I would love to see a piece on this from the developers point of view.
I think the developers would agree with most of the key points. The only difference is that developers would put a lot more of the blame on publishers.
One aspect in particular - He clearly doesn't realise just how much of a loss cancelling a game is for a developer. I don't know why he thinks a relationship with a developer is worth more than the combined cost of development losses so far and paying a development team while the company pitches for a new deal.
He definitely makes some good points about going in the wrong direction and dealing with that. But that's another problem with working with an outside developer. Now I work for a publisher owned studio, and we have so much more freedom and flexibility. The milestones the publisher cares about are Alpha, Beta, Release. That's all. Everything else we do internally. If something doesn't work, or can't be done in time, we drop it. The publisher knows we're working for the best interests of the company. Working with a publisher, every one of these decisions has to be justified.
Disclaimers hardly make up for deliberately misleading. And it's quite obvious that some people will beleive the game looks that good, simply because otherwise, why would the advertisers not show some of the actual playable game footage?
The Advertising Standards Authority has fairly strict guidelines that ensure that the public are not misinformed. Is this in any way a bad thing?
Everyone who was involved in the creation of the DVD standard agreed to a certain set of rules that they would abide by, but Samsung (like Rambus) flagrantly violated those rules and put other members of the association at risk.
But it's all a matter of how you present it. Under a different spin, the movie industry cartel applied monopolisitic pressure on the electronics industry insisting on features that are inconvenient to the consumer. Samsung merely produced a piece of equipment that there was market demand for.
Have you tried recording it? It works by fooling the automatic gain control. Some video recorders apply the gain control to the input signal immediately, others apply it to the signal going to the record head.
But it doesn't matter. mp3 is a brand name. They could call any codec mp3 surround, and any new media player would support it because the manufacturers know that people want mp3 support.
Every time I apply for an advertised job, I get a call from an agent. Most of the time, the agent makes no mention of the advertised job, and as far as I can tell it might not even exist (perhaps it would be better if I stopped batching applications). Then they call me at work and want to chat for half an hour about stuff that they should be able to get from the information I submitted.
Looking at other comments, I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Come to think of it, why do companies use these recruiters? If they're just going to submit the job ad to a recruitment website, the company might as well do itthemselves and not pay the commission.
Educated guess. Companies are in business to make money. Why would they give away $499? The most likely reason that they're selling it for $100 is that they think they can sell to more than 6 times as many students at that price. It's market segmentation.
Some companies could easily charge the full price, and students would still pay, because the software is essential. So, in some cases, it actually is generosity, because they could easily charge more.
It's a Java IDE. It's not essential. You can use Java from the command line.
Because that's a condition of sale
Why do other companies not insist on such conditions of sale? What makes computer software so different?
Why do you say the price is "inflated"? Much of this software is very expensive to develop, and has a small market.
You have a very naive view of how pricing works. The cost of development has no bearing at all on the sale price. If things worked that way, Windows XP would have a retail price of abut $10. They charge the price that will make most money.
That was my point, moron - those people are committing illegal and immoral acts to get the software for free or for cheap. Screw your world where leeches are allowed to lie to get ahead in business.
I've already challenged your assertion that these acts are any more immoral than the discrimnatory pricing scheme. Which other business gets to tell purchasers how they may and may not use their product after they've purchased it? As for illegal - Why is it legal for them to dictate how I use their software? The law is wrong. Purchasers of everything else in the world have the right to use it however they choose. But not software.
For nothing? THEY DEVELOPED THE FUCKING SOFTWARE. If it costs too much, DON'T BUY IT. If you hate them so much and feel it is a rip-off, why do you want to use their software? If their software is worth nothing, why do people want it so much?
I'm quite happy to pay their prices as long as they charge the same price for everyone. If they try to get as much from me as the possibly can, then I should be able to practice discriminatory purchasing and get it for as little as possible.
What exactly is your point? Are you saying that because there are searches which are not different between google.cn and the chinese language google.com that there is no censorship? Tiananmen Square is just used as an example! They don't filter on search terms but on websites. Presumably there are many Chinese language sites that are not reachable from google.cn because they have been censored.
It simply proves that they are not listing certain sites. If you do a search and select the web rather than local matches using any national version of google, then you should get roughly the same results.
But they do offer an uncensored Chinese language version og google outside of Vhina, which is not censored (At least not by the criteria set by the Chinese government).
When you start saying things like "I have a right to find a way to work around it" - that may be true on a legal level, but it is certainly not ethical. It may be legally wrong, too - because you have lied when you said it was for academic purposes, possibly nullifying your license/contract.
For every student licence that they sell for $100, they make $100 from someone who would never have paid $599. They don't do this out of generosity. They do it to make money.
When you start saying things like "I have a right to find a way to work around it" - that may be true on a legal level, but it is certainly not ethical. It may be legally wrong, too - because you have lied when you said it was for academic purposes, possibly nullifying your license/contract.
They're trying to maximise profits. That's perfectly reasonable, and what a company is meant to do. I'm trying to minimise my costs. Is that not also reasonable? Why is it that I can use every other component of my computer for commercial purposes without paying extra, whereas for some reason, I have to agree to limit myself for the right to use the software component? I've paid money for that. Why don't I get to use it as I see fit?
However, the really annoying thing about this attitude, is that it encourages companies to stop offering educational discounts. It encourages them to raise prices, or to cripple the educational product, to avoid abuse of their educational sales. It just screws over everybody - schools, students, software developers. All because you lied, or wanted to "push the limits." If you are really broke, sure go ahead - pretend you are a student. But if you are making money from using the software - you don't get a free pass on getting the educational version. When you use it this way, it is also unfair on your honest business competitors. For example, I have always paid for Photoshop, because it makes me money. I make sure everyone gets paid well. But some rip-off artist will start a competing business, with lower overheads because he doesn't pay for the Photoshop our industry depends on.
Whereas them selling the software at inflated prices scews over their customers. This will not cause them to raise prices. People paying those prices are what cause them to raise prices. What's wrong with offering a competing business with lower overheads? As long as everything I do is legal, if your business is not competitive then you lose. It's the waty it works.
It runs deep, to many levels. This kind of gaming the system has a real effect on innovation, prices and copy protection in the market. It's not worth it. I would rather have a strong and honest industry with a relationship of trust between vendor and customer. We all get more done that way. People who want profit for nothing are just a drain on society.
The software vendors who want $599 for a product that they can sell for $100 want something for nothing. I donpt think they're a drain on society.
Personally, I don't think that an EULA should have any bearing on this, since the use would probably be legitimate without the licence (after all, the definition of a licence is to grant permission), and personally, I don't think that a licence should be able to take rights away. Sadly, it is possible that the courts would disagree with this assessment.
Well, the DRM type stuff is allegedly beneficial to the domestic consumer because without it the media cartels aren't going to distribute media for PC playback. The TCPA is beneficial to businesses because they can (presumably) lock down their systems pretty tightly somehow.
Not sure I agree that these are beneficial, but that's pretty much what the proponents claim.
Where do you get this sense of self-entitlement? Apple spent their money creating Mac OS X. They get to decide how they want to sell it. If you don't like how they sell it, you don't have to buy it. You're not morally, much less legally, entitled to do what you want with their hard work, just because you can.
By paying money for a product. I bought it. I can damn well use it. Why are they entitled to tell me what I can do with somethign after they've taken money from me? What gives them the right to tell me that now I have bought their software, I have to pay them more money for hardware just so i can use it?
I can buy a copy of IntelliJ IDEA for academic use for $99, or a license for personal use for $199. They charge (I think) $599 for the commercial license. All have equal functionality. So, you think it's moral for me to buy the personal license for $199, and then use it to create commercial software? After all, what right do they have to tell me what to do with the software I've purchased? I should be able to do whatever I want with it, regardless of what the terms of the sale were."
I don't see anything wrong with using a personal licence to produce commercial software, any more than I feel the need to pay Intel more money if I use their CPUs for commercial purposes. Does it cost them more money if I decide to create commercial software? Do other companies segment the market this way? They often try to, but people are well within their rights to try and find a way around it. For example, airlines charge more for business passengers simply by charging more for people who travel during the week. If I take a business trip at the weekend am I obliged to pay the midweek price?
Yes, but a lot of politiicans vote based on what they think is right. And a lot are in marginal constiuencies.
The first group may well be impresed by the one sided argument Disney give them, an then be swayed by a letter writing campaign extoling the virtues of the public domain. The second group will be quite happy too vote a certain way to get a few hundered extravotes.
Small scale lobby efforts have had an effect. Public health and safetly advocates have a lot of sway and they're not as wealthy as the tobacco lobby or the car manufacturers, but they do get laws passed.
The problem is, they were so heavy handed recently with the DMCA, and heavy handed action against file sharers, that they've turned a lot of people against copyright. It's a lot harder to justify an extension on the grounds that everyone's for it when you have a lot of people who are reasonably organised and informed telling you that it's a bad idea. The dogmatic matra of the media cartels doesn;t work so well when you have people willing to point out how wrong it is.
Slashdot Mirror
Bet he wasn't expected Free software to have this direct an effect.
and Slashdot editors were suckered by it
It was posted under "It's funny, Laugh". Perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt.
Good for you.
Not totally sure I agree with the first complaint but since they're erring on the side of the consumer I can't complain.
I would love to see a piece on this from the developers point of view.
I think the developers would agree with most of the key points. The only difference is that developers would put a lot more of the blame on publishers.
One aspect in particular - He clearly doesn't realise just how much of a loss cancelling a game is for a developer. I don't know why he thinks a relationship with a developer is worth more than the combined cost of development losses so far and paying a development team while the company pitches for a new deal.
He definitely makes some good points about going in the wrong direction and dealing with that. But that's another problem with working with an outside developer. Now I work for a publisher owned studio, and we have so much more freedom and flexibility. The milestones the publisher cares about are Alpha, Beta, Release. That's all. Everything else we do internally. If something doesn't work, or can't be done in time, we drop it. The publisher knows we're working for the best interests of the company. Working with a publisher, every one of these decisions has to be justified.
Disclaimers hardly make up for deliberately misleading. And it's quite obvious that some people will beleive the game looks that good, simply because otherwise, why would the advertisers not show some of the actual playable game footage?
The Advertising Standards Authority has fairly strict guidelines that ensure that the public are not misinformed. Is this in any way a bad thing?
So, do you consider copying publically available images to be exactly the same as stealing your television?
Only if there's a convention since the beginning of property laws that it can be perfectly acceptable to steal from unlocked houses.
Everyone who was involved in the creation of the DVD standard agreed to a certain set of rules that they would abide by, but Samsung (like Rambus) flagrantly violated those rules and put other members of the association at risk.
But it's all a matter of how you present it. Under a different spin, the movie industry cartel applied monopolisitic pressure on the electronics industry insisting on features that are inconvenient to the consumer. Samsung merely produced a piece of equipment that there was market demand for.
Have you tried recording it? It works by fooling the automatic gain control. Some video recorders apply the gain control to the input signal immediately, others apply it to the signal going to the record head.
But it doesn't matter. mp3 is a brand name. They could call any codec mp3 surround, and any new media player would support it because the manufacturers know that people want mp3 support.
Every time I apply for an advertised job, I get a call from an agent. Most of the time, the agent makes no mention of the advertised job, and as far as I can tell it might not even exist (perhaps it would be better if I stopped batching applications). Then they call me at work and want to chat for half an hour about stuff that they should be able to get from the information I submitted.
Looking at other comments, I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Come to think of it, why do companies use these recruiters? If they're just going to submit the job ad to a recruitment website, the company might as well do itthemselves and not pay the commission.
How do you know that?
Educated guess. Companies are in business to make money. Why would they give away $499? The most likely reason that they're selling it for $100 is that they think they can sell to more than 6 times as many students at that price. It's market segmentation.
Some companies could easily charge the full price, and students would still pay, because the software is essential. So, in some cases, it actually is generosity, because they could easily charge more.
It's a Java IDE. It's not essential. You can use Java from the command line. Because that's a condition of sale Why do other companies not insist on such conditions of sale? What makes computer software so different?
Why do you say the price is "inflated"? Much of this software is very expensive to develop, and has a small market.
You have a very naive view of how pricing works. The cost of development has no bearing at all on the sale price. If things worked that way, Windows XP would have a retail price of abut $10. They charge the price that will make most money.
That was my point, moron - those people are committing illegal and immoral acts to get the software for free or for cheap. Screw your world where leeches are allowed to lie to get ahead in business.
I've already challenged your assertion that these acts are any more immoral than the discrimnatory pricing scheme. Which other business gets to tell purchasers how they may and may not use their product after they've purchased it? As for illegal - Why is it legal for them to dictate how I use their software? The law is wrong. Purchasers of everything else in the world have the right to use it however they choose. But not software.
For nothing? THEY DEVELOPED THE FUCKING SOFTWARE. If it costs too much, DON'T BUY IT. If you hate them so much and feel it is a rip-off, why do you want to use their software? If their software is worth nothing, why do people want it so much?
I'm quite happy to pay their prices as long as they charge the same price for everyone. If they try to get as much from me as the possibly can, then I should be able to practice discriminatory purchasing and get it for as little as possible.
What exactly is your point? Are you saying that because there are searches which are not different between google.cn and the chinese language google.com that there is no censorship? Tiananmen Square is just used as an example! They don't filter on search terms but on websites. Presumably there are many Chinese language sites that are not reachable from google.cn because they have been censored.
It simply proves that they are not listing certain sites. If you do a search and select the web rather than local matches using any national version of google, then you should get roughly the same results.
But they do offer an uncensored Chinese language version og google outside of Vhina, which is not censored (At least not by the criteria set by the Chinese government).
I mean, go to http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/, search for "tiananmen square". You will get pictures of tanks and all the censored stuff.
www.Google.cn exists in addition to this. Is it realyl censorship if they provide more information?
When you start saying things like "I have a right to find a way to work around it" - that may be true on a legal level, but it is certainly not ethical. It may be legally wrong, too - because you have lied when you said it was for academic purposes, possibly nullifying your license/contract.
For every student licence that they sell for $100, they make $100 from someone who would never have paid $599. They don't do this out of generosity. They do it to make money.
When you start saying things like "I have a right to find a way to work around it" - that may be true on a legal level, but it is certainly not ethical. It may be legally wrong, too - because you have lied when you said it was for academic purposes, possibly nullifying your license/contract.
They're trying to maximise profits. That's perfectly reasonable, and what a company is meant to do. I'm trying to minimise my costs. Is that not also reasonable? Why is it that I can use every other component of my computer for commercial purposes without paying extra, whereas for some reason, I have to agree to limit myself for the right to use the software component? I've paid money for that. Why don't I get to use it as I see fit?
However, the really annoying thing about this attitude, is that it encourages companies to stop offering educational discounts. It encourages them to raise prices, or to cripple the educational product, to avoid abuse of their educational sales. It just screws over everybody - schools, students, software developers. All because you lied, or wanted to "push the limits." If you are really broke, sure go ahead - pretend you are a student. But if you are making money from using the software - you don't get a free pass on getting the educational version. When you use it this way, it is also unfair on your honest business competitors. For example, I have always paid for Photoshop, because it makes me money. I make sure everyone gets paid well. But some rip-off artist will start a competing business, with lower overheads because he doesn't pay for the Photoshop our industry depends on.
Whereas them selling the software at inflated prices scews over their customers. This will not cause them to raise prices. People paying those prices are what cause them to raise prices. What's wrong with offering a competing business with lower overheads? As long as everything I do is legal, if your business is not competitive then you lose. It's the waty it works.
It runs deep, to many levels. This kind of gaming the system has a real effect on innovation, prices and copy protection in the market. It's not worth it. I would rather have a strong and honest industry with a relationship of trust between vendor and customer. We all get more done that way. People who want profit for nothing are just a drain on society.
The software vendors who want $599 for a product that they can sell for $100 want something for nothing. I donpt think they're a drain on society.
The difference is the EULA.
Personally, I don't think that an EULA should have any bearing on this, since the use would probably be legitimate without the licence (after all, the definition of a licence is to grant permission), and personally, I don't think that a licence should be able to take rights away. Sadly, it is possible that the courts would disagree with this assessment.
Well, the DRM type stuff is allegedly beneficial to the domestic consumer because without it the media cartels aren't going to distribute media for PC playback. The TCPA is beneficial to businesses because they can (presumably) lock down their systems pretty tightly somehow.
Not sure I agree that these are beneficial, but that's pretty much what the proponents claim.
Where do you get this sense of self-entitlement? Apple spent their money creating Mac OS X. They get to decide how they want to sell it. If you don't like how they sell it, you don't have to buy it. You're not morally, much less legally, entitled to do what you want with their hard work, just because you can.
By paying money for a product. I bought it. I can damn well use it. Why are they entitled to tell me what I can do with somethign after they've taken money from me? What gives them the right to tell me that now I have bought their software, I have to pay them more money for hardware just so i can use it?
I can buy a copy of IntelliJ IDEA for academic use for $99, or a license for personal use for $199. They charge (I think) $599 for the commercial license. All have equal functionality. So, you think it's moral for me to buy the personal license for $199, and then use it to create commercial software? After all, what right do they have to tell me what to do with the software I've purchased? I should be able to do whatever I want with it, regardless of what the terms of the sale were."
I don't see anything wrong with using a personal licence to produce commercial software, any more than I feel the need to pay Intel more money if I use their CPUs for commercial purposes. Does it cost them more money if I decide to create commercial software? Do other companies segment the market this way? They often try to, but people are well within their rights to try and find a way around it. For example, airlines charge more for business passengers simply by charging more for people who travel during the week. If I take a business trip at the weekend am I obliged to pay the midweek price?
Sorry.. For "A lot of politicians" read "some politicians will on occasion"
Yes, but a lot of politiicans vote based on what they think is right. And a lot are in marginal constiuencies.
The first group may well be impresed by the one sided argument Disney give them, an then be swayed by a letter writing campaign extoling the virtues of the public domain. The second group will be quite happy too vote a certain way to get a few hundered extravotes.
Small scale lobby efforts have had an effect. Public health and safetly advocates have a lot of sway and they're not as wealthy as the tobacco lobby or the car manufacturers, but they do get laws passed.
The problem is, they were so heavy handed recently with the DMCA, and heavy handed action against file sharers, that they've turned a lot of people against copyright. It's a lot harder to justify an extension on the grounds that everyone's for it when you have a lot of people who are reasonably organised and informed telling you that it's a bad idea. The dogmatic matra of the media cartels doesn;t work so well when you have people willing to point out how wrong it is.
But that's an argument against copyright infringement. Not that copyright infringemnt is exactly the same as theft