That's some nice hot air you got there, but what exactly is so despicable about polluting the moon. The only negative exernality I can think of is that it diminishes our resources on earth.
More technically, an iPod is a luxury and thus has very elastic demand, meaning that the quantity people will by varies greatly depending on the price. So lowering the price by 1/6 caused a greater than 1/6 increase in quantity purchased.
Horses and donkeys don't mate in nature, and a mule is sterile, so those are different species. And I don't know about the asexual organism but I can see you're grasping for semantics to avoid admitting a mistake.
"almost no amount of money you can take from them will really have an effect on their behavior or the market."
Yes there is. Assume they make X dollars from their illegal activities and F is the cost of the fine plus (although it's probably negligible) bad publicity. If F > X then a company will follow the law. Pretty simple.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
It's not. Charities like Doctors Without Borders (I dunno about Peace Corps. but I'm guessing it's similar) can group people into elasticities: someone who is poor will not be able to pay for life saving medical treatment, so they provide it for free. A rich person (think most US citizens) is able to pay large amounts of money for it, so doctors in America charge money for it. The service cannot be exchanged between the two people so it is possible to have chairty and profit.
With software this is not possible: software can be exchanged at virtually no cost, so if you give it to one person for free it's impossible to sell it to another person.
#1. Those pages still contain ads #2. Don't you think it's immoral to view their content without viewing their ads? I realize they provide these pages themselves, but they're for printing. Otherwise, you should view the page with the ads to support free internet content.
well, the radio may pay royalties and tv stations may pay appearance fees, but to the end user it makes no difference
I'll be blunt: The RIAA doesn't give a shit about it's end user. They care about their bottom line like any good coporation, so the reason they allow this is the very thing you pointed out: they get royalities from the radio/TV stations who play their songs. They don't get royalties when you download music from Kazaa.
a) pressure by special interest groups to change laws to be more favourable or to leave in place laws that have long past their intended purpose to the detriment of the community at large;
Ok fine, but you haven't said which laws (in general or specific) the RIAA has imposed upon the populace that are so detrimental. I personally like property rights.
b) business models based more on litigation than real value;
They are using litigation to scare people into paying for music rather than download it from the internet.
c) an increasingly complex legal structure that becomes less and less a codification of the will of the people and more an artifact to protect those who can best manipulate it.
This is a general statement and you have not made it relevant to the discussion.
Hopefully this won't get modded down as a troll, but we'll see.
I am sick of people who think the RIAA is doing something illegal by suing individuals who download music from the internet. This isn't very complicated but I will enumerate my thinking:
1. The corporations that make up the RIAA pay money produce a product (music). 2. These corporations sell their product for money. You have a choice as to whether you want to buy it or not. 3. Some people do not want to buy the product, however they still want to use it, so they download it from the Internet. 4. The product that these corporations created is being used without their permission; obviously they want to stop this. They have a few options I suppose: a. Wait for law enforcement officials (Dept. of Justice?) to crack down on this. b. Sue the individuals who are using their product without permission.
They chose option b. They are operating fully within the laws of the United States (or at least they should, and it is not impossible in principle for them to do so--I am referring to the way they obtained IP addresses). Additionally, the laws of the US allow them to sue for large amounts of money. And now for some reason people get angry when they sue for less money?
I am not saying that from a PR standpoint this was the best way to deal with the problem, and there are many better ways that the RIAA could have taken advantage of online music instead of resisting it. But they are still taking justified and legal action.
This promotion is probably the best I've seen in a while. Three benefits: 1. To Pepsi - increased sales 2. To Apple - more people use and know about iTunes 3. To RIAA - people consider free music downloads a prize rather than taken for granted Also, because it is so unique it recieves much more publicity than other promotions (such as this article).
"they want to make the world safe for capitalism."
The submitter says this as if it's a bad thing! Of course America wants to make the world safe for capitalism; we fought a fscking Cold War to defeat communism. Whether or not open source is the best way to go about it another question, but I'm glad my government is protecting capitalism.
Oh please. Maybe in the middle of nowhere in Nevada they do, but when was the last time your cell phone didn't work in Los Angeles or some other place that was actually populated?
It's lame when people say something is "Just chemicals." Everything to do with biology is "just chemicals." Newton writing his laws of physics is the result of "just chemicals" just like me writing this is.
"it's a bad thing for users to communicate between different kinds of instant messaging systems on the Net.
But if you draw the game theory table for this yo quickly realize that blocking communication between them is the dominant strategy. Especially for the market leader.
Why not reverse the model--you pay the send the mail and then the reciever can choose to reimburse you. I'd much rather bother with that then have to go through Penis Enlargment ads and bill spammers anyways.
Umm unless you have forks in your eyes it's not that difficult to see the Free download link. Despite what you may think, you do not have special powers that allowed you to see the link that the "average internet user" lacks.
Slashdot Mirror
That's some nice hot air you got there, but what exactly is so despicable about polluting the moon. The only negative exernality I can think of is that it diminishes our resources on earth.
More technically, an iPod is a luxury and thus has very elastic demand, meaning that the quantity people will by varies greatly depending on the price. So lowering the price by 1/6 caused a greater than 1/6 increase in quantity purchased.
Horses and donkeys don't mate in nature, and a mule is sterile, so those are different species. And I don't know about the asexual organism but I can see you're grasping for semantics to avoid admitting a mistake.
"Almost like different species: we all differ genetically, yet a species is a generally-recognized "set"."
Umm, species are the one phylogenetic category that is testable: do the two groups mate in nature?
"almost no amount of money you can take from them will really have an effect on their behavior or the market."
Yes there is. Assume they make X dollars from their illegal activities and F is the cost of the fine plus (although it's probably negligible) bad publicity. If F > X then a company will follow the law. Pretty simple.
Get a free day pass. ggkthx
Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
It's not. Charities like Doctors Without Borders (I dunno about Peace Corps. but I'm guessing it's similar) can group people into elasticities: someone who is poor will not be able to pay for life saving medical treatment, so they provide it for free. A rich person (think most US citizens) is able to pay large amounts of money for it, so doctors in America charge money for it. The service cannot be exchanged between the two people so it is possible to have chairty and profit.
With software this is not possible: software can be exchanged at virtually no cost, so if you give it to one person for free it's impossible to sell it to another person.
Why is this garbage +5 insightful? You disagreed with the article without making a case at all while the author of the article made a very good case.
#1. Those pages still contain ads
#2. Don't you think it's immoral to view their content without viewing their ads? I realize they provide these pages themselves, but they're for printing. Otherwise, you should view the page with the ads to support free internet content.
well, the radio may pay royalties and tv stations may pay appearance fees, but to the end user it makes no difference
I'll be blunt: The RIAA doesn't give a shit about it's end user. They care about their bottom line like any good coporation, so the reason they allow this is the very thing you pointed out: they get royalities from the radio/TV stations who play their songs. They don't get royalties when you download music from Kazaa.
a) pressure by special interest groups to change laws to be more favourable or to leave in place laws that have long past their intended purpose to the detriment of the community at large;
Ok fine, but you haven't said which laws (in general or specific) the RIAA has imposed upon the populace that are so detrimental. I personally like property rights.
b) business models based more on litigation than real value;
They are using litigation to scare people into paying for music rather than download it from the internet.
c) an increasingly complex legal structure that becomes less and less a codification of the will of the people and more an artifact to protect those who can best manipulate it.
This is a general statement and you have not made it relevant to the discussion.
Hopefully this won't get modded down as a troll, but we'll see.
I am sick of people who think the RIAA is doing something illegal by suing individuals who download music from the internet. This isn't very complicated but I will enumerate my thinking:
1. The corporations that make up the RIAA pay money produce a product (music).
2. These corporations sell their product for money. You have a choice as to whether you want to buy it or not.
3. Some people do not want to buy the product, however they still want to use it, so they download it from the Internet.
4. The product that these corporations created is being used without their permission; obviously they want to stop this. They have a few options I suppose:
a. Wait for law enforcement officials (Dept. of Justice?) to crack down on this.
b. Sue the individuals who are using their product without permission.
They chose option b. They are operating fully within the laws of the United States (or at least they should, and it is not impossible in principle for them to do so--I am referring to the way they obtained IP addresses). Additionally, the laws of the US allow them to sue for large amounts of money. And now for some reason people get angry when they sue for less money?
I am not saying that from a PR standpoint this was the best way to deal with the problem, and there are many better ways that the RIAA could have taken advantage of online music instead of resisting it. But they are still taking justified and legal action.
This promotion is probably the best I've seen in a while. Three benefits:
1. To Pepsi - increased sales
2. To Apple - more people use and know about iTunes
3. To RIAA - people consider free music downloads a prize rather than taken for granted
Also, because it is so unique it recieves much more publicity than other promotions (such as this article).
I wish I had some mod points, but at least you get my kudos for being an island of sanity on Slashdot.
"they want to make the world safe for capitalism."
The submitter says this as if it's a bad thing! Of course America wants to make the world safe for capitalism; we fought a fscking Cold War to defeat communism. Whether or not open source is the best way to go about it another question, but I'm glad my government is protecting capitalism.
"Cellphones do this anyway , "
Oh please. Maybe in the middle of nowhere in Nevada they do, but when was the last time your cell phone didn't work in Los Angeles or some other place that was actually populated?
It's lame when people say something is "Just chemicals." Everything to do with biology is "just chemicals." Newton writing his laws of physics is the result of "just chemicals" just like me writing this is.
I hate to break it to you, but with well over 90% of the market share Microsoft is the Big One.
"it's a bad thing for users to communicate between different kinds of instant messaging systems on the Net.
But if you draw the game theory table for this yo quickly realize that blocking communication between them is the dominant strategy. Especially for the market leader.
Isn't predatory pricing (charging a price below what it costs you to produce a product) illegal as a result of some anti-trust legislation.
The slippery slope, eh? That sure is, (sarcasm), valid reasoning.
Why not reverse the model--you pay the send the mail and then the reciever can choose to reimburse you. I'd much rather bother with that then have to go through Penis Enlargment ads and bill spammers anyways.
Is that legal brief for real?
Umm unless you have forks in your eyes it's not that difficult to see the Free download link. Despite what you may think, you do not have special powers that allowed you to see the link that the "average internet user" lacks.