What's happening is that people are choosing better over worse, and if record companies want to reverse that trend, they should find some way to make the legal product more appealing than free high-quality downloads.
I would have thought that the fact that the alternative is illegal would make the legal product more appealing. How is it that you toss that out so easily? It's only "better" if you're willing to violate someone's rights to get it.
There will always be some way that an illegal copy may be more attractive to some than a legal copy -- there is no reason whatsoever for the industry to engage in direct competition. Even if they were to match the properties (quality, format) of any other copy, they're still competing with "free". And people like you would still be demanding that they make their product "more attractive", i.e. free.
... for half the cost you get a crazy additional amount of functionality.
Let's see. For "half the cost", I can buy a used device, take the time to modify it myself, and come up with a box that doesn't include a remote, support, or warranty; doesn't sync with or stream from iTunes; doesn't sync my photo library; doesn't have wireless; is about five hundred times larger; has 1/5th the capacity; and doesn't actually support playing back HD video.
Apart from some small contributions to khtml and (possibly) gnustep, what are these great contributions you mention ?
I won't argue for the utility of any of what they provide, but you're definitely overlooking a number of things. For starters, the whole underbelly of Mac OS X is open source (Darwin) including the kernel (xnu), and a novel replacement for init and cron (launchd). Then there's WebKit, which is more like a fork of khtml, but it does more. More recently they've opened up their ZeroConf implementation (Bonjour) and a calendar server (caldavd / Darwin Calendar Server).
Did you ever notice how the MacBook specs never tell you it does 802.11a?
It also doesn't say that it supports 802.11b. Big whoop. I think you're reading too much into it.
The parenthetical is to clarify what is meant by "AirPort Extreme" -- in the past it only meant "g" -- now it means "g and n on some models". The Mac mini, for instance, has "AirPort Extreme", but does not support 802.11n.
You actually have to buy quicktime pro to export anything.
This only applies to exporting from QuickTime Player. Exporting from (for example), iMovie doesn't require buying QuickTime Pro, and you have the exact same set of options. I'm almost certain that this applies to any other app that hooks into QuickTime APIs, too. I can't say for sure, because I actually have QuickTime Pro (it's free with Final Cut Studio).
You could theoretically buy an Xbox 360 for the same price and watch video stored on your computer downloaded from the internet or DVDs, or play games.
[ some strawman about Blu-Ray / HD-DVD that has nothing to do with what I said ]... They aren't artificially separated in order to confuse customers into buying the same DVD for the third time....Or are they?
"Confuse customers into buying" is an exceedingly strange statement. A person that is that easily confused probably shouldn't be allowed to handle money in the first place. Unless you've got some example of blatantly false advertising or something, you're going to have a hard time making that case. And no, they aren't artificially separated due to some grand conspiracy -- they separated because of competition between the consortiums that created the formats.
I'll make my point again: In practice DRMed WMA and AAC are totally different things. They are two different products sold by two different stores. No amount of handwaving makes it any less of the customer's responsibility to know this before choosing to buy or not buy either.
Exactly my point. Consumers are correct to believe that you're better off with illegal copies, because legal copies are hopelessly screwed up by an industry that simply can't get its sh*t together.
So, if something isn't for sale, it's ok to steal it? Interesting. Stupid, but interesting. Your sense of entitlement is astounding.
Why should Joe Sixpack be expected to track the licensing differences between WMA and AAC?
From a practical standpoint, WMA with DRM and AAC with DRM are as different as cassettes and CDs. No software or device will play both. You expect the consumer to be responsible enough to not stick CDs in a tape deck, right?
If I went to a record store, spent $10 on a cassette, and then went back and wanted to exchange it for a $10 credit on the same album in CD form, you'd be able to do that.
If there were a store that sold both PlaysForSure WMA and FairPlay AAC, maybe this would be possible -- as it is, no such store exists, and it's absurd to ask one store to credit your purchases at another.
They obviously don't want to say you've "purchased" anything, since it implies that you have some ownership.
No, you purchased a CD. A CD is a disc consisting of a bit of plastic with some metal in between. It is not subject to copyright. It is a thing. No record label is going to claim that you don't own the disc, nor will they give a flying fuck if you use it as a frisbee.
The contents of the disk, songs, are what you do not own. Anyone claiming otherwise doesn't understand copyright in the slightest.
What are the terms of the license?
The sum total of U.S. (or wherever) copyright law.
When did I agree to it?
When you became a citizen of the United States. Or wherever.
If I'm purchasing a "license to listen" as you suppose, then what if I play my CD for a friend-- that friend has no license to listen. That friend is as much an "unlicensed listener" as if they downloaded the MP3 from the internet.
You're making that up and you know it. Playing a CD for your friend doesn't create a new copy or a derivative, and it isn't a public performance unless you want to be extremely obtuse in your definition of "public".
Backup to CD option allows you to treat iTMS tracks as either low-quality (if you recompress) or space consuming DRM-free music.
We're talking about keeping the music in a playable form for decades. "Space-consuming" is meaningless in that context. At the very least, it's less meaningful than what "space-consuming" means in the context of any physical media. Furthermore, my post was mostly about why you probably won't need to do this at all.
Not only you are unable to make a backup, but you may not be able to play them NOW on a new computer without Internet connection.
You may not be able to play a CD now without a CD player. So what? Get a CD player. Get an internet connection. Clearly they are not hard to come by -- you had to have to have one to make the purchase in the first place.
Effectively you are paying for a product with no guaranteed useful lifetime.
Most products you buy do not have a guaranteed useful lifetime. If you expect them to last a certain amount of time, it is from experience and understanding of the limiting factors. To reiterate my point from above, the only limiting factor in the case of iTunes purchases is the Apple's continued existence, or more specifically, the continued existence of the FairPlay authentication system. I do not see tying ones expectations for the useable lifetime of these purchases to this factor as significantly more "risky" than tying them to the longevity of (say) 8-track cassettes, or 5.25" floppy disks.
Then, the next time someone claims "Linux Sucks" when I spend 10 minutes fixing something
The reason people say "Linux Sucks" is because those ten minutes are spent doing things like getting sound to work in the first place, or getting anti-aliased fonts, not "fixing" anything. And ten minutes is if you're lucky and it's not the first time you've had the problem and you don't have to compile anything.
I'm european, and even I know the Mayas *had* an independently developed writing system
"American Indian", the term used above, usually only means natives of North America (currently U.S. and Canada). Natives of the rest of the Americas are generally referred to specifically (Maya, Inca, Aztec, Korubo, etc.) or the unwieldy "indigenous peoples of the Americas". So while I agree with your sentiment about American education, I think this distinction is why Maya were omitted.)
I think the distinction is made because the histories post-Columbus are somewhat independent, and because the population in North America was very small compared to the rest of the Americas.
That's nothing, think of DRM. That content can not be preserved at all.
That might mean something if DRM magically retroactively destroyed all non-DRM copies of the content it contains. Like, say, the original.
Ten years ago my VCR ate my copy of Citizen Kane, which might have been a cultural tragedy, but fortunately someone had the foresight to give me a copy on VHS instead of the original print.
I still own the first CD I bought. It's a Herbie Hancock album that I bought over 21 years ago. It still plays in any CD player without problems. If I buy a song or album off of iTMS, how do I know that I'll still be able to play it 10 or 20 years from now?
The truth is that the vast majority of music purchases don't last ten or twenty years. How did you know that CD would last so long? Nor do most people buy it with the expectation that they will even want to listen to it decades later. So, to be fair, your concern is not one that is shared by most people -- which is true of almost every practical criticism of DRM.
Realistically, the only thing effecting the playability of your purchased file is the longevity of Apple or whomever might obtain the right to iTunes' authorization system should Apple go under. I would equate this with the risk taken when investing in any other format -- 78s, LPs, 8-tracks, cassettes, MiniDisc, LaserDisc, CDs, DVD, WMA -- it's different, but not strikingly so. You can't "know" with certainty that any format will last any length of time. There is no special reason that FairPlay-encrypted tracks won't still be playable decades from now.
This is, of course, ignoring the fact that you would have ten or twenty years in which to back up your purchase on a DRM-free CD...or two, or three, or a thousand.
Apple does have lots of people they can negotiate with
Apple doesn't "negotiate" with indie labels. There is one deal, take it or leave it. That deal is largely defined by what Apple negotiated with the majors. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that deal includes DRM.
So when will Apple step up and allow specific artists to go DRM-free too?
When the major labels cease to require it. Until then, those artists and labels are free to sell DRM-free elsewhere. In fact, it's rather hypocritical to continue selling through iTunes if you're opposed to DRM on your music, but people do it. Without the major labels, Apple doesn't have much reason to expend the effort to segregate their sales.
Question, how to I get pages to save as a.doc, it's "save as" dialog is rather sparse on options, and defaults to.pages
File > Export -- It's not perfect, but in my experience it's sufficient. "Save as" just means save a different file. "Export" means use a non-native format.
Well, many people don't like change, thus they stick with Macs because that's what they've always used. The other justifications usually come from the fact that they either just tend to listen to the marketing hype, or because they feel a need to try and justify the more expensive purchase.
What operating system do you use, and why? Remember to list only reasons that have nothing to with personal preference. God forbid people should use what they prefer. If it is an operating system you have used before, you must be afraid of change. If that operating system is marketed or promoted in the media, you must be a mindless sheep. If that operating system requires hardware marginally more expensive than others, you must be in denial.
Word is a dog through Rosseta, Pages is good, but completely proprietary.
The main reason people use Word is for compatibility with Windows. On an all-Mac campus this isn't really an issue. Even TextEdit does the 80% task of a word processor and Pages excels at the rest. Both output.doc and PDF.
Assuming they still spring for Office, which is likely, even if not strictly necessary, the next version is due in the second half, and it will be native.
but I think they're prime targets for Apple's "just works" marketing because they wouldn't stay focused long enough to get technical problems fixed.
It isn't about focus, it's about willingness. All of the Mac OS X users I know are technically adept enough to fix most problems they might have (or have had, on Windows, Linux, etc.) -- they just don't want to have to do that to get real work done. Oh sure, once upon a time it was rewarding to solve some intricate technical issue, but these days, most of the problems are too boring and mundane to be of any interest themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
What's happening is that people are choosing better over worse, and if record companies want to reverse that trend, they should find some way to make the legal product more appealing than free high-quality downloads.
I would have thought that the fact that the alternative is illegal would make the legal product more appealing. How is it that you toss that out so easily? It's only "better" if you're willing to violate someone's rights to get it.
There will always be some way that an illegal copy may be more attractive to some than a legal copy -- there is no reason whatsoever for the industry to engage in direct competition. Even if they were to match the properties (quality, format) of any other copy, they're still competing with "free". And people like you would still be demanding that they make their product "more attractive", i.e. free.
When will we get (non Disney) content?
Non-Disney movies started being added several months ago. Stuff is being added constantly.
... for half the cost you get a crazy additional amount of functionality.
Let's see. For "half the cost", I can buy a used device, take the time to modify it myself, and come up with a box that doesn't include a remote, support, or warranty; doesn't sync with or stream from iTunes; doesn't sync my photo library; doesn't have wireless; is about five hundred times larger; has 1/5th the capacity; and doesn't actually support playing back HD video .
Awesome.
Apart from some small contributions to khtml and (possibly) gnustep, what are these great contributions you mention ?
I won't argue for the utility of any of what they provide, but you're definitely overlooking a number of things. For starters, the whole underbelly of Mac OS X is open source (Darwin) including the kernel (xnu), and a novel replacement for init and cron (launchd). Then there's WebKit, which is more like a fork of khtml, but it does more. More recently they've opened up their ZeroConf implementation (Bonjour) and a calendar server (caldavd / Darwin Calendar Server).
Did you ever notice how the MacBook specs never tell you it does 802.11a?
It also doesn't say that it supports 802.11b. Big whoop. I think you're reading too much into it.
The parenthetical is to clarify what is meant by "AirPort Extreme" -- in the past it only meant "g" -- now it means "g and n on some models". The Mac mini, for instance, has "AirPort Extreme", but does not support 802.11n.
You actually have to buy quicktime pro to export anything.
This only applies to exporting from QuickTime Player. Exporting from (for example), iMovie doesn't require buying QuickTime Pro, and you have the exact same set of options. I'm almost certain that this applies to any other app that hooks into QuickTime APIs, too. I can't say for sure, because I actually have QuickTime Pro (it's free with Final Cut Studio).
You could theoretically buy an Xbox 360 for the same price and watch video stored on your computer downloaded from the internet or DVDs, or play games.
Windows-only, too. Fuck that.
[ some strawman about Blu-Ray / HD-DVD that has nothing to do with what I said ] ... They aren't artificially separated in order to confuse customers into buying the same DVD for the third time....Or are they?
"Confuse customers into buying" is an exceedingly strange statement. A person that is that easily confused probably shouldn't be allowed to handle money in the first place. Unless you've got some example of blatantly false advertising or something, you're going to have a hard time making that case. And no, they aren't artificially separated due to some grand conspiracy -- they separated because of competition between the consortiums that created the formats.
I'll make my point again: In practice DRMed WMA and AAC are totally different things. They are two different products sold by two different stores. No amount of handwaving makes it any less of the customer's responsibility to know this before choosing to buy or not buy either.
Exactly my point. Consumers are correct to believe that you're better off with illegal copies, because legal copies are hopelessly screwed up by an industry that simply can't get its sh*t together.
So, if something isn't for sale, it's ok to steal it? Interesting. Stupid, but interesting. Your sense of entitlement is astounding.
Why should Joe Sixpack be expected to track the licensing differences between WMA and AAC?
From a practical standpoint, WMA with DRM and AAC with DRM are as different as cassettes and CDs. No software or device will play both. You expect the consumer to be responsible enough to not stick CDs in a tape deck, right?
If I went to a record store, spent $10 on a cassette, and then went back and wanted to exchange it for a $10 credit on the same album in CD form, you'd be able to do that.
If there were a store that sold both PlaysForSure WMA and FairPlay AAC, maybe this would be possible -- as it is, no such store exists, and it's absurd to ask one store to credit your purchases at another.
Much higher compression ratio than even Ogg Vorbis!
It's supported on more devices, too!
They obviously don't want to say you've "purchased" anything, since it implies that you have some ownership.
No, you purchased a CD. A CD is a disc consisting of a bit of plastic with some metal in between. It is not subject to copyright. It is a thing. No record label is going to claim that you don't own the disc, nor will they give a flying fuck if you use it as a frisbee.
The contents of the disk, songs, are what you do not own. Anyone claiming otherwise doesn't understand copyright in the slightest.
What are the terms of the license?
The sum total of U.S. (or wherever) copyright law.
When did I agree to it?
When you became a citizen of the United States. Or wherever.
If I'm purchasing a "license to listen" as you suppose, then what if I play my CD for a friend-- that friend has no license to listen. That friend is as much an "unlicensed listener" as if they downloaded the MP3 from the internet.
You're making that up and you know it. Playing a CD for your friend doesn't create a new copy or a derivative, and it isn't a public performance unless you want to be extremely obtuse in your definition of "public".
Backup to CD option allows you to treat iTMS tracks as either low-quality (if you recompress) or space consuming DRM-free music.
We're talking about keeping the music in a playable form for decades. "Space-consuming" is meaningless in that context. At the very least, it's less meaningful than what "space-consuming" means in the context of any physical media. Furthermore, my post was mostly about why you probably won't need to do this at all.
Not only you are unable to make a backup, but you may not be able to play them NOW on a new computer without Internet connection.
You may not be able to play a CD now without a CD player. So what? Get a CD player. Get an internet connection. Clearly they are not hard to come by -- you had to have to have one to make the purchase in the first place.
Effectively you are paying for a product with no guaranteed useful lifetime.
Most products you buy do not have a guaranteed useful lifetime. If you expect them to last a certain amount of time, it is from experience and understanding of the limiting factors. To reiterate my point from above, the only limiting factor in the case of iTunes purchases is the Apple's continued existence, or more specifically, the continued existence of the FairPlay authentication system. I do not see tying ones expectations for the useable lifetime of these purchases to this factor as significantly more "risky" than tying them to the longevity of (say) 8-track cassettes, or 5.25" floppy disks.
Then, the next time someone claims "Linux Sucks" when I spend 10 minutes fixing something
The reason people say "Linux Sucks" is because those ten minutes are spent doing things like getting sound to work in the first place, or getting anti-aliased fonts, not "fixing" anything. And ten minutes is if you're lucky and it's not the first time you've had the problem and you don't have to compile anything.
Hummers may be more energy efficient, but how are they supposed to make you feel morally superior to others?
They have a much larger surface area to cover with "Support our Troops" ribbon magnets.
I'm european, and even I know the Mayas *had* an independently developed writing system
"American Indian", the term used above, usually only means natives of North America (currently U.S. and Canada). Natives of the rest of the Americas are generally referred to specifically (Maya, Inca, Aztec, Korubo, etc.) or the unwieldy "indigenous peoples of the Americas". So while I agree with your sentiment about American education, I think this distinction is why Maya were omitted.)
I think the distinction is made because the histories post-Columbus are somewhat independent, and because the population in North America was very small compared to the rest of the Americas.
That's nothing, think of DRM. That content can not be preserved at all.
That might mean something if DRM magically retroactively destroyed all non-DRM copies of the content it contains. Like, say, the original.
Ten years ago my VCR ate my copy of Citizen Kane, which might have been a cultural tragedy, but fortunately someone had the foresight to give me a copy on VHS instead of the original print.
I still own the first CD I bought. It's a Herbie Hancock album that I bought over 21 years ago. It still plays in any CD player without problems. If I buy a song or album off of iTMS, how do I know that I'll still be able to play it 10 or 20 years from now?
The truth is that the vast majority of music purchases don't last ten or twenty years. How did you know that CD would last so long? Nor do most people buy it with the expectation that they will even want to listen to it decades later. So, to be fair, your concern is not one that is shared by most people -- which is true of almost every practical criticism of DRM.
Realistically, the only thing effecting the playability of your purchased file is the longevity of Apple or whomever might obtain the right to iTunes' authorization system should Apple go under. I would equate this with the risk taken when investing in any other format -- 78s, LPs, 8-tracks, cassettes, MiniDisc, LaserDisc, CDs, DVD, WMA -- it's different, but not strikingly so. You can't "know" with certainty that any format will last any length of time. There is no special reason that FairPlay-encrypted tracks won't still be playable decades from now.
This is, of course, ignoring the fact that you would have ten or twenty years in which to back up your purchase on a DRM-free CD...or two, or three, or a thousand.
I think this goes to support the growing swell of "I'm willing to pay if you're willing to give me what I want"
I'm pretty sure that's how the free market has always worked. It is not a new thing.
Apple does have lots of people they can negotiate with
Apple doesn't "negotiate" with indie labels. There is one deal, take it or leave it. That deal is largely defined by what Apple negotiated with the majors. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that deal includes DRM.
So when will Apple step up and allow specific artists to go DRM-free too?
When the major labels cease to require it. Until then, those artists and labels are free to sell DRM-free elsewhere. In fact, it's rather hypocritical to continue selling through iTunes if you're opposed to DRM on your music, but people do it. Without the major labels, Apple doesn't have much reason to expend the effort to segregate their sales.
Question, how to I get pages to save as a .doc, it's "save as" dialog is rather sparse on options, and defaults to .pages
File > Export -- It's not perfect, but in my experience it's sufficient. "Save as" just means save a different file. "Export" means use a non-native format.
Well, many people don't like change, thus they stick with Macs because that's what they've always used. The other justifications usually come from the fact that they either just tend to listen to the marketing hype, or because they feel a need to try and justify the more expensive purchase.
What operating system do you use, and why? Remember to list only reasons that have nothing to with personal preference. God forbid people should use what they prefer. If it is an operating system you have used before, you must be afraid of change. If that operating system is marketed or promoted in the media, you must be a mindless sheep. If that operating system requires hardware marginally more expensive than others, you must be in denial.
Word is a dog through Rosseta, Pages is good, but completely proprietary.
.doc and PDF.
The main reason people use Word is for compatibility with Windows. On an all-Mac campus this isn't really an issue. Even TextEdit does the 80% task of a word processor and Pages excels at the rest. Both output
Assuming they still spring for Office, which is likely, even if not strictly necessary, the next version is due in the second half, and it will be native.
but I think they're prime targets for Apple's "just works" marketing because they wouldn't stay focused long enough to get technical problems fixed.
It isn't about focus, it's about willingness. All of the Mac OS X users I know are technically adept enough to fix most problems they might have (or have had, on Windows, Linux, etc.) -- they just don't want to have to do that to get real work done. Oh sure, once upon a time it was rewarding to solve some intricate technical issue, but these days, most of the problems are too boring and mundane to be of any interest themselves.
/me waits for the hordes of the OS X lovers to mod me down to oblivion :)
You must be new here. Bashing anything always gets modded up. It's positive comments that get buried.