No, they are fat and lazy. If they were greedy, they could clean up the market by providing value. Think about it. If you realy wanted to make money and you had a fantastic back catalog, you could sell flash player MP3 CDs with 4 or more albums on each CD at above 128K bitrate for under $10. Man I would be first in line for the back collections of Pink Floyd, ELO, Styx, Guns & Roses, Chicago, etc. They are happy with $0 instead of 100's of dollars for the back catalog at value pricing. Fat and lazy. They will sell an occasional back catalog item at new catalog prices just to keep the percieved value up. They have no intrest in high volume value sales. They are fat, lazy and content with the average consumers purchases of 2 LP's or CD's per year.
If they were greedy, they would look for ways to encourage a CD per week sales even with a lower price per unit. How much do they have to spend to open the back catalog at value pricing? They are too paranoid of de-valuing the curent catalog.
I really don't know where the set-top HD tuners are. I do agree they need to be made and made affordably.
Market forces play a lot here. The manufactures know their market. The tuners are not cheap to make. Consumers are looking for a sub $100 box. A digital tuner is generealy a $75 UHF tuner with a $75-$100 single board processor attached. Not many people are interested in buying one of these tuners to stick on their 10 year old TV set that had the same value when brand new. Because few people buy these stand alone tuners, the cost for marketing and distribution is high on a per unit basis. More people will just go for the extra money on the vast upgrade to a HDTV LCD set instead now that the prices are down and the larger sizes are now required to include the tuner.
The number of early adopters with a HDTV monitor needing a tuner is few. Most are subscribing to HDTV over their cable box or Sat box and won't spend the $160-$300 for an over the air tuner. This is why the number of stand alone tuners are in limited supply. The demand is low. The manufactures have anticipated this and have not wasted money building large inventories to remain sitting unsold.
The NTSC only TV's will simply be retired, or passed along as a monitor for VHS tape, Game Consoles, and other legacy applications. If you are going to spend over $150 for a tuner, it may as well come in the new HDTV.
That is what I did. I waited out the HDTV monitor craze and waited for the sets to arrive with tuners. The advantage to waiting is the price is about 1/3 the price of just a monitor a couple years ago. Instead of over $2500 for a monitor, I spent less than $800 for a TV.
Both of these players will operate on US or Euro electricity and will also play either NTSC or PAL movies completely freely on either NTSC or PAL TVs. Finally I can waych those european ralley DVDs that I really like.
It's probably more spendy than the 39.95 player I picked up for another reigon. The extra player is the price of just a couple movies. Call me cheap because I am.
If you can create a cloned copy of my Ferrari without damaging mine, then I'd have no problem with you doing so. Make two.
It might become a problem when you decide to upgrade and sell the old one. You put it in the paper. Everyone who came to look at it said, wow, thats very nice, then made a copy instead of buying yours because they thought delivery would take too long and the price was too high.
Since the advertising reaches us all the way here, the marketing boosts the filesharing! Most DVD players in.eu are region-free now (I 'hacked' mine), otherwise we can't watch the movies we legally order over the internet! There's no way you can be 100% legal!
DVD players are cheap. Simply buy one from each reagon you need. If you can't get one, use a PC. Most DVD drives permit a limited number of region changes. Simply set one to US, one to Europe and you are set.
They are not a government agency. they are a private firm and you can tell them to pound sand when they show up at your door.
Ever seen a BSA raid? Good luck.
Ever read the EULA on MS office? Windows XP? They will be quick to point out that the agreement gives them permission. They also know you are using a copy because a disgruntled employee told them you are using a BSA members software product.
Let's face it. Very few places are 100% BSA members free.
Here is a list of the membership. Please note it when you use NDIS wrappers for the driver your wireless laptop. You may be using a members software. It's not just MS.
If it were up to me, I would never sign an agreement that gave the other party the possibility to demand me to submit to such audits.
That one item alone is the reason many are saying the TCO of counting the risk of or the cost of an audit is just too much and are actively looking at alternatives with less risk to the company bottom line. At home this is one of the reasons for migrating. I can no longer toss an old copy of Windows on PC's for the kids. The legal risk has to be counted.
So far the risk of running Ubuntu & Open Office is much lower than running a copy of bootlegged XP and Office, but MS is working on changing that.
Why doesn't IBM or Redhat take MSFT to court and tell them to either substantiate their FUD or pay damages.
Because this is not a copyright battle. It is concepts and many things that open source didn't think were patentable, has been patented at about the same time as prior art, or before.
Remember the MS and Apple fight over a trash can. MS code for a trash can was not copied from Apple. MS lost because the trash can itself was patented. MS managed to slide by using a recycle bin as something that is not a trash can. They were sucessfull in noting a recycle bin is NOT a trashcan.
Linux can be attacked on this front and defending it and then changing it and cross licensing it would be very expensive.
"Hard Drive Data Recovery" companies often have nothing more sophisticated than a hard drive buying program, and very competent techs soldering and unsoldering drive electronics.
Have you taken apart a drive lately? The electronics on most drives unplug.
Are you kidding? With Moore's law, repeat consumers would build extreme brand loyalty. Let's face it. Even though it works great, there is very little market for my 20 Meg CDC 5-1/4 inch drive on an ST-503 interface.
I, on the other hand, have personally experienced one HD failure -- a Western Digital drive, as it happens -- in my LIFE.
I take it you are quite a bit younger than I am. My first HD failure was a 5 Meg drive with removable platters. The replacement heads were ceramic pucks about the size of US quarters. I have had a few other drive failures since then from a Fuji 30 Meg to an IBM 30 Gig.
Just for grins, what size was the WD drive that failed?
Well, in the UK children who study computer science study a module that basically tells them how to comply with software licences
I hope they cover all the basic types from closed source commercial to BSD and GNU. When they understand the licences, they can make good choices in software selection.
I used to buy software just on features alone. Now I select software based on TCO, liability, usefulleness within the license, and features. In short, I use the best value. Low value restricted use software at high prices are of no use and are a liability. BSA member software is a liability with high risk in the license agreement.
But will this new strategy really keep piracy at low levels? If I know that one of my friends has a hot new track that he downloaded from a site that lets the users download MP3s, it would seem stupid(in my opinion) for someone to fork over a dollar for the track. If I can get a good from free(from the friend), why in the world would I pay for it? Would it not become even easier to share copyrighted content?
Rewind back to the 1970's with LP sales and easy access to cassette tape recoders. Fast forward to the 1980's and Cable TV and VHS and Betamax VCR's. Why would anybody subscribe to cable TV when someone gets something off HBO and passes the tape arround. Fast forward to today with portable MP3 recorders and Sirrus radio. How can they sell subscriptions?
New content without DRM in a reasonable format at a reasonable price is more convienent. Only overpriced content gets pirated in mass. Most people buy their own DVD's instead of copy them on VHS or DIVX. Most people who listen to subscription radio do so with their own subscription. Most people who watch pay tv have their own subscription instead of passing along the latest HVS tape.
But will this new strategy really keep piracy at low levels? Good question. How does Blockbuster and Hollywood video manage when people can just go online and download it for free? Good price, convience, and high quality....
DRM-free content with the same parameters will sell. Good price, Convience, and High Quality.. Don't forget it. It's called Value Someday, the RIAA will get it.... Maybe.
DRM is an attempt by the Recording and other Media industries to revive a Medieval printing press publishing control Model, where the powerful "Stationers" could control government to create laws to protect the monopoly for publishing works of the often Dead authors.
Not quite right. DRM is an attempt at preventing someone in a garage with a printing press from distributing the NY times for free to the world.
DRM in no way prevents you from creating your own CD from scratch an self publishing. Just don't copy your content directly from someone else.
(No I am not pro-DRM. I am however anti-piracy I would like my purchased media to 1 work and be of 2 high quality at 3 a reasonable price. DRM ensures 3 of 3 requirements have serious problems.)
The pirates offer a better product. Most of my friends would be willing to pay at least $.99 a song if it didn't have DRM and was encoded at a higher bitrate than iTunes, but they don't get that option - it's either accept the DRM, or pirate.
Many people make the assumption if it isn't marketed, there is not a choice except to pirate. This is wrong. I do vote with my pocketbook, but you don't have to pirate to cast a no vote on high price and low quaility. Buy high quality alternatives instead. Money Talks! If emusic had no customers, then the RIAA can declare victory. Quite the contrary is happening. emusic is doing well. Some artists and labels are already following the money and going inde.
The restrictiions on mainstream contnet is becomming problematic in consumer relations. (Apple lawsuit regarding interopability) The number of non-subscribers due to restrictions is huge. These consumers buy games, DVD's, upgrade computers, buy CD burners/DVD burners and such with their dollars they are not spending on DRM content. The value is much higher. The industry notices where the consumer spends their dollars. When they feel left out of the money, they then look to see what they are doing wrong. This is why the Steve Jobs comment got so much attention. He got what was keeping people out of the online store.
Slashdot Mirror
I knew EMI was a bunch of greedy bastards,
No, they are fat and lazy. If they were greedy, they could clean up the market by providing value. Think about it. If you realy wanted to make money and you had a fantastic back catalog, you could sell flash player MP3 CDs with 4 or more albums on each CD at above 128K bitrate for under $10. Man I would be first in line for the back collections of Pink Floyd, ELO, Styx, Guns & Roses, Chicago, etc. They are happy with $0 instead of 100's of dollars for the back catalog at value pricing.
Fat and lazy. They will sell an occasional back catalog item at new catalog prices just to keep the percieved value up. They have no intrest in high volume value sales. They are fat, lazy and content with the average consumers purchases of 2 LP's or CD's per year.
If they were greedy, they would look for ways to encourage a CD per week sales even with a lower price per unit. How much do they have to spend to open the back catalog at value pricing? They are too paranoid of de-valuing the curent catalog.
I really don't know where the set-top HD tuners are. I do agree they need to be made and made affordably.
Market forces play a lot here. The manufactures know their market. The tuners are not cheap to make. Consumers are looking for a sub $100 box. A digital tuner is generealy a $75 UHF tuner with a $75-$100 single board processor attached. Not many people are interested in buying one of these tuners to stick on their 10 year old TV set that had the same value when brand new. Because few people buy these stand alone tuners, the cost for marketing and distribution is high on a per unit basis. More people will just go for the extra money on the vast upgrade to a HDTV LCD set instead now that the prices are down and the larger sizes are now required to include the tuner.
The number of early adopters with a HDTV monitor needing a tuner is few. Most are subscribing to HDTV over their cable box or Sat box and won't spend the $160-$300 for an over the air tuner. This is why the number of stand alone tuners are in limited supply. The demand is low. The manufactures have anticipated this and have not wasted money building large inventories to remain sitting unsold.
The NTSC only TV's will simply be retired, or passed along as a monitor for VHS tape, Game Consoles, and other legacy applications. If you are going to spend over $150 for a tuner, it may as well come in the new HDTV.
That is what I did. I waited out the HDTV monitor craze and waited for the sets to arrive with tuners. The advantage to waiting is the price is about 1/3 the price of just a monitor a couple years ago. Instead of over $2500 for a monitor, I spent less than $800 for a TV.
Both of these players will operate on US or Euro electricity and will also play either NTSC or PAL movies completely freely on either NTSC or PAL TVs. Finally I can waych those european ralley DVDs that I really like.
It's probably more spendy than the 39.95 player I picked up for another reigon. The extra player is the price of just a couple movies. Call me cheap because I am.
If you can create a cloned copy of my Ferrari without damaging mine, then I'd have no problem with you doing so. Make two.
It might become a problem when you decide to upgrade and sell the old one. You put it in the paper. Everyone who came to look at it said, wow, thats very nice, then made a copy instead of buying yours because they thought delivery would take too long and the price was too high.
Since the advertising reaches us all the way here, the marketing boosts the filesharing! Most DVD players in .eu are region-free now (I 'hacked' mine), otherwise we can't watch the movies we legally order over the internet! There's no way you can be 100% legal!
DVD players are cheap. Simply buy one from each reagon you need. If you can't get one, use a PC. Most DVD drives permit a limited number of region changes. Simply set one to US, one to Europe and you are set.
Other 'me too' attempts have not worked out very well for MS. Can you say Zune? Play for sure? etc.
Sometimes they do OK. Can you say X Box? I do agree, that it is just OK and not the leader. Many of their other products can be listed as also ran.
Has anyone seen the sales figures for the Zune online store?
emusic sells to the USA. One the Puretracks Music store site, they state they sell to Canada only. So for me, it's still emusic.
I hope they start with the RIAA. It's just getting out of hand.
They are not a government agency. they are a private firm and you can tell them to pound sand when they show up at your door.
Ever seen a BSA raid? Good luck.
Ever read the EULA on MS office? Windows XP? They will be quick to point out that the agreement gives them permission. They also know you are using a copy because a disgruntled employee told them you are using a BSA members software product.
Let's face it. Very few places are 100% BSA members free.
Here is a list of the membership. Please note it when you use NDIS wrappers for the driver your wireless laptop. You may be using a members software. It's not just MS.
http://www.bsa.org/usa/about/BSA-Members.cfm
If it were up to me, I would never sign an agreement that gave the other party the possibility to demand me to submit to such audits.
That one item alone is the reason many are saying the TCO of counting the risk of or the cost of an audit is just too much and are actively looking at alternatives with less risk to the company bottom line. At home this is one of the reasons for migrating. I can no longer toss an old copy of Windows on PC's for the kids. The legal risk has to be counted.
So far the risk of running Ubuntu & Open Office is much lower than running a copy of bootlegged XP and Office, but MS is working on changing that.
Why doesn't IBM or Redhat take MSFT to court and tell them to either substantiate their FUD or pay damages.
Because this is not a copyright battle. It is concepts and many things that open source didn't think were patentable, has been patented at about the same time as prior art, or before.
Remember the MS and Apple fight over a trash can. MS code for a trash can was not copied from Apple. MS lost because the trash can itself was patented. MS managed to slide by using a recycle bin as something that is not a trash can. They were sucessfull in noting a recycle bin is NOT a trashcan.
Linux can be attacked on this front and defending it and then changing it and cross licensing it would be very expensive.
The first shot over the bow has been fired.
I just looked up specs to jog my memory. The RK05 drive is not 5 Meg. It was only 2.4 Meg.
I'm 34.
I've got almost a 20 year headstart.
Just for grins, what size was the WD drive that failed?
3.2GB. This was back in 1997.
My 30 Gig failed in 2003. The 5 Meg drive failed in 1978. The 5 Meg drive cost more than your computer system unless you have a real spendy system.
http://www.pdp8.net/rk05/rk05.shtml?med
"Hard Drive Data Recovery" companies often have nothing more sophisticated than a hard drive buying program, and very competent techs soldering and unsoldering drive electronics.
Have you taken apart a drive lately? The electronics on most drives unplug.
They'd go out of business!
Are you kidding? With Moore's law, repeat consumers would build extreme brand loyalty. Let's face it. Even though it works great, there is very little market for my 20 Meg CDC 5-1/4 inch drive on an ST-503 interface.
It's yours for free if you want to pick it up.
forget RAID, just replicate the data three times.
Sounds incompatible with most DRM that ties a key to hardware.
In fact the replacement rate was increased to every 2 years not for failure prevention but for capacity increases.
I thought cable TV was getting way too many commercials.. How about increasing the programming instead. Disclaimer.. No longer a pay TV consumer.
I, on the other hand, have personally experienced one HD failure -- a Western Digital drive, as it happens -- in my LIFE.
I take it you are quite a bit younger than I am. My first HD failure was a 5 Meg drive with removable platters. The replacement heads were ceramic pucks about the size of US quarters. I have had a few other drive failures since then from a Fuji 30 Meg to an IBM 30 Gig.
Just for grins, what size was the WD drive that failed?
Well, in the UK children who study computer science study a module that basically tells them how to comply with software licences
I hope they cover all the basic types from closed source commercial to BSD and GNU. When they understand the licences, they can make good choices in software selection.
I used to buy software just on features alone. Now I select software based on TCO, liability, usefulleness within the license, and features. In short, I use the best value. Low value restricted use software at high prices are of no use and are a liability. BSA member software is a liability with high risk in the license agreement.
End. I don't buy music anymore. Not if it has a DRM logo on it.
I don't look for the DRM logo. Not all junk has it. I look for the Compact Disc logo to ensure compliance with the CD standard specification.
No logo, no sale.
But will this new strategy really keep piracy at low levels? If I know that one of my friends has a hot new track that he downloaded from a site that lets the users download MP3s, it would seem stupid(in my opinion) for someone to fork over a dollar for the track. If I can get a good from free(from the friend), why in the world would I pay for it? Would it not become even easier to share copyrighted content?
Rewind back to the 1970's with LP sales and easy access to cassette tape recoders. Fast forward to the 1980's and Cable TV and VHS and Betamax VCR's. Why would anybody subscribe to cable TV when someone gets something off HBO and passes the tape arround. Fast forward to today with portable MP3 recorders and Sirrus radio. How can they sell subscriptions?
New content without DRM in a reasonable format at a reasonable price is more convienent. Only overpriced content gets pirated in mass. Most people buy their own DVD's instead of copy them on VHS or DIVX. Most people who listen to subscription radio do so with their own subscription. Most people who watch pay tv have their own subscription instead of passing along the latest HVS tape.
But will this new strategy really keep piracy at low levels? Good question. How does Blockbuster and Hollywood video manage when people can just go online and download it for free? Good price, convience, and high quality....
DRM-free content with the same parameters will sell. Good price, Convience, and High Quality.. Don't forget it. It's called Value Someday, the RIAA will get it.... Maybe.
DRM is an attempt by the Recording and other Media industries to revive a Medieval printing press publishing control Model, where the powerful "Stationers" could control government to create laws to protect the monopoly for publishing works of the often Dead authors.
Not quite right. DRM is an attempt at preventing someone in a garage with a printing press from distributing the NY times for free to the world.
DRM in no way prevents you from creating your own CD from scratch an self publishing. Just don't copy your content directly from someone else.
(No I am not pro-DRM. I am however anti-piracy I would like my purchased media to 1 work and be of 2 high quality at 3 a reasonable price. DRM ensures 3 of 3 requirements have serious problems.)
The pirates offer a better product. Most of my friends would be willing to pay at least $.99 a song if it didn't have DRM and was encoded at a higher bitrate than iTunes, but they don't get that option - it's either accept the DRM, or pirate.
Many people make the assumption if it isn't marketed, there is not a choice except to pirate. This is wrong. I do vote with my pocketbook, but you don't have to pirate to cast a no vote on high price and low quaility. Buy high quality alternatives instead. Money Talks! If emusic had no customers, then the RIAA can declare victory. Quite the contrary is happening. emusic is doing well. Some artists and labels are already following the money and going inde.
The restrictiions on mainstream contnet is becomming problematic in consumer relations. (Apple lawsuit regarding interopability) The number of non-subscribers due to restrictions is huge. These consumers buy games, DVD's, upgrade computers, buy CD burners/DVD burners and such with their dollars they are not spending on DRM content. The value is much higher. The industry notices where the consumer spends their dollars. When they feel left out of the money, they then look to see what they are doing wrong. This is why the Steve Jobs comment got so much attention. He got what was keeping people out of the online store.
I know RIAA is enemy #1 here on /.
I thought they were #3 on Slashdot. I guess I haven't been paying attention.
I thought the top list was;
#1 Microsoft
#2 SCO
#3 **AA
Thanks for the update.
I guess it's time for a new poll to update the official list.
Both governments say they are trying to wean state agencies from Microsoft's proprietary Windows
Since the US forbids any export from the US to Cuba due to the embargo, I can easly see the drive for another OS.