They already have independent music labels, none of which are wildly profitable. Why would Apple want to enter this business? Anyway, Apple will continue to distribute music for indie labels, so why couldn't the artists just sign on with an existing indie label???
There's a disconnect - people talk bad about the RIAA all day, and complain about their price schemes. But there already are a number of alternatives, only almost nobody actually listens to these alternatives. Obviously RIAA is doing *something* right.
No, that's not at all true, your post shouldn't be marked informative. Opium is native to areas to the North and Northwest of India. In China it has long been associated with corrupt foreign powers - first introduced by Portugese traders in the 15th century, and then becoming common (and pushed on the population at gunpoint when the government tried to ban it) by the English in the 19th century. Perhaps you're familiar with racist images of old Chinamen smoking away and think it's part of Chinese life, but that's not at all true. If you're caught with even a small amount, you're likely to go to jail for a long time. Marijuana has been known to South Asia and the Middle East for some time, but not in East China, don't know where you got that one.
Coca leaves and Cocaine are not the same thing. Coca Leaves are a very mild drug - the South American Indian words for "tea" often come from their name for "Coca Leaf Tea," because of their comparable effect. It just isn't absorbed by the body in a way that gets one high like Cocaine. Cocaine is an organic chemical derived (but not extracted) from these coca leaves. Claiming the two are equivalent is BS.
Cocaine is illegal in Africa. Marijuana is illegal in Mexico. Opium is illegal in China. Is it because China is racist against Chinese people? Mexico is racist against Mexicans? It must be comforting for people to believe that all the evil forces of the world unite to fight pet issues - greedy anti-hemp lobbyists, racist Southern sheriffs, etc. But holding these views up to even the lighest analysis shows both history and obvious contradictions being willfully ignored.
Yes. I am very fearful of being arrested for talking about Star Wars-themed iPods or whatever the fuck we talk about on Slashdot.
Anyway here, if not exactly hard-hitting, is a collection of openly political English-language blogging posted from China. There's censorship in China and it totally sucks, but I think you imagine it's about 100 times more imposing than it actually is.
What led you to believe Hong Kong's government is less corrupt than Mainland China's? Or that the government is "mostly corrupt"??? China is ranked 71st out of 146 nations in corruption (the US is 17th) which isn't anything to brag about but doesn't quite jibe with your characterization, either.
Anyway, big deal. China uses "people" in formal titles, so what? When Communism was strong (and these bodies were named) China certainly had a very strong social welfare program that you might associate with a "people's government," and an army that certainly kept (say) the Japanese from invading again and killing+raping millions of people, an attribute you might associate with a "People's Army". China does not even approach the level of class differentiation as in the US, so I don't understand your complaints, really, except maybe anti-Communist propoganda has taught you to mock these terms, and you parrot the propoganda? And how does the money being called "People's Money" jibe with your trite 1984 comparisons?
How old are you, talking about countries in terms of "Good" and "Bad"??? Every fool on the street realizes that North Korea and Iran obtaining Nuclear Weapons would change the world for the worse. "The US should get rid of all nuclear weapons" is some pie-in-the-sky talk, like "all the children in the world should hold hands singing and sharing candy" or some such. Anyway, would you really want to live in a world where North Korea could become the world's sole nuclear power???
So you read a lot of science fiction, huh? Plenty of sane people would argue that there is no direct relationship between cards that can be scanned for payment and a future evil Big Brother society that charges you for entering malls.
Why malls in the first place? Isn't that a little inane? Why would charging to go into a mall be so evil? Mostly it sounds like a way to discourage business. Anyway if mall-owners thought it was a good idea to charge people, they could do that now. I don't think people would complain about it being evil. They would just go to another, uhhh, mall.
Also, are people really afraid of cards that you can pay for things with? For me, I'm afraid of getting run over by a bus when I'm not paying attention. I'm a little afraid of heights. But cards that you can pay for things with are not a big fear of mine.
In short, are you sure you're not crazy? Your post seems to be the words of a disturbed mind.
It's easy to say it's "doing the right thing," but who wants to see large international corporations enforcing U.S. laws in various countries? China already has its history of economic colonialism and it sparked revolutions for more than a hundred years, culminating in the Communist revolution.
I disagree with the ruling. I get annoyed at Chinese web censorship here in Shanghai. At the same time, it's not like China is the only nation to jail reporters for reporting (just ask Judy Miller, who kept her sources confidential), and it's not like Yahoo! is the only international corporation complying with China's unfortunate internet policies, Google also supports Chinese censorship of the press. I'm not trying to saying "those other wrongs make it a right," but it also means Yahoo! doesn't stand out from the crowd as an exceptionally evil company.
Huh? Obviously if the record companies felt the information was worth the loss in sales, they wouldn't be complaining about P2P in the first place. The record companies are protecting their self-interests, they're not idealogues against online music sharing. If offering free music over P2P made business sense, they'd be right there hosting their own torrents, and including little stickers on the CD case, saying "just download the FLAC off torrentspy, instead of wasting your money!"
And why would this have any effect on what a judge would say? Judges apply law, they don't review businesses' profit margins and force companies to shift legal strategies to maximize their profits. What planet are you from?
How is this different than in 1992, when basically 100% of the OS market was MS, the vast majority of Word Processors and Database products were MS, and those products were MS's cash cows? They've still managed to grow since 1992, even if their expansions into new markets haven't been nearly as profitable as these core businesses.
Linux is doing well in China, even though Dell and HP will not sell Linux desktops/laptops in the US by agreements with Microsoft; they do routinely sell Linux loaded desktops/laptops in China.
Linux is pre-installed on computers because it's free and the purchase price is more dear in China than in the US. It's promptly replaced by a pirated copy of Windows, which (in cities, at least) is never more than a 5 minute walk away.
Sure, you don't need to understand math all that well to implement quicksort, but you most certainly need to understand math to have come up with it!
You could apply this to pretty much any field with just as much stretching. The music scale works on logarithmic principles, and don't get started on how complex the calculations can be for what makes a good instrument, or good acoustics. That doesn't mean you average cello player need to know anything about sines and cosines.
-- glad to see that the police were looting in new Orleans. makes you just want to respect the cops dont it?
You should respect the cops, you're lucky they don't Billy-Club your stupid ass when you pull that "insist on using a $50 for no reason and make the gas station call the police" trick every month. What an idiot.
Perhaps this is admirable if overblown rhetoric, but it isn't true. U.S. voter turnout has gone up substantially in the last decade. And at a grass-roots level, lobby groups and political parties are basically in the business of getting out the vote.
If you've ever known anybody who works for a political campaign, basically that is what all the interns and volunteers will do. If you had ever participated in the political process, at any level, you would know this.
Well, living in China, I have this view that Chinese law applies here. Call me dense. I think definitely there's a view that "our country is perfect and every other country should abide by our standards" and it's not just limited to U.S. citizens.
Either you have to decide a country is *evil* and refuse to work with them except in a humanitarian basis, or you have to respect their national sovereignity and obey their laws. China is not the Nazis.
It's funny to see the completely misinformed postings here. If anybody has a genuine interest (and doesn't just view this as an excuse to rail against the Chinese Government) here are a few relevant points
- Skype is huge here. Have a look at Skype Tom, tom.com is a big Chinese-language portal, they've had a strategetic partnership for a while, which got upgraded last week. Shanghai newspapers will have an editorial or article about Skype all the fucking time, it's almost a joke. China is Skype's 3rd largest market and I imagine will soon be Skype's largest. The service works very well within China, although you can't get a China Skype In number yet, only Hong Kong.
Who knows how this went down, but I'd blame it on China Telecom bastards, and a LACK of government regulation on the market. If it was the government, why would it be limited to CT, and not CU (the other big telco) as well? Unfortunately business and government workings are not so transparent outside the US.
The $1/minute LD figure is a joke. Technically that's true but realistically everybody uses IP phone cards to call the long distance, they're sold EVERYWHERE. It's a Byzantine system but boils down to maybe $.10/minute. I use Skype for LD so I'm not quite sure on the cost though.
The idea that Skype is especially suspectible to Falun Gong propoganda is somewhat insane. Anybody who mentions this idea is really out to lunch or learned everything they know about China from anti-China propoganda (which is a possibility I guess).
The main problem to Skype is that the Internet connections are overloaded. Well, at least that's the case in Shanghai.
Any country with a large, highly centralised government (which is pretty much the entire Western World) is going to suffer from the same issue. The only solutions are to reduce the power of the government, and/or to move these powers to more regional authorities (thus increasing the cost require to influence the entire nation).
This logic is great. It works well for struggling third-world African nations, so it should work well in Europe and the US as well! If that's your solution to a proposed surcharge on iPods in the Netherlands, I'd love to see what your solution to a genuine concern would be.
I also enjoy how you can't say copying other's copy-righted works without paying is "stealing" without 5 or 6 angry replies, but putting a fully-disclosed surcharge on a luxury item is an obvious example of thievery and stealing. Not to say I support the surcharge, but this manipulation of language to suit the group-view strikes me as a bit ugly.
Huh? What happened? Anyway, the iPod is something like $300-$500 in England, all for a glorified Walkman. They've always been associated with those who have plenty of free cash.
There's no real story here. Nothing happened. This is just timothy's chance to rant about a personal pet peeve that everybody is already aware of. Hopefully it's another nail in the coffin toward gettting him removes as a Slashdot "editor."
Dude man, yeah, like right on. That is so with it. It's like, capitalism man. Copyrights, it's like, did God, or Buddha, or whoever, copyright the sun? No, he gave it for all of us to enjoy. And that's what I believe in. Totally.
Another thing, it's like, why do they have nuclear "secrets"??? Techonology wants to be free, you know? It's like, man survived for millions of years without these secrets. You see where I'm going here. The logic is out of this world!
You realize this technology doesn't block *all* p2p traffic, right?
The main concern shouldn't be the use by the RIAA or MPAA to stop the bootlegging of copyrighted concerns. It's within their rights. The main concern should be possibility of the technology getting out to griefers who block the legitimate use of Bittorrent.
But honestly, if this doesn't get out to hackers (which it probably will), this is a lot better solution than having to sue warez websites, or the users who illegally trade movies.
Another sensationalistic mis-representation of a story. OK it's true he no longer posts 1 or 2 dupe stories every day, but Timothy is still a poor editor, I feel Slashdot should get rid of him.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a disconnect - people talk bad about the RIAA all day, and complain about their price schemes. But there already are a number of alternatives, only almost nobody actually listens to these alternatives. Obviously RIAA is doing *something* right.
Coca leaves and Cocaine are not the same thing. Coca Leaves are a very mild drug - the South American Indian words for "tea" often come from their name for "Coca Leaf Tea," because of their comparable effect. It just isn't absorbed by the body in a way that gets one high like Cocaine. Cocaine is an organic chemical derived (but not extracted) from these coca leaves. Claiming the two are equivalent is BS.
Cocaine is illegal in Africa. Marijuana is illegal in Mexico. Opium is illegal in China. Is it because China is racist against Chinese people? Mexico is racist against Mexicans? It must be comforting for people to believe that all the evil forces of the world unite to fight pet issues - greedy anti-hemp lobbyists, racist Southern sheriffs, etc. But holding these views up to even the lighest analysis shows both history and obvious contradictions being willfully ignored.
Anyway here, if not exactly hard-hitting, is a collection of openly political English-language blogging posted from China. There's censorship in China and it totally sucks, but I think you imagine it's about 100 times more imposing than it actually is.
Anyway, big deal. China uses "people" in formal titles, so what? When Communism was strong (and these bodies were named) China certainly had a very strong social welfare program that you might associate with a "people's government," and an army that certainly kept (say) the Japanese from invading again and killing+raping millions of people, an attribute you might associate with a "People's Army". China does not even approach the level of class differentiation as in the US, so I don't understand your complaints, really, except maybe anti-Communist propoganda has taught you to mock these terms, and you parrot the propoganda? And how does the money being called "People's Money" jibe with your trite 1984 comparisons?
I'm reading (and writing this) from Shanghai, without using any proxy server.
How old are you, talking about countries in terms of "Good" and "Bad"??? Every fool on the street realizes that North Korea and Iran obtaining Nuclear Weapons would change the world for the worse. "The US should get rid of all nuclear weapons" is some pie-in-the-sky talk, like "all the children in the world should hold hands singing and sharing candy" or some such. Anyway, would you really want to live in a world where North Korea could become the world's sole nuclear power???
Why malls in the first place? Isn't that a little inane? Why would charging to go into a mall be so evil? Mostly it sounds like a way to discourage business. Anyway if mall-owners thought it was a good idea to charge people, they could do that now. I don't think people would complain about it being evil. They would just go to another, uhhh, mall.
Also, are people really afraid of cards that you can pay for things with? For me, I'm afraid of getting run over by a bus when I'm not paying attention. I'm a little afraid of heights. But cards that you can pay for things with are not a big fear of mine.
In short, are you sure you're not crazy? Your post seems to be the words of a disturbed mind.
I disagree with the ruling. I get annoyed at Chinese web censorship here in Shanghai. At the same time, it's not like China is the only nation to jail reporters for reporting (just ask Judy Miller, who kept her sources confidential), and it's not like Yahoo! is the only international corporation complying with China's unfortunate internet policies, Google also supports Chinese censorship of the press. I'm not trying to saying "those other wrongs make it a right," but it also means Yahoo! doesn't stand out from the crowd as an exceptionally evil company.
And why would this have any effect on what a judge would say? Judges apply law, they don't review businesses' profit margins and force companies to shift legal strategies to maximize their profits. What planet are you from?
Who's to say they can't keep at it?
Linux is pre-installed on computers because it's free and the purchase price is more dear in China than in the US. It's promptly replaced by a pirated copy of Windows, which (in cities, at least) is never more than a 5 minute walk away.
Have you actually used one of those? They're total shit.
You could apply this to pretty much any field with just as much stretching. The music scale works on logarithmic principles, and don't get started on how complex the calculations can be for what makes a good instrument, or good acoustics. That doesn't mean you average cello player need to know anything about sines and cosines.
You should respect the cops, you're lucky they don't Billy-Club your stupid ass when you pull that "insist on using a $50 for no reason and make the gas station call the police" trick every month. What an idiot.
If you've ever known anybody who works for a political campaign, basically that is what all the interns and volunteers will do. If you had ever participated in the political process, at any level, you would know this.
Either you have to decide a country is *evil* and refuse to work with them except in a humanitarian basis, or you have to respect their national sovereignity and obey their laws. China is not the Nazis.
Sorry about the sarcasm. I suppose you could live in China and have a legitimate concern.
- Skype is huge here. Have a look at Skype Tom, tom.com is a big Chinese-language portal, they've had a strategetic partnership for a while, which got upgraded last week. Shanghai newspapers will have an editorial or article about Skype all the fucking time, it's almost a joke. China is Skype's 3rd largest market and I imagine will soon be Skype's largest. The service works very well within China, although you can't get a China Skype In number yet, only Hong Kong.
Who knows how this went down, but I'd blame it on China Telecom bastards, and a LACK of government regulation on the market. If it was the government, why would it be limited to CT, and not CU (the other big telco) as well? Unfortunately business and government workings are not so transparent outside the US.
The $1/minute LD figure is a joke. Technically that's true but realistically everybody uses IP phone cards to call the long distance, they're sold EVERYWHERE. It's a Byzantine system but boils down to maybe $.10/minute. I use Skype for LD so I'm not quite sure on the cost though.
The idea that Skype is especially suspectible to Falun Gong propoganda is somewhat insane. Anybody who mentions this idea is really out to lunch or learned everything they know about China from anti-China propoganda (which is a possibility I guess).
The main problem to Skype is that the Internet connections are overloaded. Well, at least that's the case in Shanghai.
This will make for some really fucked up zombie movies.
This logic is great. It works well for struggling third-world African nations, so it should work well in Europe and the US as well! If that's your solution to a proposed surcharge on iPods in the Netherlands, I'd love to see what your solution to a genuine concern would be.
I also enjoy how you can't say copying other's copy-righted works without paying is "stealing" without 5 or 6 angry replies, but putting a fully-disclosed surcharge on a luxury item is an obvious example of thievery and stealing. Not to say I support the surcharge, but this manipulation of language to suit the group-view strikes me as a bit ugly.
Huh? What happened? Anyway, the iPod is something like $300-$500 in England, all for a glorified Walkman. They've always been associated with those who have plenty of free cash.
There's no real story here. Nothing happened. This is just timothy's chance to rant about a personal pet peeve that everybody is already aware of. Hopefully it's another nail in the coffin toward gettting him removes as a Slashdot "editor."
Another thing, it's like, why do they have nuclear "secrets"??? Techonology wants to be free, you know? It's like, man survived for millions of years without these secrets. You see where I'm going here. The logic is out of this world!
The main concern shouldn't be the use by the RIAA or MPAA to stop the bootlegging of copyrighted concerns. It's within their rights. The main concern should be possibility of the technology getting out to griefers who block the legitimate use of Bittorrent.
But honestly, if this doesn't get out to hackers (which it probably will), this is a lot better solution than having to sue warez websites, or the users who illegally trade movies.
Another sensationalistic mis-representation of a story. OK it's true he no longer posts 1 or 2 dupe stories every day, but Timothy is still a poor editor, I feel Slashdot should get rid of him.