Well the article is for registered users only so I can't read it, but I feel like there's something missing from this story. Some key detail like Dodele hanging around the contrustion worker's trailer constantly or something. Otherwise this killer is just using his son as an excuse for being batshit psycho. What did this guy do, log in to the sex offender registry on occasion to see if any molesters lived near him so he could kill them with a clear conscience or with some feeling of vigilante style justice? With only the summary to go on it sounds like this construction worker was being more than just a proactive father. A proactive person complains to the park management, speak with the police, confronts the guy, talks to his own kids about steering clear, etc. Not up and decides "well there's a molester in the neighborhood, guess I'll have to be the one to *kill* him."
This of course is completely separate from the discussion of the usefulness, constitutionality, and accuracy of sex offender DBs.
What I'd really like to see is a constitutional amendment (that's what it would take) that automatically bars an official from re-election if he or she proposes, sponsors, or votes for legislation like this which is prima facie unconstitutional (they've violated their oath of office to uphold the constitution).
While on the surface this sounds like a great idea, and I'd be all for it, unfortunately there is no way to craft such a law that makes sense. As an example take Prohibition; once it was made law if the law your are proposing were in place then it could never be repealed, and/or anyone involved in the repeal of prohibition would be automatically barred from re-election even though repeal was the wish of the majority at the time. Additionally enforcing such a law after the fact instead of before would still be a problem because sometimes a good law can be found unconstitutional because of one portion, but it could be revised and be reimplemented in an acceptable manner. The problem lies in the legal definition of what we would refer to as election 'grandstanding' - when lawmakers craft a law they know is bogus just to garner votes. The problem is similar to the problem with defining pornography: legal definitions often fail to correctly identify what qualifies but "we know it when we see it."
Currently we have seen that the costs for sharing only a handful of MP3s can be as much as a quarter million dollars or more after legal fees. How does anyone think that increasing fines to a half million and including jail time will be any more of a deterrent? Financial ruin was already nearly guaranteed if one was caught, if that isn't enough to scare the thousands (millions?) of file sharers then it is unlikely this will. We might also see a blow-back effect similar to when penalties for violent crimes are raised to maximum levels. e.g. if one gets life in prison for rape or murder then it induces some rapists to kill their victims since the sentence is the same and killing the victim might make it less likely to be caught. The parallel would be if you're going to be financially wiped out and sent to prison for sharing ONE song, why not simply share hundreds? You're screwed either way.
Also this brings copyright infringement from a civil tort to a criminal charge. Change of venue to courts already overburdened by America's various other "War on $CONCEPT". And why should this be a criminal offense? The system was already out of balance in favor of the copyright holder, this law would make it egregiously so. If Congress is willing to reduce copyright limits to *reasonable* lengths then maybe it would make sense, but as it stands now almost nothing created in my parent's lifetime will become public domain for me before I die. Copyright is supposed to offer limited protection in return for the work passing to public domain. If it essentially never enters public domain then why should it be protected by criminal penalties? It's like shooting someone for shoplifting, completely out of scope with both the crime and the supposed bargain between the public and copyright holders.
Also in regards to some posts saying that this law protects all equally and is not skewed in favor of large corporations, I must disagree. Large corporations could afford a judgment against them brought successfully by an individual, it would not go so well the other way around. The inherent imbalance between the resources (financial, legal and manpower) of a corporation and an individual pretty much guarantee an individual will be forced to cut a deal or risk their livelihood and freedom while a corporation could stall for years and even if convicted would be able to recover almost instantly.
It only takes 30 years to change a liberal into a conservative without changing a single idea.
I don't think that quote means what you think it means. If the idea hasn't changed, then what has changed is the definition. But since the OP's point is that their ideas have changed, your uncredited quip doesn't apply
On the contrary, I understand what the quote means, I believe you are too narrow in your reasoning. It is possible that while the ideas (values) of the hypothetical liberal in question haven't changed, their priorities may have, or their responsibilities. Additionally neither the definition nor values of the person need to change if society changes around them. The OP merely stated that the people had changed, but this doesn't have to mean that their ideas changed as you assert. They may still believe in all the things they used to, but now that they have children and house payments their income is more important than supporting certain ideals. That's simply one example. Also your dig at me for not crediting that quote, while subtle, was unnecessary. It's a well recognized quote, I don't know offhand who made it originally and simply didn't feel like looking it up at the moment. This is slashdot, not a university science journal, I think we'll all be ok if I reference something without footnotes.
i'm not saying stop being vigilant. I'm saying, stop being grumpy. this is a ray of light here
Not a bad point, but this letter has an underlying tone of extortion to me. It's "please rethink your ranking system [or else we'll rethink it for you]."
Maybe I'm just being a grumpy pessimist, but if they're not considering making a law, then why are lawmakers writing letters, hm?
If the police prosecute her for failing to hand over the encryption keys which on the face of it they have good reason to believe she has then I'd say it was fairly likely that a jury would agree with them that the chances are she does have the keys and she's lying when she says she doesn't and send her to jail for the allowed time period.
I don't personally believe this is an abuse of any sort of power since the information in those files may well be able to help secure convictions on other activists or information about any new atrocities the activists may be planning.
Just wow, this is an amazing kowtow to power on your part without any sort of reasoning. In the first quoted sentence above your argument is circular, you (or a jury) should believe that she is guilty because the police think she is guilty. Nothing was proven other than as you say the police "have good reason to believe". There's LOTS of cases where the police may have a good reason to believe something but could be dead wrong. You can't just strongly suspect someone of wrongdoing, you have to prove it. Why bother with a trial at all if the police have already determined the suspect's guilt? Please, answer me that question directly.
In the second sentence you don't believe there is an abuse of power because in your mind the ends justify the means. This is classical reasoning for the abuse of power. e.g. It's OK to torture this suspect because it will save lives and lead to the greater good. Now obviously this case isn't involving torture, but so what? Your entire justification for this is that it MAY ("may" I emphasize because you and the police still don't even know WHAT is in those files) lead to other arrests.
So hypothetically let's say she's sent to jail and later the police find a paper slip in this woman's house with the passwords in question, they open the files and... tada it's full of kinky porn she was hiding. So, did the ends justify the means in this case? Claiming that the police can use abusive or invasive techniques to coerce testimony IS an abuse of power. I will rephrase your sentence to make my point.
"I personally believe this is an abuse of power since the information in those files may well be totally unrelated to other activists or information about any new atrocities the activists may be planning."
Bit of a slippery slope there. If your computer is really full of files from "random sources," then I guess you have no reasonable expectation of privacy for the data on your computer?
Read vs Write access my friend. Just because you can email me any attachment you please, doesn't mean that I've also invited you to read the contents of my inbox.
but it irks me a bit when anyone says (or implies) that music would be anything less than abundant at $0
It was not my intention to state or imply that music wouldn't be abundant at $0, I'm saying that the industry as a whole will likely never, and certainly not soon, move to that price point. There is already an abundance of music available for free in many formats, I don't deny that. But what I was responding about was the general theme of posts I see in these discussions where someone exuberantly crows about the death of the big labels and how because distribution is so cheap and music is so prevalent the price will surely go to zero! It's just not going to happen, the economic realities of production cost (including feeding the artist) mean that until there is some other major advance in the state of things, music will not go to $0. Doesn't matter if the labels all close up shop and all the artists have sweet free distribution deals with bittorrent sites or itunes or whatever tomorrow. Commercial music will not drop to $0. Thus far everyone that has replied to my post has used hypothetical negative cost arguments. When someone shows how on a large scale music can be produced and given away by a majority of artists as a sustainable and desirable business model for them then I'll change my mind. And the idea of using the music files as free advertising and living off merch and concerts is a good start but doesn't cover all the bases, there's more to it than that and the economics of it pretty much require a new artist to be destitute or working another fulltime job for it to work. In the end it's still easier to make a living by doing both - charge for merch and shows, AND charge for the tracks.
Hi dada, thanks for your reply, I've had you as a friend on slashdot for some time and respect your opinions. That said, I must respectfully disagree with the following:
This is what most people don't understand, the price will drop, but it will never reach zero cost for new goods due to the fact that there IS a cost associated with production that must be recouped.
In terms of economic theory, this has not been proven or even insightfully debated.
It is completely false that in economic theory my above point has never been proven or debated. In fact most economic theories go to great length to include ALL costs in the production of an item, including a term called "opportunity cost" which represents the cost of spending resources on one thing vs another that has a potential return. I am sure you are aware of this. Your argument about getting enjoyment out of creation, and thus having a negative cost, touches on this concept as well. You even point out some of your opportunity costs that are associated with creating, e.g. creating vs consuming entertainment vs sleep. The fact is that your time is a cost associated with the act of creating, whether you get enjoyment from it or not you are spending time (and anything else that could have been done with that time) and in return receiving enjoyment and producing some creative work. The fact that you get more than one "product" out of the act does not negate the costs involved. Additionally my comment spoke to general macro economic trends for supply and demand in the music industry. Note that I was careful to say that the *cost* will never reach zero, not that the *price* would never reach zero. It is entirely possible that someone would be willing to sell at a loss (e.g. free music) for any number of reasons including gaining market share, exposure, etc. However there are still costs associated with the production of the product that are either intrinsic, like time, or extrinsic, like bills for studio time - that must be paid with money from some other source. In general, however, I find it extremely unlikely that the industry as a whole would ever go to a zero price model for music simply because the costs will never reach zero. If a balance can be struck between things like merchandise sales and concerts that offset losses due to releasing music for free then it is a possibility. But we are a long ways off from such a balance being possible given the current state of affairs with the industry and copyrights.
Embrace the new market -- supply is near infinite, demand is finite, so price drops to zero.
But the price curve on the demand side *always* drops to zero, however it is the intersection of the supply and demand curves that determines price. Although distribution costs trend to zero, production costs do not. There is a finite lower limit to the supply curve below which the product will not be sold no matter how low the cost of distribution is.
This is what most people don't understand, the price will drop, but it will never reach zero cost for new goods due to the fact that there IS a cost associated with production that must be recouped.
The right to free speech does not mean that one has the right to be listened to or not be mocked. It means that the government does not have the ability to punish you or muzzle you for what you choose to say. This is the less popular, true meaning, of the right to free speech. If someone voices unpopular opinions in a public (non-government) forum, the forum's response is dictated only by their own adherence to mutual respect, and not the constitution.
Free speech does NOT mean that every opinion is valid or should be given equal weight.
I agree, however, that simply shouting someone down is not a good way of making one's own argument. Rather, I wish someone with some good public speaking skills would go point by point down Thompson's list and logically rip each one to shreds. It's not that hard, anyone capable of doing geometry proofs and googling behavioral studies could probably refute everything the man has ever said in a single afternoon.
One big reason your system is a better value is because your "Hackentosh" is running an operating system you did not buy a license for.
If you reread what the OP said: The hardware for my Hackintosh costed $250. I actually did buy a copy of OS X Tiger (though just one for my G4, but I don't use the G4 99% of the time), but that was only $100. So for $350 total,
So while he did not buy the license for this machine specifically, he did include that licensing cost in his price estimate. So in that sense he is comparing [ahem] apples to Apples. You are quite correct about the form factor not being the same footprint. But if space or chic is not one of your top considerations for a system then his rig wins on price and functionality. Personally, I have a shuttle XPC case and it's as small as it needs to be, it's already smaller than a shoebox so to scale it down to mac mini size for double the price doesn't interest me. Considering most users have enough space for a medium sized case, and want blazing fast hardware, the advantage of form factor over price is greatly reduced.
Lots of U.S. customers (who originally would have bought the game at $50) have bought every single $5 copy the Thailand market has to offer, with little copies left over for the low-income local population.
The net result of that example is that Valve is now worse off than if they had just sold copies in Thailand at $50 (and had received zero sales in that region because of it)
Sorry, this too is wrong for the same reason. It is extremely unlikely that EVERY copy would have been sold to the US. This only would happen if there were a Thai merchant giving US customers access to every game for sale in their country. That is not the case, these are limited sales by people either scamming Americans or just trying to turn a profit and not even realizing they're selling region locked goods. But there is no realistic scenario in which every single Thai copy gets sold to America.
Either Valve is selling the Thai copies for a tiny profit, or at a loss to be subsidized by other sales. If it's for a tiny profit then they are just getting less than maximum profit since some $50 US sales are transmuted to $5 Thai sales, but still at profit. If they are selling at a loss then it is still the same total loss regardless of if it goes to a Thai player or a US player. The difference here is that there are less US buyers to subsidize the loss so again, it's simply less than maximum profit. But let's not kid ourselves, given the size of the two markets and the huge worldwide sales of this product, none of these scenarios will result in a NET LOSS for Valve, only in less than maximum profit.
Basically it comes down to the fact that Valve is using market segmentation to maximize their profits and if US buyers go around the market segments then the scheme fails to maximize. Valve is punishing consumers for finding the holes in its business model, standard corporate globalization hypocrisy.
Once some asshats decide to re-sell their $5 copies to the U.S, nobody buys the $50 copies anymore. Valve no longer has enough revenue to meet their expenses and shuts down.
So what you're saying is that Valve has, or will, release enough copies of the game to Thailand to satisfy the demand in every other country in the world? Either all at once, or continuing to release copies there after it is noticed that none of the games are selling in the US....?
I'm sorry but that's completely and utterly stupid. While I'm not exactly a professional supply chain manager I do now this: B) No [game] company releases more copies to a region than could be used in that region, ie there's no way that the Thailand market would EVER receive enough copies to cover their demand + all North American demand. B) Any company that found their products not selling and creating massive losses would *investigate* why and put a stop to it, in this case by not releasing any more copies to Thailand.
Companies are not some huge clunking machine that can never be steered in a new direction or shut off. If a business practice or sales tactic or product is going to bankrupt the company then they will do something about it, not just merrily watch the process unfold. (Oblig exception to the rule: Enron, but that was because of rampant fraud)
Is in the mail. Wear it daily.
What are you gonna do next? Light a fire under some chicken wire and jump up and down on it?
I don't normally feed the tolls, let alone anon ones, but seriously, WTF was this comment even supposed to mean? It's a published and verifiable fact that was linked to about the illegal spying of Americans without even the thin pretext of "it's to prevent terrorism." So you're saying that we're all paranoid conspiracy theorists because we're pointing out that the President actually broke the law? There's no paranoia, the law was broken. People were spied upon without warrants or judicial oversight in defiance of specific law prohibiting such actions. And because it was done before the terrorism event of the century the stupid excuse that it was to protect us from those same people isn't even applicable. If anyone can say that is not worrisome then THEY are the enemy. The rule of law, upholding the tenants of freedom and the Constitution are what make America a great place. To say that anyone can simply claim dictatorial powers and ignore the law for whatever reason they choose is the opposite of patriotism. It is the opposite of freedom. If you believe one man may, regardless of his office or beliefs or intentions, remake the law at will then you are living in the wrong country, that is not how our democratic republic was designed, nor how it is intended to operate.
Now I'm not knocking your right to support a candidate or vote with your wallet. But honestly, what you basically just suggested was that if we want a law to pass (or not) we should pay someone directly for it. That's what this country has come to. Just outright admitting that vote-buying and influence peddling are the only way for the rule of law to prevail. It's not enough that retroactive immunity is forbidden by the Constitution, no, we have to SEND SOMEONE MONEY to see that the founding tenant of the law is upheld.
What law would I be breaking, and what would be the possible ramifications, assuming that an injunction were passed on the import of these drives?
I'm not trolling, here, I'm actually curious about what the relevant law is for end-level consumers in a case like this. I'm sure one could always find a smaller foreign store willing to ship one of these drives even if there were a ban. I'm not advocating working around a legitimate patent (assuming it's held up as legitimate) but we know *someone* would want their Seagate, et al badly enough to break the ban, what are the repercussions?
Mr. Miller announced "Well, fuck it," and decide to revoke all Payroll DB access rights, delete the tables and go on "permanent" vacation from the job. Problem solved!
On a more serious note.... what happened to the intern?
I mean, having kids doesn't suddenly mean that all criminal punishments are reduced because you have to take care of children.
Actually I would say in this case, regardless of her maternal status, all criminal punishments are totally non-applicable since it is a CIVIL TORT.
And regardless of her intentions or thoughts on the matter, it still remains that the damages awarded were in retribution for the infringement rather than based on any demonstrated loss by the plaintiffs. For all that was proven each song could have been downloaded by a total of one user. While I doubt it was that low, it's totally unlikely that 200,000 songs were uploaded by her as the bandwidth would have been noticeable (in the realm of 700 GB) and the RIAA would have jumped all over that evidence were it there.
It's not the buyers are upset that ads are there necessarily, it's the sellers. They're *paying* ebay (twice if they use PayPal) to help sell goods, and ebay is at the same time providing ads that could result in lower sales for these sellers. Since the listing fee is taken by ebay regardless of whether the items sells or not, it's kind of like ebay double dipping. They get listing fees, and ad revenue, and are using their users as the contextual ad base. Kind of slimy when you look at it that way.
Wow, glad you summed up a complex argument, moral dilemma, and vast as yet un-explored research field in two points. I'm hoping you were being sarcastic. If not then you, as a scientist, shift your area of research to only the most massively-important topic of the year every time it changes right? So which cancer are you curing? Or are you working on AIDS research? No? How about increasing crop yields for harsh-climate strains? Hm, inventing cheap potable water conversion techniques, or desalination? Or I guess since those things might increase our average age you'll be shunning all them and just inventing better birth control for poor populations? So which is it? Which is number one, how do you know you're doing the "Right" research right now?
Or maybe you should get off your high horse and recognize that there are multiple avenues to be explored and the manpower and money to do so. Humanity will sow many seeds in many fields and reap knowledge from as diverse a range of research as possible to improve life for everyone. And for the record, off the top of my not-a-biologist head I could see how this research might allow us to create human-specific organs in pigs otherwise meant for slaughter anyway. Thus people involved in tragic accidents or assaults who need an organ transplant could actually get one. The logical conclusion of your ethical dilemma is that all gene manipulation of human cells is taboo. Where does that get us?
Slashdot Mirror
Well the article is for registered users only so I can't read it, but I feel like there's something missing from this story. Some key detail like Dodele hanging around the contrustion worker's trailer constantly or something. Otherwise this killer is just using his son as an excuse for being batshit psycho. What did this guy do, log in to the sex offender registry on occasion to see if any molesters lived near him so he could kill them with a clear conscience or with some feeling of vigilante style justice? With only the summary to go on it sounds like this construction worker was being more than just a proactive father. A proactive person complains to the park management, speak with the police, confronts the guy, talks to his own kids about steering clear, etc. Not up and decides "well there's a molester in the neighborhood, guess I'll have to be the one to *kill* him."
This of course is completely separate from the discussion of the usefulness, constitutionality, and accuracy of sex offender DBs.
Currently we have seen that the costs for sharing only a handful of MP3s can be as much as a quarter million dollars or more after legal fees. How does anyone think that increasing fines to a half million and including jail time will be any more of a deterrent? Financial ruin was already nearly guaranteed if one was caught, if that isn't enough to scare the thousands (millions?) of file sharers then it is unlikely this will. We might also see a blow-back effect similar to when penalties for violent crimes are raised to maximum levels. e.g. if one gets life in prison for rape or murder then it induces some rapists to kill their victims since the sentence is the same and killing the victim might make it less likely to be caught. The parallel would be if you're going to be financially wiped out and sent to prison for sharing ONE song, why not simply share hundreds? You're screwed either way.
Also this brings copyright infringement from a civil tort to a criminal charge. Change of venue to courts already overburdened by America's various other "War on $CONCEPT". And why should this be a criminal offense? The system was already out of balance in favor of the copyright holder, this law would make it egregiously so. If Congress is willing to reduce copyright limits to *reasonable* lengths then maybe it would make sense, but as it stands now almost nothing created in my parent's lifetime will become public domain for me before I die. Copyright is supposed to offer limited protection in return for the work passing to public domain. If it essentially never enters public domain then why should it be protected by criminal penalties? It's like shooting someone for shoplifting, completely out of scope with both the crime and the supposed bargain between the public and copyright holders.
Also in regards to some posts saying that this law protects all equally and is not skewed in favor of large corporations, I must disagree. Large corporations could afford a judgment against them brought successfully by an individual, it would not go so well the other way around. The inherent imbalance between the resources (financial, legal and manpower) of a corporation and an individual pretty much guarantee an individual will be forced to cut a deal or risk their livelihood and freedom while a corporation could stall for years and even if convicted would be able to recover almost instantly.
On the contrary, I understand what the quote means, I believe you are too narrow in your reasoning. It is possible that while the ideas (values) of the hypothetical liberal in question haven't changed, their priorities may have, or their responsibilities. Additionally neither the definition nor values of the person need to change if society changes around them. The OP merely stated that the people had changed, but this doesn't have to mean that their ideas changed as you assert. They may still believe in all the things they used to, but now that they have children and house payments their income is more important than supporting certain ideals. That's simply one example.
Also your dig at me for not crediting that quote, while subtle, was unnecessary. It's a well recognized quote, I don't know offhand who made it originally and simply didn't feel like looking it up at the moment. This is slashdot, not a university science journal, I think we'll all be ok if I reference something without footnotes.
It only takes 30 years to change a liberal into a conservative without changing a single idea.
We will soon be intergalactic litterbugs.
The search for good dialogue strays too far off the beaten path established by the social mores of the target market
;)
I see what you've done there.....
i'm not saying stop being vigilant. I'm saying, stop being grumpy. this is a ray of light here
Not a bad point, but this letter has an underlying tone of extortion to me. It's "please rethink your ranking system [or else we'll rethink it for you]."
Maybe I'm just being a grumpy pessimist, but if they're not considering making a law, then why are lawmakers writing letters, hm?
In the second sentence you don't believe there is an abuse of power because in your mind the ends justify the means. This is classical reasoning for the abuse of power. e.g. It's OK to torture this suspect because it will save lives and lead to the greater good. Now obviously this case isn't involving torture, but so what? Your entire justification for this is that it MAY ("may" I emphasize because you and the police still don't even know WHAT is in those files) lead to other arrests.
So hypothetically let's say she's sent to jail and later the police find a paper slip in this woman's house with the passwords in question, they open the files and... tada it's full of kinky porn she was hiding. So, did the ends justify the means in this case? Claiming that the police can use abusive or invasive techniques to coerce testimony IS an abuse of power. I will rephrase your sentence to make my point.
"I personally believe this is an abuse of power since the information in those files may well be totally unrelated to other activists or information about any new atrocities the activists may be planning."
Thus far everyone that has replied to my post has used hypothetical negative cost arguments. When someone shows how on a large scale music can be produced and given away by a majority of artists as a sustainable and desirable business model for them then I'll change my mind. And the idea of using the music files as free advertising and living off merch and concerts is a good start but doesn't cover all the bases, there's more to it than that and the economics of it pretty much require a new artist to be destitute or working another fulltime job for it to work. In the end it's still easier to make a living by doing both - charge for merch and shows, AND charge for the tracks.
Additionally my comment spoke to general macro economic trends for supply and demand in the music industry. Note that I was careful to say that the *cost* will never reach zero, not that the *price* would never reach zero. It is entirely possible that someone would be willing to sell at a loss (e.g. free music) for any number of reasons including gaining market share, exposure, etc. However there are still costs associated with the production of the product that are either intrinsic, like time, or extrinsic, like bills for studio time - that must be paid with money from some other source. In general, however, I find it extremely unlikely that the industry as a whole would ever go to a zero price model for music simply because the costs will never reach zero. If a balance can be struck between things like merchandise sales and concerts that offset losses due to releasing music for free then it is a possibility. But we are a long ways off from such a balance being possible given the current state of affairs with the industry and copyrights.
This is what most people don't understand, the price will drop, but it will never reach zero cost for new goods due to the fact that there IS a cost associated with production that must be recouped.
The right to free speech does not mean that one has the right to be listened to or not be mocked. It means that the government does not have the ability to punish you or muzzle you for what you choose to say. This is the less popular, true meaning, of the right to free speech. If someone voices unpopular opinions in a public (non-government) forum, the forum's response is dictated only by their own adherence to mutual respect, and not the constitution.
Free speech does NOT mean that every opinion is valid or should be given equal weight.
I agree, however, that simply shouting someone down is not a good way of making one's own argument. Rather, I wish someone with some good public speaking skills would go point by point down Thompson's list and logically rip each one to shreds. It's not that hard, anyone capable of doing geometry proofs and googling behavioral studies could probably refute everything the man has ever said in a single afternoon.
So while he did not buy the license for this machine specifically, he did include that licensing cost in his price estimate. So in that sense he is comparing [ahem] apples to Apples.
You are quite correct about the form factor not being the same footprint. But if space or chic is not one of your top considerations for a system then his rig wins on price and functionality. Personally, I have a shuttle XPC case and it's as small as it needs to be, it's already smaller than a shoebox so to scale it down to mac mini size for double the price doesn't interest me. Considering most users have enough space for a medium sized case, and want blazing fast hardware, the advantage of form factor over price is greatly reduced.
Either Valve is selling the Thai copies for a tiny profit, or at a loss to be subsidized by other sales. If it's for a tiny profit then they are just getting less than maximum profit since some $50 US sales are transmuted to $5 Thai sales, but still at profit. If they are selling at a loss then it is still the same total loss regardless of if it goes to a Thai player or a US player. The difference here is that there are less US buyers to subsidize the loss so again, it's simply less than maximum profit. But let's not kid ourselves, given the size of the two markets and the huge worldwide sales of this product, none of these scenarios will result in a NET LOSS for Valve, only in less than maximum profit.
Basically it comes down to the fact that Valve is using market segmentation to maximize their profits and if US buyers go around the market segments then the scheme fails to maximize. Valve is punishing consumers for finding the holes in its business model, standard corporate globalization hypocrisy.
Once some asshats decide to re-sell their $5 copies to the U.S, nobody buys the $50 copies anymore. Valve no longer has enough revenue to meet their expenses and shuts down.
So what you're saying is that Valve has, or will, release enough copies of the game to Thailand to satisfy the demand in every other country in the world? Either all at once, or continuing to release copies there after it is noticed that none of the games are selling in the US....?
I'm sorry but that's completely and utterly stupid. While I'm not exactly a professional supply chain manager I do now this: B) No [game] company releases more copies to a region than could be used in that region, ie there's no way that the Thailand market would EVER receive enough copies to cover their demand + all North American demand. B) Any company that found their products not selling and creating massive losses would *investigate* why and put a stop to it, in this case by not releasing any more copies to Thailand.
Companies are not some huge clunking machine that can never be steered in a new direction or shut off. If a business practice or sales tactic or product is going to bankrupt the company then they will do something about it, not just merrily watch the process unfold. (Oblig exception to the rule: Enron, but that was because of rampant fraud)
Is in the mail. Wear it daily. What are you gonna do next? Light a fire under some chicken wire and jump up and down on it?
I don't normally feed the tolls, let alone anon ones, but seriously, WTF was this comment even supposed to mean? It's a published and verifiable fact that was linked to about the illegal spying of Americans without even the thin pretext of "it's to prevent terrorism." So you're saying that we're all paranoid conspiracy theorists because we're pointing out that the President actually broke the law? There's no paranoia, the law was broken. People were spied upon without warrants or judicial oversight in defiance of specific law prohibiting such actions. And because it was done before the terrorism event of the century the stupid excuse that it was to protect us from those same people isn't even applicable. If anyone can say that is not worrisome then THEY are the enemy. The rule of law, upholding the tenants of freedom and the Constitution are what make America a great place. To say that anyone can simply claim dictatorial powers and ignore the law for whatever reason they choose is the opposite of patriotism. It is the opposite of freedom. If you believe one man may, regardless of his office or beliefs or intentions, remake the law at will then you are living in the wrong country, that is not how our democratic republic was designed, nor how it is intended to operate.
Where is the outrage?
What law would I be breaking, and what would be the possible ramifications, assuming that an injunction were passed on the import of these drives?
I'm not trolling, here, I'm actually curious about what the relevant law is for end-level consumers in a case like this. I'm sure one could always find a smaller foreign store willing to ship one of these drives even if there were a ban. I'm not advocating working around a legitimate patent (assuming it's held up as legitimate) but we know *someone* would want their Seagate, et al badly enough to break the ban, what are the repercussions?
Mr. Miller announced "Well, fuck it," and decide to revoke all Payroll DB access rights, delete the tables and go on "permanent" vacation from the job. Problem solved!
On a more serious note.... what happened to the intern?
And regardless of her intentions or thoughts on the matter, it still remains that the damages awarded were in retribution for the infringement rather than based on any demonstrated loss by the plaintiffs. For all that was proven each song could have been downloaded by a total of one user. While I doubt it was that low, it's totally unlikely that 200,000 songs were uploaded by her as the bandwidth would have been noticeable (in the realm of 700 GB) and the RIAA would have jumped all over that evidence were it there.
It's not the buyers are upset that ads are there necessarily, it's the sellers. They're *paying* ebay (twice if they use PayPal) to help sell goods, and ebay is at the same time providing ads that could result in lower sales for these sellers. Since the listing fee is taken by ebay regardless of whether the items sells or not, it's kind of like ebay double dipping. They get listing fees, and ad revenue, and are using their users as the contextual ad base. Kind of slimy when you look at it that way.
Wow, glad you summed up a complex argument, moral dilemma, and vast as yet un-explored research field in two points. I'm hoping you were being sarcastic. If not then you, as a scientist, shift your area of research to only the most massively-important topic of the year every time it changes right? So which cancer are you curing? Or are you working on AIDS research? No? How about increasing crop yields for harsh-climate strains? Hm, inventing cheap potable water conversion techniques, or desalination? Or I guess since those things might increase our average age you'll be shunning all them and just inventing better birth control for poor populations? So which is it? Which is number one, how do you know you're doing the "Right" research right now?
Or maybe you should get off your high horse and recognize that there are multiple avenues to be explored and the manpower and money to do so. Humanity will sow many seeds in many fields and reap knowledge from as diverse a range of research as possible to improve life for everyone. And for the record, off the top of my not-a-biologist head I could see how this research might allow us to create human-specific organs in pigs otherwise meant for slaughter anyway. Thus people involved in tragic accidents or assaults who need an organ transplant could actually get one. The logical conclusion of your ethical dilemma is that all gene manipulation of human cells is taboo. Where does that get us?
The report claims there will be a provision for regulation of the research to incorporate any 'unforeseen developments.'
It's Ripley with a flame thrower.