I never investigated these further, but I always assumed these 'JetBlue####' Access Points were from JetBlue Airplanes, and I was lucky enough to be within line-of-sight of these signals. The airplanes were a few miles above us, which seems pretty distant for a Wifi signal...
You also have quite a bit of metal in the way of any access points intended to serve the cabin.
If Apple could take payments without incidentally knowing where the card was issued, no doubt they would to reduce their legal liability. The problem is, in order to accept payment via a credit card they have to know where the credit card is issued by, and thus they have the info to limit downloads.
Only if they specifically do this. Regular validation scripts in theory only need to do ISO 7812 checking. Publically available examples also perform some MII and prefix NII. In order identify the card issuer you need the full NII database, something which is not easily available and probably not cheap either. You most defintly do not need this information for a credit card transaction.
Remember, this is civil law, not criminal.
Remember this is the EU, not North America. If Apple were actually operating their systems in the EU they'd be subject to data protection laws. Even if Apple were to store customer's credit card details they could not share that data with random third parties. It would be difficult for the record companies to identify Apple's customers without enguaging in some serious law breaking, most likely criminal rather than civil.
DVD zoning puts all of the EU in one zone, so it doesn't violate EU rules.
Completely wrong some parts of the EU are in Zone 2, other parts are in Zone 5. There are also plenty of non EU countries in both of these two zones. Not that the DVD zones actually correspond with DVD "releases" that well in the first place.
Companies don't like to change prices every week based on the exchange rate.
It's rather trivial for a website to keep track of exchange rates very much more frequently. Or you just price in one currency and let the banks handle the sums. Possibly with an additional complication of the currency differing per item. e.g. reflecting the nationality of the "artist"...
Different tax rates seem to be part of the issue here (or so it seems from reading other comments). TFA also suggests that prices vary according to the countries' currencies. I don't know how quickly exchange rates shift, but I could imagine Apple setting the price point equal everywhere and then exchange rates shifting to create price disparity.
It's not really relevent. Banks handle currency exchanges without trouble. If Apple were to simply price everything in one currency there wouldn't be anywhere near such a problem.
I don't know about an online store, but national US chains do charge different prices in different states. Products tend to be cheaper in lower income regions of the US. It doesn't really make sense to hold prices constant while allowing average income to differ.
But do these shops screen customers at the door and tell everyone that they can only shop at one specific shop? AFAIK nothing stops "rich people" shopping in a "poor area" store.
The EU is meant to be a single common market, without restrictions on where people from one country can buy stuff. If it's cheaper to buy a car in Germany than in France then there shouldn't be any barrier preventing a frenchman from going to Germany to buy a car.
Or ordering a car from someone selling one in Germany. If car sellers are daft enough to overprice cars in France higher than in Germany then an industry will develop of people supplying cars to French people from Germany. (Probably having a good laugh if the cars in question are being made by Renault or Citron...)
Any company that prevents cross border trading, is breaking the law. The problem with iTunes, is that it does not allow a Brit to buy at French prices and so on because the user is registered in their home country and is forced to buy at the domicile prices. This restriction only happens on digital products because physical products can easily be purchased in the country of ones choosing by showing up and buying the stuff over the counter.
Alternativly by ordering things via post, telephone or even The Internet.
If a German buys a music CD in France, and takes the CD home to Germany... what copyright laws govern that CD? French copyright laws while in France, and Germany copyright law while in Germany? Or always French copyright law, since that is where the purchase occurred? Or is it always German copyright law, since the German is still a German citizen at the time of the purchase? If the CD is purchased specifically to take it home to Germany, does this change the situation any?
There's also that a person's place of residence and the location of their bank has nothing to do with their citizenship. A German may live in France. A French person could easily hold a credit card issued by a German bank. There may even be situations where you cannot identify the "nationality" of an issuing bank from the 16 digit card number.
Okay, suppose you're Apple. BMG agrees to license you to make a copy of a Frank Sinatra song within France, providing you pay the $0.30 every time you do so. They agree to let you make a copy of the same Frank Sinatra song within Germany for $0.40 every time you do so. The act of making a copy is the act of allowing a person to download it and is dependent upon where the person doing the downloading is located.
This is debatable. It is just as possible to argue that the copy takes place where the server is located.
EU law enforces copyright separately in each country and just because you licensed the right to make a copy in France for $0.30 each copy, that does not grant you any right to do the same thing in Germany at any price.
But there is nothing stopping that copy being made in France then transported anywhere within the EU.
So you offer these songs for sale, with one Website per country and one price per country. Now, because of billing you are given extra information about the likely whereabouts of the downloader. If a person goes to the french store and uses a German credit card, the courts are likely to rule that you (Apple) should reasonably know they are actually in Germany.
That the card is issued to Germany means very little about the location of the card holder. Also asking them for personal information which is not actually needed is likely to be against data protection laws which exist in the EU.
"They told me I had to do it like this" isn't very compelling, but "We only have an agreement with the copyright holder to sell this song in x country" and "we have to pay different distributes different prices in different countries, so we are just passing this on" sound much more legal.
Would ITunes US be able to split itself into 50 odd geographical stores, with different product lineups and different prices?
Or are you suggesting that they just sell whatever music wherever, and get sued by all the music copyright holders?
Except that these copyright holders would have to sue Apple in the EU. Sueing someone for obeying the "law of the land" isn't exactly the best of ideas.
Metropolitcan police shot Jean Charles de Menezes in the head numerous times.
While this is an extreme case, the UK is not all that concerned about a lot of things it should be. The policemen were acquitted....
They wern't "acquitted", since they were never even charged with an crime. AFAIK they wern't even arrested.
Algae is better for biofuel but even better would be to use the algae to produce hydrogen.
Hydrogen is not easy to store and transport in normal enviromental conditions. Methanol (and methyl esters), ethanol (and ethyl esters), esters of propan-1,2,3-ol, even methane are considerably easier to handle. Including being capable of being fed into existing fuel distribution systems.
Growing fuel in the dirt is very hard on the planet. Not only does it suck up a lot of land (on top of what we already need to grow food) it also covers that land with one single crop that needs all sorts of nasty things such as pesticides and fertilizer
If the intended product is alcohol there isn't any real need for a monoculture all the yeast cares about is a supply of sugar, typically from the fruits/seeds of a plant. Similarly if the wanted product is vegetable oil a mixture of oils may be just as good, even better, than those from a single plant.
The best bet for biofuels is something that has less of an impact on the soil and the planet, such as algae based biofuels. Algae is grown in tanks, so the process requires less land, and any chemicals used in the process can be contained so it isn't spread over open land.
Or you find some suitable plants which will grow as "weeds", thus don't need careful tending.
I have a friend whose a farmer. Like all farmers he's complaining about the rediculously low price he gets for corn and soybeans (which can be used to make ethonol and diesel) to the point where it pays $10 more a ton to haul garbage than he gets for a ton of corn.
You can also make fuel from garbage, including fueling garbage trucks with used cooking oil.
Some of the greatest achievements of film, like most of the work of Ingmar Bergman and other auteurs, was done on small budgets with state subsidies or private patronage. Profit by the masses going to the film was not a necessary result for the film to be seen as a success.
There are also highly popular films which struggled to get made. As in other areas the publishing industry is not always too good at judging the tastes and moods of the public.
Well, if you think that "a good movie" means a film with poor acting and more attention paid to flashy special effects and Hollywood tropes than meaning or atmosphere, I guess the future may suck for you, but I'm sure films that stand the test of time will continue to be paid.
Movies are not the only forms of acting. Live action drama is still a very popular form of entertainment, sometimes with no "set" at all. Also popular are audio plays. Then there is television drama, a cousin of movies, which appears to provide far more value in terms of the quantity of content.
A movie 'starring' George Clooney is going to make (at least) $50m more than a movie 'starring' Steve Buscemi.
Has this ever actually been put to the test. i.e. the same movie being made with both "stars" and "unknowns"? It also depends on the type of movie "stunt doubles" may have to do a lot of difficult acting for very little recognition. As well as there being various situations where you may never see the actual actor...
With content, it is exactly the other way 'round: Stealing it increases its value. There is no region code, no mandatory previews to watch, no annoying FBI warning, no copy restriction, in the case of software, no need to keep the CD at hand and insert it when you want to play or a dongle to plug in (and render that port unusable 'cause whatever else you might want to plug in won't work), no unwanted spyware installed with your content, no restriction drivers that interfere with other software or even harm your hardware, nothing of the ever increasing pests that clog the movies and software of today.
There's also a lack of geographic restriction. The "pirate" version can easily be available months/years before any offically blessed "release". In some situations it may be the only version which is ever going to be available in certain places.
Nope, look at the reasons the US govt is giving, 'the money supports drug lords', 'the money supports terrorists', 'Online gambling is being blocked because of moral reasons'. The first 2 are bunk because Antigua monitors their gaming establishments very carefully, they are about 30% of the countries GNP.
When it comes to supporting drug lords the US "war on drugs" is likely to provide a lot of support. The US is also one of the major supporters of terrorism. Even if Antiguan gambling did do either of these this would simply be be a case of the "pot calling the kettle black".
why does the things the usa does stand out as especially egregious? i see the same level of stink and hypocrisy and arrogance and evil in all 3 countries. so why aren't you hating russia or china?
I don't recall either Russia or China claiming to be "leader of the free world". Let alone claiming to be the "land of the free" (whilst being "number one" when it comes to people in jail.) Nor does either country claim to be "promoting democracy".
You suggest a prohibition type scenario. If you look around you perhaps you might understand what happens when government prohibits something that the people want. The people do it ANYWAY. Example - alchol in the 20's. Drugs today. Prohibition enables organized crime to get rich from the public vice. It does not stop the vice.
If anything prohibition makes things considerably worst. Since black markets lack any form of regulation and control. However lacking that regulation might be it's better than nothing.
The US allows "remote gambling" if the company offering the gambling is based in the US
The US has banned "remote gambling" for all companies not in the US
Is that simple enough? This is about enforcing different rules based on where the company is offering the services from, and NOT the services themselves. key difference.
Sounds more like what matters is where the company has its "head office". Which is even more arbitraty.
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I never investigated these further, but I always assumed these 'JetBlue####' Access Points were from JetBlue Airplanes, and I was lucky enough to be within line-of-sight of these signals. The airplanes were a few miles above us, which seems pretty distant for a Wifi signal...
You also have quite a bit of metal in the way of any access points intended to serve the cabin.
If Apple could take payments without incidentally knowing where the card was issued, no doubt they would to reduce their legal liability. The problem is, in order to accept payment via a credit card they have to know where the credit card is issued by, and thus they have the info to limit downloads.
Only if they specifically do this. Regular validation scripts in theory only need to do ISO 7812 checking. Publically available examples also perform some MII and prefix NII. In order identify the card issuer you need the full NII database, something which is not easily available and probably not cheap either. You most defintly do not need this information for a credit card transaction.
Remember, this is civil law, not criminal.
Remember this is the EU, not North America. If Apple were actually operating their systems in the EU they'd be subject to data protection laws. Even if Apple were to store customer's credit card details they could not share that data with random third parties. It would be difficult for the record companies to identify Apple's customers without enguaging in some serious law breaking, most likely criminal rather than civil.
Any geek worth his salt will just establish an SSH tunnel to his home network and run his VoIP call through the tunnel :)
Or a "road warrior" who's machine automatically makes a VPN connection...
DVD zoning puts all of the EU in one zone, so it doesn't violate EU rules.
Completely wrong some parts of the EU are in Zone 2, other parts are in Zone 5. There are also plenty of non EU countries in both of these two zones. Not that the DVD zones actually correspond with DVD "releases" that well in the first place.
Companies don't like to change prices every week based on the exchange rate.
It's rather trivial for a website to keep track of exchange rates very much more frequently. Or you just price in one currency and let the banks handle the sums. Possibly with an additional complication of the currency differing per item. e.g. reflecting the nationality of the "artist"...
Different tax rates seem to be part of the issue here (or so it seems from reading other comments). TFA also suggests that prices vary according to the countries' currencies. I don't know how quickly exchange rates shift, but I could imagine Apple setting the price point equal everywhere and then exchange rates shifting to create price disparity.
It's not really relevent. Banks handle currency exchanges without trouble. If Apple were to simply price everything in one currency there wouldn't be anywhere near such a problem.
I don't know about an online store, but national US chains do charge different prices in different states. Products tend to be cheaper in lower income regions of the US. It doesn't really make sense to hold prices constant while allowing average income to differ.
But do these shops screen customers at the door and tell everyone that they can only shop at one specific shop? AFAIK nothing stops "rich people" shopping in a "poor area" store.
The EU is meant to be a single common market, without restrictions on where people from one country can buy stuff. If it's cheaper to buy a car in Germany than in France then there shouldn't be any barrier preventing a frenchman from going to Germany to buy a car.
Or ordering a car from someone selling one in Germany. If car sellers are daft enough to overprice cars in France higher than in Germany then an industry will develop of people supplying cars to French people from Germany. (Probably having a good laugh if the cars in question are being made by Renault or Citron...)
Any company that prevents cross border trading, is breaking the law. The problem with iTunes, is that it does not allow a Brit to buy at French prices and so on because the user is registered in their home country and is forced to buy at the domicile prices. This restriction only happens on digital products because physical products can easily be purchased in the country of ones choosing by showing up and buying the stuff over the counter.
Alternativly by ordering things via post, telephone or even The Internet.
If a German buys a music CD in France, and takes the CD home to Germany... what copyright laws govern that CD? French copyright laws while in France, and Germany copyright law while in Germany? Or always French copyright law, since that is where the purchase occurred? Or is it always German copyright law, since the German is still a German citizen at the time of the purchase? If the CD is purchased specifically to take it home to Germany, does this change the situation any?
There's also that a person's place of residence and the location of their bank has nothing to do with their citizenship. A German may live in France. A French person could easily hold a credit card issued by a German bank. There may even be situations where you cannot identify the "nationality" of an issuing bank from the 16 digit card number.
Okay, suppose you're Apple. BMG agrees to license you to make a copy of a Frank Sinatra song within France, providing you pay the $0.30 every time you do so. They agree to let you make a copy of the same Frank Sinatra song within Germany for $0.40 every time you do so. The act of making a copy is the act of allowing a person to download it and is dependent upon where the person doing the downloading is located.
This is debatable. It is just as possible to argue that the copy takes place where the server is located.
EU law enforces copyright separately in each country and just because you licensed the right to make a copy in France for $0.30 each copy, that does not grant you any right to do the same thing in Germany at any price.
But there is nothing stopping that copy being made in France then transported anywhere within the EU.
So you offer these songs for sale, with one Website per country and one price per country. Now, because of billing you are given extra information about the likely whereabouts of the downloader. If a person goes to the french store and uses a German credit card, the courts are likely to rule that you (Apple) should reasonably know they are actually in Germany.
That the card is issued to Germany means very little about the location of the card holder. Also asking them for personal information which is not actually needed is likely to be against data protection laws which exist in the EU.
"They told me I had to do it like this" isn't very compelling, but "We only have an agreement with the copyright holder to sell this song in x country" and "we have to pay different distributes different prices in different countries, so we are just passing this on" sound much more legal.
Would ITunes US be able to split itself into 50 odd geographical stores, with different product lineups and different prices?
Or are you suggesting that they just sell whatever music wherever, and get sued by all the music copyright holders?
Except that these copyright holders would have to sue Apple in the EU. Sueing someone for obeying the "law of the land" isn't exactly the best of ideas.
Metropolitcan police shot Jean Charles de Menezes in the head numerous times.
While this is an extreme case, the UK is not all that concerned about a lot of things it should be. The policemen were acquitted....
They wern't "acquitted", since they were never even charged with an crime. AFAIK they wern't even arrested.
Algae is better for biofuel but even better would be to use the algae to produce hydrogen.
Hydrogen is not easy to store and transport in normal enviromental conditions. Methanol (and methyl esters), ethanol (and ethyl esters), esters of propan-1,2,3-ol, even methane are considerably easier to handle. Including being capable of being fed into existing fuel distribution systems.
Growing fuel in the dirt is very hard on the planet. Not only does it suck up a lot of land (on top of what we already need to grow food) it also covers that land with one single crop that needs all sorts of nasty things such as pesticides and fertilizer
If the intended product is alcohol there isn't any real need for a monoculture all the yeast cares about is a supply of sugar, typically from the fruits/seeds of a plant. Similarly if the wanted product is vegetable oil a mixture of oils may be just as good, even better, than those from a single plant.
The best bet for biofuels is something that has less of an impact on the soil and the planet, such as algae based biofuels. Algae is grown in tanks, so the process requires less land, and any chemicals used in the process can be contained so it isn't spread over open land.
Or you find some suitable plants which will grow as "weeds", thus don't need careful tending.
I have a friend whose a farmer. Like all farmers he's complaining about the rediculously low price he gets for corn and soybeans (which can be used to make ethonol and diesel) to the point where it pays $10 more a ton to haul garbage than he gets for a ton of corn.
You can also make fuel from garbage, including fueling garbage trucks with used cooking oil.
I drive by a sewage treatment plant, and a landfill a few times a week, and wonder just how much methane is just escaping into the atmosphere.
In which case the methane is acting as a "greenhouse gas".
Methane which could be captured fairly easily, and used anywhere natural gas or propane are currently used.
"Natural gas" is methane it's exactly the same chemical regardless of if it comes out of an oil well or rotting organic waste.
Some of the greatest achievements of film, like most of the work of Ingmar Bergman and other auteurs, was done on small budgets with state subsidies or private patronage. Profit by the masses going to the film was not a necessary result for the film to be seen as a success.
There are also highly popular films which struggled to get made. As in other areas the publishing industry is not always too good at judging the tastes and moods of the public.
Well, if you think that "a good movie" means a film with poor acting and more attention paid to flashy special effects and Hollywood tropes than meaning or atmosphere, I guess the future may suck for you, but I'm sure films that stand the test of time will continue to be paid.
Movies are not the only forms of acting. Live action drama is still a very popular form of entertainment, sometimes with no "set" at all. Also popular are audio plays. Then there is television drama, a cousin of movies, which appears to provide far more value in terms of the quantity of content.
A movie 'starring' George Clooney is going to make (at least) $50m more than a movie 'starring' Steve Buscemi.
Has this ever actually been put to the test. i.e. the same movie being made with both "stars" and "unknowns"? It also depends on the type of movie "stunt doubles" may have to do a lot of difficult acting for very little recognition. As well as there being various situations where you may never see the actual actor...
With content, it is exactly the other way 'round: Stealing it increases its value. There is no region code, no mandatory previews to watch, no annoying FBI warning, no copy restriction, in the case of software, no need to keep the CD at hand and insert it when you want to play or a dongle to plug in (and render that port unusable 'cause whatever else you might want to plug in won't work), no unwanted spyware installed with your content, no restriction drivers that interfere with other software or even harm your hardware, nothing of the ever increasing pests that clog the movies and software of today.
There's also a lack of geographic restriction. The "pirate" version can easily be available months/years before any offically blessed "release". In some situations it may be the only version which is ever going to be available in certain places.
Nope, look at the reasons the US govt is giving, 'the money supports drug lords', 'the money supports terrorists', 'Online gambling is being blocked because of moral reasons'. The first 2 are bunk because Antigua monitors their gaming establishments very carefully, they are about 30% of the countries GNP.
When it comes to supporting drug lords the US "war on drugs" is likely to provide a lot of support. The US is also one of the major supporters of terrorism. Even if Antiguan gambling did do either of these this would simply be be a case of the "pot calling the kettle black".
why does the things the usa does stand out as especially egregious? i see the same level of stink and hypocrisy and arrogance and evil in all 3 countries. so why aren't you hating russia or china?
I don't recall either Russia or China claiming to be "leader of the free world". Let alone claiming to be the "land of the free" (whilst being "number one" when it comes to people in jail.) Nor does either country claim to be "promoting democracy".
You suggest a prohibition type scenario. If you look around you perhaps you might understand what happens when government prohibits something that the people want. The people do it ANYWAY. Example - alchol in the 20's. Drugs today. Prohibition enables organized crime to get rich from the public vice. It does not stop the vice.
If anything prohibition makes things considerably worst. Since black markets lack any form of regulation and control. However lacking that regulation might be it's better than nothing.
The US allows "remote gambling" if the company offering the gambling is based in the US
The US has banned "remote gambling" for all companies not in the US
Is that simple enough? This is about enforcing different rules based on where the company is offering the services from, and NOT the services themselves. key difference.
Sounds more like what matters is where the company has its "head office". Which is even more arbitraty.