This story reminds me of Soviet times in Russia, say, in the 70s. For those who doesn't know - there where no Stallinist terror in the 70s in Russia, you could tell jokes about communists and nobody would ship you to Gulag for this. In fact, there was a constitution with all the right words in it, a parliament, courts, subsidized appartments and plenty of newspapers. And there were no laws forbidding critisising the Party and the state. But when you were becoming a real threat to the system, like organising movements - you would lose your job, appartment, social benefits - all perfectly legally. For most of us then economic intimidation was enough to keep quiet in public.
Chinese communists are smarter than Russians. They allow private enterprise and pursuit of happiness, as long as everybody shuts up and don't question political interests of the elite. Eeeeeh.... And you shouldn't threaten economical interests of Politbureau family members either.
USA seems to have developed (with all good intentions) a deadly mechanism to shut people up and potentially destroy them for speaking and acting freely. Legal system can be and is used as a weapon of intimidation. The fact that mechanism of protecting less wealthy citizens against legalistic intimidation by more wealthy citizens (corporates) is explicitly lacking is interesting. What would you say of a state that wouldn't protect you against physical intimidation by a local warlord? Why doesn't it protect you against legal intimidation by the guy with deeper pockets?
Now, this is sad, because America used to be a democratic ideal for us (imperfect, but better than others). It is visibly getting more Chinese by the day. First we see how an interest group or monopoly can intimidate potential competitors by slapping multimillion lawsuits left and right. Then we could expect US state trademarking the word "Freedom" and...
Experience shows that blocking SPAM at source is impossible today. The fight should be directed at beneficiaries of spam (clients of spammers). And the only effective remedy is blocklists like SPEWS.
Your friend could fight the spam indirectly if he persuaded his ISP (demon.co.uk) to adopt SPEWS filter. That would block mosf of ISPs that host spam beneficiary sites from demon.co.uk. When ALL their clients lose access to this large European provider (demon) - then ISPs would definetely notice and take action against the spammers. If not too late for themselves... (check out this tearfull public apology from a spammer at news.admin.net-abuse.email).
When you buy a CD today you are actually paying for services provided to you by the music industry:
a) value created by composer/performer (add here orchestra/sound engineeris etc.).
b) value created by maker of the medium (actual cost of CD plastic, manufacturing process and CD technology licensing fees).
c) value created by distributor, including wholesaler and the actual record shop where you bought the CD. (transport, inventory costs and shop electricity bills).
d) value create by a marketer (the guys who pay for MTV clips, promo tours, posters, A&D of new bands etc. etc.). If not for marketer you wouldn't know that piece of nice music even existed.
Now, it is clear due to technological change, price of "b" and "c" is falling like a rock. Nobody questions value of misic itself, and nobody should question value that marketers ("d") provide for us, because without them we would have no MTV etc.
My point is that industry wants to make its problem our problem.
As a consumer all I care is to hear the music I like. I don't need *a CD* of Frank Zappa. I would like to invite him over, get a beer and listen him play his guitar. Unfortunately, the guy doesn't want to play for me (because he is dead), so I am prepared to seek a substitute for live music. This is gonna be some digital medium like CD, MP3 etc.
The sad fact is that CDs from the record shop are becoming inferior medium. They are inferior because cheaper alternatives exist - MP3s, digital copying etc. Another sad fact is that marketers and authors from the music industry (who provide valuable service) can get paid only by controlling distribution channel of CDs.
But it is not my problem as a consumer. I am seeking a medium through wich get access to a music, and if technology offers me cheaper alternatives to CDs in a shop - I am taking it. Let music industry devise a way to charge me today. It was easy with CDs - you won't get is unless you pay in the shop. Let them invent how to stop me copying CDs on my 100GB hard disk... And my girlfriend's hard disk... And my friends' disk at Morpheus... what was that guy's name...
You get the point? I am not afraid to be caught, it's just one side of a business transaction with the music industry: "Hey, Mr Sony! I just got delivery of your song through MP3 file. Wanna send me a bill? Don't know how to do it? You don't even hear me? Sorry. You may take your song back any time if you want!".
Just stop that moral agonizing and calling it "stealing"! An average consumer is still prepared to pay for the music, but much less than industry used to. And now he wants to pay to other people (like paying directly to authors, or to some alternative musical cirtic who runs a website). If the industry has not come up with the solution how to collect the payments (and to downsize itself) - why some people are making it *our* problem and pushing us towards inferior technology and inferiority complex?
You say "spammers hide"? They don't. I am puzzled how to fight a dedicated spam-ISP like this one who offers "safe haven" for all bulk-mail senders that were kicked out from other ISPs.
Can I make THEIR portion of internet unreachable?
I'm no programmer. I model business I know (financial trading/sales) in UML and in Rational Rose. Then our developers pick it up, and obviously they improve the model a lot. But still they claim to generate 80% of (Java) code directly from the model?
So isn't it the future of all programming languages? When UML can describe a system, and tools (like Rose) can generate machine code, then coding is dead. From graphic notation - directly to machine code. Isn't it what everyone wants? Not only Eibola, but... sry... Java would RIP.
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This story reminds me of Soviet times in Russia, say, in the 70s. For those who doesn't know - there where no Stallinist terror in the 70s in Russia, you could tell jokes about communists and nobody would ship you to Gulag for this. In fact, there was a constitution with all the right words in it, a parliament, courts, subsidized appartments and plenty of newspapers. And there were no laws forbidding critisising the Party and the state. But when you were becoming a real threat to the system, like organising movements - you would lose your job, appartment, social benefits - all perfectly legally. For most of us then economic intimidation was enough to keep quiet in public.
Chinese communists are smarter than Russians. They allow private enterprise and pursuit of happiness, as long as everybody shuts up and don't question political interests of the elite. Eeeeeh.... And you shouldn't threaten economical interests of Politbureau family members either.
USA seems to have developed (with all good intentions) a deadly mechanism to shut people up and potentially destroy them for speaking and acting freely. Legal system can be and is used as a weapon of intimidation. The fact that mechanism of protecting less wealthy citizens against legalistic intimidation by more wealthy citizens (corporates) is explicitly lacking is interesting. What would you say of a state that wouldn't protect you against physical intimidation by a local warlord? Why doesn't it protect you against legal intimidation by the guy with deeper pockets?
Now, this is sad, because America used to be a democratic ideal for us (imperfect, but better than others). It is visibly getting more Chinese by the day. First we see how an interest group or monopoly can intimidate potential competitors by slapping multimillion lawsuits left and right. Then we could expect US state trademarking the word "Freedom" and...
The one made by Heinz and ICI for the military in WWII.
The one made for the military today.
What are other news today?Experience shows that blocking SPAM at source is impossible today. The fight should be directed at beneficiaries of spam (clients of spammers). And the only effective remedy is blocklists like SPEWS.
Your friend could fight the spam indirectly if he persuaded his ISP (demon.co.uk) to adopt SPEWS filter. That would block mosf of ISPs that host spam beneficiary sites from demon.co.uk. When ALL their clients lose access to this large European provider (demon) - then ISPs would definetely notice and take action against the spammers. If not too late for themselves... (check out this tearfull public apology from a spammer at news.admin.net-abuse.email).
If only peopl were willing to analyse economics more.
When you buy a CD today you are actually paying for services provided to you by the music industry:
a) value created by composer/performer (add here orchestra/sound engineeris etc.).
b) value created by maker of the medium (actual cost of CD plastic, manufacturing process and CD technology licensing fees).
c) value created by distributor, including wholesaler and the actual record shop where you bought the CD. (transport, inventory costs and shop electricity bills).
d) value create by a marketer (the guys who pay for MTV clips, promo tours, posters, A&D of new bands etc. etc.). If not for marketer you wouldn't know that piece of nice music even existed.
Now, it is clear due to technological change, price of "b" and "c" is falling like a rock. Nobody questions value of misic itself, and nobody should question value that marketers ("d") provide for us, because without them we would have no MTV etc.
My point is that industry wants to make its problem our problem.
As a consumer all I care is to hear the music I like. I don't need *a CD* of Frank Zappa. I would like to invite him over, get a beer and listen him play his guitar. Unfortunately, the guy doesn't want to play for me (because he is dead), so I am prepared to seek a substitute for live music. This is gonna be some digital medium like CD, MP3 etc.
The sad fact is that CDs from the record shop are becoming inferior medium. They are inferior because cheaper alternatives exist - MP3s, digital copying etc. Another sad fact is that marketers and authors from the music industry (who provide valuable service) can get paid only by controlling distribution channel of CDs.
But it is not my problem as a consumer. I am seeking a medium through wich get access to a music, and if technology offers me cheaper alternatives to CDs in a shop - I am taking it. Let music industry devise a way to charge me today. It was easy with CDs - you won't get is unless you pay in the shop. Let them invent how to stop me copying CDs on my 100GB hard disk... And my girlfriend's hard disk... And my friends' disk at Morpheus... what was that guy's name...
You get the point? I am not afraid to be caught, it's just one side of a business transaction with the music industry: "Hey, Mr Sony! I just got delivery of your song through MP3 file. Wanna send me a bill? Don't know how to do it? You don't even hear me? Sorry. You may take your song back any time if you want!".
Just stop that moral agonizing and calling it "stealing"! An average consumer is still prepared to pay for the music, but much less than industry used to. And now he wants to pay to other people (like paying directly to authors, or to some alternative musical cirtic who runs a website). If the industry has not come up with the solution how to collect the payments (and to downsize itself) - why some people are making it *our* problem and pushing us towards inferior technology and inferiority complex?
You say "spammers hide"? They don't. I am puzzled how to fight a dedicated spam-ISP like this one who offers "safe haven" for all bulk-mail senders that were kicked out from other ISPs. Can I make THEIR portion of internet unreachable?
I'm no programmer. I model business I know (financial trading/sales) in UML and in Rational Rose. Then our developers pick it up, and obviously they improve the model a lot. But still they claim to generate 80% of (Java) code directly from the model? So isn't it the future of all programming languages? When UML can describe a system, and tools (like Rose) can generate machine code, then coding is dead. From graphic notation - directly to machine code. Isn't it what everyone wants? Not only Eibola, but... sry... Java would RIP.