And Amazon has every right to refuse to sell him anything further, including additional books for his Kindle. However, they have to support his ability to use books he has legally purchased. (Yes, purchased. Not rented or licensed.)
I suspect their web R&D team is hard at work today on a way to "suspend" an account that prevents future purchases but continues to support authorization for past purchases.
"People shouldn't focus on PRICE, they should focus on services and their costs." In other words, the $100,000 price tag of that new fully-loaded BMW is perfectly fine. Look at all the car you get!
That's exactly how it works in the private sector.
Or it will end up being governed by the state the business operates in - but then imagine states wheeling and dealing with tax rates to get certain businesses to locate in them.
This sounds no different than a story I heard on NPR a few days ago regarding credit card interest rates and usury laws. When the supreme court ruled that credit card companies could charge their customers interest rates allowed by law in the state that the company was based, regardless of the state where the customer was located, all the credit card companies moved.
The first one was Citibank, who moved to South Dakota, and the NPR story was about the process whereby many of the major credit card companies moved en mass to South Dakota in the early 1980s.
Unfortunately, just as the federal government can overwhelm and destroy consumer protections in one fell swoop, individual states competing for business can be divided and conquered to achieve the same end.
The employee said it came down to itunes... he simplified it by saying it's "much easier to put music on the ipod". He then went on to say it was much more difficult to do on the other mp3 player.
The customer ended up buying the Apple product.
So customers are willing to pay more for hardware when it's provided with more easier, more intuitive software.
Newsflash!
(This is how my company maintains high hardware margins for our industry and still knocks the socks off our competitors.)
When I think of something being "clean", I do not immediatly think of a substance being free of C02.
That's your mistake. While we occasionally have tried to get the smut and heavy metals and mercury and radioactive bits out of our vaporized coal byproducts, we didn't realize or ignored the more likely danger that the CO2 waste will eventually decimate our species.
Even more important. How the hell am I supposed to use mod points right now when the auto-application is broken?
I have mod points right now. I find a post worthy of being moderated. I select the correct moderation from the drop-down box. And... nothing happens (usually). I have javascript from slashdot.org permitted. I haven't posted in the thread.
I thought that it had to do with the long delay between pressing Preview and the preview appearing for the first comment I post during any given session. (I thought I had to comment once to "wake up" the engine, then future moderations would work.) But no, I just tried that, and it didn't work at all.
On the other hand, some days it works wonderfully.
So yes, PLEASE put a "submit" button next to the drop-down box, if only so that I can actually use the points I've been entrusted with.
I meant that the "price" is held artificially low, because the cost isn't being paid by the producers. They dump the environmental impacts on everyone else.
I see you were modded +5 Informative, but I'm curious:
ALL of the songs I purchased without DRM I am unable to get back onto my iPod
Did you mean to say with DRM? Because I'm at a loss as to why you can't get DRM-free music to play anywhere, even on your iPod.
Regardless, if this was in a Slashdot story about anything besides the evils of DRM (and lo, there are many), the responses would all be "make backups, n00b". I think it's a worthy response even though I sympathize with you.
Finally, yeah, don't store in DRM. Everyone my wife or I (mostly my wife) has ever bought from iTunes with DRM has been burnt to CD and reripped as high-bitrate MP3. Yeah, there's some loss (which I can't notice), but for someone in your situation, would you rather have a little loss or a total loss?
Why? The supply and demand model is based on the idea of scarcity of a resource. The product they are selling, a digital copy of a piece of music, has no scarcity. You can make as many copies as you want for virtually no cost.
An uptick in sales could indicate a growing fad with the song. Perhaps it was used on a sketch on a morning radio show in Dallas, which was picked up on YouTube and became popular for the week. A number of people start rushing to grab the song, as they remember how much they liked it way back when.
Automated systems to raise the price when the sales tick up would yield more profit for the seller.
In the other direction, once the sales die back down, it would be prudent to lower the price somewhat. At some price point - in my opinion lower than $0.99 - people will buy a song they marginally like just to have it for the rare occasions it sounds good, or to complete a "remember 19xx" mix.
Rather than ignore this market, automated down pricing when the track's popularity falls could yield more profit for the seller.
And either way, it's all about profit for the seller.
While that performance would not be out of copyright is the US anyways (damn Disney) the technical and creative masterpiece of recovering and remastering it probably deserves some coverage as a creative work in and of itself.
Why? Just being good at filtering doesn't mean you should be granted a government monopoly on the result. Now if they filtered it poorly, like in a way that distorted the signal in wild noticeable ways, that could be a new, derivative, creative work protectable by copyright.
emusic.com is another viable alternative to Itunes.
-No DRM -MP3 Format -Large Selection(Though it is true they tend to have better alternative selections and fewer name-brands) ->$1 per track. (I pay $0.21 per)
There is life in music beyond what is shoveled through the pop radio and TV ads.
As soon as they let me buy a-la-cart they'll get some of my business. The last time I checked, the minimum was still $10 a month. And I don't spend anywhere near that much on music.
Last time I checked I couldn't see their catalog until I signed up, either, but it's been more than a year since I looked.
I agree that there's an appealing aspect to "Buy Local", but the reality is that it's economically inefficient.
Start charging producers of goods and services for their effects on the environment and I think you'd see that inefficiency swallowed up.
Why do you buy carrots from a local farmer when you could do the same in your own yard and not have to drive to his market?
Because I don't have any space in my yard, what with it filled by the tomato plants? But I only have three dozen plants. Should I just give up and fail and die because a mass-producer in another country lacking environmental protections and labor laws can produce cars and tomatoes and carrots at a lower "price*"?
*"price" in quotes because it's not the same as cost.
"Buy American" is essentially a racist statement. You're implying that the value of an American is higher than that of someone from another country by saying that it's better to protect industries in this country to protect the jobs. At some point, we've got to start calling out "Buy American" for the racist statement that it is.
Bullshit. "Buy American" isn't racist at all. It's recognizing that, as a mere consumer, we can yield the best return for our hard-earned dollar by spending it as locally as possible.
Let's use a car example. If I buy a car built in America, then the workers who built that car pay taxes to my government. Those workers also may buy products made in America, and definitely buy services provided here. That in turn stretches my money further, by providing income to a longer and longer chain of locals. At each step, local governments take a portion of the revenue and provide services that I can directly benefit from.
I could buy a foreign product and hope that the foreign workers buy American. But in that case I'm still hoping that, somewhere down the line, someone buys American, because then otherwise I'm out a job...
Let's use a sports analogy. Let's say that the world economy is like Major League Baseball. There are a lot of players competing for a lot of different teams. All the players are humans. They all have families. They all want to be modestly successful at their job and comfortable in life. They all want to be able to provide for their families, and be healthy and safe. That said - it's okay to root for the home team.
Or do you think rooting for the local sports team is racist, too?
Speaking of conscience, why is it that Slashdot is an oft-repeat offender in spreading anti-CFL nonsense? I've seen many pieces like this here.
My opinion, just my own, is that it is a manifestation of the general libertarian views that a sizable portion of Slashdot's readership hold. CFLs are being brought into homes not as "hey, look at this new product on the market, use it if you want no problem". Instead, they are being marketed by some as the "only choice for those with a conscious".
Back this up with future restrictions on the sales of incandescent bulbs, and it starts sounding more and more like government intrusion into private lives. I'm reminded of the government's regulation of toilet flow rates, something that still riles the locals and generates demand for a steady stream of smuggled toilets from Mexico.
To put it a different way, if you don't like being forced into changing your ways by others who, you perceive, think they are better than you, you may latch on to arguments that portray those others as imbeciles.
Yeah, I'm a Fantastic Fest 2009 VIP ticket holder, and I wasn't notified of the free Khan showing at all (despite the article mentioning that FF folks were specifically invited).
My email is registered with the festival, I subscribe to their news feed, and nothing.
Oh well. Mandatory vacation in Q3 this year means I'll get to take the entire week of FF off for the first time, increasing the number of kickass films I'll get to see then.
Paramount created about six minutes of brand-new Khan film that included a simulated melt/burn. This was what they played. It was all part of the show.
There had to be a reason to stop Khan and then have "dead time" to fill while the projectionist loaded the movie they intended to premiere.
AT&T is now Cingular and they've shut off their CDMA network in favor of GSM. Your options at this point are likely just Sprint and those that use Sprint's network, like Virgin Mobile.
And how do they know how many is more when they can't see them?
Move five behind screen A. Move two over to behind screen B. Chick can't see any of them, but decides to go to screen A.
Move five behind screen A. Move three over to behind screen B. Chick can't see any of them, but decides to go to screen B.
Repeat for more complicated patterns and more moves before the chick is freed to move.
The only way they could know that there are more behind a screen is to sense them (and chickens have poor senses of smell and no ESP) or to have made mental adjustments of "more" and "most" based on movement of items. And that's addition and subtraction.
In Austin, at least, the options for most people will be: A) Use Time Warner and be capped, or B) Use AT&T and have your every action reported to the government and logged.
But since there are two choices it's not a monopoly. Yay!
Slashdot Mirror
And Amazon has every right to refuse to sell him anything further, including additional books for his Kindle. However, they have to support his ability to use books he has legally purchased. (Yes, purchased. Not rented or licensed.)
I suspect their web R&D team is hard at work today on a way to "suspend" an account that prevents future purchases but continues to support authorization for past purchases.
"People shouldn't focus on PRICE, they should focus on services and their costs." In other words, the $100,000 price tag of that new fully-loaded BMW is perfectly fine. Look at all the car you get!
That's exactly how it works in the private sector.
Or it will end up being governed by the state the business operates in - but then imagine states wheeling and dealing with tax rates to get certain businesses to locate in them.
This sounds no different than a story I heard on NPR a few days ago regarding credit card interest rates and usury laws. When the supreme court ruled that credit card companies could charge their customers interest rates allowed by law in the state that the company was based, regardless of the state where the customer was located, all the credit card companies moved.
The first one was Citibank, who moved to South Dakota, and the NPR story was about the process whereby many of the major credit card companies moved en mass to South Dakota in the early 1980s.
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/20020320a.asp
Unfortunately, just as the federal government can overwhelm and destroy consumer protections in one fell swoop, individual states competing for business can be divided and conquered to achieve the same end.
The employee said it came down to itunes... he simplified it by saying it's "much easier to put music on the ipod". He then went on to say it was much more difficult to do on the other mp3 player.
The customer ended up buying the Apple product.
So customers are willing to pay more for hardware when it's provided with more easier, more intuitive software.
Newsflash!
(This is how my company maintains high hardware margins for our industry and still knocks the socks off our competitors.)
When I think of something being "clean", I do not immediatly think of a substance being free of C02.
That's your mistake. While we occasionally have tried to get the smut and heavy metals and mercury and radioactive bits out of our vaporized coal byproducts, we didn't realize or ignored the more likely danger that the CO2 waste will eventually decimate our species.
Ok, maybe I answered my own question. Now I have to permit javascript from fsdn.com, too?
Even more important. How the hell am I supposed to use mod points right now when the auto-application is broken?
I have mod points right now. I find a post worthy of being moderated. I select the correct moderation from the drop-down box. And... nothing happens (usually). I have javascript from slashdot.org permitted. I haven't posted in the thread.
I thought that it had to do with the long delay between pressing Preview and the preview appearing for the first comment I post during any given session. (I thought I had to comment once to "wake up" the engine, then future moderations would work.) But no, I just tried that, and it didn't work at all.
On the other hand, some days it works wonderfully.
So yes, PLEASE put a "submit" button next to the drop-down box, if only so that I can actually use the points I've been entrusted with.
I meant that the "price" is held artificially low, because the cost isn't being paid by the producers. They dump the environmental impacts on everyone else.
I see you were modded +5 Informative, but I'm curious:
ALL of the songs I purchased without DRM I am unable to get back onto my iPod
Did you mean to say with DRM? Because I'm at a loss as to why you can't get DRM-free music to play anywhere, even on your iPod.
Regardless, if this was in a Slashdot story about anything besides the evils of DRM (and lo, there are many), the responses would all be "make backups, n00b". I think it's a worthy response even though I sympathize with you.
Finally, yeah, don't store in DRM. Everyone my wife or I (mostly my wife) has ever bought from iTunes with DRM has been burnt to CD and reripped as high-bitrate MP3. Yeah, there's some loss (which I can't notice), but for someone in your situation, would you rather have a little loss or a total loss?
Why? The supply and demand model is based on the idea of scarcity of a resource. The product they are selling, a digital copy of a piece of music, has no scarcity. You can make as many copies as you want for virtually no cost.
An uptick in sales could indicate a growing fad with the song. Perhaps it was used on a sketch on a morning radio show in Dallas, which was picked up on YouTube and became popular for the week. A number of people start rushing to grab the song, as they remember how much they liked it way back when.
Automated systems to raise the price when the sales tick up would yield more profit for the seller.
In the other direction, once the sales die back down, it would be prudent to lower the price somewhat. At some price point - in my opinion lower than $0.99 - people will buy a song they marginally like just to have it for the rare occasions it sounds good, or to complete a "remember 19xx" mix.
Rather than ignore this market, automated down pricing when the track's popularity falls could yield more profit for the seller.
And either way, it's all about profit for the seller.
While that performance would not be out of copyright is the US anyways (damn Disney) the technical and creative masterpiece of recovering and remastering it probably deserves some coverage as a creative work in and of itself.
Why? Just being good at filtering doesn't mean you should be granted a government monopoly on the result. Now if they filtered it poorly, like in a way that distorted the signal in wild noticeable ways, that could be a new, derivative, creative work protectable by copyright.
emusic.com is another viable alternative to Itunes.
-No DRM
-MP3 Format
-Large Selection(Though it is true they tend to have better alternative selections and fewer name-brands)
->$1 per track. (I pay $0.21 per)
There is life in music beyond what is shoveled through the pop radio and TV ads.
As soon as they let me buy a-la-cart they'll get some of my business. The last time I checked, the minimum was still $10 a month. And I don't spend anywhere near that much on music.
Last time I checked I couldn't see their catalog until I signed up, either, but it's been more than a year since I looked.
I agree that there's an appealing aspect to "Buy Local", but the reality is that it's economically inefficient.
Start charging producers of goods and services for their effects on the environment and I think you'd see that inefficiency swallowed up.
Why do you buy carrots from a local farmer when you could do the same in your own yard and not have to drive to his market?
Because I don't have any space in my yard, what with it filled by the tomato plants? But I only have three dozen plants. Should I just give up and fail and die because a mass-producer in another country lacking environmental protections and labor laws can produce cars and tomatoes and carrots at a lower "price*"?
*"price" in quotes because it's not the same as cost.
"Buy American" is essentially a racist statement. You're implying that the value of an American is higher than that of someone from another country by saying that it's better to protect industries in this country to protect the jobs. At some point, we've got to start calling out "Buy American" for the racist statement that it is.
Bullshit. "Buy American" isn't racist at all. It's recognizing that, as a mere consumer, we can yield the best return for our hard-earned dollar by spending it as locally as possible.
Let's use a car example. If I buy a car built in America, then the workers who built that car pay taxes to my government. Those workers also may buy products made in America, and definitely buy services provided here. That in turn stretches my money further, by providing income to a longer and longer chain of locals. At each step, local governments take a portion of the revenue and provide services that I can directly benefit from.
I could buy a foreign product and hope that the foreign workers buy American. But in that case I'm still hoping that, somewhere down the line, someone buys American, because then otherwise I'm out a job...
Let's use a sports analogy. Let's say that the world economy is like Major League Baseball. There are a lot of players competing for a lot of different teams. All the players are humans. They all have families. They all want to be modestly successful at their job and comfortable in life. They all want to be able to provide for their families, and be healthy and safe. That said - it's okay to root for the home team.
Or do you think rooting for the local sports team is racist, too?
That's what Harry's blog at AICN said.
Speaking of conscience, why is it that Slashdot is an oft-repeat offender in spreading anti-CFL nonsense? I've seen many pieces like this here.
My opinion, just my own, is that it is a manifestation of the general libertarian views that a sizable portion of Slashdot's readership hold. CFLs are being brought into homes not as "hey, look at this new product on the market, use it if you want no problem". Instead, they are being marketed by some as the "only choice for those with a conscious".
Back this up with future restrictions on the sales of incandescent bulbs, and it starts sounding more and more like government intrusion into private lives. I'm reminded of the government's regulation of toilet flow rates, something that still riles the locals and generates demand for a steady stream of smuggled toilets from Mexico.
To put it a different way, if you don't like being forced into changing your ways by others who, you perceive, think they are better than you, you may latch on to arguments that portray those others as imbeciles.
Yeah, I'm a Fantastic Fest 2009 VIP ticket holder, and I wasn't notified of the free Khan showing at all (despite the article mentioning that FF folks were specifically invited).
My email is registered with the festival, I subscribe to their news feed, and nothing.
Oh well. Mandatory vacation in Q3 this year means I'll get to take the entire week of FF off for the first time, increasing the number of kickass films I'll get to see then.
Paramount created about six minutes of brand-new Khan film that included a simulated melt/burn. This was what they played. It was all part of the show.
There had to be a reason to stop Khan and then have "dead time" to fill while the projectionist loaded the movie they intended to premiere.
AT&T is now Cingular and they've shut off their CDMA network in favor of GSM. Your options at this point are likely just Sprint and those that use Sprint's network, like Virgin Mobile.
And how do they know how many is more when they can't see them?
Move five behind screen A. Move two over to behind screen B. Chick can't see any of them, but decides to go to screen A.
Move five behind screen A. Move three over to behind screen B. Chick can't see any of them, but decides to go to screen B.
Repeat for more complicated patterns and more moves before the chick is freed to move.
The only way they could know that there are more behind a screen is to sense them (and chickens have poor senses of smell and no ESP) or to have made mental adjustments of "more" and "most" based on movement of items. And that's addition and subtraction.
And how many of those burglars were carrying a gun?
Maybe the OP only uses his internet connection for email and chat. The other 4.99gb are used by the Russians to distribute Conflicker...
In Austin, at least, the options for most people will be:
A) Use Time Warner and be capped, or
B) Use AT&T and have your every action reported to the government and logged.
But since there are two choices it's not a monopoly. Yay!
achievement whore-able?
I've been down the Linux path. It's not "Just Works". Here, I even documented my work on Slashdot:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=281759&cid=20390565
The computer I mention in that series was my last PC, the one I had just replaced with a Mac Mini at the time.