The idea of an unregulated market (which we have never seen in North America, BTW) is that corporations do not have to be trusted to regulate themselves because consumers will punish companies that sell poor products / services by voting with their wallets. How can you blame free market for the current mess when when the general public has always depended on the government to ban products that are "bad for them" and hold corporations accountable so that they don't have to do it themselves ?
In other words, how can you blame an unregulated market for the recession when the market was regulated ?
Being a business owner I sure as hell know that I wouldn't gamble with my assets if I didn't have some sort of insurance policy in place in case those risks end up screwing me over. Put yourself in the shoes of a financial institution and ask yourself why on earth you would lend money out when there's any chance in hell that you won't be able to get it back.
I don't know first hand, but apparently horse meat is supposed to be very tasty. "The F-Word" (Gordan Ramsay cooking show in the UK) did an episode where they prepared horse meat, talked about the history of horses and talked to a farmer that raises them for their meat etc. It was really interesting.
In one part they were handing out samples near a horse-race track (they do that with lots of "exotic" foods. Go out into public and get people to try it and give their reactions etc.) and got asked by the police to leave. Not relevant but I thought it was funny.
This argument did occur to me, however I find it flawed. A company is an organization who's motivation is profit. A union is exactly the same thing. A union provides a service to the companies. A company provides goods or service to consumers. Why should a libertarian government allow entrepreneurs to organize for profit but not workers ?
There are drawbacks to unions but there are also drawbacks to businesses and corporations. Monopolies are contrary to free market but by definition you can't really have a market with regulation in place to prevent monopolies and call it "free". It's a paradox. In the end I feel that unions have the right to exist. I also feel that companies have the right to say "sorry your demands have passed the point of logic and reason and so we're going to temporarily close and find entirely new labour who is reasonable". Maybe I'm optimistic but something tells me that in a TRULY free market companies and workers would find a balance where companies know that if they try to screw over their workers they'll find themselves without labour and workers know that if they try to screw over their employers that they'll find themselves without work. Both workers and employers have equal power, theoretically.
I consider myself to be libertarian but I don't see any problem with unions. To prevent workers from organizing is contrary to libertarian principles. How can one value liberty and freedom to the fullest extent allowable (meaning to the point where one group's freedoms impede another group's) and yet deny workers the freedom to organize ?
A lot of people, myself included, have observed problems with unions making ever increasing unfair demands and being at least partially responsible for creating the incentive for companies to outsource. Yet I still support a worker's RIGHT to unionize. Just as I support the companies RIGHT to try to get the best labour possible at the lowest cost.
I don't see where people started to get this idea that libertarianism is a synonym for greedy capitalism. Yes we favour free market and don't like government interference. Yet that has nothing to do with favouring corporate execs over workers. People seem to have gotten things so twisted since the US economy went south. Pointing to the recession and saying "see! free market doesn't work and this is what libertarians want !!!!". Try doing some reading first and then ask yourself if you really believe that libertarians want corporations to be able to influence government to increase their power. Libertarians are directly oppose to power in all of it's forms. That's the very fundamental basis of libertarianism. That relates to unions in the sense that unions are a way of countering power levied against workers. There's nothing wrong with that. Certainly not in libertarian politics.
I don't know about you, but my computer desk isn't outside of my home exposed to the elements and nature.
If you're outside you run the risk of getting pooped on by birds (that just gave me a childhood flashback of that happening to my 3rd grade teacher once hehe) and every step you take has probably been peed on by an animal at some time or another. ESPECIALLY in parks. Heck, stray cats LOVE to use sand boxes as litter. That's why (smart) people with sand boxes in their back yard have covers for them.
If this type of things really bothers you then a) you're an idiot and b) don't let your kids play outside.
This also reminds me of one of the theories as to why children have more allergies and weaker immune systems these days. It's hypothesized that in days of old children would come in contact with various parasites and bacteria as they play outside and get all dirty which would help to train their immune systems. These days we're so uptight about hygiene and cleanliness. Kids play outside so much less and are cleaned at constant by their parents. Of course this is moot since urine is sterile. The soil and sand that the kids play in, on the other hand, is LOADED with bacteria.
"If you carry a cellphone around that emits radio waves, you probably don't have a great expectation of privacy if you leave it on all the time. And it's not like the triggerfish are recording the conversation."
Maybe I'm underestimating the average individual, but I'm not so sure that the "normal" person would see it that way.
Anecdote: I'm taking a driver's ed course and the instructor was casually asking where everyone goes to school / does for a living. I told her that I'm in online advertising and she said "ah so you're the guy to ask about computer problems".
Most people don't have a clue when it involves electronics or radio waves. When I tell people that they can be located via their cellphone, even when they're not using it (and some cases when it's turned off), they don't believe me.
"- I'm sure all the high school students getting minimum wage in the theatre believe that in all their hearts, their pay and jobs will be affected by some jerk recording a fuzzy copy of a movie."
This is extremely late so I'm sure it won't actually be read, but you reminded me of this.
When a movie is first released in theater you get telesyncs being posted on the torrent sites. What is a telesync ? It's essentially a cam that's IN THE PROJECTOR ROOM and syncs with the audio. It's still a cam but it's immensely higher quality than anything a cellphone or hidden camera in a seat will produce. There's no audience talking / laugther. No heads. No one standing up to go the bathroom. It's perfectly centered on the screen and the audio is exceptional.
Obviously these telesyncs have to be recorded by employees of the theater. Seems to me like it's an extremely worse problem than people bringing crappy cams into the theaters, they're all over the torrent sites (so they're extremely common and pretty much every new release gets telesyncs uploaded) and yet you never even hear about it in the media.
"I don't have to break in. All I have to do is own a bank, or even just a restaurant, anything where I can get your bank/credit card details."
To my knowledge, there is nothing actually illegal about a bank employee reproducing your credit card details. In fact, if it was illegal for them to do so, they wouldn't be able to print copies of documents with your information in order to hand it over to you.
Now, if they USE your credit to make purchases they've committed credit card fraud. If they withdraw money from your bank they've stolen from you. None of this has anything to do with their ability to take pictures or make photocopies etc. which is perfectly legal.
There might be regulations in certain areas that prohibit store employees from making copies or recording credit card numbers etc. However, I'm pretty sure that these are policies set by the credit card companies and not the law. I might be wrong. In any case, such a law is preemptive and unnecessary. It makes a certain action illegal in order to prevent other action which in itself is illegal. The reasoning is to prevent crime but I don't see the logic in preventing crimes by making more activities illegal.
So that she can keep in touch and play online games with her relatives. We monitor it and don't allow her to post anything personal (pictures, full name etc.)
"Have you looked at the faces of people "watching" MTV? Creepy."
I had the very first such experience with my 8 year-old daughter the other day.
Only thing was, she wasn't watching TV. She was doing stuff on her Facebook account. I asked her something and the expression on her face and tone of her voice was reminiscent of a heroin addict. It freaked me out.
My favourite is when you're looking at a computer or laptop etc. and the sales rep walks over and says "Can I help you?" to which you respond "I'm just checking out this laptop..." and they start going "Ah well it's got... " and then start reading off the specs word-for-word that are printed right on the sticker / tag etc.
"Marriage (and the expectation of procreation) between siblings poses a danger to society because of obvious genetic problems"
In the age of contraception I think that what two consenting adults wish to do regarding partnership and family is no one's business but their own. I can not consider a country that imposes restrictions on who can and can not pair up to be "free".
"Parent/child marriages, beyond this, have the problem that almost any instance would indicate abuse"
If a fully grown adult male and his mother wanted to marry and become husband and wife I do not see why, regardless of my inability to comprehend the reasoning and motivations behind their romantic relationship, they should not be allowed to. Marriage of any minor to any adult (related or not) is a completely different circumstance and could suggest abuse.
"Micromanagement of healthcare at a Federal level is not the key to socialized medicine. "
Even in Canada the public health care is managed at the provincial level. I wonder if many Americans who point to Canada as an alternative realize that. It's only a minor detail, but the federal government has little to do with public health care in Canada.
"The power that religious groups wield, the abortion debate, same sex marriage, etc, are indicators of the theocratic elements"
While the abortion debate obviously has many people from religious groups on the "pro-life" side, I don't think that particular issue has much to do with religion. You can be an atheist and still consider a fetus to be a human being deserving of all the same rights that fully born and matured human beings are afforded.
I'm not trying to argue my side. I happen to be more liberal on that issue. I just don't think it's fair to blame religious groups for the issue existing since it has nothing to do with religion.
The same sex marriage debate on the other hand, I'll give you that one. What really bothers me is that if there is a separation of church and state, and Obama's position (to take a more liberal view) is that the government should not be "re-defining" what "marriage" is since that's best left up to the states and faith groups, then why is it a legal institution ? Why does the government define it at all ? Why do marriage licenses exist and why does the government have anything at all to do with marriage ?
What I absolutely love about Ubuntu (and maybe this is inherited from Debian, I wouldn't know) is that if a package was automatically installed because another package needed it to satisfy a dependency, and then you un-install the package (the one that needed the other) then BOTH packages get uninstalled automatically.
I know this option won't be popular due to the potential for how it could go completely wrong... however, they could sell app or ad space. I think that as long as Canonical is selective and restrictive about how far it goes, and as long as the users can uninstall / remove whatever apps or ads are included in the default then it could be a powerful revenue stream and I think most users would be ok with it, knowing that it's what's keeping it free and that if it annoys them they can remove it.
Heck, even ads that are shown only during the install might work. Or making Firefox's default home page an ad page that can be changed etc.
"Or are we going to try the Chinese route and sterlize everyone going up? I'm sure that'll help the ranks of volunteers swell."
Obviously I can't speak for anyone else, but I think that's a great idea and wouldn't affect my willingness to volunteer at all. Choice A) Go into space vs. Choice B) stay here and be a slave to a family for the rest of my life... hmmmm... tough one!
There's lots of people who give up family voluntarily for careers and I also think that for a lot of people the dream of space exploration outweighs the dream of having kids.
It's funny you mention that. Last night I was watching Frontline on PBS and they said that when Obama was trying to decide if he should run for the candidacy his advisers told him that now is an optimal time because the longer he sticks around, before running, the more political baggage he'll have to explain himself for.
Disclaimer: I don't support or endorse either Obama or McCain.
"What about sex? Last I looked, doing that for money was... frowned upon, at the least.
So, what's the economic case for sex? What market good does it do?"
That depends entirely on where you are. Prostitution is considered one of the oldest professions. It does a lot of market good even when it's criminalized (it only shifts to a "black market" in that case).
Heck you can also look the pornography industry. Huge. Even in "mainstream media" sex sells.
It's a fact that attractive people are more successful. They get better jobs and promotions easier. They make friends easier and consequently have larger and more powerful social networks.
So I would argue that sex is one of the biggest economic factors in the world.
Although I think the argument that you're making is that people do things that they don't enjoy for money, and things that they do enjoy for other reasons. While that boundary obviously exists in lots of cases, I think the two overlap quite a bit and in my personal philosophical opinion, they should overlap whenever possible. Also, entertainment and pleasure (even when not sex related) has always been a terrific product and service, and thus a big economic mover. From Hollywood to housecleaning services, people spend money on things that provide them with pleasure. Thus the economic case for sex.
I'm not saying I disagree, and in true/. spirit I only read the summary... however it sounds like his whole point is that when people are having a hard time coming across basic necessities they stop caring about 'fun', 'community', 'pride' and 'intellectual challenges' and start caring about how to get food.
The real question is: is it going to get that bad ? Was the great depression even "that bad" or are the stories of stock traders jumping out of windows greatly exaggerated ?
Also, being someone who works in internet advertising and runs "free web-sites" that happen to feed my children it's pretty clear that he doesn't understand Internet economics. The Internet, like television, doesn't care about goods and services in exchange for currency (though I'm not saying that model isn't implemented online, just that there's other models that are more popular and work just as well, if not better). I guess next he's going to claim that television networks are going to stop free programming with commercials and instead switch to a strict pay-per-view model:rollseyes:
I don't agree because, as unfortunate as it is, I happen to think that the "averagely sane/intelligent person" would expect a few clauses in the fine-print in this day and age. It's one of the down-sides to living in North America but the vast majority of products come with fine-print from nail polish to kid's toys and I think most people realize that.
Like I was saying in my original post, unless the product contains no warnings of DRM on the box (and most CDs and games I've come across warn about copy-protection on the label) then I don't see how the companies are breaking the law. My personal opinion on the matter is that free-market choice is the primary weapon against DRM. I didn't buy Spore because of it.
"No, because DRM is installed by corporations, not a person."
I would also argue that DRM is "authorized" since you made the conscious choice to purchase and install it. As much as I hate DRM, if you didn't read the fine-print then that's your own fault.
Of course if the media comes with absolutely no warning then maybe the parent is on to something...
Slashdot Mirror
The idea of an unregulated market (which we have never seen in North America, BTW) is that corporations do not have to be trusted to regulate themselves because consumers will punish companies that sell poor products / services by voting with their wallets. How can you blame free market for the current mess when when the general public has always depended on the government to ban products that are "bad for them" and hold corporations accountable so that they don't have to do it themselves ?
In other words, how can you blame an unregulated market for the recession when the market was regulated ?
Being a business owner I sure as hell know that I wouldn't gamble with my assets if I didn't have some sort of insurance policy in place in case those risks end up screwing me over. Put yourself in the shoes of a financial institution and ask yourself why on earth you would lend money out when there's any chance in hell that you won't be able to get it back.
I don't know first hand, but apparently horse meat is supposed to be very tasty. "The F-Word" (Gordan Ramsay cooking show in the UK) did an episode where they prepared horse meat, talked about the history of horses and talked to a farmer that raises them for their meat etc. It was really interesting.
In one part they were handing out samples near a horse-race track (they do that with lots of "exotic" foods. Go out into public and get people to try it and give their reactions etc.) and got asked by the police to leave. Not relevant but I thought it was funny.
-1 OT
This argument did occur to me, however I find it flawed. A company is an organization who's motivation is profit. A union is exactly the same thing. A union provides a service to the companies. A company provides goods or service to consumers. Why should a libertarian government allow entrepreneurs to organize for profit but not workers ?
There are drawbacks to unions but there are also drawbacks to businesses and corporations. Monopolies are contrary to free market but by definition you can't really have a market with regulation in place to prevent monopolies and call it "free". It's a paradox. In the end I feel that unions have the right to exist. I also feel that companies have the right to say "sorry your demands have passed the point of logic and reason and so we're going to temporarily close and find entirely new labour who is reasonable". Maybe I'm optimistic but something tells me that in a TRULY free market companies and workers would find a balance where companies know that if they try to screw over their workers they'll find themselves without labour and workers know that if they try to screw over their employers that they'll find themselves without work. Both workers and employers have equal power, theoretically.
What I should have said is that libertarians view power as evil. Perhaps a necessary evil in some cases, but evil none-the-less.
I consider myself to be libertarian but I don't see any problem with unions. To prevent workers from organizing is contrary to libertarian principles. How can one value liberty and freedom to the fullest extent allowable (meaning to the point where one group's freedoms impede another group's) and yet deny workers the freedom to organize ?
A lot of people, myself included, have observed problems with unions making ever increasing unfair demands and being at least partially responsible for creating the incentive for companies to outsource. Yet I still support a worker's RIGHT to unionize. Just as I support the companies RIGHT to try to get the best labour possible at the lowest cost.
I don't see where people started to get this idea that libertarianism is a synonym for greedy capitalism. Yes we favour free market and don't like government interference. Yet that has nothing to do with favouring corporate execs over workers. People seem to have gotten things so twisted since the US economy went south. Pointing to the recession and saying "see! free market doesn't work and this is what libertarians want !!!!". Try doing some reading first and then ask yourself if you really believe that libertarians want corporations to be able to influence government to increase their power. Libertarians are directly oppose to power in all of it's forms. That's the very fundamental basis of libertarianism. That relates to unions in the sense that unions are a way of countering power levied against workers. There's nothing wrong with that. Certainly not in libertarian politics.
I don't know about you, but my computer desk isn't outside of my home exposed to the elements and nature.
If you're outside you run the risk of getting pooped on by birds (that just gave me a childhood flashback of that happening to my 3rd grade teacher once hehe) and every step you take has probably been peed on by an animal at some time or another. ESPECIALLY in parks. Heck, stray cats LOVE to use sand boxes as litter. That's why (smart) people with sand boxes in their back yard have covers for them.
If this type of things really bothers you then a) you're an idiot and b) don't let your kids play outside.
This also reminds me of one of the theories as to why children have more allergies and weaker immune systems these days. It's hypothesized that in days of old children would come in contact with various parasites and bacteria as they play outside and get all dirty which would help to train their immune systems. These days we're so uptight about hygiene and cleanliness. Kids play outside so much less and are cleaned at constant by their parents. Of course this is moot since urine is sterile. The soil and sand that the kids play in, on the other hand, is LOADED with bacteria.
"If you carry a cellphone around that emits radio waves, you probably don't have a great expectation of privacy if you leave it on all the time. And it's not like the triggerfish are recording the conversation."
Maybe I'm underestimating the average individual, but I'm not so sure that the "normal" person would see it that way.
Anecdote: I'm taking a driver's ed course and the instructor was casually asking where everyone goes to school / does for a living. I told her that I'm in online advertising and she said "ah so you're the guy to ask about computer problems".
Most people don't have a clue when it involves electronics or radio waves. When I tell people that they can be located via their cellphone, even when they're not using it (and some cases when it's turned off), they don't believe me.
"- I'm sure all the high school students getting minimum wage in the theatre believe that in all their hearts, their pay and jobs will be affected by some jerk recording a fuzzy copy of a movie."
This is extremely late so I'm sure it won't actually be read, but you reminded me of this.
When a movie is first released in theater you get telesyncs being posted on the torrent sites. What is a telesync ? It's essentially a cam that's IN THE PROJECTOR ROOM and syncs with the audio. It's still a cam but it's immensely higher quality than anything a cellphone or hidden camera in a seat will produce. There's no audience talking / laugther. No heads. No one standing up to go the bathroom. It's perfectly centered on the screen and the audio is exceptional.
Obviously these telesyncs have to be recorded by employees of the theater. Seems to me like it's an extremely worse problem than people bringing crappy cams into the theaters, they're all over the torrent sites (so they're extremely common and pretty much every new release gets telesyncs uploaded) and yet you never even hear about it in the media.
"I don't have to break in. All I have to do is own a bank, or even just a restaurant, anything where I can get your bank/credit card details."
To my knowledge, there is nothing actually illegal about a bank employee reproducing your credit card details. In fact, if it was illegal for them to do so, they wouldn't be able to print copies of documents with your information in order to hand it over to you.
Now, if they USE your credit to make purchases they've committed credit card fraud. If they withdraw money from your bank they've stolen from you. None of this has anything to do with their ability to take pictures or make photocopies etc. which is perfectly legal.
There might be regulations in certain areas that prohibit store employees from making copies or recording credit card numbers etc. However, I'm pretty sure that these are policies set by the credit card companies and not the law. I might be wrong. In any case, such a law is preemptive and unnecessary. It makes a certain action illegal in order to prevent other action which in itself is illegal. The reasoning is to prevent crime but I don't see the logic in preventing crimes by making more activities illegal.
So that she can keep in touch and play online games with her relatives. We monitor it and don't allow her to post anything personal (pictures, full name etc.)
"Have you looked at the faces of people "watching" MTV? Creepy."
I had the very first such experience with my 8 year-old daughter the other day.
Only thing was, she wasn't watching TV. She was doing stuff on her Facebook account. I asked her something and the expression on her face and tone of her voice was reminiscent of a heroin addict. It freaked me out.
"revenue of 7823 billion Danish Krone ( 1049 billion Euro or 1337 billion dollars ) in 2006"
Oh common now ... is that an accurate translation or did you do that on purpose ?
If it's accurate then once again someone else is living my dream :(
My favourite is when you're looking at a computer or laptop etc. and the sales rep walks over and says "Can I help you?" to which you respond "I'm just checking out this laptop ..." and they start going "Ah well it's got ... " and then start reading off the specs word-for-word that are printed right on the sticker / tag etc.
"Marriage (and the expectation of procreation) between siblings poses a danger to society because of obvious genetic problems"
In the age of contraception I think that what two consenting adults wish to do regarding partnership and family is no one's business but their own. I can not consider a country that imposes restrictions on who can and can not pair up to be "free".
"Parent/child marriages, beyond this, have the problem that almost any instance would indicate abuse"
If a fully grown adult male and his mother wanted to marry and become husband and wife I do not see why, regardless of my inability to comprehend the reasoning and motivations behind their romantic relationship, they should not be allowed to. Marriage of any minor to any adult (related or not) is a completely different circumstance and could suggest abuse.
"Micromanagement of healthcare at a Federal level is not the key to socialized medicine. "
Even in Canada the public health care is managed at the provincial level. I wonder if many Americans who point to Canada as an alternative realize that. It's only a minor detail, but the federal government has little to do with public health care in Canada.
"The power that religious groups wield, the abortion debate, same sex marriage, etc, are indicators of the theocratic elements"
While the abortion debate obviously has many people from religious groups on the "pro-life" side, I don't think that particular issue has much to do with religion. You can be an atheist and still consider a fetus to be a human being deserving of all the same rights that fully born and matured human beings are afforded.
I'm not trying to argue my side. I happen to be more liberal on that issue. I just don't think it's fair to blame religious groups for the issue existing since it has nothing to do with religion.
The same sex marriage debate on the other hand, I'll give you that one. What really bothers me is that if there is a separation of church and state, and Obama's position (to take a more liberal view) is that the government should not be "re-defining" what "marriage" is since that's best left up to the states and faith groups, then why is it a legal institution ? Why does the government define it at all ? Why do marriage licenses exist and why does the government have anything at all to do with marriage ?
What I absolutely love about Ubuntu (and maybe this is inherited from Debian, I wouldn't know) is that if a package was automatically installed because another package needed it to satisfy a dependency, and then you un-install the package (the one that needed the other) then BOTH packages get uninstalled automatically.
How is that for solving dependency hell ?
I know this option won't be popular due to the potential for how it could go completely wrong... however, they could sell app or ad space. I think that as long as Canonical is selective and restrictive about how far it goes, and as long as the users can uninstall / remove whatever apps or ads are included in the default then it could be a powerful revenue stream and I think most users would be ok with it, knowing that it's what's keeping it free and that if it annoys them they can remove it.
Heck, even ads that are shown only during the install might work. Or making Firefox's default home page an ad page that can be changed etc.
Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra0auEa6rEs
"Or are we going to try the Chinese route and sterlize everyone going up? I'm sure that'll help the ranks of volunteers swell."
Obviously I can't speak for anyone else, but I think that's a great idea and wouldn't affect my willingness to volunteer at all. Choice A) Go into space vs. Choice B) stay here and be a slave to a family for the rest of my life ... hmmmm ... tough one!
There's lots of people who give up family voluntarily for careers and I also think that for a lot of people the dream of space exploration outweighs the dream of having kids.
It's funny you mention that. Last night I was watching Frontline on PBS and they said that when Obama was trying to decide if he should run for the candidacy his advisers told him that now is an optimal time because the longer he sticks around, before running, the more political baggage he'll have to explain himself for.
Disclaimer: I don't support or endorse either Obama or McCain.
"What about sex? Last I looked, doing that for money was... frowned upon, at the least.
So, what's the economic case for sex? What market good does it do?"
That depends entirely on where you are. Prostitution is considered one of the oldest professions. It does a lot of market good even when it's criminalized (it only shifts to a "black market" in that case).
Heck you can also look the pornography industry. Huge. Even in "mainstream media" sex sells.
It's a fact that attractive people are more successful. They get better jobs and promotions easier. They make friends easier and consequently have larger and more powerful social networks.
So I would argue that sex is one of the biggest economic factors in the world.
Although I think the argument that you're making is that people do things that they don't enjoy for money, and things that they do enjoy for other reasons. While that boundary obviously exists in lots of cases, I think the two overlap quite a bit and in my personal philosophical opinion, they should overlap whenever possible. Also, entertainment and pleasure (even when not sex related) has always been a terrific product and service, and thus a big economic mover. From Hollywood to housecleaning services, people spend money on things that provide them with pleasure. Thus the economic case for sex.
I'm not saying I disagree, and in true /. spirit I only read the summary ... however it sounds like his whole point is that when people are having a hard time coming across basic necessities they stop caring about 'fun', 'community', 'pride' and 'intellectual challenges' and start caring about how to get food.
The real question is: is it going to get that bad ? Was the great depression even "that bad" or are the stories of stock traders jumping out of windows greatly exaggerated ?
Also, being someone who works in internet advertising and runs "free web-sites" that happen to feed my children it's pretty clear that he doesn't understand Internet economics. The Internet, like television, doesn't care about goods and services in exchange for currency (though I'm not saying that model isn't implemented online, just that there's other models that are more popular and work just as well, if not better). I guess next he's going to claim that television networks are going to stop free programming with commercials and instead switch to a strict pay-per-view model :rollseyes:
I don't agree because, as unfortunate as it is, I happen to think that the "averagely sane/intelligent person" would expect a few clauses in the fine-print in this day and age. It's one of the down-sides to living in North America but the vast majority of products come with fine-print from nail polish to kid's toys and I think most people realize that.
Like I was saying in my original post, unless the product contains no warnings of DRM on the box (and most CDs and games I've come across warn about copy-protection on the label) then I don't see how the companies are breaking the law. My personal opinion on the matter is that free-market choice is the primary weapon against DRM. I didn't buy Spore because of it.
"No, because DRM is installed by corporations, not a person."
I would also argue that DRM is "authorized" since you made the conscious choice to purchase and install it. As much as I hate DRM, if you didn't read the fine-print then that's your own fault.
Of course if the media comes with absolutely no warning then maybe the parent is on to something ...