" Since when did capitalism have anything to do with morality?
Capitalism has everything to do with morality. Capitalism is based on the concept of the right of an individual to own property and profit from work, as well as trade with others freely through mutual agreement without threat of force. Capitalism provides the opportunity to work in ones self interest to pursue happiness, and requires the respect of others rights to do the same.
From the ruling, it sounds like you can make anything you want available online, as long as you aren't charging for it, and the poeple downloading are doing so for personal use. I guess that includes cracked software, music, movies, etc.
" Now I expect a full apology and retraction for the demonization P2P has gotten from the RIAA, et. al. They should be trying to increase downloads like radio stations try to increase listeners."
Why should they apologize. p2p sharing of copyright material is still illegal. Are you saying copying gpl software should be ok since no real monetary damage is done to the original coder? Record companies have a right to protect their copyright, even if they spend more money on lawyers than they prevent in losses.
So when CD sales were down, it was the economy to blame. But when cd sales are up, it has nothing to do with the economy, and everything to do with file sharing. This is just junk science by both sides. No one knows the correlation between cd sales and file sharing. Everyone just selectively chooses data to support their position.
"The statement said it supported President Bush (news - web sites) in his reelection campaign, and would prefer him to win in November rather than the Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), as it was not possible to find a leader "more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom."
Does it make any sense to you that the group who blasted trains in Madrid to protest support for the American invasion in Iraq, would then turn around and support Bush, who actually sent most of the troops into Iraq? I think they're using reverse pychology on you, and I hope you don't actually believe it.
The phone company, cable company, and electric companies are all government granted monopolies controlled for the most part through government regulation. When the government gives one company the exclusive right to a network, such as in the above instances, are you surprised at the problems the govt. creates. Blame the government for these problems. They created them. As for MS, they've paid over a billion in fines now for anti-trust violations, which doesn't give me the impression that they run the govt. by any stretch of the imagination. I don't know what planet you live on, but I know what's going on on this one.
"George Bush is calling for universal broadband by 2007. He doesn't say how, or who's going to pay for it, or who's going to build it, but hey, isn't almost good enough?"
Given typical Republican economic policies, you can assume if you don't hear differently: 1. Private companies will build it, using whatever methods they think best. 2. Consumers will pay for it. Therefore, Bush's statement isn't so much a govt. policy statement as much as an encouragement of businesses to find solutions without govt. help. Given the govt. record of involvement in public works, I'm glad they're not going to try to run broadband themselves. Just looking at the road system and power system in CA, the best rating you can give the govt. in these areas is barely adequate. I'd hate it if that's what broadband turned into here.
You are being irrational. Companies bow down and kiss the asses of consumers. Consumers run this country ultimately, since companies give them what they want.
So this disclaimer is added to note that their might be a conflict of interest or bias in their story. That's hysterical!/. is openly agaainst Microsoft. They might as well just write Slashdot hates Microsoft and normally only posts MS bashing articles. Note that the original MS document they refer to was never a news article until they had a rebuttal./. makes fox look fair and balanced.
" A liberal government is the type of government that wants to become your best friend and get involved with every aspect of your life and help all of the people. It's commonly referred to communism or, in more extensive forms, socialism."
Yes, to translate your thought, a liberal govt. want to deny you your freedom, and run your life for you. They think they own all the wealth and get to distribute it the way they see fit, regardless of who generated the wealth. That is why liberal govts. are big govts., while libertarian govts. only focus on protecting your individual rights. Socialism is tyranny because it says the collective good is more important than your basic individual right to own and trade what you produce.
Back when LucasArts focused on PC games with x-wing vs. tie fighter, the added ability to adjust parameters on the keyboard made the game a lot more interesting. Since they have focused on console games, however, it seems the features have been stripped out to make the new games work with the simpler controller of console games. I've been disappointed with the Rougue squadon game demos and beyond, and haven't bought a space shooter since x-wing alliance.
Why? Every music outlet other than iTMS sels WMA. So you're saying it's ludicrous to give customers a choice as to where they can buy songs online for their iPod? Isn't this the same mentality that has condemned people who want to run MacOS to be forced to buy Apple proprietary hardware, with the result that Apple only has a niche market? Apple should learn from their mistakes, or their iPod sales may drop to the market share their Macs currently have, when people figure out there are lower cost alternatives to the iPod, that support songs from every other music download sight on the planet.
"Best quote? 'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.' Nice to see they're still user-oriented.""
I won't even bother pointing out how this quote was taken out of context, but I will mention that I'm looking at some stupid ad on/. talking about hardware hacking projects for geeks and wondering about/. hypocrisy from the editors.
"Rob Glaser of RealNetworks, though, claims that not opening the iPod (big or small) to other formats is a real mistake; he wants to see iPod support other proprietary formats (like, say, Real's)."
He might as well just sue Apple for anti-trust violations since the have such a big market share, that it might as well constitute a monopoly. After all, that's what Real is doing successfully in Europe against Microsoft. He should force Apple to ship the iPod without any codecs because only shipping with the AAC codec hurts consumers. Consumers would be much better off if they had to download the codec of their choice themselves, or let the OEM choose. I'm being sarcastic if you can't tell.
" If I would rather directly pay artists than go through the industry, I should have the option to do so. It is not the RIAA's work which I am purchasing, but rather the work of the artist."
If it weren't for record labels, you would have never heard the music you listen too. Claiming the play no role shows you are completely ignorant. These artists have already agreed voluntarily with the terms given by the record labels. Your attitude that stealing music is ok because you go to concerts is absurd. You are hurting the artists by hurting the industry that gets them their start and keeps them out of blue collar jobs. Record labels are the venture captialists of the music industry, and without their support, you are left with a lot of starving artists.
" I hope that the EU actually sticks by its guns. That is one thing the US has not done. I hope the EU sticks to a punishment because M$ gets away with it they will only cross that line a little further if they end up getting off."
Yeah, those evil Microsoft bastards. How dare those tyrants bundle a media player with their operating system. We need a fair playing field so people can choose quicktime instead, like on the Apple platform..., oh wait Apple bundles quicktime with their os, never mind. Anyway, the destruction of consumer choice of MS must be remedied by destroying their right to choose what to bundle with their OS. How else would we show how hypocritical we are if we didn't affirm one man's choice by denying another man his choice.
In summary, the plaintiff is annoyed that he has to track down authors to get permission to publish their books online. So he wants the law to change back so that authors need to be burdened with paperwork and fees to obtain copyright because he doesn't want to spend the time and money getting permission from the authors. Standard practice of trying to use the govt. to make your life easier at the expense of someone elses constitutional rights.
"I'm not only worried about viruses and spam levels. Part of the reason the MPAA and RIAA are taking such an interest in Internet activity is that file sharing has become so much easier with the availability of broadband, and as usual there are murmerings of regulation. Before the broadband revolution, the involvement of the MPAA and RIAA in Internet affairs was small, and their argument was less convincing. "
If you're using the internet to violate copyright laws, that is not an exercise in freedom, but instead an exercise infringing on someone elses rights. The fact that you weren't caught before doesn't mean the internet is becoming less free. It means there is less anarchy on the internet.
"and he doubts the devices would change the consumer electronics landscape in any way."
Assuming there will ever be a way to buy or rent movies online someday, this device could be big with travelers. You rent a couple of movies upload them to the device, and go hop on a plane and watch what you want. Or you can watch movies to and from work if you use mass transit. What would be even better is a link to digital satellite tv, so you can watch the news or somethin during your commute. Calling it an iPod kill is silly, though, because it isn't designed to compete with iPod. Ultimately iPod and this device will become obsolete when you can get wireless access in a device for ~$500, play video, play audio, surf web, check e-mail, make phone calls. etc. That's the ultimate PDA, that devices such as iPod only perform a subset of functions.
" It's called an iBook. It's priced at 20-ish precent more than the quoted device price for this new Microsoft offering."
$1100 for the cheapest iBook is closer to 40% more than $800. If you want a laptop that really is 20% more than this new gizmo (and a million times more useful), try Compaq notbooks with AMD processors. (and you get a bigger screen than the iBook).
" I'm glad to see that at least Europe still has some functioning antitrust laws, unlike the US where antitrust laws were effectively gutted by the judiciary."
anit-trust laws are designed to protect consumers. Yet all the case you site have companies as the plaintiff. Anti-trust laws are abused all the time by companies that can't compete to loot companies that do better than they do. Not surprising, since whenever a govt. enacts a law that attacks individual freedom, no matter what good they think they're doing, it will inevitably be abused by someone who is interested in theft disguised as "justice". MS has paid billions of dollars now to consumers who claim they didn't have freedom of choice, when they had the freedom to walk away at any time and find a different product. Likewise companies have no right to use the govt to point guns at MS to make it easier for them. But this all passes as "justice" in our "progressive" society that attack those that can, because of someone's need outweighs their right to freedom.
Enforcing copyright does not contradict capitalism. It merely prevents a thief from stealing your work and selling it as his own. Saying copyright is at odds with capitalism is like saying patent laws or theft is against captialism. If someone breaks into your store and steal your stuff, he can sell it below the price you can, which is a violation of an individual right. antitrust laws also violate individual rights by assuming that a basic right to sell something in a manner of your choosing is not your right, because a consumer has a need for the product. Basically MS is being made a slave to the consumer and other companies using guns pointed at it by the EU. The only way to cast off the yoke of slavery is to quit the business altogether.
In the 19th century a patent was for a very specific widget, and a detailed design was presented. So, the idea of photography could not be patented, but only a specific method of creating a photograph. Therefore, improvements in photography wpuld not be hampered by patents. Today, however, it appears possible to patent vaugue concepts that are explained by drawing a couple of boxes, such as streaming video, 1-click shopping, launching a helper application, etc. It seems that the new ideas about what a patent should allow, not the old ideas, are the ones that are flawed.
Slashdot Mirror
" Since when did capitalism have anything to do with morality?
Capitalism has everything to do with morality. Capitalism is based on the concept of the right of an individual to own property and profit from work, as well as trade with others freely through mutual agreement without threat of force. Capitalism provides the opportunity to work in ones self interest to pursue happiness, and requires the respect of others rights to do the same.
"I'm sorry about your beer. I know we had nothing to do with your beer but, we Feel your Pain."
Your beer sucks as much as our beer. You're pretty much on the money on all the other points though.
From the ruling, it sounds like you can make anything you want available online, as long as you aren't charging for it, and the poeple downloading are doing so for personal use. I guess that includes cracked software, music, movies, etc.
" Now I expect a full apology and retraction for the demonization P2P has gotten from the RIAA, et. al. They should be trying to increase downloads like radio stations try to increase listeners."
Why should they apologize. p2p sharing of copyright material is still illegal. Are you saying copying gpl software should be ok since no real monetary damage is done to the original coder? Record companies have a right to protect their copyright, even if they spend more money on lawyers than they prevent in losses.
So when CD sales were down, it was the economy to blame. But when cd sales are up, it has nothing to do with the economy, and everything to do with file sharing. This is just junk science by both sides. No one knows the correlation between cd sales and file sharing. Everyone just selectively chooses data to support their position.
"The statement said it supported President Bush (news - web sites) in his reelection campaign, and would prefer him to win in November rather than the Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), as it was not possible to find a leader "more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom."
Does it make any sense to you that the group who blasted trains in Madrid to protest support for the American invasion in Iraq, would then turn around and support Bush, who actually sent most of the troops into Iraq? I think they're using reverse pychology on you, and I hope you don't actually believe it.
The phone company, cable company, and electric companies are all government granted monopolies controlled for the most part through government regulation. When the government gives one company the exclusive right to a network, such as in the above instances, are you surprised at the problems the govt. creates. Blame the government for these problems. They created them. As for MS, they've paid over a billion in fines now for anti-trust violations, which doesn't give me the impression that they run the govt. by any stretch of the imagination. I don't know what planet you live on, but I know what's going on on this one.
"George Bush is calling for universal broadband by 2007. He doesn't say how, or who's going to pay for it, or who's going to build it, but hey, isn't almost good enough?"
Given typical Republican economic policies, you can assume if you don't hear differently:
1. Private companies will build it, using whatever methods they think best.
2. Consumers will pay for it.
Therefore, Bush's statement isn't so much a govt. policy statement as much as an encouragement of businesses to find solutions without govt. help. Given the govt. record of involvement in public works, I'm glad they're not going to try to run broadband themselves. Just looking at the road system and power system in CA, the best rating you can give the govt. in these areas is barely adequate. I'd hate it if that's what broadband turned into here.
So can Daryl be jailed for p2p sharing of linux under violation of the GPL? GPL is simply a copyright agreement after all.
You are being irrational. Companies bow down and kiss the asses of consumers. Consumers run this country ultimately, since companies give them what they want.
"Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN."
/. is openly agaainst Microsoft. They might as well just write Slashdot hates Microsoft and normally only posts MS bashing articles. Note that the original MS document they refer to was never a news article until they had a rebuttal. /. makes fox look fair and balanced.
So this disclaimer is added to note that their might be a conflict of interest or bias in their story. That's hysterical!
"
A liberal government is the type of government that wants to become your best friend and get involved with every aspect of your life and help all of the people. It's commonly referred to communism or, in more extensive forms, socialism."
Yes, to translate your thought, a liberal govt. want to deny you your freedom, and run your life for you. They think they own all the wealth and get to distribute it the way they see fit, regardless of who generated the wealth. That is why liberal govts. are big govts., while libertarian govts. only focus on protecting your individual rights. Socialism is tyranny because it says the collective good is more important than your basic individual right to own and trade what you produce.
Back when LucasArts focused on PC games with x-wing vs. tie fighter, the added ability to adjust parameters on the keyboard made the game a lot more interesting. Since they have focused on console games, however, it seems the features have been stripped out to make the new games work with the simpler controller of console games. I've been disappointed with the Rougue squadon game demos and beyond, and haven't bought a space shooter since x-wing alliance.
"Adding WMA to the iPod is ludicrous "
Why? Every music outlet other than iTMS sels WMA. So you're saying it's ludicrous to give customers a choice as to where they can buy songs online for their iPod? Isn't this the same mentality that has condemned people who want to run MacOS to be forced to buy Apple proprietary hardware, with the result that Apple only has a niche market? Apple should learn from their mistakes, or their iPod sales may drop to the market share their Macs currently have, when people figure out there are lower cost alternatives to the iPod, that support songs from every other music download sight on the planet.
"Best quote? 'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.' Nice to see they're still user-oriented.""
/. talking about hardware hacking projects for geeks and wondering about /. hypocrisy from the editors.
I won't even bother pointing out how this quote was taken out of context, but I will mention that I'm looking at some stupid ad on
"Rob Glaser of RealNetworks, though, claims that not opening the iPod (big or small) to other formats is a real mistake; he wants to see iPod support other proprietary formats (like, say, Real's)." He might as well just sue Apple for anti-trust violations since the have such a big market share, that it might as well constitute a monopoly. After all, that's what Real is doing successfully in Europe against Microsoft. He should force Apple to ship the iPod without any codecs because only shipping with the AAC codec hurts consumers. Consumers would be much better off if they had to download the codec of their choice themselves, or let the OEM choose. I'm being sarcastic if you can't tell.
" If I would rather directly pay artists than go through the industry, I should have the option to do so. It is not the RIAA's work which I am purchasing, but rather the work of the artist."
If it weren't for record labels, you would have never heard the music you listen too. Claiming the play no role shows you are completely ignorant. These artists have already agreed voluntarily with the terms given by the record labels. Your attitude that stealing music is ok because you go to concerts is absurd. You are hurting the artists by hurting the industry that gets them their start and keeps them out of blue collar jobs. Record labels are the venture captialists of the music industry, and without their support, you are left with a lot of starving artists.
" I hope that the EU actually sticks by its guns. That is one thing the US has not done. I hope the EU sticks to a punishment because M$ gets away with it they will only cross that line a little further if they end up getting off."
Yeah, those evil Microsoft bastards. How dare those tyrants bundle a media player with their operating system. We need a fair playing field so people can choose quicktime instead, like on the Apple platform..., oh wait Apple bundles quicktime with their os, never mind. Anyway, the destruction of consumer choice of MS must be remedied by destroying their right to choose what to bundle with their OS. How else would we show how hypocritical we are if we didn't affirm one man's choice by denying another man his choice.
In summary, the plaintiff is annoyed that he has to track down authors to get permission to publish their books online. So he wants the law to change back so that authors need to be burdened with paperwork and fees to obtain copyright because he doesn't want to spend the time and money getting permission from the authors. Standard practice of trying to use the govt. to make your life easier at the expense of someone elses constitutional rights.
"I'm not only worried about viruses and spam levels. Part of the reason the MPAA and RIAA are taking such an interest in Internet activity is that file sharing has become so much easier with the availability of broadband, and as usual there are murmerings of regulation. Before the broadband revolution, the involvement of the MPAA and RIAA in Internet affairs was small, and their argument was less convincing. "
If you're using the internet to violate copyright laws, that is not an exercise in freedom, but instead an exercise infringing on someone elses rights. The fact that you weren't caught before doesn't mean the internet is becoming less free. It means there is less anarchy on the internet.
"and he doubts the devices would change the consumer electronics landscape in any way."
Assuming there will ever be a way to buy or rent movies online someday, this device could be big with travelers. You rent a couple of movies upload them to the device, and go hop on a plane and watch what you want. Or you can watch movies to and from work if you use mass transit. What would be even better is a link to digital satellite tv, so you can watch the news or somethin during your commute. Calling it an iPod kill is silly, though, because it isn't designed to compete with iPod. Ultimately iPod and this device will become obsolete when you can get wireless access in a device for ~$500, play video, play audio, surf web, check e-mail, make phone calls. etc. That's the ultimate PDA, that devices such as iPod only perform a subset of functions.
" It's called an iBook. It's priced at 20-ish precent more than the quoted device price for this new Microsoft offering."
$1100 for the cheapest iBook is closer to 40% more than $800. If you want a laptop that really is 20% more than this new gizmo (and a million times more useful), try Compaq notbooks with AMD processors. (and you get a bigger screen than the iBook).
" I'm glad to see that at least Europe still has some functioning antitrust laws, unlike the US where antitrust laws were effectively gutted by the judiciary."
anit-trust laws are designed to protect consumers. Yet all the case you site have companies as the plaintiff. Anti-trust laws are abused all the time by companies that can't compete to loot companies that do better than they do. Not surprising, since whenever a govt. enacts a law that attacks individual freedom, no matter what good they think they're doing, it will inevitably be abused by someone who is interested in theft disguised as "justice". MS has paid billions of dollars now to consumers who claim they didn't have freedom of choice, when they had the freedom to walk away at any time and find a different product. Likewise companies have no right to use the govt to point guns at MS to make it easier for them. But this all passes as "justice" in our "progressive" society that attack those that can, because of someone's need outweighs their right to freedom.
Enforcing copyright does not contradict capitalism. It merely prevents a thief from stealing your work and selling it as his own. Saying copyright is at odds with capitalism is like saying patent laws or theft is against captialism. If someone breaks into your store and steal your stuff, he can sell it below the price you can, which is a violation of an individual right. antitrust laws also violate individual rights by assuming that a basic right to sell something in a manner of your choosing is not your right, because a consumer has a need for the product. Basically MS is being made a slave to the consumer and other companies using guns pointed at it by the EU. The only way to cast off the yoke of slavery is to quit the business altogether.
In the 19th century a patent was for a very specific widget, and a detailed design was presented. So, the idea of photography could not be patented, but only a specific method of creating a photograph. Therefore, improvements in photography wpuld not be hampered by patents. Today, however, it appears possible to patent vaugue concepts that are explained by drawing a couple of boxes, such as streaming video, 1-click shopping, launching a helper application, etc. It seems that the new ideas about what a patent should allow, not the old ideas, are the ones that are flawed.