The real reason behind region encoding is not to delay releases between different countries, but to maximise income. Movies (and many other kinds of intellectual property) sell at different prices in different countries, due to differences in purchasing power.
A particular movie might make the most money when sold at $20 in the USA, but in Australia $10 might be the best price point. However, without region encoding there would be nothing to stop someone in the USA importing and re-selling movies from Australia. The end result would be that prices would be roughly the same in all countries.
So if you live in a rich country, region encoding is a bad thing. But for citizens of poorer countries, it means that they are getting DVDs at cheaper prices than would prevail under total 'free trade'.
So maybe the breakdown of region encoding isn't as good for consumers as you might first think..
And if the billions had been spend to put a man (or permanent base) on mars, or launch a fleet of space stations.. what would that have achieved for the average person on earth? Bugger all.
The entire apollo program was about as useful as the construction of the pyramids. Technically amazing, but totally useless in practical terms. Maybe NASA should have faked the moon landings - would it really have made any difference?
( Not that the billions spent on military hardware were a good idea either.. )
Sure, by default you have the right to re-sell a book.. but what if you want to voluntarily sign a contract to give up those rights in exchange for something?
Take NDAs for example - you have a right to free speech, but you can voluntarily sign it away if you want. A right that you cannot choose to give up in some circumstances is no right at all..
Federalizing the internet (espcially if there was a monopoly government ISP) would be the first step towards eliminating your rights online.
Sure, commercial ISPs can disconnect you for whatever reason they want, or block certain traffic.. but there are plenty of ISPs out there, so if you don't like one then you can always switch.
If the government owned the internet, systems like carnivore or regulations like the CDA could be put in place without any need to pass laws to force commercial ISPs to participate. Private ISPs on the other hand hate implementing those kind of things, because it costs them time and money..
The idea that regulation can somehow save companies from going bankrupt is absurd. Corporations exist to earn profits and avoid bankrupcy - what possible regulation is going to make them work harder towards that goal? Even without their accounting cover-ups, Worldcom and Enron would still have failed, maybe sooner or maybe later..
For the economy to progress in the long run, bad companies must fail to free up capital for the good ones. The only thing worse than Worldcom's bankrupcy would be if Worldcom had *not* gone bankrupt.
Of course, if these hypothetical radio stations did make some kind of agreement to split the market like that, they would be shut down for anti-trust violations:)
All those bandwidth constraints exist to prevent customers from over-using 'unlimited' broadband services. If they didn't exist, ISPs would have to start charging by the byte instead.. why may be a good thing.
This guy seems to think that the internet is in danger of fragmenting into parts controlled by separate companies that are unable to communicate with each other, and that the solution to this 'problem' is a single centrally controlled IP utility. Yet he provides zero evidence that this is actually happening!
Because there are so many ISPs and carriers, none of them would dare to cut off connectivity to each other. Maybe if there was some mega-ISP that controlled 90% of the market then it would make sense for it cut off competitors.. but that is not the case today.
So what exactly is the current real-world problem that this 'IP utility' is supposed to solve?
I don't know if it is true or not that billing is the single largest cost for a phone company, but even if that were true it would still be necessary. Otherwise, what is to stop some people from hogging huge amounts of capacity by making thousands of long-distance calls every month?
In my opinion, that marginal cost argument was the weakest in the article. All physical property owners sell their property at above the marginal cost, because they have a 'monopoly' on the things that they own. If a company spends $1 billion on a factory to make widgets that contain $1 in raw materials but sell for $10, is that somehow unfair?
By that logic, the government shouldn't be protecting the property of manufacturing companies from thieves and looters either.. instead, those companies shold be hiring their own security guards to do the job. Anything else is a government subsidy, right?
The whole point of 'intellectual property' is that it gets protected by the government, just like physical property does. That's what all the movie studios and recording companies are paying tax for. And the idea that only 'quality' art is deserving of protection is simply ludicrous - by what objective measure can we detetermine what is quality and what isn't?
Very true.. but can the optimum (assuming it can even be determined) be reached? It's easy to point out that humans are fallible and make mistakes like giving away too much of their privacy. But what is the solution? Passing some law that controls exactly how much privacy people are allowed to give up?
Hard as it may be for you to imagine, there will be people who are willing to give up all their personal details in exchange for a free email account or whatever, and preventing them from doing so will actually make them worse off.
A lot of what you write about the side-effects of war are correct - however, none of them seem to be good side-effects to me! It is absolutely true that war gives governments a reason to control the economy, culture and society, but that kind of control is never beneficial in the long run.
Take ecomomic control for example - the British government's control of the economy during WW2 continued for decades after the war, resulting in decades of slow growth and stagnation.
Or consider the harm done to society by the kind of blind unquestioned patriotism that always rears its head during wartime. Governments are always quick to label anyone who dares to question to motivation or prosecution of the war as traitors - is that good for culture and society?
Anyone on a byte-charged internet connection has to pay for email sent to and from them.
No amount of whining about the unfairness of capitalism is going to get rid of the fact that African (and Asian and Australian) internet users access a lot more US content than vice versa, and thus it makes sense for them to pay for the costs of their internet connections to the US.
Aren't companies owned by their shareholders?
Don't they have free speech rights? By your
logic, it would be OK to ban the New York Times
because it is published by a corporation..
The opposite question could also be asked - why
is it when the goverment wants to censor
porn/crypto/bomb-making instructions that the
cry on slashdot is always 'information wants to
be free!'... but when they want to censor
information about customers that one company
sends to another, the typical slashdot reader is
all for it?
If you are against censorship, you have to be
against it *all* the time for your opinion
to make sense.
This is essentially what Telstra does with ADSL
and cable-modem services in Australia. For A$90
(which is about US$50) I get 3gb per month of
traffic, with anything above that charged per megabyte. The upside is that they don't care if you
run servers or use NAT to hide multiple machines
behind your ADSL gateway host (as I do).
Of course, there are still plenty of people who
complain about how unfair usage charging is and
how US cable modem users get unlimited traffic
for a flat fee. But as this story shows, broadband providers don't seem to be too fond of that
business model..
In fact, software liability would be even worse
for companies like Redhat and SuSE than it would
be for Microsoft. The typical commercial linux
distribution includes hundreds of packages from
different authors, any of which may contain a
serious bug. Could the vendor possibly check every
single one of these? I doubt it..
Microsoft on the other hand only sells their own
code, so it would be theoretically possible (but
still very difficult) for them to eliminate all
serious bugs in their software. So they would
survive, but any company that made any money at
all from redistributing other people's free
software would be forced out of business.
It's probably true that SimCity tends towards
a socialist view of city planning.. however, that
is most likely because a game based on free-market
principals would leave the 'mayor' with almost
nothing to do, and thus wouldn't be very fun
to play:)
The flip side of this is that governments aren't
too good at deciding what research should be funded either. Those in charge will always be tempted to fund projects they are personally biased towards, or that are in the news at the moment, or that have the noisiest supporters.
Worse still, the beauracrats will never be able to work out exactly which projects society values most, because that information is spread across all of society and probably constantly changing as well. If governments were run by saints with perfect information this wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately they are run by human beings with biases and limited knowledge.
Take the space program for example - billions were spent sending men to the moon, and for what?! There are no colonies on the moon, no mines for valuable minerals.. how exactly did the Apollo landings help out the average person? The typical response to this is to mention 'spinoff benefits' like communication satellites, but that really proves my point - they are incidental benefits, and were not the aim of the Apollo program at all. You might as well argue that the building of the pyramids was of benefit to ancient Egypt because it led to advances in stonemasonry.
Slashdot Mirror
The real reason behind region encoding is not
..
to delay releases between different countries,
but to maximise income. Movies (and many other
kinds of intellectual property) sell at different
prices in different countries, due to differences
in purchasing power.
A particular movie might make the most money
when sold at $20 in the USA, but in Australia
$10 might be the best price point. However,
without region encoding there would be nothing
to stop someone in the USA importing and
re-selling movies from Australia. The end
result would be that prices would be roughly
the same in all countries.
So if you live in a rich country, region
encoding is a bad thing. But for citizens of
poorer countries, it means that they are
getting DVDs at cheaper prices than would
prevail under total 'free trade'.
So maybe the breakdown of region encoding
isn't as good for consumers as you might
first think
And if the billions had been spend to put a man .. what would that have
.. )
(or permanent base) on mars, or launch a fleet
of space stations
achieved for the average person on earth?
Bugger all.
The entire apollo program was about as useful
as the construction of the pyramids.
Technically amazing, but totally useless in
practical terms. Maybe NASA should have faked
the moon landings - would it really have made
any difference?
( Not that the billions spent on military hardware
were a good idea either
Sure, by default you have the right to re-sell .. but what if you want to voluntarily
..
a book
sign a contract to give up those rights in
exchange for something?
Take NDAs for example - you have a right to
free speech, but you can voluntarily sign it
away if you want. A right that you cannot choose
to give up in some circumstances is no right
at all
Federalizing the internet (espcially if there
.. but there are plenty of ISPs out
..
was a monopoly government ISP) would be the
first step towards eliminating your rights
online.
Sure, commercial ISPs can disconnect you for
whatever reason they want, or block certain
traffic
there, so if you don't like one then you can
always switch.
If the government owned the internet, systems
like carnivore or regulations like the CDA
could be put in place without any need to
pass laws to force commercial ISPs to
participate. Private ISPs on the other hand
hate implementing those kind of things,
because it costs them time and money
The idea that regulation can somehow save companies from going bankrupt is absurd. Corporations exist to earn profits and avoid bankrupcy - what possible regulation is going to make them work harder towards that goal? Even without their accounting cover-ups, Worldcom and Enron would still have failed, maybe sooner or maybe later..
For the economy to progress in the long run, bad companies must fail to free up capital for the good ones. The only thing worse than Worldcom's bankrupcy would be if Worldcom had *not* gone bankrupt.
Of course, if these hypothetical radio stations :)
did make some kind of agreement to split the
market like that, they would be shut down for
anti-trust violations
All those bandwidth constraints exist to prevent .. why may
customers from over-using 'unlimited' broadband
services. If they didn't exist, ISPs would have
to start charging by the byte instead
be a good thing.
This guy seems to think that the internet is in
.. but that is
danger of fragmenting into parts controlled by
separate companies that are unable to communicate
with each other, and that the solution to this
'problem' is a single centrally controlled IP
utility. Yet he provides zero evidence that this
is actually happening!
Because there are so many ISPs and carriers, none
of them would dare to cut off connectivity to
each other. Maybe if there was some mega-ISP that
controlled 90% of the market then it would make
sense for it cut off competitors
not the case today.
So what exactly is the current real-world problem
that this 'IP utility' is supposed to solve?
Yeah, Enron's market manipulations were really
successful, weren't they? Look how much money
they made from it!
</sarcasm>
I don't know if it is true or not that billing
is the single largest cost for a phone company,
but even if that were true it would still be
necessary. Otherwise, what is to stop some people
from hogging huge amounts of capacity by making
thousands of long-distance calls every month?
In my opinion, that marginal cost argument was
the weakest in the article. All physical property
owners sell their property at above the marginal
cost, because they have a 'monopoly' on the things
that they own. If a company spends $1 billion on
a factory to make widgets that contain $1 in raw
materials but sell for $10, is that somehow
unfair?
By that logic, the government shouldn't be ..
protecting the property of manufacturing
companies from thieves and looters either
instead, those companies shold be hiring their
own security guards to do the job. Anything else
is a government subsidy, right?
The whole point of 'intellectual property' is that
it gets protected by the government, just like
physical property does. That's what all the movie
studios and recording companies are paying tax
for. And the idea that only 'quality' art is
deserving of protection is simply ludicrous - by
what objective measure can we detetermine what
is quality and what isn't?
Very true .. but can the optimum (assuming it can
even be determined) be reached? It's easy to point
out that humans are fallible and make mistakes
like giving away too much of their privacy. But
what is the solution? Passing some law that
controls exactly how much privacy people are
allowed to give up?
Hard as it may be for you to imagine, there will
be people who are willing to give up all their
personal details in exchange for a free email
account or whatever, and preventing them from
doing so will actually make them worse off.
Interesting argument .. but in this Nike case,
doesn't that mean that the free-speech rights
of the owners of the corporation are being
violated?
A lot of what you write about the side-effects of
war are correct - however, none of them seem
to be good side-effects to me! It is absolutely
true that war gives governments a reason to
control the economy, culture and society, but that
kind of control is never beneficial in the
long run.
Take ecomomic control for example - the British
government's control of the economy during WW2
continued for decades after the war, resulting
in decades of slow growth and stagnation.
Or consider the harm done to society by the kind
of blind unquestioned patriotism that always
rears its head during wartime. Governments are
always quick to label anyone who dares to question
to motivation or prosecution of the war as
traitors - is that good for culture and society?
Anyone on a byte-charged internet connection
has to pay for email sent to and from them.
No amount of whining about the unfairness of
capitalism is going to get rid of the fact that
African (and Asian and Australian) internet users
access a lot more US content than vice versa, and
thus it makes sense for them to pay for the costs
of their internet connections to the US.
Webmin can be setup to use SSL, and to only ..
accept connections from selected IP addresses
that makes it as secure as SSH as far as I am
concerned.
Aren't companies owned by their shareholders? ..
Don't they have free speech rights? By your
logic, it would be OK to ban the New York Times
because it is published by a corporation
The opposite question could also be asked - why ... but when they want to censor
is it when the goverment wants to censor
porn/crypto/bomb-making instructions that the
cry on slashdot is always 'information wants to
be free!'
information about customers that one company
sends to another, the typical slashdot reader is
all for it?
If you are against censorship, you have to be
against it *all* the time for your opinion
to make sense.
Of course, there are still plenty of people who complain about how unfair usage charging is and how US cable modem users get unlimited traffic for a flat fee. But as this story shows, broadband providers don't seem to be too fond of that business model ..
In fact, software liability would be even worse
for companies like Redhat and SuSE than it would
be for Microsoft. The typical commercial linux
distribution includes hundreds of packages from
different authors, any of which may contain a
serious bug. Could the vendor possibly check every
single one of these? I doubt it..
Microsoft on the other hand only sells their own
code, so it would be theoretically possible (but
still very difficult) for them to eliminate all
serious bugs in their software. So they would
survive, but any company that made any money at
all from redistributing other people's free
software would be forced out of business.
It's probably true that SimCity tends towards .. however, that
:)
a socialist view of city planning
is most likely because a game based on free-market
principals would leave the 'mayor' with almost
nothing to do, and thus wouldn't be very fun
to play
Worse still, the beauracrats will never be able to work out exactly which projects society values most, because that information is spread across all of society and probably constantly changing as well. If governments were run by saints with perfect information this wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately they are run by human beings with biases and limited knowledge.
Take the space program for example - billions were spent sending men to the moon, and for what?! There are no colonies on the moon, no mines for valuable minerals .. how exactly did the Apollo landings help out the average person? The typical response to this is to mention 'spinoff benefits' like communication satellites, but that really proves my point - they are incidental benefits, and were not the aim of the Apollo program at all. You might as well argue that the building of the pyramids was of benefit to ancient Egypt because it led to advances in stonemasonry.