Actually, it wouldn't hurt the bottom line at all. The bandwidth consumed by the average botted PC is far higher than a regular user. Thus, they cost ISPs more.
As was explained above, the attack may not be coming from AT&T's network - it may be coming from anywhere, but spoofing the packets so they look like they come from AT&T.
There's no such thing as an openish standard. It's either open or its not. DAB uses MP2 as its codec, which isn't open, and that's due to be replaced by AAC, which also isn't open.
What you mean is "available on multiple platforms" which isn't the same thing.
"A suitably skilled person can take the spec and build a player."
Only by buying chips which already include support for proprietary codecs. That's the equivalent of saying that "a suitably skilled person can take the spec and build a Windows Media Player" - by buying the codecs from Microsoft.
"The BBC should not be in the business of providing players, it should pick standards that allow others to build players."
So if it had simply said "we're making all our content available as protected Windows Media" you'd have been happy? I doubt it.
..."with a statutory duty to serve the whole UK population..."
I look forward to you campaigning to get the BBC to broadcast all its DAB channels on analog radio, as they're not fufilling their statutory duty to serve the whole UK population blah blah blah...
The fact is that you CHOOSE to use a minority platform. That means you're not going to be first in the queue when it comes to getting new services from the BBC. You'll get them eventually, unless the marginal cost of providing them is too high - just as there's people in the UK who can't get digital TV (and won't get it for years).
By the same logic, someone without a DTV box should be complaining to Ofcom about the fact that they BBC is producing channels which are inaccessible to them.
While it's illegal to name a person arrested and charged who's under the age of 18 prior to conviction, it's not illegal to name someone publically listed on the Bank of England's web site as having their assets frozen, as that's not listing someone on the basis of them being charged.
Yet more FUD from you. Let's take it peice by glorious piece...
From the tech people at Microsoft that have started talking to the press. For example, over on Bit-Tech, they're talking about recommended specs of dual+ cored CPUs, 2G RAM, DX9 256M PCI-Express video cards, new HDCP-compliant monitors (which, as of the writing of that articlt this past September, don't exist yet)
If you'd have followed up that story, you'd have found that the Microsoft tech analyst quoted later claimed he'd been misquoted, and Scoble outright denied those were hardware requirements. It was basically one Microsoft employee in Australia, not "the tech people at Microsoft". But never let the facts get in the way of some good FUD, eh?
*You're* the one assuming that's what I mean. The phrase is only loaded if you choose to add on your own assumptions.
If you want to take it apart with propositional logic and show me how you get from my statement to your assumption, I'll listen to you. There is no logical implication that people who download for free AND love music THEREFORE never buy music.
If, of course, you can't do that, I suggest you go back to college and do some reading.
"I have shown why 2. is the case. It is easy to fix also without disbanding copyright alltogether, just limit its term to something reasonable. You may goto my website for some more of my thoughts on that."
Yes, I agree - and will be heading to your website shortly (curse this pesky work for interrupting my enjoyment of Slashdot!)
Well that kind of comes in the "like I care" category. I use a Mac - but for work, not for music. And although I have an iPod, I also have a Creative Zen. So additional TCO for me is precisely zero, either way.
"It has changed. This ',limited' part is effectively no longer there."
I don't understand your point. Please explain - and especially why you think it's changed.
"If there is a better way to achieve the stated goal then it should be used, ad if it can be shown that the current means are actually working against the stated goal they should be disbanded."
Indeed, and the onus should be on those opposing these laws - which have worked for a few hundred years - to show that there's a better way to achieve this goal and that the current means are working against the stated goal in such a way as they can't be reformed.
"The problem is that this "temporary" monopoly's timeframe is getting stretched longer and longer,"
Completely agree. The idea that a copyright should exist well beyond the lifetime of the creator is absurd. 50 years was arguably long but usable - if I write a blockbusting novel when I'm 20 I think it's reasonable that I should still benefit from it when I'm 70. But 95 years - and more if the likes of Disney have their way - is ridiculous.
"I guess I see "poor government" as a guarantee, so the only way to guarantee that big corporations don't obliterate individual rights is by not giving these intelectual property rights in the first place."
Well if you're going to say that about intellectual property, you might as well go the whole hog and say it about all property rights. The fact that the oil companies are so rich they can fund a president who'll roll over and play good doggy while they pollute to their heart's content is probably more important than whether you can download the latest Britney song for free:)
"Copyright exists to provide artists with an incentive to create art for the public good. The income you can get due to the exclusive rights granted by copyright make it possible at times to actually earn a living, but that is purely coincidental, and arguing that this is a right in itself is silly."
Well the Constitution gives Congress the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". The idea is that giving artists and inventors the rights to their work promotes progress - and that's "the economy of ideas", where the best ideas win out.
And that's something that hasn't changed. The best way to encourage people to do a job well and do good work is to pay them, whether they're making chairs or songs. That's why bands who hit the big time too early tend to produce rubbish for the rest of their careers - once they earn enough so they no longer have to work, they often go down hill.
"For me the value is in being able to judge if you want to spend money on something. Try before you buy etc. That indeed means that the try should not cost. If it does, then you get to another model, which might be as valid, ut whiich I am totally uninterested in."
There's a couple of points. First of all, again, the idea that it's free is illusory. When it comes to corporations, nothing is free for the consumer. All those "One Month Free Trial!" CD's that AOL used to pump out were paid for by higher subscription prices for AOL subscribers. Check out company accounts - marketing is a cost, just the same as if the company had bought a new building, and it's paid for by higher prices.
Now that might not mean higher prices *for you* if you never buy any of that company's goods or services. But in this case, you *are* buying music, so at the end of the day you're paying for the marketing, one way or another.
Secondly, by paying over that five bucks, you're getting a much better "trial" experience than if you either bought CDs without listening to them first, listened to the radio to check out new music (yeah, I know) or downloaded stuff for free (solely for trial purposes). You're getting a service that adds value, as the phrase goes, because the music is easier to find and of good (audio) quality - plus virus free, which is important if you're using Windows:)
And this brings us back to your other point:
"I do not see why I should have to pay so that others can promote their product in the hope that I buy it. If they want my business, that is about as silly as the 'downloading is stealing' argument. Yes, there are cases where it makes sense, but generally it does not. You want my money? then you pay for promoting your business to me, plain and simple."
Once again, remember that the consumer pays, one way or another. But in addition, what subscription services also provide is the ability to cut down your music buying considerably, which is a demonstrable cost to the record company and a direct benefit to you.
Let me explain. I subscribe to Napster To Go, which lets me listen to music pretty much where I want, when I want it (Microsoft's occasionally crappy software permitting:) ). I also buy CDs or downloads of stuff that I really like, usually having heard it and liked it through Napster. Yet, as well as stuff I like enough to buy, and stuff I hate, there's a third category: Stuff that I like enough to listen to occasionally, but which isn't worth buying. Example: a "20 Rock and Roll Greats". Great music, but not stuff I'll listen to often. However, prior to Napster 2.0, I would probably have bought that at some point - now, I don't need to.
Before I subscribed to Napster, I bought a LOT of music online (mostly from iTunes). Now I buy much, much less, because the more marginal stuff that I like a bit doesn't get bought. Those are lost sales to the record industry, something that's offset by the handful of dollars I pay Napster per month. At the end of the day, though, I think both myself and the record industry benefit.
>i>I do not forget that, but as a matter of fact, where I live it is completely legal to download things from P2P networks. It is illegal to distribute things without permission of the copyright holder however, but that concerns uploadign and not downloading.
Just as an aside, you're really downloading but not sharing? I'd call that leeching:)
Also, the law is there to serve a purpose. If it clearly fails to serve its purpose then it is a bad law, and following it is i,moral and wrong.
I don't see that copyright law isn't serving its purpose. The purpose of copyright law is to create an "economy of ideas" allowing those producing original media work to profit from their labour. That, it does - I make a living because I sell or license the copyright to my work, for example.
Like all property-based systems, though, this tends to mean that property coagulates in the hands of corporations of course, and, from this, Bad Things may ensue if the government doesn't act as a balance. In any good governmental system, the government must act to ensure that the interests of those who own a lot of property (intellectual or otherwise) don't outweigh the interests of those who don't. But if that doesn't happen, it's the fault of poor government, not of copyright as such.
"Many people (I am not going to argue if it is the majority or not) who download stuff illegally, also buy music, and will even buy the exact music they downloaded. The consequence is that arguing that illegal downloads (see, I do call them illegal) always result in loss of income for record companies is wrong, and there are in fact signs that the opposite is true."
I'm not arguing that it always results in loss of income for the record company, because that's demonstrably false. What I'm arguing is that the value for people who download comes in the fact that it costs them nothing to do so. The moment that it costs them something, it's no longer "worth the money".
"Stop confusing the issue by just dragging in new and unrelated things, the fact that a legal service exists that allows this in no way changes the consequences of illegal downloads, it merely gives an alternative for those who can use it."
But it's completely related. The argument that you're putting forward - and it used to be one that I agreed with, totally - was that people were justified in using illegal downloads to sample music, and they then went on to purchase more music. The second half of this argument is true: people who download lots also purchase lots.
However, there now exists services that, for a minimal fee, let you sample pretty much everything you could possibly want to - and all completely legally. This means that there's no longer any need to use illegal downloads as a method of sampling new music (and if you can't afford $5 a month, you probably can't afford to buy any music anyway). So, the argument that people have to use illegal downloads as ways of sampling new music no longer holds, unless your tastes run to obscure stuff that never shows up on legal services.
This reinforces my point, above: unless the kind of music you're downloading isn't available on the likes of Napster and Yahoo Music, the only reason that you continue to download comes down to cost, and the fact that it's "for free" - NOT because you can sample stuff before buying.
"Oh, and give me a break, I have to pay for record companies doing their promotion? I thought that that promotion is what they claim they need al this money for, so a sampling service that actually costs money is bullshot."
When you buy a CD, you're alreaady paying for the cost of promotion, so there's no difference there (and in fact, you're paying probably about $3-5 bucks per CD, which makes Yahoo look like a steal). When you listen to stuff on the radio, you're paying for the cost of promotion - via advertising, the cost of which ultimately goes back to the consumer. Promotion is NEVER free. Ultimately, you always end up paying for it. This way, at least you're getting something - the ability to listen to what you want, when you want it - that adds some value to the process.
Re:This sort of thing...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
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· Score: 3, Informative
And there are other - perfectly legal - ways of doing this. For example, you can use Yahoo's streamed music to sample as much new music as you like, for $5 a month. When you find something you like, you can buy it - either as a CD (if you want DRM-free digital copies) or as a WM file (if you don't), or as AAC if you want digital plus an iPod.
$5 a month. You get to try out as much music as you like, legally. Isn't that a price worth paying?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it wouldn't hurt the bottom line at all. The bandwidth consumed by the average botted PC is far higher than a regular user. Thus, they cost ISPs more.
As was explained above, the attack may not be coming from AT&T's network - it may be coming from anywhere, but spoofing the packets so they look like they come from AT&T.
Who were you sharing those items with before? Because you know that they all know your dirty little secret, and are likely to leak it?
What part of "Shared" did you not previously understand?
Huggers joined in May 2007. The first closed trial of iPlayer started in 2005, with Windows Media: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergrated_Media_Player, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbimp/F2824809?thread=2535012
"DAB is an open(ish) standard"
There's no such thing as an openish standard. It's either open or its not. DAB uses MP2 as its codec, which isn't open, and that's due to be replaced by AAC, which also isn't open.
What you mean is "available on multiple platforms" which isn't the same thing.
"A suitably skilled person can take the spec and build a player."
Only by buying chips which already include support for proprietary codecs. That's the equivalent of saying that "a suitably skilled person can take the spec and build a Windows Media Player" - by buying the codecs from Microsoft.
"The BBC should not be in the business of providing players, it should pick standards that allow others to build players."
So if it had simply said "we're making all our content available as protected Windows Media" you'd have been happy? I doubt it.
Nice try, but iPlayer was well underway long before he joined - including the decision to use WMP.
..."with a statutory duty to serve the whole UK population..."
I look forward to you campaigning to get the BBC to broadcast all its DAB channels on analog radio, as they're not fufilling their statutory duty to serve the whole UK population blah blah blah...
The fact is that you CHOOSE to use a minority platform. That means you're not going to be first in the queue when it comes to getting new services from the BBC. You'll get them eventually, unless the marginal cost of providing them is too high - just as there's people in the UK who can't get digital TV (and won't get it for years).
By the same logic, someone without a DTV box should be complaining to Ofcom about the fact that they BBC is producing channels which are inaccessible to them.
While it's illegal to name a person arrested and charged who's under the age of 18 prior to conviction, it's not illegal to name someone publically listed on the Bank of England's web site as having their assets frozen, as that's not listing someone on the basis of them being charged.
Subtle, eh?
If you'd have followed up that story, you'd have found that the Microsoft tech analyst quoted later claimed he'd been misquoted, and Scoble outright denied those were hardware requirements. It was basically one Microsoft employee in Australia, not "the tech people at Microsoft". But never let the facts get in the way of some good FUD, eh?
Yes. That, of course, doesn't make it legal - but it makes it justifiable.
Who's backpedaling, Mr I'm-An-AC-So-No-One-Knows-If-I'm-Being-Consistent?
*You're* the one assuming that's what I mean. The phrase is only loaded if you choose to add on your own assumptions.
If you want to take it apart with propositional logic and show me how you get from my statement to your assumption, I'll listen to you. There is no logical implication that people who download for free AND love music THEREFORE never buy music.
If, of course, you can't do that, I suggest you go back to college and do some reading.
"I have shown why 2. is the case. It is easy to fix also without disbanding copyright alltogether, just limit its term to something reasonable. You may goto my website for some more of my thoughts on that."
Yes, I agree - and will be heading to your website shortly (curse this pesky work for interrupting my enjoyment of Slashdot!)
Well that kind of comes in the "like I care" category. I use a Mac - but for work, not for music. And although I have an iPod, I also have a Creative Zen. So additional TCO for me is precisely zero, either way.
"It has changed. This ',limited' part is effectively no longer there."
:)
I don't understand your point. Please explain - and especially why you think it's changed.
"If there is a better way to achieve the stated goal then it should be used, ad if it can be shown that the current means are actually working against the stated goal they should be disbanded."
Indeed, and the onus should be on those opposing these laws - which have worked for a few hundred years - to show that there's a better way to achieve this goal and that the current means are working against the stated goal in such a way as they can't be reformed.
Care to take up the baton?
"The problem is that this "temporary" monopoly's timeframe is getting stretched longer and longer,"
Completely agree. The idea that a copyright should exist well beyond the lifetime of the creator is absurd. 50 years was arguably long but usable - if I write a blockbusting novel when I'm 20 I think it's reasonable that I should still benefit from it when I'm 70. But 95 years - and more if the likes of Disney have their way - is ridiculous.
"I guess I see "poor government" as a guarantee, so the only way to guarantee that big corporations don't obliterate individual rights is by not giving these intelectual property rights in the first place."
:)
Well if you're going to say that about intellectual property, you might as well go the whole hog and say it about all property rights. The fact that the oil companies are so rich they can fund a president who'll roll over and play good doggy while they pollute to their heart's content is probably more important than whether you can download the latest Britney song for free
"Copyright exists to provide artists with an incentive to create art for the public good. The income you can get due to the exclusive rights granted by copyright make it possible at times to actually earn a living, but that is purely coincidental, and arguing that this is a right in itself is silly."
:)
Well the Constitution gives Congress the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". The idea is that giving artists and inventors the rights to their work promotes progress - and that's "the economy of ideas", where the best ideas win out.
And that's something that hasn't changed. The best way to encourage people to do a job well and do good work is to pay them, whether they're making chairs or songs. That's why bands who hit the big time too early tend to produce rubbish for the rest of their careers - once they earn enough so they no longer have to work, they often go down hill.
(Yes, Oasis, I mean YOU!)
"For me the value is in being able to judge if you want to spend money on something. Try before you buy etc. That indeed means that the try should not cost. If it does, then you get to another model, which might be as valid, ut whiich I am totally uninterested in."
:)
:) ). I also buy CDs or downloads of stuff that I really like, usually having heard it and liked it through Napster. Yet, as well as stuff I like enough to buy, and stuff I hate, there's a third category: Stuff that I like enough to listen to occasionally, but which isn't worth buying. Example: a "20 Rock and Roll Greats". Great music, but not stuff I'll listen to often. However, prior to Napster 2.0, I would probably have bought that at some point - now, I don't need to.
There's a couple of points. First of all, again, the idea that it's free is illusory. When it comes to corporations, nothing is free for the consumer. All those "One Month Free Trial!" CD's that AOL used to pump out were paid for by higher subscription prices for AOL subscribers. Check out company accounts - marketing is a cost, just the same as if the company had bought a new building, and it's paid for by higher prices.
Now that might not mean higher prices *for you* if you never buy any of that company's goods or services. But in this case, you *are* buying music, so at the end of the day you're paying for the marketing, one way or another.
Secondly, by paying over that five bucks, you're getting a much better "trial" experience than if you either bought CDs without listening to them first, listened to the radio to check out new music (yeah, I know) or downloaded stuff for free (solely for trial purposes). You're getting a service that adds value, as the phrase goes, because the music is easier to find and of good (audio) quality - plus virus free, which is important if you're using Windows
And this brings us back to your other point:
"I do not see why I should have to pay so that others can promote their product in the hope that I buy it. If they want my business, that is about as silly as the 'downloading is stealing' argument. Yes, there are cases where it makes sense, but generally it does not. You want my money? then you pay for promoting your business to me, plain and simple."
Once again, remember that the consumer pays, one way or another. But in addition, what subscription services also provide is the ability to cut down your music buying considerably, which is a demonstrable cost to the record company and a direct benefit to you.
Let me explain. I subscribe to Napster To Go, which lets me listen to music pretty much where I want, when I want it (Microsoft's occasionally crappy software permitting
Before I subscribed to Napster, I bought a LOT of music online (mostly from iTunes). Now I buy much, much less, because the more marginal stuff that I like a bit doesn't get bought. Those are lost sales to the record industry, something that's offset by the handful of dollars I pay Napster per month. At the end of the day, though, I think both myself and the record industry benefit.
>i>I do not forget that, but as a matter of fact, where I live it is completely legal to download things from P2P networks. It is illegal to distribute things without permission of the copyright holder however, but that concerns uploadign and not downloading.
:)
Just as an aside, you're really downloading but not sharing? I'd call that leeching
Also, the law is there to serve a purpose. If it clearly fails to serve its purpose then it is a bad law, and following it is i,moral and wrong.
I don't see that copyright law isn't serving its purpose. The purpose of copyright law is to create an "economy of ideas" allowing those producing original media work to profit from their labour. That, it does - I make a living because I sell or license the copyright to my work, for example.
Like all property-based systems, though, this tends to mean that property coagulates in the hands of corporations of course, and, from this, Bad Things may ensue if the government doesn't act as a balance. In any good governmental system, the government must act to ensure that the interests of those who own a lot of property (intellectual or otherwise) don't outweigh the interests of those who don't. But if that doesn't happen, it's the fault of poor government, not of copyright as such.
"Many people (I am not going to argue if it is the majority or not) who download stuff illegally, also buy music, and will even buy the exact music they downloaded. The consequence is that arguing that illegal downloads (see, I do call them illegal) always result in loss of income for record companies is wrong, and there are in fact signs that the opposite is true."
I'm not arguing that it always results in loss of income for the record company, because that's demonstrably false. What I'm arguing is that the value for people who download comes in the fact that it costs them nothing to do so. The moment that it costs them something, it's no longer "worth the money".
"Stop confusing the issue by just dragging in new and unrelated things, the fact that a legal service exists that allows this in no way changes the consequences of illegal downloads, it merely gives an alternative for those who can use it."
But it's completely related. The argument that you're putting forward - and it used to be one that I agreed with, totally - was that people were justified in using illegal downloads to sample music, and they then went on to purchase more music. The second half of this argument is true: people who download lots also purchase lots.
However, there now exists services that, for a minimal fee, let you sample pretty much everything you could possibly want to - and all completely legally. This means that there's no longer any need to use illegal downloads as a method of sampling new music (and if you can't afford $5 a month, you probably can't afford to buy any music anyway). So, the argument that people have to use illegal downloads as ways of sampling new music no longer holds, unless your tastes run to obscure stuff that never shows up on legal services.
This reinforces my point, above: unless the kind of music you're downloading isn't available on the likes of Napster and Yahoo Music, the only reason that you continue to download comes down to cost, and the fact that it's "for free" - NOT because you can sample stuff before buying.
"Oh, and give me a break, I have to pay for record companies doing their promotion? I thought that that promotion is what they claim they need al this money for, so a sampling service that actually costs money is bullshot."
When you buy a CD, you're alreaady paying for the cost of promotion, so there's no difference there (and in fact, you're paying probably about $3-5 bucks per CD, which makes Yahoo look like a steal). When you listen to stuff on the radio, you're paying for the cost of promotion - via advertising, the cost of which ultimately goes back to the consumer. Promotion is NEVER free. Ultimately, you always end up paying for it. This way, at least you're getting something - the ability to listen to what you want, when you want it - that adds some value to the process.
And there are other - perfectly legal - ways of doing this. For example, you can use Yahoo's streamed music to sample as much new music as you like, for $5 a month. When you find something you like, you can buy it - either as a CD (if you want DRM-free digital copies) or as a WM file (if you don't), or as AAC if you want digital plus an iPod.
$5 a month. You get to try out as much music as you like, legally. Isn't that a price worth paying?
I'm SO running off to form a band called Monkies With Maces!
People who download music are people who love music when it costs them nothing. There's a difference.