It's not a conspiracy if the prices are the same. If there isn't a big difference between the services, the prices always will be the same. Otherwise, everyone would sign up for the cheaper service, and the alternative would go out of business. Cable and DSL give you similar bandwidth, and therefore cost about the same. Dialup is much cheaper, on the other hand, because you get noticably less bandwidth. It's called competition, not oligopoly.
You have the choice of swithcing to another provider or if none exists quitting anyway. This is the only legal choice you should have. Telling the cable company how to do business infringes on their rights (CEO's and stockholders have rights too). If enough people cancel their service, they'll get the hint and change their policy.
CNN doesn't have an AOL/Time Warner censor telling them what they can say. You're way off base with the insinuation. I don't know how this crap gets modded up. It's amazing how biased slashdot moderators are. Actually, it's not surprising at all given how the system is set up.
If the cable company started telling you what you can and cannot do with your computer you'd be outraged. Yet you feel you have the authority to tell the cable company how to configure their network. If they feel like blocking any or all your packets, it's their right. It's their network. You have the right, in turn, to not do business with them, if you do not like their policies. If they allow you to run a web server, but charge you a higher, business level fee, that's their right (which is an option from most cable companies, BTW). I don't understand this mentaility where consumers think they have the right to tell companies how to run their businesses. Business is trade. Both parties must agree to the terms. Not just one party.
If a company spends billions of dollars wiring up a cable infostructure, why do customers and the govt. think they have the right to tell the company how they can use that bandwidth, and what types of terms they are allowed to offer? Given the existance of DSL, you can't even claim they have a monopoly. Yet here's another liberal who thinks consumers have the right to regulate how a company does business just because he thinks their practices are unfair. It's amusing since it's a lot easier to argue that a per/bandwidth fee is more fair, yet this author is so sure he's right, he expects the govt. to side with him and impose laws forcing the cable companies to do business the way he wants them to. Business is based on the concept of trade, in two parties mutually agree upon a price for a good or service. If you don't like the price you have the option to refuse to do business with them. You do not have the option to use force to get your way, in this case through govt. regulation. This is an attack on a fundamental civil liberty.
"Not so flimsy. I can go to Kazaa, pop in a name, click a bunch of songs that are interesting to me and it'll go get them. Web sites don't make that so easy. You need real player or some other stupid app to stream it down. You have to register to get that service. You different sites for different songs. You get inferior quality recordings."
You don't need a great quality copy to preview a song and WMA is supported most of the time. It's no more difficult. Another flimsy excuse.
"Just because there are a few music pirates out there doesn't give the RIAA the right to not respond to consumer demand. It also doesn't give them the right to grease up politicians for millions of dollars to lockdown computers. It also doesn't give them the right to attempt DoS attacks on people they think are pirating music. "
The RIAA has the right to do business anyway they choose within the law. That means they they can give you music in any form they damn well choose. You do NOT have a right to tell anyone how to do business. All you have a right to do is choose not to do business with that person (which does not include piracy, which is illegal). If they are given the legal right to DoS your box because you are pirating their music, then they have that right. You have the right to sue them if you think they're out of line.
"If that happens now, it's because the RIAA made an enemy out of people. If they had provided this service back in 98 or so, then they'd have a right to complain if people were downloading them for free. I'll say again: The RIAA has not lost a significant portion of sales due to MP3 trading. As a mtter of fact, at Napster's height, music sales had gone up."
It doesn't matter if they didn't lose a cent, it's still illegal and immoral to steal someone elses copyrighted material. They own the copyright, so for better or worse for their business, they get to dictate the terms by which music is distributed. As a consumer, your ony right is to choose not to buy.
"Why would I buy a guaranteed quality song off a single fast download site for a reasonable price? There wouldn't be much reason not to buy it if they provide a better service. Even today they could be more appealing than P2P through faster downloads and a huge collection of music. That window is closing rather rapidly though. It's their own fault for not being innovative."
As far as your last couple of comments, they illustrate your misguided notion that a consumer has a right to everything and a business has no right to dictate how it does business. this last statement "The RIAA doesn't care about copyrights either. They're using copyright as an excuse, but they aren't treating copyright holders fairly either. If they were, then the copyright holders could decide if internet trading was okay or not. " is messed up. The RIAA legally buys copyright from artists through a mutually agreed upon contract. They ARE the copyright holders and can do whatever they want, including not releasing at all if they choose. They have no obligation to give you what you want and in whatever format you demand. It's very simple. They make an offer, and you either accept or refuse. That how trade has work for millenia. But you have the audacity to try to rewrite the rules because it is easy to steal the material if you don't like their offer. Another flimsy excuse.
"Not so flimsy. I can go to Kazaa, pop in a name, click a bunch of songs that are interesting to me and it'll go get them. Web sites don't make that so easy. You need real player or some other stupid app to stream it down. You have to register to get that service. You different sites for different songs. You get inferior quality recordings." You don't need a great quality copy to preview a song and WMA is supported most of the time. It's no more difficult. Another flimsy excuse. "Just because there are a few music pirates out there doesn't give the RIAA the right to not respond to consumer demand. It also doesn't give them the right to grease up politicians for millions of dollars to lockdown computers. It also doesn't give them the right to attempt DoS attacks on people they think are pirating music. " The RIAA has the right to do business anyway they choose within the law. That means they they can give you music in any form they damn well choose. You do NOT have a right to tell anyone how to do business. All you have a right to do is choose not to do business with that person (which does not include piracy, which is illegal). If they are given the legal right to DoS your box because you are pirating their music, then they have that right. You have the right to sue them if you think they're out of line. "If that happens now, it's because the RIAA made an enemy out of people. If they had provided this service back in 98 or so, then they'd have a right to complain if people were downloading them for free. I'll say again: The RIAA has not lost a significant portion of sales due to MP3 trading. As a mtter of fact, at Napster's height, music sales had gone up." It doesn't matter if they didn't lose a cent, it's still illegal and immoral to steal someone elses copyrighted material. They own the copyright, so for better or worse for their business, they get to dictate the terms by which music is distributed. As a consumer, your ony right is to choose not to buy. "Why would I buy a guaranteed quality song off a single fast download site for a reasonable price? There wouldn't be much reason not to buy it if they provide a better service. Even today they could be more appealing than P2P through faster downloads and a huge collection of music. That window is closing rather rapidly though. It's their own fault for not being innovative.
As far as your last couple of comments, they illustrate your misguided notion that a consumer has a right to everything and a business has no right to dictate how it does business. this last statement "The RIAA doesn't care about copyrights either. They're using copyright as an excuse, but they aren't treating copyright holders fairly either. If they were, then the copyright holders could decide if internet trading was okay or not.
" is just shows how illogical your arguments are. The RIAA legally buys copyright from artists through a mutually agreed upon contract. They ARE the copyright holders and can do whatever they want, including not releasing at all if they choose. They have no obligation to give you what you want and in whatever format you demand. It's very simple. They make an offer, and you either accept or refuse. That how trade has work for millenia. But you have the audacity to try to rewrite the rules because it is easy to steal the material if you don't like their offer.
That's a poor excuse. I could also argue that I only have a turntable, and no one makes vinyl anymore. Therefore I have the right to download free copies. In reality, you only have the right to buy a product or boycott it. If you download illegal copies, you are guilty of violating the law.
Last I heard Warner Bros. was a member of the RIAA. So they are entering the new market. Just because you buy cd's doesn't give you the right to pirate other music. Lost sales are not even the issue. The issue is copyright, which should be respected regardless of profit/loss. A lot of web sites provide previews for most if not all cd tracks now as well, so not knowing the quality of a song is a flimsy excuse too. So, basically your arguements help show the validity of my statement, now that there is an option to buy people will just come up with new excuses to download music for free instead of buying it. It's only logical. Morals aside, why would you pay $1 for a song when you can get a good enough quality copy for free?
Maybe they'll apologize on the day the former Napster founders apologize for developing a company devoted to accomodating copyright infringement. Or maybe when they get a signed apology from the top 10000 p2p music pirates, they'll apologize to Apple. Give me a break. People keep saying they'll stop trading illegal copies when they have the option to pay for them online. Now that the day has come, they're making up stupid excuses to continue not paying.
Whos is this mysterious "they" you are referring to. Independent artists have nothing to do with the RIAA. They can distribute their music any way they like if they hold the copyright.
I can't believe this got modded up. A peer-to-peer network specifically refers to file sharing networks like napster, gnutella, etc. Trying to redefine the term to cloud the issue is the stupidest arguement against this bill I've seen yet.
Here is Bermans response to your criticism of actually prosecuting people according to real laws, "Copyright infringement lawsuits against infringing P2P users have a role to play, but are not viable or socially desirable options for addressing all P2P piracy. The costs of an all out litigation approach would be staggering for all parties. Copyright owners would incur overwhelming litigation expenses, other-wise-innocent P2P users would undoubtedly experience privacy violations, internet service providers and other intermediaries would experience high compliance costs, and an already overcrowded federal court system would face further strain. Further, the astounding speed with which copyrighted works are spread over P2P networks, and thus their immediate ubiquity on millions of computers, renders almost totally ineffective litigation against individual P2P users. Certainly, a suit against an individual P2P user will almost never result in recovery of sufficient damages to compensate for the damage caused."
The information MS wants from your computer when auto installing patches etc. is information about the current OS build, patches, hardware, etc. The information hospitals and banks want to protect is customer data. Since these are mutually exclusive, simply have the lawyers rewrite the EULA to specify OS and computer hardware related information only will be sent to MS. This should fix this bureaucratic nonsense.
"Solely for the purpose of preventing unlicensed use of the applicable OS Software, the OS Components will include installation on your computer of technological measures that are designed to prevent unlicensed use, and Microsoft may use this technology to confirm that you have a licensed copy of the OS Software." This is the type of information they are talking about getting from your computer. They aren't downloading personal data, so there is no issue with HIPAA, etc. Get a clue.
Again, the problem with Lessig's arguement is that he cannot equate 30 years of retroactive extensions to perpetual copyright. 30 years infinity. How does Lessig prove that there will be extensions every couple of years in the future to infinity, actually making a copyright perpetual? He cannot do this so he has no case.
"Record companies were to provide a means for exposure; now that the Internet provides near-universal exposure at comparatively no cost, the record companies' utility has expired." Hmm. Who's going to invest the millions it costs to produce a record, get airplay for it, advertise, etc. Record companies make money because they take the risks. No one's going to visit a musician's website if that person is not already known for some other reason. Napster didn't promote new music. It only provided a means for people to share music they have already been exposed to through other media.
If you extend a copyright retroactively, it's still limited. I don't agree that the potential for a lack of a limit (due to the ability of congress to revise a law) equates to a lack of a limit. If you try to argue that avenue, you've set a precedent where no law with a constitutional limit can ever be revised in a manner that increases that limit. I think the justices are unwilling to set that precedent, based on the portion of the transcript I read, but I could be wrong.
I agree the govt. should not bail out the telcom industry. Just let the mismanaged companies go chapter 7, and allow new players to buy out the infrastructure. The reason for the telecom problem is not due to using obsolete equipment. The telcom market INCLUDES the internet and all high speed data communications. Look at companies like JDSU and AMCC, that design 10 Gb transponders and supporting chipsets. They are part of the telecom being hit just as hard as long distance carriers. The telecom industry is in a slump because the infrastructure is incredibly expensive, and not enough money was made through selling services such as long distance and internet access to repay the loans. The current telephone technology will be obsolete some day, but that isn't the reason for the current telecom crash.
Slashdot Mirror
No one's stopping you from getting a T1 into your home. That's about as close to the internet backbone as you can get.
Exactly. Who cares if all those companies are going bankrupt. I have a constitutional right to unlimited bandwidth for $49.95/month
It's not a conspiracy if the prices are the same. If there isn't a big difference between the services, the prices always will be the same. Otherwise, everyone would sign up for the cheaper service, and the alternative would go out of business. Cable and DSL give you similar bandwidth, and therefore cost about the same. Dialup is much cheaper, on the other hand, because you get noticably less bandwidth. It's called competition, not oligopoly.
You have the choice of swithcing to another provider or if none exists quitting anyway. This is the only legal choice you should have. Telling the cable company how to do business infringes on their rights (CEO's and stockholders have rights too). If enough people cancel their service, they'll get the hint and change their policy.
CNN doesn't have an AOL/Time Warner censor telling them what they can say. You're way off base with the insinuation. I don't know how this crap gets modded up. It's amazing how biased slashdot moderators are. Actually, it's not surprising at all given how the system is set up.
If the cable company started telling you what you can and cannot do with your computer you'd be outraged. Yet you feel you have the authority to tell the cable company how to configure their network. If they feel like blocking any or all your packets, it's their right. It's their network. You have the right, in turn, to not do business with them, if you do not like their policies. If they allow you to run a web server, but charge you a higher, business level fee, that's their right (which is an option from most cable companies, BTW). I don't understand this mentaility where consumers think they have the right to tell companies how to run their businesses. Business is trade. Both parties must agree to the terms. Not just one party.
If a company spends billions of dollars wiring up a cable infostructure, why do customers and the govt. think they have the right to tell the company how they can use that bandwidth, and what types of terms they are allowed to offer? Given the existance of DSL, you can't even claim they have a monopoly. Yet here's another liberal who thinks consumers have the right to regulate how a company does business just because he thinks their practices are unfair. It's amusing since it's a lot easier to argue that a per/bandwidth fee is more fair, yet this author is so sure he's right, he expects the govt. to side with him and impose laws forcing the cable companies to do business the way he wants them to. Business is based on the concept of trade, in two parties mutually agree upon a price for a good or service. If you don't like the price you have the option to refuse to do business with them. You do not have the option to use force to get your way, in this case through govt. regulation. This is an attack on a fundamental civil liberty.
user: Let's play global thermonuclear war.
blue gene: How about a nice game of chess?
see below. HTML tags are a pain in the ass, BTW.
"Not so flimsy. I can go to Kazaa, pop in a name, click a bunch of songs that are interesting to me and it'll go get them. Web sites don't make that so easy. You need real player or some other stupid app to stream it down. You have to register to get that service. You different sites for different songs. You get inferior quality recordings."
You don't need a great quality copy to preview a song and WMA is supported most of the time. It's no more difficult. Another flimsy excuse.
"Just because there are a few music pirates out there doesn't give the RIAA the right to not respond to consumer demand. It also doesn't give them the right to grease up politicians for millions of dollars to lockdown computers. It also doesn't give them the right to attempt DoS attacks on people they think are pirating music. "
The RIAA has the right to do business anyway they choose within the law. That means they they can give you music in any form they damn well choose. You do NOT have a right to tell anyone how to do business. All you have a right to do is choose not to do business with that person (which does not include piracy, which is illegal). If they are given the legal right to DoS your box because you are pirating their music, then they have that right. You have the right to sue them if you think they're out of line.
"If that happens now, it's because the RIAA made an enemy out of people. If they had provided this service back in 98 or so, then they'd have a right to complain if people were downloading them for free. I'll say again: The RIAA has not lost a significant portion of sales due to MP3 trading. As a mtter of fact, at Napster's height, music sales had gone up."
It doesn't matter if they didn't lose a cent, it's still illegal and immoral to steal someone elses copyrighted material. They own the copyright, so for better or worse for their business, they get to dictate the terms by which music is distributed. As a consumer, your ony right is to choose not to buy.
"Why would I buy a guaranteed quality song off a single fast download site for a reasonable price? There wouldn't be much reason not to buy it if they provide a better service. Even today they could be more appealing than P2P through faster downloads and a huge collection of music. That window is closing rather rapidly though. It's their own fault for not being innovative."
As far as your last couple of comments, they illustrate your misguided notion that a consumer has a right to everything and a business has no right to dictate how it does business. this last statement "The RIAA doesn't care about copyrights either. They're using copyright as an excuse, but they aren't treating copyright holders fairly either. If they were, then the copyright holders could decide if internet trading was okay or not. " is messed up. The RIAA legally buys copyright from artists through a mutually agreed upon contract. They ARE the copyright holders and can do whatever they want, including not releasing at all if they choose. They have no obligation to give you what you want and in whatever format you demand. It's very simple. They make an offer, and you either accept or refuse. That how trade has work for millenia. But you have the audacity to try to rewrite the rules because it is easy to steal the material if you don't like their offer. Another flimsy excuse.
"Not so flimsy. I can go to Kazaa, pop in a name, click a bunch of songs that are interesting to me and it'll go get them. Web sites don't make that so easy. You need real player or some other stupid app to stream it down. You have to register to get that service. You different sites for different songs. You get inferior quality recordings." You don't need a great quality copy to preview a song and WMA is supported most of the time. It's no more difficult. Another flimsy excuse. "Just because there are a few music pirates out there doesn't give the RIAA the right to not respond to consumer demand. It also doesn't give them the right to grease up politicians for millions of dollars to lockdown computers. It also doesn't give them the right to attempt DoS attacks on people they think are pirating music. " The RIAA has the right to do business anyway they choose within the law. That means they they can give you music in any form they damn well choose. You do NOT have a right to tell anyone how to do business. All you have a right to do is choose not to do business with that person (which does not include piracy, which is illegal). If they are given the legal right to DoS your box because you are pirating their music, then they have that right. You have the right to sue them if you think they're out of line. "If that happens now, it's because the RIAA made an enemy out of people. If they had provided this service back in 98 or so, then they'd have a right to complain if people were downloading them for free. I'll say again: The RIAA has not lost a significant portion of sales due to MP3 trading. As a mtter of fact, at Napster's height, music sales had gone up." It doesn't matter if they didn't lose a cent, it's still illegal and immoral to steal someone elses copyrighted material. They own the copyright, so for better or worse for their business, they get to dictate the terms by which music is distributed. As a consumer, your ony right is to choose not to buy. "Why would I buy a guaranteed quality song off a single fast download site for a reasonable price? There wouldn't be much reason not to buy it if they provide a better service. Even today they could be more appealing than P2P through faster downloads and a huge collection of music. That window is closing rather rapidly though. It's their own fault for not being innovative. As far as your last couple of comments, they illustrate your misguided notion that a consumer has a right to everything and a business has no right to dictate how it does business. this last statement "The RIAA doesn't care about copyrights either. They're using copyright as an excuse, but they aren't treating copyright holders fairly either. If they were, then the copyright holders could decide if internet trading was okay or not. " is just shows how illogical your arguments are. The RIAA legally buys copyright from artists through a mutually agreed upon contract. They ARE the copyright holders and can do whatever they want, including not releasing at all if they choose. They have no obligation to give you what you want and in whatever format you demand. It's very simple. They make an offer, and you either accept or refuse. That how trade has work for millenia. But you have the audacity to try to rewrite the rules because it is easy to steal the material if you don't like their offer.
That's a poor excuse. I could also argue that I only have a turntable, and no one makes vinyl anymore. Therefore I have the right to download free copies. In reality, you only have the right to buy a product or boycott it. If you download illegal copies, you are guilty of violating the law.
Last I heard Warner Bros. was a member of the RIAA. So they are entering the new market. Just because you buy cd's doesn't give you the right to pirate other music. Lost sales are not even the issue. The issue is copyright, which should be respected regardless of profit/loss. A lot of web sites provide previews for most if not all cd tracks now as well, so not knowing the quality of a song is a flimsy excuse too. So, basically your arguements help show the validity of my statement, now that there is an option to buy people will just come up with new excuses to download music for free instead of buying it. It's only logical. Morals aside, why would you pay $1 for a song when you can get a good enough quality copy for free?
Maybe they'll apologize on the day the former Napster founders apologize for developing a company devoted to accomodating copyright infringement. Or maybe when they get a signed apology from the top 10000 p2p music pirates, they'll apologize to Apple. Give me a break. People keep saying they'll stop trading illegal copies when they have the option to pay for them online. Now that the day has come, they're making up stupid excuses to continue not paying.
Whos is this mysterious "they" you are referring to. Independent artists have nothing to do with the RIAA. They can distribute their music any way they like if they hold the copyright.
I can't believe this got modded up. A peer-to-peer network specifically refers to file sharing networks like napster, gnutella, etc. Trying to redefine the term to cloud the issue is the stupidest arguement against this bill I've seen yet.
What a Karma Whore. Since when is open source code illegal?
Because he's a democrat and a democrat representing the San Fernando Valley can't lose.
Here is Bermans response to your criticism of actually prosecuting people according to real laws, "Copyright infringement lawsuits against infringing P2P users have a role to play, but are not viable or socially desirable options for addressing all P2P piracy. The costs of an all out litigation approach would be staggering for all parties. Copyright owners would incur overwhelming litigation expenses, other-wise-innocent P2P users would undoubtedly experience privacy violations, internet service providers and other intermediaries would experience high compliance costs, and an already overcrowded federal court system would face further strain. Further, the astounding speed with which copyrighted works are spread over P2P networks, and thus their immediate ubiquity on millions of computers, renders almost totally ineffective litigation against individual P2P users. Certainly, a suit against an individual P2P user will almost never result in recovery of sufficient damages to compensate for the damage caused."
The information MS wants from your computer when auto installing patches etc. is information about the current OS build, patches, hardware, etc. The information hospitals and banks want to protect is customer data. Since these are mutually exclusive, simply have the lawyers rewrite the EULA to specify OS and computer hardware related information only will be sent to MS. This should fix this bureaucratic nonsense.
"Solely for the purpose of preventing unlicensed use of the applicable OS Software, the OS Components will include installation on your computer of technological measures that are designed to prevent unlicensed use, and Microsoft may use this technology to confirm that you have a licensed copy of the OS Software." This is the type of information they are talking about getting from your computer. They aren't downloading personal data, so there is no issue with HIPAA, etc. Get a clue.
Again, the problem with Lessig's arguement is that he cannot equate 30 years of retroactive extensions to perpetual copyright. 30 years infinity. How does Lessig prove that there will be extensions every couple of years in the future to infinity, actually making a copyright perpetual? He cannot do this so he has no case.
"Record companies were to provide a means for exposure; now that the Internet provides near-universal exposure at comparatively no cost, the record companies' utility has expired." Hmm. Who's going to invest the millions it costs to produce a record, get airplay for it, advertise, etc. Record companies make money because they take the risks. No one's going to visit a musician's website if that person is not already known for some other reason. Napster didn't promote new music. It only provided a means for people to share music they have already been exposed to through other media.
If you extend a copyright retroactively, it's still limited. I don't agree that the potential for a lack of a limit (due to the ability of congress to revise a law) equates to a lack of a limit. If you try to argue that avenue, you've set a precedent where no law with a constitutional limit can ever be revised in a manner that increases that limit. I think the justices are unwilling to set that precedent, based on the portion of the transcript I read, but I could be wrong.
I agree the govt. should not bail out the telcom industry. Just let the mismanaged companies go chapter 7, and allow new players to buy out the infrastructure. The reason for the telecom problem is not due to using obsolete equipment. The telcom market INCLUDES the internet and all high speed data communications. Look at companies like JDSU and AMCC, that design 10 Gb transponders and supporting chipsets. They are part of the telecom being hit just as hard as long distance carriers. The telecom industry is in a slump because the infrastructure is incredibly expensive, and not enough money was made through selling services such as long distance and internet access to repay the loans. The current telephone technology will be obsolete some day, but that isn't the reason for the current telecom crash.