People willing to pay $5 for mediocre coffee and the chance to overhear inane babble conducted by other people willing to pay $5 for mediocre coffee will, pretty much, pay for anything.
But if what they're paying for wants to pay the fee for them, we'll give them free access to that.
It doesn't cost any more to print, store, ship, or recycle a calculus textbook than the $5.99 discount closeout How To Quilt A Yak books infesting every Borders and Barnes & Noble.
The price is set high because the salesman knows that you are captive to your professor's choice of textbook, and your professor doesn't have to pay for it so he doesn't give a fuck how much it costs you so there's no incentive for him to pick a cheap textbook.
When you all get to Econ 101, pay close attention to "inelastic pricing." That is what drives education and health prices, because for some reason nobody thinks that being stupid and dead are alternatives.
They can do that if they want, but they need to send me a debit card for $1000 to have every room in my house outfitted with wiring in the walls to carry the cable signals.
And another $10k to have coax run up the hill to my aerie.
its immediate vicinity isn't so bad. But that lousy Congress lives down the street. Hard to keep prospective buyers from finding that out before they make an offer, too.
I just posted this in the last copyright discussion we had (Friday or so).
Yes, that is what's happening. The producer of the material has priced it well above its free-market value, so the piratical market has produced its own copies.
And yes, it's way past time that everyone told the producers of this material that their prices are too high.
Because if the producer's price doesn't come in line with market value, the population is going to be induced to change copyright law and remove the producer's protection.
"one in a few thousand" is an unacceptably high risk for something that costs what a space mission costs.
Every satellite (I think; maybe there are a few dumb ones) has maneuverability and can be commanded to duck debris in Earth's orbit. The density of stuff there is about the order of magnitude of the oort cloud. And putting a satellite in GEO is cheap, compared with sailing to interstellar space.
"or make a hundred thousand copies and sellign them"
No. They can sell the copy they bought. Unless what they bought was a non-transferrable license to possess a copy, but that's beside the point, we're discussing innate legality, not negotiated contracts.
Copyright exists so that people with no creativity can't steal the value of things that are created.
As for command economy, it's not about finding the rules ridiculous; it's about the difference between value and price. A command economy can't possibly have the granularity and fluidity of an open market to change the price to match the value. When the posted price is significantly out of step with the value, black markets or rotting waste will ensue.
But if you're paying attention, you'll notice that 90% of the consumer economy has exactly this problem. Prices posted by manufacturers and retailers that have no relation to value; the results being counterfeit products and bankrupt companies. But when a company goes bankrupt, a tiny percentage of the population loses their jobs. When a command economy goes bankrupt, the tanks roll in and start shelling the politburo and everyone loses their jobs and a couple of mooks from Kazakhstan get their names mysteriously printed on title deeds to the nation's oil fields.
If you think there's any difference between a Communist country and the fiefdoms run by corporate CEOs, you didn't pay enough attention in economics class.
Don't see how he needs Bill Gates et al weighing in, unless it's a means of convincing the pigs in Congress that the real money in this country is bigger than the money that's telling them not to improve our alternative energy R&D posture.
You aren't entitled to sell someone else's creation, ever, at all, but the law recognizes there are limits to how much burden the law can take, so it gives you the privilege of doing so after two generations.
This also has the consequence that the people holding the copyright have a limited time to profit from it, and so they will make it available to those who want it.
How much you pay for it depends entirely on how much you're willing to pay for it. That's true of every transaction for anything, even in command economies (and the failure to recognize that is why command economies are even more inefficient than free markets).
They don't do it to make the conspiracy theorists look bad.
They use the conspiracy theorists to propagate the misinformation virally, because just posting "The CIA says Roswell was Flying Saucers" gives it no credibility at all, and in fact draws attention to the CIA's involvement, which gets non-conspiracy theorists thinking.
But the CIA also doesn't care about the conspiracy theorists, because they can always get more, so whether the conspiracy theorists end up looking bad or not doesn't enter into the design of the misinformation.
I could do the trig in my head. I was decrying the total disconnect in the original email, and the hasty assumption by the writer of the original article.
btw, I don't see people holding their phones 18 inches from their eyes. 6-12 inches is more like it. 4 inches when doing the ear-eye-ear screen check.
I don't think "retinal" should break down as a claim at any distance. Myopic people can get objects to within a centimeter, maybe less, of their cornea (I know I used to before my corneas ossified, now I have cool-ass progressive lenses that let me focus from 6" to infinity just by holding my head at the right elevation angle and looking up or down with my eyes; aging may be a bitch, but when the compensatory gadgets are this geektacular it's hard to bitch about it).
"Retinal" should be a pixel density greater than or equal to the retina.
You don't want it kept from you, since it's yours, and you paid to create it. You want it kept from you only so long as hiding it keeps people, maybe including you, from dying at the hands of our enemies.
The private citizen who owns his own copyright material doesn't want you to have it for free, since it's his, and he paid to create it. He wants it kept from you essentially forever, or at least as long as he and his first generation of children are alive to profit from his investment and creativity.
If you want something to be yours, and you want it now, create it your own damned self, or buy the rights to it.
Slashdot Mirror
I see the business model here.
People willing to pay $5 for mediocre coffee and the chance to overhear inane babble conducted by other people willing to pay $5 for mediocre coffee will, pretty much, pay for anything.
But if what they're paying for wants to pay the fee for them, we'll give them free access to that.
You can cut out the bookstore. Then they'll have zero cost and still charge you $110 for access to their website.
The quoted costs are bullshit.
It doesn't cost any more to print, store, ship, or recycle a calculus textbook than the $5.99 discount closeout How To Quilt A Yak books infesting every Borders and Barnes & Noble.
The price is set high because the salesman knows that you are captive to your professor's choice of textbook, and your professor doesn't have to pay for it so he doesn't give a fuck how much it costs you so there's no incentive for him to pick a cheap textbook.
When you all get to Econ 101, pay close attention to "inelastic pricing." That is what drives education and health prices, because for some reason nobody thinks that being stupid and dead are alternatives.
You bought your hookers that way, too. And unless you're a chem major, and even if you are one at a co.co, that wasn't blow.
Two words.
Direc. TV.
I just put tinfoil...on my head...
Yup. I totally lost my city's ABC affiliate for OTA reception.
They can do that if they want, but they need to send me a debit card for $1000 to have every room in my house outfitted with wiring in the walls to carry the cable signals.
And another $10k to have coax run up the hill to my aerie.
its immediate vicinity isn't so bad. But that lousy Congress lives down the street. Hard to keep prospective buyers from finding that out before they make an offer, too.
I seriously doubt that.
The building was gutted and rebuilt from the basement to the roof 60 years ago.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/abierowe/whitehse.htm
But you might want to check for pretzel crumbs under the sofa in the residence.
Does that figure include the secret tunnels or the AA batteries on the roof?
Then you missed the more important lesson:
Most college kids aren't really all that smart.
I just posted this in the last copyright discussion we had (Friday or so).
Yes, that is what's happening. The producer of the material has priced it well above its free-market value, so the piratical market has produced its own copies.
And yes, it's way past time that everyone told the producers of this material that their prices are too high.
Because if the producer's price doesn't come in line with market value, the population is going to be induced to change copyright law and remove the producer's protection.
"one in a few thousand" is an unacceptably high risk for something that costs what a space mission costs.
Every satellite (I think; maybe there are a few dumb ones) has maneuverability and can be commanded to duck debris in Earth's orbit. The density of stuff there is about the order of magnitude of the oort cloud. And putting a satellite in GEO is cheap, compared with sailing to interstellar space.
"or make a hundred thousand copies and sellign them"
No. They can sell the copy they bought. Unless what they bought was a non-transferrable license to possess a copy, but that's beside the point, we're discussing innate legality, not negotiated contracts.
Copyright exists so that people with no creativity can't steal the value of things that are created.
As for command economy, it's not about finding the rules ridiculous; it's about the difference between value and price. A command economy can't possibly have the granularity and fluidity of an open market to change the price to match the value. When the posted price is significantly out of step with the value, black markets or rotting waste will ensue.
But if you're paying attention, you'll notice that 90% of the consumer economy has exactly this problem. Prices posted by manufacturers and retailers that have no relation to value; the results being counterfeit products and bankrupt companies. But when a company goes bankrupt, a tiny percentage of the population loses their jobs. When a command economy goes bankrupt, the tanks roll in and start shelling the politburo and everyone loses their jobs and a couple of mooks from Kazakhstan get their names mysteriously printed on title deeds to the nation's oil fields.
If you can write a book, print all the copies you want.
It's up to Mr. Carroll, and his heirs, to decide whether to perform his work for the world's benefit, and none of his concern whether you live or die.
And Einstein's name was marketing gold.
If you think there's any difference between a Communist country and the fiefdoms run by corporate CEOs, you didn't pay enough attention in economics class.
Rich people didn't get that way by risking a lot of their own money
There. Fixed that for you.
Don't see how he needs Bill Gates et al weighing in, unless it's a means of convincing the pigs in Congress that the real money in this country is bigger than the money that's telling them not to improve our alternative energy R&D posture.
Cannily enough, before Roswell even happened, so nobody would notice.
Er, you have that backwards.
You aren't entitled to sell someone else's creation, ever, at all, but the law recognizes there are limits to how much burden the law can take, so it gives you the privilege of doing so after two generations.
This also has the consequence that the people holding the copyright have a limited time to profit from it, and so they will make it available to those who want it.
How much you pay for it depends entirely on how much you're willing to pay for it. That's true of every transaction for anything, even in command economies (and the failure to recognize that is why command economies are even more inefficient than free markets).
They don't do it to make the conspiracy theorists look bad.
They use the conspiracy theorists to propagate the misinformation virally, because just posting "The CIA says Roswell was Flying Saucers" gives it no credibility at all, and in fact draws attention to the CIA's involvement, which gets non-conspiracy theorists thinking.
But the CIA also doesn't care about the conspiracy theorists, because they can always get more, so whether the conspiracy theorists end up looking bad or not doesn't enter into the design of the misinformation.
I could do the trig in my head. I was decrying the total disconnect in the original email, and the hasty assumption by the writer of the original article.
btw, I don't see people holding their phones 18 inches from their eyes. 6-12 inches is more like it. 4 inches when doing the ear-eye-ear screen check.
I don't think "retinal" should break down as a claim at any distance. Myopic people can get objects to within a centimeter, maybe less, of their cornea (I know I used to before my corneas ossified, now I have cool-ass progressive lenses that let me focus from 6" to infinity just by holding my head at the right elevation angle and looking up or down with my eyes; aging may be a bitch, but when the compensatory gadgets are this geektacular it's hard to bitch about it).
"Retinal" should be a pixel density greater than or equal to the retina.
Well, no.
Copyright belongs to a private citizen.
Government information belongs to you.
You don't want it kept from you, since it's yours, and you paid to create it. You want it kept from you only so long as hiding it keeps people, maybe including you, from dying at the hands of our enemies.
The private citizen who owns his own copyright material doesn't want you to have it for free, since it's his, and he paid to create it. He wants it kept from you essentially forever, or at least as long as he and his first generation of children are alive to profit from his investment and creativity.
If you want something to be yours, and you want it now, create it your own damned self, or buy the rights to it.