So, how about we combine the two. Rather than having a fallible human fill out the card we can have that done as a printout.
So, we use the electronic system for "input validation" (make sure the person pressed the right button and only voted for 0 or 1 candidate), and then have that produce the printed "arrow" card for an optical reader to process. (Yes it may seem silly to go back to the analog after you've got the digital.)
Actually, the people you are arguing for have broken the law numerous times. Between various actions against the RIAA member companies by the FTC for price fixing to fraudulent accounting that takes money directly from the artists who are their life blood. (Look at the FTC's complaint for price fixing on the 'Three Tenors' albums. - http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/06/3tenors.htm)
Additionally, look at the legislative "edit" made to extend the work for hire clause to include musicians. Also, the efforts by the RIAA's members to get special protection from bankruptcy laws to keep artists from leaving onerous contracts after they've been financially ruined by them. Finally, look at the new powers the RIAA is saying is necessary to combat P2P.
The point is, the RIAA keeps waving this P2P bogeyman up in front of the public, and more importantly the congress, yet they can't prove any actual causal effect between P2P and record sales. In fact, the very opposite to their claims appears more likely to be true based on expert analysis.
The question of the legality of the actions of the P2P traders is moot. There already exists a body of law for the prosecution of these people. Additionally, we're already paying "taxes" on blank media to cover "lost revenues from piracy". The issue is that the RIAA has not made a convincing case that P2P is a business destroying thing that requires these new laws and powers.
I point you back to the efforts of the MPAA to stop the VCR with such colorful statements as: "The VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler is to a woman alone." At the time, they wanted to outlaw VCR's because they were going to destroy the industry. Instead, they were the savior of the industry. So, I think the RIAA should take a big step back and really and honestly evaluate the situation before they demand these new powers.
I understand that you're playing devil's advocate with this. HOWEVER, Napster was the single biggest P2P player out there. It also was the most popular and probably the easiest to use.
The fact is Napster went public around May of 1999. They enjoyed massive growth through 1999 and were hit with the RIAA lawsuit in December of that year. Now, we see that CD sales went up in both 1999 *AND* 2000. It would follow that CD sales should have dropped right along with the rise of Napster. Why would there be a lag in that dip?
I'm not trying to say that the evidence is at all conclusive. What I *AM* saying is that the evidence is certainly of a strong enough nature that the RIAA's facile explanation of "piracy cost us sales" needs a hell of a lot stronger set of facts before it can be accepted at even the basest level. (So, if I'm being held to that high level for proving a cause and effect, then they have to be too.)
Yes, the counterclaim does allow you to restore your data. It also makes you liable for a whole range of nasties if you're in violation.
The issue is that there are already procedures for getting injunctions that require the filer to produce evidence that is then evaluated. The DMCA process only requires a "suspicion" on the filers part and off you go. For a good example look at this Salon article (http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/23/ pirate/index.html)
As you can see, the takedown triggers too easily and there's not even a we're sorry at the end if they were completely wrong.
The point is that Napster bloomed in 1999 (started 4th qtr). You note that early-mid 2000 CD sales were in fact, up. CD sales started to dip along with a couple of things: first, the economy dropping, second, the RIAA's legal assault on Napster and taking it off-line. That seems like a much stronger cause-and-effect relation. (Metallica sued Napster in April of 2000 and Napster took a whole bunch of users off-line in Mayh of 2000 - further details here: http://www.idg.net/idgns/2001/04/02/NapsterTimelin e.shtml)
So, we have your sales drop occurring after Napster's height was reached and was already declining due to legal actions.
As for the Eminem album issue, I don't follow your argument. If the recording studios didn't fear losing out to on-line rip-offs, why move the release date forward? Why the studio felt they had to move the release date forward has nothing to do with reality. The reality is that the CD was already #2 based on Roxio's CDDB data of physical CD's before it was released. Now, this means that people already had a hard copy and didn't even have to go to the trouble of d/l'ing it. Now, despite all of this, the CD still enjoyed record sales. If the CD was so widely pirated (which it was) and the RIAA's proposed "piracy == lost sales" was true then the opening numbers should have been down. Instead, it seems that the advanced access only made people want the actual CD that much more.
Sometimes Google doesn't cough things up quick enough. Here's a site for you: In the beginning of this year (according to Media Metrix) some 1.1 million people were accessing Napster each month. By the end of August usage had climbed to 6.7 million per month. Source: http://www.themusic.com.au/im_m/archive/001010-229/gilbey.html I suppose you could maybe check Media Metrix as well. So that covers the 3 mill with some room to spare.
The "and thus not buying music" comment is aimed at the RIAA's statements and not at actual facts. The RIAA continues to claim that the loss in sales in directly attributable to file sharing. Almost every analysis performed has failed to back up that claim. Between economic downturns, increased DVD sales, and increased video game sales you can easily account for this loss. (There's also that increase in price in the analysis that you have to factor in as well.)
In the Eminem case it would seem that first week sales are even more relevant. Where did all the buzz come from that generated that huge sales spike? If they shifted forward the release date then they obviously weren't able to do all of the normal promotional activities you would get with an album release yet still sales soared.
Your final statement: They probably limited the damage a lot in that specific case by bringing forward the release date, so people desperate to get a copy weren't forced to download it illegally. doesn't parse at all.
First off, the statistics about Eminem were coming from GraceNote and were talking about physical CD's (see http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-923658.html for details). Second, if someone could buy an actual bootleg CD of it for $5 then why pay the RIAA tax? The first week sales were an all-time record of 1.76 million CD's. (details at http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1428613/20000531/ eminem.jhtml)
So, there's some more numbers for you complete with citations to back them up.
I really don't see how your "mathematical" refutation works. First you're using totally unkown quantities to try and boost a group by making generalizations: Today, pretty much the only people who are offline are older people who are afraid of/unable to learn the "new" technology. You then follow this up with: I highly doubt these people buy many CDs; hell, they may not even own a CD player. Of course his statistics show that these people don't buy many CD's (thus the 54% of population and only 39% of sales). Finally, you throw in: As for the nonusers, this splits into two main groups the way I see it: younger people who are against piracy and older people who don't use their computer for much more than web browsing and email. Convenient grouping. Care to back it up with any statistics or facts? I'm a P2P non-user yet I'm an IT professional with multiple computers and a broadband connection at home. I'm against piracy, but I don't classify P2P as piracy.
So, after all of this inanities you then trot out the following: Ultimately, I think the only relevant numbers would be if you could figure out the statistics for Nonusers, Dabblers, Learners, and Lovers between the ages of 13 and 25 or so and their CD purchasing habits because these are the users who make up the statistically significant number of music downloaders and purchasers.
OK, fine. Let's control for that. By your figuring the percentage of users in that group should be *MUCH* higher. So, since these people make up a significant portion of total CD sales, then a drop in CD purchases because of P2P usage would also be *MUCH* higher.
If the 13-25 group represented 75% of sales and out of that group you had 75% of the P2P learners and lovers then say a 50% drop in purchases from this group would be manifested as a greater spike in total sales losses.
Again, no matter how you slice it, the numbers just don't add up. (Controlling for age groups is irrelevant as this study is about overall CD sales.)
I still think the ol' "The VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler is to a woman alone." quote from our friend Jack Valenti shows how in touch these people are with reality.
The amazing thing is that they continue to refuse to admit that they might have been wrong about anything.
I always love this: If you don't like it, take it out on the zillions of people who are ripping off the media industries wholesale and forcing them to go down that path.
Strangely enough, the RIAA's members claim millions upon millions of file sharers and can only point to a 7% drop in sales. If there were 3 million people sharing files (and thus not buying any music) that means they must have over 42 million people buying music. Pretty impressive.
Now even more interesting. Eminem's latest album was the highest traded "CD" on P2P networks a week before the album was released. They had to move up the release date because of this. Strangely enough, the album still hit #1 in sales with a record number of copies sold. But, if everyone already had it via P2P then why was it selling at all?
The RIAA simply cannot back up its claims with any facts.
The problem is the methods that the RIAA is using and powers that they are asking for.
Currently there is a perfectly good system for finding and trying copyright infringers. Courts allow John Doe defendants and there is a whole process for requesting subpoenas to get information about ISP users. Additionally, there are already penalties for copyright infringement.
There is no need for additional laws.
The RIAA wants to completely destroy due process (the DMCA's take down provisions are "guilty until proven innocent"). They want to use poorly written laws to gain maximum advantage. Finally, they try to sneak new abilities into laws designed to fight terrorism.
Meanwhile, they're whining and crying poor and "file sharing is evil" when there's no evidence to back up their claims. In fact, to the contrary, file sharing seems to promote sales.
Finally, the member companies have been found guilty numerous times of price fixing and continue to rip off the artists who "work" for them (though with the ol' "work for hire" clause it's anything but).
So, no it's not bad for them to try to protect what is, unfortunately, legally theirs. The problem is why they should need a whole new set of laws to protect their stuff when everyone else has to deal with the legal system as it currently stands.
I'm talking more about using your nice DVD player and surround sound stereo system. Imagine the joy of $3.99 for a d/l that takes X number of hours (with X increasing by the number of users signed up for this service). Then all you can do is watch it on your computer. You don't think MS would let you output the image and sound to your big screen TV and super stereo system did you?
I think you have to look at the gestalt of DRM and then you start worrying. Think of it like the current limitation with DVD's. The system "worked" as long as you had licensed hardware accessing licensed data using licensed software. The system broke because there was no way to keep "unlicensed" software from accessing the data.
For true DRM to work then the system will have to reject all non-licensed software. This is especially true at the OS level. After all, if you can get at the bits (say use Linux or DOS to access an NTFS partition) then you're more than half way to breaking the protection.
So, generation one support of DRM probably isn't too bad a thing. It'll be an option like the ol' CPU ID thing that Intel got flamed over. It's generations two and three that we have to worry about. (Especially if any of the Disney Senators' legislation passes.)
It'll flow even worse than DivX. Let's pay the same or more for lower quality and probably get the file in more time than it'd take to drive to the local video store and get the DVD. And oh yeah, you didn't want those other languages and surround sound did you?
When will these people realize that if they're going to offer lower quality then they need to offer lower prices?
You've made one mistake with your analysis. You only get increased leverage if you can say "well I'll just take my business elsewhere". In the case of dealing with Microsoft there is no elsewhere to go to. So, if you have a greater percentage of your business coming from MS then you are in fact MORE dependent on them.
Think, if your leverage theory were true do you think MS could have forced IBM to stop loading OS/2 and Lotus Smart Suite on their boxes?
Sun's original case against Microsoft re:Java was about contract violations. MS signed a contract with Sun and then proceeded to ignore and reinterpret that contract as much as humanly possible. Sun called them out on that and they were in fact found in violation of the contract.
Sun's current case has to deal with motivations behind those contract violations. The MS/DoJ trial produced some very specific and damning activities by Microsoft in regards to Java. They talk about MS deliberately introducing incompatibilities into their implementation with the sole purpose of protecting the Windows monopoly. This goes far beyond any contract violations that were addressed in Sun's first suit against MS.
So, now we have an adjudged monopolist who violated specific sections of the Sherman Act with regards to Java. Sun is fully within its rights to pursue punitive actions against MS. In fact, there's specific language in US laws that allow for tripling any and all damages against a company when it is related to monopolist activities. (Frankly, Sun would probably be sued by their shareholders for negligence if they didn't pursue this lawsuit.)
Granted this will mean a slower growth in a P2P network, but it may be easier to defend file sharing when you are actually only sharing files with your friends and relations.
It may seem strange to buy a "PC" from Microsoft to run Linux, but let's look at it a little closer.
Microsoft LOSES money with each XBox sold. They hope to recoup that money by selling licenses to the game manufacturers. So, if say a few million XBoxes were to be sold without any game purchases it'll go straight to MS's bottom line. (So maybe it's not as ironic as it might seem.)
Look at items like that lawsuit that an ex-employee lost about an idea he developed on his own time.
More and more companies are attempting to lay claim to any and all thoughts that you have while you're employed with them. If they feel that they have the right to invade your brain and harvest the fruits of your spare time then they can't exactly complain when you confuse work and personal time as well.
Blast you! I was going to post that. Footfall is a seriously bad-ass book.
Well, you have to let me put a large steel plate under my butt before you blast please. I have to agree that it was a good read and one of the best lines in the book.
How could you be using terminal server when you log into XP when it isn't a server? XP is a desktop only version.
Have you worked with Windows Terminal Server? We've had some terrible fights with the thing to get it to work. The problems are the games it plays with the registry and user directories. Additionally, if you have anything that is using ports for communication they can get hopelessly confused. (Run a service on the Terminal Server yet try to make it available to the Terminal Server sessions, it's quite a pain.)
Terminal Server was originally written by Citrix. MS choose to license the software and has done some additional development but it certainly wasn't core MS code.
Think about it, you're trying to take a NT Server and run multiple users on it *AT THE SAME TIME*. NT simply wasn't designed to do that.
Well, you're both right on this one, but I think the key to his statement is volunteers. I would say that any community, low-income or not, that had such volunteers available could make a go of it.
While the community in question may not have the necessary volunteers in residence it seems like a good LUG outreach program. (Imaging being able to bring a T1 into a low-income housing project and offerring cheap Linux boxes to help conquer that ol' "digital divide".) You might even be able to tap into some government dollars to accomplish the task.
Also, based on Carl's statements it seems that once you tackle the legal issues once for a state you can reuse those results again and again to help get your way.
First off, have you worked with Windows Terminal Server? It's a hack on top of a kludge. MS doesn't even officially certify Office to run on top of it.
While NT, 2K, and XP support multiple users they don't support multiple users logged in at the same time. This is the crucial difference. The new XP remote desktop feature only allows you to take control of the system as it is currently logged in. If you need to make a change requiring higher permissions then things start to get sticky.
With Unix boxes you can Telnet into them even open GUI elements on remote systems and display them on your box. You can do all of this at whatever user permission you wish to log in as. This simplifies the maintenance tasks.
There were already plenty of tools for enforcing copyrights. Why do we suddenly need a whole new raft of laws because of the Internet?
If the companies really want to go after major P2P nodes then they can do the legwork and file a civil lawsuit just like they did against the guy cranking out VHS tapes in his garage.
Actually I've been an admin for a large array of different boxes from WfWG 3.11 (fun with upper memory config) to most flavors of Unix.
My point on the ongoing costs is in line with your "as long as you stay on top of security patches." Keeping Windows boxes patched is getting more and more difficult. (I support the Windows boxes in our department. We're developers so we do really horrible evil nasty things to them.)
The fact is that Windows is a single-user platform. This means that administration is either done by walking to each box or by purchasing expensive remote access tools. Unix (and Linux) are multi-user, network aware OS's by nature. You can effect all kinds of changes either remotely or through scripts without having to purchase additional software.
I'm not advocating a wholesale "rip and replace". I think the better approach would be to create the new image and start transition the boxes as they die/go wonky.
For basic Internet tasks for the public you can create a much nicer (and cheaper) system using Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
So, how about we combine the two. Rather than having a fallible human fill out the card we can have that done as a printout.
So, we use the electronic system for "input validation" (make sure the person pressed the right button and only voted for 0 or 1 candidate), and then have that produce the printed "arrow" card for an optical reader to process. (Yes it may seem silly to go back to the analog after you've got the digital.)
Actually, the people you are arguing for have broken the law numerous times. Between various actions against the RIAA member companies by the FTC for price fixing to fraudulent accounting that takes money directly from the artists who are their life blood. (Look at the FTC's complaint for price fixing on the 'Three Tenors' albums. - http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/06/3tenors.htm)
Additionally, look at the legislative "edit" made to extend the work for hire clause to include musicians. Also, the efforts by the RIAA's members to get special protection from bankruptcy laws to keep artists from leaving onerous contracts after they've been financially ruined by them. Finally, look at the new powers the RIAA is saying is necessary to combat P2P.
The point is, the RIAA keeps waving this P2P bogeyman up in front of the public, and more importantly the congress, yet they can't prove any actual causal effect between P2P and record sales. In fact, the very opposite to their claims appears more likely to be true based on expert analysis.
The question of the legality of the actions of the P2P traders is moot. There already exists a body of law for the prosecution of these people. Additionally, we're already paying "taxes" on blank media to cover "lost revenues from piracy". The issue is that the RIAA has not made a convincing case that P2P is a business destroying thing that requires these new laws and powers.
I point you back to the efforts of the MPAA to stop the VCR with such colorful statements as:
"The VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler is to a woman alone."
At the time, they wanted to outlaw VCR's because they were going to destroy the industry. Instead, they were the savior of the industry. So, I think the RIAA should take a big step back and really and honestly evaluate the situation before they demand these new powers.
I understand that you're playing devil's advocate with this. HOWEVER, Napster was the single biggest P2P player out there. It also was the most popular and probably the easiest to use.
The fact is Napster went public around May of 1999. They enjoyed massive growth through 1999 and were hit with the RIAA lawsuit in December of that year. Now, we see that CD sales went up in both 1999 *AND* 2000. It would follow that CD sales should have dropped right along with the rise of Napster. Why would there be a lag in that dip?
I'm not trying to say that the evidence is at all conclusive. What I *AM* saying is that the evidence is certainly of a strong enough nature that the RIAA's facile explanation of "piracy cost us sales" needs a hell of a lot stronger set of facts before it can be accepted at even the basest level. (So, if I'm being held to that high level for proving a cause and effect, then they have to be too.)
Yes, the counterclaim does allow you to restore your data. It also makes you liable for a whole range of nasties if you're in violation.
/ pirate/index.html)
The issue is that there are already procedures for getting injunctions that require the filer to produce evidence that is then evaluated. The DMCA process only requires a "suspicion" on the filers part and off you go. For a good example look at this Salon article (http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/23
As you can see, the takedown triggers too easily and there's not even a we're sorry at the end if they were completely wrong.
The point is that Napster bloomed in 1999 (started 4th qtr). You note that early-mid 2000 CD sales were in fact, up. CD sales started to dip along with a couple of things: first, the economy dropping, second, the RIAA's legal assault on Napster and taking it off-line. That seems like a much stronger cause-and-effect relation. (Metallica sued Napster in April of 2000 and Napster took a whole bunch of users off-line in Mayh of 2000 - further details here: http://www.idg.net/idgns/2001/04/02/NapsterTimelin e.shtml)
So, we have your sales drop occurring after Napster's height was reached and was already declining due to legal actions.
As for the Eminem album issue, I don't follow your argument. If the recording studios didn't fear losing out to on-line rip-offs, why move the release date forward?
Why the studio felt they had to move the release date forward has nothing to do with reality. The reality is that the CD was already #2 based on Roxio's CDDB data of physical CD's before it was released. Now, this means that people already had a hard copy and didn't even have to go to the trouble of d/l'ing it. Now, despite all of this, the CD still enjoyed record sales. If the CD was so widely pirated (which it was) and the RIAA's proposed "piracy == lost sales" was true then the opening numbers should have been down. Instead, it seems that the advanced access only made people want the actual CD that much more.
Sometimes Google doesn't cough things up quick enough. Here's a site for you:9 /gilbey.html
/ eminem.jhtml)
In the beginning of this year (according to Media Metrix) some 1.1 million people were accessing Napster each month. By the end of August usage had climbed to 6.7 million per month.
Source: http://www.themusic.com.au/im_m/archive/001010-22
I suppose you could maybe check Media Metrix as well. So that covers the 3 mill with some room to spare.
The "and thus not buying music" comment is aimed at the RIAA's statements and not at actual facts. The RIAA continues to claim that the loss in sales in directly attributable to file sharing. Almost every analysis performed has failed to back up that claim. Between economic downturns, increased DVD sales, and increased video game sales you can easily account for this loss. (There's also that increase in price in the analysis that you have to factor in as well.)
In the Eminem case it would seem that first week sales are even more relevant. Where did all the buzz come from that generated that huge sales spike? If they shifted forward the release date then they obviously weren't able to do all of the normal promotional activities you would get with an album release yet still sales soared.
Your final statement: They probably limited the damage a lot in that specific case by bringing forward the release date, so people desperate to get a copy weren't forced to download it illegally. doesn't parse at all.
First off, the statistics about Eminem were coming from GraceNote and were talking about physical CD's (see http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-923658.html for details). Second, if someone could buy an actual bootleg CD of it for $5 then why pay the RIAA tax? The first week sales were an all-time record of 1.76 million CD's. (details at http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1428613/20000531
So, there's some more numbers for you complete with citations to back them up.
I really don't see how your "mathematical" refutation works. First you're using totally unkown quantities to try and boost a group by making generalizations:
Today, pretty much the only people who are offline are older people who are afraid of/unable to learn the "new" technology.
You then follow this up with:
I highly doubt these people buy many CDs; hell, they may not even own a CD player.
Of course his statistics show that these people don't buy many CD's (thus the 54% of population and only 39% of sales).
Finally, you throw in:
As for the nonusers, this splits into two main groups the way I see it: younger people who are against piracy and older people who don't use their computer for much more than web browsing and email.
Convenient grouping. Care to back it up with any statistics or facts? I'm a P2P non-user yet I'm an IT professional with multiple computers and a broadband connection at home. I'm against piracy, but I don't classify P2P as piracy.
So, after all of this inanities you then trot out the following:
Ultimately, I think the only relevant numbers would be if you could figure out the statistics for Nonusers, Dabblers, Learners, and Lovers between the ages of 13 and 25 or so and their CD purchasing habits because these are the users who make up the statistically significant number of music downloaders and purchasers.
OK, fine. Let's control for that. By your figuring the percentage of users in that group should be *MUCH* higher. So, since these people make up a significant portion of total CD sales, then a drop in CD purchases because of P2P usage would also be *MUCH* higher.
If the 13-25 group represented 75% of sales and out of that group you had 75% of the P2P learners and lovers then say a 50% drop in purchases from this group would be manifested as a greater spike in total sales losses.
Again, no matter how you slice it, the numbers just don't add up. (Controlling for age groups is irrelevant as this study is about overall CD sales.)
I still think the ol'
"The VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler is to a woman alone." quote from our friend Jack Valenti shows how in touch these people are with reality.
The amazing thing is that they continue to refuse to admit that they might have been wrong about anything.
I always love this:
If you don't like it, take it out on the zillions of people who are ripping off the media industries wholesale and forcing them to go down that path.
Strangely enough, the RIAA's members claim millions upon millions of file sharers and can only point to a 7% drop in sales. If there were 3 million people sharing files (and thus not buying any music) that means they must have over 42 million people buying music. Pretty impressive.
Now even more interesting. Eminem's latest album was the highest traded "CD" on P2P networks a week before the album was released. They had to move up the release date because of this. Strangely enough, the album still hit #1 in sales with a record number of copies sold. But, if everyone already had it via P2P then why was it selling at all?
The RIAA simply cannot back up its claims with any facts.
The problem is the methods that the RIAA is using and powers that they are asking for.
Currently there is a perfectly good system for finding and trying copyright infringers. Courts allow John Doe defendants and there is a whole process for requesting subpoenas to get information about ISP users. Additionally, there are already penalties for copyright infringement.
There is no need for additional laws.
The RIAA wants to completely destroy due process (the DMCA's take down provisions are "guilty until proven innocent"). They want to use poorly written laws to gain maximum advantage. Finally, they try to sneak new abilities into laws designed to fight terrorism.
Meanwhile, they're whining and crying poor and "file sharing is evil" when there's no evidence to back up their claims. In fact, to the contrary, file sharing seems to promote sales.
Finally, the member companies have been found guilty numerous times of price fixing and continue to rip off the artists who "work" for them (though with the ol' "work for hire" clause it's anything but).
So, no it's not bad for them to try to protect what is, unfortunately, legally theirs. The problem is why they should need a whole new set of laws to protect their stuff when everyone else has to deal with the legal system as it currently stands.
I'm talking more about using your nice DVD player and surround sound stereo system. Imagine the joy of $3.99 for a d/l that takes X number of hours (with X increasing by the number of users signed up for this service). Then all you can do is watch it on your computer. You don't think MS would let you output the image and sound to your big screen TV and super stereo system did you?
I think you have to look at the gestalt of DRM and then you start worrying. Think of it like the current limitation with DVD's. The system "worked" as long as you had licensed hardware accessing licensed data using licensed software. The system broke because there was no way to keep "unlicensed" software from accessing the data.
For true DRM to work then the system will have to reject all non-licensed software. This is especially true at the OS level. After all, if you can get at the bits (say use Linux or DOS to access an NTFS partition) then you're more than half way to breaking the protection.
So, generation one support of DRM probably isn't too bad a thing. It'll be an option like the ol' CPU ID thing that Intel got flamed over. It's generations two and three that we have to worry about. (Especially if any of the Disney Senators' legislation passes.)
You forgot one thing:
Download - 1 day to D/L
1 day to watch?
It'll flow even worse than DivX. Let's pay the same or more for lower quality and probably get the file in more time than it'd take to drive to the local video store and get the DVD. And oh yeah, you didn't want those other languages and surround sound did you?
When will these people realize that if they're going to offer lower quality then they need to offer lower prices?
You've made one mistake with your analysis. You only get increased leverage if you can say "well I'll just take my business elsewhere". In the case of dealing with Microsoft there is no elsewhere to go to. So, if you have a greater percentage of your business coming from MS then you are in fact MORE dependent on them.
Think, if your leverage theory were true do you think MS could have forced IBM to stop loading OS/2 and Lotus Smart Suite on their boxes?
Nope, wrong.
Sun's original case against Microsoft re:Java was about contract violations. MS signed a contract with Sun and then proceeded to ignore and reinterpret that contract as much as humanly possible. Sun called them out on that and they were in fact found in violation of the contract.
Sun's current case has to deal with motivations behind those contract violations. The MS/DoJ trial produced some very specific and damning activities by Microsoft in regards to Java. They talk about MS deliberately introducing incompatibilities into their implementation with the sole purpose of protecting the Windows monopoly. This goes far beyond any contract violations that were addressed in Sun's first suit against MS.
So, now we have an adjudged monopolist who violated specific sections of the Sherman Act with regards to Java. Sun is fully within its rights to pursue punitive actions against MS. In fact, there's specific language in US laws that allow for tripling any and all damages against a company when it is related to monopolist activities. (Frankly, Sun would probably be sued by their shareholders for negligence if they didn't pursue this lawsuit.)
TRUSTED Peer to TRUSTED Peer computing.
Granted this will mean a slower growth in a P2P network, but it may be easier to defend file sharing when you are actually only sharing files with your friends and relations.
It may seem strange to buy a "PC" from Microsoft to run Linux, but let's look at it a little closer.
Microsoft LOSES money with each XBox sold. They hope to recoup that money by selling licenses to the game manufacturers. So, if say a few million XBoxes were to be sold without any game purchases it'll go straight to MS's bottom line. (So maybe it's not as ironic as it might seem.)
Look at items like that lawsuit that an ex-employee lost about an idea he developed on his own time.
More and more companies are attempting to lay claim to any and all thoughts that you have while you're employed with them. If they feel that they have the right to invade your brain and harvest the fruits of your spare time then they can't exactly complain when you confuse work and personal time as well.
Blast you! I was going to post that. Footfall is a seriously bad-ass book.
Well, you have to let me put a large steel plate under my butt before you blast please. I have to agree that it was a good read and one of the best lines in the book.
From Footfall:
THOOM
THOOM
THOOM
God was knocking,
and he wanted in...
BADHow could you be using terminal server when you log into XP when it isn't a server? XP is a desktop only version.
Have you worked with Windows Terminal Server? We've had some terrible fights with the thing to get it to work. The problems are the games it plays with the registry and user directories. Additionally, if you have anything that is using ports for communication they can get hopelessly confused. (Run a service on the Terminal Server yet try to make it available to the Terminal Server sessions, it's quite a pain.)
Terminal Server was originally written by Citrix. MS choose to license the software and has done some additional development but it certainly wasn't core MS code.
Think about it, you're trying to take a NT Server and run multiple users on it *AT THE SAME TIME*. NT simply wasn't designed to do that.
Well, you're both right on this one, but I think the key to his statement is volunteers.
I would say that any community, low-income or not, that had such volunteers available could make a go of it.
While the community in question may not have the necessary volunteers in residence it seems like a good LUG outreach program. (Imaging being able to bring a T1 into a low-income housing project and offerring cheap Linux boxes to help conquer that ol' "digital divide".) You might even be able to tap into some government dollars to accomplish the task.
Also, based on Carl's statements it seems that once you tackle the legal issues once for a state you can reuse those results again and again to help get your way.
First off, have you worked with Windows Terminal Server? It's a hack on top of a kludge. MS doesn't even officially certify Office to run on top of it.
While NT, 2K, and XP support multiple users they don't support multiple users logged in at the same time. This is the crucial difference. The new XP remote desktop feature only allows you to take control of the system as it is currently logged in. If you need to make a change requiring higher permissions then things start to get sticky.
With Unix boxes you can Telnet into them even open GUI elements on remote systems and display them on your box. You can do all of this at whatever user permission you wish to log in as. This simplifies the maintenance tasks.
There were already plenty of tools for enforcing copyrights. Why do we suddenly need a whole new raft of laws because of the Internet?
If the companies really want to go after major P2P nodes then they can do the legwork and file a civil lawsuit just like they did against the guy cranking out VHS tapes in his garage.
Actually I've been an admin for a large array of different boxes from WfWG 3.11 (fun with upper memory config) to most flavors of Unix.
My point on the ongoing costs is in line with your "as long as you stay on top of security patches." Keeping Windows boxes patched is getting more and more difficult. (I support the Windows boxes in our department. We're developers so we do really horrible evil nasty things to them.)
The fact is that Windows is a single-user platform. This means that administration is either done by walking to each box or by purchasing expensive remote access tools. Unix (and Linux) are multi-user, network aware OS's by nature. You can effect all kinds of changes either remotely or through scripts without having to purchase additional software.
I'm not advocating a wholesale "rip and replace". I think the better approach would be to create the new image and start transition the boxes as they die/go wonky.
For basic Internet tasks for the public you can create a much nicer (and cheaper) system using Linux.