This is just another example of how the people who sit in charge of large companies tend to float in their ivory towers and not have any clue what's happening inside their own walls.
Just like the recent wave of accounting "irregularities", this is either a case of those in charge trying to get away with things they KNOW are wrong -- and backpedelling when they get caught, OR honest lack of clue as to what their laywer breeding ponds were producing.
Why do people seem to lose their ability to use common sense as they climb the corporate ladder? At what point does rational thought and normal human morality get left behind? Just as proposals are being pushed to hold CEO's responsible for the state of their underlings, I'd like to see congressmen held responsible for the damages caused by the laws they pass without thinking about the consequences.
I don't think laws are meant to cover every possible Bad Thing (TM) that can happen... they are meant to correct known wrongs as society determines they are problems. As such, we shouldn't make up laws that cover crimes which don't yet exist (most of the newer technology laws try to be vague so they can do this). We also shouldn't make redundant laws, but acknowledge and correct their lack of enforcement (DMCA mostly tries to re-invent copyright law -- copyright law already does the job quite nicely, it just needs to be enforced).
What's so difficult is the incompatiblities between where RedHat (et. al.) decide a package should sit, and where the author believes it should sit. The worst example I can think of is perl and mod_perl. The RPM versions of perl insist on cluttering up/usr (along with every other thing in existance), but as soon as you go to CPAN and update something, voila... it wants a newer version of perl (sorry, I don't WANT to wait 6 months for RH to get around to releasing new rpms for bugfix versions of perl). Now, if you put it in/usr/local where it likes to be, suddenly you have two seperate module trees... perl will use/usr/local, but mod_perl will still use/usr. UGH! If you try putting it in/usr, you'll stomp ALL OVER the redhat dependancies, so when they DO release "updates", you'll backpedal versions.
I'm a big fan of the BSD ports system. If it was installed as part of the OS, it goes in/usr, if not.. it gets it's own subdirectory in/usr/local so it's contained. If you want to minimize your path to/usr/local/bin, just add symlinks.
The interesting thing about an action like this, where a country declares that piracy shall be condoned if it's done to help educate people, is that if it works, those same people will be LESS likely to pirate software as adults in the professional world.
Why? Because a properly educated individual is more likely to accept what we consider to be modern ethics. They are more likely to consider the consequences of their actions, and thus as the overall level of education rises, the level of anything beyond casual try-before-buy piracy will probably decline.
You do. The only difference is that anyone who has programmed assembly KNOWS that they do. GOTO, JMP, or any of their variants is extremely useful for error handling in languages that don't have the snobbish try/catch mechanism (or have a less than stellar one), and of course it's good for those humans who still produce better code than the compiler.
Yes, and this is from old-school thinking where they feel compelled to encode control information into data streams. Rather than using a 32-bit "structure" they should have spent the extra few dollars and used a 32-bit data bus and a synchronized 8-bit control bus. Then we'd have been able to easily have 32-bit addressing and would probably be able to hang 63 devices off the bus.
RANT MODE, ENGAGE!
This could be done pretty easily if the PC world would just LET GO. Stop clinging to compatiblity with things that you'll never use again anyways! When's the last time YOU plugged in a hard drive 1 Gig? Do you really PLAN to use that on a new system? Then why should it matter if the new system can read antique hardware? Bah! The entire industry is hopeless.
Well, if the idiots in the MPAA/RIAA think they are more clever than their customers, perhaps it's time we proved them wrong.
I've already stopped buying CD's unless they come from independants (not associated with the RIAA, at least that I can tell)...
Maybe it's time for that winamp/xmms input-type plugin that reads blowfish encrypted mp3 files. Then they can have fun trying to figure out what data's being transferred over that new p2p protocol that rides an SSL tunnel.
Yes, but don't these regulations mostly apply to the SALE of consumer electronic devices? Obviously if I do a mod to a device that starts broadcasting enough interference to distrub the neighbors, the FCC should come knocking on my door... but we're talking mw of current with most chips.
Now, if I go to re-sell my modded Playstation, it's true that it can no longer be FCC certified, but then it's MY responsibility to point that out.
Being that I *OWN* the hardware, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, as long as no results of that process leave my property.
As far as cable boxes go (which many people have used for comparison).. if I'm leasing it from the cable company (usually the case), I can't do anything other than use it.. it's not mine. If I go out and BUY one that works, I can go ahead and mod that all I want. That's not illegal. What IS illegal is if I then USE that device to watch programs that I'm not paying for.
By the same token, whatever Sony may claim, it's perfectly legal for me to modify my PS or PS2... it only becomes illegal when I then use it to play pirated games (or watch pirated DVD's).
The car example is much better... it's not illegal for me to modify my car and take all the speed governers off... but if I drive that fast, I'm breaking a totally unrelated law.
Yeah, tell me how I'm going to "seamlessly and immediately" switch the FIRMWARE of my digital camera from using jpeg to png?
What's that you say? You don't want to write assembly for my camera (since I don't know assembly for that CPU)? You don't want to find the appropriate chip and burn a replacement for me (I don't know what chip it uses, nor if blanks are easily obtainable)? You don't want to physically dissassemble the very tiny mechanisms to install (wave solder?) the new chip in and reassemble it all so the optics path is clean?
You do, but not for less than the cost of the camera?
Well, then... I guess I can't "seamlessly and immediately" switch everything to PNG format, can I?
You are illegally broadcasting waves of electromagnetic energy through my home and property without my express written permission or concent. These waves consist of digital and analogue encodings of endless hours of mind-altering programming and I demand that you cease and decist at once!
Since the waveforms are passing through my property (and indeed, my own body!), I claim imminant domain rights to them. If you don't wish me to retain ownership of these intruders, you must prevent them from entering my property.
PS: Next time I come over to your house (uninvited) with cheap beer and nachos, you MUST eat them cold (dipped in the beer), because that's how I brought them and you aren't allowed to use them the way you'd like to. You must also accept the road salt I sprinkle atop them as advertising, since I want you to. Oh, and you have to put them together yourself as well, since I can't be bothered with programming on demand.
MPAA/RIAA, you guys need to grow up and get a life.
You want to enhance your appearance? You want to "advertise" when out for a night on the town? Why bother with transparent flaps, when you can just put your favourite pr0n star's anatomy in just the right place to catch that cute girl or guy's eye!
Of course, as anyone working with security knows, having the source code ONLY helps you crack a product if the product wasn't developed with security in mind, and using a reasonable security paradigm.
If you use a reasonable key system, just having the source shouldn't let you magically hack into it (although it will help if that key system is flawed).
OTOH, if you use a complex scheme like XOR (as certain monopolistic companies who shall remain nameless have done in the past)... then I guess you're pretty well screwed either way.
Add to that my fee for registering a patent, since I'm intending to patent the patent process (for which I'll then retroactively pay myself), and the further patent on expelling of de-oxygenated air from internal organs, and I can let the louder ones slide:)
shouldn't this be considered an act of econo-terrorism or something? Some two-bit company that nobody's ever heard of suddenly recalls they have the patent on a compression scheme (never mind the old argument about patenting mathematical algorithms) and now that it's entrenched, everyone is supposed to just smile and nod and hand over their checkbooks???
What kind of trained chimps work at the patent office these days? The way they're handing out patents for anything that sounds good, I'm sure I can come up with a patent for flatulance and make Bill Gates look like a begger on the street.
How about a patent for the process of registering one's unique implementation of a process, method or physical device for the purpose of proving original creativity and control?
The more spam I get, the more likely I am to cancel my land-line phone system entirely. It's another $20/month (and then some) that I really don't need to spend, since *I* don't use it much.
The phone company is in the same boat as the post office... they're both antiquated services that are in the process of being replaced by both the internet and cell-phones. They should be doing things to ENTICE more users, not anger them and drive them away.
Hey, wake up Ma Bell, you *DO* have to care nowadays!
True, and if my ISP were a buffet, I'd agree with you. The fact is, my ISP is *NOT* an all-you-can-eat service. It's a buffet where they only allow you 5 plates of food, under the assumption that "most" people will only eat 2. I'd have no qualms about offering my friends food if I knew I'd already bought the 5 plates quota.
A better analogy would be if I went to a gas station and paid $N for 20 gallons of gas, where the manager assumed he'd make lots of money since most people only have 15 gallon tanks. If I take along an approved gas can and dispense the other 5 gallons into it to give to my elderly neighbor for her snowblower, I'm stealing?
I think not. Now, if he would lose money by giving me the 20gal for $N, then maybe he should have charged $N+1, or made the offer 15gal/$N instead. Again, that's the manager's mistake.
Packets are packets. 1.5Mbps is 1.5Mbps. It doesn't matter if they come from 1 LAN, 1 machine, or 1 process... it's the same amount of data, and I don't believe the ISP has a right to dictate terms beyond the quantity I'm alloted. I'm not using extra IP addresses, nor am I "hacking" anything to get more than I paid for. If they're losing money, they can feel free to raise my rates or lower my bandwidth cap and see if I'll put up with it or go elsewhere.
Do you think you should be able to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and have several friends sit at the table with you while you eat and offer them bits off your plate. Whenever a friend wants some food, YOU have to go up and refill the plate. There are no "leftovers", since you get as much as will fit on the plate, or less.
From the Buffet's point of view, they only ever see one person eating (IP Masquarading), and he only ever fills a single plate at a time (bandwidth cap), so although he may be eating more than they expected (2Mbps average vs. 256Kbps average), that's not the Buffet's fault -- they should have charged more.
An ISP sells bandwidth... what differnece does it make if I have ONE computer doing ftp transfers all day to use my 1.5Mbps, or TEN computers all playing Diablo II and barely scratching that 1.5Mbps? A packet is a packet, and that's ALL any ISP should care about.
If you ISP people can't get that through your heads, go sell used cars or something.
As the owner of an ISP, you should know that you should not and cannot know or care WHAT your customers do with the bandwidth you sell them. If you can't control the amount of bandwidth they use via limits on incoming and outgoing packets, then you are in the wrong line of work. If you're selling them 2Mbps with the assumption that they'll only use 256Kbps, then you need a higher-level throttle too (or you need to raise your rates).
Sorry, I don't buy your argument. You aren't selling me a license, you're selling me a service to route N packets from my access point to the outside world. You have no right to ask where they go once they're inside my LAN.
since the researcher had to play the video games he was reviewing, and thus fell under their EVIL INFLUENCE (TM) and had his brain reduced to mush before writing up his results.
Well, if you hadn't loaded up that assembly code to play music by rattling the drive head, it'd probably be in a bit better shape!:)
Having seen that done in a local K-Mart (the code runs in the drive's cpu/ram, and thus the cable can be disconnected from the C64) and noting the horrified look on the employee's face when rebooting the computer had no effect -- makes me wonder if a scsi raid array could be made to do something similar.
Of course, in that case, it's a bit more expensive to experiment.
I, personally, wouldn't mind paying $2 for a newspaper that contained ONLY information I have a reasonable chance of being interested in. But since I don't care about 80% of the "headline" topics, 60% of the "local" topics, or 100% of the annoying advertising... I don't buy a paper.
Same goes for any other media... I listen to NPR, I flip channels (bite me Ted Turner!) and sigh when I realize that I'm paying $80/month for about 5 hours a week of stuff I care about.
The entire media system needs to kick the advertisers where it hurts and make them realize that the current model is stupid. Charge me more money for only the content I buy... less research for you, less bandwidth usage by me, more revenue, less bitching about stupid sitcoms. Everyone is happy... except stupid ad exec who can't adapt to a changing universe (sound like another group we know?).
Considering the rough ride Atari has had in recent years, I was quite surprised when I got my copy of Neverwinter Nights last week and discovered that one of the prominant company names on the front (and in the opening credits) was... Atari!
I wish them well, as without the venerable Atari 2600, I might have never wandered down the home computer path, and then I'd have to find something ELSE to blame my lack of a life on.
I think it isn't a case of lots of "techo-savvy" fans burning and copying instead of going out to buy the cd. It's a case of people like me who refuse to buy any new music, because I want to buy the MUSIC, not the stupid distribution media. The RIAA wants me to buy the physical media and be stuck with that, so I'll have to buy it again when blue-laser cd's are out, and again when crystal hologram storage comes out, and again when RNA-enhanced neurons come out. Sorry, I have about 400 cd's that mostly collect dust now that their contents exist on a file-server on my LAN. I don't plan to go back to the days of swapping discs every 35 minutes just because some pointy-haired business exec can't give up the old ways.
Let me download a good-quality 256k-bit mp3 or ogg directly from the publisher and I'll happily pay $1 a song. Until then, I have my collection, alternative music through non-RIAA sources, and the radio.
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This is just another example of how the people who sit in charge of large companies tend to float in their ivory towers and not have any clue what's happening inside their own walls.
Just like the recent wave of accounting "irregularities", this is either a case of those in charge trying to get away with things they KNOW are wrong -- and backpedelling when they get caught, OR honest lack of clue as to what their laywer breeding ponds were producing.
Why do people seem to lose their ability to use common sense as they climb the corporate ladder? At what point does rational thought and normal human morality get left behind? Just as proposals are being pushed to hold CEO's responsible for the state of their underlings, I'd like to see congressmen held responsible for the damages caused by the laws they pass without thinking about the consequences.
I don't think laws are meant to cover every possible Bad Thing (TM) that can happen... they are meant to correct known wrongs as society determines they are problems. As such, we shouldn't make up laws that cover crimes which don't yet exist (most of the newer technology laws try to be vague so they can do this). We also shouldn't make redundant laws, but acknowledge and correct their lack of enforcement (DMCA mostly tries to re-invent copyright law -- copyright law already does the job quite nicely, it just needs to be enforced).
What's so difficult is the incompatiblities between where RedHat (et. al.) decide a package should sit, and where the author believes it should sit. The worst example I can think of is perl and mod_perl. The RPM versions of perl insist on cluttering up /usr (along with every other thing in existance), but as soon as you go to CPAN and update something, voila... it wants a newer version of perl (sorry, I don't WANT to wait 6 months for RH to get around to releasing new rpms for bugfix versions of perl). Now, if you put it in /usr/local where it likes to be, suddenly you have two seperate module trees... perl will use /usr/local, but mod_perl will still use /usr. UGH! If you try putting it in /usr, you'll stomp ALL OVER the redhat dependancies, so when they DO release "updates", you'll backpedal versions.
/usr, if not.. it gets it's own subdirectory in /usr/local so it's contained. If you want to minimize your path to /usr/local/bin, just add symlinks.
I'm a big fan of the BSD ports system. If it was installed as part of the OS, it goes in
The interesting thing about an action like this, where a country declares that piracy shall be condoned if it's done to help educate people, is that if it works, those same people will be LESS likely to pirate software as adults in the professional world.
Why? Because a properly educated individual is more likely to accept what we consider to be modern ethics. They are more likely to consider the consequences of their actions, and thus as the overall level of education rises, the level of anything beyond casual try-before-buy piracy will probably decline.
You do. The only difference is that anyone who has programmed assembly KNOWS that they do. GOTO, JMP, or any of their variants is extremely useful for error handling in languages that don't have the snobbish try/catch mechanism (or have a less than stellar one), and of course it's good for those humans who still produce better code than the compiler.
Yes, and this is from old-school thinking where they feel compelled to encode control information into data streams. Rather than using a 32-bit "structure" they should have spent the extra few dollars and used a 32-bit data bus and a synchronized 8-bit control bus. Then we'd have been able to easily have 32-bit addressing and would probably be able to hang 63 devices off the bus.
RANT MODE, ENGAGE!
This could be done pretty easily if the PC world would just LET GO. Stop clinging to compatiblity with things that you'll never use again anyways! When's the last time YOU plugged in a hard drive 1 Gig? Do you really PLAN to use that on a new system? Then why should it matter if the new system can read antique hardware? Bah! The entire industry is hopeless.
RANT MODE, dissolve.
Well, if the idiots in the MPAA/RIAA think they are more clever than their customers, perhaps it's time we proved them wrong.
I've already stopped buying CD's unless they come from independants (not associated with the RIAA, at least that I can tell)...
Maybe it's time for that winamp/xmms input-type plugin that reads blowfish encrypted mp3 files. Then they can have fun trying to figure out what data's being transferred over that new p2p protocol that rides an SSL tunnel.
Let the fools implode under their own weight.
Yes, but don't these regulations mostly apply to the SALE of consumer electronic devices? Obviously if I do a mod to a device that starts broadcasting enough interference to distrub the neighbors, the FCC should come knocking on my door... but we're talking mw of current with most chips.
Now, if I go to re-sell my modded Playstation, it's true that it can no longer be FCC certified, but then it's MY responsibility to point that out.
Being that I *OWN* the hardware, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, as long as no results of that process leave my property.
As far as cable boxes go (which many people have used for comparison).. if I'm leasing it from the cable company (usually the case), I can't do anything other than use it.. it's not mine. If I go out and BUY one that works, I can go ahead and mod that all I want. That's not illegal. What IS illegal is if I then USE that device to watch programs that I'm not paying for.
By the same token, whatever Sony may claim, it's perfectly legal for me to modify my PS or PS2... it only becomes illegal when I then use it to play pirated games (or watch pirated DVD's).
The car example is much better... it's not illegal for me to modify my car and take all the speed governers off... but if I drive that fast, I'm breaking a totally unrelated law.
This means we do NOT have to solve the 32-bit unix timestamp problem!
Yay!
... and then, in an unholy trinity with .BMP files, they shall once and for all crush any opposition and reign supreme! Muahahahahahaha!
Yeah, tell me how I'm going to "seamlessly and immediately" switch the FIRMWARE of my digital camera from using jpeg to png?
What's that you say? You don't want to write assembly for my camera (since I don't know assembly for that CPU)? You don't want to find the appropriate chip and burn a replacement for me (I don't know what chip it uses, nor if blanks are easily obtainable)? You don't want to physically dissassemble the very tiny mechanisms to install (wave solder?) the new chip in and reassemble it all so the optics path is clean?
You do, but not for less than the cost of the camera?
Well, then... I guess I can't "seamlessly and immediately" switch everything to PNG format, can I?
Hey, MPAA, yeah YOU!
You are illegally broadcasting waves of electromagnetic energy through my home and property without my express written permission or concent. These waves consist of digital and analogue encodings of endless hours of mind-altering programming and I demand that you cease and decist at once!
Since the waveforms are passing through my property (and indeed, my own body!), I claim imminant domain rights to them. If you don't wish me to retain ownership of these intruders, you must prevent them from entering my property.
PS: Next time I come over to your house (uninvited) with cheap beer and nachos, you MUST eat them cold (dipped in the beer), because that's how I brought them and you aren't allowed to use them the way you'd like to. You must also accept the road salt I sprinkle atop them as advertising, since I want you to. Oh, and you have to put them together yourself as well, since I can't be bothered with programming on demand.
MPAA/RIAA, you guys need to grow up and get a life.
for the pr0n industry!
You want to enhance your appearance? You want to "advertise" when out for a night on the town? Why bother with transparent flaps, when you can just put your favourite pr0n star's anatomy in just the right place to catch that cute girl or guy's eye!
Of course, as anyone working with security knows, having the source code ONLY helps you crack a product if the product wasn't developed with security in mind, and using a reasonable security paradigm.
If you use a reasonable key system, just having the source shouldn't let you magically hack into it (although it will help if that key system is flawed).
OTOH, if you use a complex scheme like XOR (as certain monopolistic companies who shall remain nameless have done in the past)... then I guess you're pretty well screwed either way.
Add to that my fee for registering a patent, since I'm intending to patent the patent process (for which I'll then retroactively pay myself), and the further patent on expelling of de-oxygenated air from internal organs, and I can let the louder ones slide :)
shouldn't this be considered an act of econo-terrorism or something? Some two-bit company that nobody's ever heard of suddenly recalls they have the patent on a compression scheme (never mind the old argument about patenting mathematical algorithms) and now that it's entrenched, everyone is supposed to just smile and nod and hand over their checkbooks???
What kind of trained chimps work at the patent office these days? The way they're handing out patents for anything that sounds good, I'm sure I can come up with a patent for flatulance and make Bill Gates look like a begger on the street.
How about a patent for the process of registering one's unique implementation of a process, method or physical device for the purpose of proving original creativity and control?
The more spam I get, the more likely I am to cancel my land-line phone system entirely. It's another $20/month (and then some) that I really don't need to spend, since *I* don't use it much.
The phone company is in the same boat as the post office... they're both antiquated services that are in the process of being replaced by both the internet and cell-phones. They should be doing things to ENTICE more users, not anger them and drive them away.
Hey, wake up Ma Bell, you *DO* have to care nowadays!
"No one needs a terabyte disk..."
Yeah, you say that now, wait until Windows FP (Fat Porker) edition is released, THEN you'll wish you had that terabyte disk for your swap file!
True, and if my ISP were a buffet, I'd agree with you. The fact is, my ISP is *NOT* an all-you-can-eat service. It's a buffet where they only allow you 5 plates of food, under the assumption that "most" people will only eat 2. I'd have no qualms about offering my friends food if I knew I'd already bought the 5 plates quota.
A better analogy would be if I went to a gas station and paid $N for 20 gallons of gas, where the manager assumed he'd make lots of money since most people only have 15 gallon tanks. If I take along an approved gas can and dispense the other 5 gallons into it to give to my elderly neighbor for her snowblower, I'm stealing?
I think not. Now, if he would lose money by giving me the 20gal for $N, then maybe he should have charged $N+1, or made the offer 15gal/$N instead. Again, that's the manager's mistake.
Packets are packets. 1.5Mbps is 1.5Mbps. It doesn't matter if they come from 1 LAN, 1 machine, or 1 process... it's the same amount of data, and I don't believe the ISP has a right to dictate terms beyond the quantity I'm alloted. I'm not using extra IP addresses, nor am I "hacking" anything to get more than I paid for. If they're losing money, they can feel free to raise my rates or lower my bandwidth cap and see if I'll put up with it or go elsewhere.
Heh, well to make the analogy more relevant...
Do you think you should be able to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and have several friends sit at the table with you while you eat and offer them bits off your plate. Whenever a friend wants some food, YOU have to go up and refill the plate. There are no "leftovers", since you get as much as will fit on the plate, or less.
From the Buffet's point of view, they only ever see one person eating (IP Masquarading), and he only ever fills a single plate at a time (bandwidth cap), so although he may be eating more than they expected (2Mbps average vs. 256Kbps average), that's not the Buffet's fault -- they should have charged more.
An ISP sells bandwidth... what differnece does it make if I have ONE computer doing ftp transfers all day to use my 1.5Mbps, or TEN computers all playing Diablo II and barely scratching that 1.5Mbps? A packet is a packet, and that's ALL any ISP should care about.
If you ISP people can't get that through your heads, go sell used cars or something.
As the owner of an ISP, you should know that you should not and cannot know or care WHAT your customers do with the bandwidth you sell them. If you can't control the amount of bandwidth they use via limits on incoming and outgoing packets, then you are in the wrong line of work. If you're selling them 2Mbps with the assumption that they'll only use 256Kbps, then you need a higher-level throttle too (or you need to raise your rates).
Sorry, I don't buy your argument. You aren't selling me a license, you're selling me a service to route N packets from my access point to the outside world. You have no right to ask where they go once they're inside my LAN.
since the researcher had to play the video games he was reviewing, and thus fell under their EVIL INFLUENCE (TM) and had his brain reduced to mush before writing up his results.
Well, if you hadn't loaded up that assembly code to play music by rattling the drive head, it'd probably be in a bit better shape! :)
Having seen that done in a local K-Mart (the code runs in the drive's cpu/ram, and thus the cable can be disconnected from the C64) and noting the horrified look on the employee's face when rebooting the computer had no effect -- makes me wonder if a scsi raid array could be made to do something similar.
Of course, in that case, it's a bit more expensive to experiment.
It's called paying for content instead of fluff.
I, personally, wouldn't mind paying $2 for a newspaper that contained ONLY information I have a reasonable chance of being interested in. But since I don't care about 80% of the "headline" topics, 60% of the "local" topics, or 100% of the annoying advertising... I don't buy a paper.
Same goes for any other media... I listen to NPR, I flip channels (bite me Ted Turner!) and sigh when I realize that I'm paying $80/month for about 5 hours a week of stuff I care about.
The entire media system needs to kick the advertisers where it hurts and make them realize that the current model is stupid. Charge me more money for only the content I buy... less research for you, less bandwidth usage by me, more revenue, less bitching about stupid sitcoms. Everyone is happy... except stupid ad exec who can't adapt to a changing universe (sound like another group we know?).
Considering the rough ride Atari has had in recent years, I was quite surprised when I got my copy of Neverwinter Nights last week and discovered that one of the prominant company names on the front (and in the opening credits) was... Atari!
I wish them well, as without the venerable Atari 2600, I might have never wandered down the home computer path, and then I'd have to find something ELSE to blame my lack of a life on.
I think it isn't a case of lots of "techo-savvy" fans burning and copying instead of going out to buy the cd. It's a case of people like me who refuse to buy any new music, because I want to buy the MUSIC, not the stupid distribution media. The RIAA wants me to buy the physical media and be stuck with that, so I'll have to buy it again when blue-laser cd's are out, and again when crystal hologram storage comes out, and again when RNA-enhanced neurons come out. Sorry, I have about 400 cd's that mostly collect dust now that their contents exist on a file-server on my LAN. I don't plan to go back to the days of swapping discs every 35 minutes just because some pointy-haired business exec can't give up the old ways.
Let me download a good-quality 256k-bit mp3 or ogg directly from the publisher and I'll happily pay $1 a song. Until then, I have my collection, alternative music through non-RIAA sources, and the radio.