on to an easier mark.
Which valid patent, mistakenly invalidated by a jury, can see that corrected on appeal- when can 'no reasonable jury have found they didn't cross'?
Which invalid patent, mistakenly validated by the PTO, can see that corrected on appeal under the existing standard?
"Bias against software patents" and "having an understanding of software patents" are essentially equivalent, with an exception for patent lawyers whose business it is to execute the cognitive dissonance of doing the latter while avoiding the former.
There are less than twice as many downloads as there were and now they've got more than ten times as much money as they had. It seems to me that I was right about people having downloaded but not donated yet by a factor of more than 500%.
And if you want to argue that $3300 isn't a lot of money, all I'll say is that I wish I could make that much in two days.
You can't do that with any of the projects already licensed under copyleft licenses without getting permission from all the contributors, which is practically impossible. Additionally, you're now disparaging code reuse -- if I'm Apple or Canonical or the Linux Mint Project and I'm trying to decide what to use as the base of OS X or Ubuntu or Linux Mint, I'm certainly not going to use BSD or Debian or Ubuntu if I have to pay for every copy I produce from there out. If I have to I'm going to write my own, or I'll use whatever alternative is still available under a free-as-in-beer license. And considering that code reuse is something like half the point of open source, that seems like a pretty significant problem.
Right, so you would instead use the LGPL, or the BSD license, or the Apache license, which each also allow users to redistribute changes with or without modifications for free. Wait, what was your point?
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The problem is the IP clauses in it.
As far as I can tell the problem is people who don't know what they're talking about miscommunicating about the IP clauses in it. For example, how much of that downstream patent licensing stuff applies to people who merely use the software without redistributing it? Does any of it apply?
Its toxic to any company trying to even maintain a defensive IP portfolio.
Please elaborate -- this should be interesting.
Then why did Apple fight so hard to sell DRM free music?
Apple wanted to get rid of the DRM the record companies wanted, not the DRM that Apple wants. You still can't run programs not approved by Apple on your iPod/iOS device without jailbreaking. They each want different forms of DRM because they each sell different products. That doesn't mean either of them actually expects it to stop "piracy" or is interested in it primarily for that reason.
Can you get music without Apple? Yes. If you wanted to use Apple's DRMed music you had to use Apple. Can you get Unix servers? Yes. Can you get an AIX without IBM. No.
OK, let's try this.
Premise: DRM is useful and necessary for distributing content.
Premise: The only DRM supported by iPods is Apple DRM.
Premise: Only Apple (or those with Apple's permission) can distribute music with Apple DRM.
Conclusion: Only Apple (or those with Apple's permission) can sell music for iPods, because DRM is required and Apple has the only DRM supported by iPods.
To escape the conclusion one of the premises must be wrong, most plausibly the first one. If DRM is not required then it should be discontinued. In some cases (music) it has been -- great. In those cases the DRM doesn't exist so it stops being anti-competitive (obviously). But to the extent that it still exists, the analogous conclusion still applies -- he who controls the DRM controls the market.
Did you read above? MS did not get in trouble for lock-in per se. They got in trouble for anti-competitive acts to protect that lock-in. Threatening OEMs not to install Netscape was one example. Threatening Intel not to create a Java VM was another. Apple has never threatened it's users not to use Real. What they did was prevent Real from using their iPod system as it was not intended.
Why do you think that what Apple intended has anything to do with anything? If Microsoft intended that no browsers competing with Internet Explorer should run on Windows, and implemented technical measures to prevent it, you would not see that as an anti-competitive act to protect lock-in? And you would accept that competing browsers trying to work around it are doing something wrong? How is Apple's behavior different?
Can you install Solaris on an AIX machine? As a user, yes. Can you run a business that does it? I think Oracle and IBM would both send their lawyers against you.
Nobody can install Solaris on an "AIX machine" because they run on completely different processor architectures, no Solaris drivers exist for IBM hardware, etc. But let's say that I, as a business, go to IBM and order up an x86-based xSeries server and then I buy myself a copy of x86 Solaris to run on it. You think they're going to send lawyers? IBM will be happy for the hardware sale and Oracle will send a promotional brochure for "Oracle Solaris Premier Subscriptions for Non-Oracle x86 Systems".
Can you today walk into any Best Buy and get a non-Apple music player? Can you today get music online or offline without ever dealing with Apple? The answer to both is yes. There is a difference in being number #1 because everyone selects your product and being #1 because consumers had no choice. You seem to think it is the former and not the latter.
You're thinking about the wrong side of the market. The device purchaser gets to decide if they want an iPhone or a Droid. The app developer doesn't get to decide which of their customers buy which device -- and if a majority of their customers buy an iPhone and then Apple rejects the app because it competes with Apple's own offerings, that will have an extremely anti-competitive effect in the app market.
Phones that run software do have uses for these things. I can't believe you just stated that security and licenses are only there for "overly controlling and anti-competitive" purposes.
In what way is that not true? By "security" I am obviously talking about security against the user rather than against outside attackers. And software license agreements of the variety included with almost all commercial software provide the customer with basically nothing and take many things away -- I don't need any EULA controlling what I do when I buy a book at the store, so why do I need one when I buy software on the internet?
Outside of the jurisdiction being discussed. I.e., it doesn't apply.
OK, so the remedy was the EU remedy rather than the US remedy. It was the same conduct that got them into trouble in the US.
The iPhone is not "any part of the trade or commerce", it's a product. It's fucking insane to say a company or person can't control their own products.
What's "fucking insane" is to say that a company can control their products after selling them. They sold it, someone paid them, it isn't theirs anymore.
You still haven't explained why this should be illegal.
You don't understand why it should be illegal for a company to leverage a dominant market position in one market into a dominant market position in another market?
It's because we like competition. Monopolies are great for monopolists and horrible for everyone else. We want choice -- choice in web browsers for Windows as well as for iOS, choice in whether we use VOIP over WiFi or cellular voice service, choice in whose app store we buy apps from or sell our apps through, etc. We don't want a single entity or a concentrated oligopoly having control over who wins and loses in the marketplace. We don't want app developers to have to choose between paying 30% to Apple or losing access to half their customers. It's basic free market theory -- capitalism only works when there is competition; monopoly and oligopoly "capitalism" is nothing but corporatocracy.
Music sales suddenly skyrocket right? Right?? Oh, they're still abysmal. Never mind then.
You're using logic. This is politics, logic is not accepted.
The point of the anti-P2P pro-DRM campaign is so that the old distributors can maintain control over the distribution channel. It has nothing to do with piracy. It has to do with demonizing P2P as an alternative distribution channel for artists. You mustn't put your own music on the Pirate Bay, even if that means you'll sell more concert tickets, because they're evil! Evil people who are stealing from you, the artist! We must stop them. Also, we must lock all music behind DRM which, incidentally, is patented by us, the recording companies, so that anyone who wants to distribute music has to license it and therefore have our permission.
But they can't just go to Congress and say that, can they? So it's all about piracy.
There's no way this number is true. I bet it was paid for by the RIAA's lawyers so they can say, "See! The lawsuits are working!!!"
That or they're just measuring it wrong because they're idiots. The article is highly unclear -- 16% of what? If people start using sneakernet and private trackers that they don't have access to measure, did the amount of sharing go down? Or did it go up because downloading 1TB of music from a private tracker once and then passing it around a school or an office on an external hard drive is way more efficient than sucking it through the straw of US broadband a thousand different times?
The copyright holders would disagree with you. Whether you think DRM is evil or not, it has a purpose from the standpoint of those that own the copyrights.
It seems to me the copyright holders want it for only the reason that Apple does -- because it suppresses competition. It's not like DRM actually stops music or movies from getting on The Pirate Bay. It does, however, allow concentration of the distribution channel -- if everybody has an iPod and iPod music only comes from iTunes and the RIAA can get good placement in iTunes for their artists over perhaps better independent artists, hey, that's great for them compared to having to contend with a thousand independent music outlets where indie bands get a fair shake.
Depends on what you consider an alternative. You can get music in a variety of different ways none of which involves Apple. You just can't get Apple DRMed music without Apple.
One way or another you're contradicting yourself here. Is it that Apple et al need DRM because you can't sell music without DRM? Because if so then "can't get Apple DRMed music without Apple" is pretty much the same thing as saying "can't get music without Apple." And if not then the DRM is only there for the benefit of Apple.
Apple never said you can't use RealPlayer or their music; they said you have to use iTunes to use their iPods.
Microsoft never said you can't use Netscape; they said you have to use IE to use Windows [without a Netscape tax]. It seems to me what Apple does is worse -- Microsoft was making it more expensive, Apple is just prohibiting it outright.
Apple breaking Real's hack of their system may not be enough.
Maybe, but that is hardly the only thing they've done. Again, trying to leverage iTunes to dominate music players and iPod to dominate music stores, then trying to use iPod/iOS to dominate app stores, etc.
Screwdrivers do not have DRM or security measures or license agreements. Your analogy makes no sense.
Of course screwdrivers don't have any of those things -- that's the point. Phones have no actual reason for them either, other than to allow manufacturers to be overly controlling and anti-competitive.
1. MS still distributes IE with Windows.
You didn't hear about the whole browser ballot thing? Microsoft is required to offer their competitors as an alternative. As in, the thing Apple is refusing to do with competitors' apps they deny.
2. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in smartphones. They can't use their position to force Angry Birds, for example, to only run on iOS.
Sherman Act Section 2:
Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony ...
I don't know what that means to a lawyer, but it sure sounds like you don't actually have to have a monopoly to violate it.
As for not being able to keep Angry Birds off of Android, that's not the problem. The problem is that they can keep Chrome off of iOS (or disadvantage it vs. Safari), or prohibit competing app stores for iPhone (thereby making Apple the exclusive distributor, with it's 30% cut), or prevent you from using Skype or Skype features in exchange for consideration from AT&T, on and on.
This is why I advocate negative copyright. If you notice, big time actors and record executives are millionaires. I think we can all agree that they're unjustly overcompensated. Notice also that the more popular their works, the more overcompensated they are. It seems clear that we have copyright backwards -- anyone who copies it should be paid by the authors.
This should be just enough to correct the injustice, and in addition to that it serves the constitutional goal of promoting the progress, by increasing the incentives for dissemination of information, which in the existing copyright system is significantly impaired. It also corrects the market failure whereby music consumers consume music by performers, and thereby are induced -- without being compensated for the unwanted inducement -- to go out and buy concert tickets. Reverse copyright will help to recover some of the outlay that consumers are induced to make on those tickets.
I think we can all agree that a bill on this matter should be taken up by Congress immediately.
Exactly like Walmart.
If the companies are breaking the law then it should be enforced. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't tell you whether they are all as a matter of law doing something illegal. But they're certainly doing something unsavory -- using products in one market to control another.
People are talking about it more with regard to Apple because Apple is the more serious case. They have a stronger market position in their market than their competitors -- none of the three consoles is unambiguously the market leader in that market, whereas iTunes could easily be described as such for music download stores and iPod/iOS for music players. And having two related markets makes the problem worse, because they make it so iOS only works properly with iTunes and vice versa. They're also applying the DENIED stamp to a lot more apps than any of the console makers, and especially problematic is that they deny apps that compete with their own.
But they are all in the same boat. What Sony is doing with the PS3 right now in my opinion should be getting them in hot water -- they're essentially blocking third parties from making software for the PS3 without their approval, and they're denying software that competes with their own. Imagine the Linux people get the SPUs unlocked and then small game publishers start making PS3 games that run on PS3 Linux without needing Sony's permission -- that would increase competition in the marketplace. Outwardly trying to prevent it sounds pretty anticompetitive to me.
I don't see what the problem is. Yes, you should enforce the law against all of the companies that are breaking it.
You're supposed to have a "monopoly" over your own products.
I think you're confusing "their own products" with everything in the entire world that can be used with their products. Sears has a "monopoly" on Craftsman screw drivers. They don't have a monopoly on screws that can be used with Craftsman screw drivers. And if they tried to leverage their strong market position in screw drivers to monopolize the market for screws, well, did you see what happened when Microsoft included Internet Explorer with Windows? And Microsoft didn't even try to prohibit you from using other browsers.
I know that you jest, but "[forcing] the record companies to accept his tyrannical 99 cent pricing policy" sounds like something that someone in a monopoly position could do.
It sounds like something anyone with a store could do. "Let me sell for my price or I'm not buying anything."
The fact that the record companies gave in only means that they wanted to be in the store more than they wanted to charge something other than 99 cents. That could be because Apple has OMFG XBOX HEUG market control, or it could just be because the record companies weren't really that opposed to it.
I don't know if mobiles and desktops are that fungible. By that logic Windows Phone 7 is a success because Windows 7 is on millions of desktops.
And OS X "succeeded" because it was both Mac and UNIX, and it took the market share Mac always had. Which is still only like 10% of the market.
I can get the latest hollywood flick off The Pirate Bay fast, doesn't mean it "works".
Depends what you mean. There is a serious question as to what effect a film being on TPB has on people going to theaters -- it's very difficult to measure. Do people watch movies using TPB instead of going to theaters, or does it being on TPB make more people aware of it so that more people go to theaters? Nobody really knows. The problem is that no two movies are the same, so you can't really have a control group unless you take a large sample of movies and put a random half of them on TPB and the other half not -- and then the other half ends up there anyway. But especially for more obscure films, it seems likely that the exposure would help far more than any amount of sales displacement could hurt -- because if you weren't going to make anything before then you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing something different.
We're still dealing with the fact that all the people who worked on this project could have gone out and taken a minimum wage job for a week and paid for the entire project.
I don't see why this is relevant? You have to make a decent movie if you want a return. If you can make a good movie on a low budget, great. If you can't, either you'll have to spend more to make it better or your movie is going to suck, nobody will want to pay for it and you won't make any money. It's a question of people -- some people can make a good movie on a low budget, but some people can't. Doesn't mean the ones who can't won't still try and fail, as we see every day in the independent film industry.
The problem is that we don't know what would have happened under a traditional model. A large fraction of independent films fail to break even under the traditional model -- they get like five screens in obscure theaters and nobody shows up. The fact that the analogous thing can happen here too doesn't show that a movie with better writing and a real advertising budget would go the same way.
Plus, this model is a little bit silly. It would work a lot better if they had it in theaters for money while they were distributing it for free on the internet -- people are way more likely to contribute if they get something (like a theater showing) in exchange for it, even where it is available for free elsewhere. Notice how people still go to theaters even if the movie is already on The Pirate Bay.
Hands up all those that want a nuclear breeder reactor in, say, Iran, or Afghanistan, or ... get the picture?
So don't build one there. Or build one of the ones that breeds Pu-240 which will "contaminate" any Pu-239 and prevent it from being used in a weapon.
The problem is as I see it, the same claims of safety were made about the existing reactors.
I don't think that's accurate. Nobody in the west have claimed that RBMK reactors like the one in Chernobyl were safe -- many Soviet reactors were markedly unsafe. They were designed to be cheap and make plutonium for bombs. In Soviet Union reactor safety is number three priority.
So then you have US reactors -- and by what metric are they not safe? Newer reactors may be safer, but how about some reality -- deaths attributed to the industry by terrawatt-hour produced:
Wind power: 0.15
Nuclear power: 0.0009 (including TMI and Chernobyl)
Their goal is to make $40,000, not to make $40,000 in two days. If they can maintain even half the current rate of donations for a month they'll more than meet their goal, and anything they make after that is gravy.
0.04% of all people donated.
Isn't that what I said in the first place? If you make it free then millions of people will download it. That has precisely nothing to do with how many of those people would have paid if you had charged money.
But the reality is, if these people had worked at a minimum wage job, they'd have more to show for their efforts.
I don't know about you, but I know which one I would rather have on my resume.
The Solicitor General's position, though, has support in actual legislation. (See 35 USC 282: "A patent shall be presumed valid.") If patents are entitled to a presumption of validity, what possible presumption could be said to exist in a system where mere preponderance of the evidence can render it invalid?
The presumption that it is valid unless the defendant can bear the burden of showing that it isn't by the preponderance of the evidence?
Which defendant settles if they think they have some chance of crossing the 50% line?
Which plaintiff litigates? A patent troll doesn't want to risk a larger probability of having their patent invalidated -- better to just move on to an easier mark.
Which valid patent, mistakenly invalidated by a jury, can see that corrected on appeal- when can 'no reasonable jury have found they didn't cross'?
Which invalid patent, mistakenly validated by the PTO, can see that corrected on appeal under the existing standard?
"Bias against software patents" and "having an understanding of software patents" are essentially equivalent, with an exception for patent lawyers whose business it is to execute the cognitive dissonance of doing the latter while avoiding the former.
Read the post I was responding to again. The "Austrians" are pretty much libertarian economists.
There are less than twice as many downloads as there were and now they've got more than ten times as much money as they had. It seems to me that I was right about people having downloaded but not donated yet by a factor of more than 500%.
And if you want to argue that $3300 isn't a lot of money, all I'll say is that I wish I could make that much in two days.
You can't do that with any of the projects already licensed under copyleft licenses without getting permission from all the contributors, which is practically impossible. Additionally, you're now disparaging code reuse -- if I'm Apple or Canonical or the Linux Mint Project and I'm trying to decide what to use as the base of OS X or Ubuntu or Linux Mint, I'm certainly not going to use BSD or Debian or Ubuntu if I have to pay for every copy I produce from there out. If I have to I'm going to write my own, or I'll use whatever alternative is still available under a free-as-in-beer license. And considering that code reuse is something like half the point of open source, that seems like a pretty significant problem.
Right, so you would instead use the LGPL, or the BSD license, or the Apache license, which each also allow users to redistribute changes with or without modifications for free. Wait, what was your point?