"And the faster that Apple provides the genesis for 64-bit user software, the faster the PC world will be dragged along kicking and screaming, to the benefit of us all."
AMD and Intel already have 64-bit chips that you can buy today. Apple is behind, despite Jobs bogus announcement of the first 64-bit pc. An AMD 64-bit workstation is cheaper than the lowest available 64-bit Mac.
The only reason webcasting is legal at all is the GOVT. decided it had to be legal and a fee system was set up to compensate the copyright holder. If the RIAA had its way, things would be different. Not surprising that someone now wants to exploit a decision by the govt. that limited the RIAAs freedom to sell their property in a manner they see fit. Basically, a system like this will give the RIAA ammunition to go back to the govt and say "see, I told you webcasting was evil. People are buying songs using webcasting for 0.07 cents per song that you made us sell for, instead of the $1 per song that the free market is willing to pay." Next thing you know, the govt will outlaw wevcasting, or at least enforce DRM encryption to stop the end-user from saving the stream.
What's your point. That's how free market works. If there are 100 bands fighting for 1 contract, if your band isn't particularly special, of course you can't negotiate terms other bands are willing to accept. I don't understand what you think is unfair with this concept. Why do you describe the contract as "draconian" when both parties agrred to it freely? That term implies a use of force. Both parties are free to walk away if they don't like the terms. If a band gets screwed, it's their own fault. In reality there are a thousand bands that would trade places with these bands that got "screwed".
Oh God. Not another "music isn't as good today as when I was growing up" comment. Give me a break. There are plenty of good and crappy bands getting airplay today, just like a decade ago.
"Why hasn't anyone else pieced together that lasting culture is defined by that which is freely available for use by all."
Because that statement is false. When was the last time you went to a museum and saw stuff that was done for free. Whether it's a painting, a sculpture, a piece of clothing or furniture or clothing, etc, someone probably got paid to make it, and it's been traded ever since.
"Hollywood has routinely benefitted from the expiration of copyright, despite their adamant pressure on Capitol Hill to extend copyright almost indefinitely."
This staement is somewhat naive. What you mean is that some people in Hollywood could take advantage of the works of other people in Hollywood, with whom the are competing against, if copyrights expired sooner. This means that company b benefits at the expense of company a. So, although Hollywood possibly did generate more revenue as a whole, company a got screwed out of its share of that revenue. Whether or not the current copyright limit is fair, the arguement should be stated better.
" But how many more times can these types of bills be defeated? It'll only take one to get through, and we head down the slippery slope..."
I have two problems with your arguement. 1. The slippery slope arguement is a fallacy. A law passed on a particular issue does not mean further laws will necessarily be passed on that issue. 2. Law makers can pass all the laws they want, but if they're unconstitutional, as the courts seem to be saying, they will all be struck down.
" Yeah, it is amazing how many people don't understand 1984. By the way, did you read it?" br.yes. Orwell is decribing a society where the govt. has an agenda other than protecting individual freedoms. It therefore controls information by controlling the press, and even rewriting history when necessary. Surveilance was bad in 1984 because the information was used to limit a person's freedom, rather than protect it. Now, one must always be on watch when the govt. collects information, which is why a democratic govt. and a free press are essentials. But I'm sick of people assuming any form of govt information gathering automatically implies a police state. They have the cause and effect backwards.
"Anyway, the studios should make money where the consumer wants to spend it, and stop whinging when their lack of innovation stops them from earning."
From the article, clearly people have shifted spending money from buying cds to buying concert tix, as you say. So therefore, the economy isn't the reason cd sales are down. Given that music is no worse or better than before, decline in cd sales is looking more like a result of Kazaa, etc and cd burners. Justifying this by saying I don't have a legal alterntive is BS. You have no right to demand that someone provide you with a product under your conditions, and then steal it when they refuse. Your comment shows a a disturbing lack of respect for a basic freedom.
"The concert business has never been bigger, in dissonant contrast to the recorded-music business. While music sales have dropped for three years in a row, from $13 billion to $11.5 billion in 2002, hurt by Napster-style digital piracy and a lackluster flow of hot new acts, the tour business has climbed for four years straight, from $1.3 billion in 1998 to $2.1 billion last year."
So, if cd sales are dropping because of the bad economy, as/.ers claim, and not because of Kazaa, etc., then why have concert revenues been increasing over the last few years? The answer, cd sales are not down because of the bad economy, because then we'd see at least some correlation between concert sales and cd sales trends.
" Wow, this is a step up from not reading the article. You didn't even read the post you're responding to."
Apparently YOU can't read your OWN post. You said enemy combatants, not enemy combatants who are US citizens. There are only 2 on record that I know of, and one's going on trial soon.
"And the Moslems who were locked up weren't locked up because they were illegal immigrants. They were locked up because they were Moslems."
So you want them to lock up other illegal immigrants as well just to be politically correct? They're looking for Muslim extremists, so of course they're investigating Muslim illegal immigrants. Why waste resources locking up and investigating other illegal immigrants who most likely pose less of a threat to avoid the appearance of a bias, when reason dictates that if you're searching for Muslim extremists among illegal immigrants, you should be investigating Muslims illegal immigrants.
It's amazing how many people do not understand 1984. If you did, you'd be spending more time complaining about what's going on in N. Korea and Iran, and less time claiming the US govt. is big brother because they have wiretapping ability.
""Enemy combatants" who never fired a shot at the US get locked up without legal counsel, and without even knowing the charges against them, for over a year and counting."
Yeah, we should let them go so they can kill more US soldiers in Afghanistan.
"Immigrants who are muslim locked up for a year or more without access to legal counsel, and without knowing the charges against them and often there aren't any!"
They're illegal immigrants. They've already broken at least one law.
The sad part is no one here cares about (and many support) a number of laws such as antitrust, rent-control, power regulation, welfare, social security, tax code, etc. that all are fundamental violations of freedom, but if law enforcement bugs your phone, you cry foul. Get your priorities straight.
" Granting Sun a warrant to buy shares, eh? Sounds pretty overconfident to me. I'll hop right on that bandwagon and buy into the sinking ship!"
Sun is already on board that ship, like it or not, as they are another proprietary unix vendor. They have an even greater interest in seeing linux fail than MS, since linux success will kill their business far sooner than MS's, or at best turn them into another high end pc maker who can't overcharge customers for hardware like they do now.
Yes, I wish we could mod down front page posts that contain lines like "Finally, though Microsoft is not mentioned, people might start to understand what a monoculture of poor quality software enables.". That's clearly flamebait. The poster must be clueless if he thinks OSS is immune to exploits.
I think the parent's point was that it was NOT OSS that innovated, but proprietary software developers. Arguing about whether it was MS or IBM is sidestepping the point.
more like, David (independent webcaster) can't take on Goliath (radio), so tells God (the govt.) to give him a bigger sling shot (let them play RIAA music nearly for free).
I doubt the RIAA is worried about music cooperatives. There are already hundreds of indie labels out there. Music labels are the banks of the music industry. They decide who is worth investing in, and take the risks on artists they think will be popular. This function is necessary to sort through all the crap out there, unless radio stations want to take on this risk themselves, which they haven't done for the most part for some time now (except college radio)
You'd think in a free society that the owner of a copyrighted work could choose the price to allow it to be broadcast. Not so in the USA, however. Antitrust is an affront to basic freedoms. You do not have a right to someone elses work at a price of your choosing.
"What are the other 9% thinking? Does anyone out there believe that SCO's and IBM's contractual dispute can do anything to make Linux liable in any way?"
The short answer, yes. Given licensing agreements provided by Red Hat, etc. the end user may be liable.
"(Event SCO itself said that Linux users are not going to be liable in any case)."
I believ SCO said they would not go after non-corporate linux users.
To expound on your thoughts a little bit, I think the govt. could abuse this technology if they wanted to. However, what 1984 crying wolf types forget is that only a govt bent on it's own aims rather than insuring individual freedoms for its constituants would abuse such a system. Luckily in a free society, the free press can act as a watchdog for us and prevent govts. from abusing their power by giving us the information to make good decisions during elections. That said, rather than focusing our energy on banishing RFID technology, which does have good uses, it may be better to focus our energy on correcting real abuses of the govt with the power we've given them.
RFID's are usefull because you can walk around with a laptop and ping everything in the store, and have a complete inventory in a matter of seconds to minutes, depending on the range of the tranceivers. Try doing that with a barcode scanner.
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"And the faster that Apple provides the genesis for 64-bit user software, the faster the PC world will be dragged along kicking and screaming, to the benefit of us all."
AMD and Intel already have 64-bit chips that you can buy today. Apple is behind, despite Jobs bogus announcement of the first 64-bit pc. An AMD 64-bit workstation is cheaper than the lowest available 64-bit Mac.
The only reason webcasting is legal at all is the GOVT. decided it had to be legal and a fee system was set up to compensate the copyright holder. If the RIAA had its way, things would be different. Not surprising that someone now wants to exploit a decision by the govt. that limited the RIAAs freedom to sell their property in a manner they see fit. Basically, a system like this will give the RIAA ammunition to go back to the govt and say "see, I told you webcasting was evil. People are buying songs using webcasting for 0.07 cents per song that you made us sell for, instead of the $1 per song that the free market is willing to pay." Next thing you know, the govt will outlaw wevcasting, or at least enforce DRM encryption to stop the end-user from saving the stream.
What's your point. That's how free market works. If there are 100 bands fighting for 1 contract, if your band isn't particularly special, of course you can't negotiate terms other bands are willing to accept. I don't understand what you think is unfair with this concept. Why do you describe the contract as "draconian" when both parties agrred to it freely? That term implies a use of force. Both parties are free to walk away if they don't like the terms. If a band gets screwed, it's their own fault. In reality there are a thousand bands that would trade places with these bands that got "screwed".
Oh God. Not another "music isn't as good today as when I was growing up" comment. Give me a break. There are plenty of good and crappy bands getting airplay today, just like a decade ago.
"Why hasn't anyone else pieced together that lasting culture is defined by that which is freely available for use by all."
Because that statement is false. When was the last time you went to a museum and saw stuff that was done for free. Whether it's a painting, a sculpture, a piece of clothing or furniture or clothing, etc, someone probably got paid to make it, and it's been traded ever since.
"Hollywood has routinely benefitted from the expiration of copyright, despite their adamant pressure on Capitol Hill to extend copyright almost indefinitely."
This staement is somewhat naive. What you mean is that some people in Hollywood could take advantage of the works of other people in Hollywood, with whom the are competing against, if copyrights expired sooner. This means that company b benefits at the expense of company a. So, although Hollywood possibly did generate more revenue as a whole, company a got screwed out of its share of that revenue. Whether or not the current copyright limit is fair, the arguement should be stated better.
" But how many more times can these types of bills be defeated? It'll only take one to get through, and we head down the slippery slope..."
I have two problems with your arguement.
1. The slippery slope arguement is a fallacy. A law passed on a particular issue does not mean further laws will necessarily be passed on that issue.
2. Law makers can pass all the laws they want, but if they're unconstitutional, as the courts seem to be saying, they will all be struck down.
" Yeah, it is amazing how many people don't understand 1984. By the way, did you read it?"
br.yes. Orwell is decribing a society where the govt. has an agenda other than protecting individual freedoms. It therefore controls information by controlling the press, and even rewriting history when necessary. Surveilance was bad in 1984 because the information was used to limit a person's freedom, rather than protect it. Now, one must always be on watch when the govt. collects information, which is why a democratic govt. and a free press are essentials. But I'm sick of people assuming any form of govt information gathering automatically implies a police state. They have the cause and effect backwards.
"Anyway, the studios should make money where the consumer wants to spend it, and stop whinging when their lack of innovation stops them from earning."
From the article, clearly people have shifted spending money from buying cds to buying concert tix, as you say. So therefore, the economy isn't the reason cd sales are down. Given that music is no worse or better than before, decline in cd sales is looking more like a result of Kazaa, etc and cd burners. Justifying this by saying I don't have a legal alterntive is BS. You have no right to demand that someone provide you with a product under your conditions, and then steal it when they refuse. Your comment shows a a disturbing lack of respect for a basic freedom.
"The concert business has never been bigger, in dissonant contrast to the recorded-music business. While music sales have dropped for three years in a row, from $13 billion to $11.5 billion in 2002, hurt by Napster-style digital piracy and a lackluster flow of hot new acts, the tour business has climbed for four years straight, from $1.3 billion in 1998 to $2.1 billion last year."
/.ers claim, and not because of Kazaa, etc., then why have concert revenues been increasing over the last few years? The answer, cd sales are not down because of the bad economy, because then we'd see at least some correlation between concert sales and cd sales trends.
So, if cd sales are dropping because of the bad economy, as
" Wow, this is a step up from not reading the article. You didn't even read the post you're responding to."
Apparently YOU can't read your OWN post. You said enemy combatants, not enemy combatants who are US citizens. There are only 2 on record that I know of, and one's going on trial soon.
"And the Moslems who were locked up weren't locked up because they were illegal immigrants. They were locked up because they were Moslems."
So you want them to lock up other illegal immigrants as well just to be politically correct? They're looking for Muslim extremists, so of course they're investigating Muslim illegal immigrants. Why waste resources locking up and investigating other illegal immigrants who most likely pose less of a threat to avoid the appearance of a bias, when reason dictates that if you're searching for Muslim extremists among illegal immigrants, you should be investigating Muslims illegal immigrants.
It's amazing how many people do not understand 1984. If you did, you'd be spending more time complaining about what's going on in N. Korea and Iran, and less time claiming the US govt. is big brother because they have wiretapping ability.
""Enemy combatants" who never fired a shot at the US get locked up without legal counsel, and without even knowing the charges against them, for over a year and counting."
Yeah, we should let them go so they can kill more US soldiers in Afghanistan.
"Immigrants who are muslim locked up for a year or more without access to legal counsel, and without knowing the charges against them and often there aren't any!"
They're illegal immigrants. They've already broken at least one law.
The sad part is no one here cares about (and many support) a number of laws such as antitrust, rent-control, power regulation, welfare, social security, tax code, etc. that all are fundamental violations of freedom, but if law enforcement bugs your phone, you cry foul. Get your priorities straight.
" Granting Sun a warrant to buy shares, eh? Sounds pretty overconfident to me. I'll hop right on that bandwagon and buy into the sinking ship!"
Sun is already on board that ship, like it or not, as they are another proprietary unix vendor. They have an even greater interest in seeing linux fail than MS, since linux success will kill their business far sooner than MS's, or at best turn them into another high end pc maker who can't overcharge customers for hardware like they do now.
Yes, I wish we could mod down front page posts that contain lines like "Finally, though Microsoft is not mentioned, people might start to understand what a monoculture of poor quality software enables.". That's clearly flamebait. The poster must be clueless if he thinks OSS is immune to exploits.
I think the parent's point was that it was NOT OSS that innovated, but proprietary software developers. Arguing about whether it was MS or IBM is sidestepping the point.
Netflix has made a business out of shipping data via snail mail, since the bandwidth isn't really there yet to do it over the internet.
more like, David (independent webcaster) can't take on Goliath (radio), so tells God (the govt.) to give him a bigger sling shot (let them play RIAA music nearly for free).
I doubt the RIAA is worried about music cooperatives. There are already hundreds of indie labels out there. Music labels are the banks of the music industry. They decide who is worth investing in, and take the risks on artists they think will be popular. This function is necessary to sort through all the crap out there, unless radio stations want to take on this risk themselves, which they haven't done for the most part for some time now (except college radio)
You'd think in a free society that the owner of a copyrighted work could choose the price to allow it to be broadcast. Not so in the USA, however. Antitrust is an affront to basic freedoms. You do not have a right to someone elses work at a price of your choosing.
Do you have a reference for this accusation. It sounds like BS to me.
"What are the other 9% thinking? Does anyone out there believe that SCO's and IBM's contractual dispute can do anything to make Linux liable in any way?"
The short answer, yes. Given licensing agreements provided by Red Hat, etc. the end user may be liable.
"(Event SCO itself said that Linux users are not going to be liable in any case)."
I believ SCO said they would not go after non-corporate linux users.
To expound on your thoughts a little bit, I think the govt. could abuse this technology if they wanted to. However, what 1984 crying wolf types forget is that only a govt bent on it's own aims rather than insuring individual freedoms for its constituants would abuse such a system. Luckily in a free society, the free press can act as a watchdog for us and prevent govts. from abusing their power by giving us the information to make good decisions during elections. That said, rather than focusing our energy on banishing RFID technology, which does have good uses, it may be better to focus our energy on correcting real abuses of the govt with the power we've given them.
Given that a serial number is on every bill, it's not anonymous now if someone's willing to take the initiative.
RFID's are usefull because you can walk around with a laptop and ping everything in the store, and have a complete inventory in a matter of seconds to minutes, depending on the range of the tranceivers. Try doing that with a barcode scanner.