I don't work in the music industry. I am an academic. there's one thing you say I said that I did not.
I never said that you can look at demand and not market structure. I just said that simple models of oligopolistic vs perfect competition don't work in IP markets because the critical issue of marginal cost is missing. there's another thing you accused me of saying that I did not. My point was that market structure in IP markets can be far more complex because demand is the primary driver as the goods are very imperfect substitutes.
Let's look at some more of your stupidities:
Microsoft, as anybody with a real, rather than invented economics degree knows, is known to engage in (modigliani-miller style) limit pricing. if you can quote microsoft and just claim pure, junior-high "monopoly pricing", then your degree in economics is a joke.
"but a monopolized market can charge more than a commoditized one." Again, this belies the fact that your economics degree is an invented one. "Commoditized" and "monopolized" are not parallels. The "C" word you were looking in the first case is "competitive." Now, that said, the main point of my counterargument is that music is not a commodity. You can make every sort of quasi-sociological observation you want about one boy band being just as good as the next, but the fact of the matter is that we're not dealing in oil or laundry detergent here--or, at least the market for music is much more like an IP market than a market for commodities.
"If demand side pricing is used, than there will be no difference between a physical CD and a download." Umm, attention stupid sysadmin: if what you call "supply side" pricing was used, the costs of each would still be equivalent to each other (if a CD and an MP3 were perfect substitutes, which, in reality, is probably not the case)! I'll let you do this logic.. it's tiresome to argue with somebody who is obviously bullshitting a degree in economics.
"The RIAA is not going after the settlement to make a profit; the execs are dead sure that sales will shoot up dramatically once the trading ceases." On what basis do you claim your "dramatically" term? Pulled it out of your ass, did you?
"Anyone thinking the RIAA is a non-for-profit organization is not worthy of a debate." You just line them up, and I'll smack them over the fence. "The Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA) is a nonprofit industry trade group that represents companies, both small and large, that create, manufacture and distribute over 90 percent of the sound recordings sold in the United States." The RIAA IS nonprofit. its constituent companies are (obviously) for profit entities. I (nor anybody else in this thread) ever claimed otherwise.
"So you believe that a 45 year old would be just as likely to listen to Britney Spears' than an 18 year old. You also believe that NSync is "cutting edge" music? You also believe that RIAA is the world organization for justice to send messages to immoral pirates, and that RIAA has no intention of making money, I rest my case." - Now that is just blabber. It has no basis in anything I said (I never mentioned N'Sync, and I argued just the opposite- that the one guy's original post is bullshit specificall because musicians are NOT substitutes for one another). I never claimed anything about the RIAA's constituent organizations not making money.
You are a complete fucking moron. If i wasn't stuck here spoonfeeding a printer for a presentation.... Go back to something you know something about.
Your analysis is absolute bullshit. As a fellow MBA, I recognize the semester-long-class-that-just-barely-scrapes-the-s urface knowledge that you base your arguments in, but as somebody whose graduate education went well beyond an MBA, I can call yours as the amateur bullshit that it is, too.
Obviously you have only a term of MBA economics behind you. The problem with your pricing analogy is that it is for REAL GOODS with REAL MARGINAL COSTS. In IP markets, the marginal costs of production are essentially irrelevant (because each artist is not a substitute, in the economic sense, for every other artist, and so forth), so DEMAND is all that matters. Given that any analysis of oligopoly vs competition relies on understanding marginal costs of production, your statements in this regard are bullshit.
Now, that said, the question of whether it is a cartel or not is irrelevant - in another response to my parent post, i justified the.50c claim (first, stating that it was a bit of a broad stroke - it could be $1 per song or whatever) by a little analysis - take out retailer profit, shipping, warehousing, manufacturing, subsidization of failed/unpopular artists, and so forth and you will see that, say, $6.50 profit on a $7 on-line album purchase might be consistent with current profit. I encourage you to read that post for a more thorough explanation of my point here.
Now, to this "right or wrong" business. As an MBA, you took the absurd leap of assuming that YOUR "right" thing to do means "business sense" and mine "right thing to do" means a moral or ethical sense. From what I can see, you basically came to this characterization only so you can argue some made up point about profit vs ethics that really is you talking to yourself. I made no claims one way or another.
Why does RIAA sue parents as well? Well, the message needs to get out there. I mean really--do you think they are out to collect $100 million dollars from one individual? That's highly unlikely. In all likelihood, they will just about break even given the costs of litigation and the high costs of investigation and so forth. Whatever your characterization of them going after parents as well as students is, I can't see how you can come to any reasonable conclusion other than it's to send a message. It ain't for the money.
Students of college age are the de-facto "cutting edge" - they are about to be a key purchasing demographic and they have strong influence on those just younger than them. it's the perfect group to target strategically if your goal is to send a message and to scare some people into being a little more careful.
Incidentally, any time you start a sentence "as an MBA", you're just asking to be lampooned on FuckedCompany.com. I only came back with an ambiguous version of my credentials since you whipped your weiner out first.
In soviet russia, sound engineers eat you because their music is pirated on kazaa.
oh wait--i'm confused--so maybe some sound engineers are doing some crap job on some albums thesedays, but, now let me get this straight - there are people actually WORKING on producing music? Do they expect to get paid? how? I'm confused.
I'm sorry - i should have made it more clear. The four points on copyright i took out of a legal copyright faq that i quickly googled on the net. ooh, my fault for not quoting, but you fell into the trap.
after i saw you beginning to "logically refute" those factual bulletpoints, i stopped reading the rest of your message. you see, reality beats dork logic every time. copyright is what it is, not what you would like it to be.
This isn't about art its about business. At least you don't have the balls to say "artist", because you know the artist's wishes are irrelevant in any discussion of music today.
What a load of crap.
the fact of the matter is, as has been pointed out countless times here but you pseudo-intellectuals just don't get, is that, like it or not, what the studios do adds value.
don't believe me? start a band. now, this is 2003. you have EVERY TECHNOLOGY IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE at your disposal. Make MP3s, OGGs, stuffed animals with chips in them that play your tunes. Give it away for free. sell it on the innernet. make 10,000 CDs for $4200 and leave them under windshield wipers. Play in subway stations, allow fans unlimited rights of reproductions - you have this WHOLE UNIVERSE OF THINGS OUT THERE.
And yet band after band after band after artist signs with labels. (are there some that do just some funky new thing? sure. are they succesful? with the possible exception of a few techno phenomena, the answer is pretty much 'no').
why? because clearly the labels do something that the bands see as worth signing on the dotted line for compared to the UNIVERSE of alternatives out there.
the terms may be draconian, but this is simple economics. clearly we have an overabundance of demand for the studios services. when high demand meets relatively low supply, supply wins.
a girl i'm dating fronts a small acid jazz band. i'm under no illusions about the realities for the artists. but i also know something about economics, and know that your arguments are naive bullshit.
if you think that piracy is good because it erodes monopoly powers, then i suggest to you that it hurts the possibility of legitimate small competitors popping up even more. it's fucking trivial to set up a clone of iTunes compared to setting up Columbia Music 2. Without piracy, there would be lower entry barriers for people into the publishing business because it would be online, and as such supply of publishers would expand past the current big five and artists would win.
but no, you keep thinking along your naive bullshit lines, and look forward to that great new eminem single! he's really rad.
While you're peeing your pants, consider this: there's nothing to say that demand for music is inelastic, especially when space no longer becomes an issue. yes, there are manufacturing, distribution, warehousing, and packaging costs, but you missed the two most important cost items: RETAIL AND MIDDLEMEN PROFITS and SUBSIDIZATION OF UNSUCCESSFUL/UNPOPULAR MUSIC that need to be considered.
That said, there's also the problem of the elasticity of demand of cds vs digital: the fact is that you don't really know how much people would buy if it were all digital in a pirate-less world. I mean, one big limitaton on current sales is the physical space you have - I don't buy some CDs because they'd be junking up the place, even though i wouldn't mind having access to that song or two to listen to..
About your britney spears argument: clearly it wouldnt be a flat 50c per song - but how does $2 for the lead single vs $7 for the whole album grab you? might this get people to buy the one song who otherwise wouldn't have bought the whole thing and also perhaps get album-buyers to get the whole thing nevertheless?
Your "net loss of $14.50" argument shows your complete ignorance of costs. Your "exact same pricing" argument shows your complete lack of understanding of technological change from an economics perspective. well, maybe they'll teach that in your junior year of high school.
In that case anybody who ever talks about these services (including you) is guilty of harming the RIAA.
Fallacy: Slippery slope argument.
"why should I pay when so and so got it free?" in aggregate, the result is lost sales.
People are responsible for their own actions. If Alice downloads a song, and Bob knows this, Bob can't blame Alice when he downloads music.
The first statement is true. The second one is legally untrue. Infringements of behaviour have long been rewarded with disproportionate punishments. Hence, you get a speeding ticket for usd $100 despite that you have hurt nobody.
They have never had that right in the first place.
sure they do, especially when the work involves trademarks, but i digress. Parody is an exception - it is a specially protected form of speech. However, blatant piracy is not a protected form of speech. It just isn't, and your smoke-and-mirrors pointing to parody will not change this.
interested in knowing why you think copyright is anything more than the exclusive right to copy particular works.
Your ignorance is astounding. Broadly, even if I did restrict my discussion to just copyright (I did not - i was speaking of all IP rules), US copyright law broadly provides for at least the following:
Complete control over any reproduction, including photocopying of written materials and copying of software;
Control over the preparation of any derivative works based on copyrighted work;
Control over the right to distribute copies of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease or lending;
Control over the right to display copyrighted work publicly, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audio/visual work;
In your opinion. I think that if the RIAA wants others to respect copyright, they should show that they respect copyright. This means lobbying for a reduction in the length of copyright terms, to better promote the public domain (that is, after all, the basis for copyright law).
Whether the length of copyright is ok and whether existing copyrights should be respected are two issues that idiots like you try to muddle in a vain attempt to confuse readers. I don't think I'm going to rebut your "RIAA should be lobbying for shorter copyright terms" because I don't really see any reasonable reader agreeing to it anyway. Your logic is deeply, deeply flawed.
What makes you think that China doesn't produce as much IP as the USA? Could it be that you are just exposed to more American IP than Chinese IP?
Your ignorant presumptions do not an argument make.
How the hell is such tripe "insightful?" Will you even spend a second thinking before you post such crap?
Let's say a person with zero assets downloads such music. How does this hurt the coprightholders?
Some examples:
It signals to others (by expanding the amount of traffic on the pirate network) that the music is available free of charge. i don't mean this from a technical standpoint, but from a sociological one. "why should I pay when so and so got it free?" in aggregate, the result is lost sales.
the act removes the copyright's holders ability to present its art as it sees fit. this lessens the overall perception of value, thus lessening the future potential incomestram for copyrightholders.
the person with zero assets now may acquire assets later. however, there is a reinforcement effect - if he gets away with piracy now, he'll likely think it's ok in the future.
here is a very crucial point:
THE RIAA SUING COLLEGE KIDS IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO BECAUSE THE KIDS HAVE NO ASSETS.
It shows that the RIAA is interested in STOPPING THE BEHAVIOR, not collecting damages. Yes, they might sue for 10B, but they'll never collect. What they are clearly doing by going after asset-less individuals and getting outrageous-sounding judgements is SENDING A MESSAGE. It's the RIGHT message - RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE'S COPYRIGHTS. The US produces a hell of a lot of IP in arts and sciences compared to, say, China largely because we have well-structured IP systems.
Are there excesses? Surely. Is the mickey mouse extension, well, mickey mouse? absolutely. but is copyrightholders going after music-infringers in order to send a message that such behavior will not be tolerated wrong? absolutely not.
the music industry is trying damn hard to provide music in digital form now - but what's the problem? the problem is that everybody's running around trying to figure out how to do this while not basically 'giving away the store' given how easy digitial redistribution is. iTunes has been a success, though it is mac only. others have had less success because they are either toe-in-the-water ventures with limited playlists or because the music is overly encumbered with DRM. but why is this so?
BECAUSE OF PIRACY!
if there were no idiots out there like you trying to justify blatant piracy on any number of grounds, that is to say, this whole cloud of pseudo-justifications for widescale copyright infringement and a general climate that tolerates such behaviour, we'd RIGHT NOW have 50c music dowloads as far as the eye could see.
we'd have LESS middlemen, MORE choices of artists, and BETTER digital portability if it wasn't for the fact that every self-styled h4xor seems to think that he is a) smarter and b) better than the law, and even if the law isn't so bad, he isn't going to get caught anyway. THAT is what's keeping a flourishing of online music from happening.. a climate that tolerates or even encourages piracy.
I'm confused - are you saying that people shouldn't have lost their money / been expelled over blatant, often industrial-scale copyright infringement and doubtless simultaneous violation of a whole host of AUPs and ethical codes?
Look - the problem is still 99% piracy and 1% RIAA overreach. it's nice that somebody is looking at the 1%, but don't forget that the major problem still is piracy.
remember the slashdot excuse pre-crackdown: go after the offenders, not the technology. support going after the offenders.
in many cases it eliminate the NEED for the source.
it may take away the source's motivation for publishing (ie advertising), and as such has clearly usurped copyright material for its own gain in lieu of the author.
removes the author's perogative to un-publish. while fair-used based commentators may take note of what an author writes for
by removing images and so forth, often removes the author's intent and meaning. this is not just copyright violation, but this can be systematic (deliberate) misquoting.
does not respect author's wish to TIME LIMIT things on the internet.
does not distinguish between classes of speech - the US courts have ruled over and over and over again that there are different classes
is an opt-out mechanism that is not friendly to new people to the net.
does all of this without the author's explicit permission
and so on and so forth.
Furthermore, for those of you who subscribe to the naive notion that "if it's on the web, it should be free", is yourusername:yourpassword@yourcreditcardcompany.co m on the web? if i find this, should this (as well as your ssn and other good stuff which is doubtlessly on the web) be freely distributable? what if yourcreditcardcompany publishes the info accidentally?
no, people who go by the theory that 'if it's on the web it's free' are naive. there IS an expectation that stuff on the internet without passwords will be freely available. there is NO expectation that says a third-party for-profit entity should be able to republish it at will. that's ludicrous.
Dude, the point is that copyright is still copyright, dude. There's a difference between an embarassing usenet conversation coming back to haunt you, dude, and a multi-billion dollar company that bases a large percentage of its business on, dude, taking all of your written material - be it opinion, research, or what have you, REPUBLISHING IT IN AN AUTOMATED FASHION, dude.
"send an email to unsubscribe@viagradonkeys.com" is an INDUSTRY STANDARD, too. it doesn't make it right or even legal. and, it's not a great standard, as previous slashdot stories pertaining to robots.txt being ignored will attest to.
laws and rights trump industry standards every time. opt-out standards prey on the weak and new - i encourage you to find ONE beginner guide to the web which talks about robots.txt. hint: there is none. therefore, this is a standard that virtually begs for new users to err. this is opt-out. this is a broken standard.
i have a reasonable expectation of individual visitors cacheing the content in their local browser cache. this is a common artifact of web browsing. customers who walk into bookstores leave with memories of the books they saw. both are cleared out with reasonable time.
there is no reasonable expectation of somebody walking into a bookstore, memorizing the books, and then offering them for free to passersby. this is what google does. this is copyright infringement.
by the publishing analogy, doesn't this mean that libraries don't have the right to lend books that are no longer in print
A book, by virtue of being a physical object, has permanence. so, when a library purchases a book, it is entitled for perpetuity (to keep this on topic, let's not consider expiring copyrights, which are of no relevants here) to hold one copy. When the publisher published the book, he made it very explititly clear that others would have the right to hold copies of that book.
a better analogy is this: if i write something down on a notepad on my desk, can the library come in, take a photo through the window, and thereafter make infinite copies for all to enjoy? you might say - well, it was your fault to have kept it so close to the window - that is to say, that i had no expectation of privacy of keeping something so close to the window. fine, this may as well (may or may not be) be true as far as casual passers-by are concerned, but what is clear is that google is not a casual passer-by-- it is a ravenous scavenger habitually and continuously peering in any and all windows it can find, despite knowing full well that it will likely run into things that the author has not meant to publish.
this is completely different, and it is wrong. a business should not be built atop copyright infringement. a large portion of google's is.
i suspect i will be modded as a troll. oh well.. i have the karma for it.
look - i like and use google. and, i fully appreciate that a great number of slashdotters here also like google because while it may be a for-profit closed source entity with very little transparency or accountability, at least a) it's not microsoft, and b) it works.
however, i think a few lawsuits of google are in order. google can afford the damages, and the net will be better for it.
as an author of a web page or even a log file, you have the right to publish and de-publish it. just because it's on the net does not give google the right to cache it indefinitely. it is not MY legal responsibility to make sure that I proactively do robots.txt or whatever else the trick of the day is (x-noarchive) - that is the intellectual property equivalent of opt-out.
if google wants to keep an index of web pages for people to search on, that's fine. heck. even if it keeps the full text internally, that's fine too, as long as it gives people reasonable 'fair use' snippets. but if it caches stuff that an author has removed from the web or that an author has written, say, in order to expose people to a nearby advertisement which google's cache doesn't catch, then google shouldb be guilty of copyright violation. automated or not (ie, the 'napster' excuse doesn't wash here, either)
Sigh. of course there are relatively better and worse companies. And if some companies cross whatever bright-line you define for "good" and "bad" then so be it.
But your observation that "there are a bunch in the middle" is a load of rubbish. That is to say, it belies the fact that you think that you can give companies a score from 0-100 on how "good" or "bad" they are and that people would, say, +- 10%, agree with your rankings. What I'm saying is that that is a completely faulty assumption. Yes, there are some companies that people would say are objectively better on almost every metric than others (aka "strict dominance"), but such relationships are few and far between.
This is an EXCELLENT idea as far as using the barcodes as a link to a company's CSR/Ethical/Environmental/etc history.
Ths is a STUPID idea as far as summarizing the result as a single-magnitude noise from a "geiger counter." Companies are large and complex--there aren't just "bad ones" and "good ones." there are interrelationships, hidden subsidiaries, and every manner of nonsense. put another way--remember that stuff about the brent spar oil platform that was sunk? it turns out that royal dutch shell was actually right and the (largely german) "environmentalists" didn't understand the science or engineering.
the point is that under the current 'geiger counter', you'd get, say, one loud crack for royal dutch shell. under a more nuanced system, which is what is required, you'd have some way of making your own judgement based on your own values and understandings rather than somebody elses. no, it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a hell of a lot better than the current cartoon idea.
(incidentally, would nike get a big "crack?" as well? because nike's labor practices are seen as either laudable or despicable, depending on who you talk to).
Flightsims are great to learn IFR, but for "simple" VFR in a "simple" Cessna, they don't actually help student pilots significantly.
False.
Which means: Flight model realism isn't all that important (for serious use), after all...
True. However statement 1 does not have an implication ("which means") in statement 2.
I have trained over 190 students now. MSFS (indeed, most flight simulators) are valuable tools EVEN FOR VFR PILOTS even in areas beyond the usual suspects (basic instrument techniques, navigation, etc).
Yes, it does take some prodding from a thorough instructor to get students to do the right thing the sims, but here's where they shine: let's say I'm teaching a basic approach ("power off") stall to a private student - what's going to be his biggest stumbling block?
getting over the fear of stalls? that's 10 minutes. getting the hands and feet moving correctly? that's maybe another 15. The biggest part where students take time learning is in LEARNING THE MANEUVER STEPS. I.e:
Pre-maneuver checklist
(all the steps therein)
clearning turns
carb heat
heading and altitude
power back
heading and altitude
white arc flaps 1
heading and altitude
flaps 2
heading and altitude
flaps 3
heading and altitude
power idle
heading and altitude
Announce pre-stall buffet
(on stall), full-power, carb heat cold, single-notch of flaps up
heading and altitude
Flaps up as airspeed incrases
Cruise speed, power back
re-trim as necessary for level fligth
and so on and so forth. If you've seen this a billion times, it's simple. if you're a new student, it's getting the order and the speed of operations correct that's the problem. Even if the flight model is not 100% (and make no mistake about it - MSFS has been well better than good enough for this kind of stuff for quite a while), you can learn the order of operations for the maneuver. You will save time and money.
Incidentally, if you ever see an SR22 actually flying into Dublin, Ireland, it may well be me.
FlightGear is OSS's shame. It is like a mutant that is kept under the stairs when guests come over. It:
exists to fill a massive market
has had dozens of volunteers over many years now
and yet
it doesn't come close to closed-source, for-profit equivalents. in short, it sucks.
Flame me if you will, but do check it out - it's true. Now, I don't mean that it sucks completely, but there can be little disagreement that compared to X-Plane or MSFS, it really is behind the times. Furthermore, as other posts have pointed out, the code is such that it will be very hard to ressurect it.
X-Plane is the flight simulator of choice for many companies, including Scaled Composites, the builders of Spaceship One. It's also FAA approved for training towards commercial, transport, and instrument certificates.
Umm, actually, so is MSFS. The catch is (for either program) that you need to buy a certain amount of hardware (far more than just yoke and rudder pedals) to make it a valid PFD.
- singleengine / multiengine / regular flight instructor, airline transport pilot
Hmm, using that "game" MSFS, my instrument students get good at flying approaches. I give them homework in it of flying certain approaches and they show up at the next lesson better prepared.
stop with your "sim vs game" crap. it's childish and narrow.
the definition of "realism" that this article uses is skewed towards aerodynamic realism. this is only a tiny part of what makes a simulator "realistic."
As an ATP-rated pilot, what I like seeing in a simulator to make it "realistic" are plausible flight models in normal regimes yes, but more so accurate avionics and systems, believable clouds and weather, a realistic "environment" including other traffic and ATC, and a nice looking terrain.
MSFS has X-Plane beaten by a mile in those departments. X-Plane is a nice sim, but it seems to be pretty much the domain of a few people who bleat about flight model being everything just like several years ago on slashdot you'd find people bleating about how stability was everything for an operating system, usability be damned.
Because even if the company had only one employee, in your example a hacker would break into the system in one out of every three attempts if it took on average 20 days to crack a password (assuming a linear search) and the password was changed every 7 days!
(technicality: if the hacker started hacking right when the password was changed--if you want to take the average to bring that down to 1/6, be my guest--i'll just counter with more employees at this mythical firm).
Or, umm, I dunno, the hacker will get 6 machines running in parallell..
Slashdot Mirror
But you're still a fucking moron monkey coder.
I don't work in the music industry. I am an academic. there's one thing you say I said that I did not.
I never said that you can look at demand and not market structure. I just said that simple models of oligopolistic vs perfect competition don't work in IP markets because the critical issue of marginal cost is missing. there's another thing you accused me of saying that I did not. My point was that market structure in IP markets can be far more complex because demand is the primary driver as the goods are very imperfect substitutes.
Let's look at some more of your stupidities:
- Microsoft, as anybody with a real, rather than invented economics degree knows, is known to engage in (modigliani-miller style) limit pricing. if you can quote microsoft and just claim pure, junior-high "monopoly pricing", then your degree in economics is a joke.
- "but a monopolized market can charge more than a commoditized one." Again, this belies the fact that your economics degree is an invented one. "Commoditized" and "monopolized" are not parallels. The "C" word you were looking in the first case is "competitive." Now, that said, the main point of my counterargument is that music is not a commodity. You can make every sort of quasi-sociological observation you want about one boy band being just as good as the next, but the fact of the matter is that we're not dealing in oil or laundry detergent here--or, at least the market for music is much more like an IP market than a market for commodities.
- "If demand side pricing is used, than there will be no difference between a physical CD and a download." Umm, attention stupid sysadmin: if what you call "supply side" pricing was used, the costs of each would still be equivalent to each other (if a CD and an MP3 were perfect substitutes, which, in reality, is probably not the case)! I'll let you do this logic.. it's tiresome to argue with somebody who is obviously bullshitting a degree in economics.
- "The RIAA is not going after the settlement to make a profit; the execs are dead sure that sales will shoot up dramatically once the trading ceases." On what basis do you claim your "dramatically" term? Pulled it out of your ass, did you?
- "Anyone thinking the RIAA is a non-for-profit organization is not worthy of a debate." You just line them up, and I'll smack them over the fence. "The Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA) is a nonprofit industry trade group that represents companies, both small and large, that create, manufacture and distribute over 90 percent of the sound recordings sold in the United States." The RIAA IS nonprofit. its constituent companies are (obviously) for profit entities. I (nor anybody else in this thread) ever claimed otherwise.
- "So you believe that a 45 year old would be just as likely to listen to Britney Spears' than an 18 year old. You also believe that NSync is "cutting edge" music? You also believe that RIAA is the world organization for justice to send messages to immoral pirates, and that RIAA has no intention of making money, I rest my case." - Now that is just blabber. It has no basis in anything I said (I never mentioned N'Sync, and I argued just the opposite- that the one guy's original post is bullshit specificall because musicians are NOT substitutes for one another). I never claimed anything about the RIAA's constituent organizations not making money.
You are a complete fucking moron. If i wasn't stuck here spoonfeeding a printer for a presentationObviously you have only a term of MBA economics behind you. The problem with your pricing analogy is that it is for REAL GOODS with REAL MARGINAL COSTS. In IP markets, the marginal costs of production are essentially irrelevant (because each artist is not a substitute, in the economic sense, for every other artist, and so forth), so DEMAND is all that matters. Given that any analysis of oligopoly vs competition relies on understanding marginal costs of production, your statements in this regard are bullshit.
Now, that said, the question of whether it is a cartel or not is irrelevant - in another response to my parent post, i justified the .50c claim (first, stating that it was a bit of a broad stroke - it could be $1 per song or whatever) by a little analysis - take out retailer profit, shipping, warehousing, manufacturing, subsidization of failed/unpopular artists, and so forth and you will see that, say, $6.50 profit on a $7 on-line album purchase might be consistent with current profit. I encourage you to read that post for a more thorough explanation of my point here.
Now, to this "right or wrong" business. As an MBA, you took the absurd leap of assuming that YOUR "right" thing to do means "business sense" and mine "right thing to do" means a moral or ethical sense. From what I can see, you basically came to this characterization only so you can argue some made up point about profit vs ethics that really is you talking to yourself. I made no claims one way or another.
Why does RIAA sue parents as well? Well, the message needs to get out there. I mean really--do you think they are out to collect $100 million dollars from one individual? That's highly unlikely. In all likelihood, they will just about break even given the costs of litigation and the high costs of investigation and so forth. Whatever your characterization of them going after parents as well as students is, I can't see how you can come to any reasonable conclusion other than it's to send a message. It ain't for the money.
Students of college age are the de-facto "cutting edge" - they are about to be a key purchasing demographic and they have strong influence on those just younger than them. it's the perfect group to target strategically if your goal is to send a message and to scare some people into being a little more careful.
Incidentally, any time you start a sentence "as an MBA", you're just asking to be lampooned on FuckedCompany.com. I only came back with an ambiguous version of my credentials since you whipped your weiner out first.
oh wait--i'm confused--so maybe some sound engineers are doing some crap job on some albums thesedays, but, now let me get this straight - there are people actually WORKING on producing music? Do they expect to get paid? how? I'm confused.
after i saw you beginning to "logically refute" those factual bulletpoints, i stopped reading the rest of your message. you see, reality beats dork logic every time. copyright is what it is, not what you would like it to be.
*plonk plonk*
What a load of crap.
the fact of the matter is, as has been pointed out countless times here but you pseudo-intellectuals just don't get, is that, like it or not, what the studios do adds value.
don't believe me? start a band. now, this is 2003. you have EVERY TECHNOLOGY IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE at your disposal. Make MP3s, OGGs, stuffed animals with chips in them that play your tunes. Give it away for free. sell it on the innernet. make 10,000 CDs for $4200 and leave them under windshield wipers. Play in subway stations, allow fans unlimited rights of reproductions - you have this WHOLE UNIVERSE OF THINGS OUT THERE.
And yet band after band after band after artist signs with labels. (are there some that do just some funky new thing? sure. are they succesful? with the possible exception of a few techno phenomena, the answer is pretty much 'no').
why? because clearly the labels do something that the bands see as worth signing on the dotted line for compared to the UNIVERSE of alternatives out there.
the terms may be draconian, but this is simple economics. clearly we have an overabundance of demand for the studios services. when high demand meets relatively low supply, supply wins.
a girl i'm dating fronts a small acid jazz band. i'm under no illusions about the realities for the artists. but i also know something about economics, and know that your arguments are naive bullshit.
if you think that piracy is good because it erodes monopoly powers, then i suggest to you that it hurts the possibility of legitimate small competitors popping up even more. it's fucking trivial to set up a clone of iTunes compared to setting up Columbia Music 2. Without piracy, there would be lower entry barriers for people into the publishing business because it would be online, and as such supply of publishers would expand past the current big five and artists would win.
but no, you keep thinking along your naive bullshit lines, and look forward to that great new eminem single! he's really rad.
tool.
That said, there's also the problem of the elasticity of demand of cds vs digital: the fact is that you don't really know how much people would buy if it were all digital in a pirate-less world. I mean, one big limitaton on current sales is the physical space you have - I don't buy some CDs because they'd be junking up the place, even though i wouldn't mind having access to that song or two to listen to..
About your britney spears argument: clearly it wouldnt be a flat 50c per song - but how does $2 for the lead single vs $7 for the whole album grab you? might this get people to buy the one song who otherwise wouldn't have bought the whole thing and also perhaps get album-buyers to get the whole thing nevertheless?
Your "net loss of $14.50" argument shows your complete ignorance of costs. Your "exact same pricing" argument shows your complete lack of understanding of technological change from an economics perspective. well, maybe they'll teach that in your junior year of high school.
Fallacy: Slippery slope argument.
"why should I pay when so and so got it free?" in aggregate, the result is lost sales.
People are responsible for their own actions. If Alice downloads a song, and Bob knows this, Bob can't blame Alice when he downloads music.
The first statement is true. The second one is legally untrue. Infringements of behaviour have long been rewarded with disproportionate punishments. Hence, you get a speeding ticket for usd $100 despite that you have hurt nobody.
They have never had that right in the first place.
sure they do, especially when the work involves trademarks, but i digress. Parody is an exception - it is a specially protected form of speech. However, blatant piracy is not a protected form of speech. It just isn't, and your smoke-and-mirrors pointing to parody will not change this.
interested in knowing why you think copyright is anything more than the exclusive right to copy particular works.
Your ignorance is astounding. Broadly, even if I did restrict my discussion to just copyright (I did not - i was speaking of all IP rules), US copyright law broadly provides for at least the following:
In your opinion. I think that if the RIAA wants others to respect copyright, they should show that they respect copyright. This means lobbying for a reduction in the length of copyright terms, to better promote the public domain (that is, after all, the basis for copyright law).
Whether the length of copyright is ok and whether existing copyrights should be respected are two issues that idiots like you try to muddle in a vain attempt to confuse readers. I don't think I'm going to rebut your "RIAA should be lobbying for shorter copyright terms" because I don't really see any reasonable reader agreeing to it anyway. Your logic is deeply, deeply flawed.
What makes you think that China doesn't produce as much IP as the USA? Could it be that you are just exposed to more American IP than Chinese IP?
Your ignorant presumptions do not an argument make.
*plonk*
Let's say a person with zero assets downloads such music. How does this hurt the coprightholders?
Some examples:
here is a very crucial point:
THE RIAA SUING COLLEGE KIDS IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO BECAUSE THE KIDS HAVE NO ASSETS.
It shows that the RIAA is interested in STOPPING THE BEHAVIOR, not collecting damages. Yes, they might sue for 10B, but they'll never collect. What they are clearly doing by going after asset-less individuals and getting outrageous-sounding judgements is SENDING A MESSAGE. It's the RIGHT message - RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE'S COPYRIGHTS. The US produces a hell of a lot of IP in arts and sciences compared to, say, China largely because we have well-structured IP systems.
Are there excesses? Surely. Is the mickey mouse extension, well, mickey mouse? absolutely. but is copyrightholders going after music-infringers in order to send a message that such behavior will not be tolerated wrong? absolutely not.
the music industry is trying damn hard to provide music in digital form now - but what's the problem? the problem is that everybody's running around trying to figure out how to do this while not basically 'giving away the store' given how easy digitial redistribution is. iTunes has been a success, though it is mac only. others have had less success because they are either toe-in-the-water ventures with limited playlists or because the music is overly encumbered with DRM. but why is this so?
BECAUSE OF PIRACY!
if there were no idiots out there like you trying to justify blatant piracy on any number of grounds, that is to say, this whole cloud of pseudo-justifications for widescale copyright infringement and a general climate that tolerates such behaviour, we'd RIGHT NOW have 50c music dowloads as far as the eye could see.
we'd have LESS middlemen, MORE choices of artists, and BETTER digital portability if it wasn't for the fact that every self-styled h4xor seems to think that he is a) smarter and b) better than the law, and even if the law isn't so bad, he isn't going to get caught anyway. THAT is what's keeping a flourishing of online music from happening.. a climate that tolerates or even encourages piracy.
--- END OF RANT ---
Look - the problem is still 99% piracy and 1% RIAA overreach. it's nice that somebody is looking at the 1%, but don't forget that the major problem still is piracy.
remember the slashdot excuse pre-crackdown: go after the offenders, not the technology. support going after the offenders.
- in many cases it eliminate the NEED for the source.
- it may take away the source's motivation for publishing (ie advertising), and as such has clearly usurped copyright material for its own gain in lieu of the author.
- removes the author's perogative to un-publish. while fair-used based commentators may take note of what an author writes for
- by removing images and so forth, often removes the author's intent and meaning. this is not just copyright violation, but this can be systematic (deliberate) misquoting.
- does not respect author's wish to TIME LIMIT things on the internet.
- does not distinguish between classes of speech - the US courts have ruled over and over and over again that there are different classes
- is an opt-out mechanism that is not friendly to new people to the net.
- does all of this without the author's explicit permission
- and so on and so forth.
Furthermore, for those of you who subscribe to the naive notion that "if it's on the web, it should be free", is yourusername:yourpassword@yourcreditcardcompany.cno, people who go by the theory that 'if it's on the web it's free' are naive. there IS an expectation that stuff on the internet without passwords will be freely available. there is NO expectation that says a third-party for-profit entity should be able to republish it at will. that's ludicrous.
laws and rights trump industry standards every time. opt-out standards prey on the weak and new - i encourage you to find ONE beginner guide to the web which talks about robots.txt. hint: there is none. therefore, this is a standard that virtually begs for new users to err. this is opt-out. this is a broken standard.
there is no reasonable expectation of somebody walking into a bookstore, memorizing the books, and then offering them for free to passersby. this is what google does. this is copyright infringement.
A book, by virtue of being a physical object, has permanence. so, when a library purchases a book, it is entitled for perpetuity (to keep this on topic, let's not consider expiring copyrights, which are of no relevants here) to hold one copy. When the publisher published the book, he made it very explititly clear that others would have the right to hold copies of that book.
a better analogy is this: if i write something down on a notepad on my desk, can the library come in, take a photo through the window, and thereafter make infinite copies for all to enjoy? you might say - well, it was your fault to have kept it so close to the window - that is to say, that i had no expectation of privacy of keeping something so close to the window. fine, this may as well (may or may not be) be true as far as casual passers-by are concerned, but what is clear is that google is not a casual passer-by-- it is a ravenous scavenger habitually and continuously peering in any and all windows it can find, despite knowing full well that it will likely run into things that the author has not meant to publish.
this is completely different, and it is wrong. a business should not be built atop copyright infringement. a large portion of google's is.
look - i like and use google. and, i fully appreciate that a great number of slashdotters here also like google because while it may be a for-profit closed source entity with very little transparency or accountability, at least a) it's not microsoft, and b) it works.
however, i think a few lawsuits of google are in order. google can afford the damages, and the net will be better for it.
as an author of a web page or even a log file, you have the right to publish and de-publish it. just because it's on the net does not give google the right to cache it indefinitely. it is not MY legal responsibility to make sure that I proactively do robots.txt or whatever else the trick of the day is (x-noarchive) - that is the intellectual property equivalent of opt-out.
if google wants to keep an index of web pages for people to search on, that's fine. heck. even if it keeps the full text internally, that's fine too, as long as it gives people reasonable 'fair use' snippets. but if it caches stuff that an author has removed from the web or that an author has written, say, in order to expose people to a nearby advertisement which google's cache doesn't catch, then google shouldb be guilty of copyright violation. automated or not (ie, the 'napster' excuse doesn't wash here, either)
But your observation that "there are a bunch in the middle" is a load of rubbish. That is to say, it belies the fact that you think that you can give companies a score from 0-100 on how "good" or "bad" they are and that people would, say, +- 10%, agree with your rankings. What I'm saying is that that is a completely faulty assumption. Yes, there are some companies that people would say are objectively better on almost every metric than others (aka "strict dominance"), but such relationships are few and far between.
Ths is a STUPID idea as far as summarizing the result as a single-magnitude noise from a "geiger counter." Companies are large and complex--there aren't just "bad ones" and "good ones." there are interrelationships, hidden subsidiaries, and every manner of nonsense. put another way--remember that stuff about the brent spar oil platform that was sunk? it turns out that royal dutch shell was actually right and the (largely german) "environmentalists" didn't understand the science or engineering.
the point is that under the current 'geiger counter', you'd get, say, one loud crack for royal dutch shell. under a more nuanced system, which is what is required, you'd have some way of making your own judgement based on your own values and understandings rather than somebody elses. no, it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a hell of a lot better than the current cartoon idea.
(incidentally, would nike get a big "crack?" as well? because nike's labor practices are seen as either laudable or despicable, depending on who you talk to).
False.
Which means: Flight model realism isn't all that important (for serious use), after all...
True. However statement 1 does not have an implication ("which means") in statement 2.
I have trained over 190 students now. MSFS (indeed, most flight simulators) are valuable tools EVEN FOR VFR PILOTS even in areas beyond the usual suspects (basic instrument techniques, navigation, etc).
Yes, it does take some prodding from a thorough instructor to get students to do the right thing the sims, but here's where they shine: let's say I'm teaching a basic approach ("power off") stall to a private student - what's going to be his biggest stumbling block?
getting over the fear of stalls? that's 10 minutes. getting the hands and feet moving correctly? that's maybe another 15. The biggest part where students take time learning is in LEARNING THE MANEUVER STEPS. I.e:
- Pre-maneuver checklist
- (all the steps therein)
- clearning turns
- carb heat
- heading and altitude
- power back
- heading and altitude
- white arc flaps 1
- heading and altitude
- flaps 2
- heading and altitude
- flaps 3
- heading and altitude
- power idle
- heading and altitude
- Announce pre-stall buffet
- (on stall), full-power, carb heat cold, single-notch of flaps up
- heading and altitude
- Flaps up as airspeed incrases
- Cruise speed, power back
- re-trim as necessary for level fligth
and so on and so forth. If you've seen this a billion times, it's simple. if you're a new student, it's getting the order and the speed of operations correct that's the problem. Even if the flight model is not 100% (and make no mistake about it - MSFS has been well better than good enough for this kind of stuff for quite a while), you can learn the order of operations for the maneuver. You will save time and money.Incidentally, if you ever see an SR22 actually flying into Dublin, Ireland, it may well be me.
FlightGear is OSS's shame. It is like a mutant that is kept under the stairs when guests come over. It:
- exists to fill a massive market
- has had dozens of volunteers over many years now
and yet- it doesn't come close to closed-source, for-profit equivalents. in short, it sucks.
Flame me if you will, but do check it out - it's true. Now, I don't mean that it sucks completely, but there can be little disagreement that compared to X-Plane or MSFS, it really is behind the times. Furthermore, as other posts have pointed out, the code is such that it will be very hard to ressurect it.Umm, actually, so is MSFS. The catch is (for either program) that you need to buy a certain amount of hardware (far more than just yoke and rudder pedals) to make it a valid PFD.
- singleengine / multiengine / regular flight instructor, airline transport pilot
stop with your "sim vs game" crap. it's childish and narrow.
- singleengine / multiengine / regular flight instructor, airline transport pilot.
As an ATP-rated pilot, what I like seeing in a simulator to make it "realistic" are plausible flight models in normal regimes yes, but more so accurate avionics and systems, believable clouds and weather, a realistic "environment" including other traffic and ATC, and a nice looking terrain.
MSFS has X-Plane beaten by a mile in those departments. X-Plane is a nice sim, but it seems to be pretty much the domain of a few people who bleat about flight model being everything just like several years ago on slashdot you'd find people bleating about how stability was everything for an operating system, usability be damned.
Because even if the company had only one employee, in your example a hacker would break into the system in one out of every three attempts if it took on average 20 days to crack a password (assuming a linear search) and the password was changed every 7 days!
(technicality: if the hacker started hacking right when the password was changed--if you want to take the average to bring that down to 1/6, be my guest--i'll just counter with more employees at this mythical firm).
Or, umm, I dunno, the hacker will get 6 machines running in parallell..
Make sense now?