Check out http://www.wildblue.com, a new satellite ISP. 512kbps for $50 a month, 1Mbps for $70, and 1.5Mbps for $80/month (all download speeds, upload is TBD but likely ~128kbps). $300 for the gear, and $180 to install (free install at the moment). Just rolling out, should be available everywhere by mid-year.
1. the product you want is available for purchase 2. the price is more than you're willing to pay
Therefore: You're going to get it illegally.
That violates the core terms of a free market, the ability of either party to decline to engage in a transaction. If you think the price is too high, you're free not to buy. You're not free to unilaterally change the terms of the contract and set whatever price you deem reasonable, without the consent of the other party.
When presented with contract terms, you have the right to: a) accept b) offer a counterproposal c) walk away
"Remember also that they are not doing this to protect artists... they are doing this to protect their Italian sports cars, plastic surgery, $5 million homes, and all the other stuff that they have bought with the money that they stole from innocent people, ostensibly very young people."
Stole? STOLE? Last I checked, the CEO of Warner Music wasn't climbing through bedroom windows @ 2AM and snatching piggy banks. The company offers a CD at a price. People buy or don't. If they buy, then clearly the CD is worth more to them than the price. If they don't, no harm no foul. There's no stealing involved. Stealing happens when a non-consensual transaction occurs. Music sales are entirely consensual.
People illegally downloading music want to unilaterally set the terms of the transaction and force the transaction, without the consent of the other party. You can set terms for the transaction (i.e. I won't pay more than $0.00 per song, and I want total freedom to do whatever I want with it), and make a take it or leave it offer to the other party, but if they don't take it, that doesn't give you the right to then execute the transaction anyway, without the other party's consent. THAT's stealing.
"Does a cabinet maker get to control how people use the cabinets that the cabinetmaker has sold them? (I suppose he could always make them sign a contract, but I suspect he'd lose a lot of customers that way.)"
Probably not a great example, since this is exactly what the record companies are trying to do - get people to agree to a set of terms to get their music. If you don't like those terms, nothing's forcing you to buy the music, but you don't get to unilaterally change the terms, just as the music company doesn't get to force you to buy the music on their terms.
Assuming that you are being funny, this is actually an issue. Every Xmas, my mom has to watch the postal clerk like a hawk to ensure that the gifts for my relatives in Innsbruck (AUSTRIA) don't end up headed for the land of Fosters and British deportees.
Extremely cogent and thoughtful - what are you doing posting on Slashdot?;) You're right, there is a price on the "alternative good" of taking and not paying, it's Penalty * % chance of getting caught. Since the chance of getting caught is very low, the perceived price is very low.
That being said, the idea that, since it's tough to determine what purchase behavior would have looked like, had the "take and don't pay" option not been available, nobody can claim lost revenue, just doesn't fly. Clearly, the lost revenue isn't retail price * illegal downloads. Just as clearly, it isn't zero. From a law enforcement point of view, I have no particular issue with assuming that it's retail price * illegal downloads. After all, if you lose your ticket at the parking garage, they assume you've been there 24 hours, not that you just got there.
Fundamentally, I think we disagree about what companies can reasonably expect about customer behavior. I think that its unfair to tell companies "you should have designed your business assuming that a significant portion of potential consumers will break the law instead of purchasing your product."
If we do want to tell them that, then we shouldn't be surprised when they design their businesses to reduce that risk (requiring a phone call to activate software, anti-copy technology on CD/DVD, etc.).
"The higher prices you pay for software are to pay for the enforcement of rules, not to protect the software! The other way to look at it is this: If I'm building cars and I need to sell 1,000,000 to pay for the people to make them, I better hope to get that many sales. With software, if I need to sell 1,000,000 to pay for the people to make them, I'd better set my price so that 1,000,000 people pay for it. If I get that sales volume at the price I set, I've done my job; if I want more profit I'd be better to adjust the price / features to get more people to pay me."
Only problem with this analysis is that you don't need to sell 1mm copies to break in, you need to generate $xxx (call it $1 million) to break even. Be that 1 copy @ $1MM, 1k copies at $1k, or 1MM copies at $1. Assuming that there are a total of 1 million people out there who have any interest in your software (i.e. would use it if it were $1), then the ones who pirate do have an impact. If everybody pays up, then you can sell the product for $1 a copy, and things go along swimmingly. If 200k people pirate it, then you need to generate $1 million from only 800k users, not 1 million, so the price has to be at least $1.25. Your breakeven price has gone up.
That being said, it's certainly true that # of illegal copies * retail price/copy lost revenues, but some portion of those illegal copies are used by people who otherwise _would_ have bought the software, and those are real losses to software vendors.
"its times like these that i wish i had the option of controlling what my taxes funded."
Really, you shouldn't, because if everyone could control how their $ were spent, that $4.2 million would have been cut long ago. YOU care about increasing our knowledge of astrophysics. I care about increasing our knowledge of astrophysics. The people posting here care. Very few others do.
Given that he has to climb inside (I know it's bigger on the inside than the outside, but the door has to be human-sized), it would need to be a very large cellphone. Also, I'm not sure I'd be psyched to see the classic TARDIS demat/remat groaning noise replaced by a tinny rendition of 50 Cent's _In Da Club_.
Much of the law is premised on the "reasonable person" standard - what would a reasonable person infer from your behavior. A reasonable person would not download a file entitled Lord_of_the_Rings_Return_of_the_King_DVD_rip.zip that takes up 700Mbytes and expect it to be a zillion digits of Pi. If you're downloading that file, then the reasonable belief is that you're trying to download the movie. The burden would be on you to show that you didn't (i.e. "I grew up in Ungabungaland, and in our language Lord_of_the_Rings means "Public Domain List of Pi Digits").
For all practical purposes, everyone _does_ use Real. I'd be willing to bet that 95%+ of visitors to the SciFi site have RealPlayer installed. Essentially every Windows machine ships with it...
Might I suggest an alternative explanation? Have you considered the possibility that your complaints have gone unanswered because:
(a) most of the congressman's constituents disagree with you, and hence the congressman is doing his job by not following your wishes
(b) the issues you're complaining about, and think your congressman should spend his time on, are of little if any concern to the vast majority of his constituents, and hence not worth his time
Remember, especially in regards to (b), that the issues that are of concern to slashdotters are, in many cases, of little if any interest to the vast majority of Americans. Ask 100 people on the street whether they care passionately about reforming the patent system; two might say yes.
Talk about your nonresponsive argument. Just last night, people were killed, people were raped, and cars were stolen. Why do we bother to have laws against murder, rape, and car theft, then?
Whether or not a law is readily enforceable has no bearing on whether it's a good law - they're entirely separate questions. I agree that, sometimes, the fact that a law is constantly flaunted can _indicate_ that its a bad law, but the relationship isn't causal. The root cause for both the "bad law" and "constantly flouted" is that most people don't consider the illegal conduct wrong.
Saving fuel - economy's better @ 55 than at 65 or 75. That's why the 55 limits were initially imposed in the 70s. I agree they're dumb, but there _is_ a reason behind them, they're not totally random.
Actually, the recent weakness in the US dollar is a huge problem for Europe, and will likely drive Europe back into recession. As the Euro strengthens vis a vis the dollar, European goods become more expensive in the US market and elsewhere in the world. Given the EU's dependence (particularly Germany's) on exports, it's not surprising that the European finance ministers are doing more than a bit of complaining about the weakness of the dollar.
XM has exclusive arrangements with Honda and GM, while Sirius has exclusive deals with Ford and Daimler/Chrysler (including Mercedes). BMW is effectively exclusive to Sirius (albeit not contractually). Toyota's still a tossup, and it looks like Nissan will split between the two.
No, they aren't tax "cheats." They're tax avoiders. There's a huge difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. Taking a deduction on your personal taxes for a charitable donation is tax avoidance, and perfectly legitimate. Taking a deduction on your personal taxes for a child who doesn't exist is tax evasion. As Supreme Court justice Learned Hand put it (far more eloquently than I ever could) "Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes." We can have a discussion about the wisdom of changing the US tax laws to remove the benefit of incorporating overseas, but it's not tax evasion to do so.
On a related note, the companies that are incorporating overseas are doing so because US tax law when it comes to corporations is much _more_ onerous than that of the vast majority of other countries. Most countries only tax companies on the earnings they generate domestically (i.e. Germany would tax Siemens on earnings generated in Germany, but not earnings generated in the US - Siemens would pay US tax on those earnings). The US, on the other hand, taxes companies on the earnings they generate _worldwide_. By incorporating in Bermuda, companies can avoid paying US taxes on their overseas earnings, although they do pay taxes on earnings generated in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out http://www.wildblue.com, a new satellite ISP. 512kbps for $50 a month, 1Mbps for $70, and 1.5Mbps for $80/month (all download speeds, upload is TBD but likely ~128kbps). $300 for the gear, and $180 to install (free install at the moment). Just rolling out, should be available everywhere by mid-year.
Bottom line of your argument:
1. the product you want is available for purchase
2. the price is more than you're willing to pay
Therefore: You're going to get it illegally.
That violates the core terms of a free market, the ability of either party to decline to engage in a transaction. If you think the price is too high, you're free not to buy. You're not free to unilaterally change the terms of the contract and set whatever price you deem reasonable, without the consent of the other party.
When presented with contract terms, you have the right to:
a) accept
b) offer a counterproposal
c) walk away
There is no "(d) grab it and run" option.
Not the only one, I loved that game too. Good gameplay, interesting story, overall very nifty.
"Remember also that they are not doing this to protect artists... they are doing this to protect their Italian sports cars, plastic surgery, $5 million homes, and all the other stuff that they have bought with the money that they stole from innocent people, ostensibly very young people."
Stole? STOLE? Last I checked, the CEO of Warner Music wasn't climbing through bedroom windows @ 2AM and snatching piggy banks. The company offers a CD at a price. People buy or don't. If they buy, then clearly the CD is worth more to them than the price. If they don't, no harm no foul. There's no stealing involved. Stealing happens when a non-consensual transaction occurs. Music sales are entirely consensual.
People illegally downloading music want to unilaterally set the terms of the transaction and force the transaction, without the consent of the other party. You can set terms for the transaction (i.e. I won't pay more than $0.00 per song, and I want total freedom to do whatever I want with it), and make a take it or leave it offer to the other party, but if they don't take it, that doesn't give you the right to then execute the transaction anyway, without the other party's consent. THAT's stealing.
"Does a cabinet maker get to control how people use the cabinets that the cabinetmaker has sold them? (I suppose he could always make them sign a contract, but I suspect he'd lose a lot of customers that way.)"
Probably not a great example, since this is exactly what the record companies are trying to do - get people to agree to a set of terms to get their music. If you don't like those terms, nothing's forcing you to buy the music, but you don't get to unilaterally change the terms, just as the music company doesn't get to force you to buy the music on their terms.
The Paris-Drakkar, would that be the race that rewards driving fast _and_ smelling good? Or do you mean the Paris-Dakar rally?
Assuming that you are being funny, this is actually an issue. Every Xmas, my mom has to watch the postal clerk like a hawk to ensure that the gifts for my relatives in Innsbruck (AUSTRIA) don't end up headed for the land of Fosters and British deportees.
Extremely cogent and thoughtful - what are you doing posting on Slashdot? ;) You're right, there is a price on the "alternative good" of taking and not paying, it's Penalty * % chance of getting caught. Since the chance of getting caught is very low, the perceived price is very low.
That being said, the idea that, since it's tough to determine what purchase behavior would have looked like, had the "take and don't pay" option not been available, nobody can claim lost revenue, just doesn't fly. Clearly, the lost revenue isn't retail price * illegal downloads. Just as clearly, it isn't zero. From a law enforcement point of view, I have no particular issue with assuming that it's retail price * illegal downloads. After all, if you lose your ticket at the parking garage, they assume you've been there 24 hours, not that you just got there.
Fundamentally, I think we disagree about what companies can reasonably expect about customer behavior. I think that its unfair to tell companies "you should have designed your business assuming that a significant portion of potential consumers will break the law instead of purchasing your product."
If we do want to tell them that, then we shouldn't be surprised when they design their businesses to reduce that risk (requiring a phone call to activate software, anti-copy technology on CD/DVD, etc.).
"The higher prices you pay for software are to pay for the enforcement of rules, not to protect the software! The other way to look at it is this: If I'm building cars and I need to sell 1,000,000 to pay for the people to make them, I better hope to get that many sales. With software, if I need to sell 1,000,000 to pay for the people to make them, I'd better set my price so that 1,000,000 people pay for it. If I get that sales volume at the price I set, I've done my job; if I want more profit I'd be better to adjust the price / features to get more people to pay me."
Only problem with this analysis is that you don't need to sell 1mm copies to break in, you need to generate $xxx (call it $1 million) to break even. Be that 1 copy @ $1MM, 1k copies at $1k, or 1MM copies at $1. Assuming that there are a total of 1 million people out there who have any interest in your software (i.e. would use it if it were $1), then the ones who pirate do have an impact. If everybody pays up, then you can sell the product for $1 a copy, and things go along swimmingly. If 200k people pirate it, then you need to generate $1 million from only 800k users, not 1 million, so the price has to be at least $1.25. Your breakeven price has gone up.
That being said, it's certainly true that # of illegal copies * retail price/copy lost revenues, but some portion of those illegal copies are used by people who otherwise _would_ have bought the software, and those are real losses to software vendors.
"its times like these that i wish i had the option of controlling what my taxes funded."
Really, you shouldn't, because if everyone could control how their $ were spent, that $4.2 million would have been cut long ago. YOU care about increasing our knowledge of astrophysics. I care about increasing our knowledge of astrophysics. The people posting here care. Very few others do.
Given that he has to climb inside (I know it's bigger on the inside than the outside, but the door has to be human-sized), it would need to be a very large cellphone. Also, I'm not sure I'd be psyched to see the classic TARDIS demat/remat groaning noise replaced by a tinny rendition of 50 Cent's _In Da Club_.
Much of the law is premised on the "reasonable person" standard - what would a reasonable person infer from your behavior. A reasonable person would not download a file entitled Lord_of_the_Rings_Return_of_the_King_DVD_rip.zip that takes up 700Mbytes and expect it to be a zillion digits of Pi. If you're downloading that file, then the reasonable belief is that you're trying to download the movie. The burden would be on you to show that you didn't (i.e. "I grew up in Ungabungaland, and in our language Lord_of_the_Rings means "Public Domain List of Pi Digits").
For all practical purposes, everyone _does_ use Real. I'd be willing to bet that 95%+ of visitors to the SciFi site have RealPlayer installed. Essentially every Windows machine ships with it...
"I could pay people to repeatedly kick me in the nuts, but I'm not that stupid..."
So, you only pay them to kick you in the nuts once?
"Zero profit."
Nice story, one minor problem. Google is profitable, to the tune of $204 million in 4Q 2004.
Have you tried, say, searching for "doo-hickey REVIEW." Might be more likely to actually get you a review.
Might I suggest an alternative explanation? Have you considered the possibility that your complaints have gone unanswered because:
(a) most of the congressman's constituents disagree with you, and hence the congressman is doing his job by not following your wishes
(b) the issues you're complaining about, and think your congressman should spend his time on, are of little if any concern to the vast majority of his constituents, and hence not worth his time
Remember, especially in regards to (b), that the issues that are of concern to slashdotters are, in many cases, of little if any interest to the vast majority of Americans. Ask 100 people on the street whether they care passionately about reforming the patent system; two might say yes.
Talk about your nonresponsive argument. Just last night, people were killed, people were raped, and cars were stolen. Why do we bother to have laws against murder, rape, and car theft, then?
Whether or not a law is readily enforceable has no bearing on whether it's a good law - they're entirely separate questions. I agree that, sometimes, the fact that a law is constantly flaunted can _indicate_ that its a bad law, but the relationship isn't causal. The root cause for both the "bad law" and "constantly flouted" is that most people don't consider the illegal conduct wrong.
Saving fuel - economy's better @ 55 than at 65 or 75. That's why the 55 limits were initially imposed in the 70s. I agree they're dumb, but there _is_ a reason behind them, they're not totally random.
Actually, the recent weakness in the US dollar is a huge problem for Europe, and will likely drive Europe back into recession. As the Euro strengthens vis a vis the dollar, European goods become more expensive in the US market and elsewhere in the world. Given the EU's dependence (particularly Germany's) on exports, it's not surprising that the European finance ministers are doing more than a bit of complaining about the weakness of the dollar.
XM has exclusive arrangements with Honda and GM, while Sirius has exclusive deals with Ford and Daimler/Chrysler (including Mercedes). BMW is effectively exclusive to Sirius (albeit not contractually). Toyota's still a tossup, and it looks like Nissan will split between the two.
Actually, the cable companies pay for just about every channel (often pretty minimal amounts), with the exception of:
1. broadcast channels (long story on this one, suffice to say that they don't pay)
2. home shopping (QVC and HSN pay _them_)
Some of the channels are pretty minimal amounts ($0.10 per subscriber per month), but some are very pricey: ESPN is >$2 per sub per month.
Sure, they're people who work at companies with an "ept" management team. :)
No, they aren't tax "cheats." They're tax avoiders. There's a huge difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. Taking a deduction on your personal taxes for a charitable donation is tax avoidance, and perfectly legitimate. Taking a deduction on your personal taxes for a child who doesn't exist is tax evasion. As Supreme Court justice Learned Hand put it (far more eloquently than I ever could) "Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes." We can have a discussion about the wisdom of changing the US tax laws to remove the benefit of incorporating overseas, but it's not tax evasion to do so.
On a related note, the companies that are incorporating overseas are doing so because US tax law when it comes to corporations is much _more_ onerous than that of the vast majority of other countries. Most countries only tax companies on the earnings they generate domestically (i.e. Germany would tax Siemens on earnings generated in Germany, but not earnings generated in the US - Siemens would pay US tax on those earnings). The US, on the other hand, taxes companies on the earnings they generate _worldwide_. By incorporating in Bermuda, companies can avoid paying US taxes on their overseas earnings, although they do pay taxes on earnings generated in the US.
No, and no.
1. The CPD is a private, not for profit entity.
2. Washington University, where the debate was held, is a private university in St. Louis. The University of Washington is a public university in Seattle - no debate was held there.