You have to take into account the lifespan and stability of websites. Maybe the creator starts up a new website and draws people away from this one, or maybe a competing website shows up, or the new ownership could just crap their pants. Maybe the creator sees the pool of potential hacks drying up, and wants to get while the getting's good.
I'd put buying a blog right around the same level as playing craps, as far as sound long-term investments go.
The issue isn't the concept of Intellectual Property. The problem is how IP rights are doled out, and the breadth of patents issued.
The fact that patenting a genome was even ever up for debate is systemic of the patent office in general not knowing what the fuck they're doing. You should be able to patent the method by which a genome is altered, sure. You could even claim that a sequence that you created from scratch in a lab is your IP (assuming that sequence doesn't occur naturally) But the original proposition was beyond asinine. It would be like inventing a camera, taking a picture of someone, and then claiming that person's face is now your IP. And this concept gained traction. WTF. That they weren't immediately laughed out of the office is just another symptom of the root cause.
Likewise, Google has IP rights over their search process, and the algorithms used in searches... but they certainly have no dominion over the concept of "web searching." Movie studios have IP rights over their specific movies, and characters contained therein... but Marvel doesn't have rights over the concept of Super Hero movies. These examples are obvious and clear. But as soon as we start talking about something even a little bit abstract, like "genomes," everyone drops the common sense.
I'm not familiar enough to know the root cause, but my SWAG* is simply age and indifference. Those in charge of the Patent Office are old farts who can't be bothered to learn these newfangeled thingy-ma-whats-its. A more cynical view would be that those in charge know exactly what they're doing, and have been well paid to keep doing it... but I'll side with Hanlon's Razor on this one.
*that would be this SWAG. Not whatever newfangled definition you kids are using today.
Military always gets the shiny new tech first, but the advances will make their way into the civilian sector eventually. (see: ARPANET)
The ability to land a plane without human interaction, within very tight limits, is one that can help the civilian sector immensely in the long term. We just had a crash a week ago in San Fransisco. Perhaps a drone pilot system would have seen the issue and corrected it. Not only could the systems developed for the plane in TFA reduce crashes in the long term, they could ease congestion, plan and route better, and maybe take some stress off ATC (one of the notoriously most stressful jobs in the world)
Military will get it first, because the tech has not been tested thoroughly enough to entrust it with the safety of hundreds of passengers, but eventually we'll see benefits in the civilian sector. And that's just the autopilot tech. I'm sure there are many other advances on this plane that will improve civilian travel in the long term. I'm just not familiar enough with the craft to speak on those.
It's a very real possibility that GZ did in fact fear for his life. But it's also very likely that TM had the same fear, and for very valid reasons.
What we do know for sure is that GZ disobeyed the 911 operator numerous times, and while that in and of itself isn't a crime, it demonstrates a single-mindedness that would lead to the altercation and TMs death. This puts the onus on GZ, IMO. He was warned, repeatedly, to stand down until the cops arrived. He discovered those warnings, and should be held accountable for his decisions.
The fundamental "problem" with STEM fields is that they build on the information and understanding of previous years. If you have a hard time with algebra, you are boned when it comes to trig or calc.
All it takes is one bad year. Maybe it was a teacher that couldn't connect with you, or maybe a bad breakup got you distracted and mopey for a semester, maybe too much partying cut into study time... whatever the reason, if you screw up a single link in the chain, everything after it will suffer and become exponentially harder.
Compare to history, economics, arts and crafts, interpretive dance, or whatever other non-STEM fields people major in. There may be some carry over from one year to the next, but if you forget Hannibal's motivation for trudging over mountains on elephants, it's not really going to impact your understanding of what caused the Great Depression.
Prototypes are expensive, mate. Cost of progress. You're probably right, we could test the individual systems more cheaply, but lab tests in similar gear will only get you so far. At some point you need to do a full-up test run with the actual platform and all components.
Honestly, I would suspect that many MANY tests were run just like you suggested, prior to this event, and the combined cost of those tests (and rectifying and problems found) are all rolled up into that Total cost, driving that cost up further.
Lets ban hookas and syringes as well. Screw people who use them to smoke tobacco, or diabetics in general. We know what those things are REALLY used for.
What we really need are two laws of humanity. Basically, Asimov's #1 and #3, with the word robot removed and order reversed.
1. A human must protect its own existence.
2. A human may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm unless such inaction would conflict with the first law.
Given recent events, the NSA absolutely had to know this was coming. It doesn't take a massive datacenter combing through the personal lives of every US citizen to realize that the populace is a bit upset with their actions. It also doesn't take a SPECTRE meeting to figure out that college students are among the most vocal subset, especially in the category of personal liberties.
Given the obvious outcome of sending NSA recruiters to a college campus, and the complete unpreparedness of the recruiters for that obvious outcome, I can only conclude that the whole thing is a stunt to paint the NSA as somewhat ineffective in the public eye, so that they can fade back into obscurity and continue their illegal monitoring. (do I win "run on sentence of the week?"). Really, the only part of this I would still question, is whether or not the recruiters were in on the ruse, or unwittingly hung out as public sacrifice.
Legally, phone records aren't yours, they belong to the phone company.
Legally, the apartment you rent isn't yours. It belongs to the landlord (or some other parent company)
Can a single warrant for the landlord grant access to every apartment in the building? Absolutely not.
These actions clearly and directly violate the spirit and intent of the 4th amendment (and the 9th and the 10th) even if Congress can use Newspeak to make the actions skirt within the letter of the law.
To be fair, our existing knees don't actually last our entire human lifespan. Much like antique wooden ships (i.e. HMS Victory, Star of India, etc.) pieces are gradually replaced over the years. A few planks here, a new sail there... eventually the item in question is actually a completely new unit, divorced of any parts from the original.
The cells that comprise your knee have died and been replaced several times over the years. It's just so gradual that we don't notice, and treat these knees as the same knees we had a decade ago.
I've posted this elsewhere in the thread, but I'll give you the skinny here as well. Using Steam as an example :
Yes, you lose out on some things. You can't resell your games, you can't trade them, and if you want to play games on travel, you have to enable offline mode. In return for these sacrifices, you get a store than never closes, never runs out of stock, has better deals than any retail store, and sells games than can never be lost, stolen or damaged AND has built in chat for all of their games. Square deal IMO.
Maybe this provides a better service, maybe it doesn't. Once thing is for certain though, it provides a slightly different service as compared to big box stores. There are positives and negatives... if those line up in a way that suits you, then it provides a better services... and for my video game use, it does. don't travel much, (and when I do, it's for vacation, so I don't mind the lack of games) and I rarely/never sell my games to the used marked once I'm done with them. So the two biggest problems of the Steam DRM are complete non issues for me. If you disagree, and if you think that steam DRM is too overbearing, I'd like to hear why. Which tradeoff is the real killer, and why do the benefits not outweigh?
In the end, everyone should make their own decision as to whether these things line up and which service suits them better. Vote with your wallets, and you will see things shift. Enough people have voted that steam is beneficial for them. There are over 4 million people this very instant online with steam : store.steampowered.com/stats/ They've hit a peak of over 6.5 concurrent users, and that number is ever rising.
The petulant child is usually the one that resorts to hyperboles and strawmen.
Like screaming "THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!" over a 1 dollar investment? I threw in a bit of hyperbole to better highlight your hyperbole. Yeah, we get it, you don't like DRM. Doesn't mean you have to get all amped up over it every time you see it mentioned. Take a step back, take a deep breath, and examing how bad the situation actually is.
You keep making the distinction between bad DRM and good DRM. You seem to have a hard time accepting that Steam is an example of bad DRM. You're exactly right you know. Any time you encounter the DRM in a medium, it's a sign that the DRM is failing. That it's causing grief to the users. That it's "bad DRM".
Unsure what steam has done to really earn your ire, but I still maintain that they are DRM done right. Yes, you lose out on some things. You can't resell your games, you can't trade them, and if you're a jet setting Corporate CEO playing Skyrim on your laptop while you fly, you will have to tell your admin to put your games in travel mode before you leave. In return for these sacrifices, you get a store than never closes, never runs out of stock, has better deals than any retail store, and sells games than can never be lost, stolen or damaged AND has built in chat for all of their games. Square deal IMO. If you disagree, I'd like to hear why. Which tradeoff is the real killer, and why do the benefits not outweigh?
And I'm letting you know that Steam has caused me grief.
And I'm letting you know that my local bar caused me grief when they told me I couldn't walk home with the beer I'd purchased. I bought it, it's MY beer, I can do with it what I want. And if I want to pour it all over my self... hey... it's MY beer!
And to that extent, anything wrapped in DRM (But let's call it "bad' DRM, so you don't have a conniption fit), simply won't be getting my money. I'll stick to the indie game developers, the humble-bundle, and the classics.
It's not fair or unfair. They're selling something I want with strings attached that I don't want. And so I don't buy. And if you really don't mind those strings, you can buy if you want.
If you've a moral ground to stand, and will not buy anything with even the slightest hint of DRM for your own religious purposes, then that's fine. Do what you do. I dated a girl once who didn't eat pork. Whatever, her loss, and more bacon for me. Likewise, your staunch refusal to negotiate with your digital demons is your own loss. You're denying yourself a very useful service because you don't like the way it smells... and we do not mourn your loss.
Pretty sure you weren't the one I called petulant, unless you're a multi-account for HeckRuler. But you actually make reasonable and sound arguments, so I doubt that.
In regards to your meatspace analogy... #4 is forgetting rules and regulations that exist in every purchase you make. We take the meatspace ones for granted, because they're so ingrained and obvious, but those restrictions do very much exist. But here are a few easy examples:
1 : Go to a nice restaurant.
2 : Order a meal.
3 : Pay money
4 : Take the food off the plate and smear it all over my face, and stick the silverware down my trousers... or
4 : Walk out with the restaurant's plate... or
4 : Jump up on the table and play Frisbee with the dishes.... or
4 : Order a beer instead of food, and walk out the front door with it... or
4 : Walk back into the kitchen and start giving the chef some tips on a better alfredo sauce, because lets be honest, that was mediocre at best.
4 : you get the idea, ya?
Just because you paid for the food and service inherent in a restaurant doesn't mean you can do whatever you want, even within the confines of the law. There's no law against frisbee, or smearing food on my face, or giving out cooking tips... but the place of business would probably frown upon such activities and kick me out. Don't think I'd be getting a refund, either. We don't really think about those things though, because they're obvious and natural. But somehow, a content provider trying to enforce similarly natural rules is a bad thing?
And therein lies my main argument : Good DRM, enforced properly, should be natural and unobtrusive. Any person using a product or service in good faith, should not be burdened by DRM. But the DRM we've been treated too is more akin to a restaurant where the Maitre'D stands over you the whole time screaming "SALAD FORK GOES ON THE LEFT!!! THAT'S A SOUP SPOON, CRETIN! STOP SLURPING! TRY THE VEAL!!!" It's abusive, it's unnecessary, and it sours people on the basic concept of having rules.
THE DRM IS FUCKING BULLSHIT! In just two short months I've been shut out of multiplayer 3 times because their servers were down.
Thank you for reinforcing the petulant child persona you've been putting forward this whole time. Seriously though, look at what you wrote. In two months (~60 days) a big corporation had to bounce its servers three times. Holy fire and brimstone! Once dropped call every three weeks!? How dare they. Blame Obama, blame the terrorist, blame the communists! Call the fucking National Guard!!
I got it for $1 in some promo deal... if you want to seperate me from my money you have to actually sell me something.
You got separated from a dollar. ONE DOLLAR. And you received a product that is near and dear to your heart, filled your formative years with joy... but the new version craps it pants every couple weeks. Last time I bought something for a dollar it was a cup of cheap-ass 7-11 coffee.
Actually, I can perfectly dictate my abstinence
That's fine. Take your ball and go home, if you want. But stop btiching and moaning that LIFE ISN'T FAIR when million and millions of people are enjoying the trade-offs inherent in the service you decry as Satan incarnate.
Just a random thought... I don't work for Valve or have any insight here... but hypothetically : If Valve was to go out of business, what's preventing them from putting out a small update that changes the "phone home" address from steampowered.com (or whatever) to 127.0.0.1?
You make a lot of good points, I'll try to touch on as many of them as I can:
Online streaming-based services like Netflix are not much good for people who (for example) frequently travel internationally
I think this is a temporary situation. Online streaming services are still in their infancy. Netflix unlimited streaming has only been around for 5 years. Hulu and Amazon Prime even less... so there are still some kinks to work out. It doesn't help that many of the law makers are, frankly, old people with a tenuous grasp on the internet as a whole ("it's a series of tubes!") This will change in years to come, when the twitter generation starts aging into congressional roles. In the meantime, the best they can do is make their limitations abundantly clear. "This is what you pay for, this is what you get" and let the situation resolve itself over time.
Here's the biggest flaw in your argument for DRM, though: it doesn't work.*
But it does, when used properly.. DRM doesn't have to make pirating 100% impossible, it just has to make piracy a less attractive option than legal means. Time is money, and I'd rather just pay the $8/month to watch Netflix instead of figuring out some way to MitM the stream and burn the entire netflix library to my own storage array (which costs a pretty penny more than $8, to be sure) Thus Netflix DRM is keeping at least this (alleged) pirate away. If everything you wanted to watch was on Netflix/Hulu/Amazon, or some other service... that would put a huge hit on piracy. People are inherently lazy, and having everything in 1 place, delivered to you, sorted, alphabetized, categorized, and even put into "suggestions for what you might like," people would gravitate there.
I could still watch/burn/distribute from DVDs/Blu-Rays, but I don't do that, because I can afford the disks and think that the producers of the media should get paid for their work. However, because of that honesty, I'm subjected to the stupidity of attempts to impose DRM on the disks (plus annoying nonsense like unskippable menus, self-defeating FBI warnings, etc.). And to add insult to injury, as a legitimate customer, I'm paying more for the inclusion of this nonsense.
This is exactly the bludgeoning I was talking about in my original post. Companies who penalize their legitimate paying customers make piracy a more attractive solution. It's true with movies, and it's true with games. Add the recent Sim City debacle to that list. While all the paying customers were SOL because EA's servers couldn't handle the load, pirates were playing and enjoying the game locally. EA provided a clearly worse service than pirates... so people pirate.
However, I'd instead argue that DRM is just the snake-oil used by Netflix et al. to loosen the grip of the content owners enough to persuade them to sign their contracts
A definite possibility, and you know what... I'm perfectly fine with that. If Netflix was somehow able to woo the guys at HBO with their impenetrable DRM, and get Game of Thrones into their database, how is that a bad thing?? That, imo, is the perfect use case of DRM done right. Used by a service provider to help give their customers a better product. Q.E.D.
So, why not allow the option of middlemen, and the option of direct sales. If what you say is true then middle men will foster a better experience, capitalism will prevail, and companies dependent on direct sales will falter.
"Movie theatres blow! I should just be able to walk into any movie at any time, and as long as it's not sold out, I should be allowed to sit and watch movies all day!! They are going to play the movie anyway... why can't I just sit in what would have been an empty seat???"
You sound like a petulant child, entitled to whatever you want, whenever you want, exactly how you want. In the real world we have to make choices, and balance pros and cons before spending our money. If you couldn't manage an internet connection every few months, you should have known better than to invest in steam games. It's not a big secret, is it? You had to be online to buy the game. You needed an internet connection to download and install it. They might want an internet connection every few months to play it. Those are the cons. The pros of this requirement are cheap games, and immense amount of convenience. No disks to lose, or get scratched, nothing ever lost in the shuffle... all of the games you've EVER purchased from steam are always available. These are the pros and cons. These are the terms laid forth. If they aren't acceptable to you, then so be it... but you don't get to dictate YOUR terms to Valve, or the movie theatre, or any other company.
And to say DRM doesn't help you at all is VERY shortsighted, but that's a common trait among petulant children. The millions and MILLIONS of concurrent users would disagree with your assessment that "Steam blows," and Steam was able to wrangle in those millions and millions of users by leveraging DRM against video game development studios. Never has a single game sold by Steam made its way into a gamestop, nor has any steam game been burned for a friend (i suppose things things are possible, but the numbers would be absolutely miniscule) Valve is able to use these facts to twist the arms of EA and their ilk for cheaper product. Cheaper product benefits YOU, the consumer. So yes, DRM benefits you... you just can't see it because DRM isn't personally coming to your house and baking cookies
(P.S. The same argument exists for Netflix, Hulu and other examples of DRM done right. it was just easier to stick with a single subject)
If you never hear about DRM, that means it's doing its job. DRM should be behind the scenes, and should make the associated product better. Using Netflix as an example : Would you rather go to Amazon.com and buy Burn Notice season 1 for $30... or pay $8 to netflix and watch all of season 1 - 7? How about the new Battlestar Galactica. Pretty good show. $100 for the DVDs, or free on Netflix (because you already paid your $8 for Burn Notice)
You also don't see DRM helping these companies work out deals with the owners of the content. Do you think movie studios would give Netflix ANY of their IP if anyone could just download the files and watch/burn/distribute them? Netflix's use of DRM via streaming content only gives the studios some measure of reassurance that illicit copies of their movies won't be leaking out this particular avenue. Thus we get more content, and cheaper.
DRM done right. (P.S. you can substitute Netflix / movies with Steam / games and the example holds)
They Manage the Rights to Digital content (movies) by not giving you MP4s (or mkvs, etc) that can be easily copied. Instead they stream the content to you.
In general terms, Digital Rights Management isn't necessarily a bad thing, and used properly can be very helpful. The problem is so many companies wielding DRM like a club, and bludgeoning their customers about the head and shoulders at every opportunity.
Look at iTunes, Steam, Netflix/Hulu... all examples of DRM done right. They make it inconvenient to copy/pirate their content, while making it extremely convenient to use that content "properly." Watching movies, playing games and listing to music are simple and streamlined. Plus they're cheap cheap. For instance, if you just find a single TV show on Netflix, you can burn through a couple of seasons and completely justify the $8... and don't even get me started on Steam Sales. Summer sale is just around the corner.
The problem arises when preventing piracy steps on the toes of general usability. Sony's infamous rootkits, music piracy lawsuits, XBone in general (depending on how much MS has backtracked) or the current "Online Pass" era of video games, project $10 and the general hatred spewed towards the likes of Game-Stop**. All these things make it less convenient, less safe, and generally less fun to participate in the activities they're trying to protect.
**As an aside, I've always found an interesting dichotomy with Gamestop. Big publishers are doing everything they can to paint used games as the devil, killing business and clubbing baby seals or whatever... but at the same time, almost every game released (especially from big publishers like EA) comes with special exclusive Gamestop pre-order bonuses.
On the contrary, Salinas v Texas just proves that he had the RIGHT to remain silent the whole time, even without police informing him of that right. What he lacked was the DESIRE to do so, until he'd already talked himself into a corner. If you're going to waffle back and forth on your rights, you might want to let people know which side you're on at any given point.
Personally, I think it should have gone the other way, but I see the merit in the SCOTUS decision on this one. Cops shouldn't need to go around telling everyone they pass "You have the right to remain silent... and you too... and you, and you and you... you all have the right to remain silent! Yay!" If someone (who is not under arrest) just starts talking, cops are going to listen... and if you suddenly stop talking, they're going to notice.
Slashdot Mirror
You have to take into account the lifespan and stability of websites. Maybe the creator starts up a new website and draws people away from this one, or maybe a competing website shows up, or the new ownership could just crap their pants. Maybe the creator sees the pool of potential hacks drying up, and wants to get while the getting's good.
I'd put buying a blog right around the same level as playing craps, as far as sound long-term investments go.
The issue isn't the concept of Intellectual Property. The problem is how IP rights are doled out, and the breadth of patents issued.
The fact that patenting a genome was even ever up for debate is systemic of the patent office in general not knowing what the fuck they're doing. You should be able to patent the method by which a genome is altered, sure. You could even claim that a sequence that you created from scratch in a lab is your IP (assuming that sequence doesn't occur naturally) But the original proposition was beyond asinine. It would be like inventing a camera, taking a picture of someone, and then claiming that person's face is now your IP. And this concept gained traction. WTF. That they weren't immediately laughed out of the office is just another symptom of the root cause.
Likewise, Google has IP rights over their search process, and the algorithms used in searches ... but they certainly have no dominion over the concept of "web searching." Movie studios have IP rights over their specific movies, and characters contained therein... but Marvel doesn't have rights over the concept of Super Hero movies. These examples are obvious and clear. But as soon as we start talking about something even a little bit abstract, like "genomes," everyone drops the common sense.
I'm not familiar enough to know the root cause, but my SWAG* is simply age and indifference. Those in charge of the Patent Office are old farts who can't be bothered to learn these newfangeled thingy-ma-whats-its. A more cynical view would be that those in charge know exactly what they're doing, and have been well paid to keep doing it... but I'll side with Hanlon's Razor on this one.
*that would be this SWAG. Not whatever newfangled definition you kids are using today.
Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Doctor.
Doctor Who?.
Correct
Military always gets the shiny new tech first, but the advances will make their way into the civilian sector eventually. (see: ARPANET)
The ability to land a plane without human interaction, within very tight limits, is one that can help the civilian sector immensely in the long term. We just had a crash a week ago in San Fransisco. Perhaps a drone pilot system would have seen the issue and corrected it. Not only could the systems developed for the plane in TFA reduce crashes in the long term, they could ease congestion, plan and route better, and maybe take some stress off ATC (one of the notoriously most stressful jobs in the world)
Military will get it first, because the tech has not been tested thoroughly enough to entrust it with the safety of hundreds of passengers, but eventually we'll see benefits in the civilian sector. And that's just the autopilot tech. I'm sure there are many other advances on this plane that will improve civilian travel in the long term. I'm just not familiar enough with the craft to speak on those.
One more important question : "why"
It's a very real possibility that GZ did in fact fear for his life. But it's also very likely that TM had the same fear, and for very valid reasons.
What we do know for sure is that GZ disobeyed the 911 operator numerous times, and while that in and of itself isn't a crime, it demonstrates a single-mindedness that would lead to the altercation and TMs death. This puts the onus on GZ, IMO. He was warned, repeatedly, to stand down until the cops arrived. He discovered those warnings, and should be held accountable for his decisions.
The fundamental "problem" with STEM fields is that they build on the information and understanding of previous years. If you have a hard time with algebra, you are boned when it comes to trig or calc.
All it takes is one bad year. Maybe it was a teacher that couldn't connect with you, or maybe a bad breakup got you distracted and mopey for a semester, maybe too much partying cut into study time ... whatever the reason, if you screw up a single link in the chain, everything after it will suffer and become exponentially harder.
Compare to history, economics, arts and crafts, interpretive dance, or whatever other non-STEM fields people major in. There may be some carry over from one year to the next, but if you forget Hannibal's motivation for trudging over mountains on elephants, it's not really going to impact your understanding of what caused the Great Depression.
Prototypes are expensive, mate. Cost of progress. You're probably right, we could test the individual systems more cheaply, but lab tests in similar gear will only get you so far. At some point you need to do a full-up test run with the actual platform and all components.
Honestly, I would suspect that many MANY tests were run just like you suggested, prior to this event, and the combined cost of those tests (and rectifying and problems found) are all rolled up into that Total cost, driving that cost up further.
Lets ban hookas and syringes as well. Screw people who use them to smoke tobacco, or diabetics in general. We know what those things are REALLY used for.
What we really need are two laws of humanity. Basically, Asimov's #1 and #3, with the word robot removed and order reversed.
1. A human must protect its own existence.
2. A human may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm unless such inaction would conflict with the first law.
Given recent events, the NSA absolutely had to know this was coming. It doesn't take a massive datacenter combing through the personal lives of every US citizen to realize that the populace is a bit upset with their actions. It also doesn't take a SPECTRE meeting to figure out that college students are among the most vocal subset, especially in the category of personal liberties.
Given the obvious outcome of sending NSA recruiters to a college campus, and the complete unpreparedness of the recruiters for that obvious outcome, I can only conclude that the whole thing is a stunt to paint the NSA as somewhat ineffective in the public eye, so that they can fade back into obscurity and continue their illegal monitoring. (do I win "run on sentence of the week?"). Really, the only part of this I would still question, is whether or not the recruiters were in on the ruse, or unwittingly hung out as public sacrifice.
Legally, phone records aren't yours, they belong to the phone company.
Legally, the apartment you rent isn't yours. It belongs to the landlord (or some other parent company)
Can a single warrant for the landlord grant access to every apartment in the building? Absolutely not.
These actions clearly and directly violate the spirit and intent of the 4th amendment (and the 9th and the 10th) even if Congress can use Newspeak to make the actions skirt within the letter of the law.
To be fair, our existing knees don't actually last our entire human lifespan. Much like antique wooden ships (i.e. HMS Victory, Star of India, etc.) pieces are gradually replaced over the years. A few planks here, a new sail there ... eventually the item in question is actually a completely new unit, divorced of any parts from the original.
The cells that comprise your knee have died and been replaced several times over the years. It's just so gradual that we don't notice, and treat these knees as the same knees we had a decade ago.
I've posted this elsewhere in the thread, but I'll give you the skinny here as well. Using Steam as an example :
Yes, you lose out on some things. You can't resell your games, you can't trade them, and if you want to play games on travel, you have to enable offline mode. In return for these sacrifices, you get a store than never closes, never runs out of stock, has better deals than any retail store, and sells games than can never be lost, stolen or damaged AND has built in chat for all of their games. Square deal IMO.
Maybe this provides a better service, maybe it doesn't. Once thing is for certain though, it provides a slightly different service as compared to big box stores. There are positives and negatives... if those line up in a way that suits you, then it provides a better services ... and for my video game use, it does. don't travel much, (and when I do, it's for vacation, so I don't mind the lack of games) and I rarely/never sell my games to the used marked once I'm done with them. So the two biggest problems of the Steam DRM are complete non issues for me. If you disagree, and if you think that steam DRM is too overbearing, I'd like to hear why. Which tradeoff is the real killer, and why do the benefits not outweigh?
In the end, everyone should make their own decision as to whether these things line up and which service suits them better. Vote with your wallets, and you will see things shift. Enough people have voted that steam is beneficial for them. There are over 4 million people this very instant online with steam : store.steampowered.com/stats/ They've hit a peak of over 6.5 concurrent users, and that number is ever rising.
The petulant child is usually the one that resorts to hyperboles and strawmen.
Like screaming "THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!" over a 1 dollar investment? I threw in a bit of hyperbole to better highlight your hyperbole. Yeah, we get it, you don't like DRM. Doesn't mean you have to get all amped up over it every time you see it mentioned. Take a step back, take a deep breath, and examing how bad the situation actually is.
You keep making the distinction between bad DRM and good DRM. You seem to have a hard time accepting that Steam is an example of bad DRM. You're exactly right you know. Any time you encounter the DRM in a medium, it's a sign that the DRM is failing. That it's causing grief to the users. That it's "bad DRM".
Unsure what steam has done to really earn your ire, but I still maintain that they are DRM done right. Yes, you lose out on some things. You can't resell your games, you can't trade them, and if you're a jet setting Corporate CEO playing Skyrim on your laptop while you fly, you will have to tell your admin to put your games in travel mode before you leave. In return for these sacrifices, you get a store than never closes, never runs out of stock, has better deals than any retail store, and sells games than can never be lost, stolen or damaged AND has built in chat for all of their games. Square deal IMO. If you disagree, I'd like to hear why. Which tradeoff is the real killer, and why do the benefits not outweigh?
And I'm letting you know that Steam has caused me grief.
And I'm letting you know that my local bar caused me grief when they told me I couldn't walk home with the beer I'd purchased. I bought it, it's MY beer, I can do with it what I want. And if I want to pour it all over my self... hey... it's MY beer!
And to that extent, anything wrapped in DRM (But let's call it "bad' DRM, so you don't have a conniption fit), simply won't be getting my money. I'll stick to the indie game developers, the humble-bundle, and the classics.
It's not fair or unfair. They're selling something I want with strings attached that I don't want. And so I don't buy. And if you really don't mind those strings, you can buy if you want.
If you've a moral ground to stand, and will not buy anything with even the slightest hint of DRM for your own religious purposes, then that's fine. Do what you do. I dated a girl once who didn't eat pork. Whatever, her loss, and more bacon for me. Likewise, your staunch refusal to negotiate with your digital demons is your own loss. You're denying yourself a very useful service because you don't like the way it smells... and we do not mourn your loss.
I was really hoping for the force-feedback codpiece.
At least that way, when Apple screws you over, at least you get a little somethin-somethin from it.
Pretty sure you weren't the one I called petulant, unless you're a multi-account for HeckRuler. But you actually make reasonable and sound arguments, so I doubt that.
In regards to your meatspace analogy... #4 is forgetting rules and regulations that exist in every purchase you make. We take the meatspace ones for granted, because they're so ingrained and obvious, but those restrictions do very much exist. But here are a few easy examples:
1 : Go to a nice restaurant. ... or ... or ... or ... or
2 : Order a meal.
3 : Pay money
4 : Take the food off the plate and smear it all over my face, and stick the silverware down my trousers
4 : Walk out with the restaurant's plate
4 : Jump up on the table and play Frisbee with the dishes.
4 : Order a beer instead of food, and walk out the front door with it
4 : Walk back into the kitchen and start giving the chef some tips on a better alfredo sauce, because lets be honest, that was mediocre at best.
4 : you get the idea, ya?
Just because you paid for the food and service inherent in a restaurant doesn't mean you can do whatever you want, even within the confines of the law. There's no law against frisbee, or smearing food on my face, or giving out cooking tips ... but the place of business would probably frown upon such activities and kick me out. Don't think I'd be getting a refund, either. We don't really think about those things though, because they're obvious and natural. But somehow, a content provider trying to enforce similarly natural rules is a bad thing?
And therein lies my main argument : Good DRM, enforced properly, should be natural and unobtrusive. Any person using a product or service in good faith, should not be burdened by DRM. But the DRM we've been treated too is more akin to a restaurant where the Maitre'D stands over you the whole time screaming "SALAD FORK GOES ON THE LEFT!!! THAT'S A SOUP SPOON, CRETIN! STOP SLURPING! TRY THE VEAL!!!" It's abusive, it's unnecessary, and it sours people on the basic concept of having rules.
THE DRM IS FUCKING BULLSHIT! In just two short months I've been shut out of multiplayer 3 times because their servers were down.
Thank you for reinforcing the petulant child persona you've been putting forward this whole time. Seriously though, look at what you wrote. In two months (~60 days) a big corporation had to bounce its servers three times. Holy fire and brimstone! Once dropped call every three weeks!? How dare they. Blame Obama, blame the terrorist, blame the communists! Call the fucking National Guard!!
I got it for $1 in some promo deal ... if you want to seperate me from my money you have to actually sell me something.
You got separated from a dollar. ONE DOLLAR. And you received a product that is near and dear to your heart, filled your formative years with joy... but the new version craps it pants every couple weeks. Last time I bought something for a dollar it was a cup of cheap-ass 7-11 coffee.
Actually, I can perfectly dictate my abstinence
That's fine. Take your ball and go home, if you want. But stop btiching and moaning that LIFE ISN'T FAIR when million and millions of people are enjoying the trade-offs inherent in the service you decry as Satan incarnate.
Problem solved.
Online streaming-based services like Netflix are not much good for people who (for example) frequently travel internationally
I think this is a temporary situation. Online streaming services are still in their infancy. Netflix unlimited streaming has only been around for 5 years. Hulu and Amazon Prime even less ... so there are still some kinks to work out. It doesn't help that many of the law makers are, frankly, old people with a tenuous grasp on the internet as a whole ("it's a series of tubes!") This will change in years to come, when the twitter generation starts aging into congressional roles. In the meantime, the best they can do is make their limitations abundantly clear. "This is what you pay for, this is what you get" and let the situation resolve itself over time.
Here's the biggest flaw in your argument for DRM, though: it doesn't work.*
But it does, when used properly.. DRM doesn't have to make pirating 100% impossible, it just has to make piracy a less attractive option than legal means. Time is money, and I'd rather just pay the $8/month to watch Netflix instead of figuring out some way to MitM the stream and burn the entire netflix library to my own storage array (which costs a pretty penny more than $8, to be sure) Thus Netflix DRM is keeping at least this (alleged) pirate away. If everything you wanted to watch was on Netflix/Hulu/Amazon, or some other service ... that would put a huge hit on piracy. People are inherently lazy, and having everything in 1 place, delivered to you, sorted, alphabetized, categorized, and even put into "suggestions for what you might like," people would gravitate there.
I could still watch/burn/distribute from DVDs/Blu-Rays, but I don't do that, because I can afford the disks and think that the producers of the media should get paid for their work. However, because of that honesty, I'm subjected to the stupidity of attempts to impose DRM on the disks (plus annoying nonsense like unskippable menus, self-defeating FBI warnings, etc.). And to add insult to injury, as a legitimate customer, I'm paying more for the inclusion of this nonsense.
This is exactly the bludgeoning I was talking about in my original post. Companies who penalize their legitimate paying customers make piracy a more attractive solution. It's true with movies, and it's true with games. Add the recent Sim City debacle to that list. While all the paying customers were SOL because EA's servers couldn't handle the load, pirates were playing and enjoying the game locally. EA provided a clearly worse service than pirates... so people pirate.
However, I'd instead argue that DRM is just the snake-oil used by Netflix et al. to loosen the grip of the content owners enough to persuade them to sign their contracts
A definite possibility, and you know what ... I'm perfectly fine with that. If Netflix was somehow able to woo the guys at HBO with their impenetrable DRM, and get Game of Thrones into their database, how is that a bad thing?? That, imo, is the perfect use case of DRM done right. Used by a service provider to help give their customers a better product. Q.E.D.
So, why not allow the option of middlemen, and the option of direct sales. If what you say is true then middle men will foster a better experience, capitalism will prevail, and companies dependent on direct sales will falter.
Right?
Meatspace analogy time?
"Movie theatres blow! I should just be able to walk into any movie at any time, and as long as it's not sold out, I should be allowed to sit and watch movies all day!! They are going to play the movie anyway... why can't I just sit in what would have been an empty seat???"
You sound like a petulant child, entitled to whatever you want, whenever you want, exactly how you want. In the real world we have to make choices, and balance pros and cons before spending our money. If you couldn't manage an internet connection every few months, you should have known better than to invest in steam games. It's not a big secret, is it? You had to be online to buy the game. You needed an internet connection to download and install it. They might want an internet connection every few months to play it. Those are the cons. The pros of this requirement are cheap games, and immense amount of convenience. No disks to lose, or get scratched, nothing ever lost in the shuffle... all of the games you've EVER purchased from steam are always available. These are the pros and cons. These are the terms laid forth. If they aren't acceptable to you, then so be it... but you don't get to dictate YOUR terms to Valve, or the movie theatre, or any other company.
And to say DRM doesn't help you at all is VERY shortsighted, but that's a common trait among petulant children. The millions and MILLIONS of concurrent users would disagree with your assessment that "Steam blows," and Steam was able to wrangle in those millions and millions of users by leveraging DRM against video game development studios. Never has a single game sold by Steam made its way into a gamestop, nor has any steam game been burned for a friend (i suppose things things are possible, but the numbers would be absolutely miniscule) Valve is able to use these facts to twist the arms of EA and their ilk for cheaper product. Cheaper product benefits YOU, the consumer. So yes, DRM benefits you... you just can't see it because DRM isn't personally coming to your house and baking cookies
(P.S. The same argument exists for Netflix, Hulu and other examples of DRM done right. it was just easier to stick with a single subject)
If you never hear about DRM, that means it's doing its job. DRM should be behind the scenes, and should make the associated product better. Using Netflix as an example : Would you rather go to Amazon.com and buy Burn Notice season 1 for $30 ... or pay $8 to netflix and watch all of season 1 - 7? How about the new Battlestar Galactica. Pretty good show. $100 for the DVDs, or free on Netflix (because you already paid your $8 for Burn Notice)
You also don't see DRM helping these companies work out deals with the owners of the content. Do you think movie studios would give Netflix ANY of their IP if anyone could just download the files and watch/burn/distribute them? Netflix's use of DRM via streaming content only gives the studios some measure of reassurance that illicit copies of their movies won't be leaking out this particular avenue. Thus we get more content, and cheaper.
DRM done right. (P.S. you can substitute Netflix / movies with Steam / games and the example holds)
Umm ... Netflix IS drm.
They Manage the Rights to Digital content (movies) by not giving you MP4s (or mkvs, etc) that can be easily copied. Instead they stream the content to you.
In general terms, Digital Rights Management isn't necessarily a bad thing, and used properly can be very helpful. The problem is so many companies wielding DRM like a club, and bludgeoning their customers about the head and shoulders at every opportunity.
Look at iTunes, Steam, Netflix/Hulu ... all examples of DRM done right. They make it inconvenient to copy/pirate their content, while making it extremely convenient to use that content "properly." Watching movies, playing games and listing to music are simple and streamlined. Plus they're cheap cheap. For instance, if you just find a single TV show on Netflix, you can burn through a couple of seasons and completely justify the $8... and don't even get me started on Steam Sales. Summer sale is just around the corner.
The problem arises when preventing piracy steps on the toes of general usability. Sony's infamous rootkits, music piracy lawsuits, XBone in general (depending on how much MS has backtracked) or the current "Online Pass" era of video games, project $10 and the general hatred spewed towards the likes of Game-Stop**. All these things make it less convenient, less safe, and generally less fun to participate in the activities they're trying to protect.
**As an aside, I've always found an interesting dichotomy with Gamestop. Big publishers are doing everything they can to paint used games as the devil, killing business and clubbing baby seals or whatever ... but at the same time, almost every game released (especially from big publishers like EA) comes with special exclusive Gamestop pre-order bonuses.
On the contrary, Salinas v Texas just proves that he had the RIGHT to remain silent the whole time, even without police informing him of that right. What he lacked was the DESIRE to do so, until he'd already talked himself into a corner. If you're going to waffle back and forth on your rights, you might want to let people know which side you're on at any given point.
Personally, I think it should have gone the other way, but I see the merit in the SCOTUS decision on this one. Cops shouldn't need to go around telling everyone they pass "You have the right to remain silent... and you too... and you, and you and you... you all have the right to remain silent! Yay!" If someone (who is not under arrest) just starts talking, cops are going to listen... and if you suddenly stop talking, they're going to notice.