Kind of makes me wonder if you could take the gameplay refinements we take for granted today and apply them to an old machine. I'd love to see a (top-down, obviously) C64 version of Crazy Taxi! Or going the other way, how about a totally real-time version of The Sentinel powered by a G5 or 4Ghz Pentium?
There was a Playstation and PC version of The Sentinel (called Sentinel Returns), with music by John Carpenter.
A good friend of mine (Chris White) worked on one of the ports.
Some people are biased. Their views of reality are distorted.
But enough about you.
You're the one who was claiming that Microsoft employee Larry Osterman was the one who invented the Apache vs. IIS stats, and the IE vs. other browsers error stats.
But hey, if you want to claim that Microsoft are the people making all this stuff up, and jump up and down, then go ahead. But please, don't be surprised if when people point out that it's not Microsoft doing it, you look like a fool.
Re:This Is to MS's Clear Business Advantage...
on
IE Shines On Broken Code
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
LoL not counting all the ram used by windows itself where M$ keeps the large amount of the rendering engine. Just cause you hit ctrl-alt-del and saw 19mb next to iexplore.exe DOESN'T mean that IE os only using 19mb of ram. The LARGE majority of things that IE needs are preloaded by the OS.
Yes, it does mean that actually. The value you see in Task Manager is the Working Set Size of IE - that is, the total in-memory space of all DLLs and memory allocations currently in use by IE.
What IE ostensibly gets from being "preloaded" is faster loading times. Which are actually NOT the case - if you compile Mozilla from the Win32 source and let it run to completion, you'll find that they finally added support for rebasing and binding their DLLs. Which means that Mozilla loads at the same speed as IE if you turn off its splash screen with the/nosplash option.
If you want to argue this point, you can do other things - like use PerfMon or ProcExp (from Sysinternals.com) to look at the Working set size of the app. Which, by the way, is the same size as the value listed in Task Manager.
For your argument to have any teeth, Task Manager would have to be displaying the "Private Bytes" value - that is, the un-shared bytes used by the process - which it is not.
Please don't try to speak authoritatively regarding Windows when you plainly do not know what you are talking about.
Working Set Size - Private Bytes = amount of IE which is shared with other processes.
Note that Mozilla can gain similar benefits by using other DLLs used by the OS.
That is my point. Microsoft Press the publisher is not Microsoft the software company,
Err... yes, they are.
They have common streams of funding, but they are not the same. The same goes for Microsoft Research (who employs such luminaries as Butler Lampson, Gary Starkweather, and Gordon Bell).
No, actually, they're Microsoft the software company. Just because it's a different division, that doesn't mean it's a different company.
Ahem... C:\>attrib +r D:\*.exe C:\>attrib +r D:\*.dll...assuming D:\ is the USB key, before you plug it into a Windows machine. You can also set the read-only attribute via right clicking on the file in Explorer and going to properties (obviously, on your own, hopefully clean, Windows machine) There, all better now.
What makes you think that setting a file read-only prevents a virus from modifying the file?
Read-only is only advisory; you can still write to the file, IIRC.
We can live without those who are only in it for the money. The fact is, in every field of endeavour, there are people who are in it for the "right" reasons. Even if someone did not throw millions of pounds at a problem just in the hope of earning billions of pounds as a consequence, someone else would be bound to make the same discovery sooner or later {and given the number of demonstrably independent, but almost simultaneous, inventions, I would say sooner rather than later}.
Except that the device you mention is really only an option if one is using standard cable. Those of us who have DirecTV + TiVo haven't had a PVR+DVDR option.
Until now, that is. And I think that's the point.
Yeah, but they can't do a DirecTV one because the data format is different to DVD. The only reason the PVR+DVDR works for standalone is because it has to do MPEG compression anyway, so it compresses to DVD format MPEGs.
What you're getting if you hook the Sony one up to a DirecTV DVR is, basically, lots of compression artifacts. Yuck.
Well, the idealist in me says that people create for the benefit of humanity, and that copyright exists solely so that they don't starve to death while doing it.
Unfortunately, until one becomes moderately wealthy, you can't create for the benefit of humanity alone.
Heck, I've got lists of software ideas and all kinds of stories and scripts... I'd like to write music and more...... but my day job takes all of my time and all of my energy. And there's never enough time in the day. And I've got to eat and keep a roof over my head.. and making films costs a LOT of money...
So the typical way it works is this:
1. Find a way to drag yourself up the ladder as quick as you can.
2. Spend your newfound riches to give you huge amounts of time in which you can work on the things that you have a passion for, instead of what others want to pay you to do.
It's sad, but that's the way it works. Most utopian ideas fall flat because of this one problem - that there's no way to flip a switch and make all of society work in the same way simultaneously.
Heck, humans don't work like that. Look at jealousy, covetousness... greed... all of this are flaws in the human condition of biblical proportions (pun intended). If thousands of years doesn't get rid of it, it's certainly not going to vanish overnight. Humans won't change.
Individuals are good. People are stupid and greedy and nasty and out for themselves.
OK, well you've just read my pragmatic argument, and you also read the idealistic one back up the thread (you read the linked one, right?), so we'll have to just agree to disagree on this one. (I still think I'm on the side of morals and ethics, though)
I just wanted to point out that "It's easy to do, so it must be right" wasn't my only argument.
Fair enough.
The annoying thing is that I actually agree with you on several points - namely that it's something that will become a draconian police-state like nightmare eventually, and that it's nearly impossible to prevent.
My only worry is what this will eventually do to creators of artistic works and other forms of intellectual property. I'm not worried about the big companies. I'm worried about the little guys - like me - who make a living this way.
The fundamental idea behind copyright is sound - it's just that the implementation today is wrong, and not enough people know why it's bad to take the fruits of someone else's work without paying them for it.
The only trouble is that in this situation "increasing costs" requires a police state, becaues you have to catch and persecute a statistically relevant percentage of infringers. Non-onerous technical means (such as DRM) and social means (tracking down and suing|persecuting individual filesharers) can't do that. Eventually the P2P networks will just be encrypted and anonymous and immune to these attacks. So what do you do then? Well, the only thing you can do is either outlaw encryption (entirely, since you can't be sure which encrypted messages are infringing copyright), or take down the entire Internet.
Or you can just accept filesharing and change to an "artwork as a service" model like others (and I) have suggested.
Aha. The old "It's easy to do, so it must be right... and even if it's wrong, everyone's doing it, so who gives a damn" argument.
Sorry, but that doesn't work. Just because something is easy, and a lot of people are doing it, doesn't mean that it's right. It certainly doesn't make it any more ethical, moral or legal.
And with big money interests involved, you can guarantee that the fallout from this situation will be pretty nasty until the pendulum swings the other way again.
Enjoy your police state. We'll have it for the next 10 to 20 years - at which point it will relax again. But until then...
If the judge demands that the documentation for Microsoft APIs is open an available for everyone, how is delivering said documentation in a form that only IE can read, meeting the judge demands?
If they REALLY have a monopoly, then why are you complaining? You, by definiton, have IE don't you? Use it.
The media cartels are not the artists who are getting protected by copyright law.
Yes, they are. Who is lobbying for longer copyright? It's not artists, it's companies like disney. Also, pick up a CD you own. Some music CD. Examine who owns the copyright. You may be surprised to learn that it's not the artist at all, but BMG or EMI... the label, or record company.
You might want to read this to see how that works. The idea is called "royalties". And usually, to avoid confusion later, copyright is assigned for the term of the royalty period and contract for the actual recording.
Though you should really crack a book; with books, the copyright usually resides with the author. Do you see a problem with this as well?
Now why on earth does the record company need copyright protection? They have never penned a song or sang a lyric.
So what? Not all artists are record companies. Most artists, in fact, are individuals who need protection. It's only a few who get signed and even less who make it big.
And why does copyright extend 70 years beyond the author's death? When the human being who created something is not capable of receiving compensation or creating anything new.
People have these things called families. If I'm an author, and I die at age 42 in a car crash, it's nice that my family can still be compensated by my work. It's a form of inheritance. If you don't have children, you may find it difficult to understand why this clause is in there.
The laws were written for people first; it's only recently that corporations were considered to be "people" under the law - much more recent than copyright law itself.
It is clear to me the intent of copyright is just, but the application of it in the world right now is corrupt. This is the essence of the argument against copyright, as it currently stands.
No, your argument appears to be more against abuse of the copyright system by corporations - that's not an argument against copyright. That's an argument against the abuse of it.
Also, I find it funny that this argument against copyright would in fact never actually solve the problem you put forwards - and in the process, it'll also hurt every artist and indivdual creator of intellectual works out there.
There have been numerous laws in the US that have been changed because the general population didn't agree with them; several in the last 10 years that I can think of off the top of my head. Several more in the last 100 that changed the shape of our country. Just because it's law doesn't make it right or just....especially in America.
Similarly, just because a lot of people don't think that others deserve copyright protection, that doesn't make it right or just to ignore it and copy other peoples' work.
agree, however if the combined recording industries (RIAA) traditionally only made $0.25 per CD and file sharing cut that number to a third your statement would be true. We know that's not the case and that's why people get pissed. Companies in general don't get to the multi-billion dollar range without screwing SOMEONE over.
Who said anything about the companies? We were both specifically talking about that the CREATORS of the intellectual property - not the RIAA or any other middle-man company.
The minority of the masses has recognized this and want to promote change within that industry (from a consumer standopint) using economic might. Since this particular industry knows that, instead of changing their business to better suit a growing digital economy, they choose to frighten, sue and jail their consumer base. Nice.
If that was the case, they wouldn't be copying the music - they'd just stop buying it. Copying the music undermines your argument and points to the fact that whether the RIAA are making "too much money" or not is irrelevant - the only reason people copy music is because they want to get it for free, and it's easy for them to do.
It has NOTHING to do with civil disobedience. If you believe that it does, I'm very sorry for you.
The RIAA owns and sucks their artists dry while providing no real service themselves. I create/modify as a service (like the artists should be doing), and give back to the commons for others to build on instead of locking it up for life+70+{next_extension}.
You're still making money off other peoples' work with very little tangible contribution of your own.
The original authors probably don't see as much benefit as you do. But heck, you're alright, Jack.
First, nobody deserves compensation simply because they put blood, sweat and tears into something. Hard-working people lose their jobs and businesses go under all the time, and NOT for lack of effort - it's just market reality.
True. However, people are not slaves either. You should not expect anyone else to work for you for free. If you do, there is something wrong with your values.
Second, even WITH artificial monopolies, the difference between a service or tangible-good and a bit of information is simple: fundamental scarcity. Tangible goods and services are both inherently scarce and thus can COMMAND a price due to limited supply, whereas a copy of a bit of information has an infinite supply which can flow freely (and easily around DRM-type blocks). The new market reality -- in which hundreds of millions of people selfishly reject carrying-over artificial scarcity -- says that creators will have to figure out how to get paid for their scarce SERVICE of original creation, rather than non-scarce instances of freely available old work that is no longer tied to a scarce-medium. Simple, eh?
It's simple, until you realize that the way it works is because the wide distribution allows the many to pay for the works of the one. Specifically, the price of a good tends to zero as more people buy it.
That does not mean that it should be zero. That just means that with all things equal, it will reach zero as the number of people involved in the transaction increase.
This is very different to what is occurring with copyright infringement today - where the price becomes zero, but without any compensation going to the artist.
And no, it's not selfish to expect payment for your work - any more than it's selfish to try to put food on your own table.
And I put my money where my mouth is. What do I do for a living? I sell the value-add service of creating, modifying and integrating open-source environments. I make it point to reject software-as-a-product when the pragmatic future is obviously software-as-a-service. Microsoft made a fortune because of a temporary imbalance.
In other words, you act as a middle man and make money off other peoples' work with very little tangible contribution to that body of work. Sounds like you're the equivalent of the RIAA.
Sharing an.mp3 file is not "stealing music". If I steal something from you, I deprive you of what was once yours to do with as you please. Filesharing does not satisfy this definition
Yes, it does.
I have a value that I place on my work.
You place a value on my work too - otherwise you would not go to the effort to copy it.
You give me nothing in return for my work - not what I value it at, not what you value it at. You take it outright.
That is stealing - or taking without fair trade in return.
It doesn't matter how easy it is to copy something - that is a red herring.
I'd be interested to hear how one could boycott the RIAA and still pay for 90% of the music you hear on the radio.
You would have to put off your gratification, and not pay for that music. You would not get the chance to 'own' that music, period. You would have to do without.
Most people don't actually give a damn about the RIAA - it's just a nice scapegoat they came up with - so they just copy the music and claim that they're doing it to stick it to the man. Really, they're copying it because they want music for free, without paying the creator for the privilege. They're freeloaders. Wastrels. Bums. Panhandlers - but worse, they take what they want without asking for it.
Any attempts to criminalize an exchange of music, (or art, or digital reproduction of any kind,) when the people sharing are not attempting to sell it, are nothing more than a thuggish cartel trying to bully the populace into adhering to a system that allows their parasitic existence.
Funny... speaking as someone who makes a living by creating intellectual property... I'm not a cartel. I'm also not a thug. And no, I'm not trying to bully the populace.
And if you think I have a parasitic existence? I'm the one creating things which are being copied wholesale by people who think that they have a God-given right to the fruits of MY hard work.
Slashdot Mirror
My 16k Speccy still worked... it came down from the Attic about 3 months ago, I was amazed. .. and you and it didn't get Attaked at all?
I'm impressed.
Kind of makes me wonder if you could take the gameplay refinements we take for granted today and apply them to an old machine. I'd love to see a (top-down, obviously) C64 version of Crazy Taxi! Or going the other way, how about a totally real-time version of The Sentinel powered by a G5 or 4Ghz Pentium?
There was a Playstation and PC version of The Sentinel (called Sentinel Returns), with music by John Carpenter.
A good friend of mine (Chris White) worked on one of the ports.
Because we have a culture
Only if yeast infections count.
A new issue of YS?
And nobody even emailed me?
Gah! I've been robbed!
Larry Osterman -- former Microsoft guy
Make that Larry Osterman -- current microsoft guy.
Some people are biased. Their views of reality are distorted.
But enough about you.
You're the one who was claiming that Microsoft employee Larry Osterman was the one who invented the Apache vs. IIS stats, and the IE vs. other browsers error stats.
He's not.
You were wrong.
Just be an adult and face up to it.
The same person tells us that Apache sucks when compared with IIS.
No, Larry Osterman did not tell you that.
Larry Osterman didn't even tell you that IE wins compares to the mass suckitude of other browsers such as Mozilla or Opera when fed malformed HTML.
Specifically, Michael Howard wrote the blog article about Apache vs. IIS
The person who wrote the article about IE being much better - in terms of NOT crashing - than other browsers is Michal Zalewski, who doesn't even work at Microsoft.
But hey, if you want to claim that Microsoft are the people making all this stuff up, and jump up and down, then go ahead. But please, don't be surprised if when people point out that it's not Microsoft doing it, you look like a fool.
LoL not counting all the ram used by windows itself where M$ keeps the large amount of the rendering engine. Just cause you hit ctrl-alt-del and saw 19mb next to iexplore.exe DOESN'T mean that IE os only using 19mb of ram. The LARGE majority of things that IE needs are preloaded by the OS.
/nosplash option.
Yes, it does mean that actually. The value you see in Task Manager is the Working Set Size of IE - that is, the total in-memory space of all DLLs and memory allocations currently in use by IE.
What IE ostensibly gets from being "preloaded" is faster loading times. Which are actually NOT the case - if you compile Mozilla from the Win32 source and let it run to completion, you'll find that they finally added support for rebasing and binding their DLLs. Which means that Mozilla loads at the same speed as IE if you turn off its splash screen with the
If you want to argue this point, you can do other things - like use PerfMon or ProcExp (from Sysinternals.com) to look at the Working set size of the app. Which, by the way, is the same size as the value listed in Task Manager.
For your argument to have any teeth, Task Manager would have to be displaying the "Private Bytes" value - that is, the un-shared bytes used by the process - which it is not.
Please don't try to speak authoritatively regarding Windows when you plainly do not know what you are talking about.
Working Set Size - Private Bytes = amount of IE which is shared with other processes.
Note that Mozilla can gain similar benefits by using other DLLs used by the OS.
That is my point. Microsoft Press the publisher is not Microsoft the software company,
Err... yes, they are.
They have common streams of funding, but they are not the same. The same goes for Microsoft Research (who employs such luminaries as Butler Lampson, Gary Starkweather, and Gordon Bell).
No, actually, they're Microsoft the software company. Just because it's a different division, that doesn't mean it's a different company.
Good. It seems they're all just illegally distributing copyrighted material anyway. Nothing wrong in destroying that.
If this started to happen, the US would stop giving out H1-B visas.
They already have. The number of H1B visa allocations for this year is half that of last year.
That includes existing H1B holders who are trying to renew, and new people trying to come into the country.
(And anyone still on an H1B who has renewed their visa already who has not worked on getting a green card now has to leave the coutnry)
Ahem... ...assuming D:\ is the USB key, before you plug it into a Windows machine. You can also set the read-only attribute via right clicking on the file in Explorer and going to properties (obviously, on your own, hopefully clean, Windows machine) There, all better now.
C:\>attrib +r D:\*.exe
C:\>attrib +r D:\*.dll
What makes you think that setting a file read-only prevents a virus from modifying the file?
Read-only is only advisory; you can still write to the file, IIRC.
We can live without those who are only in it for the money. The fact is, in every field of endeavour, there are people who are in it for the "right" reasons. Even if someone did not throw millions of pounds at a problem just in the hope of earning billions of pounds as a consequence, someone else would be bound to make the same discovery sooner or later {and given the number of demonstrably independent, but almost simultaneous, inventions, I would say sooner rather than later}.
What do you do for a living?
Except that the device you mention is really only an option if one is using standard cable. Those of us who have DirecTV + TiVo haven't had a PVR+DVDR option.
Until now, that is. And I think that's the point.
Yeah, but they can't do a DirecTV one because the data format is different to DVD. The only reason the PVR+DVDR works for standalone is because it has to do MPEG compression anyway, so it compresses to DVD format MPEGs.
What you're getting if you hook the Sony one up to a DirecTV DVR is, basically, lots of compression artifacts. Yuck.
Well, the idealist in me says that people create for the benefit of humanity, and that copyright exists solely so that they don't starve to death while doing it.
... but my day job takes all of my time and all of my energy. And there's never enough time in the day. And I've got to eat and keep a roof over my head.. and making films costs a LOT of money...
Unfortunately, until one becomes moderately wealthy, you can't create for the benefit of humanity alone.
Heck, I've got lists of software ideas and all kinds of stories and scripts... I'd like to write music and more...
So the typical way it works is this:
1. Find a way to drag yourself up the ladder as quick as you can.
2. Spend your newfound riches to give you huge amounts of time in which you can work on the things that you have a passion for, instead of what others want to pay you to do.
It's sad, but that's the way it works. Most utopian ideas fall flat because of this one problem - that there's no way to flip a switch and make all of society work in the same way simultaneously.
Heck, humans don't work like that. Look at jealousy, covetousness... greed... all of this are flaws in the human condition of biblical proportions (pun intended). If thousands of years doesn't get rid of it, it's certainly not going to vanish overnight. Humans won't change.
Individuals are good. People are stupid and greedy and nasty and out for themselves.
Happiness. What a fantastic device
This device + Tivo has been around since December. Here's the product page for it.
It's made by Pioneer.
OK, well you've just read my pragmatic argument, and you also read the idealistic one back up the thread (you read the linked one, right?), so we'll have to just agree to disagree on this one. (I still think I'm on the side of morals and ethics, though)
I just wanted to point out that "It's easy to do, so it must be right" wasn't my only argument.
Fair enough.
The annoying thing is that I actually agree with you on several points - namely that it's something that will become a draconian police-state like nightmare eventually, and that it's nearly impossible to prevent.
My only worry is what this will eventually do to creators of artistic works and other forms of intellectual property. I'm not worried about the big companies. I'm worried about the little guys - like me - who make a living this way.
The fundamental idea behind copyright is sound - it's just that the implementation today is wrong, and not enough people know why it's bad to take the fruits of someone else's work without paying them for it.
The only trouble is that in this situation "increasing costs" requires a police state, becaues you have to catch and persecute a statistically relevant percentage of infringers. Non-onerous technical means (such as DRM) and social means (tracking down and suing|persecuting individual filesharers) can't do that. Eventually the P2P networks will just be encrypted and anonymous and immune to these attacks. So what do you do then? Well, the only thing you can do is either outlaw encryption (entirely, since you can't be sure which encrypted messages are infringing copyright), or take down the entire Internet.
Or you can just accept filesharing and change to an "artwork as a service" model like others (and I) have suggested.
Aha. The old "It's easy to do, so it must be right... and even if it's wrong, everyone's doing it, so who gives a damn" argument.
Sorry, but that doesn't work. Just because something is easy, and a lot of people are doing it, doesn't mean that it's right. It certainly doesn't make it any more ethical, moral or legal.
And with big money interests involved, you can guarantee that the fallout from this situation will be pretty nasty until the pendulum swings the other way again.
Enjoy your police state. We'll have it for the next 10 to 20 years - at which point it will relax again. But until then...
If the judge demands that the documentation for Microsoft APIs is open an available for everyone, how is delivering said documentation in a form that only IE can read, meeting the judge demands?
If they REALLY have a monopoly, then why are you complaining? You, by definiton, have IE don't you? Use it.
Yes, they are. Who is lobbying for longer copyright? It's not artists, it's companies like disney. Also, pick up a CD you own. Some music CD. Examine who owns the copyright. You may be surprised to learn that it's not the artist at all, but BMG or EMI... the label, or record company.
You might want to read this to see how that works. The idea is called "royalties". And usually, to avoid confusion later, copyright is assigned for the term of the royalty period and contract for the actual recording.
Though you should really crack a book; with books, the copyright usually resides with the author. Do you see a problem with this as well?
Now why on earth does the record company need copyright protection? They have never penned a song or sang a lyric.
So what? Not all artists are record companies. Most artists, in fact, are individuals who need protection. It's only a few who get signed and even less who make it big.
And why does copyright extend 70 years beyond the author's death? When the human being who created something is not capable of receiving compensation or creating anything new.
People have these things called families. If I'm an author, and I die at age 42 in a car crash, it's nice that my family can still be compensated by my work. It's a form of inheritance. If you don't have children, you may find it difficult to understand why this clause is in there.
The laws were written for people first; it's only recently that corporations were considered to be "people" under the law - much more recent than copyright law itself.
It is clear to me the intent of copyright is just, but the application of it in the world right now is corrupt. This is the essence of the argument against copyright, as it currently stands.
No, your argument appears to be more against abuse of the copyright system by corporations - that's not an argument against copyright. That's an argument against the abuse of it.
Also, I find it funny that this argument against copyright would in fact never actually solve the problem you put forwards - and in the process, it'll also hurt every artist and indivdual creator of intellectual works out there.
There have been numerous laws in the US that have been changed because the general population didn't agree with them; several in the last 10 years that I can think of off the top of my head. Several more in the last 100 that changed the shape of our country. Just because it's law doesn't make it right or just....especially in America.
Similarly, just because a lot of people don't think that others deserve copyright protection, that doesn't make it right or just to ignore it and copy other peoples' work.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
This is basic kindergarten stuff. Come on.
agree, however if the combined recording industries (RIAA) traditionally only made $0.25 per CD and file sharing cut that number to a third your statement would be true. We know that's not the case and that's why people get pissed. Companies in general don't get to the multi-billion dollar range without screwing SOMEONE over.
Who said anything about the companies? We were both specifically talking about that the CREATORS of the intellectual property - not the RIAA or any other middle-man company.
The minority of the masses has recognized this and want to promote change within that industry (from a consumer standopint) using economic might. Since this particular industry knows that, instead of changing their business to better suit a growing digital economy, they choose to frighten, sue and jail their consumer base. Nice.
If that was the case, they wouldn't be copying the music - they'd just stop buying it. Copying the music undermines your argument and points to the fact that whether the RIAA are making "too much money" or not is irrelevant - the only reason people copy music is because they want to get it for free, and it's easy for them to do.
It has NOTHING to do with civil disobedience. If you believe that it does, I'm very sorry for you.
The RIAA owns and sucks their artists dry while providing no real service themselves. I create/modify as a service (like the artists should be doing), and give back to the commons for others to build on instead of locking it up for life+70+{next_extension}.
You're still making money off other peoples' work with very little tangible contribution of your own.
The original authors probably don't see as much benefit as you do. But heck, you're alright, Jack.
First, nobody deserves compensation simply because they put blood, sweat and tears into something. Hard-working people lose their jobs and businesses go under all the time, and NOT for lack of effort - it's just market reality.
True. However, people are not slaves either. You should not expect anyone else to work for you for free. If you do, there is something wrong with your values.
Second, even WITH artificial monopolies, the difference between a service or tangible-good and a bit of information is simple: fundamental scarcity. Tangible goods and services are both inherently scarce and thus can COMMAND a price due to limited supply, whereas a copy of a bit of information has an infinite supply which can flow freely (and easily around DRM-type blocks). The new market reality -- in which hundreds of millions of people selfishly reject carrying-over artificial scarcity -- says that creators will have to figure out how to get paid for their scarce SERVICE of original creation, rather than non-scarce instances of freely available old work that is no longer tied to a scarce-medium. Simple, eh?
It's simple, until you realize that the way it works is because the wide distribution allows the many to pay for the works of the one. Specifically, the price of a good tends to zero as more people buy it.
That does not mean that it should be zero. That just means that with all things equal, it will reach zero as the number of people involved in the transaction increase.
This is very different to what is occurring with copyright infringement today - where the price becomes zero, but without any compensation going to the artist.
And no, it's not selfish to expect payment for your work - any more than it's selfish to try to put food on your own table.
And I put my money where my mouth is. What do I do for a living? I sell the value-add service of creating, modifying and integrating open-source environments. I make it point to reject software-as-a-product when the pragmatic future is obviously software-as-a-service. Microsoft made a fortune because of a temporary imbalance.
In other words, you act as a middle man and make money off other peoples' work with very little tangible contribution to that body of work. Sounds like you're the equivalent of the RIAA.
Sharing an .mp3 file is not "stealing music". If I steal something from you, I deprive you of what was once yours to do with as you please. Filesharing does not satisfy this definition
Yes, it does.
I have a value that I place on my work.
You place a value on my work too - otherwise you would not go to the effort to copy it.
You give me nothing in return for my work - not what I value it at, not what you value it at. You take it outright.
That is stealing - or taking without fair trade in return.
It doesn't matter how easy it is to copy something - that is a red herring.
I'd be interested to hear how one could boycott the RIAA and still pay for 90% of the music you hear on the radio.
You would have to put off your gratification, and not pay for that music. You would not get the chance to 'own' that music, period. You would have to do without.
Most people don't actually give a damn about the RIAA - it's just a nice scapegoat they came up with - so they just copy the music and claim that they're doing it to stick it to the man. Really, they're copying it because they want music for free, without paying the creator for the privilege. They're freeloaders. Wastrels. Bums. Panhandlers - but worse, they take what they want without asking for it.
Any attempts to criminalize an exchange of music, (or art, or digital reproduction of any kind,) when the people sharing are not attempting to sell it, are nothing more than a thuggish cartel trying to bully the populace into adhering to a system that allows their parasitic existence.
Funny... speaking as someone who makes a living by creating intellectual property... I'm not a cartel. I'm also not a thug. And no, I'm not trying to bully the populace.
And if you think I have a parasitic existence? I'm the one creating things which are being copied wholesale by people who think that they have a God-given right to the fruits of MY hard work.