the need for artificial scarcity is clearly a flaw in this broken system
Interesting. I think I get your point but feel free to tell me if I don't. You're saying that, because a single piece of work can be infinitely duplicated, essentially free of charge, that the laws of supply and demand do not apply. But you said it yourself, "pirates are only hurting themselves if they fail to pay the artist and the artist is unable to produce more media."
You could argue there's only one Mona Lisa, but I'll tell you that it can be recreated pretty much to the molecule with current technology. Does that make the original Mona Lisa worth less? You would say it does and there would be people who agree with you.
But there would be people who would disagree because they understand the original is unique. Same with a piece of music or a game. You are right that you're not taking away anything from the artist but because there is a need for money you are possibly preventing any more original works to be created.
There is a reason for the term "struggling artist". Because people don't believe art is always worth money, or at least not what artists are asking, those artists generally are forced to get other jobs and be artistic in their spare time. If you want more art, games, music, movies, you can't stop contributing to the cause.
If artists need to introduce artificial scarcity to continue doing what they love and participating in society, then that is a fault of a broken system, not people who do no harm to others.
The thing is, people need to survive. It was decided a long time ago that money made the trade of goods and services easier -- including those required to feed and clothe oneself. If artists had to provide these things by themselves (farming, for example) we'd have less artists and less music.
I'm not sure what you're hoping for in a solution. I spent money (aka lessened my time to survive) to provide this game hoping that you would like it enough to pay me what I feel it is worth (aka returning my time to survive). If you think copying it and giving it to someone else to play doesn't hurt me, you're wrong. They are playing the game that I've determined there should be recompense when they do so. Part of the agreement in fact.
If you give them a copy and they do not play it, that's perfectly ok with me. But I'm charging for the entertainment received -- if they play it, they should pay.
I remember installing Wing Commander on a Pentium processor. Normally it ran on a 486. It sped up the game. By about 20 times. You launched and you were half a map away from the combat before you could turn around. When you were pointed at it you held down the trigger and flew threw microsecond long explosions. Then you were half the map away again. You got used to it though.
You'd sort of expect that, with all the processor enhancements since, that Microsoft Office would open faster than in 1995. But you know what, that speed of opening scaled fairly well -- just a few seconds then, a few seconds now. Not sure what happened with Office XP. I'm thinking 1000 cores won't save my Firefox from taking up 500 MB of memory so I'm still out of luck there.
You're really overthinking this. I pay $60,000/year for 50 developers/artists/writers for 3 years to create a game. That's $9,000,000 out of my pocket to put out a piece of entertainment for others to enjoy. Let's say I need to pay that big loan back at some point and it would just take too long waiting tables. So I sell my game at $60 per copy. I need to sell 150,000 copies of that game to break even. I'm not Electronic Arts or Blizzard so I'm not famous nor do I have a large marketing budget. The only thing I have going for me is that the first game I put out got noticed because a lot of long hours put in by talented people was noticed.
Now I have people playing the game, but not giving me any credit in a form that allows me to pay my debtors: money. Sure people love the game and I'm proud of that. But I also have about $10,000 in loan payments every month. It's never hopeless -- I wouldn't have attempted this whole project if I thought it was sink or swim. But I put a lot of money into this and I'm selling it for a financial return. It's fair. It's how it works. Food and rent cost money. I don't have to make this game. But I do, and if you like it, pay me for it. Pay the developers and the artists.
If you don't, then they are out of their homes because I didn't really have $9,000,000. I had $6,000,000. This was their big break. I made the promise. But really, I'd rather that you throw bricks at plate glass windows than use my software without paying. Those windows don't have DRM and I bet it would be entertaining as well.
Too bad you're an AC. I could have told you that many universities are moving to Live@Edu which is the Microsoft offering of cloud-based authentication, email, calendaring, etc on par with Google. If the whole university takes it, MS usually offers it for free.
Would be nice if Airplay would stream through something else. That handy Remote app from Apple is great but limits you to your iTunes library on your computer. I'd rather see it work with another iPhone.
His question begs more questions -- do his employees travel? Do they stream video? Do they do heavy processing? What OSes do their applications run best on? Can you virtualize OSes or will that overhead affect the heavy-duty nature of the applications? Do you have the know-how to build your own central authentication service using LDAP, Kerberos, etc? Or would you better served with an Active Directory? And would it make more sense to pay for Cloud-based AD from Microsoft rather than maintaining in-house servers? How much people-power do you have for IT?
You just have to know the right questions to ask, then your infrastructure defines itself.
Republicans use Fox. Democrats use the Daily Show. I use Slashdot comments.
Everyone has their news sources of choice. I'm fairly certain there is no sure source of information: even your own memory goofs up (see that game "Telephone" from elementary school). We do the best we can. The problem, these days, is that the "trusted" sources of information are going for the excitement factor rather than the truthiness factor. So "Aliens land in LA!" takes precedence over "Mexican immigrants take boat to San Diego".
I'm not sure who is to blame here, but I think it's desire for money. Whatever sells goes on the front page.
Better yet, if you are going to be an ass in your reply - just don't reply.
I learned this on the Everquest boards back in 1999. People read your post history and make judgements. Unless you want to be labeled a jerk with evidence proving you're a jerk, just be friendly or silent. Friends are way more useful than enemies.
Or you can be like Ender: if you're going to use violence, finish them off so they can't come back later with more troops.
I suppose the question should really be "Why?" Competition is the first answer to that, of course. That will drive innovation, keep costs down, etc. And it gives Linux a goal as well -- to strive to be more user-friendly. Apple already has an amazing Unix-based OS and Windows has come a long way. Linux on the desktop serves that interesting niche between too-expensive Apple Hardware and the too-expensive Windows software. Apple wins on easy interactivity, Windows wins on all around functionality (ie, gaming). Linux wins on...being less expensive I suppose.
I wonder if 2014 is going to be our Y2K with companies rushing to upgrade their applications before Microsoft cuts support. They'll need to find developers who are familiar with the old formatting tags and javascript hassles that IE6 brought with it. Bone up all you 5 digiters, we'll have need of your archaic experience soon enough!
Or even better, we could give kids free time so they can explore things they like rather than shoving things you like down their throats.
Reality: You get plenty of free time after college. Your youth should be filled with experiences and learning things in addition to ABCs and 123s counts. It's a rare child that, left to their own devices, does anything other than watch TV and play video games. Yes, I'm still bitter I didn't stick with piano lessons. And then I became IT so I don't have room for a piano because of my cluster of SETI@home nodes and 3-monitor display (two for WoW, one to monitor the kitchen appliances).
Okay, I've never played WoW. I was an Everquest guy for a couple years though.
Start with the concept that all wars are fought over resources. You get the masses behind your country by playing to their emotions ("Our duke was assassinated!"), their religion ("Heathens in the desert!"), beliefs ("Stop the evil spread of Communism!"), etc. The only one I'm not 100% on is World War II. We tried pretty hard to stay out of that, but Germany was certainly causing a lot of true grief.
Sometime in the late 80s I was watching the news and they kept using the term "fiery car crash" versus "traffic accident" in one news story. It literally went like this:
"This just in, a fiery car crash on I-95 has stopped traffic in both directions for miles. The cause of the fiery car crash is as yet unknown. Tom is live at the scene. Tom, what can you tell us about the fiery car crash?"
So it's fine that they're letting us know that it's "fiery" and all, but that was my first taste of true news sensationalism taking to an idiotic degree. It's continued ever since. And don't lash out at me to tell me it's always been like this. Even if you're just explaining your experience.;-)
There is absolutely no reason Apple couldn't do this, while still preserve their "user experience".
I do wonder how well the Android apps are doing in terms of stability across the various android "flavors" or simply as quality applications on any flavor. There's no vetting process if you can get apps from anywhere, so I suppose that, as long as they aren't crashing your phone, it's all good.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure someone else will come forward so I don't need to.
the need for artificial scarcity is clearly a flaw in this broken system
Interesting. I think I get your point but feel free to tell me if I don't. You're saying that, because a single piece of work can be infinitely duplicated, essentially free of charge, that the laws of supply and demand do not apply. But you said it yourself, "pirates are only hurting themselves if they fail to pay the artist and the artist is unable to produce more media."
You could argue there's only one Mona Lisa, but I'll tell you that it can be recreated pretty much to the molecule with current technology. Does that make the original Mona Lisa worth less? You would say it does and there would be people who agree with you.
But there would be people who would disagree because they understand the original is unique. Same with a piece of music or a game. You are right that you're not taking away anything from the artist but because there is a need for money you are possibly preventing any more original works to be created.
There is a reason for the term "struggling artist". Because people don't believe art is always worth money, or at least not what artists are asking, those artists generally are forced to get other jobs and be artistic in their spare time. If you want more art, games, music, movies, you can't stop contributing to the cause.
If artists need to introduce artificial scarcity to continue doing what they love and participating in society, then that is a fault of a broken system, not people who do no harm to others.
The thing is, people need to survive. It was decided a long time ago that money made the trade of goods and services easier -- including those required to feed and clothe oneself. If artists had to provide these things by themselves (farming, for example) we'd have less artists and less music.
I'm not sure what you're hoping for in a solution. I spent money (aka lessened my time to survive) to provide this game hoping that you would like it enough to pay me what I feel it is worth (aka returning my time to survive). If you think copying it and giving it to someone else to play doesn't hurt me, you're wrong. They are playing the game that I've determined there should be recompense when they do so. Part of the agreement in fact.
If you give them a copy and they do not play it, that's perfectly ok with me. But I'm charging for the entertainment received -- if they play it, they should pay.
I remember installing Wing Commander on a Pentium processor. Normally it ran on a 486. It sped up the game. By about 20 times. You launched and you were half a map away from the combat before you could turn around. When you were pointed at it you held down the trigger and flew threw microsecond long explosions. Then you were half the map away again. You got used to it though.
You'd sort of expect that, with all the processor enhancements since, that Microsoft Office would open faster than in 1995. But you know what, that speed of opening scaled fairly well -- just a few seconds then, a few seconds now. Not sure what happened with Office XP. I'm thinking 1000 cores won't save my Firefox from taking up 500 MB of memory so I'm still out of luck there.
You're really overthinking this. I pay $60,000/year for 50 developers/artists/writers for 3 years to create a game. That's $9,000,000 out of my pocket to put out a piece of entertainment for others to enjoy. Let's say I need to pay that big loan back at some point and it would just take too long waiting tables. So I sell my game at $60 per copy. I need to sell 150,000 copies of that game to break even. I'm not Electronic Arts or Blizzard so I'm not famous nor do I have a large marketing budget. The only thing I have going for me is that the first game I put out got noticed because a lot of long hours put in by talented people was noticed.
Now I have people playing the game, but not giving me any credit in a form that allows me to pay my debtors: money. Sure people love the game and I'm proud of that. But I also have about $10,000 in loan payments every month. It's never hopeless -- I wouldn't have attempted this whole project if I thought it was sink or swim. But I put a lot of money into this and I'm selling it for a financial return. It's fair. It's how it works. Food and rent cost money. I don't have to make this game. But I do, and if you like it, pay me for it. Pay the developers and the artists.
If you don't, then they are out of their homes because I didn't really have $9,000,000. I had $6,000,000. This was their big break. I made the promise. But really, I'd rather that you throw bricks at plate glass windows than use my software without paying. Those windows don't have DRM and I bet it would be entertaining as well.
Too bad you're an AC. I could have told you that many universities are moving to Live@Edu which is the Microsoft offering of cloud-based authentication, email, calendaring, etc on par with Google. If the whole university takes it, MS usually offers it for free.
Would be nice if Airplay would stream through something else. That handy Remote app from Apple is great but limits you to your iTunes library on your computer. I'd rather see it work with another iPhone.
far better in terms of operating like a normal company with blackberries, etc.
How Smartphone Users See Each Other
His question begs more questions -- do his employees travel? Do they stream video? Do they do heavy processing? What OSes do their applications run best on? Can you virtualize OSes or will that overhead affect the heavy-duty nature of the applications? Do you have the know-how to build your own central authentication service using LDAP, Kerberos, etc? Or would you better served with an Active Directory? And would it make more sense to pay for Cloud-based AD from Microsoft rather than maintaining in-house servers? How much people-power do you have for IT?
You just have to know the right questions to ask, then your infrastructure defines itself.
It's all Southern California: blonde and well-tanned.
Republicans use Fox.
Democrats use the Daily Show.
I use Slashdot comments.
Everyone has their news sources of choice. I'm fairly certain there is no sure source of information: even your own memory goofs up (see that game "Telephone" from elementary school). We do the best we can. The problem, these days, is that the "trusted" sources of information are going for the excitement factor rather than the truthiness factor. So "Aliens land in LA!" takes precedence over "Mexican immigrants take boat to San Diego".
I'm not sure who is to blame here, but I think it's desire for money. Whatever sells goes on the front page.
Better yet, if you are going to be an ass in your reply - just don't reply.
I learned this on the Everquest boards back in 1999. People read your post history and make judgements. Unless you want to be labeled a jerk with evidence proving you're a jerk, just be friendly or silent. Friends are way more useful than enemies.
Or you can be like Ender: if you're going to use violence, finish them off so they can't come back later with more troops.
Is this supposed to be a revelation that a omnipotent, profitable monopoly like Apple is too controlling?
No, it's a trailer for his book. That is all.
I suppose the question should really be "Why?" Competition is the first answer to that, of course. That will drive innovation, keep costs down, etc. And it gives Linux a goal as well -- to strive to be more user-friendly. Apple already has an amazing Unix-based OS and Windows has come a long way. Linux on the desktop serves that interesting niche between too-expensive Apple Hardware and the too-expensive Windows software. Apple wins on easy interactivity, Windows wins on all around functionality (ie, gaming). Linux wins on...being less expensive I suppose.
Talking home desktops here, not enterprise.
I wonder if 2014 is going to be our Y2K with companies rushing to upgrade their applications before Microsoft cuts support. They'll need to find developers who are familiar with the old formatting tags and javascript hassles that IE6 brought with it. Bone up all you 5 digiters, we'll have need of your archaic experience soon enough!
Or even better, we could give kids free time so they can explore things they like rather than shoving things you like down their throats.
Reality: You get plenty of free time after college. Your youth should be filled with experiences and learning things in addition to ABCs and 123s counts. It's a rare child that, left to their own devices, does anything other than watch TV and play video games. Yes, I'm still bitter I didn't stick with piano lessons. And then I became IT so I don't have room for a piano because of my cluster of SETI@home nodes and 3-monitor display (two for WoW, one to monitor the kitchen appliances).
Okay, I've never played WoW. I was an Everquest guy for a couple years though.
Leia's metal bikini?
Wasn't that with Jabba in Return?
the xbox 360 is getting its ass kicked right now
I don't think you're reading it right. Hint: Big numbers are better.
Agreed on most points but my old GTS6800 didn't hold up to Dragon Age. So it's upgrade time on March 11.
The lord PUSHeth and the lord POPeth away.
Good information. Why did we freeze Japanese assets an embargo trade with them?
This was interesting:
What are the causes of World War II
Start with the concept that all wars are fought over resources. You get the masses behind your country by playing to their emotions ("Our duke was assassinated!"), their religion ("Heathens in the desert!"), beliefs ("Stop the evil spread of Communism!"), etc. The only one I'm not 100% on is World War II. We tried pretty hard to stay out of that, but Germany was certainly causing a lot of true grief.
Someone needs to clarify "fair use". Someone with a big baseball bat.
Sometime in the late 80s I was watching the news and they kept using the term "fiery car crash" versus "traffic accident" in one news story. It literally went like this:
"This just in, a fiery car crash on I-95 has stopped traffic in both directions for miles. The cause of the fiery car crash is as yet unknown. Tom is live at the scene. Tom, what can you tell us about the fiery car crash?"
So it's fine that they're letting us know that it's "fiery" and all, but that was my first taste of true news sensationalism taking to an idiotic degree. It's continued ever since. And don't lash out at me to tell me it's always been like this. Even if you're just explaining your experience. ;-)
There is absolutely no reason Apple couldn't do this, while still preserve their "user experience".
I do wonder how well the Android apps are doing in terms of stability across the various android "flavors" or simply as quality applications on any flavor. There's no vetting process if you can get apps from anywhere, so I suppose that, as long as they aren't crashing your phone, it's all good.