You've really got a lot of rage working there. Just FYI, nobody's FORCING you to buy Hitch on DVD. The great thing is, you get to choose - if you don't think $30+/disc is worth it, you DON'T HAVE TO BUY IT. Jackbooted thugs from Sony are not going to break into your home at 2AM, grab $35 from your wallet, and force you, a la Clockwork Orange, to watch Hitch.
I wish a lot of things were cheaper - I try not to translate that wish into hatred of those who won't sell them to me for less.
BTW, re: your characterization of the media industry as "greedy fuckers" - well, they are. They're going to try to get you to pay as much as you're willing for DVDs. Doesn't the fact that you're trying to pay as little as possible for those same DVDs make you a "greedy fucker" too? Or was I napping while God descended from the heavens and assigned a morally appropriate price for DVDs?
What about the law firm's right NOT to pay someone they don't want to? Are you saying that the firm should be forced to have people on the payroll it doesn't want? Not very Jeffersonian of you.
By the way, on your point about it being a matter of scale - would this change if the firm consisted of one lawyer, and he fired this person? How about two lawyers? Where's the line?
You're right (or almost right). I did my math wrong. Disney had 2.0 billion shares outstanding before this deal. They're issuing about 280MM shares to buy Pixar, of which about 140MM go to Jobs. Hence, he'll own 140/(2000+280)= 6% of the business, not 3-4%. Good catch, mea culpa.
"I mean, the rest of the stockholders could outvote him collectively, but in general Jobs now more-or-less controls the future of Disney."
He has some weight, but he only owns about 3-4% of the combined Disney-Pixar, so he's not that big a deal from a voting point of view. He will wield power based on his board seat, though.
"I personally wish the stock market just disappeared, but fat chance of that happening."
Then how do you connect sources of capital with companies that need capital? Gotta have some medium to do it, and the stock market, for all its perceived flaws, is actually very efficient at it.
Re:Patnets brought to their logical conclusion
on
Supreme Court spurns RIM
·
· Score: 2, Informative
"No they wouldn't! that's the point. There are better ways to collaberate on R&D without multi billion dollar venture investments.
Like what? If you ask me (or anybody else) to invest in a project, you've got to be able to show me how you're going to get a return. For products (like pharmaceuticals and software) where the cost of the first product (pill or CD) is very high, but the cost of the 2nd through nth is virtually zero, you've got to have some way of giving the people who invest the upfront capital to develop the product the chance to earn a return on that product.
Patents ain't perfect, by any means, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a need for a way to provide incentives to investors.
"Bill Gates sucks whatever he does because of what he has done to set back computing years just for profit."
Yes, because we all know that impeding the development of new browser features harms mankind far more than finding a vaccine for malaria could possibly help.
Actually, the mail order industry was the primary opponent of taxing out of state sales. The Supreme Court has ruled (ND vs. Quill) that companies are only required to collect sales tax from a sale to a customer in state X, if the company has "nexus" in state X (i.e. some physical presence, be it offices, a warehouse, whatever).
Interestingly, this situation actually divides the mail order industry (and ecommerce, for that matter). Before ecommerce became big, there was a schism between companies like LL Bean (which only has a physical presence in Maine, and hence doesn't charge taxes for customers outside of Maine), and Sears or JC Penney (both used to have huge catalog operations, as well as stores in every state, so the companies had nexus in every state, and had to charge sales tax for every state). The law put Sears/Penney at a competitive disadvantage to Bean.
Today, you'll see a significant divide in WalMart's position on ecommerce taxation vs Amazon's, since Amazon only charges for Washington (and maybe Delaware), while WalMart has to charge in all 50 states.
Note also that the question here is just whether the companies can be forced to _bill_ you for your local sales taxes, not whether you _owe_ those taxes. Technically, you're (in most states) required to pay those taxes as a "use tax" on your annual income tax form. Nobody does, but that's the law. The issue for the courts has been whether it's reasonable to ask retailers to collect the tax, or such a nightmare logistically that it's just not fair.
The upfront cost is the problem. A show like Firefly is at least $1MM an episode, and probably more, so you have to find someone willing to pony up that risk capital to make 4-5 of them, before you can really see if there's a download market.
Some places, you can get this (called a freeze). In California, Louisiana, Nevada, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine and Colorado anyone can put a freeze on their account, which prevents anyone from pulling your credit, unless you've explicitly authorized it by contacting the reporting agency. In Texas, Vermont, and Washington, you can get a freeze if you've been a victim of identity theft.
Of the 568 US law enforcement officers killed with a firearm between 1994 and 2003, 51, or 9.0%, were killed with their own weapon.
In addition, 26 officers were killed by friendly fire (including 6 training accidents and 4 non-suicide self-inflicted deaths) out of a total of 697 accidental on-duty deaths.
So, in total, we have 26+51=78 officers shot either (a) by assailants, with their own guns, or (b) accidentally by themselves or another officer, out of 594 total shootings. In other words, 13%. Source
Ah, the classic "make it cheaper, or I'll steal it" argument. Sorry, but that dog don't hunt. Don't think a CD's worth $17? Don't buy it. Really simple.
Nope. There are specific rules about this, a company can't just act in the interests of the majority of shareholders, it needs to act in the interests of all the shareholders, which is usually determined to be profit maximization. If this weren't the case, somebody could buy up 51% of the company, and then decide that the new company purpose was to sell him all the company's assets for $0.01, thereby depriving the 49% owners of all the value of the company.
"just a simple back-woods farmer from a small town in Virginia."
Since that's the case, and the people in New Orleans need food, which will tend to drive up food prices across the country (similar situation to gas, production capacity's been reduced, supplies have been destroyed), I'm sure you're lined up to cut the price of the crops you produce for the next year. Right?
Yes, you can copy a book at the library, but within limits. Copy a couple of pages, that's fair use. Copy the whole thing, that wouldn't be. There aren't bright lines here, folks, this issue isn't easy.
A lot of slashdotters seem inclined to say "since digital products can be copied at essentially zero cost, I shouldn't have to pay for copies, because before I was paying for the cost of printing all those extra books." Hate to break it to you, but printing costs are a pretty minor portion of the cost of a book - try $2-3 for a big hardcover. The vast bulk of the price is driven by costs that don't go away: authors, editors, bookstore employees, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
"Welcome to corporate fascism."
You've really got a lot of rage working there. Just FYI, nobody's FORCING you to buy Hitch on DVD. The great thing is, you get to choose - if you don't think $30+/disc is worth it, you DON'T HAVE TO BUY IT. Jackbooted thugs from Sony are not going to break into your home at 2AM, grab $35 from your wallet, and force you, a la Clockwork Orange, to watch Hitch.
I wish a lot of things were cheaper - I try not to translate that wish into hatred of those who won't sell them to me for less.
BTW, re: your characterization of the media industry as "greedy fuckers" - well, they are. They're going to try to get you to pay as much as you're willing for DVDs. Doesn't the fact that you're trying to pay as little as possible for those same DVDs make you a "greedy fucker" too? Or was I napping while God descended from the heavens and assigned a morally appropriate price for DVDs?
What about the law firm's right NOT to pay someone they don't want to? Are you saying that the firm should be forced to have people on the payroll it doesn't want? Not very Jeffersonian of you.
By the way, on your point about it being a matter of scale - would this change if the firm consisted of one lawyer, and he fired this person? How about two lawyers? Where's the line?
You're right (or almost right). I did my math wrong. Disney had 2.0 billion shares outstanding before this deal. They're issuing about 280MM shares to buy Pixar, of which about 140MM go to Jobs. Hence, he'll own 140/(2000+280)= 6% of the business, not 3-4%. Good catch, mea culpa.
"I mean, the rest of the stockholders could outvote him collectively, but in general Jobs now more-or-less controls the future of Disney."
He has some weight, but he only owns about 3-4% of the combined Disney-Pixar, so he's not that big a deal from a voting point of view. He will wield power based on his board seat, though.
"magazine girls are NOT used as basis for developing new medical treatments that might heal or kill someone."
But if they were, imagine the demand for jobs in pharma and medical research.
"Get booty for bounting XP..."
What, because the nerds wouldn't know what to do with the booty, or because nobody has any clue what the hell bounting is?
"I personally wish the stock market just disappeared, but fat chance of that happening."
Then how do you connect sources of capital with companies that need capital? Gotta have some medium to do it, and the stock market, for all its perceived flaws, is actually very efficient at it.
"No they wouldn't! that's the point. There are better ways to collaberate on R&D without multi billion dollar venture investments.
Like what? If you ask me (or anybody else) to invest in a project, you've got to be able to show me how you're going to get a return. For products (like pharmaceuticals and software) where the cost of the first product (pill or CD) is very high, but the cost of the 2nd through nth is virtually zero, you've got to have some way of giving the people who invest the upfront capital to develop the product the chance to earn a return on that product.
Patents ain't perfect, by any means, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a need for a way to provide incentives to investors.
"Bill Gates sucks whatever he does because of what he has done to set back computing years just for profit."
Yes, because we all know that impeding the development of new browser features harms mankind far more than finding a vaccine for malaria could possibly help.
Actually, the mail order industry was the primary opponent of taxing out of state sales. The Supreme Court has ruled (ND vs. Quill) that companies are only required to collect sales tax from a sale to a customer in state X, if the company has "nexus" in state X (i.e. some physical presence, be it offices, a warehouse, whatever).
Interestingly, this situation actually divides the mail order industry (and ecommerce, for that matter). Before ecommerce became big, there was a schism between companies like LL Bean (which only has a physical presence in Maine, and hence doesn't charge taxes for customers outside of Maine), and Sears or JC Penney (both used to have huge catalog operations, as well as stores in every state, so the companies had nexus in every state, and had to charge sales tax for every state). The law put Sears/Penney at a competitive disadvantage to Bean.
Today, you'll see a significant divide in WalMart's position on ecommerce taxation vs Amazon's, since Amazon only charges for Washington (and maybe Delaware), while WalMart has to charge in all 50 states.
Note also that the question here is just whether the companies can be forced to _bill_ you for your local sales taxes, not whether you _owe_ those taxes. Technically, you're (in most states) required to pay those taxes as a "use tax" on your annual income tax form. Nobody does, but that's the law. The issue for the courts has been whether it's reasonable to ask retailers to collect the tax, or such a nightmare logistically that it's just not fair.
The upfront cost is the problem. A show like Firefly is at least $1MM an episode, and probably more, so you have to find someone willing to pony up that risk capital to make 4-5 of them, before you can really see if there's a download market.
The summary says ".83 cents" - that's the right amount. 0.83 cents = $0.0083. Before you flame, check your own math.
Some places, you can get this (called a freeze). In California, Louisiana, Nevada, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine and Colorado anyone can put a freeze on their account, which prevents anyone from pulling your credit, unless you've explicitly authorized it by contacting the reporting agency. In Texas, Vermont, and Washington, you can get a freeze if you've been a victim of identity theft.
I'd pay $100 for a season of Arrested Development. I'm 30 years old, and this is the funniest show I've ever seen on TV.
Lucky you, you can get TWO seasons for just $44 at Amazon...
"Ever try to bike through traffic while screwing around with a headphone cable? Probably not."
No, because I'm not enough of an idiot to wear headphones while riding - hearing's important my friend.
Oops - you're right, my fault. I was looking at two, used one, and gave the url for the other. The right link is here.
Don't know where you pulled that 75% number from.
Of the 568 US law enforcement officers killed with a firearm between 1994 and 2003, 51, or 9.0%, were killed with their own weapon.
In addition, 26 officers were killed by friendly fire (including 6 training accidents and 4 non-suicide self-inflicted deaths) out of a total of 697 accidental on-duty deaths.
So, in total, we have 26+51=78 officers shot either (a) by assailants, with their own guns, or (b) accidentally by themselves or another officer, out of 594 total shootings. In other words, 13%. Source
Ah, the classic "make it cheaper, or I'll steal it" argument. Sorry, but that dog don't hunt. Don't think a CD's worth $17? Don't buy it. Really simple.
Nope. There are specific rules about this, a company can't just act in the interests of the majority of shareholders, it needs to act in the interests of all the shareholders, which is usually determined to be profit maximization. If this weren't the case, somebody could buy up 51% of the company, and then decide that the new company purpose was to sell him all the company's assets for $0.01, thereby depriving the 49% owners of all the value of the company.
So, because it didn't affect a whole lot of people, it wasn't the right thing to do? Come on now.
Well, the PIA (Printing Industries of America) has been around since 1887.
They'd pay 31% of _net income_ in taxes, or 31% of $7.5 billion, not 31% of revenue.
So, taxes would be about $2.3 billion, not $10.6 billion.
"just a simple back-woods farmer from a small town in Virginia."
Since that's the case, and the people in New Orleans need food, which will tend to drive up food prices across the country (similar situation to gas, production capacity's been reduced, supplies have been destroyed), I'm sure you're lined up to cut the price of the crops you produce for the next year. Right?
To be fair, the Netherlands don't sit in Hurricane Alley.
Yes, you can copy a book at the library, but within limits. Copy a couple of pages, that's fair use. Copy the whole thing, that wouldn't be. There aren't bright lines here, folks, this issue isn't easy.
A lot of slashdotters seem inclined to say "since digital products can be copied at essentially zero cost, I shouldn't have to pay for copies, because before I was paying for the cost of printing all those extra books." Hate to break it to you, but printing costs are a pretty minor portion of the cost of a book - try $2-3 for a big hardcover. The vast bulk of the price is driven by costs that don't go away: authors, editors, bookstore employees, etc.