Unfortunately, the market is being kinder to MegaBloks than to LEGO. LEGO has fallen on hard financial times in recent years, while MB has been eating away at their market, and doing so using a basic brick design cribbed from LEGO.
Parents buying construction toys for their kids don't necessarily know how much higher the quality of the plastics used by LEGO are to their competitors, or how much better-engineered the bricks are, but they do know MB is a hell of a lot cheaper than LEGO, and many of them buy accordingly. It's a shame, but there it is.
And then, of course, there are substantial numbers of people who don't even realize there's a difference. There've been surveys showing a lot of people think MB is some sort of LEGO subsidiary or sister brand.
The studs are a mechanical feature, true, but they're also a mark. People see studs on bricks like those and think "LEGO," not "interlocking stud-&-tube-assembly construction brick toys." They're distinctively characteristic of LEGO's toys.
Whether that means they should be protected, I don't pretend to know. I'm deeply uncomfortable and sometimes outraged with a lot of the hyperzealousness we see from companies guarding their IP, but I don't know that it means there shouldn't be any protection. I'm biased in this case because I'd really rather see LEGO thrive without having to worry about MB, which has essentially ridden the coattails of LEGO's innovations and designs and hasn't done much original itself, yet does well in the market simply by ditching quality and undercutting LEGO on price, but there you go. I'm willing to entertain the idea the ruling was the correct one as far as principles go, but purely from the selfish POV of someone who likes quality bricks, this ruling kind of sucks.
I swear I was just thinking in the past two or three days about doing this very thing, and I'd never heard of anyone else doing it. There must be just too damn many Star Wars geeks if they all think of things at the same time like this.
Too bad I don't have the equipment to facilitate actually doing this myself. Mind you, I believe I'd have to take it to truly ridiculous extremes with all the TV spinoff material (the Droids, Ewoks and Clone Wars cartoons, the live-action Ewok movies, The Star Wars Holiday Special). I'm sure I can scare more people away from me permanently if I try hard enough...
Perhaps the moderator(s) who called it Informative wanted to give ReformedExCon some karma for that joke, and so chose to mod it that way since Funny moderations don't bestow karma.
like why is a full song on itunes that I can have on my computer, ipod, and CD player as long as i'd like (though only for a limited amount of burns) $0.99
A minor point: you can burn any iTMS song as many times as you'd like; it's just playlists that you can burn only 7 times (easily gotten around by changing the playlist, or even replacing it with another playlist that contains exactly the same songs).
$5+ for a movie that's 20, 30, 40, 50 or even 60+ years old is not worth it.
I'll charitably assume you're speaking from the POV held by many here that copyrights ought to not last as long as they do, and this stuff should enter the public domain and be freely downloadable by this age, rather than the incredibly moronic POV that movies that old aren't worth watching.
I think if I were to put together a list of my all-time favorite movies, the overwhelming majority of them would be more than 20 years old, and I'm sure the same would be true of any credible list of all-time greatest movies.
I mean, look at the ROKR--if that were made by anyone but Apple, it wouldn't have been covered at all!
It might help your argument if the ROKR were in fact actually made by Apple, but alas, it's not. Do note, too, that coverage of the ROKR has been lukewarm at best and derisive at worst (which of course could reflect this Apple bias, since it's not an Apple product that's getting the mediocre-to-poor reviews the ROKR is getting, but it doesn't particularly reflect well on Apple that this disappointing thing is the phone that can use iTunes, for the moment).
Dude, they're Americans. This is the country that gave us creationists. They think democracy is intrinsically linked to capitalism. Half the population thinks Saddam was responsible for 9/11. I wouldn't waste my time worrying about what they think.
See, to me, those are all reasons to worry about what they think, given that they implement policies (both domestically and internationally) based on what they think.
I'm an American, and lots of my fellow Americans scare the willies out of me.
Some would classify "gender" as being related to but distinct from "sex," with the latter referring to the strict biological classification (male or female, as determined by the sex organs), and the former referring to culturally-constructed notions of sex roles, so that there isn't a strict 1:1 relationship between gender and sex, even though the one is based on the other.
Or rather, they would if their strategy involved winning users' hears and minds. Since they're buying legislation instead, their chances of victory are far greater than I'm comfortable with.
AFAIK, the iPod was the first high-capacity player that could sync quickly (there were other hd-based players around, but they used USB 1, which took forever to fill a multigig drive). It had (has) an incredibly simple, intuitive user interface that anyone could instantly figure out and with which one could instantly access any one song out of a huge number literally with one hand tied behind their back. It supported multiple audio formats. It was smaller & lighter than most other hd-based players, and is still smaller & lighter than some. It is, yes, good-looking. It was tightly & beautifully integrated with the complementing software application (iTunes). And it's had other features, variations and advantages added along the way, like Windows support, iTunes Music Store support, different sizes / shapes & colors, additional secondary functions, USB 2, remotes, additional supported formats (currently at six: MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, Apple Lossless, Audible).
No, it's not absolutely perfect in every possible way for every possible person (and couldn't be, as some people's wants and needs in players run entirely opposite others'). It does, however, have a large number of real advantages, most or all of which are selling points for a broad cross-section of the audience for MP3 players. Yes, it's also had good marketing, but that's certainly not the only reason it's doing well.
Music you download with iTunes only works with an iPod.
And a computer with iTunes. And anything that plays ordinary audio CDs. I was listening to my iTMS purchases on these more than a year before I got my iPod.
Uh, other MP3 players don't have AAC support because Apple won't let anyone else use it but them. If you recall, Apple threatend to sue Real when Real reverse engineered AAC so that they could break into the iPod market.
The reason is simple. If I want to play a song that my wife purchased from iTMS in my car, which can play CDs burned with MP3s or WMAs, my options are to burn the tracks to a normal CD, and rip them back to MP3s. I don't have to take this two-step approach anywhere else.
Your car CD player doesn't play regular audio CDs, only MP3 and WMA CDs?
I found it peculiar that the article made a number of errors and omissions (particularly with regard to eMusic, for which the author provides editorial content).
According to Nickson, iPod owners are pretty much locked into iTunes. He says this despite his own outfit selling music in a format that plays freely on just about all the players out there (save Sony's abandoned ATRAC-only Walkmen). He also doesn't mention a number of other outfits that offer music in un-DRM'd MP3 format, such as Audio Lunchbox. It would have been particularly worth mentioning services that concentrate on specific genres, such as world music site Calabash Music, instead saying "if you stray too far into, say, world music, obscure jazz and folk or avant-garde, you'll find yourself frustrated almost everywhere, because these services are understandably aimed at the main market, not the tiny niches," when Calabash (for one example I'm acquainted with) addresses at least one of these genres. Bizarrely, he says eMusic's Download Manager software is required to use eMusic, when it's not (it's recommended, but certainly not required; one needs only a web browser to use the service, and a media player to play the music once downloaded).
I appreciate the overview of the other services I'm less familiar with (mostly the various DRM'd WMA vendors), but given his treatment of those services I do know, I'm not sure how much credence to give his treatment of the ones I don't.
The iPod has decent battery life, though it's no longer as good relative to the rest of the field as it once was. iPod audio format support is actually really good - all iPods except the shuffle support six different formats (AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, and Audible). No, they don't support Ogg Vorbis or FLAC, but most of the players that do don't support all the formats the iPod does, either. Most non-iPod MP3 players I see seem to support two or three formats, usually MP3, WMA and maybe something else.
In fairness, advertising on beer mats or beer coasters now is nothing new. Don't the overwhelming majority of ordinary cardboard beer mats used in bars now already have beer logos or the bars' names on them? The system described in the article sounds to me like they're really just talking about taking existing beer mats and mating them to this sensor-laden base.
Erm, you [i]did[/i] read my post, didn't you? I thought I made it abundantly clear I don't think the record industry is entitled to a cut of Apple's iPod profits, any more than it's entitled to sales profits from CD players, DVD players, speakers, amps, radios, CD storage cases, etc. or anything else whose own sales benefit from music sales (just as I don't think Apple deserves a cut of every iPod case, for example, and wouldn't advocate that they do).
All I said was addressing the Slashdot article's claim that iPod sales are likely driving music sales, as opposed to the music industry's claim it's the other way around. Regardless of which entity's sales are getting more of a piggyback ride from the other, I don't think either is entitled to a slice of the other's profits; that's what they have their own prices for.
The record companies' position is based on the dubious argument that digital downloads sell iPods. In fact all the evidence points to the opposite: that iPod sales have driven demand for downloads. The vast majority of digital music sales are made by iPod owners.
Not to give the labels too much credit (they certainly give themselves more than enough), but in fairness, I think they do have a bit of a point with this. iPod sales did rise dramatically after the introduction of the iTunes Music Store to levels well above what they'd been immediately before (and they've been going up ever since). That said, it may also have something to do with the boost to the iPod's Windows-friendliness around the same time (the 3rd gen iPods, which introduced dual-platform support in a single box and the ability to use USB as well as FireWire), or simply market awareness and the "fashion" factor building to a head.
In other words, I don't think we (those of us outside the industry, without access to their market research) truly know to what extent iPod sales are driving iTMS sales and to what extent iTMS sales are driving iPod sales, and I think a decent case could be argued in either direction.
That said, the music industry's apparent sense of entitlement to a piece of Apple's iPod revenue, and its threat to pull out of a store offering their product in a medium that both offers them some control over how consumers use it and reduces the costs associated with manufacturing, shipping, storing, etc. physical goods to virtually nothing, are pretty damn ludicrous. They ought to be on their knees thanking Apple for finding a way for them to generate earnings while dramatically reducing their costs; instead they're demanding more slop in the trough. I'd dearly love to see them pull out and then watch their earnings disappear as consumers finally decide they've had enough of this shit and spend their music money on alternative content providers, but I know better than to expect that.
Slashdot Mirror
Parents buying construction toys for their kids don't necessarily know how much higher the quality of the plastics used by LEGO are to their competitors, or how much better-engineered the bricks are, but they do know MB is a hell of a lot cheaper than LEGO, and many of them buy accordingly. It's a shame, but there it is.
And then, of course, there are substantial numbers of people who don't even realize there's a difference. There've been surveys showing a lot of people think MB is some sort of LEGO subsidiary or sister brand.
Whether that means they should be protected, I don't pretend to know. I'm deeply uncomfortable and sometimes outraged with a lot of the hyperzealousness we see from companies guarding their IP, but I don't know that it means there shouldn't be any protection. I'm biased in this case because I'd really rather see LEGO thrive without having to worry about MB, which has essentially ridden the coattails of LEGO's innovations and designs and hasn't done much original itself, yet does well in the market simply by ditching quality and undercutting LEGO on price, but there you go. I'm willing to entertain the idea the ruling was the correct one as far as principles go, but purely from the selfish POV of someone who likes quality bricks, this ruling kind of sucks.
And here's my all-time personal favorite nerdy accomplishment, a functioning LEGO robot that solves a Rubik's Cube - really.
Too bad I don't have the equipment to facilitate actually doing this myself. Mind you, I believe I'd have to take it to truly ridiculous extremes with all the TV spinoff material (the Droids, Ewoks and Clone Wars cartoons, the live-action Ewok movies, The Star Wars Holiday Special). I'm sure I can scare more people away from me permanently if I try hard enough...
Perhaps the moderator(s) who called it Informative wanted to give ReformedExCon some karma for that joke, and so chose to mod it that way since Funny moderations don't bestow karma.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize Steve Jobs put a gun to your head and forced you to pretend you like OS X. That bastard!
A minor point: you can burn any iTMS song as many times as you'd like; it's just playlists that you can burn only 7 times (easily gotten around by changing the playlist, or even replacing it with another playlist that contains exactly the same songs).
It appears the upcoming version of the software described in the post directly above yours should be exactly what you need.
So Michigan gives law enforcement powers to ACs? Talk about your not-particularly-stringent requirements...
It might help your argument if the ROKR were in fact actually made by Apple, but alas, it's not. Do note, too, that coverage of the ROKR has been lukewarm at best and derisive at worst (which of course could reflect this Apple bias, since it's not an Apple product that's getting the mediocre-to-poor reviews the ROKR is getting, but it doesn't particularly reflect well on Apple that this disappointing thing is the phone that can use iTunes, for the moment).
See, to me, those are all reasons to worry about what they think, given that they implement policies (both domestically and internationally) based on what they think.
I'm an American, and lots of my fellow Americans scare the willies out of me.
Some would classify "gender" as being related to but distinct from "sex," with the latter referring to the strict biological classification (male or female, as determined by the sex organs), and the former referring to culturally-constructed notions of sex roles, so that there isn't a strict 1:1 relationship between gender and sex, even though the one is based on the other.
Not for syncing. FireWire can be used to charge the battery, but not to transfer data.
Or rather, they would if their strategy involved winning users' hears and minds. Since they're buying legislation instead, their chances of victory are far greater than I'm comfortable with.
No, it's not absolutely perfect in every possible way for every possible person (and couldn't be, as some people's wants and needs in players run entirely opposite others'). It does, however, have a large number of real advantages, most or all of which are selling points for a broad cross-section of the audience for MP3 players. Yes, it's also had good marketing, but that's certainly not the only reason it's doing well.
Why besides opera / classical? Aren't they enough?
And a computer with iTunes. And anything that plays ordinary audio CDs. I was listening to my iTMS purchases on these more than a year before I got my iPod.
Uh, AAC isn't Apple's to "let" others use. It was "developed by the MPEG group that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony and Nokia," and can be used by anyone (and indeed, there are other devices that use it). What Apple doesn't let others use is FairPlay, their DRM implementation. The format is available to anyone that wants to use it. Real doesn't need to reverse engineer AAC any more than they'd need to reverse engineer MP3.
Your car CD player doesn't play regular audio CDs, only MP3 and WMA CDs?
According to Nickson, iPod owners are pretty much locked into iTunes. He says this despite his own outfit selling music in a format that plays freely on just about all the players out there (save Sony's abandoned ATRAC-only Walkmen). He also doesn't mention a number of other outfits that offer music in un-DRM'd MP3 format, such as Audio Lunchbox. It would have been particularly worth mentioning services that concentrate on specific genres, such as world music site Calabash Music, instead saying "if you stray too far into, say, world music, obscure jazz and folk or avant-garde, you'll find yourself frustrated almost everywhere, because these services are understandably aimed at the main market, not the tiny niches," when Calabash (for one example I'm acquainted with) addresses at least one of these genres. Bizarrely, he says eMusic's Download Manager software is required to use eMusic, when it's not (it's recommended, but certainly not required; one needs only a web browser to use the service, and a media player to play the music once downloaded).
I appreciate the overview of the other services I'm less familiar with (mostly the various DRM'd WMA vendors), but given his treatment of those services I do know, I'm not sure how much credence to give his treatment of the ones I don't.
The iPod has decent battery life, though it's no longer as good relative to the rest of the field as it once was. iPod audio format support is actually really good - all iPods except the shuffle support six different formats (AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, and Audible). No, they don't support Ogg Vorbis or FLAC, but most of the players that do don't support all the formats the iPod does, either. Most non-iPod MP3 players I see seem to support two or three formats, usually MP3, WMA and maybe something else.
In fairness, advertising on beer mats or beer coasters now is nothing new. Don't the overwhelming majority of ordinary cardboard beer mats used in bars now already have beer logos or the bars' names on them? The system described in the article sounds to me like they're really just talking about taking existing beer mats and mating them to this sensor-laden base.
All I said was addressing the Slashdot article's claim that iPod sales are likely driving music sales, as opposed to the music industry's claim it's the other way around. Regardless of which entity's sales are getting more of a piggyback ride from the other, I don't think either is entitled to a slice of the other's profits; that's what they have their own prices for.
Not to give the labels too much credit (they certainly give themselves more than enough), but in fairness, I think they do have a bit of a point with this. iPod sales did rise dramatically after the introduction of the iTunes Music Store to levels well above what they'd been immediately before (and they've been going up ever since). That said, it may also have something to do with the boost to the iPod's Windows-friendliness around the same time (the 3rd gen iPods, which introduced dual-platform support in a single box and the ability to use USB as well as FireWire), or simply market awareness and the "fashion" factor building to a head.
In other words, I don't think we (those of us outside the industry, without access to their market research) truly know to what extent iPod sales are driving iTMS sales and to what extent iTMS sales are driving iPod sales, and I think a decent case could be argued in either direction.
That said, the music industry's apparent sense of entitlement to a piece of Apple's iPod revenue, and its threat to pull out of a store offering their product in a medium that both offers them some control over how consumers use it and reduces the costs associated with manufacturing, shipping, storing, etc. physical goods to virtually nothing, are pretty damn ludicrous. They ought to be on their knees thanking Apple for finding a way for them to generate earnings while dramatically reducing their costs; instead they're demanding more slop in the trough. I'd dearly love to see them pull out and then watch their earnings disappear as consumers finally decide they've had enough of this shit and spend their music money on alternative content providers, but I know better than to expect that.