Maybe because they are the Recording Industry of America not the RIWA (World). Their ability to get the Chinese govt to do anything is slim and none.
Since China wants to trade with the US, and recently joined the WTO, the US trade representatives have huge influence there, and at the behest of the RIAA, the BSA and others, have pressured the Chinese govt to crack down on piracy. Which they do periodically, closing stores and confiscating goods. However, as the CD/DVD factories have huge overcapacity, their friends in the local government protect them and they're only closed temporarily if at all, and the shops pop up again. So they do try, but not very hard, except when, for instance, the US president comes visiting, they'll do a sweep to get them off the streets. It's the nature of digital copying that gets cheaper and faster each year that makes it impossible to stop.
Some AC wrote: take it you don't work in the book publishing industry?
Only for the last 10 years.
...media longevity?
Kodak "predicts (at the 95% confidence level) that 95% of properly recorded discs stored at the recommended dark storage condition (25C, 40% RH) will have a lifetime of greater than 217 years."
Because the artists don't see a dime from these "pirated" cd's.
As well dcomented elsewhere, a dime is more than most artists see from CD sales.
but you obviously can't take the price that the piraters are selling for and in any way extrapolate what a reasonable "legit" price would be
Perhaps you could use the analogy of books. It costs about $0.60-1.20 to print an average paperback. Retail is $6-$12. So a basic markup of 900% on manufacturing cost. Cost of pressing a CD: less than $0.10 in bulk. Actaully, the insert costs more. Also, they're lighter and smaller than most books. So $3 sounds actually on the high side.
In places where the authorities crack down on pirated CDs, and stallholders face getting busted and losing their stock, you order your disks from a tout with a catalogue. He calls the order in on his phone, and a few minutes later your disc arrives, still warm from the burner.
Why not burn CDs to order in shops. Print the insert with a high quality colour laser. Quality almost indistinguishable from a pressed disc package. Distribution cost slashed. Inventory cost zero. Why not?
Counterfeiters have forced the price of a fake CD down to about $4
I think the BBC reporter got ripped off. In Hong Kong they're about $1-2.50. In China of course they're cheaper, about 50c. Since a blank CDR costs about 25c, there's still profit in it. Oddly DVDs are cheaper than CDs now, though so far just for movies. No one's got the idea of "every song you've ever heard of in the 60s/70s/... in MP3 on one disk" yet, though it won't be long -- since my DVD player, and I assume most others, can play MP3s, it seems a logical progression from the 8 CDs content (in MP3) on one CD you can buy now.
i could buy a cheap(ish) handheld with wifi... deny their access point as long as the batteries held out?
Yeah, or you could use a pair of wirecutters and cut their phone line, with less investment ($2) and chance of being busted. Or just throw rocks through their windows.
Usenet is to a point that it can't really get much worse.
Not at all. The technical groups (especially comp.*) are generally great places to get answers. If you want to flame about abortion, guns, etc, there's plenty of that around, though people have learned to discourage that kind of thing in most groups.
When I have a software or hardware problem, if groups.google doesn't already have an answer, I post a question and generally have a solution in a few hours.
The signal to noise ratio varies widely from group to group. For instance, even the group alt.books.moorcock, for the author Michael Moorcock, is worth frequenting if you're a fan, though it has about 50% spam (I suspect the "cock" in the title attracts some of that). But like email, judicious filtering, or subscribing to a premium service that does it for you, is the solution.
As for the FA, it seems the researchers want to extract a lot of meta-information from newsgroups. Which makes sense in a way, but they seem to want every user to create a giant database of every single Usenet posting to do this. This strikes me as rather inefficient, not to mention likely to vastly increase the bandwidth newsservers would have to provide (a side effect MS may or may not like).
Anyway, just as long as they don't try to push MS newsservers... a true nightmare that would be.
No -- just look at the "user agents" headers on news postings. A vanishingly small number use Unix newsreaders. I'd guess Windows clinets like Agent and, unfortunately, Outlook are the most common. More recently, web interfaces like groups.google.com are growing, not because they're better (they're much more cumbersome), but because a good (free) newsfeed is becoming a rarity.
I thought it was in analogy with ox/oxen (which comes from Old English, so in the same family as German). It's easier to pronounce -xen than -xes endings, so rather a shame it's not in more general use.
this guy sounds like he is getting overly paraniod about something he more than likely doesnt understand.
He was unhappy at unauthorised software installs. He said they have a bunch of Linux PCs already so he's not ignorant of the OS. His solution to the rogue installs was not seek and destroy but to make a standard Redhat image and install from that, whihc would obviously be much easier for him to support.
Are there a large number of refund seekers out there acting like raging monkeys?
It's very easy to get emotional in court when confronted with an opponent who blatantly lies and misrepresents your case; especially after you've spent months arguing with them prior to the court date.
I took my former boss to the Labour Tribunal (similar setup to Small Claims, no lawyers) when my pay was a few months in arrears, and brought my wife along for the express purpose of slapping me down if I started to foam at the mouth. It's a good idea if you can get someone along for support and help in keeping perspective.
we could easily repost the article text here and save them a couple of bills.
Except the repost is plain text, whereas there were several interesting external links in the FA. So it is worth loading the 10 second ad to view the real article.
Re:full article text, no pass required
on
Software Archaeology
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
What it should do is take you back to the main salon home page, after which all the stories are accessible.
I thought that was a bug! Every time I have to search again for the article I wanted to read. Since you're using cookies anyway, why not store the article you read the teaser for in the cookie so you can be taken to the full article immediately after you view the ad -- or at least give it as an option.
It was 1975. The HP25. There are images and links to a simulator if you feel nostalgic. The lunar landing game is there too. (Correction to my post: it has 49 lines for programs, 8 registers for variables.)
her big complaint is that a third party ( not created by buymusic.com ) plugin was crashing on her computer. Sorry, but that's not BuyMusic.com's fault.
Yes it is, because of the DRM that's the only way she is allowed to burn a CD to play in her car, an advertised feature that she paid for (and the failure of that is the reason she got a refund).
I started on a HP programmable calculator. 50 lines of memory and a few registers. I wrote a program to list out prime numbers, there was a lunar landing game in the manual that seemed exciting at the time...
There is just too much money to be made and greed is just too powerful of a force.
Really? The price on bin Laden's head is $25 million. No one's claimed that. Or Saddam's $25 million. There are some things more powerful than greed; and terrorists aren't generally motivated by it (though some obviously do fall from the path of righteousness).
unlike Blakes 7 they actually had decent some special effects in Space 1999!
Yes, it looked great, but the stories (not to mention the basic premise) were so stupid...
Re:How to make a TV programme (dummies edition)...
on
Blakes Seven To Return
·
· Score: 1
You'll believe it when it's in post-production? Wow, that's a riducously high bar to set your "I'll believe it when" standard at.
No it's quite sensible. Of all the TV series or movies "announced" in similar way as this; i.e. rights obtained and maybe one name attached, you will be lucky to see 1% come to the screen. That's where the term "preproduction hell" comes in. For instance Slashdot got all excited about a proposed Rendezvous With Rama movie a few months ago after someone noticed there was a website for the project. That the site hasn't been updated for years should have been a clue. Announcements like this are made to try to obtain finance for the project, not to give a heads up for the fanboys (and I speak as a former Blake's 7 fan myself). If you believed every one of these "soon to be a major film" puff pieces you'd be living in permanent disappointment. So I prefer not to get excited until the cameras are rolling.
I've been involved in selling movie rights for several books, but never once did anything happen after the first blaze of optimism. Vapourware is not unique to IT.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, it was a joke: "Liberal, Liberia".
Since China wants to trade with the US, and recently joined the WTO, the US trade representatives have huge influence there, and at the behest of the RIAA, the BSA and others, have pressured the Chinese govt to crack down on piracy. Which they do periodically, closing stores and confiscating goods. However, as the CD/DVD factories have huge overcapacity, their friends in the local government protect them and they're only closed temporarily if at all, and the shops pop up again. So they do try, but not very hard, except when, for instance, the US president comes visiting, they'll do a sweep to get them off the streets. It's the nature of digital copying that gets cheaper and faster each year that makes it impossible to stop.
take it you don't work in the book publishing industry?
Only for the last 10 years.
Kodak "predicts (at the 95% confidence level) that 95% of properly recorded discs stored at the recommended dark storage condition (25C, 40% RH) will have a lifetime of greater than 217 years."
As well dcomented elsewhere, a dime is more than most artists see from CD sales.
but you obviously can't take the price that the piraters are selling for and in any way extrapolate what a reasonable "legit" price would be
Perhaps you could use the analogy of books. It costs about $0.60-1.20 to print an average paperback. Retail is $6-$12. So a basic markup of 900% on manufacturing cost. Cost of pressing a CD: less than $0.10 in bulk. Actaully, the insert costs more. Also, they're lighter and smaller than most books. So $3 sounds actually on the high side.
In places where the authorities crack down on pirated CDs, and stallholders face getting busted and losing their stock, you order your disks from a tout with a catalogue. He calls the order in on his phone, and a few minutes later your disc arrives, still warm from the burner.
Why not burn CDs to order in shops. Print the insert with a high quality colour laser. Quality almost indistinguishable from a pressed disc package. Distribution cost slashed. Inventory cost zero. Why not?
I think the BBC reporter got ripped off. In Hong Kong they're about $1-2.50. In China of course they're cheaper, about 50c. Since a blank CDR costs about 25c, there's still profit in it. Oddly DVDs are cheaper than CDs now, though so far just for movies. No one's got the idea of "every song you've ever heard of in the 60s/70s/... in MP3 on one disk" yet, though it won't be long -- since my DVD player, and I assume most others, can play MP3s, it seems a logical progression from the 8 CDs content (in MP3) on one CD you can buy now.
Yes, but taping the box under a table and leaving it there permanently isn't. Especially since it'll probably get you sent to Camp X-ray.
Yeah, or you could use a pair of wirecutters and cut their phone line, with less investment ($2) and chance of being busted. Or just throw rocks through their windows.
Of course they won't be happy that you're invading their native land.
Not at all. The technical groups (especially comp.*) are generally great places to get answers. If you want to flame about abortion, guns, etc, there's plenty of that around, though people have learned to discourage that kind of thing in most groups.
When I have a software or hardware problem, if groups.google doesn't already have an answer, I post a question and generally have a solution in a few hours.
The signal to noise ratio varies widely from group to group. For instance, even the group alt.books.moorcock, for the author Michael Moorcock, is worth frequenting if you're a fan, though it has about 50% spam (I suspect the "cock" in the title attracts some of that). But like email, judicious filtering, or subscribing to a premium service that does it for you, is the solution.
As for the FA, it seems the researchers want to extract a lot of meta-information from newsgroups. Which makes sense in a way, but they seem to want every user to create a giant database of every single Usenet posting to do this. This strikes me as rather inefficient, not to mention likely to vastly increase the bandwidth newsservers would have to provide (a side effect MS may or may not like).
Anyway, just as long as they don't try to push MS newsservers... a true nightmare that would be.
!!!
No -- just look at the "user agents" headers on news postings. A vanishingly small number use Unix newsreaders. I'd guess Windows clinets like Agent and, unfortunately, Outlook are the most common. More recently, web interfaces like groups.google.com are growing, not because they're better (they're much more cumbersome), but because a good (free) newsfeed is becoming a rarity.
Not according to the Oxford Dictionary (plural of Oxford?).
I thought it was in analogy with ox/oxen (which comes from Old English, so in the same family as German). It's easier to pronounce -xen than -xes endings, so rather a shame it's not in more general use.
He was unhappy at unauthorised software installs. He said they have a bunch of Linux PCs already so he's not ignorant of the OS. His solution to the rogue installs was not seek and destroy but to make a standard Redhat image and install from that, whihc would obviously be much easier for him to support.
It's very easy to get emotional in court when confronted with an opponent who blatantly lies and misrepresents your case; especially after you've spent months arguing with them prior to the court date.
I took my former boss to the Labour Tribunal (similar setup to Small Claims, no lawyers) when my pay was a few months in arrears, and brought my wife along for the express purpose of slapping me down if I started to foam at the mouth. It's a good idea if you can get someone along for support and help in keeping perspective.
tosser (UK) = wanker = jerk off = habitual masturbator
Except the repost is plain text, whereas there were several interesting external links in the FA. So it is worth loading the 10 second ad to view the real article.
I thought that was a bug! Every time I have to search again for the article I wanted to read. Since you're using cookies anyway, why not store the article you read the teaser for in the cookie so you can be taken to the full article immediately after you view the ad -- or at least give it as an option.
I think it needs cookies to work. Specifically, from "content.ultramercial.com".
It was 1975. The HP25. There are images and links to a simulator if you feel nostalgic. The lunar landing game is there too. (Correction to my post: it has 49 lines for programs, 8 registers for variables.)
Yes it is, because of the DRM that's the only way she is allowed to burn a CD to play in her car, an advertised feature that she paid for (and the failure of that is the reason she got a refund).
I started on a HP programmable calculator. 50 lines of memory and a few registers. I wrote a program to list out prime numbers, there was a lunar landing game in the manual that seemed exciting at the time...
Really? The price on bin Laden's head is $25 million. No one's claimed that. Or Saddam's $25 million. There are some things more powerful than greed; and terrorists aren't generally motivated by it (though some obviously do fall from the path of righteousness).
Yes, it looked great, but the stories (not to mention the basic premise) were so stupid...
No it's quite sensible. Of all the TV series or movies "announced" in similar way as this; i.e. rights obtained and maybe one name attached, you will be lucky to see 1% come to the screen. That's where the term "preproduction hell" comes in. For instance Slashdot got all excited about a proposed Rendezvous With Rama movie a few months ago after someone noticed there was a website for the project. That the site hasn't been updated for years should have been a clue. Announcements like this are made to try to obtain finance for the project, not to give a heads up for the fanboys (and I speak as a former Blake's 7 fan myself). If you believed every one of these "soon to be a major film" puff pieces you'd be living in permanent disappointment. So I prefer not to get excited until the cameras are rolling.
I've been involved in selling movie rights for several books, but never once did anything happen after the first blaze of optimism. Vapourware is not unique to IT.