A law defining copyright infringement as a type of theft is as logically invalid as passing a law defining January as the beginning of summer so people will stop complaining about the cold weather.
"The life of the law is experience not logic."
In the american system, theft is whatever the statutes define as theft. You can't force the Congress to accept Webster's defintion or your own as binding.
That is why "theft of services" and the expanded criminalization of copyright infringement are folded into legislation like the "No Electronic Theft Act."
Copyright infringement deprives no one of real property
You can pursue this argument with your mates at Club Fed. It's just a way to pass the time. Whether the judge calls it theft or you call it applesauce doesn't really matter very much.
Except for the reality of the situation that one is theft and one isnt.
Would it make you happier if copyright infringement was finally defined as theft in the criminal code and not simply in legislation? ( The NET Act, No Electronic Theft)
Because that is as far as this argument can take you.
The judge isn't going to care whether you were caught boosting a car on a reservation in New Mexico or handing out DVDs to twenty million of your best friends on Kazaa.
In the western mind, all crimes against property can be defined as theft and intangible property is still property: "He who steals my good name steals all." Piracy, in the sense of copyright infringement, entered the language while the Black Flag still flew over the Caribbean.
It was Wal-Mart, the only retail company in the World big enough to kick Microsoft's ass down the street like a leaf in the wind, that did the Linspire thing, right?
Walmart has been hurt by the defection of its middle class customers to competitors like Target. Walmart is moving uptown. Linspire is out. The X-Box 360 and Media Center PC are in.
Buying a PC as a "media center" is really rather ridiculous. It's expensive and redundant compared to the myriad other "embedded systems" one can go with
To think of the media center PC simply as a glorified PVR is a mistake.
The media center PC takes a powerful computer into a new environment. Its uses and potential are not yet fully understood and defined.
how long until someone builds a FOSS PC-based system that is so inexpensive that MS can't hope to compete?
Microsoft can offer DRM'd media content from the majors.
In a world where Harry Potter has made J.K.Rowling richer than the Queen of England, that is generally considered a plus.
The cold truth is that even Walmart hasn't shown it can significantly undercut OEM Windows on price.
And FWIW, you can ALWAYS take an obsolete box, install the latest Linux distro onto it, and breathe new life back into that puppy like you wouldn't believe.
This assumes there is no fundamental change in how a PC is used.
Vista for the home is a media center oriented OS and specifically an HD-media oriented OS. Audio and video. In 2006 that is marketable, in 2009, and beyond, that may be essential.
Traditionally you exit your burning house ASAP and call from a house next door...
"Next door" to my father's place is the farmhouse a mile down the road. "Next door" assumes you are in a condition to walk or drive. That your judgement is not impaired.
I have vivid memories still of my one and only experience with carbon monoxide poisoning.
This is no different than the 911 service on PSTN (regular phone service).
I have never been put on hold by 911 and this is a number I have had to dial more often than I care to think about. Chronic illness in the family. Fire and accidents.
if the gaming industry sees a solid business case (as in, they end up with more money), then maybe the MPAA will see the light as well
There is little chance of that, I think. The import market for games and videos is small. Different languages, different cultures. Different tastes in entertainment. Think of something as simple as the sea-change in the latest Harry Potter when it migrates from the U.K. to the states.
You were expecting novelty in a sports simulation? This is social gaming. The general idea is to capture the game-day experience, almost always as it seen on TV.
These arguments--organization, quality, readability--seem the strongest, to me, in favor of an encyclopedia with strong editorial control
The Britannica's editors have had 200 years to think about the organization of knowledge and were doing some very interesting things long before the computer.
Albert Einstein, on Space-Time, Sigmund Freud on Psychoanalysis, Bruno Bettelheim, on the psychology of the Nazi death camps, Thomas Malthus, on population, Lawrence of Arabia, on guerrilla warfare, George Bernard Shaw on Socialism, W.E.B Du Bois...
Men and women of extraordinary accomplishment, masters of English prose, summing up a generation of scholarship for the curious reader. That is the Britannica at its best.
The home market is the OEM system install. The PC as a plug and play appliance. In this market, the only Beagle anyone has ever heard of is Snoopy.
OEM Linux at Walmart.com is shrinking inexorably towards a single mediocre Microtel box. While the chain toys with HTPC (running Windows) at $1200-$2000.
Chicken Little cries of "DRM! The sky is falling!"are ignored at retail. It isn't hurting sales of HDTV and the next-gen game consoles, it won't hurt Vista.
But it is a killer for OEM distros like Linspire, which needs to get hardware on the shelves at Target. Where aftermarket sales of video and games are a leg up for Windows.
Microsoft has been in the home for twenty-five years. This is infinitely more important to users than the state of the Linux desktop.
Mac users upgrade within the Mac family, Windows users within the Windows family. Neither have shown the slightest inclination to switch to an alternative OS in the numbers which matter.
I do understand that you're living in a nice developed country, and you can give away 20% of your monthly paycheck for original software. This is the way it should be.
Photoshop isn't an indulgence for the professional. It is a part of his basic tool kit and its purpose is to make him money. The same can be said for Office.
In the states, a single pair of ink jet cartridges costs $50 and will need to be replenished after about three months of casual use.
Joe will upgrade Office when he upgrades his PC. For Joe, MS Office is a trivial expense when compared to the cost of consumables. Is it that different in the third world?
Joe Average doesn't care. He's just fine with his pirated Windows, pirated Office, pirated Photoshop, pirated Maya, pirated this and pirated that.
In plain English, the proprietary alternative still looks better or more convenient.
I'd rather say that pirated copies of MS Office are the main showstopper for wide adoption of OOo.
Office Home (retail boxed, no academic ID required) lists for $150 US with a three-seat license. OEM Small Business Edition, $200.
MS Office is priced for the middle class, Microsoft's core market.
Free-as-in-beer has never been a middle class ideal or obsession. Talk of piracy hints at the adolescent's all-purpose excuse for failure: "It's not my fault!"
OpenOffice.org training they can't even give away.
In the states, classes in MS Office is are close as the your neighborhood public library, high school or community center.
Certification programs for the disabled and those on welfare are often free. Their ticket out of sub-minimum wage jobs.
can't understand why businesses seem so happy dropping so much money on Office, and aren't willing to investigate alternatives
L.A., New York, the high Artic or the Mississippi Delta, it doesn't matter.
You can draw on a skilled labor pool age 16 to 75.
If you need to build a customized office suite for any purpose whatsoever, the essential components will be in MS Office, available as an Office plug-in, or work-alike third-party app.
We all, and Bill Gates and even Wallstreet know that if all software available for Windos were available for OSX and Linux as well, with no difference in price, support or ease of installation, Windos market share would drop faster than you can possibly sell your M$ shares.
When the installed base is measured in the hundreds of millions of systems, migration to an alternative OS is glacially slow. It might not be happening at all.
Linux needs the crucial "early adopters" in the home market who are willing to put up with its faults to have the latest and greatest. Those early adopters would then drive sales of OEM Linux machines.
MSDOS and Windows have been in the home for twenty-five years. To be an influential early adopter you have to be there, well, early.
Linux will give the kids a harder time, and they will be disappointed that they can't run all the software that they expected. However, it will be a learning experience for them.
The worst possible answer.
These kids have had all the "learning experiences" they can stand. If Windows is everywhere in their lives but on these donor PCs, you are headed for trouble.
The lone iMac donated to our village library is mounted low and is perfectly placed by the children's section, where it simply gathers dust.
The kids bee-line to the big black Dells "just like" the ones they use at home. That users of every age are welcomed in the Reading Room is surely part of its appeal.
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"The life of the law is experience not logic."
In the american system, theft is whatever the statutes define as theft. You can't force the Congress to accept Webster's defintion or your own as binding.
That is why "theft of services" and the expanded criminalization of copyright infringement are folded into legislation like the "No Electronic Theft Act."
Copyright infringement deprives no one of real property
You can pursue this argument with your mates at Club Fed. It's just a way to pass the time. Whether the judge calls it theft or you call it applesauce doesn't really matter very much.
Would it make you happier if copyright infringement was finally defined as theft in the criminal code and not simply in legislation? ( The NET Act, No Electronic Theft)
Because that is as far as this argument can take you.
The judge isn't going to care whether you were caught boosting a car on a reservation in New Mexico or handing out DVDs to twenty million of your best friends on Kazaa.
In the western mind, all crimes against property can be defined as theft and intangible property is still property: "He who steals my good name steals all." Piracy, in the sense of copyright infringement, entered the language while the Black Flag still flew over the Caribbean.
Walmart has been hurt by the defection of its middle class customers to competitors like Target. Walmart is moving uptown. Linspire is out. The X-Box 360 and Media Center PC are in.
To think of the media center PC simply as a glorified PVR is a mistake.
The media center PC takes a powerful computer into a new environment. Its uses and potential are not yet fully understood and defined.
how long until someone builds a FOSS PC-based system that is so inexpensive that MS can't hope to compete?
Microsoft can offer DRM'd media content from the majors.
In a world where Harry Potter has made J.K.Rowling richer than the Queen of England, that is generally considered a plus.
The cold truth is that even Walmart hasn't shown it can significantly undercut OEM Windows on price.
This assumes there is no fundamental change in how a PC is used.
Vista for the home is a media center oriented OS and specifically an HD-media oriented OS. Audio and video. In 2006 that is marketable, in 2009, and beyond, that may be essential.
RCA had one and only one priority in the fifties and sixties: Television.
In your dreams.
The PC had been sold as a plug and play home appliance and office machine for over twenty-five years.
The OS free system is for the institutional buyer and the Geek. It is not mass-market.
The prime market for Netflix and download services is middle class and suburban. Bandwith is cheap, postage is cheap.
Instant gratification isn't worth a weekend run into town.
Retail boxed Student-Teacher Office 2003 is sold everywhere in the states, no academic ID required.
The next version dispenses with the fiction of academic distribution and will simply be called MS Office Home. The same three-seat licensing.
OneNote replaces Outlook.
Vista will have an upgraded Windows Mail client and iCal calendaring.
I was a little surprised to learn that the Usenet client survives in Windows Mail.
"Next door" to my father's place is the farmhouse a mile down the road. "Next door" assumes you are in a condition to walk or drive. That your judgement is not impaired.
I have vivid memories still of my one and only experience with carbon monoxide poisoning.
I have never been put on hold by 911 and this is a number I have had to dial more often than I care to think about. Chronic illness in the family. Fire and accidents.
The entertainment business is cyclical.
The video game industry has crashed and burned before, it will crash and burn again.
There is little chance of that, I think. The import market for games and videos is small. Different languages, different cultures. Different tastes in entertainment. Think of something as simple as the sea-change in the latest Harry Potter when it migrates from the U.K. to the states.
You were expecting novelty in a sports simulation? This is social gaming. The general idea is to capture the game-day experience, almost always as it seen on TV.
The Britannica's editors have had 200 years to think about the organization of knowledge and were doing some very interesting things long before the computer.
The Britannica has been in print since 1768.
Albert Einstein, on Space-Time, Sigmund Freud on Psychoanalysis, Bruno Bettelheim, on the psychology of the Nazi death camps, Thomas Malthus, on population, Lawrence of Arabia, on guerrilla warfare, George Bernard Shaw on Socialism, W.E.B Du Bois...
Men and women of extraordinary accomplishment, masters of English prose, summing up a generation of scholarship for the curious reader. That is the Britannica at its best.
Business 101. The real money is in mass market sales.
Dell's move into the HDTV market seems to have been rather successful. Dell 50" Plasma TV
While normal people continue to buy a lot of computers from Dell.
The home market is the OEM system install. The PC as a plug and play appliance. In this market, the only Beagle anyone has ever heard of is Snoopy.
OEM Linux at Walmart.com is shrinking inexorably towards a single mediocre Microtel box. While the chain toys with HTPC (running Windows) at $1200-$2000.
Chicken Little cries of "DRM! The sky is falling!"are ignored at retail. It isn't hurting sales of HDTV and the next-gen game consoles, it won't hurt Vista.
But it is a killer for OEM distros like Linspire, which needs to get hardware on the shelves at Target. Where aftermarket sales of video and games are a leg up for Windows.
Microsoft has been in the home for twenty-five years. This is infinitely more important to users than the state of the Linux desktop.
Mac users upgrade within the Mac family, Windows users within the Windows family. Neither have shown the slightest inclination to switch to an alternative OS in the numbers which matter.
Photoshop isn't an indulgence for the professional. It is a part of his basic tool kit and its purpose is to make him money. The same can be said for Office.
In the states, a single pair of ink jet cartridges costs $50 and will need to be replenished after about three months of casual use.
Joe will upgrade Office when he upgrades his PC. For Joe, MS Office is a trivial expense when compared to the cost of consumables. Is it that different in the third world?
Joe Average doesn't care. He's just fine with his pirated Windows, pirated Office, pirated Photoshop, pirated Maya, pirated this and pirated that.
In plain English, the proprietary alternative still looks better or more convenient.
Office Home (retail boxed, no academic ID required) lists for $150 US with a three-seat license. OEM Small Business Edition, $200.
MS Office is priced for the middle class, Microsoft's core market.
Free-as-in-beer has never been a middle class ideal or obsession. Talk of piracy hints at the adolescent's all-purpose excuse for failure: "It's not my fault!"
In the states, classes in MS Office is are close as the your neighborhood public library, high school or community center.
Certification programs for the disabled and those on welfare are often free. Their ticket out of sub-minimum wage jobs.
can't understand why businesses seem so happy dropping so much money on Office, and aren't willing to investigate alternatives
L.A., New York, the high Artic or the Mississippi Delta, it doesn't matter.
You can draw on a skilled labor pool age 16 to 75.
If you need to build a customized office suite for any purpose whatsoever, the essential components will be in MS Office, available as an Office plug-in, or work-alike third-party app.
--- ten years out of Beta.
When the installed base is measured in the hundreds of millions of systems, migration to an alternative OS is glacially slow. It might not be happening at all.
MSDOS and Windows have been in the home for twenty-five years. To be an influential early adopter you have to be there, well, early.
The worst possible answer.
These kids have had all the "learning experiences" they can stand. If Windows is everywhere in their lives but on these donor PCs, you are headed for trouble.
The lone iMac donated to our village library is mounted low and is perfectly placed by the children's section, where it simply gathers dust.
The kids bee-line to the big black Dells "just like" the ones they use at home. That users of every age are welcomed in the Reading Room is surely part of its appeal.