When an agent of the government (who has the power to destroy you) gains information under false pretenses, it's wrong and should be illegal. What I share online is innocuous and I don't care who uses it; but if a fed decided to friend me and then started to report my political beliefs to his superiors, it's over the line.
The very act of asking for information without identifying one's self as a government investigator is questionable.
Not to mention that there were indeed a series of four or so bubbles that made the music industry: - The first being the birth of Rock and the emergence of adolescent baby boomers to buy it; - The second being the next phase of rock coinciding with the social movements of the 1960's; - The third being the baby boom echo of the 1980's and the large marekt of adolescents it brought; - And, finally, the arrival of Compact Disc technology, which pushed everyone who wasn't buying NEW music to re-buy their OLD music on CD.
Each bubble ended in its time, and the end of the last bubble just happened to coincide with the emergence of the internet, but the music company woes really came from a confluence of the collapse of the CD bubble, a serious decline in the quality of the music they were making available, overpriceing of their product, and the fragmentation of the market place as a smaller group of buyers splintered into fans of different genres. It was this last, the collapse of the monolithic youth market hooked on one kind of music, that has the most lasting effect.
So, while the number of music companies has dwindled from dozens down to just three or four, and their sales have fallen due to all the above, those companies get to blame the internet and file sharing for declines in revenue that are a natural result of other market forces.
I hate DRM, but I really think it would be unnecessary if the price was right for the product. And the music companies are just going to have to adjust their expectations downward to match the real market.
Obviously you didn't look very hard, because MS' own Visual Foxpro offers the RAD and high-level features of VB with a much better Data access and processing engine than Access has ever dreamed of. Of course, high level languages seem to be verboten today; There seems to be an elitist quality to the advocacy of C-type languages, and the failure to incorporate something like Cambridge Basic and all its derivatives into the Linux world. With these langauges and a solid foundation in Logic and Symbolic Logic, students can focus on solving the problem rather than on the mechanics of the language syntax. Those who want to advance in proramming then have the skills necessary to move to Java, C++, etc. In learning Java, I was told it was a high level language, a statement that is true only from the perspective of Assembly and C.
IMHO, I can program to solve business problems and re-use code and be as eloquent as time permits; or I can focus on elegance, re-use and architecture and miss solving the business problem. And I say this, not as a flame, but as an observation wanting to be correted, the Linux world seems to eschew solving the problem in favor of elegant code. Of course, that's just another liberal arts major who became a (talented) programmer based on logical thinking speaking. FWIW.
Nice for you, but some of us have no realistic options. I was with Bellsouth DSL service for six months when I first moved to Atlanta, and they blocked even accessing my pop3 box on my own domain directly! Comcast is the only other choice here, if you want broadband that is reliable, as Cingular and Sprint cell service (the only other alternatives) are shaky here.
So be snarky, but please recognize that the net is being monopolized and options are running thin for most of us.
' "If you don't like it, don't sign it" isn't a cop-out. It's how things work'
What you say would be true if an employment agreement were an agreement between equal parties; however, that is not the case. The employer will suffer no ill effects if you walk away; you, on the other hand, are still without income. The employer reserves the right to alter the terms of the agreement at will; you are not permitted to do so ever, under any circumstances. The employer can not only terminate you, but can pursue you for damages in court, hand out bad references and prevent you from working again. You cannot do the same to a corporation. You can be fired today, without notice, and not repercussions will fall on the employer for doing so. If you choose to walk out today, good luck getting another job.
Employers routinely abuse their position relative to employees, because they can. Labor law was born in the 20th century to try to level the playing field, but recently the government and the courts have taken the position that labor law exists to defend the interests of the employer against rapacious employees. We're back to square one.
The advent of 'prior art' clauses demonstrates the next level of labor abuse, wherein employers will be able to lay claim to anything you do during your term of employement, AND pillage through your 'prior art' for ideas you can't afford to protect. Now you might walk away from these, but like the no compete clauses, they will spread and soon every employer will want one.
I've been on Comcast broadband for a few months, having dumped BellSouth because of their restrictions on my access - I couldn't even reach my own webserver, which is housed at a commercial site in another state. I also dumped their phone service because, even after a year, they wouldn't give me access to my long distance carrier without my paying BellSouth a deposit! So, when I got Comcast, I got Vonage, and haven't had any problems with it . Needless to say, if I do, I'll just dump Vonage and stick with my cell phones. Comcast will get nothing out of blocking my VOIP, except a disgruntled customer who will be looking for ways to get to the internet without them.
What these old line companies like BellSouth and Comcast don't seem to realize is that there are plenty of alternatives, and if they keep pissing their customer base off, folks will leave.
What I really find interesting is how the RIAA seems intent on aleinating its customer base. Here they are among the most profitable of all businesses, offering artists only about 5-10% of what their creation is actually worth, and controlling prices in a way only the oil cartel seems to be able to match; yet, their attitude is one of f--- the customer. Instead of making it easy to get their product, to listen to it and encourage others to buy, they want to make it harder. Given the choice of purchasing a seperate copy for home, work, car and portable (the average album would cost around $80 in this case), I'll just switch off and enjoy the silence.
Do these RIAA suits really think we can't live without this stuff? Like others here, I've already bought most of my music three or four times now (8-track, vinyl, some cassettes, and finally CD). I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for it again.
I know I'm just repeating what many others have said, but I am a businessman, and I know I have to make my customers happy. To deliberately makes your customers miserable seems like they are signing their own death warrant. And by the way, when are we going to get an anti-trust investigation of the RIAA?
I agree! That's why we need consumer pressure as well. I cancelled my BellSouth broadband yesterday, after they made the announcment, and told them why. We need to encourage subscribers to boycott BellSouth as well as content providers to refuse to bend to the blackmail.
Oh, and fwiw, I'm cancelling my BellSouth phone service and moving to voip over my new broadband conneciton, and I'll acutally save 50% of my monthly costs doing this.
Only pressure from both sides will wake these corporate goons up.
I'd go one step further and reimpose the requirement for a scaled working model of the design. That would definitely eliminate all the conceptual patents that really belong in copyright. I would also enforce the requirement that a patent be awarded to a person, not to a corporation. Corporations who employ the patent holder can then purchase the define rights to a patent from their employee for a sum of money; this is how the aerospace giant Rockwell handled patents when my father worked for them.
Another thing that concerns me is the cost of getting a patent; it's way too high, virtually closing individual inventors out and forcing them to sell off their ideas for a fraction of their real worth. The government should establish a level playing field for all, and not provide an exclusive right only to those with deep pockets.
Two points to consider: First, there is a difference between what is 'Fair' and what is 'Just'. The current tax system was originally designed to attempt to introduce a modicum of justice into what an economic system that is, at its core, very darwinian and therfore very unjust. 'Fair' just means everybody contributes the same amount to supports the system, regardless of the extent to which they have reaped advantages from the system. 'Justice' means equalizing the contribution to maintaining the system with the extent one has reaped its advantages.
Nothing is ever really fair or just; we can only approximate either one, and they are often contradictory concepts. And don't mistake this for socialist thinking, because the concept of justice has been tossed around by pholosophers and religious scholars for about 3,000 years.
An absolutely just system would ask that everyone's contribution to supporting the system be in direct proportion to the advantages they have reaped. Thus, in an above example, those who make up the 2% of our population that collect 50% of the income (and own like 65% of all wealth), would contribute 50% of what it takes to keep the system running - the government. In the same way, that 50% of the population that generates 20% of the income would be asked to contribute 20% toward maintaining the system. Such a system, while absolutely Just, is politically untenable in a oligarchic democracy such as ours.
In purely economic terms, a strictly 'Fair' system is as impossible as a strictly 'Just' one. Were everyone to contribute say, 30% of their consumption, the bottom 50% of wage earners would be taxed on 100%+ of their income, while the top 2% would be based on maybe 5-10% of their income (what they actually spend in a year vs. what they make). This throws the weight of supporting the sytems onto the backs of those who have reaped its advantages the least; and it allows those who have profited most to invest proporitonally less.
And those who believe we could rid ourselves of the IRS by simplifyiing the system are fooling themselves. In a darwinian systems such as ours, and given human nature, enforcement of the tax code -- whatever it is -- will always be necessary.
So the choice is really between a range of fairness vs. a range of justice, with no perfection attainable.
One last question: Everyone I hear speak in favor of 'fairness' are comfortably in the middle class, if not among the nouveau riche. I wonder if fairness would sound so good to them if they were making minimum wage and trying to support their family on that?
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When an agent of the government (who has the power to destroy you) gains information under false pretenses, it's wrong and should be illegal. What I share online is innocuous and I don't care who uses it; but if a fed decided to friend me and then started to report my political beliefs to his superiors, it's over the line. The very act of asking for information without identifying one's self as a government investigator is questionable.
Not to mention that there were indeed a series of four or so bubbles that made the music industry:
- The first being the birth of Rock and the emergence of adolescent baby boomers to buy it;
- The second being the next phase of rock coinciding with the social movements of the 1960's;
- The third being the baby boom echo of the 1980's and the large marekt of adolescents it brought;
- And, finally, the arrival of Compact Disc technology, which pushed everyone who wasn't buying NEW music to re-buy their OLD music on CD.
Each bubble ended in its time, and the end of the last bubble just happened to coincide with the emergence of the internet, but the music company woes really came from a confluence of the collapse of the CD bubble, a serious decline in the quality of the music they were making available, overpriceing of their product, and the fragmentation of the market place as a smaller group of buyers splintered into fans of different genres. It was this last, the collapse of the monolithic youth market hooked on one kind of music, that has the most lasting effect.
So, while the number of music companies has dwindled from dozens down to just three or four, and their sales have fallen due to all the above, those companies get to blame the internet and file sharing for declines in revenue that are a natural result of other market forces.
I hate DRM, but I really think it would be unnecessary if the price was right for the product. And the music companies are just going to have to adjust their expectations downward to match the real market.
Obviously you didn't look very hard, because MS' own Visual Foxpro offers the RAD and high-level features of VB with a much better Data access and processing engine than Access has ever dreamed of. Of course, high level languages seem to be verboten today; There seems to be an elitist quality to the advocacy of C-type languages, and the failure to incorporate something like Cambridge Basic and all its derivatives into the Linux world. With these langauges and a solid foundation in Logic and Symbolic Logic, students can focus on solving the problem rather than on the mechanics of the language syntax. Those who want to advance in proramming then have the skills necessary to move to Java, C++, etc. In learning Java, I was told it was a high level language, a statement that is true only from the perspective of Assembly and C. IMHO, I can program to solve business problems and re-use code and be as eloquent as time permits; or I can focus on elegance, re-use and architecture and miss solving the business problem. And I say this, not as a flame, but as an observation wanting to be correted, the Linux world seems to eschew solving the problem in favor of elegant code. Of course, that's just another liberal arts major who became a (talented) programmer based on logical thinking speaking. FWIW.
Nice for you, but some of us have no realistic options. I was with Bellsouth DSL service for six months when I first moved to Atlanta, and they blocked even accessing my pop3 box on my own domain directly! Comcast is the only other choice here, if you want broadband that is reliable, as Cingular and Sprint cell service (the only other alternatives) are shaky here.
So be snarky, but please recognize that the net is being monopolized and options are running thin for most of us.
' "If you don't like it, don't sign it" isn't a cop-out. It's how things work'
What you say would be true if an employment agreement were an agreement between equal parties; however, that is not the case. The employer will suffer no ill effects if you walk away; you, on the other hand, are still without income. The employer reserves the right to alter the terms of the agreement at will; you are not permitted to do so ever, under any circumstances. The employer can not only terminate you, but can pursue you for damages in court, hand out bad references and prevent you from working again. You cannot do the same to a corporation. You can be fired today, without notice, and not repercussions will fall on the employer for doing so. If you choose to walk out today, good luck getting another job.
Employers routinely abuse their position relative to employees, because they can. Labor law was born in the 20th century to try to level the playing field, but recently the government and the courts have taken the position that labor law exists to defend the interests of the employer against rapacious employees. We're back to square one.
The advent of 'prior art' clauses demonstrates the next level of labor abuse, wherein employers will be able to lay claim to anything you do during your term of employement, AND pillage through your 'prior art' for ideas you can't afford to protect. Now you might walk away from these, but like the no compete clauses, they will spread and soon every employer will want one.
What will you do then? Wait on tables?
I've been on Comcast broadband for a few months, having dumped BellSouth because of their restrictions on my access - I couldn't even reach my own webserver, which is housed at a commercial site in another state. I also dumped their phone service because, even after a year, they wouldn't give me access to my long distance carrier without my paying BellSouth a deposit! So, when I got Comcast, I got Vonage, and haven't had any problems with it . Needless to say, if I do, I'll just dump Vonage and stick with my cell phones. Comcast will get nothing out of blocking my VOIP, except a disgruntled customer who will be looking for ways to get to the internet without them. What these old line companies like BellSouth and Comcast don't seem to realize is that there are plenty of alternatives, and if they keep pissing their customer base off, folks will leave.
What I really find interesting is how the RIAA seems intent on aleinating its customer base. Here they are among the most profitable of all businesses, offering artists only about 5-10% of what their creation is actually worth, and controlling prices in a way only the oil cartel seems to be able to match; yet, their attitude is one of f--- the customer. Instead of making it easy to get their product, to listen to it and encourage others to buy, they want to make it harder. Given the choice of purchasing a seperate copy for home, work, car and portable (the average album would cost around $80 in this case), I'll just switch off and enjoy the silence. Do these RIAA suits really think we can't live without this stuff? Like others here, I've already bought most of my music three or four times now (8-track, vinyl, some cassettes, and finally CD). I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for it again. I know I'm just repeating what many others have said, but I am a businessman, and I know I have to make my customers happy. To deliberately makes your customers miserable seems like they are signing their own death warrant. And by the way, when are we going to get an anti-trust investigation of the RIAA?
I agree! That's why we need consumer pressure as well. I cancelled my BellSouth broadband yesterday, after they made the announcment, and told them why. We need to encourage subscribers to boycott BellSouth as well as content providers to refuse to bend to the blackmail.
Oh, and fwiw, I'm cancelling my BellSouth phone service and moving to voip over my new broadband conneciton, and I'll acutally save 50% of my monthly costs doing this.
Only pressure from both sides will wake these corporate goons up.
I'd go one step further and reimpose the requirement for a scaled working model of the design. That would definitely eliminate all the conceptual patents that really belong in copyright. I would also enforce the requirement that a patent be awarded to a person, not to a corporation. Corporations who employ the patent holder can then purchase the define rights to a patent from their employee for a sum of money; this is how the aerospace giant Rockwell handled patents when my father worked for them.
Another thing that concerns me is the cost of getting a patent; it's way too high, virtually closing individual inventors out and forcing them to sell off their ideas for a fraction of their real worth. The government should establish a level playing field for all, and not provide an exclusive right only to those with deep pockets.
Two points to consider: First, there is a difference between what is 'Fair' and what is 'Just'. The current tax system was originally designed to attempt to introduce a modicum of justice into what an economic system that is, at its core, very darwinian and therfore very unjust. 'Fair' just means everybody contributes the same amount to supports the system, regardless of the extent to which they have reaped advantages from the system. 'Justice' means equalizing the contribution to maintaining the system with the extent one has reaped its advantages. Nothing is ever really fair or just; we can only approximate either one, and they are often contradictory concepts. And don't mistake this for socialist thinking, because the concept of justice has been tossed around by pholosophers and religious scholars for about 3,000 years. An absolutely just system would ask that everyone's contribution to supporting the system be in direct proportion to the advantages they have reaped. Thus, in an above example, those who make up the 2% of our population that collect 50% of the income (and own like 65% of all wealth), would contribute 50% of what it takes to keep the system running - the government. In the same way, that 50% of the population that generates 20% of the income would be asked to contribute 20% toward maintaining the system. Such a system, while absolutely Just, is politically untenable in a oligarchic democracy such as ours. In purely economic terms, a strictly 'Fair' system is as impossible as a strictly 'Just' one. Were everyone to contribute say, 30% of their consumption, the bottom 50% of wage earners would be taxed on 100%+ of their income, while the top 2% would be based on maybe 5-10% of their income (what they actually spend in a year vs. what they make). This throws the weight of supporting the sytems onto the backs of those who have reaped its advantages the least; and it allows those who have profited most to invest proporitonally less. And those who believe we could rid ourselves of the IRS by simplifyiing the system are fooling themselves. In a darwinian systems such as ours, and given human nature, enforcement of the tax code -- whatever it is -- will always be necessary. So the choice is really between a range of fairness vs. a range of justice, with no perfection attainable. One last question: Everyone I hear speak in favor of 'fairness' are comfortably in the middle class, if not among the nouveau riche. I wonder if fairness would sound so good to them if they were making minimum wage and trying to support their family on that?