Well see here. I just cut and pasted your paragraph, and removed all your bold formatting and inserted a link. Did I, or did I not change your message?
Yes, you did change his message. You removed the stress he put on certain thoughts by removing his boldface type. You added additional emphasis to the text "search engine" by linking to it which, in most browsers, causes it to be underlined, and you added reference to google.com, a reference that the original message did not convey--it refered to search engines generically.
The question of "rendering" is a non-issue. We all know each browser will render a page differently. This generally has to do with colors, fonts, font sizes, etc.
The problem here is they are changing the content of the page. Adding (or removing) a link to the content window of a web page is nothing similar to presenting the author's content in a color, font, or font size that the user prefers. The message and content, in that case, is still the same. When browsers or plug-ins actually change the content things have gone too far. Calling that a "different rendering" is twisting the definition of "rendering."
If browsers or plug-ins want to advertise, I have no problem with them doing so in a section of the browser window that is clearly not part of the content. Put it next to the "N" Netscape icon that moves when you're loading a page, or put it under the "Location:" listbox. But do not modify my content with additional or different content that I did not wish to be construed as a part of my website.
A lawsuit will happen sooner or later, I'm sure. It probably won't be based on copyight infringement or derivative use. It will be based on the fact that inserting these ads into website content can convey to the reader that those links are endorsed by the website that has been hijacked. That's where the lawyers are going to have a field day.
"Equal protection" also doesn't necessarly apply to non-citizens, which leaves Dimitri out in the cold.
"Equal protection" applies to everyone who sets foot in the U.S.A., legally or not.
Even if someone enters the country illegally, you still cannot throw them in jail for murder without a trial; they still have the right to an attorney; they have the right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment. Yes, "equal protection" applies to everyone in the United States.
Of course, after the fact, an illegal alien will be deported, but that's another issue. They still have equal protection under the law while they're here.
Interestingly, foreign visitors in the United States have more freedom than they would in other countries. Mexico is a "free country," but if a foreigner visits Mexico and happens to speak out about Mexican politics, he/she can be deported. I don't think that's a valid reason to deport someone from the United States, unless they are actually inciting rebellion or advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. But I believe they're free to speak against it all they want...? (One could argue that that's not a polite thing for a visitor to do, but...)
I thought the original post saying "equal protection doesn't apply to aliens" was actually irony, since it doens't seem to apply in this case. But equal protection under the law applies to everyone in the United States, legally or not.
If there are going to be patents of this type, there should be a restriction that the patent can only be applied (and licenses charged) to those that make use of it on the ENCODING end, not the DECODING end.
Thus, if this algorithm is so great, those with content will license the technology to encode their material. This is easy to enforce and charge.
This solves the consumer problem since the consumer has already obtained the content--presumably through legal means--and should be allowed to decode or use that content in any way he sees fit. If it happens to be encoded using some algorithm, obviously it will be necessary to decode it. But the whole encoding/decoding process will be licensed by the encoder, not the decoder.
These new TLDs (.biz and.info) are just to milk companies for more money.
As it stands now, if a company registers abcdefg.com they also register abcdefg.org and acdefg.net, just so no-one else can create a similarly-named site. So now, the same people/company will have to spend additional money on registering.biz and.info.
Since many/most companies will do this, you're not really solving the "Internet domain address" problem in which all the good names are already taken. This will still be the case--just that now we'll have to register in 5 TLDs rather than the 3 that are commonly registered now.
Conclusion: This benefits the Registrars, just about no-one else.
...but my impression of Mexican education from when I lived there was that it was well, third world.
Mexicans' own impressions of their teachers are, well, third world, too.
The teachers are often in the street protesting instead of teaching the kids. And when you see them on TV they look the same as the uneducated cab drivers that often protest, too.
To give you an idea, many families that are virtually poor actually try to save money by reducing spending on food and clothing so they can send their kids to private schools.
I find your assessment to be a little too biased, sorry.
Biased against who? It's a statement of fact. Even Mexicans who were born and lived here all their life accept it as reality. I don't have a personal grudge against the Mexican government or any reason to flame it...
I was originally in "paradise" when I moved to Mexico because I was able to "tune out" all the political BS from back in the States. Then you live in a country for a few years and the issues of that country actually start bothering you, especially when they affect you in your daily living.
And I say that with having a few years of living in Mexico under my belt.
Out of curiosity, what do you do in Mexico? Do you work for a Mexican company? Do you pay taxes to Mexico? To what extent have you had to deal with the government?
If you haven't seen this, it almost makes me wonder if a company brought you to Mexico and is taking care of all the political/governmental BS for you. Or perhaps you live in some tourist city such as Cancun or Acapulco where these types of problems aren't as apparent...
I find that the corruption situation has been improving significatly over the past 5 years.
This may be. But the national TV network (TZAzteca) reported just in the last month that at a minimum 10% of the GDP is wasted on bribes and payoffs to government officals. And that doesn't even count what is actually robbed from government coffers.
That said, I don't know exactly where you live, and conditions are different from area to area.
Monterrey. Supposedly the closest thing to a "first world" city in Mexico (with the possible exception of artificially beautified resort cities).
As I said in my previous post though, I think it has more to do with a lack of people trained in Linux than with lining a politician's pocket with $$$.
Have you visited universities in Mexico? There are rooms full of classic computer nerds that go there just to play with the computers. I'm talking Unix-style computers. I can assure you, there's no lack of trained people. In fact, there's an over-abundance of self-trained people--who are usually the best kind of technical people.
In any case, perhaps we can give the politicians the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps no-one is lining their pockets. But it doesn't change the fact that the decision, at best, is based on their preference to spend $5 on something they can touch rather than $1 on somebody they can hire. That's just in the culture, and I honestly think it comes from the corruption.
You actually find George W. Bush to be a coherent speaker?
He's not a particularly coherent or refined speaker, but I agree with his policies. I prefer a poor speaker with good policies (has a hard time selling his good ideas) to a good speaker with bad policies (has an easy time selling bad ideas).
The BSA exists in Mexico. It's not a bunch of Americans enforcing it--it's a bunch of Mexicans employed by the Mexican branches of the American companies.
A company I worked at in Mexico got caught in a BSA audit. They found lots of pirate copies because that's what companies in Mexico do software-wise.
So at the end of the day the deal was a certain NUMBER of computers were identified as having pirated software. The company was allowed to choose which ones. Those computers were "secured" with a legal sticker over the power buttons that could not be legally broken until the requisite number of software licenses were purchased.
So, the company just "chose" to have them secure all their old 386 machines that they were going to get rid of anyway. They then stuck them in storage in the basement and purchased the new computers they were going to buy anyway... but they never broke the stickers on the "secured" computers--and never purchased the "required" licenses. Problem solved.
FWIW, I'm an American who has lived in Mexico for over 5 years now. Let me help the general public with the translation of what the article says. "There weren't enough people available trained in Linux" translates to "The organization wasn't willing to spend the money to hire people trained in Linux."
Organizations in Mexico, for some reason, would rather spend $5 on hardware/software than $1 on human resources. Perhaps it's because there's so much corruption everywhere that no-one trusts their employees to do their job and to do it honestly. Then again, can you blame them when a CS graduate might earn US$1000/month...
Believe me, the reason they went with Windows is because they'd rather pay Windows people US$800/month rather than paying Linux people US$1000/month, even if it means having to spend millions of dollars on Windows license. And, of course, some politicians will probably be taking a good part of that $124 million to their personal bank accounts.
Mexico is a wonderful country, but it's very frustrating to live here and see the incompetence and corruption in decision-making. Believe me, it makes American politics and decision-making seem PURE and reasonable in comparison. Heck, even Democrats sound coherent after witnessing the absurdities and abuses that go on down here--and for a Democrat to sound coherent ought to give you an idea of how bad things are down here.
Anyway, this isn't a blow against Linux. It's about par for the course in terms of Mexican political decision-making.
PS--For what it's worth, I can't really see the government actually paying for all the licenses anyway. They'll probably set aside $20 million for licenses, buy one license, and the politicians will keep the rest.
Like the title says, piracy is really just a cost of doing business. Like paying rent, paying for electricity, or anything else.
Piracy occurs when your product is actractive to people, but you price it such that it exceeds what they are willing to pay for it. And, yes, there will always be people that are willing to pay nothing.
If there are 10 million DTV customers and a million pirates, DTV has to simply make a business decision: Would lowering the subscription rates to their service increase demand sufficiently to make up for the lower rates? If so, they should lower their rates and reap the rewards. If not, then they've already found their optimum business model and pricing schedule, and the pirates aren't affecting that.
Personally, what I find completely unethical is for DTV (or any cable provider) to CHARGE for packages made up of channels that have commercials. I'm willing to pay for HBO, Showtime, or PayPerView where I'm paying to see uninterrupted programs. But why should anyone pay for channel packages made up of channels that have advertising? They can't have it both ways; charge me or charge the advertisers--not both.
Channels with commercials should be part of the basic package, be it cable or DTV.
Bullshit. The value of a digitally recorded (and usually compressed) copy of a musical composition is almost zero. It has some value because some resourcs are needed to down load it.
You're paying for the resources/bandwidth to download it, not the music itself.
If we were to wake up tomorrow, and find that all the content companies had gone bankrupt and closed shop, there would be individuals and groups of inidividuals willing to sponsor the production of new content. Thus, only the conviently encoded representation is free, not the original creative composition.
Uhm, I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.
I know music costs money to produce, but that doesn't mean it has value in the market. The market determines something's value, not the costs of production.
What I'm getting at is that the price that the public is now getting used to paying, and is willing to pay, is quickly approaching zero. I personally no longer pay for music. And I don't feel bad about it; I've listened to the artist's commercial (their music), and if I am convinced about their talent I'll buy their tickets when they come by on tour.
Music is free now. It's value is zero dollars. Music is essentially a commercial to go to an artist's concerts, buy their merchandise, etc. I don't pay for commercials.
The RIAA, artists, the government, and everyone just needs to realize the days of charging for a track of music (or a CD-full) are over. It's not a matter of whether that's good, bad, or evil: It's a statement of reality.
Music is free. Support your favorite artists by going to see them in concert.
I think we should definitely get a manned mission to Mars as soon as possible.
When I was born, we had just made it to the moon. I wish I could have been alive to witness that moment. In my 30 years, there hasn't been a single truly amazing technological accomplishment like reaching the moon. Sure, things have gotten smaller, faster, and cheaper. But nothing Earth-shattering has happened that just makes us sit down and say "Wow!"
We've been on cruise control for 32 years. That's bad. Any country--and indeed all mankind--needs a goal. Something to shoot for, keep the scientists thinking, keep everyone dreaming. Just waiting out the recession and waiting for profit reports for the next quarter isn't sufficient motivation for mankind to continue advancing in meaningful ways. Not only do we need to create wealth, we need to continue scientific advances. Humans have always explored "the next frontier," be it out of greed, curiosity, or necessity. There is plenty of room on Mars for all of these, eventually.
Apparently the Russians are planning a manned mission to Mars by 2020 and are asking for international cooperation. That's fine, but I hope America takes the lead as it has in the past. Especially considering Russia's financial situation there's really no way they're going anywhere unless they get a ride with the rest of the world.
In any case, I'd much prefer my tax dollars to be spent on meaningful scientific research that gets us to Mars or a colony on the moon rather than our many entitlement programs. If we'd even spend 1/5th of our entitlement budget on scientific R&D we'd have an outpost on the moon followed by a manned mission and outpost on Mars rather than paying people to stay at home and watch TV instead of working.
It sounds neat, but thinking it out a little, it doesn't seem terribly useful. What good is authenticating the user if the original user information wasn't actually verified? Is my site to assume the information provided by "User X" at "Unknown Site Y" is valid?
As someone already mentioned, this is just a way of reducing the amount of time spent on filling out forms when signing up at a site. How many sites do we really sign-up on? I sign up on several sites and then I'm done. I don't sign up at every site I visit, so filling out the form isn't that time-consuming.
If the goal is reducing the amount of time to sign-up at sites, a better idea would be to have browsers able to automatically default fields of FORMs with a specific name (NAME=frmSiteSignup??) to the data you've previously configured the browser to return. When the browser sees a form named "frmSiteSignup" (or whatever the "standard" defines) it automatically looks for a text input field named REALNAME and automatically defaults that to the name you provided, same with email, etc. This would be the default and you could obviously clear any fields that you didn't want to provide to that specific site before submitting the form.
Of course, I also agree with what someone else said: more than entering information at sign-up, the main hassle for me is remembering my passwords at each site.
It also avoids trying to setup a system to charge callers for calls to cell phones, which meant some local calls would actually be toll calls. That would have been a billing and customer
service nightmare, and reduced the adoption rate for cell phones.
They did just that in Mexico. Mexico used to be like the U.S. in that the cell subscriber payed for all incoming calls. About two years ago they switched to "Whoever calls, pays." I hated it then and I still hate it now:
1. To call a local cell phone you no longer dial 123-4567, you have to dial 0448-123-4567. So to call a local cell phone you need to know its a cell phone, if you dial 123-4567 it tells you to hang up and dial again with "0448." If you call a local cell phone, you pay for it. The cell user doesn't.
2. To call a cell phone long distance, you treat it just like a normal phone, so you don't have to dial the 0448. But you do have to dial the long distance prefix and area code. You pay long distance charges since the # is long-distance from you and the cell phone user pays for the cell side of the call!
So you have a screwy system where a local cell phone number is different than a local phone number, where a long distance cell phone number looks the same as a normal long-distance phone number, and where--when you receive a call--you don't really know whether or not you're paying or the caller is paying unless you happen to know where they're calling you from.
It's complicated and it sucks.
PS--Mexico uses the same cell phone standards as the U.S. and Canada so U.S. cell phones theoretically should work in all of North America. That's good enough for 99.5% of Americans 99.9% of the time.
In Mexico residential telephone services costs the equivalent of US$17 per month and you get 100 "free" local phone calls per month. After the first 100 per month, they charge you 10 cents per phone call. The only good news is that that 10 cents can buy you a call 8 hours long.
So what I do is just hop on the Internet and camp there 8 hours (the maximum time limit until the phone system disconnects you). Then I call back. Works out to about 2 or 3 calls to conncet to Internet per day, or 60-90 calls per month. Needless to say, I generally don't ever pay for the calls to my ISP since I never have more than 100 in a single month.
Metered phone service sucks. It'll go away in those countries that have it and won't appear in the United States. Costs are decreasing for communications worldwide; there is no justification for metering local calls, especially with phone over IP technology improving.
Hell, I'll bet within 10 years we won't even be paying for long distance... or perhaps just a fixed "$30/month for all the long distance and local calls you need."
I'm sure Denmark will get 3G long before the US does. Denmark is the size of many of the United States' smaller states. All of Europe together is just slightly larger than our "mid-west" expanse in the middle of our country.
Of course you'll have it first. It's pocket change to implement it in Denmark compared to an area as large as the U.S.
The time of making money from banner ads is not over. I make a good living off of the banner ads that are placed on my technical website. I'm going to have to raise prices because demand is so high. And all I have on my website is free information, I don't sell anything (other than banner ads!). I spend my time preparing content for a new technical website that I'm creating and that I expect will be even more successful and generate more income than my current site... and so it goes--and all based on banner ad revenue. I love being self-employed!
What probably is over is entire companies being supported by the ad revenues from their websites. I make a nice living off my website. The site wouldn't, however, be able to support an entire company.
I charge a "per view" (CPM) rate less than Yahoo even though, being a focused technical site, I would be warranted in charging four times what I do. But everything I charge is for me; I don't have to share the proceeds with anyone. This means I can give my advertisers an incredibly good price and I still make money. Everyone wins.
Banner ads should be discrete (at the top or bottom of the pages--not in the middle of the content) and not take too long to load. They ought to be related to the content of the site, too.
What I am totally against is sites that now put huge banner ads on their site (they look silly and take up too much real-estate) or those sites that open up their ads in new browser windows. Weather.com now has normal banner ads on their site AND opens a banner in a new window. For that reason, I now get my weather only from CNN.COM and Yahoo.com.
... Apparently they think by creating more and more large and annoying banner ads they can generate more revenue--more likely they'll just drive people away to other sites and they'll make less. Duh.
Thanks to Napster et al, music is now free. And it should be. For years, we've paid money, for the most part, for the "medium", i.e. CDs and tapes. Now that the medium is our Internet connection, we pay our ISP for that. The music itself is free. The record industry will have to accept that their industry is disappearing. It won't be the first industry to become obsolete, and won't be the last. Current "big-label" artists will need to accept the fact that they might not be able to make millions of dollars per year anymore--at least unless they go on tour. I'm in favor of supporting artists, at a reasonable level. A reasonable level is NOT millions of dollars per year. There are thousands, if not millions, of artists in the world that would love to make even a meager earning doing what they like to do. And with the music economy that's evolving, they'll be able to. At the same time, artists earning millions of dollars a year will probably end up earning less. That's not piracy, that's the free market in action. I suspect artists will soon make little money off of the music itself, and will make money by going on tours: I.e., working. The age of just recording a few songs and retiring as a millionaire is over. Artists, like the rest of us, will now have to work (play concerts) to earn a living. I don't think that's a bad thing, nor do I think we should feel sorry for anyone. I certainly will not cry if some artist that was earning $5 million a year to lay on the beach now earns only $100k to lay on the beach. Craig Steiner
My site makes money off of banner ads and is not porno. Try http://www.8052.com.
Any site that generates a significant level of traffic based on its content can make money. No banner exchanges, sell the ads yourself. If your site is worth it, the advertisers come on their own.
Slashdot Mirror
So you are a Steven Wright fan, too, huh?
Yes, you did change his message. You removed the stress he put on certain thoughts by removing his boldface type. You added additional emphasis to the text "search engine" by linking to it which, in most browsers, causes it to be underlined, and you added reference to google.com, a reference that the original message did not convey--it refered to search engines generically.
The question of "rendering" is a non-issue. We all know each browser will render a page differently. This generally has to do with colors, fonts, font sizes, etc.
The problem here is they are changing the content of the page. Adding (or removing) a link to the content window of a web page is nothing similar to presenting the author's content in a color, font, or font size that the user prefers. The message and content, in that case, is still the same. When browsers or plug-ins actually change the content things have gone too far. Calling that a "different rendering" is twisting the definition of "rendering."
If browsers or plug-ins want to advertise, I have no problem with them doing so in a section of the browser window that is clearly not part of the content. Put it next to the "N" Netscape icon that moves when you're loading a page, or put it under the "Location:" listbox. But do not modify my content with additional or different content that I did not wish to be construed as a part of my website.
A lawsuit will happen sooner or later, I'm sure. It probably won't be based on copyight infringement or derivative use. It will be based on the fact that inserting these ads into website content can convey to the reader that those links are endorsed by the website that has been hijacked. That's where the lawyers are going to have a field day.
"Equal protection" applies to everyone who sets foot in the U.S.A., legally or not.
Even if someone enters the country illegally, you still cannot throw them in jail for murder without a trial; they still have the right to an attorney; they have the right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment. Yes, "equal protection" applies to everyone in the United States.
Of course, after the fact, an illegal alien will be deported, but that's another issue. They still have equal protection under the law while they're here.
Interestingly, foreign visitors in the United States have more freedom than they would in other countries. Mexico is a "free country," but if a foreigner visits Mexico and happens to speak out about Mexican politics, he/she can be deported. I don't think that's a valid reason to deport someone from the United States, unless they are actually inciting rebellion or advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. But I believe they're free to speak against it all they want...? (One could argue that that's not a polite thing for a visitor to do, but...)
I thought the original post saying "equal protection doesn't apply to aliens" was actually irony, since it doens't seem to apply in this case. But equal protection under the law applies to everyone in the United States, legally or not.
Thus, if this algorithm is so great, those with content will license the technology to encode their material. This is easy to enforce and charge.
This solves the consumer problem since the consumer has already obtained the content--presumably through legal means--and should be allowed to decode or use that content in any way he sees fit. If it happens to be encoded using some algorithm, obviously it will be necessary to decode it. But the whole encoding/decoding process will be licensed by the encoder, not the decoder.
As it stands now, if a company registers abcdefg.com they also register abcdefg.org and acdefg.net, just so no-one else can create a similarly-named site. So now, the same people/company will have to spend additional money on registering .biz and .info.
Since many/most companies will do this, you're not really solving the "Internet domain address" problem in which all the good names are already taken. This will still be the case--just that now we'll have to register in 5 TLDs rather than the 3 that are commonly registered now.
Conclusion: This benefits the Registrars, just about no-one else.
Mexicans' own impressions of their teachers are, well, third world, too.
The teachers are often in the street protesting instead of teaching the kids. And when you see them on TV they look the same as the uneducated cab drivers that often protest, too.
To give you an idea, many families that are virtually poor actually try to save money by reducing spending on food and clothing so they can send their kids to private schools.
Biased against who? It's a statement of fact. Even Mexicans who were born and lived here all their life accept it as reality. I don't have a personal grudge against the Mexican government or any reason to flame it...
I was originally in "paradise" when I moved to Mexico because I was able to "tune out" all the political BS from back in the States. Then you live in a country for a few years and the issues of that country actually start bothering you, especially when they affect you in your daily living.
And I say that with having a few years of living in Mexico under my belt.
Out of curiosity, what do you do in Mexico? Do you work for a Mexican company? Do you pay taxes to Mexico? To what extent have you had to deal with the government?
If you haven't seen this, it almost makes me wonder if a company brought you to Mexico and is taking care of all the political/governmental BS for you. Or perhaps you live in some tourist city such as Cancun or Acapulco where these types of problems aren't as apparent...
I find that the corruption situation has been improving significatly over the past 5 years.
This may be. But the national TV network (TZAzteca) reported just in the last month that at a minimum 10% of the GDP is wasted on bribes and payoffs to government officals. And that doesn't even count what is actually robbed from government coffers.
That said, I don't know exactly where you live, and conditions are different from area to area.
Monterrey. Supposedly the closest thing to a "first world" city in Mexico (with the possible exception of artificially beautified resort cities).
As I said in my previous post though, I think it has more to do with a lack of people trained in Linux than with lining a politician's pocket with $$$.
Have you visited universities in Mexico? There are rooms full of classic computer nerds that go there just to play with the computers. I'm talking Unix-style computers. I can assure you, there's no lack of trained people. In fact, there's an over-abundance of self-trained people--who are usually the best kind of technical people.
In any case, perhaps we can give the politicians the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps no-one is lining their pockets. But it doesn't change the fact that the decision, at best, is based on their preference to spend $5 on something they can touch rather than $1 on somebody they can hire. That's just in the culture, and I honestly think it comes from the corruption.
He's not a particularly coherent or refined speaker, but I agree with his policies. I prefer a poor speaker with good policies (has a hard time selling his good ideas) to a good speaker with bad policies (has an easy time selling bad ideas).
A company I worked at in Mexico got caught in a BSA audit. They found lots of pirate copies because that's what companies in Mexico do software-wise.
So at the end of the day the deal was a certain NUMBER of computers were identified as having pirated software. The company was allowed to choose which ones. Those computers were "secured" with a legal sticker over the power buttons that could not be legally broken until the requisite number of software licenses were purchased.
So, the company just "chose" to have them secure all their old 386 machines that they were going to get rid of anyway. They then stuck them in storage in the basement and purchased the new computers they were going to buy anyway... but they never broke the stickers on the "secured" computers--and never purchased the "required" licenses. Problem solved.
Organizations in Mexico, for some reason, would rather spend $5 on hardware/software than $1 on human resources. Perhaps it's because there's so much corruption everywhere that no-one trusts their employees to do their job and to do it honestly. Then again, can you blame them when a CS graduate might earn US$1000/month...
Believe me, the reason they went with Windows is because they'd rather pay Windows people US$800/month rather than paying Linux people US$1000/month, even if it means having to spend millions of dollars on Windows license. And, of course, some politicians will probably be taking a good part of that $124 million to their personal bank accounts.
Mexico is a wonderful country, but it's very frustrating to live here and see the incompetence and corruption in decision-making. Believe me, it makes American politics and decision-making seem PURE and reasonable in comparison. Heck, even Democrats sound coherent after witnessing the absurdities and abuses that go on down here--and for a Democrat to sound coherent ought to give you an idea of how bad things are down here.
Anyway, this isn't a blow against Linux. It's about par for the course in terms of Mexican political decision-making.
PS--For what it's worth, I can't really see the government actually paying for all the licenses anyway. They'll probably set aside $20 million for licenses, buy one license, and the politicians will keep the rest.
Piracy occurs when your product is actractive to people, but you price it such that it exceeds what they are willing to pay for it. And, yes, there will always be people that are willing to pay nothing.
If there are 10 million DTV customers and a million pirates, DTV has to simply make a business decision: Would lowering the subscription rates to their service increase demand sufficiently to make up for the lower rates? If so, they should lower their rates and reap the rewards. If not, then they've already found their optimum business model and pricing schedule, and the pirates aren't affecting that.
Personally, what I find completely unethical is for DTV (or any cable provider) to CHARGE for packages made up of channels that have commercials. I'm willing to pay for HBO, Showtime, or PayPerView where I'm paying to see uninterrupted programs. But why should anyone pay for channel packages made up of channels that have advertising? They can't have it both ways; charge me or charge the advertisers--not both.
Channels with commercials should be part of the basic package, be it cable or DTV.
You're paying for the resources/bandwidth to download it, not the music itself.
If we were to wake up tomorrow, and find that all the content companies had gone bankrupt and closed shop, there would be individuals and groups of inidividuals willing to sponsor the production of new content. Thus, only the conviently encoded representation is free, not the original creative composition.
Uhm, I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.
I know music costs money to produce, but that doesn't mean it has value in the market. The market determines something's value, not the costs of production.
What I'm getting at is that the price that the public is now getting used to paying, and is willing to pay, is quickly approaching zero. I personally no longer pay for music. And I don't feel bad about it; I've listened to the artist's commercial (their music), and if I am convinced about their talent I'll buy their tickets when they come by on tour.
The RIAA, artists, the government, and everyone just needs to realize the days of charging for a track of music (or a CD-full) are over. It's not a matter of whether that's good, bad, or evil: It's a statement of reality.
Music is free. Support your favorite artists by going to see them in concert.
When I was born, we had just made it to the moon. I wish I could have been alive to witness that moment. In my 30 years, there hasn't been a single truly amazing technological accomplishment like reaching the moon. Sure, things have gotten smaller, faster, and cheaper. But nothing Earth-shattering has happened that just makes us sit down and say "Wow!"
We've been on cruise control for 32 years. That's bad. Any country--and indeed all mankind--needs a goal. Something to shoot for, keep the scientists thinking, keep everyone dreaming. Just waiting out the recession and waiting for profit reports for the next quarter isn't sufficient motivation for mankind to continue advancing in meaningful ways. Not only do we need to create wealth, we need to continue scientific advances. Humans have always explored "the next frontier," be it out of greed, curiosity, or necessity. There is plenty of room on Mars for all of these, eventually.
Apparently the Russians are planning a manned mission to Mars by 2020 and are asking for international cooperation. That's fine, but I hope America takes the lead as it has in the past. Especially considering Russia's financial situation there's really no way they're going anywhere unless they get a ride with the rest of the world.
In any case, I'd much prefer my tax dollars to be spent on meaningful scientific research that gets us to Mars or a colony on the moon rather than our many entitlement programs. If we'd even spend 1/5th of our entitlement budget on scientific R&D we'd have an outpost on the moon followed by a manned mission and outpost on Mars rather than paying people to stay at home and watch TV instead of working.
As someone already mentioned, this is just a way of reducing the amount of time spent on filling out forms when signing up at a site. How many sites do we really sign-up on? I sign up on several sites and then I'm done. I don't sign up at every site I visit, so filling out the form isn't that time-consuming.
If the goal is reducing the amount of time to sign-up at sites, a better idea would be to have browsers able to automatically default fields of FORMs with a specific name (NAME=frmSiteSignup??) to the data you've previously configured the browser to return. When the browser sees a form named "frmSiteSignup" (or whatever the "standard" defines) it automatically looks for a text input field named REALNAME and automatically defaults that to the name you provided, same with email, etc. This would be the default and you could obviously clear any fields that you didn't want to provide to that specific site before submitting the form.
Of course, I also agree with what someone else said: more than entering information at sign-up, the main hassle for me is remembering my passwords at each site.
They did just that in Mexico. Mexico used to be like the U.S. in that the cell subscriber payed for all incoming calls. About two years ago they switched to "Whoever calls, pays." I hated it then and I still hate it now:
1. To call a local cell phone you no longer dial 123-4567, you have to dial 0448-123-4567. So to call a local cell phone you need to know its a cell phone, if you dial 123-4567 it tells you to hang up and dial again with "0448." If you call a local cell phone, you pay for it. The cell user doesn't.
2. To call a cell phone long distance, you treat it just like a normal phone, so you don't have to dial the 0448. But you do have to dial the long distance prefix and area code. You pay long distance charges since the # is long-distance from you and the cell phone user pays for the cell side of the call!
So you have a screwy system where a local cell phone number is different than a local phone number, where a long distance cell phone number looks the same as a normal long-distance phone number, and where--when you receive a call--you don't really know whether or not you're paying or the caller is paying unless you happen to know where they're calling you from.
It's complicated and it sucks.
PS--Mexico uses the same cell phone standards as the U.S. and Canada so U.S. cell phones theoretically should work in all of North America. That's good enough for 99.5% of Americans 99.9% of the time.
In Mexico residential telephone services costs the equivalent of US$17 per month and you get 100 "free" local phone calls per month. After the first 100 per month, they charge you 10 cents per phone call. The only good news is that that 10 cents can buy you a call 8 hours long.
So what I do is just hop on the Internet and camp there 8 hours (the maximum time limit until the phone system disconnects you). Then I call back. Works out to about 2 or 3 calls to conncet to Internet per day, or 60-90 calls per month. Needless to say, I generally don't ever pay for the calls to my ISP since I never have more than 100 in a single month.
Metered phone service sucks. It'll go away in those countries that have it and won't appear in the United States. Costs are decreasing for communications worldwide; there is no justification for metering local calls, especially with phone over IP technology improving.
Hell, I'll bet within 10 years we won't even be paying for long distance... or perhaps just a fixed "$30/month for all the long distance and local calls you need."
I'm sure Denmark will get 3G long before the US does. Denmark is the size of many of the United States' smaller states. All of Europe together is just slightly larger than our "mid-west" expanse in the middle of our country.
Of course you'll have it first. It's pocket change to implement it in Denmark compared to an area as large as the U.S.
The time of making money from banner ads is not over. I make a good living off of the banner ads that are placed on my technical website. I'm going to have to raise prices because demand is so high. And all I have on my website is free information, I don't sell anything (other than banner ads!). I spend my time preparing content for a new technical website that I'm creating and that I expect will be even more successful and generate more income than my current site... and so it goes--and all based on banner ad revenue. I love being self-employed!
What probably is over is entire companies being supported by the ad revenues from their websites. I make a nice living off my website. The site wouldn't, however, be able to support an entire company.
I charge a "per view" (CPM) rate less than Yahoo even though, being a focused technical site, I would be warranted in charging four times what I do. But everything I charge is for me; I don't have to share the proceeds with anyone. This means I can give my advertisers an incredibly good price and I still make money. Everyone wins.
Banner ads should be discrete (at the top or bottom of the pages--not in the middle of the content) and not take too long to load. They ought to be related to the content of the site, too.
What I am totally against is sites that now put huge banner ads on their site (they look silly and take up too much real-estate) or those sites that open up their ads in new browser windows. Weather.com now has normal banner ads on their site AND opens a banner in a new window. For that reason, I now get my weather only from CNN.COM and Yahoo.com.
... Apparently they think by creating more and more large and annoying banner ads they can generate more revenue--more likely they'll just drive people away to other sites and they'll make less. Duh.
Thanks to Napster et al, music is now free. And it should be. For years, we've paid money, for the most part, for the "medium", i.e. CDs and tapes. Now that the medium is our Internet connection, we pay our ISP for that. The music itself is free. The record industry will have to accept that their industry is disappearing. It won't be the first industry to become obsolete, and won't be the last. Current "big-label" artists will need to accept the fact that they might not be able to make millions of dollars per year anymore--at least unless they go on tour. I'm in favor of supporting artists, at a reasonable level. A reasonable level is NOT millions of dollars per year. There are thousands, if not millions, of artists in the world that would love to make even a meager earning doing what they like to do. And with the music economy that's evolving, they'll be able to. At the same time, artists earning millions of dollars a year will probably end up earning less. That's not piracy, that's the free market in action. I suspect artists will soon make little money off of the music itself, and will make money by going on tours: I.e., working. The age of just recording a few songs and retiring as a millionaire is over. Artists, like the rest of us, will now have to work (play concerts) to earn a living. I don't think that's a bad thing, nor do I think we should feel sorry for anyone. I certainly will not cry if some artist that was earning $5 million a year to lay on the beach now earns only $100k to lay on the beach. Craig Steiner
My site makes money off of banner ads and is not porno. Try http://www.8052.com.
Any site that generates a significant level of traffic based on its content can make money. No banner exchanges, sell the ads yourself. If your site is worth it, the advertisers come on their own.
Craig Steiner