Do you drive a car? really? From your comments I thought that you walked^H^H^H^Hcrawled everywhere, because that method of getting what you need (commuting to work) already exists, all other methods are for lazy people. Once you learned to crawl that is it, If you should ever want an easier/faster way to travel, forget it, 'cause that is simply being lazy.
The lazy argument here is fundamentally flawed. It is BAD LOGIC. sorry.
Nope, what you mean is BAD ANALOGY. A car is a legally allowed form of alternative transportion, as long as you adhere to certain rules on the road.
A better analogy would be speeding, since that's illegal, and you don't want to "waste time" driving at 60mph while you can get to work faster at 90mph, all the time while haphazardly affecting the other drivers on the road. By your "logic", speeding should be legal too.
And one last thing. You're not being modded down to troll because of "apple fanboys". You're being modded down because you're fairly ignorant in the subject matter you're involving yourself in. (For examples on how wrong you try to wrongly present Apple's FairPlay DRM, refer to the parent posts)
Great. Now why don't they just remove the nonsense DRM so I don't have to waste my time and my CD to needlessly burn my music just so I can rip it again.
Because there are plenty of people out there who uses that as an excuse to pirate music easily.
Apple needlessly places arbitrary restritions on my music to make using it in the ways I choose more difficult. I am lazy because I dislike these needless and ineffective restrictions?
Yes. You are lazy because methods to get what you need (unprotected music) is already there, yet you consider them a "waste of time".
Or better yet, you can NOT buy songs from Apple, if that's such a pain for you. Go to the store and pick up a CD instead. Oh wait, you don't want to wait? That's too bad, it's not your birthright to wave your money around and expect to get exactly what you want.
You can also download songs off your choice of IRC/FTP/some-P2P-network, but if the copyright holder of those songs didn't give you permission, you should be aware that you're committing an illegal act, and might get sued.
If it is Apple intention to allow owners of copies of music they sold to transcode the music into whatever format they wish however many times they wish, then why does the DRM exist at all?
Apple's intention is to make it harder to share protected music on p2p networks, or to pass on your songs to your friends. It never was to make it impossible to do so, just a pain in the ass for the pirates.
My REAL reason for being against DRM is because I want to do what I want to do with my purchased property.
And I ALREADY pointed out to you that this can already be done. There's no need for this program. Burn it to a CD, and re-encode it to whatever you want.
I want to play it on the old laptop I have in my car under the seat.
Can be done without this program.
I want to play it on any MP3 player.
Can be done without this program.
I want to play it on the box hooked up to my home entertainment system.
Can be done without this program.
And I want to do it without begging someone for permission to use my private property in the event that I need to reinstall some software.
Can be done without this program. You can reinstall whatever software you want, ad infinum, and those burned-and-re-ripped songs of yours are still playable.
At which point do you have to beg? Oh wait. This is where you should complain about how you're too lazy. That's your REAL intention, because this program offers no other real benefits.
All DRM is precicsely about locking people out of things. That is the entire point of DRM - to lock people out of everything except what is explicitly desired by some central controlling entity.
What a weak argument. You start yakking about the draconian properties of some other DRM measures, and then you try to associate that with Apple's FairPlay DRM, which explicitly allows you to burn unlimited copies of purchased songs into unprotected formats.
Sure, I can remove the DRM now. But will I be able to in the future?
Like the other poster said, you should familiarize yourself with Apple's TOS before you try to make up things to bitch and whine about.
The manufacturers aren't coming up with DRM so that it can be cracked.
Unless the manufacturer (Apple) explicitly ALLOWS you to burn the songs into CDs. Ho hum.
Oh sure, if I want to listen to my music on linux I have to waste my time burning it to CD and then re-ripping it - because Apple has excluded non-Apple, non-MS platforms from playing the AAC files.
There's no evidence that Apple would never release iTunes for Linux. Likewise, Windows didn't get iTunes support until recently. That's just a limitation of resources, and nothing to do with excluding certain people.
Furthermore, what you just said reveals your REAL reason against the DRM. Not some political stance about Apple locking out other platforms (which is clearly untrue), but that you're too lazy to burn the songs to remove the DRM.
People just want to use their personal private property which they bought and paid for in whatever way they see fit, such as playing their songs on a non-Apple, non-Microsoft platform. What's the problem with that?
Bullshit. You can already do that within iTunes. Just burn to a CD.
Apple's DRM attempts to lock out non-Apple, non-Microsoft users.
Bullshit. Apple's DRM doesn't attempt to lock out anything. Burn it to a CD, and you can do whatever you want with it.
I have to disagree:) The interviewer, regardless whether he really knows AE or not, was not supposed to know what AE is. That's the whole point really - because a target customer of HP would not know what AE is either.
It's really the VP's role to explain what AE is, and why they're different from IBM and Sun. The fact that VP can't get the message across under pressure doesn't look good for HP.
I agree that some of the questions are loaded, and fairly hostile. But when you're on the sell side (HP), you're supposed to handle those questions gracefully, and not answer the fluff with more fluff:)
Nope.. that was a good interviewer, since the questions weren't staged so the VP can answer more fluff. The questions tried to probe the REAL reason AE is different, and you can see the VP skirm from dodging the questions, while regurgitating what she said over and over again.
What would be a good response for the VP? Exactly what you just said:) A good example of how it was then, and what it should be now. The VP couldn't even get to the Target case study for five questions!
Finally, it's sad that a VP can't even explain the core competencies between their own and their competitors, at least on a very high level.
I fail to understand the logic. It's not even a deterrent. Terrorists don't give a shit about penalties (IMO) -- they're terrorists! Most of the ones I've read about are happy to end their lives for their cause.
Exactly, they don't! So if you are only allowed to arrest them after the crime is committed, they don't really care. However, if they are locked up behind bars right before they are about to commit a crime, you avoid the potential disaster that follows.
CASPIAN is founded by Katherine Albrecht, a privacy spook (with an agenda to become famous) that has long fought against barcodes and supermarket discount shopping cards.
The reason she has changed her target to focus on RFID is because... not one really listened to her when she whined about supermarket discount cards, by focusing on RFID she'll get more media attention (as she is now).
It's kind of funny to see how Slashdotters race to the defense of Apple when they start acting like a monopoly, but when MS does it, the sky is falling. (Probable defense by Apple zealots: "Apple isn't anywhere near as bad as Microsoft." Problem with that defense: That doesn't justify defending Apple, that justifies criticizing them more selectively.)
"Acting" like a monopoly? Who cares if companies act like monopolies? More so, who cares if companies ARE monopolies? Only thing we care about is when companies that ARE monopolies begin to abuse their status. The iPod is popular, but it is by FAR not a monopoly.
And your argument would only make sense if Microsoft actually posts something like the warning you described above. Instead, they secretly fuck with the compatibility of programs, use price discounts to lock out competitors, etc, ALL BEHIND YOUR BACK.
I'm still waiting to click the "I Understand and Agree" statement from Microsoft. Where is it?
Nothing in this world is perfect - I'm sure for any given solution someone like you is bound to go "oh, but what I etch out binary code on clay tablets, how am I supposed to live my life now if you implment this solution?"
It's only the first e-mail that verifies the address. If you can't inconvenience yourself for that one first e-mail for the sake of the hundreds of junk mail the earthlink account holder gets every week, maybe you don't deserve to be that person's friend.
But I'll give you a (slightly altered) quote to sum up the situation: 'Linux makes the easy things difficult, but it makes the hard things easier and the impossible things possible.'
Wheras MacOS makes the easy things easy, the hard things hard and the impossible things not possible.
Great quote you got there. Too bad it's false unless you're willing to back it up with examples.
What the heck? Vulnerabilities and new features are completely separate issues. There's a legitimate reason for Apple to honor their 10.2 customers by patching flaws that affect the usability of the system.
On the other hand, when you bought your iPod, where in the feature specifications or advertising claims did Apple promise to perpetually enhance old iPods with new features that future versions will have? You bought the iPod knowing fully that there is no on-the-fly playlist support.
If you're cheap and you think somehow you're entitled to new features for free, that's fine. Don't try to muddle that issue with the current vulnerabilities for 10.2.
If you are in a fair sized group of cars, you are pretty safe when using a radar jammer or device to change the traffic signal. Sure it may be illegal, but when the effort required to catch you makes in impractical to do so, the police don't even make the effort.
Since you're actually preaching the use of such devices in circumstances where they won't be easily caught, I'll find it to be extremely knee-slapping if someone in your family dies from the traffic flow being messed up by those devices, and the police was unable to find out who did it.
Do you see any anisotrophic highlights in the grey window border elements? No? Then it wouldn't be brushed metal, it would be a grey gradient now wouldn't it?
Why do you think Longhorn is not out yet? Because they're still working on the anisotrophic highlights! Duh!!
There are millions of people buying CD's out there despite their high price tag and low quality.
What's a high price tag? What's high? What's low? What's good quality? What's low quality? The same boy band album you despise, hence you wouldn't consider even if it costs 30 cents for the entire CD, will probably be bought by a teeny bopper even if it costs 30 bucks. Likewise, I'm sure whatever music you like is considered "absolute crap" by someone else on this planet.
That is exactly what I mean when I said you're imposing your own music taste and economic values on the everyone else. Just because a consumer product is worthless to you doesn't mean it's the same for everyone else. Maybe those millions are being forced down the music store aisles with their hard earned dollar bills yanked out of them for awful albums. Or maybe they just find it to be a good value to them. Ever thought about that?
I'm serious, I really don't feel like arguing, but I would appreciate a good discussion.
Did you feel like arguing when you called me a hypocrite, despite the fact that you have absolutely no clue what my views towards Microsoft were? Or the fact that it wasn't a valid comparison to begin with?
If that's your idea of a good discussion, no thanks, I think I'll pass.
*Shrug* There are millions of people buying CD's out there despite their high price tag and low quality. It's the only source of it so there is no choice.
Tsk tsk.. People like you with no sense in economics shouldn't run around talking about monopolities. Just because you don't consider it a value doesn't mean others feel the same way. I would never buy or listen to any Country songs, yet the genre still survives because plenty of people buy those kind of songs. Who do you think you are to judge what's a good value for everyone, and what's not? If those people have "no choice", why do you have a choice? Are you even from a capitalist country like the most of us here?
What I said was that you'd be singing a different tune. It's not okay to have a monopoly just because it's a 'luxury' item. If they are the only source of a highly sought after product, then they are not in the clear.
No, what you said was "Hypocrite. You know damn well that if Microsoft started charging $500 per license that you wouldn't be saying "You mean a company is trying to maximize their profits? What an idiotic statement!"". Which means you were trying to compare the RIAA monopoly to the Microsoft monopoly. And that's idiotic of you to do so.
It's not okay to have a monopoly just because it's a 'luxury' item.
Next time, can ya at least make it funny or insulting? Right now, your comedy level is right around Bob Saget's level. Gonna call me a dingleberry next?
Uh, right. Great comeback there, NanoGator;)
Of course, you again try to elevate yourself above Bob Sagat or people that appreciate his humor, even though he's made more money than most of us, and America's Funniest Home Videos was one of the more popular shows for the longest time. Of course, this is in line with your behavior in judging those that actually bought CD albums. Do you have a hard time convincing other people that your taste in everything subjective is above all? Poor thing.
Doesn't matter, the RIAA has a monopoly. So whatever you buy, it is at their good graces.
Of course it matters. You don't have to buy their albums!
I'm not the one who thinks it's okay for the RIAA to have monopoly/oligopoly status.
I didn't said it's ok for them to be a monopoly. I just said it's idiotic for you to assume that it's a valid comparison to the Windows monopoly.
In light of that, you do understand that you calling me an idiot has like 0 effect on me, right?
I don't care if it has an effect on you. It's just a reminder for me to treat you with the same patience as people do with the kids at the Special Olympics, that's all;)
Since they are in control of it all, they have no competition that'll make them lower prices and provide competing products.
No. Music is not something that can be commoditized. The opinion of what's good music or not is highly subjective (unlike software, of which you can partially evaluate the products based on performance metrics).
An army of shitty garage bands with free downloads, mp3 downloads, lower costs isn't going to change the world.
And customers aren't idiots either. NG is trying to paint this sob story where customers are being leeched dry of their hard earned income by the RIAA. Huh? CD Sales are down because the prices are too high. Apple has sold 13 million songs because there are enough people that believe the price is right for them.
They only have the RIAA to go to, and as such they get really awful contracts where they get paid very little, but the executives get bags of cash.
Obviously they get bags of cash. They need to offset the hundreds of failed artists that they invest in each year. Do you think making an quality hit album is as easy as firing up your microphone in your garage and mailing out burned CDs to the music stores? How do you think the record companies recoup the lost investments? From the hit artists of course. Like I said, music is highly subjective, it's not like you can run it through a wave file analyzer to determine whether the song is going to be a hit or not. The average rate of return on investment is much lower than people assume it to be. You seem to have this notion that the RIAA has a crystal ball that sifts the good bands from the bad, and extort ridiculous fees from them.
The premium the artists pay toward the record companies come from the production of the album, the promotion of the album, and the connection of the record company with suppliers of music stores. Music stores don't have an infinite amount of time to negotiate product placement with ten thousand different record companies.
I'm sure the top groups like U2 and REM negotiate a much better deal for their contracts (after they became famous). And the record companies are fine with that too.
While we're on the topic of luxuries, anything besides food and water can be considered a luxury. Your Windows example could be disputed, computers in general could be disputed, etc.
Like I said, Windows is a tax for some corporate environements. Your company might lose business if you don't buy Windows or Office. Simple as that. Companies don't lose customers because they didn't buy some music album.
Hypocrite. You know damn well that if Microsoft started charging $500 per license that you wouldn't be saying "You mean a company is trying to maximize their profits? What an idiotic statement!"
You're right, I wouldn't say that. Instead, I would say "NanoGator is dense enough to compare apples to oranges. And he thinks by twisting RIAA vs Microsoft into some sort of valid comparison he can call others hypocritical."
Windows and Office are compulsory taxes for some businesses and individuals, simply because their clients or customers demand the compatibility that's not offered by alternatives like OpenOffice. Even in that case, if Microsoft tries to charge too much, it can backfire and cause customers to NOT PAY THEM, as evidenced by their new corporate annual subscription program.
Music is a LUXURY product. No one is forcing you to buy an album if it's not worth the value you're willing to pay. Few people lose jobs or business because they didn't buy an album.
That said, I take back my words when I said your statement is idiotic. It's the poster (you), not the statement, that's idiotic.
If that were true, we would have had iTunes years ago. Instead they prefer people pay for $15 albums of garbage instead of buying only the songs they want. I'm glad that you're satisfied with being ripped off, though.
What an idiotic statement. What? You mean a company is trying to maximize their profits? Holy fucking shit!
Slashdot Mirror
Do you drive a car? really? From your comments I thought that you walked^H^H^H^Hcrawled everywhere, because that method of getting what you need (commuting to work) already exists, all other methods are for lazy people. Once you learned to crawl that is it, If you should ever want an easier/faster way to travel, forget it, 'cause that is simply being lazy.
The lazy argument here is fundamentally flawed. It is BAD LOGIC. sorry.
Nope, what you mean is BAD ANALOGY. A car is a legally allowed form of alternative transportion, as long as you adhere to certain rules on the road.
A better analogy would be speeding, since that's illegal, and you don't want to "waste time" driving at 60mph while you can get to work faster at 90mph, all the time while haphazardly affecting the other drivers on the road. By your "logic", speeding should be legal too.
And one last thing. You're not being modded down to troll because of "apple fanboys". You're being modded down because you're fairly ignorant in the subject matter you're involving yourself in. (For examples on how wrong you try to wrongly present Apple's FairPlay DRM, refer to the parent posts)
Great. Now why don't they just remove the nonsense DRM so I don't have to waste my time and my CD to needlessly burn my music just so I can rip it again.
Because there are plenty of people out there who uses that as an excuse to pirate music easily.
Apple needlessly places arbitrary restritions on my music to make using it in the ways I choose more difficult. I am lazy because I dislike these needless and ineffective restrictions?
Yes. You are lazy because methods to get what you need (unprotected music) is already there, yet you consider them a "waste of time".
Or better yet, you can NOT buy songs from Apple, if that's such a pain for you. Go to the store and pick up a CD instead. Oh wait, you don't want to wait? That's too bad, it's not your birthright to wave your money around and expect to get exactly what you want.
You can also download songs off your choice of IRC/FTP/some-P2P-network, but if the copyright holder of those songs didn't give you permission, you should be aware that you're committing an illegal act, and might get sued.
If it is Apple intention to allow owners of copies of music they sold to transcode the music into whatever format they wish however many times they wish, then why does the DRM exist at all?
Apple's intention is to make it harder to share protected music on p2p networks, or to pass on your songs to your friends. It never was to make it impossible to do so, just a pain in the ass for the pirates.
My REAL reason for being against DRM is because I want to do what I want to do with my purchased property.
And I ALREADY pointed out to you that this can already be done. There's no need for this program. Burn it to a CD, and re-encode it to whatever you want.
I want to play it on the old laptop I have in my car under the seat.
Can be done without this program.
I want to play it on any MP3 player.
Can be done without this program.
I want to play it on the box hooked up to my home entertainment system.
Can be done without this program.
And I want to do it without begging someone for permission to use my private property in the event that I need to reinstall some software.
Can be done without this program. You can reinstall whatever software you want, ad infinum, and those burned-and-re-ripped songs of yours are still playable.
At which point do you have to beg? Oh wait. This is where you should complain about how you're too lazy. That's your REAL intention, because this program offers no other real benefits.
All DRM is precicsely about locking people out of things. That is the entire point of DRM - to lock people out of everything except what is explicitly desired by some central controlling entity.
What a weak argument. You start yakking about the draconian properties of some other DRM measures, and then you try to associate that with Apple's FairPlay DRM, which explicitly allows you to burn unlimited copies of purchased songs into unprotected formats.
Sure, I can remove the DRM now. But will I be able to in the future?
Like the other poster said, you should familiarize yourself with Apple's TOS before you try to make up things to bitch and whine about.
The manufacturers aren't coming up with DRM so that it can be cracked.
Unless the manufacturer (Apple) explicitly ALLOWS you to burn the songs into CDs. Ho hum.
Oh sure, if I want to listen to my music on linux I have to waste my time burning it to CD and then re-ripping it - because Apple has excluded non-Apple, non-MS platforms from playing the AAC files.
There's no evidence that Apple would never release iTunes for Linux. Likewise, Windows didn't get iTunes support until recently. That's just a limitation of resources, and nothing to do with excluding certain people.
Furthermore, what you just said reveals your REAL reason against the DRM. Not some political stance about Apple locking out other platforms (which is clearly untrue), but that you're too lazy to burn the songs to remove the DRM.
That's just... pathetic.
People just want to use their personal private property which they bought and paid for in whatever way they see fit, such as playing their songs on a non-Apple, non-Microsoft platform. What's the problem with that?
Bullshit. You can already do that within iTunes. Just burn to a CD.
Apple's DRM attempts to lock out non-Apple, non-Microsoft users.
Bullshit. Apple's DRM doesn't attempt to lock out anything. Burn it to a CD, and you can do whatever you want with it.
I have to disagree :) The interviewer, regardless whether he really knows AE or not, was not supposed to know what AE is. That's the whole point really - because a target customer of HP would not know what AE is either.
:)
It's really the VP's role to explain what AE is, and why they're different from IBM and Sun. The fact that VP can't get the message across under pressure doesn't look good for HP.
I agree that some of the questions are loaded, and fairly hostile. But when you're on the sell side (HP), you're supposed to handle those questions gracefully, and not answer the fluff with more fluff
Nope.. that was a good interviewer, since the questions weren't staged so the VP can answer more fluff. The questions tried to probe the REAL reason AE is different, and you can see the VP skirm from dodging the questions, while regurgitating what she said over and over again.
:) A good example of how it was then, and what it should be now. The VP couldn't even get to the Target case study for five questions!
What would be a good response for the VP? Exactly what you just said
Finally, it's sad that a VP can't even explain the core competencies between their own and their competitors, at least on a very high level.
I fail to understand the logic. It's not even a deterrent. Terrorists don't give a shit about penalties (IMO) -- they're terrorists! Most of the ones I've read about are happy to end their lives for their cause.
Exactly, they don't! So if you are only allowed to arrest them after the crime is committed, they don't really care. However, if they are locked up behind bars right before they are about to commit a crime, you avoid the potential disaster that follows.
Aren't you arguing FOR preemptive arrest then?
CASPIAN is founded by Katherine Albrecht, a privacy spook (with an agenda to become famous) that has long fought against barcodes and supermarket discount shopping cards.
The reason she has changed her target to focus on RFID is because... not one really listened to her when she whined about supermarket discount cards, by focusing on RFID she'll get more media attention (as she is now).
I'm talking about your Mac OS X quote. Before you make shit up shouldn't you at least prepare to back up every single one of your claims?
It's kind of funny to see how Slashdotters race to the defense of Apple when they start acting like a monopoly, but when MS does it, the sky is falling. (Probable defense by Apple zealots: "Apple isn't anywhere near as bad as Microsoft." Problem with that defense: That doesn't justify defending Apple, that justifies criticizing them more selectively.)
"Acting" like a monopoly? Who cares if companies act like monopolies? More so, who cares if companies ARE monopolies? Only thing we care about is when companies that ARE monopolies begin to abuse their status. The iPod is popular, but it is by FAR not a monopoly.
And your argument would only make sense if Microsoft actually posts something like the warning you described above. Instead, they secretly fuck with the compatibility of programs, use price discounts to lock out competitors, etc, ALL BEHIND YOUR BACK.
I'm still waiting to click the "I Understand and Agree" statement from Microsoft. Where is it?
Nothing in this world is perfect - I'm sure for any given solution someone like you is bound to go "oh, but what I etch out binary code on clay tablets, how am I supposed to live my life now if you implment this solution?"
It's only the first e-mail that verifies the address. If you can't inconvenience yourself for that one first e-mail for the sake of the hundreds of junk mail the earthlink account holder gets every week, maybe you don't deserve to be that person's friend.
But I'll give you a (slightly altered) quote to sum up the situation: 'Linux makes the easy things difficult, but it makes the hard things easier and the impossible things possible.'
Wheras MacOS makes the easy things easy, the hard things hard and the impossible things not possible.
Great quote you got there. Too bad it's false unless you're willing to back it up with examples.
I have had relatives die because of gunshots. I blame the people who did the shooting, not the technology that enabled them to do so.
I hope you actually taught those people how to use a gun. Because that would be HIIILAAARIOUS!!!! Bwahahaha!
What the heck? Vulnerabilities and new features are completely separate issues. There's a legitimate reason for Apple to honor their 10.2 customers by patching flaws that affect the usability of the system.
On the other hand, when you bought your iPod, where in the feature specifications or advertising claims did Apple promise to perpetually enhance old iPods with new features that future versions will have? You bought the iPod knowing fully that there is no on-the-fly playlist support.
If you're cheap and you think somehow you're entitled to new features for free, that's fine. Don't try to muddle that issue with the current vulnerabilities for 10.2.
If you are in a fair sized group of cars, you are pretty safe when using a radar jammer or device to change the traffic signal. Sure it may be illegal, but when the effort required to catch you makes in impractical to do so, the police don't even make the effort.
Since you're actually preaching the use of such devices in circumstances where they won't be easily caught, I'll find it to be extremely knee-slapping if someone in your family dies from the traffic flow being messed up by those devices, and the police was unable to find out who did it.
Do you see any anisotrophic highlights in the grey window border elements? No? Then it wouldn't be brushed metal, it would be a grey gradient now wouldn't it?
Why do you think Longhorn is not out yet? Because they're still working on the anisotrophic highlights! Duh!!
Yet again, you misunderstand me.
No I didn't. Your quote:
There are millions of people buying CD's out there despite their high price tag and low quality.
What's a high price tag? What's high? What's low? What's good quality? What's low quality? The same boy band album you despise, hence you wouldn't consider even if it costs 30 cents for the entire CD, will probably be bought by a teeny bopper even if it costs 30 bucks. Likewise, I'm sure whatever music you like is considered "absolute crap" by someone else on this planet.
That is exactly what I mean when I said you're imposing your own music taste and economic values on the everyone else. Just because a consumer product is worthless to you doesn't mean it's the same for everyone else. Maybe those millions are being forced down the music store aisles with their hard earned dollar bills yanked out of them for awful albums. Or maybe they just find it to be a good value to them. Ever thought about that?
I'm serious, I really don't feel like arguing, but I would appreciate a good discussion.
Did you feel like arguing when you called me a hypocrite, despite the fact that you have absolutely no clue what my views towards Microsoft were? Or the fact that it wasn't a valid comparison to begin with?
If that's your idea of a good discussion, no thanks, I think I'll pass.
*Shrug* There are millions of people buying CD's out there despite their high price tag and low quality. It's the only source of it so there is no choice.
;)
Tsk tsk.. People like you with no sense in economics shouldn't run around talking about monopolities. Just because you don't consider it a value doesn't mean others feel the same way. I would never buy or listen to any Country songs, yet the genre still survives because plenty of people buy those kind of songs. Who do you think you are to judge what's a good value for everyone, and what's not? If those people have "no choice", why do you have a choice? Are you even from a capitalist country like the most of us here?
What I said was that you'd be singing a different tune. It's not okay to have a monopoly just because it's a 'luxury' item. If they are the only source of a highly sought after product, then they are not in the clear.
No, what you said was "Hypocrite. You know damn well that if Microsoft started charging $500 per license that you wouldn't be saying "You mean a company is trying to maximize their profits? What an idiotic statement!"". Which means you were trying to compare the RIAA monopoly to the Microsoft monopoly. And that's idiotic of you to do so.
It's not okay to have a monopoly just because it's a 'luxury' item.
Actually, monopolies are perfectly legal. Price-fixing in monopolies are illegal, and the RIAA has already been punished for that. Also, some record companies are reducing prices because more and more people aren't willing to buy their albums. I believe you should crawl out of your cave once in a while so you can update your outdated arguments against "The System".
Next time, can ya at least make it funny or insulting? Right now, your comedy level is right around Bob Saget's level. Gonna call me a dingleberry next?
Uh, right. Great comeback there, NanoGator
Of course, you again try to elevate yourself above Bob Sagat or people that appreciate his humor, even though he's made more money than most of us, and America's Funniest Home Videos was one of the more popular shows for the longest time. Of course, this is in line with your behavior in judging those that actually bought CD albums. Do you have a hard time convincing other people that your taste in everything subjective is above all? Poor thing.
Doesn't matter, the RIAA has a monopoly. So whatever you buy, it is at their good graces.
;)
Of course it matters. You don't have to buy their albums!
I'm not the one who thinks it's okay for the RIAA to have monopoly/oligopoly status.
I didn't said it's ok for them to be a monopoly. I just said it's idiotic for you to assume that it's a valid comparison to the Windows monopoly.
In light of that, you do understand that you calling me an idiot has like 0 effect on me, right?
I don't care if it has an effect on you. It's just a reminder for me to treat you with the same patience as people do with the kids at the Special Olympics, that's all
Since they are in control of it all, they have no competition that'll make them lower prices and provide competing products.
No. Music is not something that can be commoditized. The opinion of what's good music or not is highly subjective (unlike software, of which you can partially evaluate the products based on performance metrics).
An army of shitty garage bands with free downloads, mp3 downloads, lower costs isn't going to change the world.
And customers aren't idiots either. NG is trying to paint this sob story where customers are being leeched dry of their hard earned income by the RIAA. Huh? CD Sales are down because the prices are too high. Apple has sold 13 million songs because there are enough people that believe the price is right for them.
They only have the RIAA to go to, and as such they get really awful contracts where they get paid very little, but the executives get bags of cash.
Obviously they get bags of cash. They need to offset the hundreds of failed artists that they invest in each year. Do you think making an quality hit album is as easy as firing up your microphone in your garage and mailing out burned CDs to the music stores? How do you think the record companies recoup the lost investments? From the hit artists of course. Like I said, music is highly subjective, it's not like you can run it through a wave file analyzer to determine whether the song is going to be a hit or not. The average rate of return on investment is much lower than people assume it to be. You seem to have this notion that the RIAA has a crystal ball that sifts the good bands from the bad, and extort ridiculous fees from them.
The premium the artists pay toward the record companies come from the production of the album, the promotion of the album, and the connection of the record company with suppliers of music stores. Music stores don't have an infinite amount of time to negotiate product placement with ten thousand different record companies.
I'm sure the top groups like U2 and REM negotiate a much better deal for their contracts (after they became famous). And the record companies are fine with that too.
While we're on the topic of luxuries, anything besides food and water can be considered a luxury. Your Windows example could be disputed, computers in general could be disputed, etc.
Like I said, Windows is a tax for some corporate environements. Your company might lose business if you don't buy Windows or Office. Simple as that. Companies don't lose customers because they didn't buy some music album.
Hypocrite. You know damn well that if Microsoft started charging $500 per license that you wouldn't be saying "You mean a company is trying to maximize their profits? What an idiotic statement!"
You're right, I wouldn't say that. Instead, I would say "NanoGator is dense enough to compare apples to oranges. And he thinks by twisting RIAA vs Microsoft into some sort of valid comparison he can call others hypocritical."
Windows and Office are compulsory taxes for some businesses and individuals, simply because their clients or customers demand the compatibility that's not offered by alternatives like OpenOffice. Even in that case, if Microsoft tries to charge too much, it can backfire and cause customers to NOT PAY THEM, as evidenced by their new corporate annual subscription program.
Music is a LUXURY product. No one is forcing you to buy an album if it's not worth the value you're willing to pay. Few people lose jobs or business because they didn't buy an album.
That said, I take back my words when I said your statement is idiotic. It's the poster (you), not the statement, that's idiotic.
If that were true, we would have had iTunes years ago. Instead they prefer people pay for $15 albums of garbage instead of buying only the songs they want. I'm glad that you're satisfied with being ripped off, though.
What an idiotic statement. What? You mean a company is trying to maximize their profits? Holy fucking shit!
When I first read the title, I thought it was "Get Paid For Crack?"
Where where?
Sigh.