Forget Britain, France and Germany, how about rolling it out in all the countries that DON'T have iPhones yet.
Come on apple, there are a lot of people here willing to pay 100s of dollars for an iPhone in countries like Australia (I personally know a few people who would probably at least consider if not purchase one and my circle of friends isn't exactly very big)
Part of the problem with the US cellphone market is the way that the market is carved up geographically. No carriers are able obtain enough spectrum to service anywhere near the entire US landmass (unlike Australia where the 4 carriers that exist can service anywhere they want to (and can get permission to install equipment). This issue is further compounded by the fact that many places such as subways, office towers and others that need extra custom installed gear to get service end up doing exclusive deals with one carrier (which means that if you want e.g. cell service on the Washington metro, you need to be with a certain carrier)
A no-cd crack for Diablo II would finally eliminate some of the hacks required to get the game working in WINE.
Plus, if the no-cd applies to the Mac version too, people can play Diablo II on their new MacBook Air without the need to lug an external optical drive around everywhere:)
Occam's Razor says that an accident or a configuration problem or a fault somewhere (e.g. with their shaping hardware) is more likely than a deliberate attempt to sabotage iTunes (especially given the fact that Warner is offering content for purchase and rent over the iTunes store)
If you feed in enough bogus usernames and passwords, it becomes much harder for the phishers to tell the real ones from the fakes. If the phishers check by IP to prevent this, do it from many different machines with many different IP addresses.
Apple probably needed to get the new Quicktime and iTunes out on an accelerated schedule so that everything was in place for the new video rental service hence the lack of QA.
1.Canadian government rejects new law designed to make the content cartels happy 2.Content cartels lobby US government to put pressure on Canada to comply 3.US government threatens to replace imports from Canada with imports from somewhere else 4.Canadian government gives in and passes law (see the law making it illegal to use cameras in a movie theater) 5.Profit (for the content cartels)
Watch "this film is not yet rated" to see just what Hollywood does to films with sex in them (including independent films where the filmmaker cares more about the art than about the money)
The only reason congress hasn't intervened to try and stamp out the "bad" stuff in films is because the MPAA and their secret ratings board are doing it for them
A wardialer wont work if the system has some kind of ringback (i.e you ring the modem and log in then the modem at the other end hangs up and calls you back on a pre-defined number)
99.99% of the problems companies like Comcast and Time Warner have with Bandwidth will go away if they introduce hard caps. Everyone gets, say, 20gb per month or whatever the plan they have paid for contains. If you exceed that amount, you get cut off (or have your speed cut back to dial up speeds) for the rest of the month.
1.Bring all troops back from Iraq and let the various Iraqi factions (Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds etc) sort out what goes on. As long as the fighting doesn't shift to a foriegn country or to foriegn assets (e.g. attacks on foriegn embassies), let them sort it out themselves
2.Cease and desist all efforts by any federal agency to censor, monitor, examine, read, carry out surveillance on or otherwise spy on any person except when necessary in the investigation of a legitimate crime. This means border guards cannot look at files on your computer unless they have a warrant.
3.Change the tax and other rules surrounding health insurance so that anyone who wants to can leave the company supplied medical plan and find their own health insurance without loosing tax benefits. Easy solution is to make all health insurance costs up to tax deductible.
Such a move (along with possible reforms to the laws governing health insurance companies) would encourage insurance companies compete for your business.
4.Get rid of subsidies provided to the oil companies, coal miners and gas producers. Remove the loopholes in current tax law that allow SUVs and pickups to be classified as "trucks" for safety, fuel economy and emissions purposes.
5.Encourage the construction of new nuclear reactors built using designs such as pebble bed and breeder that are less likely to meltdown and/or extract more total energy from the nuclear fuel. Further to this, get rid of all restrictions on reprocessing of fuel from nuclear reactors.
6.Completely get rid of the rules that classify model rockets, model rocket engines and model rocket fuel (including black powder and Ammonium Perclorate Composite Propellant) as explosives
7.Remove ALL restrictions on the production, use, import and export of cryptography except those that are in place as part of general export restrictions (i.e. embargoes on North Korea etc).
8.Rework farm subsidies that are linked to specific commodities. Make it possible for farmers to switch to production of anything from corn to catfish to cows to clams without loosing their subsidies.
9.Remove all restrictions on the growing of hemp for use as fiber, bio-fuel or whatever else. Also, make medicinal use of marijuana legal but ONLY if the marijuana is grown commercially and processed by a drug company and prescribed by a doctor for a specific medical condition. (i.e. regulate it in the same way as the growth and use of opium for morphine is regulated)
10.Take money away from the military (since they aren't fighting in so many wars all the time, they dont need as much money) and give it to science organizations like NASA and the various particle physics groups. This includes funding such highly usefull but expensive experiments as the Centrifuge module for the international space station.
Also, remove all funding from tokamak fusion research and devote it to research into other forms of energy production (all the boffins I have seen articles from say that tokamaks are not the answer for nuclear fusion)
11.Invest money in any energy system (bio-fuel, solar power, wind power, water power, geothermal or whatever else) that can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This includes any alternatives to the gasoline powered internal combustion engine. Encourage car makers to produce more fuel efficient cars and use subsidies to encourage consumers to buy these cars.
12.Increase regulation of the home lending market with new requirements mandating that mortgage lenders can only lend to people if those people can demonstrate the ability to pay back the loan. Further to this, provide assistance to those who are already stuck so that they dont loose their house.
13.Fund fiber to every home where it is practical to get fiber to. Fund something else (e.g. wireless, sattelite) to all those places where fiber cant efficiently reach (running fiber out to a homestead on a 6000 acre cattle ranch doesn't make sense). Allow any ISP to offer services (including voice, data
Even if the sugar lobby wasnt so powerful, the corn lobby and others would continue to ensure that domestically produced HFCS ended up in US sodas and not foriegn sugar. Same with ethanol.
Unfortunatly, nuclear power will never be as good as it could be as long as the energy companies are not allowed to use technologies like breeder reactors and reprocessing because one of the steps just happens to produce something that could be used in a nuclear bomb if the wrong people got their hands on it.
Of course, the same people forget to mention that a breeder cycle with reprocessing will produce less waste that needs to be stored.
Until I see results from ATI in the form of documents that tell you how to render 3D on ATI GPUs, I wont hold my breath.
Let me know when I can play Quake III (or use Second Life or any other open source OpenGL app) on a GPU still being manufactured by ATI using 100% open source drivers (i.e. no binary drivers at all) then I will care.
Why don't Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners etc start putting pressure on companies to keep credit card numbers more secure (along with inventing and selling solutions to make that happen)
Even taking the simple step of changing the merchant agreements such that if the merchant suffers a breach or loss of credit card numbers, they are contractually obligated to notify the people who's numbers have been stolen (either via announcements in the media/on the merchants website or individually somehow) would make merchants do more to fix the problem.
Ironically being able to order groceries from home and have them home delivered is one of the things that the internet is still yet to do in a way that replaces the alternatives.
The lockout of 3rd party apps is again the carriers.
They want to block things that hurt their business including: VoIP & IM apps that take away their call and message revenue Apps that connect to the internet and use that nice "unlimited data" plan for things AT&T doesn't want it used for
The official line from the carriers is "unauthorized 3rd party apps are a security risk to our network" (although if this is true, why hasn't a carrier or phone maker come up with a demonstration on a simulator or a test network?)
There are many people who will switch their vote to the other guy (or in many cases get out and vote for someone when they wouldn't otherwise have) just because one side says "we will do x" or "we wont do x".
"block filth on the internet", "keep kids safe from scumbags online", "keep terrorists and bad foriegn governments from using the internet to attack America", "help me stop my kid downloading illegal stuff from the internet" These are all "hot button issues" for voters.
On the other hand, issues like "stop hackers from stealing my credit card numbers/bank details", "stop AT&T from messing with my google search results", "stop Microsoft from trying to kill free software" are issues that geeks and tech people care about but the general public doesn't give a stuff for the most part.
What we need is a way to make the general public care (particularly about phishing and identity theft)
I wasnt suggesting that such a group should do all the bad things the MPAA does, just that the video game industry needs a group that can make as much noise in Washington DC on its behalf as the MPAA does on behalf of the movie studios and the RIAA does on behalf of the record companies.
As for DRM, look at the DRM on many PC titles (e.g. Securom and Starforce) and what it does to your system. (in fact the vendor of one DRM system used a smear campaign against a studio who released a title with no DRM at all IIRC)
The movie studios have a clear self-regulating policy in place (through the MPAA ratings scheme) and no-one complains about minors getting into R rated movies (or buying/hiring them on home video formats).
Why cant the politicians and the industry come together and set up a system thats just like the MPAA ratings system and policed the same way? Oh wait, they did, its called the ESRB.
I guess the problem is the small number of highly publicized incidents (Hot Coffee, various games where the clothes and human body are seperate meshes and therefore you can "remove" the clothes and get a "naked body" and others) where the ESRB has been forced to change the rating given to a game.
What the video game industry needs is a lobby group as powerful as the MPAA is (they have a lobby group but it doesn't have much influence in the halls of power). They should try and get the retail stores on side (perhaps get the big retailers to push arguments like "we do everything we can to check that people are legally allowed to buy these games" or something)
Why cant the US say, if you own a foriegn casino and want to operate in the USA, you have to meet some simple rules. The rules would say that gambling taxes have to be paid on all bets placed by Americans. And would also specify that casinos have to meet standards in terms of oversight and checks against cheating etc.
So basically it wouldn't matter if the casino (or their servers) are in Boston, Barbados, Berlin, Brisbane or Barnard's Star, the US will still get their gambling taxes and still get oversight to make sure the games are "fair"
If you want to see a clear example of how North America and Europe are vastly different, look at the rules they put in place that basically removed border checks within the EU. You can cross from France into Germany into Austria into Italy and back into France again (or whatever) without having your identity credentials examined anywhere along the way. (If only the British would overcome their snobbery and opposition to the scheme and sign on to it)
On the other hand, the US is making it even HARDER for people from the US to go to Canada and vice versa
I agree that some markets need to be regulated. However, the problem right now is that some markets that need to be treated as regulated monopolies (or oligopolies) are not regulated anywhere near enough to ensure that the best outcome is being generated for consumers (i.e. my comments about the Telcos needing to be regulated so they cant dictate what services consumers may use on top of their wires/airwaves). On the other hand, there are markets that are OVER regulated such as the airline industry. Get rid of the rules limiting which airlines can fly to which airports and let anyone (anyone who can pass all the safety and operating tests that is) fly to any airport and let the market decide. Get rid of the rules preventing foriegn airlines access to the market.
I am not saying that the media companies or the news organizations or the manufacturers or anyone else should not be allowed to do business freely or to earn a profit.
Media companies should be allowed conduct business however they like (including lawsuits against people who are violating their copyright). However, they should NOT be allowed to control innovation or shutdown distribution methods for content which is being distributed with the permission of the copyright holder (and there is more and more "legal" content out there all the time as people begin to publish their own)
News organizations can distribute whatever news they like but they should not have the power to control other news outlets distributing their own news (even if the news coming from the little guy isn't what Big Media and the government want people to hear)
Telecommunications providers should be allowed to offer whatever services they like. But they shouldn't be allowed to block you from using 3rd party services. Telcos in the US should be treated just like the electric companies and should not be able to restrict your use of any program or network service (imagine if the electricity company could dictate what devices you were legally allowed to plug into the wall other than by setting standards for devices so they wont harm any people or harm the electricity grid) unless such use harms the service providers network in some way (or would harm the service providers network if you used it)
Churches and other "moral rights" type groups can protest and complain about whatever they like but they should not have the power to control or influence what other people not connected to those groups can and cant do with their leisure time (if I want to spend every cent I own playing an online casino, no-one should have the right to tell me I cant do that)
Manufacturers and distributors should be allowed to decide who they do and dont sell to but they should not have the power to tell the retailer what price they can sell at. If I want to buy $3000 SONY TV sets from SONY and sell them at 5 bucks each, SONY should not have the right to stop me from doing that (obviously I would go out of business fairly quickly though). Also, manufacturers and distributors should not have the power to tell retailers WHO they can and cant sell to. If I want to buy something from SONY in America and sell that item to a customer in Australia, SONY should not have the power to tell me I cannot do that.
If I own the copyright to a piece of music, no-one else should have the right to tell me how I can and cannot distribute that music or to tell me (or the people distributing my music with my permission) what royalties are to be paid for use of that music or what paperwork is to be filled out regarding that music. (if I was to run an internet radio station, I have to fill out all the RIAA paperwork and pay royalties even if I have direct permission from the copyright holder for EVERY piece of audio I play on the station)
I personally believe in the ideal of truly free commerce and capitalism and the free movement of goods and services throuought the world (as laid out in books/papers by some famous economist who's name escapes me) unrestricted by any government (e.g. subsidies, tariffs, rules limiting the number of players in the market etc) or any corporation (e.g. companies who set minimum prices or who use collusion or monopoly power to distort the market)
Rules and laws laid down by governments should be about enhancing competition and moving closer to this "ideal economy" and in ensuring that goods and services are produced by those producers who are most efficiantly able to produce them (yes I know it cant ever happen in the real world but we can certainly get a LOT closer than we are now)
For another example, look at the airline industry. If restrictions were removed and any airline (that could demonstrate that it was safe etc) could operate between any airport and any other airport, we would see the market change. At the end of it all, the airlines providing service may not the be same ones providing service now. It may be that allowing foriegn carriers to take over the market results in a more efficient airline market (i.e. lower prices for consumers)
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Forget Britain, France and Germany, how about rolling it out in all the countries that DON'T have iPhones yet.
Come on apple, there are a lot of people here willing to pay 100s of dollars for an iPhone in countries like Australia (I personally know a few people who would probably at least consider if not purchase one and my circle of friends isn't exactly very big)
Part of the problem with the US cellphone market is the way that the market is carved up geographically. No carriers are able obtain enough spectrum to service anywhere near the entire US landmass (unlike Australia where the 4 carriers that exist can service anywhere they want to (and can get permission to install equipment). This issue is further compounded by the fact that many places such as subways, office towers and others that need extra custom installed gear to get service end up doing exclusive deals with one carrier (which means that if you want e.g. cell service on the Washington metro, you need to be with a certain carrier)
A no-cd crack for Diablo II would finally eliminate some of the hacks required to get the game working in WINE.
:)
Plus, if the no-cd applies to the Mac version too, people can play Diablo II on their new MacBook Air without the need to lug an external optical drive around everywhere
Occam's Razor says that an accident or a configuration problem or a fault somewhere (e.g. with their shaping hardware) is more likely than a deliberate attempt to sabotage iTunes (especially given the fact that Warner is offering content for purchase and rent over the iTunes store)
If you feed in enough bogus usernames and passwords, it becomes much harder for the phishers to tell the real ones from the fakes. If the phishers check by IP to prevent this, do it from many different machines with many different IP addresses.
Apple probably needed to get the new Quicktime and iTunes out on an accelerated schedule so that everything was in place for the new video rental service hence the lack of QA.
1.Canadian government rejects new law designed to make the content cartels happy
2.Content cartels lobby US government to put pressure on Canada to comply
3.US government threatens to replace imports from Canada with imports from somewhere else
4.Canadian government gives in and passes law (see the law making it illegal to use cameras in a movie theater)
5.Profit (for the content cartels)
Watch "this film is not yet rated" to see just what Hollywood does to films with sex in them (including independent films where the filmmaker cares more about the art than about the money)
The only reason congress hasn't intervened to try and stamp out the "bad" stuff in films is because the MPAA and their secret ratings board are doing it for them
A wardialer wont work if the system has some kind of ringback (i.e you ring the modem and log in then the modem at the other end hangs up and calls you back on a pre-defined number)
99.99% of the problems companies like Comcast and Time Warner have with Bandwidth will go away if they introduce hard caps. Everyone gets, say, 20gb per month or whatever the plan they have paid for contains. If you exceed that amount, you get cut off (or have your speed cut back to dial up speeds) for the rest of the month.
1.Bring all troops back from Iraq and let the various Iraqi factions (Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds etc) sort out what goes on. As long as the fighting doesn't shift to a foriegn country or to foriegn assets (e.g. attacks on foriegn embassies), let them sort it out themselves
2.Cease and desist all efforts by any federal agency to censor, monitor, examine, read, carry out surveillance on or otherwise spy on any person except when necessary in the investigation of a legitimate crime. This means border guards cannot look at files on your computer unless they have a warrant.
3.Change the tax and other rules surrounding health insurance so that anyone who wants to can leave the company supplied medical plan and find their own health insurance without loosing tax benefits. Easy solution is to make all health insurance costs up to tax deductible.
Such a move (along with possible reforms to the laws governing health insurance companies) would encourage insurance companies compete for your business.
4.Get rid of subsidies provided to the oil companies, coal miners and gas producers. Remove the loopholes in current tax law that allow SUVs and pickups to be classified as "trucks" for safety, fuel economy and emissions purposes.
5.Encourage the construction of new nuclear reactors built using designs such as pebble bed and breeder that are less likely to meltdown and/or extract more total energy from the nuclear fuel. Further to this, get rid of all restrictions on reprocessing of fuel from nuclear reactors.
6.Completely get rid of the rules that classify model rockets, model rocket engines and model rocket fuel (including black powder and Ammonium Perclorate Composite Propellant) as explosives
7.Remove ALL restrictions on the production, use, import and export of cryptography except those that are in place as part of general export restrictions (i.e. embargoes on North Korea etc).
8.Rework farm subsidies that are linked to specific commodities. Make it possible for farmers to switch to production of anything from corn to catfish to cows to clams without loosing their subsidies.
9.Remove all restrictions on the growing of hemp for use as fiber, bio-fuel or whatever else. Also, make medicinal use of marijuana legal but ONLY if the marijuana is grown commercially and processed by a drug company and prescribed by a doctor for a specific medical condition. (i.e. regulate it in the same way as the growth and use of opium for morphine is regulated)
10.Take money away from the military (since they aren't fighting in so many wars all the time, they dont need as much money) and give it to science organizations like NASA and the various particle physics groups. This includes funding such highly usefull but expensive experiments as the Centrifuge module for the international space station.
Also, remove all funding from tokamak fusion research and devote it to research into other forms of energy production (all the boffins I have seen articles from say that tokamaks are not the answer for nuclear fusion)
11.Invest money in any energy system (bio-fuel, solar power, wind power, water power, geothermal or whatever else) that can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This includes any alternatives to the gasoline powered internal combustion engine. Encourage car makers to produce more fuel efficient cars and use subsidies to encourage consumers to buy these cars.
12.Increase regulation of the home lending market with new requirements mandating that mortgage lenders can only lend to people if those people can demonstrate the ability to pay back the loan. Further to this, provide assistance to those who are already stuck so that they dont loose their house.
13.Fund fiber to every home where it is practical to get fiber to. Fund something else (e.g. wireless, sattelite) to all those places where fiber cant efficiently reach (running fiber out to a homestead on a 6000 acre cattle ranch doesn't make sense). Allow any ISP to offer services (including voice, data
Even if the sugar lobby wasnt so powerful, the corn lobby and others would continue to ensure that domestically produced HFCS ended up in US sodas and not foriegn sugar. Same with ethanol.
The geographic restrictions exist because different companies own the rights to a given piece of music in different countries.
For example, a given Sony Music track might be owned by Sony Music America in the USA but may be owned by Sony Music Australia in australia.
In some cases its totally different companies that own the rights in different countries.
Unfortunatly, nuclear power will never be as good as it could be as long as the energy companies are not allowed to use technologies like breeder reactors and reprocessing because one of the steps just happens to produce something that could be used in a nuclear bomb if the wrong people got their hands on it.
Of course, the same people forget to mention that a breeder cycle with reprocessing will produce less waste that needs to be stored.
Until I see results from ATI in the form of documents that tell you how to render 3D on ATI GPUs, I wont hold my breath.
Let me know when I can play Quake III (or use Second Life or any other open source OpenGL app) on a GPU still being manufactured by ATI using 100% open source drivers (i.e. no binary drivers at all) then I will care.
Why don't Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners etc start putting pressure on companies to keep credit card numbers more secure (along with inventing and selling solutions to make that happen)
Even taking the simple step of changing the merchant agreements such that if the merchant suffers a breach or loss of credit card numbers, they are contractually obligated to notify the people who's numbers have been stolen (either via announcements in the media/on the merchants website or individually somehow) would make merchants do more to fix the problem.
Ironically being able to order groceries from home and have them home delivered is one of the things that the internet is still yet to do in a way that replaces the alternatives.
The lockout of 3rd party apps is again the carriers.
They want to block things that hurt their business including:
VoIP & IM apps that take away their call and message revenue
Apps that connect to the internet and use that nice "unlimited data" plan for things AT&T doesn't want it used for
The official line from the carriers is "unauthorized 3rd party apps are a security risk to our network" (although if this is true, why hasn't a carrier or phone maker come up with a demonstration on a simulator or a test network?)
There are many people who will switch their vote to the other guy (or in many cases get out and vote for someone when they wouldn't otherwise have) just because one side says "we will do x" or "we wont do x".
"block filth on the internet", "keep kids safe from scumbags online", "keep terrorists and bad foriegn governments from using the internet to attack America", "help me stop my kid downloading illegal stuff from the internet"
These are all "hot button issues" for voters.
On the other hand, issues like "stop hackers from stealing my credit card numbers/bank details", "stop AT&T from messing with my google search results", "stop Microsoft from trying to kill free software" are issues that geeks and tech people care about but the general public doesn't give a stuff for the most part.
What we need is a way to make the general public care (particularly about phishing and identity theft)
I wasnt suggesting that such a group should do all the bad things the MPAA does, just that the video game industry needs a group that can make as much noise in Washington DC on its behalf as the MPAA does on behalf of the movie studios and the RIAA does on behalf of the record companies.
As for DRM, look at the DRM on many PC titles (e.g. Securom and Starforce) and what it does to your system. (in fact the vendor of one DRM system used a smear campaign against a studio who released a title with no DRM at all IIRC)
The movie studios have a clear self-regulating policy in place (through the MPAA ratings scheme) and no-one complains about minors getting into R rated movies (or buying/hiring them on home video formats).
Why cant the politicians and the industry come together and set up a system thats just like the MPAA ratings system and policed the same way? Oh wait, they did, its called the ESRB.
I guess the problem is the small number of highly publicized incidents (Hot Coffee, various games where the clothes and human body are seperate meshes and therefore you can "remove" the clothes and get a "naked body" and others) where the ESRB has been forced to change the rating given to a game.
What the video game industry needs is a lobby group as powerful as the MPAA is (they have a lobby group but it doesn't have much influence in the halls of power). They should try and get the retail stores on side (perhaps get the big retailers to push arguments like "we do everything we can to check that people are legally allowed to buy these games" or something)
Why cant the US say, if you own a foriegn casino and want to operate in the USA, you have to meet some simple rules. The rules would say that gambling taxes have to be paid on all bets placed by Americans. And would also specify that casinos have to meet standards in terms of oversight and checks against cheating etc.
So basically it wouldn't matter if the casino (or their servers) are in Boston, Barbados, Berlin, Brisbane or Barnard's Star, the US will still get their gambling taxes and still get oversight to make sure the games are "fair"
If you want to see a clear example of how North America and Europe are vastly different, look at the rules they put in place that basically removed border checks within the EU. You can cross from France into Germany into Austria into Italy and back into France again (or whatever) without having your identity credentials examined anywhere along the way. (If only the British would overcome their snobbery and opposition to the scheme and sign on to it)
On the other hand, the US is making it even HARDER for people from the US to go to Canada and vice versa
I agree that some markets need to be regulated.
However, the problem right now is that some markets that need to be treated as regulated monopolies (or oligopolies) are not regulated anywhere near enough to ensure that the best outcome is being generated for consumers (i.e. my comments about the Telcos needing to be regulated so they cant dictate what services consumers may use on top of their wires/airwaves). On the other hand, there are markets that are OVER regulated such as the airline industry. Get rid of the rules limiting which airlines can fly to which airports and let anyone (anyone who can pass all the safety and operating tests that is) fly to any airport and let the market decide. Get rid of the rules preventing foriegn airlines access to the market.
I am not saying that the media companies or the news organizations or the manufacturers or anyone else should not be allowed to do business freely or to earn a profit.
Media companies should be allowed conduct business however they like (including lawsuits against people who are violating their copyright). However, they should NOT be allowed to control innovation or shutdown distribution methods for content which is being distributed with the permission of the copyright holder (and there is more and more "legal" content out there all the time as people begin to publish their own)
News organizations can distribute whatever news they like but they should not have the power to control other news outlets distributing their own news (even if the news coming from the little guy isn't what Big Media and the government want people to hear)
Telecommunications providers should be allowed to offer whatever services they like. But they shouldn't be allowed to block you from using 3rd party services. Telcos in the US should be treated just like the electric companies and should not be able to restrict your use of any program or network service (imagine if the electricity company could dictate what devices you were legally allowed to plug into the wall other than by setting standards for devices so they wont harm any people or harm the electricity grid) unless such use harms the service providers network in some way (or would harm the service providers network if you used it)
Churches and other "moral rights" type groups can protest and complain about whatever they like but they should not have the power to control or influence what other people not connected to those groups can and cant do with their leisure time (if I want to spend every cent I own playing an online casino, no-one should have the right to tell me I cant do that)
Manufacturers and distributors should be allowed to decide who they do and dont sell to but they should not have the power to tell the retailer what price they can sell at. If I want to buy $3000 SONY TV sets from SONY and sell them at 5 bucks each, SONY should not have the right to stop me from doing that (obviously I would go out of business fairly quickly though). Also, manufacturers and distributors should not have the power to tell retailers WHO they can and cant sell to. If I want to buy something from SONY in America and sell that item to a customer in Australia, SONY should not have the power to tell me I cannot do that.
If I own the copyright to a piece of music, no-one else should have the right to tell me how I can and cannot distribute that music or to tell me (or the people distributing my music with my permission) what royalties are to be paid for use of that music or what paperwork is to be filled out regarding that music. (if I was to run an internet radio station, I have to fill out all the RIAA paperwork and pay royalties even if I have direct permission from the copyright holder for EVERY piece of audio I play on the station)
I personally believe in the ideal of truly free commerce and capitalism and the free movement of goods and services throuought the world (as laid out in books/papers by some famous economist who's name escapes me) unrestricted by any government (e.g. subsidies, tariffs, rules limiting the number of players in the market etc) or any corporation (e.g. companies who set minimum prices or who use collusion or monopoly power to distort the market)
Rules and laws laid down by governments should be about enhancing competition and moving closer to this "ideal economy" and in ensuring that goods and services are produced by those producers who are most efficiantly able to produce them (yes I know it cant ever happen in the real world but we can certainly get a LOT closer than we are now)
For another example, look at the airline industry. If restrictions were removed and any airline (that could demonstrate that it was safe etc) could operate between any airport and any other airport, we would see the market change. At the end of it all, the airlines providing service may not the be same ones providing service now. It may be that allowing foriegn carriers to take over the market results in a more efficient airline market (i.e. lower prices for consumers)