Larger numbers than what? Larger than avian flu or poultry farms? This is a knee-jerk statement. I think it is a red herring. Building a hydroelectric plant probably kills more cute, furry, woodland creatures than windmills do in years; but I'd be willing to read any hard science you have to offer. However, ecosystems around dams always rebound - ah the life giving power of water.
So what's the point really? Saving as many doe eyed squirrels as possible and living in the dark and cold? What source of electricity has the best trade off in 'costs associated with it'?
The fact that nuclear power does not work should be hinted by the other fact that, doh, nobody wants to build them anymore.
Except China, which plans to build quite a few brand new nuclear reactors to try and keep up with the energy requirements of their increasingly metropolitan way of life. I think they are or planning on damming the Yangtze for hydroelectric as well. I know it's easy to overlook China, as it contains the largest population of humans on Earth.:-p
I worked for AOL for nearly seven years. In that time I did a one year stint in 'retention' aka 'cancelations' aka 'saves'.
Saves is staffed in U.S. call centers that speak English as well as any native of Tuscon, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, et al. AOL was not sued a year ago. There was a suit even further back... 3.0 or 4.0 time frame that mandated cancel calls could not exceed a 10 minute hold. (That was a result of the infamous access number shortage in what '97 that choked the support lines to unprecedented levels while everyone called to bitch.)
So I'll repeat it for you simply: by Court Order hold times for cancelation will never exceed 10 minutes. The subsequent conversation to cancel an account takes about three minutes:
Hi, thanks for calling America Online.
I want to cancel my account.
Before I can do that I need some information, may I ask who is calling?
Blah
Ok Mr. Blah the security question you've given us is "what is your favorite fruit?" (or some other such question like father's middle name, etc.)
Grapes
Thank you for that; May I ask what's leading you to cancel your account?
(they give cancel driver -- if you can address it you do, if you can't you cancel the account)
Alright mr. blah to confirm, you cancelation number is 3453451209. As a convenience, you will be able to continue to use the account through the end of your billing cycle on [Date]. On that day the account will be closed. If you would like to reactivate the account you may, either with your software or by calling us here. Thanks and have a great day...
Working in Saves was the most depressing, difficult, thankless job in AOL. Half your calls are just regular old "I want to cancel no big deal" calls, then the rest are mitigating circumstances "I lost my job, my husband died, this was my son's and he moved to college" -- all of those are situations were we (the company) could help, and we would. Some small percentage would just be assholes driven to verbally abuse us and stuff... And just a few of those calls a day would drain the crap out of you.
The moral of this story is if YOU can't cancel your account when presented with an incentive is not the company's fault. If someone calls Saves and says they want to cancel because of the price we are happy to give it away or mitigate the price during a time of need. I don't see how this is AOL's fault. I can't imagine how many times I talked to someone who said "I just want to cancel, I don't want it" and I said, ok, we're all done, and gave them the last paragraph up there.
Sorry to go on a rant, but as others have commented in this thread AOL does not deserve the crap some of you people pile on high and deep. Take some personally responsibility. I got tricked into keeping it my ass.
I think there's a lot of other ways for them to make substantially more money than to just go to war for no other reason than to line their pockets.
It's myopic to think that people in power only abuse that position for themselves alone. That's where all the "conspiracy theories" come from... it's how many friends and families enjoy benefits from the same conflicts of interest. Like how do Cheney's friends in the energy industry benefit from his closed door policy meetings, how do his old friends in Halliburton benefit from no bid contracts, how Bush family cronies benefit from Carlyle (weapons, financial, energy) advancement, how does Bandar Bush and his family benefit from the removal of Hussein -- I mean the web is bigger than just one man's kickbacks. I'm only arguing these are either less obvious or less tangible. The KBR case is blatant.
And yes you are right - the revolving door as they call it from Political Service to: Consultant, Speaker, Lobbyist, Author, CEO, etc. are all very real, very lucrative post-admin occupations. I hear lobbyists make like $150k a year, hey that's not the luxury our millionaire president is used to, but it couldn't be that bad.:)
I think Clinton joked [on the Daily Show?] that with his book he's finally moved up into the top tax bracket that Bush is so fond of cutting taxes for.:-)
It's all very tricky to see a way out unless all records of government, business and the civic world were permanently and immediately open and transparent yet this would cause all manner of new unforseen problems, some disasterous. Maybe not.
This is why we will see the U.S. Freedom of Information act undermined and eventually superseded with something less 'permanently... open and transparent'. I think the unforeseen consequences you ascribe can be BOTH unclassifying documents leading to 'disastrous' problems, OR FOIA requests that lead to government embarrassment. I can't see why the populace would prefer propaganda to truth.
Re: when do you know facts are facts... if you can't tell, you move up the source chain, as I mentioned. If that's impossible you have to treat it like the jury -- it's just inadmissible, and you'd have to admit ignorance (as much as that hurts your ego to admit ignorance). We can't know everything all the time but can still make informed opinions and decisions.
Yes. You are missing something. If it was just "Taking a pay cut for options" (as you state) it would have been great. He and the other employees could have exercised them on 'Aug 31' as the op mentioned and they'd all be rich, yay. The offer was NOT a risk if you thought, in good faith, that your management wasn't going to fire you before the options vested.. Plans like these have two goals: reduce overhead by reducing payroll, increase employee loyalty by extending out the vesting date.
It would be great if those options vested the day of the agreement. If they could be exercised more or less immediately this wouldn't be an inequity worth talking about. He could have exercised them (again if they were vested) even after getting fired for at least a couple of months... then he could have at least enjoyed a couple cents on the dollar [assuming that Reals stock wasn't dropping even lower than $9]. I think he's saying "Isn't it disingenuous to offer a lower wage plus options that lock us in for 8 years of employment and then fire us all in a couple months?"
I think the point is the actual circumstance that seems less than honest, as in: "Please take a pay cut now, because we are going to fire you soon."
I'm not going to reply again, lest I start getting all riled up.
Except that he took a pay cut. A pay cut. A cut in pay. He was getting paid less because of this deal. So yes, in the last month or so after opting for this tragic share plan he made less money. I should have asked him if he got two weeks severance pay at his reduced rate. haha.
Damn them, damn them, damn them. And if that sounded a little crazy, my otherwise normal wife is irate about the Farscape situation and the emergence of Stargate. I don't want to get flamed since I know the fan base must be huge, but I just hate Stargate and see it as a rehash ("ooo those Coloreds in Egypt couldn't have built a great civilization without the help of ALIENS with super advanced technology, now us normal folks are gonna exploit that technology for fun!" The movie was insulting and the success of the series only enforces this.) That by merely existing, Stargate drove Farscape to extinction burns me up.
Sci-Fi (the channel) insinuates that the PK Wars are a way to judge viewership interest with this lie that they might be able to justify bringing Farscape back for a full 5th season. I think they are just throwing us a bone before they simply admit "that's all folks." At least the new rehash of Galactica looks promising.
I totally agree. Many people issue that you must "read both sides" but that really doesn't accomplish nearly as much as collecting facts. Context helps, so you might find yourself reading political opinion from across the spectrum; you must not take the opinion, spin or bias from the source though. Just the facts ma'am.
If you aren't getting the facts, move up the source chain until you do.
I can tackle one of those for you with common knowledge. A Halliburton subsidiary is Kellog Brown and Root -- KBR. KBR is responsible for housing and feeding our troops and handling many logistical tasks in every theatre U.S. soldiers are deployed to. The government pays KBR handsomely for it's services whenever logistics are needed. Whenever troops are deployed logistics are needed.
Troops need to eat -> KBR is there to feed them -> Tax payers foot the KBR bill -> KBR is part of Halliburton -> Cheney still recieves compensation through Halliburton (is it just stock or also a retainer of sorts? does he still have a warm seat on the board?) -> It is now in the Administration's best [financial] interest for as many troops to need as many logistics as possible for as long as possible.
The ties for Bush are a little more tenuous... munitions and oil are used profusely in wars... companies that profit from this are held by the Carlyle group, which the Bush family may benefit from indirectly.
Anyhow... it's irrefutable that Halliburton makes money from increased troop deployments. Just ask anyone who's served in Iraq: who served them food and drove the trucks?:) Then turn around and look up who owns said company.
Seems Real is 'hooked on [the revenue produced by these features] like heroin'. The post there pretty much covers everything except for the choice of the custom interface. They use a custom window on the Mac version too, and it just looks out of place and eyesore-ish. Yuck.
Wow - how many options did you have vested at the time of the 're-entrant' plan? I'm schedenfreude-ianly (to coin a word) curious about how much you stood to gain before getting the boot.
God knows it's fun to talk about money with strangers... I had options with AOL worth $600K just before the merger with TW and all the smoke they were blowing lead us to believe that our shares would grow from the merger ("Think of the SYNERGIES!"). So like a jack-ass I held on to the options instead of exercising them before the blackout. I think the blackout was at least a year, but needless by the time I could use the shares, I cashed out half; $10K for a '95 Civic coupe. And by the time I quit at the end of 2003 my remaining options bought a 12" iBook.
'Key phrase: "I was given 10,000 shares in exchange for lower pay." And that was just the icing on the great big fuck-you cake.'
He took lower pay for these worthless share/options. This is like how AOL used to say that our great stock options plan was the reason our hourly rate was so horrible. Of course the merger screwed our stocks AND more recent options, AND we got to keep our non-competitive wages as well!! It's a win win, just like Escher's example from Real.
Um, win win in that the company doesn't have to spend any money on payroll, and never has to sell you any stock!
No I don't believe that they hate are [sic] freedom, what I believe they hate is our beliefs and morality....'they', Muslims, share many of 'our', Judeo-Christian, beliefs and morals. The evidence is right there in the Koran. But that's irrelevant to me, since again this is not about religion, it's about politics.
I'd like to ask you to do a little research for me...
Given that we have "3% of the Earth's oil reserves" in our States (and territories?), and that we "import 61% of our oil from foreign countries", how long would our economy last if we imported 0% of our oil, and only drilled our own territory (ANWAR, and our territorial waters).
I know this is a thought experiment, but I'd be eternally grateful if you could reply with a well founded answer. Thanks!
After reading this one and all the comments, I have to agree on my original recommendation... if you are buying stuff from iTMS I guess you'd have to accept that it's not an investment (unless the system changes) and go back to buying CDs.:-D Thanks for taking the time for intelligent discussion.
And what about iTunes Music Store exclusives? Admittedly it's a small segment of music... for now... (cue foreboding music)
I guess if an artist or label provides music store exclusives they must agree with the iTMS terms of service... the trade off there is: "Do I enjoy these (sometimes 'gratis') exclusives despite the encumbered fair use, or do I go without?"
I know we live in an age where it's hard to 'go without' especially when breaking the law is just so dang easy... Sometimes you have to stand up for principles. If you disagree with DRM and the frameworks that surround it, don't simply break the law (that's a childish cop-out), follow the legal course and boycott.
You'll notice I got moderated troll for the above reply for merely asking Pudge for the substantive negative effects of Fairplay (in particular). You'd think an editor for Slashdot could provide a little something to back up the bias found in: "And no mention noting what Real and Apple are really fighting over: who gets to profit from [Fairplay's only reason for existing] the destruction of the users' freedom." (subtextual interpretation my own)
I would argue that whether or not an mp3 player supports Fairplay is not a negative effect of said management scheme (as it is a failure of a manufacturer to license and implement it) and therefore wished to avoid those flames.
Oh - incidentally, you may be able to resell aac's you bought from iTMS (but again... it comes down to those tricky bastards in control of copyright law):
How about the freedom to legally convert songs from the iTunes Music Store into a format that a non-Apple MP3 player can play?
Alas -- the terms of service for iTMS don't permit this. Please note before you make the tired EULA argument... the terms of service are not a eula:)
Fortunately, you do already have the freedom to enjoy non-DRM digital music that works on players besides the iPod and can be resold under fair use. In fact, you mentioned it in your post: Buy CDs.
Since you've listed the 'positive effects' to back up a point, how about listing those 'negative effects as well' so we have enough information to make a judgement.
What are the negative effects of Fairplay other than the knee-jerk "lulls users into giving up freedoms" or "doesn't work with my favorite OS/music player"?
Attacking Playfair shows that Apple will not tolerate iTunes users who want to be in control of their own computers. It may allow people to jump through hoops to extract the plaintext - but it will always be on their terms.
Laws in our country make Playfair illegal. They are obligated to fight it. If Playfair had stayed under the radar and wasn't blasted out all over everywhere maybe Apple could have ignored it. Once you are flouting the removal of the DRM that allows them to run a business, you can bet their lawyers will be looking for remedies. But there's already a solution to this problem... if you want legal DRM free digital content (as you put it "to be in control of their own computers") you must buy CDs. Not to sound like a whiner or anything, but no one is forcing people to use iTMS. It's just simple economics, people (not me, I have yet to buy a tune from iTMS) are saying "I don't mind the restriction, or lack of ownership, or account management that comes with saving five bucks on a record." People are saying "I will accept DRM in order to save a little money and have the music now, rather than waiting for a very flat cylinder to come in the mail."
In defense of iTMS, I do like to shop around, and watch the movie trailers and enjoy the samples, but I've just never been compelled to purchase. I haven't really loved some song so much that I would buy a one off track, I'd rather own the whole record. I know iTMS sells albums, so no need to remind me. I'm saying the economics is what motivates me... I don't mind to pay a little more and get all 44 thousand bits of every second.
Now, regarding p2p etc... I know I've talked about fair use and all. P2p is great... I use it, who doesn't, but the fact is copying (note I didn't say stealing or pirating) something to which you have no right is illegal. I mean, it's the law. Until the law is changed copyright holders pretty much have an obligation to protect their material.
So anyhow - the bad guys see how easy it is for us to get something for nothing, it steams them up and they resort to DRM. You think they could just ask us to stop? "Hey all you teens sharing your Timberlake mp3s, will you please stop? You're forcing us to enact copy control regimes..." As long as it's legal to buy DRM free digital music your argument doesn't hold up. As a thought experiment - maybe we should be talking about movies instead... maybe there's a fair use argument to be made about downloading a movie... since there is no drm free outlet for digital movies. You'd still have to own a piece of plastic in our current regime.
The problem is behavioral as much as it is legal and technological.
Slashdot Mirror
Wind energy kills birds in large numbers.
Larger numbers than what? Larger than avian flu or poultry farms? This is a knee-jerk statement. I think it is a red herring. Building a hydroelectric plant probably kills more cute, furry, woodland creatures than windmills do in years; but I'd be willing to read any hard science you have to offer. However, ecosystems around dams always rebound - ah the life giving power of water.
So what's the point really? Saving as many doe eyed squirrels as possible and living in the dark and cold? What source of electricity has the best trade off in 'costs associated with it'?
Just for fairness' sake:
:-p
The fact that nuclear power does not work should be hinted by the other fact that, doh, nobody wants to build them anymore.
Except China, which plans to build quite a few brand new nuclear reactors to try and keep up with the energy requirements of their increasingly metropolitan way of life. I think they are or planning on damming the Yangtze for hydroelectric as well. I know it's easy to overlook China, as it contains the largest population of humans on Earth.
I worked for AOL for nearly seven years. In that time I did a one year stint in 'retention' aka 'cancelations' aka 'saves'.
Saves is staffed in U.S. call centers that speak English as well as any native of Tuscon, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, et al. AOL was not sued a year ago. There was a suit even further back... 3.0 or 4.0 time frame that mandated cancel calls could not exceed a 10 minute hold. (That was a result of the infamous access number shortage in what '97 that choked the support lines to unprecedented levels while everyone called to bitch.)
So I'll repeat it for you simply: by Court Order hold times for cancelation will never exceed 10 minutes. The subsequent conversation to cancel an account takes about three minutes:
Working in Saves was the most depressing, difficult, thankless job in AOL. Half your calls are just regular old "I want to cancel no big deal" calls, then the rest are mitigating circumstances "I lost my job, my husband died, this was my son's and he moved to college" -- all of those are situations were we (the company) could help, and we would. Some small percentage would just be assholes driven to verbally abuse us and stuff... And just a few of those calls a day would drain the crap out of you.
The moral of this story is if YOU can't cancel your account when presented with an incentive is not the company's fault. If someone calls Saves and says they want to cancel because of the price we are happy to give it away or mitigate the price during a time of need. I don't see how this is AOL's fault. I can't imagine how many times I talked to someone who said "I just want to cancel, I don't want it" and I said, ok, we're all done, and gave them the last paragraph up there.
Sorry to go on a rant, but as others have commented in this thread AOL does not deserve the crap some of you people pile on high and deep. Take some personally responsibility. I got tricked into keeping it my ass.
I think there's a lot of other ways for them to make substantially more money than to just go to war for no other reason than to line their pockets.
... it's how many friends and families enjoy benefits from the same conflicts of interest. Like how do Cheney's friends in the energy industry benefit from his closed door policy meetings, how do his old friends in Halliburton benefit from no bid contracts, how Bush family cronies benefit from Carlyle (weapons, financial, energy) advancement, how does Bandar Bush and his family benefit from the removal of Hussein -- I mean the web is bigger than just one man's kickbacks. I'm only arguing these are either less obvious or less tangible. The KBR case is blatant.
:)
:-)
It's myopic to think that people in power only abuse that position for themselves alone. That's where all the "conspiracy theories" come from
And yes you are right - the revolving door as they call it from Political Service to: Consultant, Speaker, Lobbyist, Author, CEO, etc. are all very real, very lucrative post-admin occupations. I hear lobbyists make like $150k a year, hey that's not the luxury our millionaire president is used to, but it couldn't be that bad.
I think Clinton joked [on the Daily Show?] that with his book he's finally moved up into the top tax bracket that Bush is so fond of cutting taxes for.
It's all very tricky to see a way out unless all records of government, business and the civic world were permanently and immediately open and transparent yet this would cause all manner of new unforseen problems, some disasterous. Maybe not.
This is why we will see the U.S. Freedom of Information act undermined and eventually superseded with something less 'permanently... open and transparent'. I think the unforeseen consequences you ascribe can be BOTH unclassifying documents leading to 'disastrous' problems, OR FOIA requests that lead to government embarrassment. I can't see why the populace would prefer propaganda to truth.
Re: when do you know facts are facts... if you can't tell, you move up the source chain, as I mentioned. If that's impossible you have to treat it like the jury -- it's just inadmissible, and you'd have to admit ignorance (as much as that hurts your ego to admit ignorance). We can't know everything all the time but can still make informed opinions and decisions.
Eh, I'm not expert... Just my two cents.
Yes. You are missing something. If it was just "Taking a pay cut for options" (as you state) it would have been great. He and the other employees could have exercised them on 'Aug 31' as the op mentioned and they'd all be rich, yay. The offer was NOT a risk if you thought, in good faith, that your management wasn't going to fire you before the options vested.. Plans like these have two goals: reduce overhead by reducing payroll, increase employee loyalty by extending out the vesting date.
... then he could have at least enjoyed a couple cents on the dollar [assuming that Reals stock wasn't dropping even lower than $9]. I think he's saying "Isn't it disingenuous to offer a lower wage plus options that lock us in for 8 years of employment and then fire us all in a couple months?"
It would be great if those options vested the day of the agreement. If they could be exercised more or less immediately this wouldn't be an inequity worth talking about. He could have exercised them (again if they were vested) even after getting fired for at least a couple of months
I think the point is the actual circumstance that seems less than honest, as in: "Please take a pay cut now, because we are going to fire you soon."
I'm not going to reply again, lest I start getting all riled up.
Except that he took a pay cut. A pay cut. A cut in pay. He was getting paid less because of this deal. So yes, in the last month or so after opting for this tragic share plan he made less money. I should have asked him if he got two weeks severance pay at his reduced rate. haha.
Sigh.
Damn them, damn them, damn them. And if that sounded a little crazy, my otherwise normal wife is irate about the Farscape situation and the emergence of Stargate. I don't want to get flamed since I know the fan base must be huge, but I just hate Stargate and see it as a rehash ("ooo those Coloreds in Egypt couldn't have built a great civilization without the help of ALIENS with super advanced technology, now us normal folks are gonna exploit that technology for fun!" The movie was insulting and the success of the series only enforces this.) That by merely existing, Stargate drove Farscape to extinction burns me up.
Sci-Fi (the channel) insinuates that the PK Wars are a way to judge viewership interest with this lie that they might be able to justify bringing Farscape back for a full 5th season. I think they are just throwing us a bone before they simply admit "that's all folks." At least the new rehash of Galactica looks promising.
I totally agree. Many people issue that you must "read both sides" but that really doesn't accomplish nearly as much as collecting facts. Context helps, so you might find yourself reading political opinion from across the spectrum; you must not take the opinion, spin or bias from the source though. Just the facts ma'am.
If you aren't getting the facts, move up the source chain until you do.
I can tackle one of those for you with common knowledge. A Halliburton subsidiary is Kellog Brown and Root -- KBR. KBR is responsible for housing and feeding our troops and handling many logistical tasks in every theatre U.S. soldiers are deployed to. The government pays KBR handsomely for it's services whenever logistics are needed. Whenever troops are deployed logistics are needed.
:) Then turn around and look up who owns said company.
Troops need to eat -> KBR is there to feed them -> Tax payers foot the KBR bill -> KBR is part of Halliburton -> Cheney still recieves compensation through Halliburton (is it just stock or also a retainer of sorts? does he still have a warm seat on the board?) -> It is now in the Administration's best [financial] interest for as many troops to need as many logistics as possible for as long as possible.
The ties for Bush are a little more tenuous... munitions and oil are used profusely in wars... companies that profit from this are held by the Carlyle group, which the Bush family may benefit from indirectly.
Anyhow... it's irrefutable that Halliburton makes money from increased troop deployments. Just ask anyone who's served in Iraq: who served them food and drove the trucks?
I think you'll find the answers to these questions here http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/2004/03/07/real_p roof
Seems Real is 'hooked on [the revenue produced by these features] like heroin'. The post there pretty much covers everything except for the choice of the custom interface. They use a custom window on the Mac version too, and it just looks out of place and eyesore-ish. Yuck.
Wow - how many options did you have vested at the time of the 're-entrant' plan? I'm schedenfreude-ianly (to coin a word) curious about how much you stood to gain before getting the boot.
God knows it's fun to talk about money with strangers... I had options with AOL worth $600K just before the merger with TW and all the smoke they were blowing lead us to believe that our shares would grow from the merger ("Think of the SYNERGIES!"). So like a jack-ass I held on to the options instead of exercising them before the blackout. I think the blackout was at least a year, but needless by the time I could use the shares, I cashed out half; $10K for a '95 Civic coupe. And by the time I quit at the end of 2003 my remaining options bought a 12" iBook.
Sigh.
As he mentioned before you even posted this comment:0 863&cid=10181632
http://interviews.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12
'Key phrase: "I was given 10,000 shares in exchange for lower pay." And that was just the icing on the great big fuck-you cake.'
He took lower pay for these worthless share/options. This is like how AOL used to say that our great stock options plan was the reason our hourly rate was so horrible. Of course the merger screwed our stocks AND more recent options, AND we got to keep our non-competitive wages as well!! It's a win win, just like Escher's example from Real.
Um, win win in that the company doesn't have to spend any money on payroll, and never has to sell you any stock!
No I don't believe that they hate are [sic] freedom, what I believe they hate is our beliefs and morality. ...'they', Muslims, share many of 'our', Judeo-Christian, beliefs and morals. The evidence is right there in the Koran. But that's irrelevant to me, since again this is not about religion, it's about politics.
I'd like to ask you to do a little research for me...
Given that we have "3% of the Earth's oil reserves" in our States (and territories?), and that we "import 61% of our oil from foreign countries", how long would our economy last if we imported 0% of our oil, and only drilled our own territory (ANWAR, and our territorial waters).
I know this is a thought experiment, but I'd be eternally grateful if you could reply with a well founded answer. Thanks!
My memories of history tells me that terrorism like murdering your government is probably equally spread among left-/right-wingers?
;)
I wouldn't call 'murdering your government' terrorism -- I would call that a coup.
Yeah, see this comment: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118988&cid =10045031
After reading this one and all the comments, I have to agree on my original recommendation... if you are buying stuff from iTMS I guess you'd have to accept that it's not an investment (unless the system changes) and go back to buying CDs. :-D Thanks for taking the time for intelligent discussion.
Hahaha -- nice. Touché!!
-sheepish grin-
And what about iTunes Music Store exclusives? Admittedly it's a small segment of music... for now... (cue foreboding music)
I guess if an artist or label provides music store exclusives they must agree with the iTMS terms of service... the trade off there is: "Do I enjoy these (sometimes 'gratis') exclusives despite the encumbered fair use, or do I go without?"
I know we live in an age where it's hard to 'go without' especially when breaking the law is just so dang easy... Sometimes you have to stand up for principles. If you disagree with DRM and the frameworks that surround it, don't simply break the law (that's a childish cop-out), follow the legal course and boycott.
You'll notice I got moderated troll for the above reply for merely asking Pudge for the substantive negative effects of Fairplay (in particular). You'd think an editor for Slashdot could provide a little something to back up the bias found in: "And no mention noting what Real and Apple are really fighting over: who gets to profit from [Fairplay's only reason for existing] the destruction of the users' freedom." (subtextual interpretation my own)
I would argue that whether or not an mp3 player supports Fairplay is not a negative effect of said management scheme (as it is a failure of a manufacturer to license and implement it) and therefore wished to avoid those flames.
How does Fairplay destroy users' freedom?
Oh - incidentally, you may be able to resell aac's you bought from iTMS (but again ... it comes down to those tricky bastards in control of copyright law):
h tml
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/09/09.4.s
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5072842.html
How about the freedom to legally convert songs from the iTunes Music Store into a format that a non-Apple MP3 player can play?
... the terms of service are not a eula :)
Alas -- the terms of service for iTMS don't permit this. Please note before you make the tired EULA argument
Fortunately, you do already have the freedom to enjoy non-DRM digital music that works on players besides the iPod and can be resold under fair use. In fact, you mentioned it in your post: Buy CDs.
Since you've listed the 'positive effects' to back up a point, how about listing those 'negative effects as well' so we have enough information to make a judgement.
What are the negative effects of Fairplay other than the knee-jerk "lulls users into giving up freedoms" or "doesn't work with my favorite OS/music player"?
Yes iTunes will play vorbis encoded oggs after you install a framework/plugin to do so. Google can solve this problem for you.
Attacking Playfair shows that Apple will not tolerate iTunes users who want to be in control of their own computers. It may allow people to jump through hoops to extract the plaintext - but it will always be on their terms.
... if you want legal DRM free digital content (as you put it "to be in control of their own computers") you must buy CDs. Not to sound like a whiner or anything, but no one is forcing people to use iTMS. It's just simple economics, people (not me, I have yet to buy a tune from iTMS) are saying "I don't mind the restriction, or lack of ownership, or account management that comes with saving five bucks on a record." People are saying "I will accept DRM in order to save a little money and have the music now, rather than waiting for a very flat cylinder to come in the mail."
... since there is no drm free outlet for digital movies. You'd still have to own a piece of plastic in our current regime.
Laws in our country make Playfair illegal. They are obligated to fight it. If Playfair had stayed under the radar and wasn't blasted out all over everywhere maybe Apple could have ignored it. Once you are flouting the removal of the DRM that allows them to run a business, you can bet their lawyers will be looking for remedies. But there's already a solution to this problem
In defense of iTMS, I do like to shop around, and watch the movie trailers and enjoy the samples, but I've just never been compelled to purchase. I haven't really loved some song so much that I would buy a one off track, I'd rather own the whole record. I know iTMS sells albums, so no need to remind me. I'm saying the economics is what motivates me... I don't mind to pay a little more and get all 44 thousand bits of every second.
Now, regarding p2p etc... I know I've talked about fair use and all. P2p is great... I use it, who doesn't, but the fact is copying (note I didn't say stealing or pirating) something to which you have no right is illegal. I mean, it's the law. Until the law is changed copyright holders pretty much have an obligation to protect their material.
So anyhow - the bad guys see how easy it is for us to get something for nothing, it steams them up and they resort to DRM. You think they could just ask us to stop? "Hey all you teens sharing your Timberlake mp3s, will you please stop? You're forcing us to enact copy control regimes..." As long as it's legal to buy DRM free digital music your argument doesn't hold up. As a thought experiment - maybe we should be talking about movies instead... maybe there's a fair use argument to be made about downloading a movie
The problem is behavioral as much as it is legal and technological.
Read Lessig's book if you haven't. It's here if you like.