I'm glad that Cricket's service makes sense in your particular situation. My general experience with those who have used the service is that the price savings was illusory; it only ended up cheaper than comparable "big four" service if you fit a particular profile of user (your distaste for traveling would be a good example) AND could get decent service. The biggest complaint I seem to hear, both in-person and online, is poor network coverage and call quality. If it isn't a problem for you, though, I'm glad you found a service that worked out. Austin's coverage map is surprisingly good, and I might consider using Cricket if I lived there.
None of the people I've spoken to had anything great to say about customer service, so I'm surprised you praised that; in fairness, I've never heard of any particularly praiseworthy customer service in the mobile world, so it's not surprising that they were equally unhappy with Cricket.
So if it's generally not a better deal for many types of people, who uses it? Back to my original statement about their target demographic: those who can't use the other carriers.
I own stock in Leap wireless (parent company of Cricket) and know someone on the board of the company. So when I say that someone who is considering an iPhone plan probably won't be happy with Cricket, I mean it.
Cricket is - at its simplest level - the sub-prime mortgage of the wireless industry. It targets primarily those customers whose credit (or lack thereof) make activation with one of the "big four" impossible or cost-prohibitive. Cricket touts month-to-month (or for an extra fee, week-to-week) payment plans. The basic thrust of the plans, a flat rate for unlimited services X, Y, and Z, is appealing.
Go to Cricket's website and look at one of their coverage maps. It's like looking at the "digital coverage" maps from back when the major carriers were switching from AMPS to TDMA/CDMA. Sections of major cities are explicitly marked with different colors for "excellent coverage" vs. "good coverage," and large portions of the maps are uncovered. If online and in-person complaints are to be believed, "good coverage" is not the most accurate use of the English language.
If you leave the coverage area, Cricket's basic roaming rate (yes, roaming) is $0.31 / minute, but you can offset that through more expensive plans.
Cricket's target market is the group whose credit/income makes the traditional carriers balk. Cricket's service is well-designed for that group of people, and as mobile phones become more and more a "necessity" in many people's eyes, I think the company will continue to grow. However, if you are not a part of this group, Cricket service is probably not your best choice. If you are interested in what an iPhone service plan costs, Cricket is probably far from your best choice.
Most of the state, where it is dry, is basically unpopulated. El Paso is the only "major" city in the desert areas of the state. Houston, Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, and San Antonio all run humidity levels far too high for swamp coolers to work. Believe me, you find swap coolers in the places where they work. Contrary to what old westerns might have you believe, though, the state is not all desert.
You do occasionally see that in TX, but I could only name two complexes where I've run into it. One is operated by a university as a fancier dorm, so I imagine it's an "all bills paid" type place anyway, which eliminates the need to individually bill.
Also, keep in mind that apartment builders are obviously looking for the cheapest build option possible. Efficiency after the fact is not in their interest, because they aren't paying the bill. It's quite possible that the cheapest individual A/C units are cheaper overall than the system required to meter to individual units.
Quick question (and not meant to be rude): are you old enough to have been in peak game-playing years during the NES and Genesis/SNES era? You must not be if you are attempting to distinguish those systems from the current ones based on "crap games."
Lousy movie tie-ins? Those have always existed. Hell, the legendary ET game for Atari (so bad that it is often partially blamed for the collapse of an industry) is a movie tie-in. In the NES and SNES/Genesis era, LJN, Flying Edge, Acclaim (or, as many jokingly called it, ACK! LAME!) and plenty of other publisher/developers were responsible for literally hundreds of shovelware titles between the three systems. We are shielded from those titles by the virtue of 10 to 20 years of passed time that have gradually allowed the gaming community to repress those awful, awful memories. If you're curious, go look at the wiki pages for LJN or Flying Edge; 9/10s of the games on there were garbage and a good number are all movie tie-ins. Better yet, go check out the wiki page with the list of NES games. If you grew up during that era, you'll pick out a few great games, a bunch of stuff you barely remember as being mediocre or never worth your time, and some true stinkers.
We also have the virtue of being able to group the "hardware-pushing" games all into a particular era, rather than recognizing that months and years passed between what we now just blanket-label as NES-era games. For every developer that figured out how to bootleg up some parallax-like scrolling on the NES, there were a TON of devs pimping out simple side-scrolling platformers or shooters that look basically indistinguishable from Mario 2 (for example, ANY NES movie tie-in game that was a side scroller or shooter).
I assure you, not much has changed. There are still some worthwhile gems sprinkled in among garbage. If anything, the lowered cost of physical CD/DVD production has allowed more quality, niche games (tactical combat games, for example) to be ported from the Japanese market than the cartridge medium allowed.
You were right to distinguish my portrayal from the actual proponents' theories.
In the textbook method, writing is looked to as the do-all-and-be-all of instructional techniques, and with good reason. Given a decent writing prompt, I can get pages and pages out of even the most reluctant student; as they say, practice makes perfect.
The progress from there is a little hazier. You're supposed to rely heavily on the student's writing to teach a grammatical concept. It's extraordinarily difficult because you're dealing with 160 or so papers, some of which may not even have proper sentence structure and a few which may lack - for example - a subject. I've never found an education textbook that had anything much better than vague descriptions, often relying on simplified examples (This is an adverb!) that weren't of much use in a high school-level course. If whole language instruction appeared on/., it would look a lot like the old cliche:
1. Kids write paper 2. ???? 3. Grammar is learned!
I even went to a three week training one summer, ostensibly focused on writing-centric English instruction (with whole-language grammar instruction as a two day portion). Two of my coworkers were there. None of us left knowing anything more about whole language instruction. The inservice, which was taught by an elementary and a high school teacher, both of whom had trained in this for years, provided some realistic examples for elementary classrooms but degenerated to hand-waving when it came to high school level instruction.
I'm sure that one of the leading, published proponents could better explain how it's supposed to work. In my class, though, I often wrote a lesson plan that called for grammar instruction but was really more about writing instruction; I instructed students to pick out "To be" and "to have" verbs in an effort to convert passive to active voice and provided a few memorization tricks to avoid the dreaded homonym mix-ups. Was it about grammar? I suppose, but only in the loosest form.
In other words, I believe that in theory "whole language" learning is supposed to be about striking the proper balance between direct instruction of grammar and demonstrating how to apply grammar. In reality, I think it serves merely to satisfy the "3 Rs" crowd while simultaneously abandoning any direct grammar instruction more complicated than the basic parts of speech.
You've got me there. It's been a long time since I took French, but I'm curious about when you would actually use the phrase j'ai vecu, since it doesn't denote residence as far as I remember ("I lived in Paris, but now I live in Lyon" would not use vivre, right.) I understand that all rules are defined by the outliers, but the transitive/intransitive rule never failed me in one year of high school or four semesters of college French, and now I'm curious. Is there a more common non-etre intransitive that you could point out?
I would agree that intransitive verbs are outside of the scope of what one needs to know to use their language. That's part of the argument for the "whole language" school of grammar instruction. Likewise, anything beyond simple two-variable algebra is far beyond what most people need for their entire lives.
We still offer (and require) more advanced math in most American schools. We require more time in English in most states than in any other subject, period. Grammatical concepts are something spelled out as necessary in most states' curriculum guidelines. Clearly, we want children to know something more than just how to read, write, and speak "correctly." We (as a society) may not want the kids to bust out with 68K assembly, but we do want something a little more intensive than saving and printing.
Knowing a transitive vs. intransitive verb actually isn't hard at all. It takes approximately 10 minutes worth of lecture, a couple examples, and it's done. I've also provided real world applications for such knowledge that are incredibly common (many states now require foreign language instruction).
I haven't thrown my hat into either circle. There are reasonable arguments for both sides, especially given the time restrictions imposed by standardized testing and limited-length school years. I don't think that just because we can hit a bare minimum that we should be satisfied. I realize that it happens every day in schools across America, but I fear for the day when we decide that it will be our goal at an institutional level.
It's been a long time since I sat in French class, so feel free to take my comment with a grain of salt. Also, please forgive my lack of accents; HTML accent rules drive me nuts.
Most students can understand reflexive vs. non-reflexive without too much explanation; is it something you do to yourself or someone/something else does to itself? That part isn't much of a problem.
In my original post, I was referring to the special class of movement verbs that take etre. They are taught in beginning French either by the mnemonic DR MRS VAN DER TRAMP or by a visual device called "The House of Etre" where cartoon drawings represent each of the actions.
So, all reflexive verbs are etre and normal past tense is always avoir, but Descendre, Rester, Mourir, Revenir, Sortir, Venir, Arriver, Naitre, Devenir, Entrer, Retourner, Tomber, Rentrer, Aller, Monter, and Partir all take etre even though they aren't reflexive. They are all intransitive, though (with the exception of sortir, rentrer, and monter which take avoir if they're used transitively). Through some peculiarity of French grammar that I'm not familiar with, these may be some sort of bizarre implied reflexivity or something; I could imagine them functioning that way, so forgive me if that's the case.
As it is, though, the 14 verbs are all intransitive to any English speaker, and it's really damned easy to figure them out if you know that rule. Unfortunately, most American students' knowledge of grammar doesn't extend much beyond identifying a noun/pronoun/verb etc. so that lesson has to be hobbled by bizarre memorization rules.
Or it could be that most schools do not teach grammar or language structure at all, I know when I was in school we never got any of that crap. We got a few mentions of 'noun' vs 'verb', etc. But nothing like a lecture or classes on proper sentence structure.
I am 26 years old, with a degree in English, and I have taught English at the high school level in the past (I now teach computer courses for various reasons).
What does that mean besides the fact that I will invariably overlook a grammatical mistake in my own post? We don't teach grammar or language structure at all. Since about 1990, the trend in American English instruction has been the so-called "whole language" method. It is essentially based in a belief that immersion in proper English methods will result in more effective grammar instruction.
In practice, it means that children should be taught grammar through, say, correcting their own papers (where the changes and differences have more meaning than a drill) and through reading.
The fifth grade (1989-1990 for me) was the last time I had instruction in sentence diagramming. I did have one hold-out 9th grade English teacher who insisted on rote memorization of irregular verbs and their tenses, but who didn't provide much guidance for what distinguished "future perfect" from "past participle." Having sat through those courses, it's easy to understand both sides of the grammar education approach/
Like several other posters, it took foreign language instruction in middle school and high school before I started understanding the concept of infinitives, conjugations, tenses, etc. Coincidentally, it was also immensely frustrating when certain parts of foreign language instruction had to "dumbed down" because most students wouldn't have understood the terms being thrown around. In French, for example, you create the past tense of a verb by conjugating either avoir (to have) or etre (to be), then using a special ending for your action verb. Whether you use avoir or etre is determined entirely by whether or not your main verb is transitive or intransitive (one that has vs one that doesn't necessarily need a direct object). It's a simple distinction, but even at university level we were reduced to memorizing an mnemonic device (DR AND MRS VAN DER TRAMPS) to list the few intransitive verbs. Had the students received even minor direct grammar instruction, the distinction between the two would have been easy; as it is, there was much hand-wringing from students over the fact that a few uncommon verbs were not in the mnemonic but were intransitive.
So, to summarize, there are valid arguments for both teaching approaches. I am personally of the opinion that we learn grammar much more through absorption than rote memorization; this also makes it one of the most difficult subjects to teach to minority groups or recent immigrants who aren't immersed in the "proper" grammar 24/7. I can see why "whole language" grammar learning has its advocates - immersion methods are generally considered the best way to learn a foreign language, so why not apply them to our native language? On the flip side, though, ignoring the more technical instruction can substantially weaken a student's performance in other subjects. In the end, it's really a philosophical debate, like many in education, that boil down to personal or institutional preference.
My logic as to why they're a scam has nothing to do with their absence on manufactured cars and everything to do with an absence of any proof that they do work.
Go walk into a dealership, take a look at a $27,000 truck marked down to $18,000 and tell me Americans don't care about fuel efficiency now. In the era of $1.50 gasoline, you're right, Americans didn't give a damn. That ship sailed about 3 years ago.
Further, American manufacturers have almost no competitive advantage again Japanese and Korean autos, particularly in the sedan market. American cars depreciate like mad, often have to fight an oversupply issue because union contracts force production, and are still widely regarded as less reliable (even when most industry data says that they're about the same). If Ford, GM, or Chrysler could drop a basic sedan with 9 mpg better than a Camry, Accord, or Sonata, you don't think they would?
If Americans don't care about mileage now, why is the resale value of SUVs and Minivans taking a nosedive while the resale value of compact and subcompacts rise? Why is GM dumping brazillions of dollars into the Volt, a car that some estimate will sell for far more than most Chevys in its size range? Why did Ford bother making a hybrid Escape, or for that matter, why is it one of the best selling hybrids outside of the Prius? Why is the Prius worth mentioning at all - outside of the mileage, it's widely reviled in the automotive press as being a gadget-laden car that can't make up for the fact that it's zero fun to drive for an auto enthusiast. Why does the TDI Volkswagen Jetta still carry resale prices near what it sold for new?
Maybe Americans DO care about mileage, although it is sad that it took $3 and up gas for them to start caring.
Extended warranties make sense in a few situations. Of course, "self-insuring" is a much better idea. If you're tempted to buy the warranty on something, just take the money you would have spent on the warranty and dump it in a high-interest savings or money-market account. It's essentially the same thing the insurer is doing anyway (although, of course, they're spreading it out over many more claims than you will). You also get to make the call to toss it all and get a new one instead of waiting in repair limbo.
My absolute favorite part, though, is that the salesperson is almost always unable to counter it during their warranty pitch. I used to sell the warranties while I worked at Circuit City and Best Buy in college, and banking the warranty cost was one of the few objections that really didn't have any easy, canned reply.
Well, the cell phone antenna booster "stickers" were probably the single best tech scam. It combined laughably ineffective "technology" with the always successful price-so-low-it-doesn't-matter-if-they-don't-work.
More recently, I'm still astounded by the number of "BOOST YOUR MPG!" schemes that involve additives or random crap shoved in your air intake. I especially love the accusations from promoters that the auto manufacturers are in it with the oil companies. GM and Ford are both facing a very real possibility of chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the word is that Cerberus is quietly readying a giant hammer of doom over at Chrysler. If all it took was a $2 piece of metal to get 9 more mpg out of a Malibu, don't you think they'd have done it by now? See the cell phone boosters for the basic premise: if you only charge $40 for one of these things, people won't be too pissed when they find out that it doesn't work.
There are many MLM schemes that differentiate themselves from the regular Amway crowd by pitching websites that MAKE YOU MONEY. I was actually approached by two different classmates about five years ago regarding the scheme, and it was so comically bad to anyone with any kind of tech knowledge that you couldn't help but laugh. Picture MLM combined with an Amazon-style referral bonus for online purchases. Now charge someone $400 to participate, and charge extra for adding basic things to their company website. Now make sure the websites resemble GeoCities circa 1997. Now we're talking!
My other favorite is the speaker scam, which someone tried to pull on me about two weeks ago (I hadn't heard of these for years). It's not really a tech scam, just your basic grift that happens to involve technology: an "installer" got an extra set of speakers/surround sound system/plasma TV accidentally loaded in his van for a big install job. Last time this happened, his boss reamed him a new one for not noticing in the first place, then sold them and kept the cash himself. Installer figures he'd "cut out the middleman" and you look like the kind of guy who knows good equipment. Usually they're selling actual speakers or receiver (the plasma scams generally involved an oven door in a box with a window), and they often have some custom-made audio magazine with their brand of speaker on the cover and a great review inside. You end up buying $20 worth of garbage for $200. Dogg Digital and Kirsch were the big names in the white van speaker scam years ago. Google them for an entertaining and depressing look at human nature.
A random lawyer to whom you would pay a retainer will have nothing to do with a prosecuting a criminal matter such as stolen computers.
Criminal prosecutions are handled by attorneys working for the municipality or the state. Police gather evidence, the DA/DA's Office or something similar brings the charges, the normal hoops are jumped through, etc. It's just like any crime procedural but with fewer surprise witnesses and witty puns.
You might have a civil case if your computers were destroyed or if being without them cost your business money; if that's the case, then you would sue the thieves after the fact.
If OP is good friends with an attorney who practices criminal law in some manner, he or she might know specific people who you can go to within your police department or DA's office who could help you. As it is, you're right; the information he has would likely be sufficient to obtain warrant, and things would proceed from there. OP is going to have to keep trying until he finds someone who will run with it.
As this has dragged on for days, I'll make my final statement and end it. You and I are arguing about two different times.
You are arguing about a hazy future in which decades of entrenched piracy combined with enormous leaps in usability eliminate any and all commercial avenues of distribution. Immediately after that, you say copyright is dead. You're talking about something that has the potential to happen but is nowhere near here; unfortunately, based on your comments, it would appear that you genuinely believe it already has happened. You apparently believe, in violation of an existing multi-billion dollar market, that digital media presently has no value (although you also swing between present tense and talking about older generations, so who knows). If this is the case, I'm not sure how I would go about reasoning with you, but I'll trust that you're talking about the future.
I am arguing about all of the decades in the meantime. Copyright law is a long damned way from dead. Not only that, there exists a very real possibility that the legal enforcement avenues will begin to hit much, much harder than they do now. It could begin to hit so hard, in fact, that it becomes unfeasible to get to your hazy future (a point a made in my second reply). If you're interested in continuously falling back on Econ 101 arguments in a vacuum, consider this: distribution over the internet no longer costs $0 if there exists the very real possibility of a substantial fine. It also costs $0 to shoplift; while (I hope) a substantial majority don't do so because of moral qualms, a large portion of people are deterred by potential penalty. Absent a $0 cost, there is not infinite supply.
Distribution over the internet no longer costs $0 if I value my time - so until the idiot-proof AppleTV+Piracy box exists, there's a value in providing a simpler solution. And as soon as said box exists (see earlier), it will be hit hard. Likewise, if piracy impacts production so much that an supply of sometimes-questionable bootlegs are the only viable source of a home-release movie, then distribution really is more than $0 because time is valuable. There can't be infinite supply if not everyone can obtain products through that channel (it must be idiot-proof) and if not everything is readily available in a quality form through that channel (we must talk about a supply of the same product)
Please understand that I don't have a deep, abiding love for the way many copyright holders act, nor do I necessarily agree with all of the copyright laws. You say that you're just trying to understand how things will "play out." That's what I am doing as well.
In my second reply to you, I said, "Is it possible that critical mass is reached on a system so tightly designed that it's impossible for anyone to be caught? Maybe, but it's just as likely that larger enforcement tactics would render such an occurrence impossible because too many people are deterred by the potential penalties."
I'm laying out a realistic possibility: 1) copyright holders lobby world-wide for more enforcement (this is obviously already happening) 2) government complies and enforces harder 3) copyright law continues to exist in a form with more teeth 4) infringement starts to be a proposition too risky for the majority to always pursue 5) we don't arrive at your copyright-free future
In other words, we're both making pronouncements about what will happen at a theoretical instant in the future. You argue that we'll hit a tipping point where so many people infringe that the populace is unwilling to accept any law preventing them from doing so. I argue that the tipping point can be prevented from ever occurring by harder, stricter enforcement that keeps enough people from ever being in that movement in the first place.
No one forces the $10 bag or plastic bag users to use $1,000 bags. That's a ridiculous analogy and you know it. If you really want to run with it, though, we'll do that. A Hollywood movie is the $1,000 bag. You're free to use it if you want. There are thousands of small-time productions on youtube, at your local university, on public access TV, etc. They are the $10 bag or the plastic bag. No one is forcing you to use the $1,000 bag. No one. You want to use the $1,000 bag for $10, and that's what people tend to take issue with.
The existence of people who would spend money on what is "free" is not at issue here; it's the existence of people who would take without fairly compensating those who produced a product. We can argue around and around on what constitutes fair compensation and on what we should be able to do with a product afterward, but it doesn't change the fact that the producer gets to set the price. Whether or not a given person chooses to purchase at that price is their choice, but remember that we're talking about music and movies here, not food or shelter.
Every producer of copyrighted material gets to choose how and where it will be published. Musicians are free to use a creative commons license or to choose not to burden their product with a copyright at all. They are also free to sell it in a traditional packaged form and retain a reasonable expectation that some legal avenue exists to enforce against those who would infringe.
You are not the arbiter of morality. The democratic system (and our US Constitution) has established that copyright is legal, and it is not infringing any of your personal rights. You may argue that it is unwise for copyright holders to pursue individual infringers, and you may actually be correct. When you hold a copyright, you are free to pursue or ignore anyone you'd like (to a point), but the **AAs have made their choice. It may be a cunning business decision or a ridiculous folly, but it's their call to make.
Clearly, you believe that there is no value in that produced product other than the "live" performance of it (or paying to view it in a fancy cinema). That's your choice. There are millions, perhaps billions who feel that there is value there beyond the mere "live" performance, and they are willing to pay for it. The companies that produce that additional product are protected by copyright law, something so fundamental that it is laid out in the US Constitution (or at least Congress' right to establish it is laid out).
Fight against it if you want, please. Straying from your own beliefs is a bad policy. Don't tell me that just because you want something for free that it should be so. And please, please don't argue that because some people can infringe the copyright that it's invalidated, outmoded, obsolete, dead, or worst of all, morally justified.
That's my final point: copyright law isn't dead so long as there are companies selling products that can be packaged up digitally.
You initial assertion in this thread was that copyright law is dead, and that copyright holder should give up and fall on their sword.
The problem is that copyright law obviously isn't dead today. Of course, I know that wasn't what you meant, but it's not even dying. Rather, the copyright holders are pushing to bolster it.
It won't be dead tomorrow, not by a long shot. Again, the copyright holders are attempting to strengthen the actions they can take and obligate governmental enforcement. Things have the potential to get very nasty in the next few years.
And the final point: It won't be dead so long as there are people willing to pay for the product. Those people exist today, despite widespread availability of pirated material. Could the scales tip? Sure, I almost buy the complete shift in the music industry. It's possible to envision a world where bootlegs of live recordings (or loss-leader studio recordings for the radio) serve merely as promotional material for live shows.
Movies is what catches me. Sure, the movie industry can do a great job at the theater. But in your world, no one wants to pay for a movie at home? Because pirates can bootleg it, it can't be financially healthy? In an era when young, tech-savvy folks are also snapping up DVD purchases, that claim just doesn't compute. Hollywood has pointed out time and again that DVD sales is a spectacular aspect of their industry, and that some people seem so fixated on "collecting" DVDs that they purchase movies to watch them once. Even given the free option, there are millions of people around the world who WANT to pay for their digital media.
Still, P2P products will evolve. But even the easiest software to install and use still presents obstacles and plenty of incentive to go buy the movie. Suppose some company releases a set-top box that automatically configures itself and gives me a simple, Apple TV-like interface to the latest pirated selection of movies. That company makes itself a spectacular target for lawsuits.
And that brings me back around to the final point: copyright law won't be dead so long as there are people willing to pay for the product. They will fight the set-top box manufacturers, they will lobby to obligate enforcement, they will struggle to find exploits in the "perfect" software. As long as people are willing to pay for a product, there will be a producer to sell it to them.
That's where you and I disagree. You believe that eventually everyone will be comfortable enough with easy-to-use software to simply pirate everything. I believe that there are large segments of the population that are willing to pay for the physical product (or download), even when easy-to-use pirated solutions are available.
Given a long enough time horizon (generations), enough people might have grown up with such a totally different perspective that they are no longer willing to pay. That's a possibility, though definitely not a certainty; we're both playing wild-eyed future predictor at that point ("Flying cars and cities in plastic domes!"). If we want to accept that final statement as the justification that copyright law is "dead," we might as well decide that tax laws are dead because our country will eventually fall. Copyright law is not dead, and it is not going anywhere.
Don't forget that we use **AA because it includes both the RIAA and the MPAA. Profits for music may be down currently, but Hollywood is doing just fine. There's plenty of cash for lobbying from the major copyright holders, especially if you factor in the software industry.
You talk of armies of lawyers and technologically savvy programmers costing the **AA money. That's dead wrong. The current laws they're trying to push would force criminal prosecutions. I don't foot the bill for detectives or the DA (at least not directly), and neither would the copyright holders.
They're planning to offload their expenses to law enforcement, and that doesn't cost them a dime (it costs us all). Your machine isn't starving; if anything, it's spending less money on legal fees and technical costs than it currently does.
That's not an uphill battle for anyone but the citizenry, and we all know how difficult it is to get laws repealed.
You glossed right past this statement: "Is it possible that critical mass is reached on a system so tightly designed that it's impossible for anyone to be caught? Maybe, but it's just as likely that larger enforcement tactics would render such an occurrence impossible because too many people are deterred by the potential penalties."
Is it possible to develop the ultimate anonymous file-sharing app? Probably, although I would dispute that it would ever be foolproof. We've had ten years now, and the system has evolved; it's still far from perfect and the majority aren't using any of the current-gen (or even last gen) technology. Is it also possible to - in the meantime - provide a deterrent sufficient to prevent the ultimate file-sharing app from ever reaching mainstream success? Yep.
Up to this point, all of the deterrents in the system have been bad files or shut-down servers. If a serious quantity of people started getting nailed with even middling fines, we'd be talking about a very different evolutionary structure. The major copyright holders seem to recognize this and are actively pushing for it to happen.
Either way, we still wouldn't be talking about the end of copyright law. Assuming the rise of a perfectly designed, perfectly-implemented P2P program, you do understand that nothing prevents legislation targeting possession, distribution, development etc. of such a program? Nothing prevents legislation requiring portable music players to verify checksums on electronic purchases and require anything else to be locally ripped. Hell, with the expanding availability of the internet, nothing prevents legislation requiring "phone home everytime without fail" devices. You can certainly envision technical solutions to those hurdles, but it would put us right back at gen-1 Napster days except with a vastly heightened police interest in stopping the evolution. Oh, and more copyright laws.
Please note that I'm not saying I support such an approach, merely that it is a definite possibility. Argument to the contrary fails to consider human nature just as much as the RIAA's "one million, bajillion dollars per song" proposed penalties.
First, let me be clear that the few times I use the blanket term IP, it's because I'm referring to countries like China who disregard both copyright and patent laws. IP laws as a whole will not be abolished, because patents are far more realistic and flexible in their execution. Certain things about the way patents are currently granted and examined are ludicrous, but the concept is more sound and touches far more industries (and is far more likely to gain traction in piracy-friendly developing nations as they industrialize).
No, what we're talking about when we talk about the **AA organizations is copyright. Current copyright laws grant too much extension in my opinion, but they're also laws soundly grounded in the realities of business. The ability to cheaply replicate 1s and 0s doesn't negate the cost to develop those 1s and 0s in the first place, and businesses WILL fight to recoup their losses.
You begin with a truism - nothing "says" that any law needs to continue to exist. Depending upon your philosophical beliefs regarding the root of governmental powers you can argue that one any way you'd like.
The death of IP Law is being made apparent? Where? Large-scale piracy operations are still actively pursued by federal enforcement agencies and pirated materials are still actively seized by customs enforcement. The overwhelming majority of personal file sharers aren't pursued by those agencies because they aren't considered a priority by the current administration. Presidents tell AGs what will and won't be a priority for pursuit, and the AG makes it clear to lower level officials what they should be pursuing. In short, don't confuse the current lack of enforcement with the death of copyright law.
The overwhelming majority of piracy today takes place via unencrypted, wide-open protocols such as BitTorrent. Users are effectively broadcasting everything law enforcement would need to stop them; law enforcement just isn't interested. Playing PeerGuardian games and blocking connections to "known-bad" IPs won't stop that. Present encryption systems are principally designed to prevent ISP-level packet-shaping, not hide the identity of the users.
But better systems will come along, right? TOR could be redesigned to scale properly, faster computers, etc. You're absolutely right, there are a lot of things 20 years down the road that can't be predicted (what of the theory that quantum computers will render all present encryption algorithms pointless?) Is it possible that critical mass is reached on a system so tightly designed that it's impossible for anyone to be caught? Maybe, but it's just as likely that larger enforcement tactics would render such an occurrence impossible because too many people are deterred by the potential penalties.
In short, the laws can be enforced. Without a doubt. Tech-savvy users will be able to manipulate things to stay ahead of the game, but the average person can be prevented from engaging in most piracy through present enforcement methods. The fact that some people get away with a crime does not mean that the laws preventing said crime are dead or unenforceable. Tax fraud is committed by millions and the IRS audits far fewer files now than it did 30 years ago, but I assure you that the laws preventing tax fraud are far from dead.
I don't think copyright laws are perfect - they're far from it. They're also not irrelevant, no matter how much you may wish they were. What we're seeing here is an act as old as legislation itself - the **AAs are looking for legislation that will help defend the way they do business, even if that business is in some ways short-sighted or out-of-touch. They may succeed in shoving through their wish list, they may fail completely, or they may get met 1/2 or 1/3-way there.
I think you'll have a hard time arguing that copyright infringement is a "good thing." I also think you'll have a hard time arguing that penalties for a pirated album should be in the five-figure range. Rather, you'll likely see a
It's interesting that you chose books as one of your examples. They provide an excellent mirror to today's copyright problems.
American colonists (and early American citizens) were huge consumers of pirated European books (often printed in Scotland). Part of the reason for Scottish supplies was that London printers had a gentlemen's agreement not to lower the wholesale price of books and this made early shipping owners unwilling to risk losing such expensive cargo for a minimal payoff. Scottish printers had no such qualms with dropping the wholesale price (of course, they also weren't paying the authors) As paper and presses became more affordable, American printers became engaged in wholesale copyright violations.
Remember that although you could always find bootleg discs from some guy on the corner, the internet piracy era really took off when the perfect storm of dropping CD burner prices and expanding broadband hit.
Canada was still an English territory, so although England was powerless to stop the piracy in the United States, they attempted to level import duties on books moving into Canada. The idea was to allow whatever books across the border, but to collect the duty, record the titles, and remit the money so that it could be distributed to the authors. You can guess how well that worked with customs agents, who basically ignored the extra work or were simply bribed into accepting shipments. Through cheap pirated work, the entirety of the American book-printing industry was built. They could undercut production costs from anyone due to the fact that American printers didn't pay out royalties.
There are certainly many legitimate sources for electronic music, but it's difficult to imagine the success of the MP3 player without bootleg MP3s. Joe Average - to this day - is more likely to know how to pirate a song using some program his kid installed than he is to know how to rip a CD. Plenty of legitimate sources of music exist online, and the prices are quite reasonable; it's very difficult to compete with $0. Although Napster bowed out of the DRM market, they were a legitimate company who built their name on pirated goods. One might even argue that much of the success of Apple is owed not just to a quality MP3 player design but a ready supply of bootleg music with which to fill the iPod.
Ultimately, Governments passed more and more preposterous copyright laws relating to novels. In order to obtain copyright in America, for example, you had to deposit a copy of your book with Washington BEFORE you started selling overseas. Copyright law at the time was an amalgam of author/publisher's and printer's concerns, with several countries enacting protectionist measures relating to imported books. The English had further problems with copyright on homegrown authors in their colonies (India, Canada, Australia). Things only finally sorted themselves out at the beginning of the 20th century when enough American/Canadian/Australian authors were "big" enough that both sides found it worthwhile to call a truce. American publishers stood to lose just as much money to overseas pirating as the English publishers had. Major countries met, agreements were made, and things settled into the current system.
And so we find ourselves in the "more and more preposterous copyright laws" stage of the game. Restricting optical-grade polycarbonate? Removing common-carrier status by forcing filtering? It's going way beyond reasonable. If history is to be believed, a large meeting of the major countries and a treaty is needed, but the unfortunate answer is that such treaties already exist. The wholesale piracy houses are located in countries who don't yet have enough to lose; They're 1800 America instead of 1900 America. So while we can cross our fingers and hope for their IP cultures to take hold, we also have to address the problem of the individual file sharer - he or she will never be 1900 America and will thus always have an incentive to shoot for the bottom.
Agreed. I have the X6, which is nearly the same product. To be fair, it doesn't support hot-swap. On the other hand, hot-swap isn't really relevant for a huge amount of NAS buyers.
I paid $560 for the diskless version of the X6, and came in well under $1000 with 4x320GB drives in mid-2006. Netgear's decision to discontinue the X6 in favor of the rackmount and NV+ based models is a blatant attempt to shoot themselves in the foot.
BTW, the X6 is still available from several dealers. NewEgg nearly always has open box returns up at a discounted price, and ebay is a good source for it as well. Bonus: The X6 has a PCI slot, and you can drop in a wireless PCI card, additional USB ports, or even another gigE card if you decide to.
Netgear's ReadyNAS line of products (originally made by a small outfit called Infrant before Netgear bought them out) strikes the best mix of NAS characteristics outside of rolling your own.
The RND4000 retails for $900 diskless, although you can occasionally find it a bit cheaper. It has four SATA inputs and uses a "drive cage"-style design to eliminate wires and allow for hot-swap; it's 9" x 8" x 5". It has gigabit ethernet interface and 3 USB ports. You can set it up as a print server, interface to a UPS, set it up to auto-copy out to a USB HDD on a particular schedule, or set it to auto-copy in from USB flash card/drive to a particular partition.
All the interface is web-based, and in addition to the usual NAS features it supports FTP and HTTP sharing of files, Active directory integration (if that floats your boat), user quotas, and other fun little stuff. The system supports automatic power-on and -off at scheduled times, a journaled file system, and spin-down of drives when not in use. My model states that it uses 60W spun down and 130W at full tilt.
It supports RAID-5 and a RAID 5-based system that Netgear/Infrant call X-RAID. X-RAID allows for dynamic expansion of capacity, which is a very nice selling point in a NAS box. Got 4x250GB drives and want to upgrade to 4x750GB? Just pull one drive at a time, wait for rebuild, and repeat until all four have been replaced. Netgear/Infrant has never gone into the specifics of how it's done, but I'm guessing the drives are partitioned and the partitions are then RAIDed to ensure drive-level failure can't cause a problem. I know I've seen people do the same thing in software on x86 machines (in LVM, maybe?), so I'd guess that's what they're up to.
I have an older Infrant ReadyNAS (the X6 ver. 2 model), and have been very pleased with it. I have heard grumbling that after the Netgear buyout the support channels have gotten a little more irritating. I haven't personally had to deal with it, so I can't vouch either way, but I do notice that the latest system update (which had been in beta a few months ago when I checked) is now listed as a proper release on their downloads section, so they appear to be maintaining the normal release schedule.
You will hear some/.ers recommend rolling your own, and they'll definitely have good arguments. $900 diskless goes a long way in small, quiet, cool PC gear. If you want a NAS system, though, I've found this to be one of the best mixes of features (particularly the dynamic expansion) available short of a full-on PC.
Apparently they're literally ripping off the cover of both laptops so that they can shoehorn in 3.5 inch Hard drives (at the top of the page). It's either that or this guy's editor needs to be shot...
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I'm glad that Cricket's service makes sense in your particular situation. My general experience with those who have used the service is that the price savings was illusory; it only ended up cheaper than comparable "big four" service if you fit a particular profile of user (your distaste for traveling would be a good example) AND could get decent service. The biggest complaint I seem to hear, both in-person and online, is poor network coverage and call quality. If it isn't a problem for you, though, I'm glad you found a service that worked out. Austin's coverage map is surprisingly good, and I might consider using Cricket if I lived there.
None of the people I've spoken to had anything great to say about customer service, so I'm surprised you praised that; in fairness, I've never heard of any particularly praiseworthy customer service in the mobile world, so it's not surprising that they were equally unhappy with Cricket.
So if it's generally not a better deal for many types of people, who uses it? Back to my original statement about their target demographic: those who can't use the other carriers.
I own stock in Leap wireless (parent company of Cricket) and know someone on the board of the company. So when I say that someone who is considering an iPhone plan probably won't be happy with Cricket, I mean it.
Cricket is - at its simplest level - the sub-prime mortgage of the wireless industry. It targets primarily those customers whose credit (or lack thereof) make activation with one of the "big four" impossible or cost-prohibitive. Cricket touts month-to-month (or for an extra fee, week-to-week) payment plans. The basic thrust of the plans, a flat rate for unlimited services X, Y, and Z, is appealing.
Go to Cricket's website and look at one of their coverage maps. It's like looking at the "digital coverage" maps from back when the major carriers were switching from AMPS to TDMA/CDMA. Sections of major cities are explicitly marked with different colors for "excellent coverage" vs. "good coverage," and large portions of the maps are uncovered. If online and in-person complaints are to be believed, "good coverage" is not the most accurate use of the English language.
If you leave the coverage area, Cricket's basic roaming rate (yes, roaming) is $0.31 / minute, but you can offset that through more expensive plans.
Cricket's target market is the group whose credit/income makes the traditional carriers balk. Cricket's service is well-designed for that group of people, and as mobile phones become more and more a "necessity" in many people's eyes, I think the company will continue to grow. However, if you are not a part of this group, Cricket service is probably not your best choice. If you are interested in what an iPhone service plan costs, Cricket is probably far from your best choice.
Most of the state, where it is dry, is basically unpopulated. El Paso is the only "major" city in the desert areas of the state. Houston, Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, and San Antonio all run humidity levels far too high for swamp coolers to work. Believe me, you find swap coolers in the places where they work. Contrary to what old westerns might have you believe, though, the state is not all desert.
You do occasionally see that in TX, but I could only name two complexes where I've run into it. One is operated by a university as a fancier dorm, so I imagine it's an "all bills paid" type place anyway, which eliminates the need to individually bill.
Also, keep in mind that apartment builders are obviously looking for the cheapest build option possible. Efficiency after the fact is not in their interest, because they aren't paying the bill. It's quite possible that the cheapest individual A/C units are cheaper overall than the system required to meter to individual units.
Quick question (and not meant to be rude): are you old enough to have been in peak game-playing years during the NES and Genesis/SNES era? You must not be if you are attempting to distinguish those systems from the current ones based on "crap games."
Lousy movie tie-ins? Those have always existed. Hell, the legendary ET game for Atari (so bad that it is often partially blamed for the collapse of an industry) is a movie tie-in. In the NES and SNES/Genesis era, LJN, Flying Edge, Acclaim (or, as many jokingly called it, ACK! LAME!) and plenty of other publisher/developers were responsible for literally hundreds of shovelware titles between the three systems. We are shielded from those titles by the virtue of 10 to 20 years of passed time that have gradually allowed the gaming community to repress those awful, awful memories. If you're curious, go look at the wiki pages for LJN or Flying Edge; 9/10s of the games on there were garbage and a good number are all movie tie-ins. Better yet, go check out the wiki page with the list of NES games. If you grew up during that era, you'll pick out a few great games, a bunch of stuff you barely remember as being mediocre or never worth your time, and some true stinkers.
We also have the virtue of being able to group the "hardware-pushing" games all into a particular era, rather than recognizing that months and years passed between what we now just blanket-label as NES-era games. For every developer that figured out how to bootleg up some parallax-like scrolling on the NES, there were a TON of devs pimping out simple side-scrolling platformers or shooters that look basically indistinguishable from Mario 2 (for example, ANY NES movie tie-in game that was a side scroller or shooter).
I assure you, not much has changed. There are still some worthwhile gems sprinkled in among garbage. If anything, the lowered cost of physical CD/DVD production has allowed more quality, niche games (tactical combat games, for example) to be ported from the Japanese market than the cartridge medium allowed.
You were right to distinguish my portrayal from the actual proponents' theories.
In the textbook method, writing is looked to as the do-all-and-be-all of instructional techniques, and with good reason. Given a decent writing prompt, I can get pages and pages out of even the most reluctant student; as they say, practice makes perfect.
The progress from there is a little hazier. You're supposed to rely heavily on the student's writing to teach a grammatical concept. It's extraordinarily difficult because you're dealing with 160 or so papers, some of which may not even have proper sentence structure and a few which may lack - for example - a subject. I've never found an education textbook that had anything much better than vague descriptions, often relying on simplified examples (This is an adverb!) that weren't of much use in a high school-level course. If whole language instruction appeared on /., it would look a lot like the old cliche:
1. Kids write paper
2. ????
3. Grammar is learned!
I even went to a three week training one summer, ostensibly focused on writing-centric English instruction (with whole-language grammar instruction as a two day portion). Two of my coworkers were there. None of us left knowing anything more about whole language instruction. The inservice, which was taught by an elementary and a high school teacher, both of whom had trained in this for years, provided some realistic examples for elementary classrooms but degenerated to hand-waving when it came to high school level instruction.
I'm sure that one of the leading, published proponents could better explain how it's supposed to work. In my class, though, I often wrote a lesson plan that called for grammar instruction but was really more about writing instruction; I instructed students to pick out "To be" and "to have" verbs in an effort to convert passive to active voice and provided a few memorization tricks to avoid the dreaded homonym mix-ups. Was it about grammar? I suppose, but only in the loosest form.
In other words, I believe that in theory "whole language" learning is supposed to be about striking the proper balance between direct instruction of grammar and demonstrating how to apply grammar. In reality, I think it serves merely to satisfy the "3 Rs" crowd while simultaneously abandoning any direct grammar instruction more complicated than the basic parts of speech.
You've got me there. It's been a long time since I took French, but I'm curious about when you would actually use the phrase j'ai vecu, since it doesn't denote residence as far as I remember ("I lived in Paris, but now I live in Lyon" would not use vivre, right.) I understand that all rules are defined by the outliers, but the transitive/intransitive rule never failed me in one year of high school or four semesters of college French, and now I'm curious. Is there a more common non-etre intransitive that you could point out?
I would agree that intransitive verbs are outside of the scope of what one needs to know to use their language. That's part of the argument for the "whole language" school of grammar instruction. Likewise, anything beyond simple two-variable algebra is far beyond what most people need for their entire lives.
We still offer (and require) more advanced math in most American schools. We require more time in English in most states than in any other subject, period. Grammatical concepts are something spelled out as necessary in most states' curriculum guidelines. Clearly, we want children to know something more than just how to read, write, and speak "correctly." We (as a society) may not want the kids to bust out with 68K assembly, but we do want something a little more intensive than saving and printing.
Knowing a transitive vs. intransitive verb actually isn't hard at all. It takes approximately 10 minutes worth of lecture, a couple examples, and it's done. I've also provided real world applications for such knowledge that are incredibly common (many states now require foreign language instruction).
I haven't thrown my hat into either circle. There are reasonable arguments for both sides, especially given the time restrictions imposed by standardized testing and limited-length school years. I don't think that just because we can hit a bare minimum that we should be satisfied. I realize that it happens every day in schools across America, but I fear for the day when we decide that it will be our goal at an institutional level.
It's been a long time since I sat in French class, so feel free to take my comment with a grain of salt. Also, please forgive my lack of accents; HTML accent rules drive me nuts.
Most students can understand reflexive vs. non-reflexive without too much explanation; is it something you do to yourself or someone/something else does to itself? That part isn't much of a problem.
In my original post, I was referring to the special class of movement verbs that take etre. They are taught in beginning French either by the mnemonic DR MRS VAN DER TRAMP or by a visual device called "The House of Etre" where cartoon drawings represent each of the actions.
So, all reflexive verbs are etre and normal past tense is always avoir, but Descendre, Rester, Mourir, Revenir, Sortir, Venir, Arriver, Naitre, Devenir, Entrer, Retourner, Tomber, Rentrer, Aller, Monter, and Partir all take etre even though they aren't reflexive. They are all intransitive, though (with the exception of sortir, rentrer, and monter which take avoir if they're used transitively). Through some peculiarity of French grammar that I'm not familiar with, these may be some sort of bizarre implied reflexivity or something; I could imagine them functioning that way, so forgive me if that's the case.
As it is, though, the 14 verbs are all intransitive to any English speaker, and it's really damned easy to figure them out if you know that rule. Unfortunately, most American students' knowledge of grammar doesn't extend much beyond identifying a noun/pronoun/verb etc. so that lesson has to be hobbled by bizarre memorization rules.
Or it could be that most schools do not teach grammar or language structure at all, I know when I was in school we never got any of that crap. We got a few mentions of 'noun' vs 'verb', etc. But nothing like a lecture or classes on proper sentence structure.
I am 26 years old, with a degree in English, and I have taught English at the high school level in the past (I now teach computer courses for various reasons).
What does that mean besides the fact that I will invariably overlook a grammatical mistake in my own post? We don't teach grammar or language structure at all. Since about 1990, the trend in American English instruction has been the so-called "whole language" method. It is essentially based in a belief that immersion in proper English methods will result in more effective grammar instruction.
In practice, it means that children should be taught grammar through, say, correcting their own papers (where the changes and differences have more meaning than a drill) and through reading.
The fifth grade (1989-1990 for me) was the last time I had instruction in sentence diagramming. I did have one hold-out 9th grade English teacher who insisted on rote memorization of irregular verbs and their tenses, but who didn't provide much guidance for what distinguished "future perfect" from "past participle." Having sat through those courses, it's easy to understand both sides of the grammar education approach/
Like several other posters, it took foreign language instruction in middle school and high school before I started understanding the concept of infinitives, conjugations, tenses, etc. Coincidentally, it was also immensely frustrating when certain parts of foreign language instruction had to "dumbed down" because most students wouldn't have understood the terms being thrown around. In French, for example, you create the past tense of a verb by conjugating either avoir (to have) or etre (to be), then using a special ending for your action verb. Whether you use avoir or etre is determined entirely by whether or not your main verb is transitive or intransitive (one that has vs one that doesn't necessarily need a direct object). It's a simple distinction, but even at university level we were reduced to memorizing an mnemonic device (DR AND MRS VAN DER TRAMPS) to list the few intransitive verbs. Had the students received even minor direct grammar instruction, the distinction between the two would have been easy; as it is, there was much hand-wringing from students over the fact that a few uncommon verbs were not in the mnemonic but were intransitive.
So, to summarize, there are valid arguments for both teaching approaches. I am personally of the opinion that we learn grammar much more through absorption than rote memorization; this also makes it one of the most difficult subjects to teach to minority groups or recent immigrants who aren't immersed in the "proper" grammar 24/7. I can see why "whole language" grammar learning has its advocates - immersion methods are generally considered the best way to learn a foreign language, so why not apply them to our native language? On the flip side, though, ignoring the more technical instruction can substantially weaken a student's performance in other subjects. In the end, it's really a philosophical debate, like many in education, that boil down to personal or institutional preference.
My logic as to why they're a scam has nothing to do with their absence on manufactured cars and everything to do with an absence of any proof that they do work.
Go walk into a dealership, take a look at a $27,000 truck marked down to $18,000 and tell me Americans don't care about fuel efficiency now. In the era of $1.50 gasoline, you're right, Americans didn't give a damn. That ship sailed about 3 years ago.
Further, American manufacturers have almost no competitive advantage again Japanese and Korean autos, particularly in the sedan market. American cars depreciate like mad, often have to fight an oversupply issue because union contracts force production, and are still widely regarded as less reliable (even when most industry data says that they're about the same). If Ford, GM, or Chrysler could drop a basic sedan with 9 mpg better than a Camry, Accord, or Sonata, you don't think they would?
If Americans don't care about mileage now, why is the resale value of SUVs and Minivans taking a nosedive while the resale value of compact and subcompacts rise? Why is GM dumping brazillions of dollars into the Volt, a car that some estimate will sell for far more than most Chevys in its size range? Why did Ford bother making a hybrid Escape, or for that matter, why is it one of the best selling hybrids outside of the Prius? Why is the Prius worth mentioning at all - outside of the mileage, it's widely reviled in the automotive press as being a gadget-laden car that can't make up for the fact that it's zero fun to drive for an auto enthusiast. Why does the TDI Volkswagen Jetta still carry resale prices near what it sold for new?
Maybe Americans DO care about mileage, although it is sad that it took $3 and up gas for them to start caring.
Extended warranties make sense in a few situations. Of course, "self-insuring" is a much better idea. If you're tempted to buy the warranty on something, just take the money you would have spent on the warranty and dump it in a high-interest savings or money-market account. It's essentially the same thing the insurer is doing anyway (although, of course, they're spreading it out over many more claims than you will). You also get to make the call to toss it all and get a new one instead of waiting in repair limbo.
My absolute favorite part, though, is that the salesperson is almost always unable to counter it during their warranty pitch. I used to sell the warranties while I worked at Circuit City and Best Buy in college, and banking the warranty cost was one of the few objections that really didn't have any easy, canned reply.
Well, the cell phone antenna booster "stickers" were probably the single best tech scam. It combined laughably ineffective "technology" with the always successful price-so-low-it-doesn't-matter-if-they-don't-work.
More recently, I'm still astounded by the number of "BOOST YOUR MPG!" schemes that involve additives or random crap shoved in your air intake. I especially love the accusations from promoters that the auto manufacturers are in it with the oil companies. GM and Ford are both facing a very real possibility of chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the word is that Cerberus is quietly readying a giant hammer of doom over at Chrysler. If all it took was a $2 piece of metal to get 9 more mpg out of a Malibu, don't you think they'd have done it by now? See the cell phone boosters for the basic premise: if you only charge $40 for one of these things, people won't be too pissed when they find out that it doesn't work.
There are many MLM schemes that differentiate themselves from the regular Amway crowd by pitching websites that MAKE YOU MONEY. I was actually approached by two different classmates about five years ago regarding the scheme, and it was so comically bad to anyone with any kind of tech knowledge that you couldn't help but laugh. Picture MLM combined with an Amazon-style referral bonus for online purchases. Now charge someone $400 to participate, and charge extra for adding basic things to their company website. Now make sure the websites resemble GeoCities circa 1997. Now we're talking!
My other favorite is the speaker scam, which someone tried to pull on me about two weeks ago (I hadn't heard of these for years). It's not really a tech scam, just your basic grift that happens to involve technology: an "installer" got an extra set of speakers/surround sound system/plasma TV accidentally loaded in his van for a big install job. Last time this happened, his boss reamed him a new one for not noticing in the first place, then sold them and kept the cash himself. Installer figures he'd "cut out the middleman" and you look like the kind of guy who knows good equipment. Usually they're selling actual speakers or receiver (the plasma scams generally involved an oven door in a box with a window), and they often have some custom-made audio magazine with their brand of speaker on the cover and a great review inside. You end up buying $20 worth of garbage for $200. Dogg Digital and Kirsch were the big names in the white van speaker scam years ago. Google them for an entertaining and depressing look at human nature.
A random lawyer to whom you would pay a retainer will have nothing to do with a prosecuting a criminal matter such as stolen computers.
Criminal prosecutions are handled by attorneys working for the municipality or the state. Police gather evidence, the DA/DA's Office or something similar brings the charges, the normal hoops are jumped through, etc. It's just like any crime procedural but with fewer surprise witnesses and witty puns.
You might have a civil case if your computers were destroyed or if being without them cost your business money; if that's the case, then you would sue the thieves after the fact.
If OP is good friends with an attorney who practices criminal law in some manner, he or she might know specific people who you can go to within your police department or DA's office who could help you. As it is, you're right; the information he has would likely be sufficient to obtain warrant, and things would proceed from there. OP is going to have to keep trying until he finds someone who will run with it.
As this has dragged on for days, I'll make my final statement and end it. You and I are arguing about two different times.
You are arguing about a hazy future in which decades of entrenched piracy combined with enormous leaps in usability eliminate any and all commercial avenues of distribution. Immediately after that, you say copyright is dead. You're talking about something that has the potential to happen but is nowhere near here; unfortunately, based on your comments, it would appear that you genuinely believe it already has happened. You apparently believe, in violation of an existing multi-billion dollar market, that digital media presently has no value (although you also swing between present tense and talking about older generations, so who knows). If this is the case, I'm not sure how I would go about reasoning with you, but I'll trust that you're talking about the future.
I am arguing about all of the decades in the meantime. Copyright law is a long damned way from dead. Not only that, there exists a very real possibility that the legal enforcement avenues will begin to hit much, much harder than they do now. It could begin to hit so hard, in fact, that it becomes unfeasible to get to your hazy future (a point a made in my second reply). If you're interested in continuously falling back on Econ 101 arguments in a vacuum, consider this: distribution over the internet no longer costs $0 if there exists the very real possibility of a substantial fine. It also costs $0 to shoplift; while (I hope) a substantial majority don't do so because of moral qualms, a large portion of people are deterred by potential penalty. Absent a $0 cost, there is not infinite supply.
Distribution over the internet no longer costs $0 if I value my time - so until the idiot-proof AppleTV+Piracy box exists, there's a value in providing a simpler solution. And as soon as said box exists (see earlier), it will be hit hard. Likewise, if piracy impacts production so much that an supply of sometimes-questionable bootlegs are the only viable source of a home-release movie, then distribution really is more than $0 because time is valuable. There can't be infinite supply if not everyone can obtain products through that channel (it must be idiot-proof) and if not everything is readily available in a quality form through that channel (we must talk about a supply of the same product)
Please understand that I don't have a deep, abiding love for the way many copyright holders act, nor do I necessarily agree with all of the copyright laws. You say that you're just trying to understand how things will "play out." That's what I am doing as well.
In my second reply to you, I said, "Is it possible that critical mass is reached on a system so tightly designed that it's impossible for anyone to be caught? Maybe, but it's just as likely that larger enforcement tactics would render such an occurrence impossible because too many people are deterred by the potential penalties."
I'm laying out a realistic possibility:
1) copyright holders lobby world-wide for more enforcement (this is obviously already happening)
2) government complies and enforces harder
3) copyright law continues to exist in a form with more teeth
4) infringement starts to be a proposition too risky for the majority to always pursue
5) we don't arrive at your copyright-free future
In other words, we're both making pronouncements about what will happen at a theoretical instant in the future. You argue that we'll hit a tipping point where so many people infringe that the populace is unwilling to accept any law preventing them from doing so. I argue that the tipping point can be prevented from ever occurring by harder, stricter enforcement that keeps enough people from ever being in that movement in the first place.
No one forces the $10 bag or plastic bag users to use $1,000 bags. That's a ridiculous analogy and you know it. If you really want to run with it, though, we'll do that. A Hollywood movie is the $1,000 bag. You're free to use it if you want. There are thousands of small-time productions on youtube, at your local university, on public access TV, etc. They are the $10 bag or the plastic bag. No one is forcing you to use the $1,000 bag. No one. You want to use the $1,000 bag for $10, and that's what people tend to take issue with.
The existence of people who would spend money on what is "free" is not at issue here; it's the existence of people who would take without fairly compensating those who produced a product. We can argue around and around on what constitutes fair compensation and on what we should be able to do with a product afterward, but it doesn't change the fact that the producer gets to set the price. Whether or not a given person chooses to purchase at that price is their choice, but remember that we're talking about music and movies here, not food or shelter.
Every producer of copyrighted material gets to choose how and where it will be published. Musicians are free to use a creative commons license or to choose not to burden their product with a copyright at all. They are also free to sell it in a traditional packaged form and retain a reasonable expectation that some legal avenue exists to enforce against those who would infringe.
You are not the arbiter of morality. The democratic system (and our US Constitution) has established that copyright is legal, and it is not infringing any of your personal rights. You may argue that it is unwise for copyright holders to pursue individual infringers, and you may actually be correct. When you hold a copyright, you are free to pursue or ignore anyone you'd like (to a point), but the **AAs have made their choice. It may be a cunning business decision or a ridiculous folly, but it's their call to make.
Clearly, you believe that there is no value in that produced product other than the "live" performance of it (or paying to view it in a fancy cinema). That's your choice. There are millions, perhaps billions who feel that there is value there beyond the mere "live" performance, and they are willing to pay for it. The companies that produce that additional product are protected by copyright law, something so fundamental that it is laid out in the US Constitution (or at least Congress' right to establish it is laid out).
Fight against it if you want, please. Straying from your own beliefs is a bad policy. Don't tell me that just because you want something for free that it should be so. And please, please don't argue that because some people can infringe the copyright that it's invalidated, outmoded, obsolete, dead, or worst of all, morally justified.
That's my final point: copyright law isn't dead so long as there are companies selling products that can be packaged up digitally.
You initial assertion in this thread was that copyright law is dead, and that copyright holder should give up and fall on their sword.
The problem is that copyright law obviously isn't dead today. Of course, I know that wasn't what you meant, but it's not even dying. Rather, the copyright holders are pushing to bolster it.
It won't be dead tomorrow, not by a long shot. Again, the copyright holders are attempting to strengthen the actions they can take and obligate governmental enforcement. Things have the potential to get very nasty in the next few years.
And the final point: It won't be dead so long as there are people willing to pay for the product. Those people exist today, despite widespread availability of pirated material. Could the scales tip? Sure, I almost buy the complete shift in the music industry. It's possible to envision a world where bootlegs of live recordings (or loss-leader studio recordings for the radio) serve merely as promotional material for live shows.
Movies is what catches me. Sure, the movie industry can do a great job at the theater. But in your world, no one wants to pay for a movie at home? Because pirates can bootleg it, it can't be financially healthy? In an era when young, tech-savvy folks are also snapping up DVD purchases, that claim just doesn't compute. Hollywood has pointed out time and again that DVD sales is a spectacular aspect of their industry, and that some people seem so fixated on "collecting" DVDs that they purchase movies to watch them once. Even given the free option, there are millions of people around the world who WANT to pay for their digital media.
Still, P2P products will evolve. But even the easiest software to install and use still presents obstacles and plenty of incentive to go buy the movie. Suppose some company releases a set-top box that automatically configures itself and gives me a simple, Apple TV-like interface to the latest pirated selection of movies. That company makes itself a spectacular target for lawsuits.
And that brings me back around to the final point: copyright law won't be dead so long as there are people willing to pay for the product. They will fight the set-top box manufacturers, they will lobby to obligate enforcement, they will struggle to find exploits in the "perfect" software. As long as people are willing to pay for a product, there will be a producer to sell it to them.
That's where you and I disagree. You believe that eventually everyone will be comfortable enough with easy-to-use software to simply pirate everything. I believe that there are large segments of the population that are willing to pay for the physical product (or download), even when easy-to-use pirated solutions are available.
Given a long enough time horizon (generations), enough people might have grown up with such a totally different perspective that they are no longer willing to pay. That's a possibility, though definitely not a certainty; we're both playing wild-eyed future predictor at that point ("Flying cars and cities in plastic domes!"). If we want to accept that final statement as the justification that copyright law is "dead," we might as well decide that tax laws are dead because our country will eventually fall. Copyright law is not dead, and it is not going anywhere.
So, which of these lines of reasoning means that copyright laws are dead?
The claim that funding lobbyists equals funding lobbyists, tech people, and attorneys?
The clueless movie industry that is pushing laws that will offload enforcement work on the feds?
The fact that the movie industry, who you earlier claimed would run out of money to fund lobbyists, will have money?
Don't forget that we use **AA because it includes both the RIAA and the MPAA. Profits for music may be down currently, but Hollywood is doing just fine. There's plenty of cash for lobbying from the major copyright holders, especially if you factor in the software industry.
You talk of armies of lawyers and technologically savvy programmers costing the **AA money. That's dead wrong. The current laws they're trying to push would force criminal prosecutions. I don't foot the bill for detectives or the DA (at least not directly), and neither would the copyright holders.
They're planning to offload their expenses to law enforcement, and that doesn't cost them a dime (it costs us all). Your machine isn't starving; if anything, it's spending less money on legal fees and technical costs than it currently does.
That's not an uphill battle for anyone but the citizenry, and we all know how difficult it is to get laws repealed.
You glossed right past this statement: "Is it possible that critical mass is reached on a system so tightly designed that it's impossible for anyone to be caught? Maybe, but it's just as likely that larger enforcement tactics would render such an occurrence impossible because too many people are deterred by the potential penalties."
Is it possible to develop the ultimate anonymous file-sharing app? Probably, although I would dispute that it would ever be foolproof. We've had ten years now, and the system has evolved; it's still far from perfect and the majority aren't using any of the current-gen (or even last gen) technology. Is it also possible to - in the meantime - provide a deterrent sufficient to prevent the ultimate file-sharing app from ever reaching mainstream success? Yep.
Up to this point, all of the deterrents in the system have been bad files or shut-down servers. If a serious quantity of people started getting nailed with even middling fines, we'd be talking about a very different evolutionary structure. The major copyright holders seem to recognize this and are actively pushing for it to happen.
Either way, we still wouldn't be talking about the end of copyright law. Assuming the rise of a perfectly designed, perfectly-implemented P2P program, you do understand that nothing prevents legislation targeting possession, distribution, development etc. of such a program? Nothing prevents legislation requiring portable music players to verify checksums on electronic purchases and require anything else to be locally ripped. Hell, with the expanding availability of the internet, nothing prevents legislation requiring "phone home everytime without fail" devices. You can certainly envision technical solutions to those hurdles, but it would put us right back at gen-1 Napster days except with a vastly heightened police interest in stopping the evolution. Oh, and more copyright laws.
Please note that I'm not saying I support such an approach, merely that it is a definite possibility. Argument to the contrary fails to consider human nature just as much as the RIAA's "one million, bajillion dollars per song" proposed penalties.
First, let me be clear that the few times I use the blanket term IP, it's because I'm referring to countries like China who disregard both copyright and patent laws. IP laws as a whole will not be abolished, because patents are far more realistic and flexible in their execution. Certain things about the way patents are currently granted and examined are ludicrous, but the concept is more sound and touches far more industries (and is far more likely to gain traction in piracy-friendly developing nations as they industrialize).
No, what we're talking about when we talk about the **AA organizations is copyright. Current copyright laws grant too much extension in my opinion, but they're also laws soundly grounded in the realities of business. The ability to cheaply replicate 1s and 0s doesn't negate the cost to develop those 1s and 0s in the first place, and businesses WILL fight to recoup their losses.
You begin with a truism - nothing "says" that any law needs to continue to exist. Depending upon your philosophical beliefs regarding the root of governmental powers you can argue that one any way you'd like.
The death of IP Law is being made apparent? Where? Large-scale piracy operations are still actively pursued by federal enforcement agencies and pirated materials are still actively seized by customs enforcement. The overwhelming majority of personal file sharers aren't pursued by those agencies because they aren't considered a priority by the current administration. Presidents tell AGs what will and won't be a priority for pursuit, and the AG makes it clear to lower level officials what they should be pursuing. In short, don't confuse the current lack of enforcement with the death of copyright law.
The overwhelming majority of piracy today takes place via unencrypted, wide-open protocols such as BitTorrent. Users are effectively broadcasting everything law enforcement would need to stop them; law enforcement just isn't interested. Playing PeerGuardian games and blocking connections to "known-bad" IPs won't stop that. Present encryption systems are principally designed to prevent ISP-level packet-shaping, not hide the identity of the users.
But better systems will come along, right? TOR could be redesigned to scale properly, faster computers, etc. You're absolutely right, there are a lot of things 20 years down the road that can't be predicted (what of the theory that quantum computers will render all present encryption algorithms pointless?) Is it possible that critical mass is reached on a system so tightly designed that it's impossible for anyone to be caught? Maybe, but it's just as likely that larger enforcement tactics would render such an occurrence impossible because too many people are deterred by the potential penalties.
In short, the laws can be enforced. Without a doubt. Tech-savvy users will be able to manipulate things to stay ahead of the game, but the average person can be prevented from engaging in most piracy through present enforcement methods. The fact that some people get away with a crime does not mean that the laws preventing said crime are dead or unenforceable. Tax fraud is committed by millions and the IRS audits far fewer files now than it did 30 years ago, but I assure you that the laws preventing tax fraud are far from dead.
I don't think copyright laws are perfect - they're far from it. They're also not irrelevant, no matter how much you may wish they were. What we're seeing here is an act as old as legislation itself - the **AAs are looking for legislation that will help defend the way they do business, even if that business is in some ways short-sighted or out-of-touch. They may succeed in shoving through their wish list, they may fail completely, or they may get met 1/2 or 1/3-way there.
I think you'll have a hard time arguing that copyright infringement is a "good thing." I also think you'll have a hard time arguing that penalties for a pirated album should be in the five-figure range. Rather, you'll likely see a
It's interesting that you chose books as one of your examples. They provide an excellent mirror to today's copyright problems.
American colonists (and early American citizens) were huge consumers of pirated European books (often printed in Scotland). Part of the reason for Scottish supplies was that London printers had a gentlemen's agreement not to lower the wholesale price of books and this made early shipping owners unwilling to risk losing such expensive cargo for a minimal payoff. Scottish printers had no such qualms with dropping the wholesale price (of course, they also weren't paying the authors) As paper and presses became more affordable, American printers became engaged in wholesale copyright violations.
Remember that although you could always find bootleg discs from some guy on the corner, the internet piracy era really took off when the perfect storm of dropping CD burner prices and expanding broadband hit.
Canada was still an English territory, so although England was powerless to stop the piracy in the United States, they attempted to level import duties on books moving into Canada. The idea was to allow whatever books across the border, but to collect the duty, record the titles, and remit the money so that it could be distributed to the authors. You can guess how well that worked with customs agents, who basically ignored the extra work or were simply bribed into accepting shipments. Through cheap pirated work, the entirety of the American book-printing industry was built. They could undercut production costs from anyone due to the fact that American printers didn't pay out royalties.
There are certainly many legitimate sources for electronic music, but it's difficult to imagine the success of the MP3 player without bootleg MP3s. Joe Average - to this day - is more likely to know how to pirate a song using some program his kid installed than he is to know how to rip a CD. Plenty of legitimate sources of music exist online, and the prices are quite reasonable; it's very difficult to compete with $0. Although Napster bowed out of the DRM market, they were a legitimate company who built their name on pirated goods. One might even argue that much of the success of Apple is owed not just to a quality MP3 player design but a ready supply of bootleg music with which to fill the iPod.
Ultimately, Governments passed more and more preposterous copyright laws relating to novels. In order to obtain copyright in America, for example, you had to deposit a copy of your book with Washington BEFORE you started selling overseas. Copyright law at the time was an amalgam of author/publisher's and printer's concerns, with several countries enacting protectionist measures relating to imported books. The English had further problems with copyright on homegrown authors in their colonies (India, Canada, Australia). Things only finally sorted themselves out at the beginning of the 20th century when enough American/Canadian/Australian authors were "big" enough that both sides found it worthwhile to call a truce. American publishers stood to lose just as much money to overseas pirating as the English publishers had. Major countries met, agreements were made, and things settled into the current system.
And so we find ourselves in the "more and more preposterous copyright laws" stage of the game. Restricting optical-grade polycarbonate? Removing common-carrier status by forcing filtering? It's going way beyond reasonable. If history is to be believed, a large meeting of the major countries and a treaty is needed, but the unfortunate answer is that such treaties already exist. The wholesale piracy houses are located in countries who don't yet have enough to lose; They're 1800 America instead of 1900 America. So while we can cross our fingers and hope for their IP cultures to take hold, we also have to address the problem of the individual file sharer - he or she will never be 1900 America and will thus always have an incentive to shoot for the bottom.
It was a fund
Agreed. I have the X6, which is nearly the same product. To be fair, it doesn't support hot-swap. On the other hand, hot-swap isn't really relevant for a huge amount of NAS buyers.
I paid $560 for the diskless version of the X6, and came in well under $1000 with 4x320GB drives in mid-2006. Netgear's decision to discontinue the X6 in favor of the rackmount and NV+ based models is a blatant attempt to shoot themselves in the foot.
BTW, the X6 is still available from several dealers. NewEgg nearly always has open box returns up at a discounted price, and ebay is a good source for it as well. Bonus: The X6 has a PCI slot, and you can drop in a wireless PCI card, additional USB ports, or even another gigE card if you decide to.
Netgear's ReadyNAS line of products (originally made by a small outfit called Infrant before Netgear bought them out) strikes the best mix of NAS characteristics outside of rolling your own.
The RND4000 retails for $900 diskless, although you can occasionally find it a bit cheaper. It has four SATA inputs and uses a "drive cage"-style design to eliminate wires and allow for hot-swap; it's 9" x 8" x 5". It has gigabit ethernet interface and 3 USB ports. You can set it up as a print server, interface to a UPS, set it up to auto-copy out to a USB HDD on a particular schedule, or set it to auto-copy in from USB flash card/drive to a particular partition.
All the interface is web-based, and in addition to the usual NAS features it supports FTP and HTTP sharing of files, Active directory integration (if that floats your boat), user quotas, and other fun little stuff. The system supports automatic power-on and -off at scheduled times, a journaled file system, and spin-down of drives when not in use. My model states that it uses 60W spun down and 130W at full tilt.
It supports RAID-5 and a RAID 5-based system that Netgear/Infrant call X-RAID. X-RAID allows for dynamic expansion of capacity, which is a very nice selling point in a NAS box. Got 4x250GB drives and want to upgrade to 4x750GB? Just pull one drive at a time, wait for rebuild, and repeat until all four have been replaced. Netgear/Infrant has never gone into the specifics of how it's done, but I'm guessing the drives are partitioned and the partitions are then RAIDed to ensure drive-level failure can't cause a problem. I know I've seen people do the same thing in software on x86 machines (in LVM, maybe?), so I'd guess that's what they're up to.
I have an older Infrant ReadyNAS (the X6 ver. 2 model), and have been very pleased with it. I have heard grumbling that after the Netgear buyout the support channels have gotten a little more irritating. I haven't personally had to deal with it, so I can't vouch either way, but I do notice that the latest system update (which had been in beta a few months ago when I checked) is now listed as a proper release on their downloads section, so they appear to be maintaining the normal release schedule.
You will hear some /.ers recommend rolling your own, and they'll definitely have good arguments. $900 diskless goes a long way in small, quiet, cool PC gear. If you want a NAS system, though, I've found this to be one of the best mixes of features (particularly the dynamic expansion) available short of a full-on PC.
Apparently they're literally ripping off the cover of both laptops so that they can shoehorn in 3.5 inch Hard drives (at the top of the page). It's either that or this guy's editor needs to be shot...