Licensing the software itself on a per seat basis is absurd. It's not
their software to begin with.
The GPL code isn't theirs, but is that all that's in their distribution? I thought they included a bunch of other software with it. No wait, I know they include a bunch of other stuff with it.
If you buy Caldera Linux, powered by UnitedLinux, you are free to copy, modify and distribute any of the GPL code that comes with it. If you only purchase the binaries and choose not to accquire the source, it may be difficult to separate the two classes of software (or even identify the difference). But as long as source is provided for all GPL parts I don't see the problem.
He calls on developers to use the GPL, so as not to offer distributors a target to make proprietary.
What if the developers are the distributors? What if a developer takes an LSB-compliant distribution, writes some code that runs on it (or installs it, or provides package-management services for it) and chooses to keep that code proprietary? What if the developer is called Caldera?
Hmm, maybe in this case the developer wants the distributor (themselves) to have a "target to make proprietary."
That was the case cited immediately after where I stopped quoting. The full quote was:
However, during the next century, judges began chipping away at this vital and fundamental right of free citizens, thereby transferring citizen power to themselves. The biggest "chip" or usurpation took place in 1895, when in Sparf and Hansen v. U.S., a bitterly split decision by our Supreme Court held that failure of the judge to remind the jurors of their powers was not a basis for mistrial or appeal. That was the green light for trial judges to go mum on the topic, and they did.
The case dealt with a possible mistrial or appeal solely on the basis of whether the jury was instructed of their right to nullification. Thus the ruling essentially stated, "It is not required to declare a mistrial or grant appeal on this basis." However, as is unfortunately too often the case, this narrow negation is wielded as a directive. It is a classic case of "everything not required is prohibited."
You may be technically correct in a pedantic sense. The Court may simply exercise their judicial power "as if" the law is unconstitutional when they decide "who wins" the decision.
No, I'm correct in a legal sense. The legal system described in the constitution set juries up to be the arbiter of whether laws were proper, not the judges. From The Fully Informed Jury Association:
John Adams said it so well in 1771 that the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) put his words on a coffee mug: "It is not only...[the juror's] right, but his duty... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."
First U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, writing in Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794, concluded: "The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy".
President Thomas Jefferson in 1789 told Thomas Paine: "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
And Noah Webster, who wrote his original 1828 dictionary in order to preserve the integrity of the language of the Constitution, defined "petty jury" as "...consisting usually of twelve men [who]...attend courts to decide both the law and the fact in criminal prosecutions".
A detailed historical analysis of jury veto power, also called jury nullification of law, appeared in the Yale Law Review in 1964. It held that "The right of the jury to decide questions of law was widely recognized in the colonies. In 1771, John Adams stated unequivocally that a juror should ignore a judge's instruction on the law if it violates fundamental principles: There is much evidence of the general acceptance of this principle in the period immediately after the Constitution was adopted."
However, during the next century, judges began chipping away at this vital and fundamental right of free citizens, thereby transferring citizen power to themselves.
Whenever a judge instructs a jury that their mandate is not to agree or disagree with the law, but merely to determine if the defendant violated it; whenever a judge or prosecuriter asks a juror during voire dire if they would have a problem with applying the law even if they disagree with it; they are violating the intent of the Constitution. Juries, not judges, are supposed to be the check on the legislative and executive branches.
Best the courts can do is strike a law down, they can't change it (even to fix it) or make new laws.
Not really. If a law is "struck down" or "declared unconstitutional" by the Supreme Court, the law is still on the books. All that happens is that no one can be convicted of it, as the courts will eventually (if not at the first trial, then on appeal) overturn any conviction.
If you disagree, please find me any federal law that grants a court the authority to strike down laws.
The business units promoting Linux recognize the advantages of the Open Source development model, yet IBM still produces proprietary software. Does this indicate that support for OSS is simply a marketing position, or is it that IBM believes OSS is good for some types of development but not others? If it's the latter, what types of development are viewed as not conducive to OSS, and why?
I would like to urge those who claim to represent me to please recognize that the existing proposals are clearly not in my interests.
* Enacting the type of controls proposed by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America would, if perfectly implemented, completely eliminate my ability to exercise Fair Use rights in the content I have legally acquired.
* Any attempt to implement digital watermarking on every Analog-to-Digital converter would make literally thousands of common products impossible to manufacture economically. For a few examples: Consider that you would, as a conservative estimate, more than double the complexity, size and cost to manufacture of hearing aids; design of medical sensors and tools would be set back decades as the increased size of components would make them unsuitable for microsurgery; automobile emissions controls would become less efficient as their behavior would be dictated by artificial constraints imposed by the watermarking technology.
* Common consumer devices would function erratically as they attempt to prevent recording of watermarked content. For example video cameras might become non-functional at wedding receptions if the DJ is playing any watermarked content. Digital telephones would cut out if there is a TV or radio nearby playing watermarked content.
* Content would be unavailable after copyright has expired. Any content controls would have to be automatic, with special actions necessary to access it. Once the copyright term has expired, there is no economic incentive to the previous copyright holder to provide this mechanism. All content controlled by such a mechanism would disappear forever into a vault to which it is illegal to create a key.
* Finally, even if it were possible to create a technological solution that provided exactly what the content industries are requesting, there is no precedent for requiring the $600 billion tech industry to absorb the expense to satisfy the $35 billion entertainment industry. It is not at all unreasonable to suppose that the direct costs of complying with these requirements would cost more in real dollars than the entire value of the entertainment industry. Given that the only possible justification for enacting these controls is to protect the entertainment industry, it seems that causing a greater loss to the technology industry is the wrong way to go about it.
He's not relying upon obscurity, but it IS a tactic.
And it's one I'll bet most systems use somewhere in the process. If you have a password, the security is based on the assumption that only you know it. Once it is publicized -- no longer "obscure" -- it is no longer effective. As long as the obscurity you're relying on is sufficiently difficult to guess, it's effective.
CAFE standards require each automaker to meet a sales-weighted average fuel economy level for the fleets of new cars and light trucks it sells each year... One standard governs passenger cars, and another governs light trucks.
...
Another result of CAFE has been a marked increase in the sales of light trucks including pickups, vans, minivans and sport utility vehicles. As cars became smaller and lighter, some models (like large station wagons) became harder to find. Since some consumers could no longer find the utility and performance they desired in cars, many switched to light trucks. In the mid-1970s, light trucks made up 20% of light-duty vehicle sales; today, they make up about 40% of new vehicle sales.
Basically, the car manufacturers realized they couldn't keep producing full-size station wagons and still meet CAFE standards. But since "light trucks" not only have a less stringent standard, but also are counted separately from their cars, they could replace full-size wagons in their lines with SUV's and mini-vans instead.
What happens when someone creates a viable spoof of my biometric ID? (Thimbprint, retinal scan, whatever.) They can fake being me. So we include a PIN that I can change and I'm good again, right?
Think about the last time you went to the DMV. Is it staffed by high-paid security consultants? Or is it more likely to have employees who will see that your thumbprint matches and go ahead and give you the new license to replace the one you "lost"?
The "average Joe" will believe that thumbprints are authoritative and probably use that confirmation as sufficient evidence to reset your PIN for you, completely circumventing the system.
Don't believe me? I went to the post office recently. They have a policy that they won't accept credit cards that aren't signed. Mine has "See ID" written on the back, because I don't want anyone accepting it without checking an ID. Their policy, which the helpful employee showed me a copy of, said that in order to accept my ID he had to watch me sign it in his presence, then check my ID. Had I stolen the card and simply signed it in the parking lot before entering, he would have accepted it.
And the more "authoritative" the ID method is, the more likely someone will trust it. If a biometric only seems more secure than a plastic card with a mag strip, then we will have decreased actual security. So the real problem isn't "How do I keep someone from spoofing my biometrics?" It's "How do I keep a minimum-wage clerk from accepting the spoofed biometrics?"
The testimony and discussion was so removed from proposing new legislation, in fact, that Rep. Bass seemed a little bored and annoyed. He had to remind everyone twice that he and his colleague were lawmakers: "As a member of Congress, I would like to hear what recommendations you have for what we might do -- I haven't heard anything about that so far.... If I could reiterate: we make policy. This is a very interesting problem, but precisely what suggestions would you have for us as policymakers? If you could draft the bill, what would it say?"
This confirms the worries I have seen here over and over: That lawmakers believe the only solution to a problem is more laws. It is completely inconceiveable to them that a problem may exist that is not best solved by increased legislation.
So they have to choose between Office and Star Office NOW, (and that means 5.2, but even 6 isn't QUITE right.) Or gobeProductive, which is really great on Windows, but isn't QUITE ready on Linux yet, and there isn't enough time to do a proper evaluation anyway.
So how much time is Microsoft giving them to do an evaluation of XP before they have to sign on? Or of the next version of Office? The license they are pushing is for future versions of products. This will be even more explicit with the upcoming subscription model: You will have no opportunity to evaluate upcoming products before your existing installed base is declared obsolete.
This is the same FUD as the user training issue. "We can't move off of Windows because we'd have to retrain all our users." But they all moved from Win3.1 to Win95 didn't they? Does anyone really believe the difference between (for instance) KDE3.0 and Win2K is greater than that? In short, don't apply a higher standard to the Linux offering thatn to the Windows offering.
Yes, but the RIAA clearly stated in the article they were against this tax, becuase they realize that one you tax the ISPs for the p2p content, you've lost your claim that it is illegal to share content.
Whenever you buy blank media you are already paying exactly this type of tax. The argument that you are then free to copy -- since you've already paid -- hasn't worked yet.
Early last December, three of the world's biggest music companies launched a counterattack against the rampant digital piracy that has gnawed at their sales in recent years.
But you missed this one:
And there are the problematic relationships between the record companies and the rest of the music industry, which make it difficult for MusicNet to offer as much music as the illegal services do.
And this one:
The struggle to create a legitimate commercial online music service goes back years, before there even was a Napster.
And this one:
Yet the industry still feared that creating a legitimate market for music downloads would cut into sales of compact discs.
And this one:
But now, music fans were racing to outlaws such as Napster.
And many others, but you get the point: Not only are we accepting on faith -- and against reams of evidence to the contrary -- that online trading actually hurts sales; but also that any services that aren't set up by the studios are "illegal services," "outlaws" or, at the least, not "legitimate."
The California case in point began with a chemical -- MTBE -- that was added to gasoline to help the state clean up its air. But MTBE was found to cause cancer in laboratory animals. And in 1995, it began to show up in drinking water.
...
Chapter 11 is only one provision in the 555-page North American Free Trade Agreement -- negotiated to promote business among the US, Canada and Mexico. It was supposedly written to protect investors if foreign governments tried to seize their property.
But corporations have stretched NAFTA's Chapter 11 to undermine environmental decisions -- the decisions of local communities -- even the verdict of an American jury. The cases brought so far total almost four billion dollars.
Under the terms of NAFTA, an environmental regulation is regarded as a "taking" and the state may have to pay a huge settlement to the manufacturer.
Yes, this was just posted Saturday, but I'll bet a lot of people don't look back at stuff from the weekends. That being said...
His letter is a long way of saying, "Please decide which side of your mouth to speak out of." By the third time he pointed out, "This contradicts what you said in the previous paragraph," I had tears streaming down my face.
This contradiction alone would invalidate your position.
...
This argument repeats that already given in paragraph 5 and partly contradicts paragraph 3. For the sake of brevity we refer to the comments on those paragraphs.
...
In addition, in this paragraph you correctly point out that the service components and losses due to down-time make up the largest part of the total cost of software use, which, as you will note, contradicts your statement regarding the small value of services suggested in paragraph 3.
...
On the other hand, there certainly exist types of volume licensing (although unfortunately proprietary software does not satisfy the basic principles). But as you correctly pointed out in the immediately precding paragraph of your letter, they only manage to reduce the impact of a component which makes up no more than 8% of the total.
... the appeals court ruling that upheld the conclusions of law essentially in their entirety, but remanded the case back to the lower court to re-evaluate the remedy?
There have been a few exceptions to this. This opinion article came out yesterday that had some good points.
Really? Was this one of them:
Perhaps Gates should resign and Judge Kollar-Kotelly should start drawing a salary as chief software architect at Microsoft. Somehow I think even Judge Jackson wasn't stupid or biased enough to do this.
Since the author clearly thinks Microsoft was only found guilty because of a stupid, biased judge, I don't see how he can expect to be taken seriously in analyzing the remedy.
I've found quotes about several of their less-than-helpful witnesses, but I can't find that one. And the economist whose research was funded by MS. I'm trying to complete my list.
Jerry Sanders, chief executive of computer chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, also conceded he had not read the states' proposed sanctions...
"You've never checked to this day whether what Mr. Gates told you...was true in the remedies," Gutman challenged. Sanders agreed he had not read the states' proposals.
And in written testimony to the court, Sanders quotes from AMD's annual report: "If we fail to retain the support and certifications of Microsoft, our ability to market our processors could be materially adversely affected." (Remember, this is a witness
for Microsoft.)
Gates' appearance next week would be his first in-person appearance at the trial. In the main portion of the trial, Gates appeared in a videotaped deposition. In portions of that videotape, Gates repeatedly answered questions with "I don't know" and "I don't recall." His statements were frequently contradicted by e-mails he had sent and received, and he frequently claimed no recollection of the messages.
Even Business Week, in a generally flattering review of Gates' testimony, leads with:
Is Bill Gates Doing Himself Any Favors?
He's poised and confident on the stand, a far cry from his deposition during the antitrust trial. But maybe he shouldn't be there at all
During cross-examination Wednesday, states' attorney Steven Kuney brought up the issue of Windows XP Embedded, a version of Windows made for gas pumps and other machines that contains the core elements of Windows but doesn't necessarily contain browsers or messaging software, depending on how it is configured.
Kuney asked Gates if Windows XP Embedded could be installed on PCs. Gates responded, "You could configure it for that."
But Gates said he didn't know of anyone who had done such a thing, later acknowledging that one reason is because Microsoft doesn't license XP Embedded for that purpose.
One of the exhibits in the previous stages of the Microsoft antitrust trial included an email from one Chris Jones, recommending to Bill Gates that the binding of IE into Windows should be such that users would find running rival browsers "a jolting experience." At the time many people, not least of them the Department of Justice, seemed to think that this and other associated exhibits were all about the anticompetitive tying of IE into Windows in order to destroy Netscape. But apparently not - MS Windows exec Chris, taking the stand yesterday, put forward an explanation of almost patentable novelty.
What he meant, he said, was that the experience would be jolting for good reasons if it occurred because of the "great innovations" that integration of IE brought to Windows. So presumably you could think about the new versions of IE Microsoft was designing as being truly wondrous, and that users would therefore find use of the comparatively stone age rival products truly unpleasant. ...
Another interesting point was brought up by States' attorney Kevin Hodges, who established that the proposed MS-DoJ settlement had less teeth to it than appears at first glance. Under this deal PC manufacturers will have the right to install rival companies' software, but it's still feasible for Microsoft to bar them from running Netscape when the computer is first turned on. Jones seems to have argued that as IE was a part of Windows, Microsoft didn't have to give OEMs the right to run Netscape. (So much for Microsoft allowing competition on the desktop.)
Several companies, as well as the nine states, argue that Microsoft adopted open technology standards only to make them proprietary later, forcing many to use Microsoft products. Sutherland said he did not study any records of Microsoft's conduct.
"You did not take into consideration Microsoft's past conduct in these proceedings?" Schmidtlein asked.
"Only as background," Sutherland said, adding that he didn't find it relevant.
But under questioning from the states' lawyer, Sutherland acknowledged that he knew little about Microsoft's past anti-competitive conduct and had no experience with the kind of Web-based services at issue in the case.
...
Sutherland said any company that wants to compete in the telecommunications business must make its technologies work seamlessly with other companies' services. ...
Under questioning from states' attorney John Schmidtlein, however, Sutherland conceded he had no direct experience with Web-based messaging and was only part of a small group at Qwest that is studying the possibility of getting into the business of Web-based messaging.
He also admitted the group was formed less than a month ago--nearly two months after Microsoft named him as a witness in the antitrust case.
"My intention is to offer the court an understanding of how the communications world works," Sutherland told the judge. "My testimony is not specific to Microsoft's behavior on the Windows desktop."
As someone said, if this represents the level and quality of Microsoft's legal team's trial prep, you have to wonder how much they're getting paid.
The analysis of the data is poor; anyone interested in decay would suspect some kind of exponential decay. They would therefore plot the data logarithmically, and perhaps calcualte a half life. Piss poor.
So when can we expect to see your rigorous analysis? Or were you just bitching?
You ask: If it's not worth $10 to you, why are you making a copy? What possible value could that copy have to you?
The last line of my post to which you are replying was: So while the revenue lost to unauthorized redistribution is probably non-zero, it is ceratinly not the total retail value of the number of unauthorized copies.
So it seems the answer to your question is: something less than $10, but possibly more than $0.
Slashdot Mirror
The GPL code isn't theirs, but is that all that's in their distribution? I thought they included a bunch of other software with it. No wait, I know they include a bunch of other stuff with it.
If you buy Caldera Linux, powered by UnitedLinux, you are free to copy, modify and distribute any of the GPL code that comes with it. If you only purchase the binaries and choose not to accquire the source, it may be difficult to separate the two classes of software (or even identify the difference). But as long as source is provided for all GPL parts I don't see the problem.
He calls on developers to use the GPL, so as not to offer distributors a target to make proprietary.
What if the developers are the distributors? What if a developer takes an LSB-compliant distribution, writes some code that runs on it (or installs it, or provides package-management services for it) and chooses to keep that code proprietary? What if the developer is called Caldera?
Hmm, maybe in this case the developer wants the distributor (themselves) to have a "target to make proprietary."
That was the case cited immediately after where I stopped quoting. The full quote was:
The case dealt with a possible mistrial or appeal solely on the basis of whether the jury was instructed of their right to nullification. Thus the ruling essentially stated, "It is not required to declare a mistrial or grant appeal on this basis." However, as is unfortunately too often the case, this narrow negation is wielded as a directive. It is a classic case of "everything not required is prohibited."
You may be technically correct in a pedantic sense. The Court may simply exercise their judicial power "as if" the law is unconstitutional when they decide "who wins" the decision.
No, I'm correct in a legal sense. The legal system described in the constitution set juries up to be the arbiter of whether laws were proper, not the judges. From The Fully Informed Jury Association:
Whenever a judge instructs a jury that their mandate is not to agree or disagree with the law, but merely to determine if the defendant violated it; whenever a judge or prosecuriter asks a juror during voire dire if they would have a problem with applying the law even if they disagree with it; they are violating the intent of the Constitution. Juries, not judges, are supposed to be the check on the legislative and executive branches.
Best the courts can do is strike a law down, they can't change it (even to fix it) or make new laws.
Not really. If a law is "struck down" or "declared unconstitutional" by the Supreme Court, the law is still on the books. All that happens is that no one can be convicted of it, as the courts will eventually (if not at the first trial, then on appeal) overturn any conviction.
If you disagree, please find me any federal law that grants a court the authority to strike down laws.
The business units promoting Linux recognize the advantages of the Open Source development model, yet IBM still produces proprietary software. Does this indicate that support for OSS is simply a marketing position, or is it that IBM believes OSS is good for some types of development but not others? If it's the latter, what types of development are viewed as not conducive to OSS, and why?
I would like to urge those who claim to represent me to please recognize that the existing proposals are clearly not in my interests.
* Enacting the type of controls proposed by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America would, if perfectly implemented, completely eliminate my ability to exercise Fair Use rights in the content I have legally acquired.
* Any attempt to implement digital watermarking on every Analog-to-Digital converter would make literally thousands of common products impossible to manufacture economically. For a few examples: Consider that you would, as a conservative estimate, more than double the complexity, size and cost to manufacture of hearing aids; design of medical sensors and tools would be set back decades as the increased size of components would make them unsuitable for microsurgery; automobile emissions controls would become less efficient as their behavior would be dictated by artificial constraints imposed by the watermarking technology.
* Common consumer devices would function erratically as they attempt to prevent recording of watermarked content. For example video cameras might become non-functional at wedding receptions if the DJ is playing any watermarked content. Digital telephones would cut out if there is a TV or radio nearby playing watermarked content.
* Content would be unavailable after copyright has expired. Any content controls would have to be automatic, with special actions necessary to access it. Once the copyright term has expired, there is no economic incentive to the previous copyright holder to provide this mechanism. All content controlled by such a mechanism would disappear forever into a vault to which it is illegal to create a key.
* Finally, even if it were possible to create a technological solution that provided exactly what the content industries are requesting, there is no precedent for requiring the $600 billion tech industry to absorb the expense to satisfy the $35 billion entertainment industry. It is not at all unreasonable to suppose that the direct costs of complying with these requirements would cost more in real dollars than the entire value of the entertainment industry. Given that the only possible justification for enacting these controls is to protect the entertainment industry, it seems that causing a greater loss to the technology industry is the wrong way to go about it.
He's not relying upon obscurity, but it IS a tactic.
And it's one I'll bet most systems use somewhere in the process. If you have a password, the security is based on the assumption that only you know it. Once it is publicized -- no longer "obscure" -- it is no longer effective. As long as the obscurity you're relying on is sufficiently difficult to guess, it's effective.
Think CAFE: Corporate Average Fuel Economy.
Basically, the car manufacturers realized they couldn't keep producing full-size station wagons and still meet CAFE standards. But since "light trucks" not only have a less stringent standard, but also are counted separately from their cars, they could replace full-size wagons in their lines with SUV's and mini-vans instead.
What happens when someone creates a viable spoof of my biometric ID? (Thimbprint, retinal scan, whatever.) They can fake being me. So we include a PIN that I can change and I'm good again, right?
Think about the last time you went to the DMV. Is it staffed by high-paid security consultants? Or is it more likely to have employees who will see that your thumbprint matches and go ahead and give you the new license to replace the one you "lost"?
The "average Joe" will believe that thumbprints are authoritative and probably use that confirmation as sufficient evidence to reset your PIN for you, completely circumventing the system.
Don't believe me? I went to the post office recently. They have a policy that they won't accept credit cards that aren't signed. Mine has "See ID" written on the back, because I don't want anyone accepting it without checking an ID. Their policy, which the helpful employee showed me a copy of, said that in order to accept my ID he had to watch me sign it in his presence, then check my ID. Had I stolen the card and simply signed it in the parking lot before entering, he would have accepted it.
And the more "authoritative" the ID method is, the more likely someone will trust it. If a biometric only seems more secure than a plastic card with a mag strip, then we will have decreased actual security. So the real problem isn't "How do I keep someone from spoofing my biometrics?" It's "How do I keep a minimum-wage clerk from accepting the spoofed biometrics?"
Now I can justify the 21 LCD at work on the grounds that the CRT poses a risk of industrial espionage.
This confirms the worries I have seen here over and over: That lawmakers believe the only solution to a problem is more laws. It is completely inconceiveable to them that a problem may exist that is not best solved by increased legislation.
So they have to choose between Office and Star Office NOW, (and that means 5.2, but even 6 isn't QUITE right.) Or gobeProductive, which is really great on Windows, but isn't QUITE ready on Linux yet, and there isn't enough time to do a proper evaluation anyway.
So how much time is Microsoft giving them to do an evaluation of XP before they have to sign on? Or of the next version of Office? The license they are pushing is for future versions of products. This will be even more explicit with the upcoming subscription model: You will have no opportunity to evaluate upcoming products before your existing installed base is declared obsolete.
This is the same FUD as the user training issue. "We can't move off of Windows because we'd have to retrain all our users." But they all moved from Win3.1 to Win95 didn't they? Does anyone really believe the difference between (for instance) KDE3.0 and Win2K is greater than that? In short, don't apply a higher standard to the Linux offering thatn to the Windows offering.
Yes, but the RIAA clearly stated in the article they were against this tax, becuase they realize that one you tax the ISPs for the p2p content, you've lost your claim that it is illegal to share content.
Whenever you buy blank media you are already paying exactly this type of tax. The argument that you are then free to copy -- since you've already paid -- hasn't worked yet.
You quoted:
Early last December, three of the world's biggest music companies launched a counterattack against the rampant digital piracy that has gnawed at their sales in recent years.
But you missed this one:
And there are the problematic relationships between the record companies and the rest of the music industry, which make it difficult for MusicNet to offer as much music as the illegal services do.
And this one:
The struggle to create a legitimate commercial online music service goes back years, before there even was a Napster.
And this one:
Yet the industry still feared that creating a legitimate market for music downloads would cut into sales of compact discs.
And this one:
But now, music fans were racing to outlaws such as Napster.
And many others, but you get the point: Not only are we accepting on faith -- and against reams of evidence to the contrary -- that online trading actually hurts sales; but also that any services that aren't set up by the studios are "illegal services," "outlaws" or, at the least, not "legitimate."
From PBS Frontline:
Under the terms of NAFTA, an environmental regulation is regarded as a "taking" and the state may have to pay a huge settlement to the manufacturer.
Yes, this was just posted Saturday, but I'll bet a lot of people don't look back at stuff from the weekends. That being said ...
His letter is a long way of saying, "Please decide which side of your mouth to speak out of." By the third time he pointed out, "This contradicts what you said in the previous paragraph," I had tears streaming down my face.
This contradiction alone would invalidate your position.
...
This argument repeats that already given in paragraph 5 and partly contradicts paragraph 3. For the sake of brevity we refer to the comments on those paragraphs.
...
In addition, in this paragraph you correctly point out that the service components and losses due to down-time make up the largest part of the total cost of software use, which, as you will note, contradicts your statement regarding the small value of services suggested in paragraph 3.
...
On the other hand, there certainly exist types of volume licensing (although unfortunately proprietary software does not satisfy the basic principles). But as you correctly pointed out in the immediately precding paragraph of your letter, they only manage to reduce the impact of a component which makes up no more than 8% of the total.
Well, there's your problem. Since when has the stock market been played for the long term?
... the appeals court ruling that upheld the conclusions of law essentially in their entirety, but remanded the case back to the lower court to re-evaluate the remedy?
There have been a few exceptions to this. This opinion article came out yesterday that had some good points.
Really? Was this one of them:
Perhaps Gates should resign and Judge Kollar-Kotelly should start drawing a salary as chief software architect at Microsoft. Somehow I think even Judge Jackson wasn't stupid or biased enough to do this.
Since the author clearly thinks Microsoft was only found guilty because of a stupid, biased judge, I don't see how he can expect to be taken seriously in analyzing the remedy.
I've found quotes about several of their less-than-helpful witnesses, but I can't find that one. And the economist whose research was funded by MS. I'm trying to complete my list.
From news.com.com:
From the Register:
Back to news.com.com:
Even Business Week, in a generally flattering review of Gates' testimony, leads with:
Good old news.com.com again:
Back to the Register:
Now from Wired:
And again from news.com.com:
As someone said, if this represents the level and quality of Microsoft's legal team's trial prep, you have to wonder how much they're getting paid.
I know you're right in a "back of my mind" kind of way, but a list of examples to provide the Congresswoman would be nice.
The analysis of the data is poor; anyone interested in decay would suspect some kind of exponential decay. They would therefore plot the data logarithmically, and perhaps calcualte a half life. Piss poor.
So when can we expect to see your rigorous analysis? Or were you just bitching?
You ask:
If it's not worth $10 to you, why are you making a copy? What possible value could that copy have to you?
The last line of my post to which you are replying was:
So while the revenue lost to unauthorized redistribution is probably non-zero, it is ceratinly not the total retail value of the number of unauthorized copies.
So it seems the answer to your question is: something less than $10, but possibly more than $0.