The court issuing the order keeps jurisdiction in the case; again, IANAL, but I believe that OEMs can go back to that court for redress of grievences.
I believe Dell stopped carrying linux pc's because microsoft pulled a few tricks on them. I believe they may sell some linux servers but a windows tax is still applied to them and is therefor screwing the consumer for a copy of Windows that they do not have.
Yeah, I've thought about this a little, too... you can read the agreement in such a way as to allow Microsoft to discriminate against OEMs that offer PC's that only boot to an alternative OS. Of course, you could also read it in such a way that allows OEMs to sell linux- or BSD- only PCs and still have a level playing field with their Windows boxes...it's all really up to the Judge and, dammit, the lawyers.
IANAL, but, as I read it, yes. Microsoft is now prohibited from screwing over an OEM that ships a computer that will boot into multiple operating sytems, or that presents an alternative OS at the BIOS screen. Walmart's Linux PCs may become more ommon, now...
The primary evidence of Santa seems to be all those presents under the tree come Christmas time. Unfortunatly for the Santa-believers, you can usually find parents that will tell you "oh, those are from us, we just put Santa's name on them."
The primary evidence for God is that, hey, look, there's a whole universe out there. I cannot seem to find anyone who put this universe here and just wrote God's name on it.
Actually, the big problem comes when a string function returns '0' if it finds a regex at the first character, or '0' if it doesn't find it at all. If a failed find returned '-1', like just about every language I've ever used, this would be unnecessary. That is my only real grip with PHP.
Re:Batman vs. Superman: By A Religious Fundamental
on
Superhero Smackdown
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· Score: 2
ok, ok, the americanisation of the old-englishified version of a greekified hebrew name. Happy now?
Re:Batman vs. Superman: By A Religious Fundamental
on
Superhero Smackdown
·
· Score: 2
The same goes for "Jesus Christ" too... not that I have ever seen a depiction that shows him as non-white. Also, Jews didn't have names like we do now, so what is the deal with "Jesus Christ?"
It's an americanisation of a greek-ified Hebrew name...the original is closer to "yeshwa," simmliar to Joshua.
Alien vs. Predator is the only interesting one.
I like Batman, so I'd go see that one. Heck, I even went to see that one with Mr. Freeze in it. I'd go see Freddy vs. Jason becuase, well, because there isn't a whole lot to do in this town. But you are right...a properly done AvP would rule them all.
Yeah, but what does that have to do with the RIAA?
Uhm... Nothing... ?? But then, neither does the article... Who said ANYTHING about the RIAA within the context of the post or article?
The RIAAis trying, thorugh various means, to push copy-protected CDs on us. Therefore, any discussion about copy-protected CDs automatically involves the RIAA.
Now, this particular thread is about how the wording of a question can alter the responses recieved. For instance, as you pointed out, asking "do you think artists should be compensated..." would make people morelikely to answer in favor of copy-protected CDs; I was merely pointing out that the RIAA, and therfore copy-protected CDs, have absolutly nothing to do with ensuring artists are fairly compensated.
Or on the other side: "Do you believe that artists are entitled to payment for every copy of their work that gets distributed to a different individual?"
Yeah, but what does that have to do with the RIAA?
Here's a nice tall glass of "no kidding" to the good people at Gartner. I wish I could have seen the questionaire:
Do you prefer: 1. CDs that you can listen to however/whenever you want 2. CDs that destroy your CD-ROM's firmware
Here's a wakeup call for Hollywood and all of the Software firms: when an American buys something, even a CD, movie, or program, he/she thinks that they now own it. that's how it's always been. That's how it still is with books. That's how it's going to be with your products once people get tired of your DRM antics.
A responsible and cooperative foreign politic would be as much of a help against the threats of terrorism as any military force.
So would converting the terrorists to a religion that doesn't preach the slaughter of the Christians and the Jews. So it goes.
You cant fight fire with fire. One dead palestine or any muslim for that matter is 10 terrorists tomorrow.
That is a real problem, that we are going to have to address sooner or later. Religious fanaticism, combined with the beliefe that suicide warriors are given an automatic carpet-ride to heaven...there isn't any easy solution that I can see. As a stop gap, though...if we know someone is going to try and murder innocent people, I see no reason to leave them alive.
I am all for bringing the terrorists down but in this case there havent been any evidence at all even pointing towards Saddam. To put so much effort into going after him seems pretty useless since the terrorists can lay back since they arent the prime target for now.
Ok, then how about morality? I'm not real big on the "We're the Police of the World" thing, but Saddam is a madman, dictator, torturer, etc. He brutalises his own people. He murders and torutres for fun. He is evil. Plain, simple, no deffinition required, evil.
I do agree, however, that we are loosing some of our focus on the terrorists. If people get all caught up in good feelings about taking out Saddam, they are going to miss the next terrorist attack, just like we missed Sep. 11. We could learn a lot from Isreal..and if things keep going the way they have, it would not surprise me at all to see the US asking Isral for advice on combating domestic terrorism.
Im dont think any violence has justification until someone strikes at you. A world of strike first mentality would be a pretty dangerous place to live in.
Yes, it is. Unfortunatly, it is also the only way we stand a prayer against terrorist cells.
It is next to impossible to covertly deploy a real military force. If Canada dicided to invade us some day, there would be tell-tale hints that it was going to happen...like all the tanks lined up at the border. We have the intelligence capabilities to detect conventional military buildup, and the logistical abilities to repond quickly.
We cannot do the same for the terrorists. All it takes is one or two nuts with a bomb, a box cutter, etc. No buildup. No hints. At least not the way our intelligence agencies work. But we knwo who their leaders are, we know who their suppliers are, and we knwo that they intend to do us harm. The only way we can survive is to destroy their ability to fight before they are ready to do so.
Ah, allow me to backpeddle: "in self defense, or the defense of our allies."
There, much better. These days, there aren't a whole lot of conventional militaries that are eager to go toe-to-toe with us, but our less-well-prepared (or, in the case of Israel, simply smaller and surrounded) allies are still open to attack. Saddam attacked Kuwait, resulting in our first invasion. Saddam supports to terrorist organisations that have attacked the U.S. That is also cause for self defense.
Anyway, here's how nuclear policy generally goes:
We have nukes. We quickly realized that it would be a poor idea to drop them on a regular basis, and as such, have not used them in a military situation since the originals in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Still, they make a heck of a deterrant, so we keep them around.
The Russia, or the Soviet Union, gets their own nukes. This is not a Good Thing. So, we build more nukes to counter their nukes. They, in turn, build more nuks to counter our coutner nukes... rinse and repeat for a few years, and we get the current situation: we can blow up the world a few dozen times over, and if one of us launches, so does the other: Mutally Assured Destruction. The only benifits to this: 1) neithe side was dumb enough to actually drop a nuke, and 2) it bankrupted the USSR, esentially ending communism in much of Europe.
Now, Russia is (generally) our friend, so why keep the nukes around? Good question, and one that lead to at least some dissarmament. But, now we have backyard wizards trying to cook up nukes in third world nations, and some of them are succeeding.
So, our weapons testing pogram ensures two things: 1) our nukes still work, and will thus work as a deterrant against the leader of Zimbabagoatherderdu, and 2) our nukes actually do what we epect them to do, instead of, say, just dropping a few tons of lead and plutonium on the ground.
To start a war to stop one seems pretty strange dont you think?
Not at all. You seem to come from the perspective that all violence is bad. I come from the perspective that all unjustified violence is bad. If it will be easier and safer for us to go after the people we know want us dead before they have the ability to make it happen, I say faster, kitty, kill kill.
So when saddam tests nuclears its all ok then since its done out of concern for the rest of us?
No, when Saddam test nuclears its because he wants to blow us all up. He has never had a weapon that he has not employed, often times even on his own people. There is a marked diference between a modern, dempcratic nation keeping an arsenal for self defense and a madman keeping an arsenal for world domination.
God commanded others to kill in his name. Was that one of the commandments; to kill in his name? No, therefore it is a sin.
The Commandment given to Moses was "thou shalt not murder." There are, however, many instances when God told His people to kill; for example, someone who committed adultry. Also, it is written that the blood of a murderer shall be spilled by human hands.
Another responder was correct when he said that as gentiles, we live under a new covenant. Jesus, however, reiterated 9 of the ten commandments; all except the keeping of the Sabath. He also gave a new commandment, "love one another as I have loved you." Finally, He said that the greates commandment was tolove the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
You don't. You COULD do it with some Palladium Agent workalike. But a simple OS call won't do it; it needs to be a process that runs in the background, and actually monitors untrusted programs.
For what was being discussed, it would be sufficient to put the next release of Outlook through some testing before it shipped.
Seriously, though, the scripting model of OE is very, very broken. "I don't know where this code came from, I don't know what it does, but I'm going to give it access to the hard drive and operating system, and run it for you, ok? No? Too bad, I already did." Changing this would solve 99% of the outlook-borne viruses crawling the net these days, with no need for hardware-based encryption.
I could as soon say that Stallman just wants to not pay for software because he's cheap, and be just as accurate as you saying that MS is driven by a desire to disallow fair use.
Not true. Stallman's "purity" in regards to the free software movement is illustrted by how much critical, quality software he has given away. GCC, EMACS, etc...
Microsoft may believe that what they are doing is right, but that is only because they believe in the "One Microsoft Way." They believe that restircting or elimnating fair use rights will bolster their profits and their market share; the only people who will have access to media files at all are those who are using the latest, greatest Microsoft platform.
I can actually see some useful aspects of a Palladuim-type system...but the potential for abuse is so very high that I am willing to live without them.
"Fair Use" is quoting someone else's copywritten work in your review, news item, scholarly journal, or parody. If you can access the media at all, you can make a sound byte / note of it, and use it for your Fair Use claim.
Fair use is also ripping the CD I just bought to my computer, so I can add it to my playlists. Fair use is also burning those rips to another CD, so I can listen to the songs I want, when I want. Fair use is also being able to take that CD and play it on my computer at work.
I did all of that within the last 24 hours. Not once did I attempt to share these files with anyone who had not purchased the right to listen to them. No one's intellectual property was comprimised. But this would still be impossible under Palladium.
I'd love to dump windows and never touch MS again--in fact, name me a Linux distribution that can handle XP's NTFS, and I'll do a doc-and-music backup and install it tonight.
Well, Xandros is supposed to be able to do just that; I haven't tried it out personally, but that's what the reviews say.
More importantly, though; this points out why Palladium et al are bad things. You want to get rid of Microsoft. You want to use Linux. But you still want to be able to get at your data, which lives on a Microsoft partition. Why is this so difficult? Because your data lives on a partition controlled by Microsoft, you have to access that data in the way Microsoft dictates, or find some way to break the system. Now imagine your data lives on an entire computer, or an entire network, owned by Microsoft. Do you see how much harder it is to get to your data now?
Perhaps not stupid, but at the very least woefully unpragmatic.
You see, they really do have a point. Legally,they should be in control of how "thier" music is distributed. P2P has taken this control away. They should be able to stop it (or at least the parts of it that infringe on their rights) if they want. They have been unable to do so, and this makes them mad. Very mad. Frothing at the mouth and buying legislation mad.
What they do not see is that embracing technology would be much more profitable (and feasable) than trying to kill it. P2P can help introduce nbew artists, allow people to test-drive a CD, etc. I rarely buy mainstream CDs because I know that I am not going to like the majority of songs on them, but I would pay a reasonable price to download one or two songs from it. But, no; their rights have been infringed, and they have declared a holy war.
That's their right. I just don't believe they understand what will happen to them if they loose this war. People are esentially sheep, but if they squeeze hard enough, enough people will eventually shout "enough!" to be heard. War is never fun if the other side fights back.
The rest of your post, by the way, is probably right on; they want a monopoly on distribution. If you want to be a musician, you have to go through us. I could have sworn that was illegal, but what do I know?
I don't quite understand your logic as to why people would be less likely to share if it's cheaper.
That's looking at it from the wrong angle. People are going to share media files, and there is just about nothing that the *AA can do about it. Close down the P2P network, and another one pops up. Put some kind of crippleware on the CD/DVD, and someone will whip out the magic market (or, if worse comes to worse, a Perl interpreter) and get around it. If people want to share these files, they will.
But if it is cheap to get them legitimatly, people are more likely to do so. When I see some new craptravaganza from $20.00 at Wal-Mart, it's real easy to say "wow, these movie people are trying to screw me. Heartless bastards. Well screw them, I'll just download it." And the fact is, they are trying to screw us, and everyone else; they are a multi-billion dollar industry that somehow never shows a profit. Artists are paid scant fractions of what their talent bring in. We are charged $20.00 for a piece of plastic that cost about a nickle to stamp out. Given all of this, it is very easy for some people to overcome any moral qualms they may have about "stealing." It's not wrong to steal from a thief, is it?
But, if the members of the *AA were to change their tune a little, to actually offer their goods at reasonable prices, people would be less likely to see them as heartless corporations, and more likely to obtain their goods through legitimate services. Will there still be piracy? Sure. But there will also be a dramatic upswing in the people who pay for their consumption.
The music and movie industries produce non-esential goods at unjustifiable prices. Basic economics states that their profits will begin to fall. P2P is not their problem; they are.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't have my King Jim on me, but the NIV, which comes from an older text, reads "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."
Who will enforce it?
The court issuing the order keeps jurisdiction in the case; again, IANAL, but I believe that OEMs can go back to that court for redress of grievences.
I believe Dell stopped carrying linux pc's because microsoft pulled a few tricks on them. I believe they may sell some linux servers but a windows tax is still applied to them and is therefor screwing the consumer for a copy of Windows that they do not have.
Yeah, I've thought about this a little, too... you can read the agreement in such a way as to allow Microsoft to discriminate against OEMs that offer PC's that only boot to an alternative OS. Of course, you could also read it in such a way that allows OEMs to sell linux- or BSD- only PCs and still have a level playing field with their Windows boxes...it's all really up to the Judge and, dammit, the lawyers.
IANAL, but, as I read it, yes. Microsoft is now prohibited from screwing over an OEM that ships a computer that will boot into multiple operating sytems, or that presents an alternative OS at the BIOS screen. Walmart's Linux PCs may become more ommon, now...
The primary evidence of Santa seems to be all those presents under the tree come Christmas time. Unfortunatly for the Santa-believers, you can usually find parents that will tell you "oh, those are from us, we just put Santa's name on them."
The primary evidence for God is that, hey, look, there's a whole universe out there. I cannot seem to find anyone who put this universe here and just wrote God's name on it.
Actually, the big problem comes when a string function returns '0' if it finds a regex at the first character, or '0' if it doesn't find it at all. If a failed find returned '-1', like just about every language I've ever used, this would be unnecessary. That is my only real grip with PHP.
ok, ok, the americanisation of the old-englishified version of a greekified hebrew name. Happy now?
The same goes for "Jesus Christ" too... not that I have ever seen a depiction that shows him as non-white. Also, Jews didn't have names like we do now, so what is the deal with "Jesus Christ?"
It's an americanisation of a greek-ified Hebrew name...the original is closer to "yeshwa," simmliar to Joshua.
Alien vs. Predator is the only interesting one.
I like Batman, so I'd go see that one. Heck, I even went to see that one with Mr. Freeze in it. I'd go see Freddy vs. Jason becuase, well, because there isn't a whole lot to do in this town. But you are right...a properly done AvP would rule them all.
Yeah, but what does that have to do with the RIAA?
Uhm... Nothing... ?? But then, neither does the article... Who said ANYTHING about the RIAA within the context of the post or article?
The RIAAis trying, thorugh various means, to push copy-protected CDs on us. Therefore, any discussion about copy-protected CDs automatically involves the RIAA.
Now, this particular thread is about how the wording of a question can alter the responses recieved. For instance, as you pointed out, asking "do you think artists should be compensated..." would make people morelikely to answer in favor of copy-protected CDs; I was merely pointing out that the RIAA, and therfore copy-protected CDs, have absolutly nothing to do with ensuring artists are fairly compensated.
Hmmm...sounds like someone's watched too many episodes of "Friends".
Actually, I don't watch TV. I'm also trying not to swear so much, which is why I went with "kidding" instead of my first thought.
Or on the other side: "Do you believe that artists are entitled to payment for every copy of their work that gets distributed to a different individual?"
Yeah, but what does that have to do with the RIAA?
Here's a nice tall glass of "no kidding" to the good people at Gartner. I wish I could have seen the questionaire:
Do you prefer:
1. CDs that you can listen to however/whenever you want
2. CDs that destroy your CD-ROM's firmware
Here's a wakeup call for Hollywood and all of the Software firms: when an American buys something, even a CD, movie, or program, he/she thinks that they now own it. that's how it's always been. That's how it still is with books. That's how it's going to be with your products once people get tired of your DRM antics.
1) Release code on the net.
2) Close up shop.
3) Snicker gleefully when you realize the genie's out of the bottle anyway.
A responsible and cooperative foreign politic would be as much of a help against the threats of terrorism as any military force.
So would converting the terrorists to a religion that doesn't preach the slaughter of the Christians and the Jews. So it goes.
You cant fight fire with fire. One dead palestine or any muslim for that matter is 10 terrorists tomorrow.
That is a real problem, that we are going to have to address sooner or later. Religious fanaticism, combined with the beliefe that suicide warriors are given an automatic carpet-ride to heaven...there isn't any easy solution that I can see. As a stop gap, though...if we know someone is going to try and murder innocent people, I see no reason to leave them alive.
I am all for bringing the terrorists down but in this case there havent been any evidence at all even pointing towards Saddam. To put so much effort into going after him seems pretty useless since the terrorists can lay back since they arent the prime target for now.
Ok, then how about morality? I'm not real big on the "We're the Police of the World" thing, but Saddam is a madman, dictator, torturer, etc. He brutalises his own people. He murders and torutres for fun. He is evil. Plain, simple, no deffinition required, evil.
I do agree, however, that we are loosing some of our focus on the terrorists. If people get all caught up in good feelings about taking out Saddam, they are going to miss the next terrorist attack, just like we missed Sep. 11. We could learn a lot from Isreal..and if things keep going the way they have, it would not surprise me at all to see the US asking Isral for advice on combating domestic terrorism.
Im dont think any violence has justification until someone strikes at you. A world of strike first mentality would be a pretty dangerous place to live in.
Yes, it is. Unfortunatly, it is also the only way we stand a prayer against terrorist cells.
It is next to impossible to covertly deploy a real military force. If Canada dicided to invade us some day, there would be tell-tale hints that it was going to happen...like all the tanks lined up at the border. We have the intelligence capabilities to detect conventional military buildup, and the logistical abilities to repond quickly.
We cannot do the same for the terrorists. All it takes is one or two nuts with a bomb, a box cutter, etc. No buildup. No hints. At least not the way our intelligence agencies work. But we knwo who their leaders are, we know who their suppliers are, and we knwo that they intend to do us harm. The only way we can survive is to destroy their ability to fight before they are ready to do so.
Ah, allow me to backpeddle: "in self defense, or the defense of our allies."
There, much better. These days, there aren't a whole lot of conventional militaries that are eager to go toe-to-toe with us, but our less-well-prepared (or, in the case of Israel, simply smaller and surrounded) allies are still open to attack. Saddam attacked Kuwait, resulting in our first invasion. Saddam supports to terrorist organisations that have attacked the U.S. That is also cause for self defense.
Anyway, here's how nuclear policy generally goes:
We have nukes. We quickly realized that it would be a poor idea to drop them on a regular basis, and as such, have not used them in a military situation since the originals in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Still, they make a heck of a deterrant, so we keep them around.
The Russia, or the Soviet Union, gets their own nukes. This is not a Good Thing. So, we build more nukes to counter their nukes. They, in turn, build more nuks to counter our coutner nukes... rinse and repeat for a few years, and we get the current situation: we can blow up the world a few dozen times over, and if one of us launches, so does the other: Mutally Assured Destruction. The only benifits to this: 1) neithe side was dumb enough to actually drop a nuke, and 2) it bankrupted the USSR, esentially ending communism in much of Europe.
Now, Russia is (generally) our friend, so why keep the nukes around? Good question, and one that lead to at least some dissarmament. But, now we have backyard wizards trying to cook up nukes in third world nations, and some of them are succeeding.
So, our weapons testing pogram ensures two things:
1) our nukes still work, and will thus work as a deterrant against the leader of Zimbabagoatherderdu, and 2) our nukes actually do what we epect them to do, instead of, say, just dropping a few tons of lead and plutonium on the ground.
To start a war to stop one seems pretty strange dont you think?
Not at all. You seem to come from the perspective that all violence is bad. I come from the perspective that all unjustified violence is bad. If it will be easier and safer for us to go after the people we know want us dead before they have the ability to make it happen, I say faster, kitty, kill kill.
So when saddam tests nuclears its all ok then since its done out of concern for the rest of us?
No, when Saddam test nuclears its because he wants to blow us all up. He has never had a weapon that he has not employed, often times even on his own people. There is a marked diference between a modern, dempcratic nation keeping an arsenal for self defense and a madman keeping an arsenal for world domination.
About nuclear testing, isnt the capability to destroy the whole earth enough?
No; we'd also like to make sure that we don't do so accidentally; hence, testing.
And it still won't render more than 100 FPS on Unreal Tournament. Ah well...
A better solution would be to make the looser pay legal fees up to that which they themselves paid.
God commanded others to kill in his name. Was that one of the commandments; to kill in his name? No, therefore it is a sin.
The Commandment given to Moses was "thou shalt not murder." There are, however, many instances when God told His people to kill; for example, someone who committed adultry. Also, it is written that the blood of a murderer shall be spilled by human hands.
Another responder was correct when he said that as gentiles, we live under a new covenant. Jesus, however, reiterated 9 of the ten commandments; all except the keeping of the Sabath. He also gave a new commandment, "love one another as I have loved you." Finally, He said that the greates commandment was tolove the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
You don't. You COULD do it with some Palladium Agent workalike. But a simple OS call won't do it; it needs to be a process that runs in the background, and actually monitors untrusted programs.
For what was being discussed, it would be sufficient to put the next release of Outlook through some testing before it shipped.
Seriously, though, the scripting model of OE is very, very broken. "I don't know where this code came from, I don't know what it does, but I'm going to give it access to the hard drive and operating system, and run it for you, ok? No? Too bad, I already did." Changing this would solve 99% of the outlook-borne viruses crawling the net these days, with no need for hardware-based encryption.
IE sending mail messages? I think you mean OE...
Whoops, that security announcement wasn't supposed to come out till Friday...
I could as soon say that Stallman just wants to not pay for software because he's cheap, and be just as accurate as you saying that MS is driven by a desire to disallow fair use.
Not true. Stallman's "purity" in regards to the free software movement is illustrted by how much critical, quality software he has given away. GCC, EMACS, etc...
Microsoft may believe that what they are doing is right, but that is only because they believe in the "One Microsoft Way." They believe that restircting or elimnating fair use rights will bolster their profits and their market share; the only people who will have access to media files at all are those who are using the latest, greatest Microsoft platform.
I can actually see some useful aspects of a Palladuim-type system...but the potential for abuse is so very high that I am willing to live without them.
"Fair Use" is quoting someone else's copywritten work in your review, news item, scholarly journal, or parody. If you can access the media at all, you can make a sound byte / note of it, and use it for your Fair Use claim.
Fair use is also ripping the CD I just bought to my computer, so I can add it to my playlists. Fair use is also burning those rips to another CD, so I can listen to the songs I want, when I want. Fair use is also being able to take that CD and play it on my computer at work.
I did all of that within the last 24 hours. Not once did I attempt to share these files with anyone who had not purchased the right to listen to them. No one's intellectual property was comprimised. But this would still be impossible under Palladium.
I'd love to dump windows and never touch MS again--in fact, name me a Linux distribution that can handle XP's NTFS, and I'll do a doc-and-music backup and install it tonight.
Well, Xandros is supposed to be able to do just that; I haven't tried it out personally, but that's what the reviews say.
More importantly, though; this points out why Palladium et al are bad things. You want to get rid of Microsoft. You want to use Linux. But you still want to be able to get at your data, which lives on a Microsoft partition. Why is this so difficult? Because your data lives on a partition controlled by Microsoft, you have to access that data in the way Microsoft dictates, or find some way to break the system. Now imagine your data lives on an entire computer, or an entire network, owned by Microsoft. Do you see how much harder it is to get to your data now?
So, the question is: what are they, stupid?
Perhaps not stupid, but at the very least woefully unpragmatic.
You see, they really do have a point. Legally,they should be in control of how "thier" music is distributed. P2P has taken this control away. They should be able to stop it (or at least the parts of it that infringe on their rights) if they want. They have been unable to do so, and this makes them mad. Very mad. Frothing at the mouth and buying legislation mad.
What they do not see is that embracing technology would be much more profitable (and feasable) than trying to kill it. P2P can help introduce nbew artists, allow people to test-drive a CD, etc. I rarely buy mainstream CDs because I know that I am not going to like the majority of songs on them, but I would pay a reasonable price to download one or two songs from it. But, no; their rights have been infringed, and they have declared a holy war.
That's their right. I just don't believe they understand what will happen to them if they loose this war. People are esentially sheep, but if they squeeze hard enough, enough people will eventually shout "enough!" to be heard. War is never fun if the other side fights back.
The rest of your post, by the way, is probably right on; they want a monopoly on distribution. If you want to be a musician, you have to go through us. I could have sworn that was illegal, but what do I know?
I don't quite understand your logic as to why people would be less likely to share if it's cheaper.
That's looking at it from the wrong angle. People are going to share media files, and there is just about nothing that the *AA can do about it. Close down the P2P network, and another one pops up. Put some kind of crippleware on the CD/DVD, and someone will whip out the magic market (or, if worse comes to worse, a Perl interpreter) and get around it. If people want to share these files, they will.
But if it is cheap to get them legitimatly, people are more likely to do so. When I see some new craptravaganza from $20.00 at Wal-Mart, it's real easy to say "wow, these movie people are trying to screw me. Heartless bastards. Well screw them, I'll just download it." And the fact is, they are trying to screw us, and everyone else; they are a multi-billion dollar industry that somehow never shows a profit. Artists are paid scant fractions of what their talent bring in. We are charged $20.00 for a piece of plastic that cost about a nickle to stamp out. Given all of this, it is very easy for some people to overcome any moral qualms they may have about "stealing." It's not wrong to steal from a thief, is it?
But, if the members of the *AA were to change their tune a little, to actually offer their goods at reasonable prices, people would be less likely to see them as heartless corporations, and more likely to obtain their goods through legitimate services. Will there still be piracy? Sure. But there will also be a dramatic upswing in the people who pay for their consumption.
The music and movie industries produce non-esential goods at unjustifiable prices. Basic economics states that their profits will begin to fall. P2P is not their problem; they are.