Microsoft is not being fined for violating anybody's individual rights. The company never put a gun to anybody's head and forced them to buy Microsoft products. Microsoft is being fined for being a good business: too good I guess. It's a sad day when achievement is punished and failure is rewarded. That is exactly what this fine and all of antitrust law amounts to.
...and airplanes/trucking put railroad workers out of business...and cars put horse and buggy workers out of their jobs...and railroads put steamboat operators on the dole...and the power loom put all those poor women out of work...probably all the way down to Prometheus ruining the lives of bear pelt hunters. When will people learn that increasing productivity (which includes effective outsourcing) ALWAYS leads to an increase in employment, real wages and the overall standard of living? Go back to your cave; don't bring me down with you.
How dare you think that a company should be "allowed" its existence by the US. People have the RIGHT to freely associate, and that includes forming companies in order to make money. Keep your fascist regulations to yourself.
It seems to me like you are flouting the most fundamental LAW in economics: the Law of Supply and Demand. Quake 3 was priced high because there was an extremely high demand for it and ID Software was, through copyright law and the fact that few other companies could produce like-quality games, able to control supply.
It seems to me like you're implying that Quake 3 should be priced lower because there is a higher demand for it. I'm sorry, but you should learn a little economics before you pawn off your babblings as economic theory.
If AMD (or the airline industry) was paying these superfluous employees to make products that it couldn't sell, how long do you think the company would continue to exist? I'm sorry, but if I was running a business, I wouldn't hire everybody I can just so I can feed their families; I hire the people I need to produce the goods that people want.
"Who will feed these 2,300 families and the ~100,000 families who were likewise fucked by the airline industry?"
Who will feed the (much greater number of)families of the needed employees who won't get paid because their employers have no money to pay them?
Don't forget the purpose of a business: to give a customer a product in return for their money; this money should be more than the money spent on making the product. (profit) Otherwise the correct term would be "charity."
I find it interesting that so many Free Software advocates are anti-copyright, seeing that the protective mechanisms of the GPL are based on the copyright of the original author of the source code.
Without copyright, everything would be straight public domain; if anyone wanted to make secret modifications on the source code, they could do so without any fear of legal recourse. Every piece of intellectual property would essentially be under an even less restrictive form of the BSD license. In fact, the concept of a license would be void. If Microsoft wanted to, it could use the Linux kernel for its next release, while keeping all their own code proprietary and then say that they wrote the entire code. We'd end up in a society where everyone must keep their innovations as secret and obscure as possible for fear of them being copied. I'm sure most Open Sourcers would disapprove of this.
We must remember that one only has his/her freedoms as long as they don't impinge on the freedoms of another. You don't have the "freedom" to steal my food because it breaks my property rights. Freedom of speech doesn't apply to copying someone else's works, because it breaks their rights to control what they own (the product of their mind). Rights are not things that are weighed against each other; they are absolute, "inalieable." In other words, your freedom ends where my nose begins.
"Give me freedom or give me death!"
--Patrick Henry
What most of this slashdot crowd seems to not recognize is that the Internet is not something that they are entitled to. The Internet that we have now is nearly 100% owned by various private companies. It transmits on telephone lines owned by telephone companies, using routers made by Cisco which are owned by various ISPs and so on. The Internet is not public property (thank goodness - then the government would control it).
There is no grand "purpose" to the Internet, whether it's for information sharing, money, entertainment or anything else. The Internet is whatever these private companies make it to be. Fortunately they've recognized that their customers want an open system and so that is what they have. If a company did something with their portion of the network (e.g. censor sites) that the majority of their customers disliked, then they would lose these customers and money.(obviously not in their self-interest) That's what basic economic laws are. As long as you customers keep pressure on your ISPs to keep the Internet open, then it will remain that way.
However, there is no "right" to an open Internet. Free speech means you can say whatever you want - with your own property or with the consent of the property owner. You don't have a right to a "free" Internet as much as you don't have a right to use a television station's equipment to tell the world whatever you want to say. The people who produce the necessary portions of the Internet are entitled to control their property (it's theirs after all), and you only get to use it by mutual consent. (you pay them what they request) If you don't like what these compaines offer, then don't pay for it and you don't get to use it either. But, please, don't say you have a right to tell these companies what to do with their hardware and software.
What the major media companies have to do is add enough value to their content to make the package worth buying.
So, as a seller, I am required to make my product worth buying or else you have the right to steal it? How about, if the package is not worth buying, don't buy it AND don't steal it. The buyer does not have a right to the product of the seller; the buyer only obtains the product if he/she comes to a MUTUAL
Rights cannot be had by abrogating the rights of others. If your "freedom of speech" means disregarding the copyright of the artist and/or the recording company that the artist delegated the company to, then you cannot excercise your freedom of speech. Your freedom of speech does not mean you are entitled to a free microphone, air time on TV and radio, and a listening audience (this would be enslavement and robbery). It does mean that if you can obtain those things through voluntary means, then you have the right to say whatever you wish through utilizing them.
Please tell me where our beloved US Constitution says that corporations only exist for the public good. They are based off a notion called property rights, where people may produce using their property and conduct voluntary trade with others using their own property. The public good is not the primary reason the US Constitution was created; rather it is so the rights of the individual are protected. Musicians put their heart and soul into their music and they should be allowed to determine how they want to distribute it. (i.e. copyright - Article I Sec. 8) If they delegate this to the recording industry, that is their choice. This is just like when a programmer writes software: it is copyrighted by him/her, and he/she has the right to decide whether to use the GPL, BSD, Artistic licenses, or any other license he/she so chooses (including proprietary ones) to determine how it is to be copied.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft is not being fined for violating anybody's individual rights. The company never put a gun to anybody's head and forced them to buy Microsoft products. Microsoft is being fined for being a good business: too good I guess. It's a sad day when achievement is punished and failure is rewarded. That is exactly what this fine and all of antitrust law amounts to.
...and airplanes/trucking put railroad workers out of business...and cars put horse and buggy workers out of their jobs...and railroads put steamboat operators on the dole...and the power loom put all those poor women out of work...probably all the way down to Prometheus ruining the lives of bear pelt hunters. When will people learn that increasing productivity (which includes effective outsourcing) ALWAYS leads to an increase in employment, real wages and the overall standard of living? Go back to your cave; don't bring me down with you.
How dare you think that a company should be "allowed" its existence by the US. People have the RIGHT to freely associate, and that includes forming companies in order to make money. Keep your fascist regulations to yourself.
What "economical" (sic) theory are you citing?
It seems to me like you are flouting the most fundamental LAW in economics: the Law of Supply and Demand. Quake 3 was priced high because there was an extremely high demand for it and ID Software was, through copyright law and the fact that few other companies could produce like-quality games, able to control supply.
It seems to me like you're implying that Quake 3 should be priced lower because there is a higher demand for it. I'm sorry, but you should learn a little economics before you pawn off your babblings as economic theory.
If AMD (or the airline industry) was paying these superfluous employees to make products that it couldn't sell, how long do you think the company would continue to exist? I'm sorry, but if I was running a business, I wouldn't hire everybody I can just so I can feed their families; I hire the people I need to produce the goods that people want.
"Who will feed these 2,300 families and the ~100,000 families who were likewise fucked by the airline industry?"
Who will feed the (much greater number of)families of the needed employees who won't get paid because their employers have no money to pay them?
Don't forget the purpose of a business: to give a customer a product in return for their money; this money should be more than the money spent on making the product. (profit) Otherwise the correct term would be "charity."
I find it interesting that so many Free Software advocates are anti-copyright, seeing that the protective mechanisms of the GPL are based on the copyright of the original author of the source code.
Without copyright, everything would be straight public domain; if anyone wanted to make secret modifications on the source code, they could do so without any fear of legal recourse. Every piece of intellectual property would essentially be under an even less restrictive form of the BSD license. In fact, the concept of a license would be void. If Microsoft wanted to, it could use the Linux kernel for its next release, while keeping all their own code proprietary and then say that they wrote the entire code. We'd end up in a society where everyone must keep their innovations as secret and obscure as possible for fear of them being copied. I'm sure most Open Sourcers would disapprove of this.
We must remember that one only has his/her freedoms as long as they don't impinge on the freedoms of another. You don't have the "freedom" to steal my food because it breaks my property rights. Freedom of speech doesn't apply to copying someone else's works, because it breaks their rights to control what they own (the product of their mind). Rights are not things that are weighed against each other; they are absolute, "inalieable." In other words, your freedom ends where my nose begins.
"Give me freedom or give me death!" --Patrick Henry
What most of this slashdot crowd seems to not recognize is that the Internet is not something that they are entitled to. The Internet that we have now is nearly 100% owned by various private companies. It transmits on telephone lines owned by telephone companies, using routers made by Cisco which are owned by various ISPs and so on. The Internet is not public property (thank goodness - then the government would control it).
There is no grand "purpose" to the Internet, whether it's for information sharing, money, entertainment or anything else. The Internet is whatever these private companies make it to be. Fortunately they've recognized that their customers want an open system and so that is what they have. If a company did something with their portion of the network (e.g. censor sites) that the majority of their customers disliked, then they would lose these customers and money.(obviously not in their self-interest) That's what basic economic laws are. As long as you customers keep pressure on your ISPs to keep the Internet open, then it will remain that way.
However, there is no "right" to an open Internet. Free speech means you can say whatever you want - with your own property or with the consent of the property owner. You don't have a right to a "free" Internet as much as you don't have a right to use a television station's equipment to tell the world whatever you want to say. The people who produce the necessary portions of the Internet are entitled to control their property (it's theirs after all), and you only get to use it by mutual consent. (you pay them what they request) If you don't like what these compaines offer, then don't pay for it and you don't get to use it either. But, please, don't say you have a right to tell these companies what to do with their hardware and software.
What the major media companies have to do is add enough value to their content to make the package worth buying. So, as a seller, I am required to make my product worth buying or else you have the right to steal it? How about, if the package is not worth buying, don't buy it AND don't steal it. The buyer does not have a right to the product of the seller; the buyer only obtains the product if he/she comes to a MUTUAL
Rights cannot be had by abrogating the rights of others. If your "freedom of speech" means disregarding the copyright of the artist and/or the recording company that the artist delegated the company to, then you cannot excercise your freedom of speech. Your freedom of speech does not mean you are entitled to a free microphone, air time on TV and radio, and a listening audience (this would be enslavement and robbery). It does mean that if you can obtain those things through voluntary means, then you have the right to say whatever you wish through utilizing them.
Please tell me where our beloved US Constitution says that corporations only exist for the public good. They are based off a notion called property rights, where people may produce using their property and conduct voluntary trade with others using their own property. The public good is not the primary reason the US Constitution was created; rather it is so the rights of the individual are protected. Musicians put their heart and soul into their music and they should be allowed to determine how they want to distribute it. (i.e. copyright - Article I Sec. 8) If they delegate this to the recording industry, that is their choice. This is just like when a programmer writes software: it is copyrighted by him/her, and he/she has the right to decide whether to use the GPL, BSD, Artistic licenses, or any other license he/she so chooses (including proprietary ones) to determine how it is to be copied.