The problem with the US system is that you have to be punished under a law before it can be unconstitutional. It's a silly standard, like you said. The lower courts mearly assume that all the laws are valid...they don't want to take any responsiblity to knock some down. So many very bad laws are on the books because the system knows they don't work and allows the executive branch to "work around" them by mixing in many statutes all at once.
The judiciary is alreay preceived to be too "liberal" by most of the executive branch [DAs, police, etc] so they feel the need to "get the bad guys" off the streets instead of hold their ground defending the constitution. The executive branch has been out-of-control for nearly 100 years now. They hold all the cards so to speak be cause they choose which crime are "important" and which to "overlook" The problem is that Executive branch views law as "religion" right/wrong, good/evil rather than words on paper subject to change. That's why open discussion of things like drug laws is so difficult...so we keep making more and more reactionary laws because the police won't follow the rules and properly enforce the ones they've already got!!!
The difference is that Music artist/novelists write the music/novels intending to use their constitutional "right" to copyright protection and royalties. They are just looking for somebody to market their stuff the way Toys-r-US markets action figures. The issue is that somewhere along the line the publishers figured out they could hire a zillion people to work on a project and call it "work for hire" there by cutting out any one or two individuals from any direct profits...
There are many differences between your friend and a record contract. your friend bears resembleance to most programmers...our boss hires us for a job to write accounts receivable routine on the mainframe..we write the routine and get paid...the boss owns the software. Musical artists on the other hand create a work and then sell the rights to a publisher. They have to take all the recording fees, marketing fees, etc out of said "paycheck" [greately diminishing the real value of the payment] which makes them truely the owners of the work. The record industry is using the old "company store" tactics... for a programmer it's much like a company hiring you as a "consultant" [w/o benifits, etc] to write some code then charging you rent for the desk and time on their mainframe by taking it back from your paycheck. Most free-lance software consultants [or companies that do that work] if they have to foot the bill to do the work off-site always retain the right to reuse that code in other parts of their business [per the usual NDA's and such] that allows them to build up proprietary librarys of functions to improve their efficency at further projects. The standard record contract is designed to specificly stop such stuff from ever happening by locking rights up in so much red tape.
in a sense it DOSES smooth out like you say...sort of. When the companies make a production change, say from DDR 400 to DDR2 500, the middlemen swoop in and the price skyrockets to slow down demand rather than just running out. The catch is that ALL the companies have to make the changes at roughly the same time due to other market conditions...i.e. intel/AMD releasing a super-duper new chip. With out some other player's time table that creates the market in the first place they have NOTHING...that's why there can never be a "futures" market...because while the DRAM may be an oligopoly it's entirely dependant on another oligopoly[CPUs/chipsets] to drive it's market demand timetable. Because it's more corperate marketing than "market conditions" the only "futures" trading that can happen is in company stocks...like say Rambus...and that's also a lesson in why such trading would never work.
I mean come on! MS is trying to strong arm the RIAA!!! sounds fun to watch...where can I buy popcorn... perhaps watch it on the big screen at the bar. [for FREE]
The behind-the-scenes politics looks really interesting. MS makes contract with all sorts of online music resellers. MS then releases new media player with NEW DRM and opens OWN online store. MS announces "breakthru" in music DRM and tells RIAA they "must act now!"
Is this a race to see how fast they'll get slapped down or what...oh wait...they've got that HUGE dividend comming up real soon...maybe they're trying to pump the stock price before they cash out!!! The writing's on the wall. MS is planning SOMETHING anti-competitive and hostile to the market real-soon-now and wondering when the Justice Dept will get called in for the smack down
...kinda like my Kid, how he does the worst things he can when he KNOWS he's about to get busted...do so many bad things at once, in public, just so you can't get them in line [because you'd beat them within an inch of their lives!!!] without making a scene and making you the bad guy. I've always view MS tactics as those of a spoiled toddler...but this is a page from the "Angelicas" of the world!
But They're trying to "sell snow to eskimos" so to speak. True, it's just a PC..but that's what they've always said. It's a PC with lots of DRM, [you can't open it or run regular software, store bought stuff, or anything like that] required to be online to download last year's pc titles for Full price... Plus subscription for the "service". The hardware's not hot enough to run something like DOOM3 so it's not even viable for 75% of the PC game market.
originally the unit was "demo'd" nearly 2 years ago...it was nearly 1 year of vapor before kyle ripped on it...and the guy hawking it is still getting VC funding!!! WTF It's a failed business right from the start...any/.r would recognize that from the start... but when a pro starts hawking "computer", "broadband", "pay per play", "Secure" and such terms the VCs still see the $$ no matter how logic seems to fail the situation!!
they tried to pull a fast one and sue in Florida [with the super-sloppy business courts] when both parties "clearly" [again according to Infinium's own info!] had business presence in Texas. So Kyle counter-sued in Texas, where the site is, for "harassment" or the legal equivelant to nulify their suit.
Kyle called "bullshit" back in september of last year. Don't know why, but Kyle wrote a ripping piece on them from out of nowhere...maybe they had some of his money!! [haha] but for some reason they pulled his chain and he went digging...and found free and clear public knowlage that they weren't what they said they were...hell their stated office address at the time was a vacant rundown store!
For some reason they tried to sue HIM to take the article down like 4 months later!!! He corrected matters of fact...silly stuff that didn't change any of the article's real information. They tried to drag him to court in Florida...so he "counter" sued in Texas court [where Kyle lives and supposedly they had an office also!] to have a case dismissed... they then preceded to sue him again.
I can't say why this is such a big deal. The only thing I can see is that Roberts appears to be a serial "scammer" [but then 50% of VC seekers are anyway] and it was just too easy a target for Kyle to pass up...and if you read the forums or letters replys, Kyle LOVES a good Flame war! can you say recipe for trouble!!!
Hey, remember that Top 25 list of "Censored" news items. One of them was a UN report on EXTREME weather patterns developing all over the world...but the mainstream media said NOTHING about it.
Looks like they were right huh... It wouldn't have changed the weather, but the report indicated storms like this are happening all over the world...we should have been more ready!!
I'm not libertarian, but I don't see what they did as necessaraly bad. After all, they HAD to raise prices or somebody would go bankrupt...who was protecting them from the likes of Dell threatening to "make or break" them? They ALL had to flinch...so they choose to move prices/production at once. Technically that's not anticompetitive because the buyer was free to go to anybody else and sign a contract.
Remember, there's only a handful of Dram makers...you could put all the key sales people in a room...they probably all know eachother. They know when Dell starts calling around "ball busting" for low price...call up the boss and he says "no way". Rumors travel fast in an "small" industry like that. I worked in Extruded aluminum for a while and in my area we all knew who eachother's customers were and when the "customers" were trying to "play" us. It's no different here. It's the classic case of "Walmart Syndrome" the big "super customers" run around beating everybody up, normally that would only leave a few players...or in this case the collectively resound "NO" and raise prices to spite you...
Note the principle plaintiff was the TEXAS company DELL!!!! Gee...that wouldn't be a little political interest there, huh!!! You note that Dell wouldn't make a peep about MS in the anti-trust trial did they...and MS is squeezing them much harder than the Dram manufactures.
Like some others of you mentioned, they are trying to prevent a boom-bust cycle because they tie up a hell of a lot of money in fab to go bankrupt every 2 years...
A more real analysis lies in the nature of the industry though. Chip fabs don't produce all types of chips all the time. Typically semiconductor manufacures generate huge lots of 1 type [say DDR]and run for a month or so...then move on to the next type [say SDRAM] They have to guess the production 3-6 months in advance...that's where the trouble lies.
I'm sure they try to "spread the wealth" but also to keep up supply...but let's face it, what supplier DOESN'T want to make any extra dollar on a product. They're not really screwing the "customer" The manufactures only deal with other large megacorps...each trying to leverage their buying power for lower prices... in the end what many people miss is that 90% of their product is sold under contract...so they can't really "spike" the cost. Where you and I get screwed is the "spot market" where "mere mortals" have to go to buy chips. The middlemen are really the ones to blame for the wild spikes, not the chip makers. Blaming the chipmakers is like blaming Ty for not making enough beanie babies! A chip maker might make an extra dollar a chip for early or late season shipments.. it's the middlemen that double the cost of their chips in stock due to a "shortage", not the chip fabs themselves. Note too, it's a VERY common thing in the electronics industry to have wild fluxuations in price because most electronic components follow the "lot" model...I'm surprised they managed to loose the case!
sure he could publish recordings...that's what MJ owns are the physical recordings of the original records. Due to ASCAP and BMI the beatles still get their cut...but they don't have ANY say who gets to publish it...that's the beauty of record contracts!!!
I'd love to see Steve buy the rights and dump the whole thing on iTunes out of spite...it'd be a great stunt!!
Who said anything about running Window$ on the server?
well the article did! That was the point of all this to run XP for two people off one machine.... I think you're correct that it's a market begging for a Linux solution... but we're talking about why you'll never see that from MS.
but the software is "tied" to the hardware... if you have OEM software you gotta have a recipt with the software and qualifying hardware on it...and they HAVE to be together or your not "legal"...You or I can by a case fan + OEM windows and call it good, business, they WILL be such arses as to actually go look in the PC for the "part" and sue you if it's not there!!!
Otherwise, you're absolutely right! That's how MS keeps it's monopoly...and helps the "Dells" out too by letting them sell "under" priced software!
but there's no "rule" for how to purchase the software...making it $$$$ times 10! because the MS EULAs have all sorts of stuff in them that makes this type of set up "messy" and the lawyers LOVE messy...because they get billed by the hour.
I just installed SP2 on my machine at work today. In the "agreement" the default for winXP pro is 1-2 cpus [so a HT P4 is really "2"], but the EULA clarified that XP is only a 1 user OS... that's why when they sold those silly CE operated tablets MS own licensing department screwed them! because they wouldn't allow the tablet and the "seat" user access to the system at the same time...which is basically what this system does... as far as I know, they never really backed down from that position.
First this isn't "extra" legislation..it's a rule given by an executive department... one of the things the DoL is "there for" so congresscritters don't have to worry about "petty details".
As far "complying with existing law and stop lying to their employees..." What rock have YOU been living under for the last 4 years? That's the whole point of electing a REPUBLICAN president like Bush...so they can change the rules they don't want to follow... get it... BAD HIPPY/REDNECK people want to change the law to allow freedom for "military weapons" and "pot"...GOOD BUSINESS people want to screw their employees out of 30%+ of their pay!
got to battle Billy G...who also has a search engine, on line service, video games, all sort of software interests, etc... oh, and that monopoly on store-bought OSes! They do this to stay alive!!! That was the whole point of the AOL-TW merger as well. AOL has sucky dial-up service, but great marketing and packaging...as well as the user base to MAKE the entertainment industry pay attention. Yahoo needs to do the same thing to stay in the game.
correct, MJ would own the publishing rights...i.e. he's the guy to call when you want to play a beatle tune or use it in your ad on tv. That's what it means for a rock band to "sell-out" the beatles get their cut for songwriting/playing royalties...but MJ decides who gets rights to the songs.
I do agree, with MJ's current money troubles he might want some cash, Jobs could [out of pocket] buy those rights back as a really cool bargining chip...butt out of Job's business...and he'll give the songs back... After posting them on iTMS of course!!!
Re:Private Contractual Agreements
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Beatles vs Apple
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Actually the Beatles don't own any of their early works... they were all owned out-right as part of the record contract with EMI. It wasn't till much later that they got out of the contract and started AppleCorp to publish their music. They probably get songwriter and artist royalties, but all the actual copyrights would have been assigned to EMI...which was bought by sony...which also bought MJ's label...sony then sold MJ the beatles tunes rights so EMI would need MJ's permission...kinda like Elvis![also owned by MJ!] [probably to get some easy money from gullible MJ]
great story...basically the Beatles held up Jobs and Woz for a lot of money in 1981 when they were just starting out...heck, computers could barely beep then! They've continued to use that initial "contract" to harrass the company ever sense... come on...MIDI interface, sound chip... I suppose it serves them right that Apple is now REALLY after their lunch now!!! Of couse Apple isn't really entering the "recording industry" just making insturments, development tools, and providing a shopping area... the "recording industry" is crap-work for the middlemen of the world too old to make new stuff!!
If the last "agreement" was in 1991 then it's arguable in court that Apple Computer was forced to sign under "barraty" type force. In 1991 Apple computer was flying high, but still just kids compared to AppleCorp. and remember, AppleCorp hit them earlier also... AppleCorp has just been hitting them up for easy money at least 3 times so far. Jobs is tired of it!!! so the very first thing argued in court would be the legal enforcability of that very first contract in the chain... two guy making computers in their garage, not "Apple computers"... because if that isn't a legal contract all the others in succession can't stick either. It's sort of like a loan from a loan shark or other type of desperate action [like selling a kidney on the black markey]...sure it's a contract and you tried to keep up, but it wasn't ever fair or legal to begin with...
seriously, Applecorp picked on Jobs and Woz long before their computers even could beep! Apple computers was founded well after the beetles broke up...Applecorp was already dying... AppleCorp took advantage of them in foriegn courts because Jobs and Woz were starting to do well.. so AppleComputer settled out-of-court to avoid being put out of business.
AppleCorp is reaping what they sowed!! Undoubtably, Steve was on the wrong end back then and now has $4 billion to squish them with!!! AppleCorp kicked Jobs around when he was down...I expect Jobs will go for the full court press now!! remember, this was out-of-court so nothing has been LEGALLY put down because at the time Jobs couldn't afford to fight them...now he can...Looks like fun!
again, all those silly EULAs get in the way here.. it'd be fine for you or me to buy one of these for home...nobody would bother us. but a business that buys 12 for their shop employees would be in a world of hurt if the BSA ever came knocking... most windows software nodays is per machine/per user/per cpu in the "fine print" You'd get sued first, sort it out in court later!!
performance doesn't really cut in half...after all, most people spend 75% of their time reading or typing, not aranging windows...that means the second person is using resources "just sitting there" anyway. The chances 2 people are going to load large apps at the same time really doesn't come up that often.
Of course windows is horrible about program usage...it tries to open new copies of programs in ram every time you start another... again, the design of Linux proves much better for this situation!
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The judiciary is alreay preceived to be too "liberal" by most of the executive branch [DAs, police, etc] so they feel the need to "get the bad guys" off the streets instead of hold their ground defending the constitution. The executive branch has been out-of-control for nearly 100 years now. They hold all the cards so to speak be cause they choose which crime are "important" and which to "overlook" The problem is that Executive branch views law as "religion" right/wrong, good/evil rather than words on paper subject to change. That's why open discussion of things like drug laws is so difficult...so we keep making more and more reactionary laws because the police won't follow the rules and properly enforce the ones they've already got!!!
There are many differences between your friend and a record contract. your friend bears resembleance to most programmers...our boss hires us for a job to write accounts receivable routine on the mainframe..we write the routine and get paid...the boss owns the software. Musical artists on the other hand create a work and then sell the rights to a publisher. They have to take all the recording fees, marketing fees, etc out of said "paycheck" [greately diminishing the real value of the payment] which makes them truely the owners of the work. The record industry is using the old "company store" tactics... for a programmer it's much like a company hiring you as a "consultant" [w/o benifits, etc] to write some code then charging you rent for the desk and time on their mainframe by taking it back from your paycheck. Most free-lance software consultants [or companies that do that work] if they have to foot the bill to do the work off-site always retain the right to reuse that code in other parts of their business [per the usual NDA's and such] that allows them to build up proprietary librarys of functions to improve their efficency at further projects. The standard record contract is designed to specificly stop such stuff from ever happening by locking rights up in so much red tape.
in a sense it DOSES smooth out like you say...sort of. When the companies make a production change, say from DDR 400 to DDR2 500, the middlemen swoop in and the price skyrockets to slow down demand rather than just running out. The catch is that ALL the companies have to make the changes at roughly the same time due to other market conditions...i.e. intel/AMD releasing a super-duper new chip. With out some other player's time table that creates the market in the first place they have NOTHING...that's why there can never be a "futures" market...because while the DRAM may be an oligopoly it's entirely dependant on another oligopoly[CPUs/chipsets] to drive it's market demand timetable. Because it's more corperate marketing than "market conditions" the only "futures" trading that can happen is in company stocks...like say Rambus...and that's also a lesson in why such trading would never work.
The behind-the-scenes politics looks really interesting. MS makes contract with all sorts of online music resellers. MS then releases new media player with NEW DRM and opens OWN online store. MS announces "breakthru" in music DRM and tells RIAA they "must act now!"
Is this a race to see how fast they'll get slapped down or what...oh wait...they've got that HUGE dividend comming up real soon...maybe they're trying to pump the stock price before they cash out!!! The writing's on the wall. MS is planning SOMETHING anti-competitive and hostile to the market real-soon-now and wondering when the Justice Dept will get called in for the smack down
originally the unit was "demo'd" nearly 2 years ago...it was nearly 1 year of vapor before kyle ripped on it...and the guy hawking it is still getting VC funding!!! WTF It's a failed business right from the start...any /.r would recognize that from the start... but when a pro starts hawking "computer", "broadband", "pay per play", "Secure" and such terms the VCs still see the $$ no matter how logic seems to fail the situation!!
they tried to pull a fast one and sue in Florida [with the super-sloppy business courts] when both parties "clearly" [again according to Infinium's own info!] had business presence in Texas. So Kyle counter-sued in Texas, where the site is, for "harassment" or the legal equivelant to nulify their suit.
For some reason they tried to sue HIM to take the article down like 4 months later!!! He corrected matters of fact...silly stuff that didn't change any of the article's real information. They tried to drag him to court in Florida...so he "counter" sued in Texas court [where Kyle lives and supposedly they had an office also!] to have a case dismissed... they then preceded to sue him again.
I can't say why this is such a big deal. The only thing I can see is that Roberts appears to be a serial "scammer" [but then 50% of VC seekers are anyway] and it was just too easy a target for Kyle to pass up...and if you read the forums or letters replys, Kyle LOVES a good Flame war! can you say recipe for trouble!!!
Looks like they were right huh... It wouldn't have changed the weather, but the report indicated storms like this are happening all over the world...we should have been more ready!!
Remember, there's only a handful of Dram makers...you could put all the key sales people in a room...they probably all know eachother. They know when Dell starts calling around "ball busting" for low price...call up the boss and he says "no way". Rumors travel fast in an "small" industry like that. I worked in Extruded aluminum for a while and in my area we all knew who eachother's customers were and when the "customers" were trying to "play" us. It's no different here. It's the classic case of "Walmart Syndrome" the big "super customers" run around beating everybody up, normally that would only leave a few players...or in this case the collectively resound "NO" and raise prices to spite you...
Note the principle plaintiff was the TEXAS company DELL!!!! Gee...that wouldn't be a little political interest there, huh!!! You note that Dell wouldn't make a peep about MS in the anti-trust trial did they...and MS is squeezing them much harder than the Dram manufactures.
A more real analysis lies in the nature of the industry though. Chip fabs don't produce all types of chips all the time. Typically semiconductor manufacures generate huge lots of 1 type [say DDR]and run for a month or so...then move on to the next type [say SDRAM] They have to guess the production 3-6 months in advance...that's where the trouble lies.
I'm sure they try to "spread the wealth" but also to keep up supply...but let's face it, what supplier DOESN'T want to make any extra dollar on a product. They're not really screwing the "customer" The manufactures only deal with other large megacorps...each trying to leverage their buying power for lower prices... in the end what many people miss is that 90% of their product is sold under contract...so they can't really "spike" the cost. Where you and I get screwed is the "spot market" where "mere mortals" have to go to buy chips. The middlemen are really the ones to blame for the wild spikes, not the chip makers. Blaming the chipmakers is like blaming Ty for not making enough beanie babies! A chip maker might make an extra dollar a chip for early or late season shipments.. it's the middlemen that double the cost of their chips in stock due to a "shortage", not the chip fabs themselves. Note too, it's a VERY common thing in the electronics industry to have wild fluxuations in price because most electronic components follow the "lot" model...I'm surprised they managed to loose the case!
I'd love to see Steve buy the rights and dump the whole thing on iTunes out of spite...it'd be a great stunt!!
well the article did! That was the point of all this to run XP for two people off one machine.... I think you're correct that it's a market begging for a Linux solution... but we're talking about why you'll never see that from MS.
Otherwise, you're absolutely right! That's how MS keeps it's monopoly...and helps the "Dells" out too by letting them sell "under" priced software!
I just installed SP2 on my machine at work today. In the "agreement" the default for winXP pro is 1-2 cpus [so a HT P4 is really "2"], but the EULA clarified that XP is only a 1 user OS... that's why when they sold those silly CE operated tablets MS own licensing department screwed them! because they wouldn't allow the tablet and the "seat" user access to the system at the same time...which is basically what this system does... as far as I know, they never really backed down from that position.
As far "complying with existing law and stop lying to their employees..." What rock have YOU been living under for the last 4 years? That's the whole point of electing a REPUBLICAN president like Bush...so they can change the rules they don't want to follow... get it... BAD HIPPY/REDNECK people want to change the law to allow freedom for "military weapons" and "pot" ...GOOD BUSINESS people want to screw their employees out of 30%+ of their pay!
cause that's as close as we're gonna get!
got to battle Billy G...who also has a search engine, on line service, video games, all sort of software interests, etc... oh, and that monopoly on store-bought OSes! They do this to stay alive!!! That was the whole point of the AOL-TW merger as well. AOL has sucky dial-up service, but great marketing and packaging...as well as the user base to MAKE the entertainment industry pay attention. Yahoo needs to do the same thing to stay in the game.
I do agree, with MJ's current money troubles he might want some cash, Jobs could [out of pocket] buy those rights back as a really cool bargining chip...butt out of Job's business...and he'll give the songs back... After posting them on iTMS of course!!!
Actually the Beatles don't own any of their early works... they were all owned out-right as part of the record contract with EMI. It wasn't till much later that they got out of the contract and started AppleCorp to publish their music. They probably get songwriter and artist royalties, but all the actual copyrights would have been assigned to EMI...which was bought by sony...which also bought MJ's label...sony then sold MJ the beatles tunes rights so EMI would need MJ's permission...kinda like Elvis![also owned by MJ!] [probably to get some easy money from gullible MJ]
great story...basically the Beatles held up Jobs and Woz for a lot of money in 1981 when they were just starting out...heck, computers could barely beep then! They've continued to use that initial "contract" to harrass the company ever sense... come on...MIDI interface, sound chip... I suppose it serves them right that Apple is now REALLY after their lunch now!!! Of couse Apple isn't really entering the "recording industry" just making insturments, development tools, and providing a shopping area... the "recording industry" is crap-work for the middlemen of the world too old to make new stuff!!
and the beatles broke up in 1970...so at the time the company appeared dead.
If the last "agreement" was in 1991 then it's arguable in court that Apple Computer was forced to sign under "barraty" type force. In 1991 Apple computer was flying high, but still just kids compared to AppleCorp. and remember, AppleCorp hit them earlier also... AppleCorp has just been hitting them up for easy money at least 3 times so far. Jobs is tired of it!!! so the very first thing argued in court would be the legal enforcability of that very first contract in the chain... two guy making computers in their garage, not "Apple computers"... because if that isn't a legal contract all the others in succession can't stick either. It's sort of like a loan from a loan shark or other type of desperate action [like selling a kidney on the black markey]...sure it's a contract and you tried to keep up, but it wasn't ever fair or legal to begin with...
AppleCorp is reaping what they sowed!! Undoubtably, Steve was on the wrong end back then and now has $4 billion to squish them with!!! AppleCorp kicked Jobs around when he was down...I expect Jobs will go for the full court press now!! remember, this was out-of-court so nothing has been LEGALLY put down because at the time Jobs couldn't afford to fight them...now he can...Looks like fun!
again, all those silly EULAs get in the way here.. it'd be fine for you or me to buy one of these for home...nobody would bother us. but a business that buys 12 for their shop employees would be in a world of hurt if the BSA ever came knocking... most windows software nodays is per machine/per user/per cpu in the "fine print" You'd get sued first, sort it out in court later!!
Of course windows is horrible about program usage...it tries to open new copies of programs in ram every time you start another... again, the design of Linux proves much better for this situation!