In a way it eliminates competition, but it also can encourage the specialization of the smaller companies. WalMart, K-Mart, etc. might be more likely to leave the business to the locals or the big online guys if they have to manage the return/disposal program.
My uncle favored legislation like this for his paint manufacturing company. Requiring the sellers of paint to take the unused paint back makes it uneconomic for a business like Sears who's main business is not paint.
Manufacturers which actually produce their own product have an advantage in disposal. They have more of an ability to reuse/recycle the product than middlemen for whom the business is a sideline. Office Depot doesn't want to take up twice their warehouse space with used computers, but CompUSA or Bob's Computer Garage might be able to do something useful with them.
Oh, but of course this is a little bit out of context. To appreciate the full piquancy of the "Theft" comment you need the rest:
"`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it."
If you leave the copy on the shelf, is it pure and simple theft?
If you owned a copy of the textbook before you walked in, is it pure and simple theft?
If the copy in your backpack isn't perfect is it pure and simple theft?
One thing I disliked about KDE2 versus KDE 1 was the elimination of the local menu accelerators -- you used to be able to bring up the menu and hit a key corresponding to the unerlined character on your menu item and it would go. Changing their UI like that hindered my use of KDE2. Windows does this, as in Alt-F S for _S_ave, and there are a few sub-menus in KDE2 that use them, but it is impossible to configure. KDE 1 used to do this, and its menu editor would support it by using a menu entry like &Save. As for using the windows key, I alwaus like Ctrl-Esc to bring up the main/start menu in Windows, KDE, FVWM, etc. Ctrl-Esc R gets me a nice useful command prompt on ALL my computers.
Another thing difficult with the KDE keybindings is that they are stored as one per function, rather than 1 function per key-combo -- If you used the Win key to open the main menu, then you could not also use the KDE default Alt-F1 to do the same thing.
I had an early post today, regarding the Yahoo charging for its email: My second post ever on/. was the letter Yahoo sent me, just one minuteafter the first post. Someone later posted another copy and I got knocked down as redundant and the other got modded up to informative.
I'll allow that the subsequent post was better formatted, (cut & paste as plain text) rather than my accepting the default HTML formatting, but hey, it was my second post. I think that some moderators look at things in thread order and don't get that the ones farther down the list might be more relevant.
Hey, does this mean it would be good karma-bait to copy text from way down the thread into something on the first post?
Cheers,
So, is the reason this is worth 5 karma points and my earlier posting of the same info is worth -3 because I didn't maintain the formatting? I would think that people who care about understand karma would check precendence before dinging someone for redundancy.
Or maybe they understand about karma all too well...
It turned out to be a negative for me -- I posted My email below (at 11:13) when I saw the story, then it was posted on this thread (11:24) and *I* got marked down 3 karma points for being redundant-- Bastages!!
Yahoo! Mail
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Important service announcement regarding your POP3 or Mail Forwarding service. Please read on.
Effective April 24, 2002, Yahoo! Mail will no longer provide free POP3 Access or Auto Mail Forwarding to Yahoo! Delivers
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* Automatically forward your Yahoo! Mail to another email account -- even another Yahoo! address![new2.gif]
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Subscribe before April 24th and get the first year of service for just $19.99. That's 33% off the regular service fee of $29.99.
Remember, if you do not subscribe by April 24, 2002, you will no longer be able to access your Yahoo! Mail messages by POP or at
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Sincerely,
The Yahoo! Mail Team
You do have rights, but under the old copyright law, you only had the exclusive right to profit from your creation. It was intened to provide for supporting creativity. Blizzard isn't selling battlenet, they are providing the battlenet service as an enhancement to the $0.25 plastic CD they sold in the box. Creative programmers figured out how anyone could provide the battlenet service for free. Blizzard is using the DMCA weapon to quash the creative efforts of other programmers, so that Blizzard can make more profit.
The DMCA extends the old rights of/exclusive/ profit to/optimal/ profit, at the expense of their users: "If we can figure out how to modify this deal in the future so we can take more of your money, we can, and we can sue anyone who interferes, or to stifle the creativity of our competitors."
The other side of copyright is 'fair use' -- companies couldn't stop you from using the product reasonably. Two gamers with purchased copies should be able to use a free program to play against each other.
Slashdot Mirror
The Department of Justice has gun crime data at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm which might be good to combine with the CDC data.
My uncle favored legislation like this for his paint manufacturing company. Requiring the sellers of paint to take the unused paint back makes it uneconomic for a business like Sears who's main business is not paint.
Manufacturers which actually produce their own product have an advantage in disposal. They have more of an ability to reuse/recycle the product than middlemen for whom the business is a sideline. Office Depot doesn't want to take up twice their warehouse space with used computers, but CompUSA or Bob's Computer Garage might be able to do something useful with them.
I really liked http://www.aas-jakobsen.no/Bridges/References/Nord hordland_Bridge/Floating_Bridge/nordhordland_float ing_bridge_e.htm when I visited Bergen.
Oh, but of course this is a little bit out of context. To appreciate the full piquancy of the "Theft" comment you need the rest:
"`Theft' is a harsh word, but that it is, pure and simple," the letter stated. "... It is no different from walking into the campus bookstore and in a clandestine manner walking out with a textbook without paying for it."
If you leave the copy on the shelf, is it pure and simple theft?
If you owned a copy of the textbook before you walked in, is it pure and simple theft?
If the copy in your backpack isn't perfect is it pure and simple theft?
One thing I disliked about KDE2 versus KDE 1 was the elimination of the local menu accelerators -- you used to be able to bring up the menu and hit a key corresponding to the unerlined character on your menu item and it would go. Changing their UI like that hindered my use of KDE2. Windows does this, as in Alt-F S for _S_ave, and there are a few sub-menus in KDE2 that use them, but it is impossible to configure. KDE 1 used to do this, and its menu editor would support it by using a menu entry like &Save. As for using the windows key, I alwaus like Ctrl-Esc to bring up the main/start menu in Windows, KDE, FVWM, etc. Ctrl-Esc R gets me a nice useful command prompt on ALL my computers. Another thing difficult with the KDE keybindings is that they are stored as one per function, rather than 1 function per key-combo -- If you used the Win key to open the main menu, then you could not also use the KDE default Alt-F1 to do the same thing.
I had an early post today, regarding the Yahoo charging for its email: My second post ever on /. was the letter Yahoo sent me, just one minuteafter the first post. Someone later posted another copy and I got knocked down as redundant and the other got modded up to informative.
I'll allow that the subsequent post was better formatted, (cut & paste as plain text) rather than my accepting the default HTML formatting, but hey, it was my second post. I think that some moderators look at things in thread order and don't get that the ones farther down the list might be more relevant.
Hey, does this mean it would be good karma-bait to copy text from way down the thread into something on the first post?
Cheers,
So, is the reason this is worth 5 karma points and my earlier posting of the same info is worth -3 because I didn't maintain the formatting? I would think that people who care about understand karma would check precendence before dinging someone for redundancy. Or maybe they understand about karma all too well...
It turned out to be a negative for me -- I posted My email below (at 11:13) when I saw the story, then it was posted on this thread (11:24) and *I* got marked down 3 karma points for being redundant-- Bastages!!
Yahoo! Mail Hello, Important service announcement regarding your POP3 or Mail Forwarding service. Please read on. Effective April 24, 2002, Yahoo! Mail will no longer provide free POP3 Access or Auto Mail Forwarding to Yahoo! Delivers subscribers. If you would like to continue using Mail Forwarding or POP3 Access, please subscribe to our improved package that allows you to: * Use Outlook, Eudora, or another POP3 client to access and manage your Yahoo! Mail. * Automatically forward your Yahoo! Mail to another email account -- even another Yahoo! address![new2.gif] * Send larger attachments, now up to 5MB instead of the free 1.5MB limit.[new2.gif] * Send email without the Yahoo! promotional text at the bottom.* [new2.gif] Sign up today and SAVE 33% Subscribe before April 24th and get the first year of service for just $19.99. That's 33% off the regular service fee of $29.99. Remember, if you do not subscribe by April 24, 2002, you will no longer be able to access your Yahoo! Mail messages by POP or at another email address. Sincerely, The Yahoo! Mail Team
You do have rights, but under the old copyright law, you only had the exclusive right to profit from your creation. It was intened to provide for supporting creativity. Blizzard isn't selling battlenet, they are providing the battlenet service as an enhancement to the $0.25 plastic CD they sold in the box. Creative programmers figured out how anyone could provide the battlenet service for free. Blizzard is using the DMCA weapon to quash the creative efforts of other programmers, so that Blizzard can make more profit. The DMCA extends the old rights of /exclusive/ profit to /optimal/ profit, at the expense of their users: "If we can figure out how to modify this deal in the future so we can take more of your money, we can, and we can sue anyone who interferes, or to stifle the creativity of our competitors."
The other side of copyright is 'fair use' -- companies couldn't stop you from using the product reasonably. Two gamers with purchased copies should be able to use a free program to play against each other.