their server ranges don't do terribly well, the Apple TV was rather a flop and the MacBook Air didn't do particularly well for example, although you might be right in that they still turn a profit at least which means I suppose even there they can be called a success however small, but certainly not something that really generates worthwhile revenue.
I agree that none of these are defining their relative market,s but none of them appear to be losing money. Also, none of these have been major focuses of Apple's attention. Not necessarily saying that they'd do better if Apple (Jobs) loved them more, but that what they do focus their attention and profits on all have turned into big profit centers. Microsoft OTOH has spend a lot of their time, attention and money on the entertainment division and for what?
– A game station that is respectable, but barely above break even after all these years (I own an original Xbox).
– A music player that is still best compared to the iPod of 2 to 3 years ago (only ever seen one of them in person).
– A tween targeted phone that was on the market for a total of a couple of months before they pulled it.
There's also some pretty solid signs that they're facing increased competition from Android and Nokia and Windows 7 phones aren't out the game yet- they could still come back and re-take a decent share of the smartphone market and the danger here for Apple is that with the new breed of phones any loss in phone sales wont see an increase again in iPods because people's new phones even if not Apple phones will do the trick more so than they used to.
You can make an argument for Android, it'd be hard to defend that argument for Nokia, and until it's actually released Windows 7 is vaporware. All the reviews I've read of the pre-release windows 7 phone (including one by a reviewer that original raved about its potential) is that it is comparable to iOS 1.0 at best and sucks donkey balls at worst. Now, maybe Microsoft will polish that turd enough to make it a big hit. Stranger things have happened. However, as I pointed out before Microsoft has a horrible track record with this kind of maneuver (It could be freudian that I original misspelled maneuver as manure) in the consumer electronics market. Also, as I pointed out above, the iPod is still doing very well despite your impressions.
Further, Apple is somewhat restricted demographically too, it's largely limited to the West, the iPhone has effectively flopped in India, China and Africa, because Apple only has individual model of the iPhones and it's simply too expensive for these markets- this leaves Apple with a dilemma, does it just ignore those markets and hope to continue to simply out-compete the competition in existing markets, or does it consider changing it's business model and introduce a budget iPhone much like with the iPod Nano and Shuffle to compete in these markets?
News that Apple has flopped in India is exactly that, News to me. Do you have a citation? Not being snarky, just looking to see what I may have missed. According to the same Q3 conference call I referenced earlier Apple is seeing strong growth in Asia, Europe, and Japan and Asia generally includes both India and China. With regards to China specifically, the reasons I've s
– Profits are more important than Revenue
– Profits are profits, doesn't matter whether they are from HW or SW
– Microsoft has greater profits than Apple still
– Both companies profits are increasing
– Making assumptions about the future is risky
However, I think that in the case of Apple vs. Microsoft predicting that Apple's profits will out grow Microsofts profits in the very near future is a pretty safe prediction. Here is one of the "Chart of the Day" charts showing quarterly profits from both companies. Microsofts profits are increasing in a roughly linear fashion. There is a certain amount of noise in their line, but I would expect a significant linear trend if we were to run the statistics on their quarterly revenue. For Apple on the other hand, their growth in profits is exponential.
Whether you like their products or not, and many here on/. don't, it is obvious that Apple has captured the consumers imagination with their products in a way that no other PC manufacturer, or consumer electronics company has. All of Apples divisions are turning a profit, whereas only some of Microsofts are. Those they have that are profitable are insanely so, but they are wasting a lot of their effort on projects with little evidence of ever being money makers in their own right. Apple has managed, thus far, to pick only winners for those things that they bring to market thus wasting less of the profits they do make on ultimately futile R&D.
The only way I see Apple's growth slowing appreciably is if they make a major misstep, which could happen. According to some the whole "Death Grip" issue is such a misstep. I don't believe it is bad enough, but if they make too many more their house of cards could come tumbling down. They have a growing macintosh division, the iPod (still dominant), iPhone (still desirable and growing), and iPad (Demand out pacing supply for the foreseeable future). Even the death grip doesn't appear to have affected sales that I've seen.
The only way I see Microsoft's growth increasing is if they start doing more things right in divisions that are current break-even or loosing money. That means taking some of their R&D projects and turning them into profitable products people actually want. They've demonstrated over the last decade or so, that they are essentially incompetent at this translation step. You can argue that their vaporware announcements have been everything they claimed they are, but unless it can actually be purchased it is essentially pointless. Maybe Balmer will be replaced with someone that actually understand technology and can steward products from the R&D department to store shelves. Unfortunately though, I don't think that will happen soon. Balmer and all of the other board members at Microsoft know each other too well. And as you say, no one makes more money than Microsoft. However, how much money could they be making if they turned even 1/10th of their R&D projects into moderately successful commercial products?
I've actually broached this subject with a couple of different Nigerian guys that I went to Graduate School with. They told me how Nigeria has such an ethnically diverse population (literally thousands of ethnic groups with their own distinct languages), that the only way the government can work is if everyone speaks English (courtesy of the old British Colonial occupation). The problem is that everyone speaks their native tongue at home, and only learns English in school and some times they don't learn it until they are high school aged. For most Nigerians, English is not about getting the grammar right, but about being understood. As long as the person to whom you are talking gets the gist of what you are saying, then that is enough. All of the Nigerians I know (a dozen or so) either were tutored prior to applying to US graduate schools, or attended private schools that drilled British English with a strong focus on speaking English like it was their 1st and not 2nd language.
The up shot of all this is that those Nigerians who could have proofed such emails are too busy working legitimate jobs to waste their time helping out the scammers, and the scammers are to illiterate to realize that their poor grammar is a dead giveaway.
I'd like a citation for that. I send mail via FedEx all the time for work. I don't send personal correspondence that way, but that's because the USPS is cheaper for a simple letter than FedEx is (even with the recent stamp hikes) and I'm not usually worried about delivery time. If FedEx became the cheaper way to mail photo's of my daughter to her grandparents, then I'd probaby take that route. Are you saying that it is illegal for FedEx to deliver mail that isn't next day delivery somehow?
I don't mean to troll, but are you serious?? California is probably the most left leaning state in the union. A distant second would probably me Massachusetts (where I grew up). I've never lived in CA, although I have visited before, so I can't speak to the relative crazyness of the elected officials in either party, but MA has always wanted to be just like CA when it grew up. And yet, CA has always managed to "Out Liberal" MA anyway. I always knew that MA was left leaning, but I didn't realize just how much until I moved to Indiana 8 years ago, and IN isn't even that conservative based on what I've seen of other midwest states. Hell, IN even voted for Obama, the first time a Dem won the state in something like 100 years.
More germain to the topic at hand, I think the parents suggestion of a joint operation betweent the states completely ignores the fact that California is flat broke. They have been forced to gut their various (numerous) social services programs, cut salaries, lay off government empolyees, and yet still had to borrow a huge amount of money. They quite simply don't have the money to pay their half of such a venture.
People here on/. have been talking about how the irregularity of wind generated power is a major problem that needs to be addressed before wind can become more than a token player. Those people have usually been shouted down for various reasons (Large Batteries, Ship it away, Balance with hydro, hang more lines, pumped water storage, etc.) because those yelling minimized the difficulty level in making these modifications, or in making them fast enough to keep pace with the explosion of wind turbines. Apparently those pointing out the flaws can consider themselves vindicated to a certain extent by this article (I'm not one of them, BTW).
This kind of infrastructure planning/improvement should have been included in recent energy bills. Its absence means that these bills were not comprehensive, just expensive.
My step-dad is in the construction/remodeling business. He even owned his own home remodeling business 15 years ago or so. It is amazing how many times he lost the bid for a job, but then got hired to fix what the bid winner had done wrong, or not finished. It was work, but it wasn't enough to keep things afloat. If the homeowner had hired him in the first place, they would have saved themselves a lot of time and money, and my dad's business might not have had to fold. However, he very rarely lost the bid due to the relative differences in what employees were paid (a la undocumented laborers). Instead, the competitors simply didn't get all of the permits and licenses, or didn't ever intend to do a decent/complete job.
In agriculture on the other hand, these really are jobs that most Americans don't want. I used to work picking tobacco in CT during the summer break. They employed probably 18 HS age kids on any given day and about 9 Jamaican migrant workers (legally). Pay was hourly, plus bonuses for picking above your quota (no penalty for missing quota though). Only 1 HS student made quota on a regular basis (3 or 4 out of 6 days/week), whereas the Jamaicans all exceeded quota every single work day, all summer long. The HS students (myself included) were simply not willing to work hard enough. That's the real issue as I see it for Agriculture. You need people willing to not only work, but work hard to earn the bonuses. In my experience on produce, tobacco, dairy, and swine farms Americans, generally speaking, are not willing to work hard enough consistently enough for the work to get done in a timely fashion. Legal or not, immigrant/migrant workers are more productive even when the pay is the same and that is at least part of the reason why they dominate those jobs. Not saying some unscrupulous don't take advantage of questionable legal status to pay low wages, but if Americans were actually fighting for those jobs the unscrupulous employers wouldn't be able to get away with it as much.
Many legislators believe in shaping public behaviour by implementing laws that are disapproved of by the majority, or that are split almost directly down the middle.
Sounds to me like your government is betraying the contract it has with its citizens. This kind of behavior contributed to the writing of the Declaration of Independence
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
...
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: ...
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: ...
I'm not trying to incite a revolution, just to point out some similarities.
A law against cracking DRM regardless of the copyright status of the content has almost no public support.
That is a case of the public being apathetic or placing the issue at a lower priority. Not much you can do about that. That is one thing that is frustrating about a democracy, that you can't MAKE everyone care about the same issues or to the same extent that you do. It's unfortunate, but doesn't change the legal situation.
These kind of laws I consider so harmful to necessary liberty that I not only oppose them, but I seek to break them whenever possible.
I agree with your view of the obvious danger that these laws pose. However, in a society certain rights are given up in exchange for the protections that the society provides. Liberty is not absolute, and just because you don't like where the line was drawn on a particular issue is not in-and-of-itself justification for disregarding that line.
In those situations, it is their fault that the bill doesn't serve your interests, or the interests of the rest of the nation.
You can make a case for this argument. However, it is not the lobbyists job to serve the public good, that is the job of the politicians who ultimately vote on the bill. I'm not saying that the lobbyist doesn't play an important role, but that the elected official is supposed to be the goalkeeper. They are the one who's whole job is supposed to consist of protecting and serving the public good. When bad laws get passed, and you get mad at the lobbyists, you make it too easy for the politician to betray you again because you are venting your anger on the wrong person.
But that's only an argument for laws, not for good laws. Tyranny is as bad as anarchy.
Good point, but are you trying to imply that the Canadian or US governments are Tyrannical because they have some bad laws? I've always thought of tyranny as something that is systemic by its very nature. Failed execution in the legislative process is not tyranny, even though it is still a failure with important consequences.
I have never defended piracy itself as a moral good
It sure looks like you did to me: "These kind of laws I consider so harmful to necessary liberty that I not only oppose them, but I seek to break them whenever possible."
Which, I must point out, restricts you from disobeying, e.g., a democratic law enforcing subscription to Catholic dogma.
No it doesn't. If your government has started passing laws enforcing one religion where previously it did not, then it is betraying it's contract. It is up to the citizenry to decide just how much of a breach of contract they are willing to accept before
I like how you minimized the entirety of my concerns to "inconvenience." I'd explain more about why this isn't an issue of convenience, but see the following point.
Your concerns are valid, and many of them I share with you. However, your primary justification for willful copyright infringement seems to be that changing the law, or negotiating with copyright holders before hand is inconvenient and laborious.
My argument was not against religion, but that moral frameworks are not an acceptable substitute for laws. Moral frameworks can condone things that are illegal for good reason, or vilify things for inadequate reasons that are legal. The world is getting smaller and multiculturalism is becoming more the rule than the exception. The only way to keep a society together is to choose laws together. Almost by definition, no law is going to be universally approved of. Therefore it is necessary that all citizens of the society obey all of the laws, not just those they approve of. Otherwise lawmaking is a complete waste of time, energy and resources.
Right, and major defense contractors in the USA can't influence congressional spending bills.
I never said they didn't. They often do, but if at the end of the day the bill is unpopular enough the politicians that supported it stand a good chance of losing their jobs to politicians who will better serve the interests of their voting constituents. It is not the fault of the lobbyists that a bill doesn't serve my interests. It's the fault of my representative for supporting the bill, and it's my fault for not convincing enough of my neighbors to vote down the representative that I'm displeased with.
In what circumstance is "don't approve of it" insufficient?
Well, my brother-in-law drug addict does not approve of any laws that make use of cocaine or marijuana illegal. He also does not approve of laws that make beating his girlfriend when he's high, or laws that say parole violations send you back to jail. Thankfully, his disapproval is not sufficient justification for breaking these laws. Obviously copyright infringement, especially the non-commercial form, does not rise to the level of violent crime, but laws are laws for a reason. Not necessarily because they are right, but because without them we have anarchy.
Jefferson seemed to object to some British problems, and he rebelled because of it.
Jefferson listed an entire host of reasons in the Declaration of Independence for why the King had betrayed the colonists. Never does Jefferson say that he can pick and choose which laws to obey. In essence states that the crown is not holding up it's end of the contract that a ruler has with his subjects. Therefore, the contract is null-and-void thus freeing the colonists to create their own government.
You minimize other people's motives for moral lawbreaking as trivial, and you seem to assert that their moral reasons can't possibly be valid, because you don't think they are.
No, I say that the moral argument is post-hoc rationalization. You don't like having to pay for something you feel should be in the public domain. You then use this vague idea of "Morally Acceptable" to cover the fact that you find the laws inconvenient and easy to break with little chance of being caught an punished. You then trot out Jefferson as some sort of justification. Jefferson was many things, but an anarchist he was not. He was the 3rd president of the US and I fail to see any evidence that he believed any laws written by a government elected by its citizens could be ignored simply because some of the citizens didn't approve of them, no matter how valid their rationale.
You haven't explained why cultural impoverishment is trivial.
I don't believe that it is. It is a large part of the reason why I'm in favor of copyright reform.
1. You're first point seems to be the issue of scarcity. Not all works are in print at all times. This is unfortunate, but has nothing at all to do with copyright. Printing books is expensive, and unless their is perceived demand, and the expectation of profitability, then publishers don't print anymore books. This goes for books in the public domain as well as those still under copyright.
2. As someone who is published academically, you most certainly can quote someone else's work as long as you cite it and you do it sparingly. I've seen work were several paragraphs were reprinted in their entirety so that they could be discussed.
3. Even at its highest, the British tax on the American colonies was both lower than it is today, and lower than it charged to those living in Britain at the time. The issue was not that we were taxed, but that we were taxed without having any say in how or where the money was spent. The following quote from the Declaration of Independence points out that fact. It is from a list of charges against the King as evidence that he had violated the colonists rights.
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent
By definition, the government in a Democracy is chosen by the citizens, thus making it that any laws passed, including taxes, do so with the consent of the citizens. This is because the citizens, through the election process can change the laws.
4. Well it sounds like you are facing a similar problem in Canada that we face here, and that is Apathy. The labels are lobbying in their own best interest, but the people are not doing the same. I feel for you. However, if most Canadians or Americans don't care enough to get involved, that doesn't give you and I carte blanche to ignore these new laws with impunity.
5. I know of no moral framework that encourages the breaking of laws simply because they are inconvenient. If you have, then I have to ask you where it ends? Some religions (probably the most common source of moral frameworks) contain passages in their holy books that indicate beating your wife, mutilating your children, or killing certain people is morally acceptable. The laws of a nation such as Canada or the US are an agreed upon (by virtue of the political process) set of rules for common governance. Government completely breaks down if everyone can pick and choose which laws to obey and which not based on their own individual moral frameworks.
The US, and AFAIK the Canadian government have mechanisms in place by which the citizenry can change unpopular laws. That is the correct path to addressing the problem, not a flippant "well, I'm just not going to obey that law because I don't like it".
6. If your fellow Canadians (politicians especially) can't be bothered to keep American style laws at bay despite not wanting them, then they deserve what they get. Last I checked, American companies don't get a vote in Canadian elections, and don't get to vote on Canadian legislation. For the record, I don't approve of the duration of copyright in the US. Nor do I approve of many/most of the provisions in the DMCA or what little I know of the super-secret ACTA. I rail against them to any that will listen, and I try to support those few candidates that share my view on these issues. However, like most Americans this is not the most important issue to me, and therefore I find myself voting for the candidate that best fits my views and my priorities. But as I've stated before, my disgruntlement with the current laws does not entitle me to flout the law with impunity. Maybe if copyright reform were more important to me I could affect change, but while it is on my radar it is far below other concerns and until that changes for a lot of Americans the current Status Quo will continue to exist, and unless you can convince enough Canadians to make it a priority you'll be joining the club unfortunately.
The human race got along quite well for a very long time without the idea.
We also got along quite well before the discovery of antibiotics. This is equally irrelevant. Copyright is not about making "the human race get along just fine", it's about enabling creators of new arts to achieve reasonable compensation for their contribution.
Classical composers, master painters, et al. only survived due to the support of patrons, rich people who payed the bills out of their desire to see more of the artists work. Copyright's aim is to make it so that creators don't need the charity of the rich, but can instead make their living from all that appreciate their work, at a much lower bill for any individual fan.
lawyers saying you can't sing this song because it belongs to someone else is a great foolishness and harmful to society.
Lawyers only come after you if you didn't bother to negotiate a deal with the copyright holder before your performance of their song. A good pair of examples are:
"Happy Birthday" belongs to Time Warner. Anytime the song appears in a movie, TV show, or book of sheet music, they get paid. They don't sue anyone that uses it, only those that use the song for a profit without negotiating a deal first.
The second example is the rapper Vanilla Ice using a loop he stole from (IIRC) the Rolling Stones. He did not get permission first, and so when he lost the lawsuit he was forced to pay all money from that song to the Rolling Stones (I believe the song was "Ice Ice Baby").
You paint a picture where the first scenario is impossible, and only the second ever happens. Most copyright holders are willing to allow derivative works for a small fee because it makes them far more money in the long run.
Repeating the behavior of others is a natural human instinct
So is the territorial behavior of urban gangs, including the tendency towards escalated violence over time when gangs compete for the same turf. "Human Nature" is not an excuse in either case (although I obviously chose one with much more serious consequences to illustrate my point).
If you don't like IP laws, and for the record I don't like them as they exist now either, then you can try to change them (assuming you are a US citizen). We have our work cut out for us, but breaking the laws instead of changing them simply makes it harder convince others that they need changing. It makes it easier for rights-holders to accuse us of simply being unwilling to pay, and thus criticizing the IP system as an excuse for taking things we have no intention of paying for at any price.
it's equally wrong to suggest that every work is entirely the author's own and they're justified in locking other people out of using their work in exactly the same way they used others'.
I can read a book that has 100 years left to it's copyright and still use it. The knowledge I acquired from the book cannot be taken from me, the effect it had on my though processes cannot be revoked, and I can even quote sections verbatim or in summary as long as I provide appropriate citation. Essentially, you've created a false scenario where copyright prevents any use of previously copyrighted material in any way. Hell, if I want to borrow more liberally, I can negotiate a contract by which I can use something more liberally for a reasonable fee. It happens all the time in the music industry.
Feeling that taxes are too high does not make tax evasion morally acceptable. Feeling that you got screwed in divorce court (and who doesn't feel that way at first) doesn't make alimony and childsupport evasion morally acceptable. The law is the law. If you don't like it, then you can work to change it. That's the great part of our government, that you can work to change laws you don't like. It may be difficult, and there may be a lot of enertia to overcome, but it can happen. Just look at the civil rights movement and all the Jim Crow laws that were overturned.
Simply because breaking the law is easy, and the law is oppressive in your opinion, does not grant you the moral prerogative to break the law with impunity. And lets remember, the author in question was not threatening to sue anyone. He was simply asking people not to violate his copyright, and explaining why. This guy is not Disney.
I don't want to get offensive, but how arrogant are you that you feel your opinion trumps the decisions of the SCOTUS on this issue. I agree with your opinion, but am apparently at least a little more humble.
Using any post-'25 work in new work invites financial disaster, whether or not it's legally defensible.
Using any post-'25 work in new work requires you negotiate a deal with the copyright holder. It happens all the time. Anytime the song "Happy Birthday" appears in a movie or on a TV show, the producers have to first negotiate a deal with the copyright holder, who happens to be Time Warner. It may make use of the work more of a hassle, but it can be done in most cases. Copyrights are useless to their owners if they can't monetize them in some way, and most owners are willing to be reasonable because being unreasonable costs them too much money.
It is for the courts to decide what is truly novel, not the artist. If the owner of the work decided that they are too similar, then he can sue. If the court agrees, then he automatically gets the copyright to the new derivative work. It happened with vanilla Ice and a loop he stole from the Rolling Stones, IIRC. He claimed that the loop was not the same because he changed one or two notes, the Stones disagreed, and the courts sided with the stones. Any money Vanilla Ice made from that song was thus forfeit, and he had to pay a portion of the album sales to the Stones in perpetuity.
As I've said before, I feel that the current copyright term is excessively long. I would like to see it shortened back to, at most the lifespan of the creator, and preferably only 15 to 30 years.
Yes, because professional musicians routinely get not outside training other than what they hear on the radio (BTW, the artist gets free promotion by radio play. It is valuable enough that some have been caught bribing DJ's - Payola??) or get from reading public domain scores.
As to the duration of copyright issue, I agree that it should be much shorter than it is. However, our shared opinion does not trump established law, or changed the legality of trading copyrighted works without compensating their creator. If you read the original article he didn't say he wanted protection forever. He simply indicated that the scores in question are still covered and asked that the refrain from trading them. He didn't even threaten anyone with a lawsuit, which he has the right to do.
And violation of copymonopoly which is claimed for longer than the constitutionally authorized limited time, is both legally and morally acceptable. Though the courts seem to claim otherwise.
Did you fail US government in HS? The constitution also lays out that the judicial branch is the arbiter of what is and is not constitutional. Your assessment of the constitutionality of the copyright extension acts is irrelevant. The SCOTUS has ruled on this before and upheld the extension act, so by definition they are constitutional. I don't agree with their decision, but since I'm not a lawyer or a judge, I'm not exactly qualified to overturn their ruling just because I feel like it, and neither are you (unless of course you don't live in the US).
Linux, BSD, et al are all DRM free operating systems
Audiobooks are also available on CD-sans DRM
TV shows are available free OTA in many/most cases prior to being on iTunes and I've never had any problem recording them or playing them back on which ever TV I want
eBooks are simply a different format of book, and there is no DRM on a paperback.
The only 2 that seem to be accurate are movies (as I said above, format is irrelevant) and video games. Well Movies occasionally appear on TV which is largely DRM free, as is watching them in the movie theatre, but I see the point there. For video games, well you got me there.
I'm sorry, but I have to call "BS". What categories of products are you refering to?? I can think of:
Music (AFAIK, everything on iTunes and Amazon are DRM-free) Software (MS office vs. Open Office) ??
What categories exist where DRM is the only way material is available??
If you are complaining that some SPECIFIC works are only available with DRM included, well tough. You have to decide whether the hassle of DRM is worth the advatages to you of owning/using what ever it is. Just because you want a DRM-free copy of something does not make it necessary for the copyright owner to make ti available to you.
A decent food analogy would be if you want a sandwich from your favorite restaurant, but they don't deliver and you don't want to leave the house. You need to decide if the hassle of getting in the car and driving is worth the sandwich.
Maybe a better fit would be a restraunt that does deliver, but you live outside of the range in which they are willing to deliver. They are not obligated to deliver to every house in town simply because they do deliver to some houses. Similarly, copywright holder are not obligated to make their works available in all media formats simply because they make them available in some media formats.
And since this is/. and the level of commentors has been slipping, I feel it is necessary that I point out that I believe the current term of copyrights to be excessive. I can see the point in them lasting as long as the author is alive, but not +150 years, and I believe that a fixed amount of time would be better (15-30 years maybe). I also feel that DRM is stupid, because it treats me "a PAYING customer" like a crook and does little if anything to prevent the actual crooks from violating their copyrights. However, my OPINION does not superscede the law, and therefore I don't violate copyrights and aviod DRM when I can.
Nearly all the value of nearly all copyrighted works comes from ideas that the author learned from people who came before and who the author didn't pay.
I don't know where you are from, but 'round here teachers don't work for free. My wife is a musician and she paid a hell of a lot of money for her education. She payed for the knowledge she acquired (as I feel it is safe to assume the composer in question did as well). However, even if you are from this magical land where teachers work for free he is not trying to be payed for the work of his instructors. He took the knowledge he acquired and then CREATED something with it. The musical compositions that he wrote did not exist before he created them, which is what's important. It is very rare that any creative endevour is achieved without some outside influence. If your reasoning is taken to its logical conclusion, then no creative person should ever expect to be paid for their arts, no matter how popular they become, unless they created their art in a vaccume.
The fact is, if a composer had taken previously published work (maybe something in a text book from a college class he took, so he therefore owns a copywright to limited use of it) changed a handful of notes, and then sold it as a new work he could be sued for copywright violations. However, he can take a small portion of a copywrighted work and design an entirely new piece that is influenced by the original and then copywright that. The fair-use provisions of copywright law allow for some LIMITED use of others work as long as the later composers chages are sufficiently transformational that the new piece is truely novel.
Ultimately you are confusing two different issues. I too agree that the duration of copyright is excessive now. But excessive duration does not make violation of copyright legally or, as some above have suggested, morally acceptable.
P.S. I got a real thrill out of seeing this on/. because my wife had just finished reading some of TFA to me 5 min before. It is rare that her interests and mine intersect like this.
I may be wrong about Vorbis, but MP3 and AAC have something in their favor that Vorbis does not (to my knowledge), and that is widely available hardware decoders. At this point Apple has a lot of effort invested in MP3 and AAC, and unless Vorbis is going to give them something SIGNIFICANTLY better it is probably not worth the effort to make a change based on ideology alone.
If advocates of "Open" media formats want Apple, MS, or anyone else to standardize on one of their formats, then they are going to need to be ahead of the curve on the next major format decision. They need to have the Next-generation format ready, implemented, and rock solid before anyone needs it. Otherwise they'll be playing catch-up to the Proprietary standards that actually break new ground technologically with the profits from their current status as a de facto standard. If they can beat H.265 to market and have a technological advantage (not just on-par with H.265) then I think they may be able to "Win" a round. Otherwise, performance and vested interest will beat ideology and "Good Enough" every time.
I'm not saying I like it, but this is just the reality of the situation as I see it.
Even if you can explain Obama's election to "punishment" against the Republicans, that doesn't explain the huge victories in Congress, and those at every level of local governments, state legislatures, etc.
This is a very common occurence when an outgoing president is unpopular. The opposition party paints every member of the presidents party as being a clone of the president. It's almost never true, but perception is reality during an election campaign, and most voters don't take the time to weed out the BS. Of all the Republicans that ran for the presidentail nomination, McCain was the one with the greatest track record for opposing the Bush administration and causing them trouble durring the preceeding 8 years. However, that did not stop the entire bullpen of Democratic nominees (including the Obama team) of accusing McCain of being "Bush Mark II". This is not restricted to national candidates and is frequently seen in congressional and even state official election campaigns.
I'm a republican, but I've never been so Naive as to believe that large numbers of people voting for a Republican meant that the Republican party had grown. It is virtually impossible for any candidate anywhere to be elected by appealing only to members of their own party. Not only do you need independents, and some defectors from the opposition party, but you need more of them then you do members of your own party in many cases (President for example).
8 years of Bush did not mean that we were a Republican country, just like the 4 years of Obama we are in the middle of doesn't mean we are a Democratic nation. The fact is that we are a nation of independants who change their minds from month to month as to which party better serves their interests. Believing anything else as politician is a recipie for losing some November in the very near future.
Exactly... If Vorbis, Theoria, VP8, et al. were on par with state of the art, and unlikely to expose Apple to patent litigation then I fail to see why they wouldn't. Apple spends more money on licensing AAC and H.264 than it makes off of their contributions to the patent pool that make up those standards.
Apple cares about the quality of the final experience. They are willing to pay if it will make a noticable difference (and Steve has a discerning eye), and whether the "Free" brigade wants to admit it or not, Vorbis and Theora are not up to snuff and VP8 is a patent lawsuite waiting to happen. Whether Vorbis and Theora can be brought up to date is almost irrelevant because unless something dramtically changes, they never break new ground performancewise. They are always playing catchup and that is not a good place for them to be if they want competitive companies like Apple to use their technology. VP8 is supposed to be very promising performancewise, but the patent situation is very unclear and even the most flattering reviews I've read of VP8 say that H.264 still has an edge performancewise. The free options may be "Good Enough" for many here on/., but "Good Enough" is almost profanity as far as Apple is concerned.
It could be that it's checking for webkit. I loaded the demos fine in safari and Google Chrome, but not in camino or firefox. I should have tried the other 2 before posting. My bad.
Try using Chrome. It could be that it's checking for webkit. I loaded the demos fine in safari and Google Chrome, but not in camino or firefox. I should have tried the other 2 before posting. My bad.
They have the exact same demos on the Apple Developer site with no User-Agen sniffing involved. If you really want to try them and see if they work on your favorite browser, just go here.
I agree that UA sniffing for a demo that is supposed to be of a Standard is stupid. However, if you want a crack at the demos without the UA spoofing or using Safari, you can go here. All of the same demos are there. It looks like these demos have been available on their developer site for a while and just recently got moved to the main page.
This is sheer stupidity on Apple's part, it undermines the whole idea of standards. However, the reason could be that HTML5 implementation is incomplete in all browsers (including Safari) and they didn't want the hassle of determining which other modern browsers could correctly render the pages. Not an excuse, but a reasonable guess as to the motivation for UA sniffing on their part.
Slashdot Mirror
their server ranges don't do terribly well, the Apple TV was rather a flop and the MacBook Air didn't do particularly well for example, although you might be right in that they still turn a profit at least which means I suppose even there they can be called a success however small, but certainly not something that really generates worthwhile revenue.
I agree that none of these are defining their relative market,s but none of them appear to be losing money. Also, none of these have been major focuses of Apple's attention. Not necessarily saying that they'd do better if Apple (Jobs) loved them more, but that what they do focus their attention and profits on all have turned into big profit centers. Microsoft OTOH has spend a lot of their time, attention and money on the entertainment division and for what?
– A game station that is respectable, but barely above break even after all these years (I own an original Xbox).
– A music player that is still best compared to the iPod of 2 to 3 years ago (only ever seen one of them in person).
– A tween targeted phone that was on the market for a total of a couple of months before they pulled it.
the iPod isn't selling amazingly well anymore
According to Apples Q3 2010 conference call iPod touch sales are up 48% from the same quarter last year, and the iPod still has over 70% market share. If the iPod market isn't growing faster, its probably due to market saturation or a shrinking market, which will affect everyone in that space, including Microsoft.
There's also some pretty solid signs that they're facing increased competition from Android and Nokia and Windows 7 phones aren't out the game yet- they could still come back and re-take a decent share of the smartphone market and the danger here for Apple is that with the new breed of phones any loss in phone sales wont see an increase again in iPods because people's new phones even if not Apple phones will do the trick more so than they used to.
You can make an argument for Android, it'd be hard to defend that argument for Nokia, and until it's actually released Windows 7 is vaporware. All the reviews I've read of the pre-release windows 7 phone (including one by a reviewer that original raved about its potential) is that it is comparable to iOS 1.0 at best and sucks donkey balls at worst. Now, maybe Microsoft will polish that turd enough to make it a big hit. Stranger things have happened. However, as I pointed out before Microsoft has a horrible track record with this kind of maneuver (It could be freudian that I original misspelled maneuver as manure) in the consumer electronics market. Also, as I pointed out above, the iPod is still doing very well despite your impressions.
Further, Apple is somewhat restricted demographically too, it's largely limited to the West, the iPhone has effectively flopped in India, China and Africa, because Apple only has individual model of the iPhones and it's simply too expensive for these markets- this leaves Apple with a dilemma, does it just ignore those markets and hope to continue to simply out-compete the competition in existing markets, or does it consider changing it's business model and introduce a budget iPhone much like with the iPod Nano and Shuffle to compete in these markets?
News that Apple has flopped in India is exactly that, News to me. Do you have a citation? Not being snarky, just looking to see what I may have missed. According to the same Q3 conference call I referenced earlier Apple is seeing strong growth in Asia, Europe, and Japan and Asia generally includes both India and China. With regards to China specifically, the reasons I've s
Here is where you are correct:
/. don't, it is obvious that Apple has captured the consumers imagination with their products in a way that no other PC manufacturer, or consumer electronics company has. All of Apples divisions are turning a profit, whereas only some of Microsofts are. Those they have that are profitable are insanely so, but they are wasting a lot of their effort on projects with little evidence of ever being money makers in their own right. Apple has managed, thus far, to pick only winners for those things that they bring to market thus wasting less of the profits they do make on ultimately futile R&D.
– Profits are more important than Revenue
– Profits are profits, doesn't matter whether they are from HW or SW
– Microsoft has greater profits than Apple still
– Both companies profits are increasing
– Making assumptions about the future is risky
However, I think that in the case of Apple vs. Microsoft predicting that Apple's profits will out grow Microsofts profits in the very near future is a pretty safe prediction. Here is one of the "Chart of the Day" charts showing quarterly profits from both companies. Microsofts profits are increasing in a roughly linear fashion. There is a certain amount of noise in their line, but I would expect a significant linear trend if we were to run the statistics on their quarterly revenue. For Apple on the other hand, their growth in profits is exponential.
Whether you like their products or not, and many here on
The only way I see Apple's growth slowing appreciably is if they make a major misstep, which could happen. According to some the whole "Death Grip" issue is such a misstep. I don't believe it is bad enough, but if they make too many more their house of cards could come tumbling down. They have a growing macintosh division, the iPod (still dominant), iPhone (still desirable and growing), and iPad (Demand out pacing supply for the foreseeable future). Even the death grip doesn't appear to have affected sales that I've seen.
The only way I see Microsoft's growth increasing is if they start doing more things right in divisions that are current break-even or loosing money. That means taking some of their R&D projects and turning them into profitable products people actually want. They've demonstrated over the last decade or so, that they are essentially incompetent at this translation step. You can argue that their vaporware announcements have been everything they claimed they are, but unless it can actually be purchased it is essentially pointless. Maybe Balmer will be replaced with someone that actually understand technology and can steward products from the R&D department to store shelves. Unfortunately though, I don't think that will happen soon. Balmer and all of the other board members at Microsoft know each other too well. And as you say, no one makes more money than Microsoft. However, how much money could they be making if they turned even 1/10th of their R&D projects into moderately successful commercial products?
I've actually broached this subject with a couple of different Nigerian guys that I went to Graduate School with. They told me how Nigeria has such an ethnically diverse population (literally thousands of ethnic groups with their own distinct languages), that the only way the government can work is if everyone speaks English (courtesy of the old British Colonial occupation). The problem is that everyone speaks their native tongue at home, and only learns English in school and some times they don't learn it until they are high school aged. For most Nigerians, English is not about getting the grammar right, but about being understood. As long as the person to whom you are talking gets the gist of what you are saying, then that is enough. All of the Nigerians I know (a dozen or so) either were tutored prior to applying to US graduate schools, or attended private schools that drilled British English with a strong focus on speaking English like it was their 1st and not 2nd language.
The up shot of all this is that those Nigerians who could have proofed such emails are too busy working legitimate jobs to waste their time helping out the scammers, and the scammers are to illiterate to realize that their poor grammar is a dead giveaway.
I'd like a citation for that. I send mail via FedEx all the time for work. I don't send personal correspondence that way, but that's because the USPS is cheaper for a simple letter than FedEx is (even with the recent stamp hikes) and I'm not usually worried about delivery time. If FedEx became the cheaper way to mail photo's of my daughter to her grandparents, then I'd probaby take that route. Are you saying that it is illegal for FedEx to deliver mail that isn't next day delivery somehow?
a somewhat left of center state
I don't mean to troll, but are you serious?? California is probably the most left leaning state in the union. A distant second would probably me Massachusetts (where I grew up). I've never lived in CA, although I have visited before, so I can't speak to the relative crazyness of the elected officials in either party, but MA has always wanted to be just like CA when it grew up. And yet, CA has always managed to "Out Liberal" MA anyway. I always knew that MA was left leaning, but I didn't realize just how much until I moved to Indiana 8 years ago, and IN isn't even that conservative based on what I've seen of other midwest states. Hell, IN even voted for Obama, the first time a Dem won the state in something like 100 years.
/. have been talking about how the irregularity of wind generated power is a major problem that needs to be addressed before wind can become more than a token player. Those people have usually been shouted down for various reasons (Large Batteries, Ship it away, Balance with hydro, hang more lines, pumped water storage, etc.) because those yelling minimized the difficulty level in making these modifications, or in making them fast enough to keep pace with the explosion of wind turbines. Apparently those pointing out the flaws can consider themselves vindicated to a certain extent by this article (I'm not one of them, BTW).
More germain to the topic at hand, I think the parents suggestion of a joint operation betweent the states completely ignores the fact that California is flat broke. They have been forced to gut their various (numerous) social services programs, cut salaries, lay off government empolyees, and yet still had to borrow a huge amount of money. They quite simply don't have the money to pay their half of such a venture.
People here on
This kind of infrastructure planning/improvement should have been included in recent energy bills. Its absence means that these bills were not comprehensive, just expensive.
My step-dad is in the construction/remodeling business. He even owned his own home remodeling business 15 years ago or so. It is amazing how many times he lost the bid for a job, but then got hired to fix what the bid winner had done wrong, or not finished. It was work, but it wasn't enough to keep things afloat. If the homeowner had hired him in the first place, they would have saved themselves a lot of time and money, and my dad's business might not have had to fold. However, he very rarely lost the bid due to the relative differences in what employees were paid (a la undocumented laborers). Instead, the competitors simply didn't get all of the permits and licenses, or didn't ever intend to do a decent/complete job.
In agriculture on the other hand, these really are jobs that most Americans don't want. I used to work picking tobacco in CT during the summer break. They employed probably 18 HS age kids on any given day and about 9 Jamaican migrant workers (legally). Pay was hourly, plus bonuses for picking above your quota (no penalty for missing quota though). Only 1 HS student made quota on a regular basis (3 or 4 out of 6 days/week), whereas the Jamaicans all exceeded quota every single work day, all summer long. The HS students (myself included) were simply not willing to work hard enough. That's the real issue as I see it for Agriculture. You need people willing to not only work, but work hard to earn the bonuses. In my experience on produce, tobacco, dairy, and swine farms Americans, generally speaking, are not willing to work hard enough consistently enough for the work to get done in a timely fashion. Legal or not, immigrant/migrant workers are more productive even when the pay is the same and that is at least part of the reason why they dominate those jobs. Not saying some unscrupulous don't take advantage of questionable legal status to pay low wages, but if Americans were actually fighting for those jobs the unscrupulous employers wouldn't be able to get away with it as much.
Maybe my take is wrong, but I don't think it is.
This story already appeared on /. back in 2006.
Many legislators believe in shaping public behaviour by implementing laws that are disapproved of by the majority, or that are split almost directly down the middle.
Sounds to me like your government is betraying the contract it has with its citizens. This kind of behavior contributed to the writing of the Declaration of Independence
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
...
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
...
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
...
I'm not trying to incite a revolution, just to point out some similarities.
A law against cracking DRM regardless of the copyright status of the content has almost no public support.
That is a case of the public being apathetic or placing the issue at a lower priority. Not much you can do about that. That is one thing that is frustrating about a democracy, that you can't MAKE everyone care about the same issues or to the same extent that you do. It's unfortunate, but doesn't change the legal situation.
These kind of laws I consider so harmful to necessary liberty that I not only oppose them, but I seek to break them whenever possible.
I agree with your view of the obvious danger that these laws pose. However, in a society certain rights are given up in exchange for the protections that the society provides. Liberty is not absolute, and just because you don't like where the line was drawn on a particular issue is not in-and-of-itself justification for disregarding that line.
In those situations, it is their fault that the bill doesn't serve your interests, or the interests of the rest of the nation.
You can make a case for this argument. However, it is not the lobbyists job to serve the public good, that is the job of the politicians who ultimately vote on the bill. I'm not saying that the lobbyist doesn't play an important role, but that the elected official is supposed to be the goalkeeper. They are the one who's whole job is supposed to consist of protecting and serving the public good. When bad laws get passed, and you get mad at the lobbyists, you make it too easy for the politician to betray you again because you are venting your anger on the wrong person.
But that's only an argument for laws, not for good laws. Tyranny is as bad as anarchy.
Good point, but are you trying to imply that the Canadian or US governments are Tyrannical because they have some bad laws? I've always thought of tyranny as something that is systemic by its very nature. Failed execution in the legislative process is not tyranny, even though it is still a failure with important consequences.
I have never defended piracy itself as a moral good
It sure looks like you did to me: "These kind of laws I consider so harmful to necessary liberty that I not only oppose them, but I seek to break them whenever possible."
Which, I must point out, restricts you from disobeying, e.g., a democratic law enforcing subscription to Catholic dogma.
No it doesn't. If your government has started passing laws enforcing one religion where previously it did not, then it is betraying it's contract. It is up to the citizenry to decide just how much of a breach of contract they are willing to accept before
I like how you minimized the entirety of my concerns to "inconvenience." I'd explain more about why this isn't an issue of convenience, but see the following point.
Your concerns are valid, and many of them I share with you. However, your primary justification for willful copyright infringement seems to be that changing the law, or negotiating with copyright holders before hand is inconvenient and laborious.
My argument was not against religion, but that moral frameworks are not an acceptable substitute for laws. Moral frameworks can condone things that are illegal for good reason, or vilify things for inadequate reasons that are legal. The world is getting smaller and multiculturalism is becoming more the rule than the exception. The only way to keep a society together is to choose laws together. Almost by definition, no law is going to be universally approved of. Therefore it is necessary that all citizens of the society obey all of the laws, not just those they approve of. Otherwise lawmaking is a complete waste of time, energy and resources.
Right, and major defense contractors in the USA can't influence congressional spending bills.
I never said they didn't. They often do, but if at the end of the day the bill is unpopular enough the politicians that supported it stand a good chance of losing their jobs to politicians who will better serve the interests of their voting constituents. It is not the fault of the lobbyists that a bill doesn't serve my interests. It's the fault of my representative for supporting the bill, and it's my fault for not convincing enough of my neighbors to vote down the representative that I'm displeased with.
In what circumstance is "don't approve of it" insufficient?
Well, my brother-in-law drug addict does not approve of any laws that make use of cocaine or marijuana illegal. He also does not approve of laws that make beating his girlfriend when he's high, or laws that say parole violations send you back to jail. Thankfully, his disapproval is not sufficient justification for breaking these laws. Obviously copyright infringement, especially the non-commercial form, does not rise to the level of violent crime, but laws are laws for a reason. Not necessarily because they are right, but because without them we have anarchy.
Jefferson seemed to object to some British problems, and he rebelled because of it.
Jefferson listed an entire host of reasons in the Declaration of Independence for why the King had betrayed the colonists. Never does Jefferson say that he can pick and choose which laws to obey. In essence states that the crown is not holding up it's end of the contract that a ruler has with his subjects. Therefore, the contract is null-and-void thus freeing the colonists to create their own government.
You minimize other people's motives for moral lawbreaking as trivial, and you seem to assert that their moral reasons can't possibly be valid, because you don't think they are.
No, I say that the moral argument is post-hoc rationalization. You don't like having to pay for something you feel should be in the public domain. You then use this vague idea of "Morally Acceptable" to cover the fact that you find the laws inconvenient and easy to break with little chance of being caught an punished. You then trot out Jefferson as some sort of justification. Jefferson was many things, but an anarchist he was not. He was the 3rd president of the US and I fail to see any evidence that he believed any laws written by a government elected by its citizens could be ignored simply because some of the citizens didn't approve of them, no matter how valid their rationale.
You haven't explained why cultural impoverishment is trivial.
I don't believe that it is. It is a large part of the reason why I'm in favor of copyright reform.
1. You're first point seems to be the issue of scarcity. Not all works are in print at all times. This is unfortunate, but has nothing at all to do with copyright. Printing books is expensive, and unless their is perceived demand, and the expectation of profitability, then publishers don't print anymore books. This goes for books in the public domain as well as those still under copyright.
2. As someone who is published academically, you most certainly can quote someone else's work as long as you cite it and you do it sparingly. I've seen work were several paragraphs were reprinted in their entirety so that they could be discussed.
3. Even at its highest, the British tax on the American colonies was both lower than it is today, and lower than it charged to those living in Britain at the time. The issue was not that we were taxed, but that we were taxed without having any say in how or where the money was spent. The following quote from the Declaration of Independence points out that fact. It is from a list of charges against the King as evidence that he had violated the colonists rights.
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent
By definition, the government in a Democracy is chosen by the citizens, thus making it that any laws passed, including taxes, do so with the consent of the citizens. This is because the citizens, through the election process can change the laws.
4. Well it sounds like you are facing a similar problem in Canada that we face here, and that is Apathy. The labels are lobbying in their own best interest, but the people are not doing the same. I feel for you. However, if most Canadians or Americans don't care enough to get involved, that doesn't give you and I carte blanche to ignore these new laws with impunity.
5. I know of no moral framework that encourages the breaking of laws simply because they are inconvenient. If you have, then I have to ask you where it ends? Some religions (probably the most common source of moral frameworks) contain passages in their holy books that indicate beating your wife, mutilating your children, or killing certain people is morally acceptable. The laws of a nation such as Canada or the US are an agreed upon (by virtue of the political process) set of rules for common governance. Government completely breaks down if everyone can pick and choose which laws to obey and which not based on their own individual moral frameworks.
The US, and AFAIK the Canadian government have mechanisms in place by which the citizenry can change unpopular laws. That is the correct path to addressing the problem, not a flippant "well, I'm just not going to obey that law because I don't like it".
6. If your fellow Canadians (politicians especially) can't be bothered to keep American style laws at bay despite not wanting them, then they deserve what they get. Last I checked, American companies don't get a vote in Canadian elections, and don't get to vote on Canadian legislation. For the record, I don't approve of the duration of copyright in the US. Nor do I approve of many/most of the provisions in the DMCA or what little I know of the super-secret ACTA. I rail against them to any that will listen, and I try to support those few candidates that share my view on these issues. However, like most Americans this is not the most important issue to me, and therefore I find myself voting for the candidate that best fits my views and my priorities. But as I've stated before, my disgruntlement with the current laws does not entitle me to flout the law with impunity. Maybe if copyright reform were more important to me I could affect change, but while it is on my radar it is far below other concerns and until that changes for a lot of Americans the current Status Quo will continue to exist, and unless you can convince enough Canadians to make it a priority you'll be joining the club unfortunately.
7. I never said
The human race got along quite well for a very long time without the idea.
We also got along quite well before the discovery of antibiotics. This is equally irrelevant. Copyright is not about making "the human race get along just fine", it's about enabling creators of new arts to achieve reasonable compensation for their contribution.
Classical composers, master painters, et al. only survived due to the support of patrons, rich people who payed the bills out of their desire to see more of the artists work. Copyright's aim is to make it so that creators don't need the charity of the rich, but can instead make their living from all that appreciate their work, at a much lower bill for any individual fan.
lawyers saying you can't sing this song because it belongs to someone else is a great foolishness and harmful to society.
Lawyers only come after you if you didn't bother to negotiate a deal with the copyright holder before your performance of their song. A good pair of examples are:
"Happy Birthday" belongs to Time Warner. Anytime the song appears in a movie, TV show, or book of sheet music, they get paid. They don't sue anyone that uses it, only those that use the song for a profit without negotiating a deal first.
The second example is the rapper Vanilla Ice using a loop he stole from (IIRC) the Rolling Stones. He did not get permission first, and so when he lost the lawsuit he was forced to pay all money from that song to the Rolling Stones (I believe the song was "Ice Ice Baby").
You paint a picture where the first scenario is impossible, and only the second ever happens. Most copyright holders are willing to allow derivative works for a small fee because it makes them far more money in the long run.
Repeating the behavior of others is a natural human instinct
So is the territorial behavior of urban gangs, including the tendency towards escalated violence over time when gangs compete for the same turf. "Human Nature" is not an excuse in either case (although I obviously chose one with much more serious consequences to illustrate my point).
If you don't like IP laws, and for the record I don't like them as they exist now either, then you can try to change them (assuming you are a US citizen). We have our work cut out for us, but breaking the laws instead of changing them simply makes it harder convince others that they need changing. It makes it easier for rights-holders to accuse us of simply being unwilling to pay, and thus criticizing the IP system as an excuse for taking things we have no intention of paying for at any price.
it's equally wrong to suggest that every work is entirely the author's own and they're justified in locking other people out of using their work in exactly the same way they used others'.
I can read a book that has 100 years left to it's copyright and still use it. The knowledge I acquired from the book cannot be taken from me, the effect it had on my though processes cannot be revoked, and I can even quote sections verbatim or in summary as long as I provide appropriate citation. Essentially, you've created a false scenario where copyright prevents any use of previously copyrighted material in any way. Hell, if I want to borrow more liberally, I can negotiate a contract by which I can use something more liberally for a reasonable fee. It happens all the time in the music industry.
Feeling that taxes are too high does not make tax evasion morally acceptable. Feeling that you got screwed in divorce court (and who doesn't feel that way at first) doesn't make alimony and childsupport evasion morally acceptable. The law is the law. If you don't like it, then you can work to change it. That's the great part of our government, that you can work to change laws you don't like. It may be difficult, and there may be a lot of enertia to overcome, but it can happen. Just look at the civil rights movement and all the Jim Crow laws that were overturned.
Simply because breaking the law is easy, and the law is oppressive in your opinion, does not grant you the moral prerogative to break the law with impunity. And lets remember, the author in question was not threatening to sue anyone. He was simply asking people not to violate his copyright, and explaining why. This guy is not Disney.
I don't want to get offensive, but how arrogant are you that you feel your opinion trumps the decisions of the SCOTUS on this issue. I agree with your opinion, but am apparently at least a little more humble.
Using any post-'25 work in new work invites financial disaster, whether or not it's legally defensible.
Using any post-'25 work in new work requires you negotiate a deal with the copyright holder. It happens all the time. Anytime the song "Happy Birthday" appears in a movie or on a TV show, the producers have to first negotiate a deal with the copyright holder, who happens to be Time Warner. It may make use of the work more of a hassle, but it can be done in most cases. Copyrights are useless to their owners if they can't monetize them in some way, and most owners are willing to be reasonable because being unreasonable costs them too much money.
It is for the courts to decide what is truly novel, not the artist. If the owner of the work decided that they are too similar, then he can sue. If the court agrees, then he automatically gets the copyright to the new derivative work. It happened with vanilla Ice and a loop he stole from the Rolling Stones, IIRC. He claimed that the loop was not the same because he changed one or two notes, the Stones disagreed, and the courts sided with the stones. Any money Vanilla Ice made from that song was thus forfeit, and he had to pay a portion of the album sales to the Stones in perpetuity.
As I've said before, I feel that the current copyright term is excessively long. I would like to see it shortened back to, at most the lifespan of the creator, and preferably only 15 to 30 years.
As to the duration of copyright issue, I agree that it should be much shorter than it is. However, our shared opinion does not trump established law, or changed the legality of trading copyrighted works without compensating their creator. If you read the original article he didn't say he wanted protection forever. He simply indicated that the scores in question are still covered and asked that the refrain from trading them. He didn't even threaten anyone with a lawsuit, which he has the right to do.
And violation of copymonopoly which is claimed for longer than the constitutionally authorized limited time, is both legally and morally acceptable. Though the courts seem to claim otherwise.
Did you fail US government in HS? The constitution also lays out that the judicial branch is the arbiter of what is and is not constitutional. Your assessment of the constitutionality of the copyright extension acts is irrelevant. The SCOTUS has ruled on this before and upheld the extension act, so by definition they are constitutional. I don't agree with their decision, but since I'm not a lawyer or a judge, I'm not exactly qualified to overturn their ruling just because I feel like it, and neither are you (unless of course you don't live in the US).
Linux, BSD, et al are all DRM free operating systems
Audiobooks are also available on CD-sans DRM
TV shows are available free OTA in many/most cases prior to being on iTunes and I've never had any problem recording them or playing them back on which ever TV I want
eBooks are simply a different format of book, and there is no DRM on a paperback.
The only 2 that seem to be accurate are movies (as I said above, format is irrelevant) and video games. Well Movies occasionally appear on TV which is largely DRM free, as is watching them in the movie theatre, but I see the point there. For video games, well you got me there.
I'm sorry, but I have to call "BS". What categories of products are you refering to?? I can think of:
/. and the level of commentors has been slipping, I feel it is necessary that I point out that I believe the current term of copyrights to be excessive. I can see the point in them lasting as long as the author is alive, but not +150 years, and I believe that a fixed amount of time would be better (15-30 years maybe). I also feel that DRM is stupid, because it treats me "a PAYING customer" like a crook and does little if anything to prevent the actual crooks from violating their copyrights. However, my OPINION does not superscede the law, and therefore I don't violate copyrights and aviod DRM when I can.
Music (AFAIK, everything on iTunes and Amazon are DRM-free)
Software (MS office vs. Open Office)
??
What categories exist where DRM is the only way material is available??
If you are complaining that some SPECIFIC works are only available with DRM included, well tough. You have to decide whether the hassle of DRM is worth the advatages to you of owning/using what ever it is. Just because you want a DRM-free copy of something does not make it necessary for the copyright owner to make ti available to you.
A decent food analogy would be if you want a sandwich from your favorite restaurant, but they don't deliver and you don't want to leave the house. You need to decide if the hassle of getting in the car and driving is worth the sandwich.
Maybe a better fit would be a restraunt that does deliver, but you live outside of the range in which they are willing to deliver. They are not obligated to deliver to every house in town simply because they do deliver to some houses. Similarly, copywright holder are not obligated to make their works available in all media formats simply because they make them available in some media formats.
And since this is
Nearly all the value of nearly all copyrighted works comes from ideas that the author learned from people who came before and who the author didn't pay.
I don't know where you are from, but 'round here teachers don't work for free. My wife is a musician and she paid a hell of a lot of money for her education. She payed for the knowledge she acquired (as I feel it is safe to assume the composer in question did as well). However, even if you are from this magical land where teachers work for free he is not trying to be payed for the work of his instructors. He took the knowledge he acquired and then CREATED something with it. The musical compositions that he wrote did not exist before he created them, which is what's important. It is very rare that any creative endevour is achieved without some outside influence. If your reasoning is taken to its logical conclusion, then no creative person should ever expect to be paid for their arts, no matter how popular they become, unless they created their art in a vaccume.
/. because my wife had just finished reading some of TFA to me 5 min before. It is rare that her interests and mine intersect like this.
The fact is, if a composer had taken previously published work (maybe something in a text book from a college class he took, so he therefore owns a copywright to limited use of it) changed a handful of notes, and then sold it as a new work he could be sued for copywright violations. However, he can take a small portion of a copywrighted work and design an entirely new piece that is influenced by the original and then copywright that. The fair-use provisions of copywright law allow for some LIMITED use of others work as long as the later composers chages are sufficiently transformational that the new piece is truely novel.
Ultimately you are confusing two different issues. I too agree that the duration of copyright is excessive now. But excessive duration does not make violation of copyright legally or, as some above have suggested, morally acceptable.
P.S. I got a real thrill out of seeing this on
I may be wrong about Vorbis, but MP3 and AAC have something in their favor that Vorbis does not (to my knowledge), and that is widely available hardware decoders. At this point Apple has a lot of effort invested in MP3 and AAC, and unless Vorbis is going to give them something SIGNIFICANTLY better it is probably not worth the effort to make a change based on ideology alone.
If advocates of "Open" media formats want Apple, MS, or anyone else to standardize on one of their formats, then they are going to need to be ahead of the curve on the next major format decision. They need to have the Next-generation format ready, implemented, and rock solid before anyone needs it. Otherwise they'll be playing catch-up to the Proprietary standards that actually break new ground technologically with the profits from their current status as a de facto standard. If they can beat H.265 to market and have a technological advantage (not just on-par with H.265) then I think they may be able to "Win" a round. Otherwise, performance and vested interest will beat ideology and "Good Enough" every time.
I'm not saying I like it, but this is just the reality of the situation as I see it.
Even if you can explain Obama's election to "punishment" against the Republicans, that doesn't explain the huge victories in Congress, and those at every level of local governments, state legislatures, etc.
This is a very common occurence when an outgoing president is unpopular. The opposition party paints every member of the presidents party as being a clone of the president. It's almost never true, but perception is reality during an election campaign, and most voters don't take the time to weed out the BS. Of all the Republicans that ran for the presidentail nomination, McCain was the one with the greatest track record for opposing the Bush administration and causing them trouble durring the preceeding 8 years. However, that did not stop the entire bullpen of Democratic nominees (including the Obama team) of accusing McCain of being "Bush Mark II". This is not restricted to national candidates and is frequently seen in congressional and even state official election campaigns.
I'm a republican, but I've never been so Naive as to believe that large numbers of people voting for a Republican meant that the Republican party had grown. It is virtually impossible for any candidate anywhere to be elected by appealing only to members of their own party. Not only do you need independents, and some defectors from the opposition party, but you need more of them then you do members of your own party in many cases (President for example).
8 years of Bush did not mean that we were a Republican country, just like the 4 years of Obama we are in the middle of doesn't mean we are a Democratic nation. The fact is that we are a nation of independants who change their minds from month to month as to which party better serves their interests. Believing anything else as politician is a recipie for losing some November in the very near future.
Exactly... If Vorbis, Theoria, VP8, et al. were on par with state of the art, and unlikely to expose Apple to patent litigation then I fail to see why they wouldn't. Apple spends more money on licensing AAC and H.264 than it makes off of their contributions to the patent pool that make up those standards.
/., but "Good Enough" is almost profanity as far as Apple is concerned.
Apple cares about the quality of the final experience. They are willing to pay if it will make a noticable difference (and Steve has a discerning eye), and whether the "Free" brigade wants to admit it or not, Vorbis and Theora are not up to snuff and VP8 is a patent lawsuite waiting to happen. Whether Vorbis and Theora can be brought up to date is almost irrelevant because unless something dramtically changes, they never break new ground performancewise. They are always playing catchup and that is not a good place for them to be if they want competitive companies like Apple to use their technology. VP8 is supposed to be very promising performancewise, but the patent situation is very unclear and even the most flattering reviews I've read of VP8 say that H.264 still has an edge performancewise. The free options may be "Good Enough" for many here on
It could be that it's checking for webkit. I loaded the demos fine in safari and Google Chrome, but not in camino or firefox. I should have tried the other 2 before posting. My bad.
Try using Chrome. It could be that it's checking for webkit. I loaded the demos fine in safari and Google Chrome, but not in camino or firefox. I should have tried the other 2 before posting. My bad.
They have the exact same demos on the Apple Developer site with no User-Agen sniffing involved. If you really want to try them and see if they work on your favorite browser, just go here.
I agree that UA sniffing for a demo that is supposed to be of a Standard is stupid. However, if you want a crack at the demos without the UA spoofing or using Safari, you can go here. All of the same demos are there. It looks like these demos have been available on their developer site for a while and just recently got moved to the main page.
This is sheer stupidity on Apple's part, it undermines the whole idea of standards. However, the reason could be that HTML5 implementation is incomplete in all browsers (including Safari) and they didn't want the hassle of determining which other modern browsers could correctly render the pages. Not an excuse, but a reasonable guess as to the motivation for UA sniffing on their part.
Should rename them WikiThief.
My big question is whether or not their tactic for acquiring the documents is still usable by say, the Chinese Government.