I was sticking to the legal options, because your method (arguably) alienates the RIAA and causes them to no longer support ventures like the iTMS. Whether or not the RIAA should be alienated is beside the point.
"Are you seriously suggesting that I no longer have the right to listen to music I purchased on a portable player?"
Of course you do, as long as that player is an iPod--just like it outlines in the iTunes Music Store contract you agreed to. What... you wanted to use your non-iPod player? Then why did you AGREE to the contract?
If you want to buy music and listen to it on your non-iPod player, no one's stopping you--there's plenty of stores where you can buy CDs to rip. The iTMS is a service, not a God-given right, and if you don't agree to the terms of the contract, nobody's forcing you to use it.
If you want listen to purchased music on your non-iPod player, then why are you buying songs from the iTMS? To support a company you respect? I see what you're saying, but you can't always have your cake and eat it too. Life is about compromise.
When you circumvent FairPlay, you're breaking the iTMS's terms of use. (Remember that click-through contract?) If you want to stay on this side of the law, you could just do what most people still do--get the CD from amazon.com or just go to the record store and rip it. You don't have to use the iTMS to buy music.
And that's ignoring your third choice, which is to keep doing whatever you were doing (legally!) before the iTMS came about. Which includes, for example, buying a CD and ripping it yourself. All Apple's done here is give you another way to purchase your music legally, should you so choose; no one's FORCING you to use it.
Thank you for illustrating that Wikipedia is NOT an authoritative source, but rather an interesting social experiment. Too many people here think Wikipedia is the word of God or something. OK, I'm done.
"They don't have to! The RIAA membership doesn't 'say' anything to anybody."
Well, that's not entirely true. If you want legislation enacted to preserve your monopoly on distribution, it makes sense that you'd want to have something to point to as evidence that you tried, and failed, to survive on your own in the free market. Sure, it'd be a long shot with the legislation, but better to put up a fight than slip away quietly into the night, yeah?
Incidentally, I never said I believed in this conspiracy. I was just clarifying the argument. You really need to relax.
Dude, calm down... I think your parent's theory is that the RIAA's member companies are trying to shut down iTunes while appearing to support it. This lets them say "Look, we did our best, but online music distribution just didn't work." They couldn't claim this if they simply went ahead and pulled their content off the iTMS catalog, as you suggest. As for motive, maybe the RIAA is afraid (rightly) of losing control of distribution, and wants legislation in place to prevent it.
That's the idea, anyway. I'm not convinced myself, but I think you might have misunderstood.
Also, Twirlip, what's the deal with flaming your parent poster? I never knew you had this mean streak in you...:p
Agreed... and let me just add, I think another factor is that people have really high expectations of Apple, so they're more inclined to ask for repairs when tiny things go wrong with their Macs.
My friend never gave a crap that her old Toshiba had a wobbly CD drive and speakers that didn't work, but now that she has an iBook, she laments the loss of one of the small rubber feet (which I think she can get replaced free of charge at an Apple store, by the way) and complains about how the shiny cover's getting all scratched up from being in her bag. Actually, she jokes about how ridiculous it is that she cares so much about the condition of her iBook. I'm pretty sure her old Toshiba inspired nothing but loathing, by contrast.
I guess my point is that Apple users demand more from their machines, so they make more noise about minor things going wrong.
Or maybe I've been inhaling too much secondhand crack. Who knows.
Operator: And our next question we'll take is from Arik Hesseldahl with Forbes.com.
Arik Hesseldahl: Hi, Steve. Always concerned about -- not concerned, I guess, but wondering -- one of the previous questions was about revenue. I'm wondering if iTunes has reached the break even point yet.
Steve Jobs: Yes. The iTunes music store had a small profit this past quarter.
Arik Hesseldahl: Had a small profit. OK. Any interest whatsoever, in the open source OGG Vorbis format?
Steve Jobs: We're certainly not getting any requests from customers for it.
Yeah, I think that was the point. That's the reason he needs the newest Office--he needs to read the files people send him. As far as features go, maybe he doesn't need all the new features of Office 3000 Turbo or whatever they're calling it these days, but other people probably do--and if he wants to be able to read their files, he's going to have to upgrade.
That said, it sure would be nice if Microsoft would learn to write a word processor that wasn't slow as balls on my old iBook.
Insofar as the term can be held meaningful, an essentialist view of the term "opportunity cost" requires that the perceiver suspend all belief in an world external to his own consciousness. Here we enter a world of stripped semiotics where definitions hang from hyphenated branches, and left here to wander we are soon enough lost in a forest of our own verbal undoings. This, I assert, is no way to approach economics. The discipline assumes at the bare minimum the viewer's subscription to what I like to call the phenomenology of evolutionary reason: a strictly humanist approach that rejects at the outset any claim to absolutist principles, but rather celebrates our journey from birth to lonely death. Our particular society attaches such meaning to this universal fulfillment that, to my view, it can be said that the joys of life are worth celebration. Thus we must begin with a construction; while some may reel with disgust, I fully believe that there can be no other meaningful way to approach economics within our shared framework of perception and existence. Opportunity cost means exactly what the textbooks say it means, and no more. Any attempt to pick apart the term beyond what is given us is an exercise in futility.
Ohh! You want to get intellectual-critical on my ass. I'd normally be up for it--hey, I'm not above having a little fun sometimes--but honestly I got tired of that bullshit after my cultural anthropology degree.
What the hell? I'm sorry, but there is absolutely NO WAY you have "written some college-level economics and business texts" if you're ignorant of the meaning of the term "opportunity cost." That is just unbelievable. I guess I've been trolled... ah well.
Sorry for being so curt, man. But I think the reality of it is that most people who understand what you call the "ideology" of economics have better things to do with their time than explain to you something as simple as opportunity cost--especially when you've publicly demonstrated not only that you're ignorant (by agreeing with the original post), but also that you're comfortable enough in your ignorance to shy away from putting the merest of efforts into reading the first paragraph of what turns out to be a well-written, jargon-free article (especially by Wikipedia standards) that you may find quite illuminating. Seriously, if you can't be troubled to even try to understand the first paragraph of that article, or if you strained your brain mightily and still failed to do so, I can't help you. But if you can, perhaps you'll begin to understand why the original AC is mistaken.
I think the original poster's point regarding the GPL was basically this: "If you expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL, you should support the RIAA going after infringers of its copyright. If not, you're a hypocrite."
That's from an earlier post. If I had mod points, I'd mod both of these guys up. They're offtopic, but I'm so sick of the Slashbot mentality I don't care.
Slashdot Mirror
I was sticking to the legal options, because your method (arguably) alienates the RIAA and causes them to no longer support ventures like the iTMS. Whether or not the RIAA should be alienated is beside the point.
You live in New York? I'll buy your iPod for $300 of groceries...
"Are you seriously suggesting that I no longer have the right to listen to music I purchased on a portable player?"
Of course you do, as long as that player is an iPod--just like it outlines in the iTunes Music Store contract you agreed to. What... you wanted to use your non-iPod player? Then why did you AGREE to the contract?
If you want to buy music and listen to it on your non-iPod player, no one's stopping you--there's plenty of stores where you can buy CDs to rip. The iTMS is a service, not a God-given right, and if you don't agree to the terms of the contract, nobody's forcing you to use it.
If you want listen to purchased music on your non-iPod player, then why are you buying songs from the iTMS? To support a company you respect? I see what you're saying, but you can't always have your cake and eat it too. Life is about compromise.
When you circumvent FairPlay, you're breaking the iTMS's terms of use. (Remember that click-through contract?) If you want to stay on this side of the law, you could just do what most people still do--get the CD from amazon.com or just go to the record store and rip it. You don't have to use the iTMS to buy music.
You're wrong. These are your choices:
1. Buy music with DRM.
2. Don't.
And that's ignoring your third choice, which is to keep doing whatever you were doing (legally!) before the iTMS came about. Which includes, for example, buying a CD and ripping it yourself. All Apple's done here is give you another way to purchase your music legally, should you so choose; no one's FORCING you to use it.
This is exactly what's wrong with the Mozilla project. Whatever happened to "make each tool do one thing and do it well?"
Thank you for illustrating that Wikipedia is NOT an authoritative source, but rather an interesting social experiment. Too many people here think Wikipedia is the word of God or something. OK, I'm done.
"They don't have to! The RIAA membership doesn't 'say' anything to anybody."
Well, that's not entirely true. If you want legislation enacted to preserve your monopoly on distribution, it makes sense that you'd want to have something to point to as evidence that you tried, and failed, to survive on your own in the free market. Sure, it'd be a long shot with the legislation, but better to put up a fight than slip away quietly into the night, yeah?
Incidentally, I never said I believed in this conspiracy. I was just clarifying the argument. You really need to relax.
Dude, calm down... I think your parent's theory is that the RIAA's member companies are trying to shut down iTunes while appearing to support it. This lets them say "Look, we did our best, but online music distribution just didn't work." They couldn't claim this if they simply went ahead and pulled their content off the iTMS catalog, as you suggest. As for motive, maybe the RIAA is afraid (rightly) of losing control of distribution, and wants legislation in place to prevent it.
:p
That's the idea, anyway. I'm not convinced myself, but I think you might have misunderstood.
Also, Twirlip, what's the deal with flaming your parent poster? I never knew you had this mean streak in you...
Agreed... and let me just add, I think another factor is that people have really high expectations of Apple, so they're more inclined to ask for repairs when tiny things go wrong with their Macs.
My friend never gave a crap that her old Toshiba had a wobbly CD drive and speakers that didn't work, but now that she has an iBook, she laments the loss of one of the small rubber feet (which I think she can get replaced free of charge at an Apple store, by the way) and complains about how the shiny cover's getting all scratched up from being in her bag. Actually, she jokes about how ridiculous it is that she cares so much about the condition of her iBook. I'm pretty sure her old Toshiba inspired nothing but loathing, by contrast.
I guess my point is that Apple users demand more from their machines, so they make more noise about minor things going wrong.
Or maybe I've been inhaling too much secondhand crack. Who knows.
Ha, you mean like this guy?
FWIW, I agree that pizza from Papa John's tastes like poo. Their garlic breadsticks are great, though...
(source: press conference, April 28, 2004)
Everyone knows terrorists don't celebrate Christmas.
Typical Linux enthusiast response. "It's unusable? Skin it!"
:-)
No offense.
Yeah, I think that was the point. That's the reason he needs the newest Office--he needs to read the files people send him. As far as features go, maybe he doesn't need all the new features of Office 3000 Turbo or whatever they're calling it these days, but other people probably do--and if he wants to be able to read their files, he's going to have to upgrade.
That said, it sure would be nice if Microsoft would learn to write a word processor that wasn't slow as balls on my old iBook.
Well, I got a kick out of it...
Ever stop to think you might not be the target audience of the parent post? I mean... unless you really think of yourself as a mindless Slashbot? :-)
Point is that these attitudes are all over the place here on Slashdot, whether you specifically subscribe to them or not.
Insofar as the term can be held meaningful, an essentialist view of the term "opportunity cost" requires that the perceiver suspend all belief in an world external to his own consciousness. Here we enter a world of stripped semiotics where definitions hang from hyphenated branches, and left here to wander we are soon enough lost in a forest of our own verbal undoings. This, I assert, is no way to approach economics. The discipline assumes at the bare minimum the viewer's subscription to what I like to call the phenomenology of evolutionary reason: a strictly humanist approach that rejects at the outset any claim to absolutist principles, but rather celebrates our journey from birth to lonely death. Our particular society attaches such meaning to this universal fulfillment that, to my view, it can be said that the joys of life are worth celebration. Thus we must begin with a construction; while some may reel with disgust, I fully believe that there can be no other meaningful way to approach economics within our shared framework of perception and existence. Opportunity cost means exactly what the textbooks say it means, and no more. Any attempt to pick apart the term beyond what is given us is an exercise in futility.
Ohh! You want to get intellectual-critical on my ass. I'd normally be up for it--hey, I'm not above having a little fun sometimes--but honestly I got tired of that bullshit after my cultural anthropology degree.
What the hell? I'm sorry, but there is absolutely NO WAY you have "written some college-level economics and business texts" if you're ignorant of the meaning of the term "opportunity cost." That is just unbelievable. I guess I've been trolled... ah well.
Sorry for being so curt, man. But I think the reality of it is that most people who understand what you call the "ideology" of economics have better things to do with their time than explain to you something as simple as opportunity cost--especially when you've publicly demonstrated not only that you're ignorant (by agreeing with the original post), but also that you're comfortable enough in your ignorance to shy away from putting the merest of efforts into reading the first paragraph of what turns out to be a well-written, jargon-free article (especially by Wikipedia standards) that you may find quite illuminating. Seriously, if you can't be troubled to even try to understand the first paragraph of that article, or if you strained your brain mightily and still failed to do so, I can't help you. But if you can, perhaps you'll begin to understand why the original AC is mistaken.
It's the season finale of Scrubs tonight. Wanna come over and watch?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're actually agreeing with the post you replied to?
I'd explain for you, but I suspect this is closer to the truth: You're stupid.
I think the original poster's point regarding the GPL was basically this: "If you expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL, you should support the RIAA going after infringers of its copyright. If not, you're a hypocrite."
That's from an earlier post. If I had mod points, I'd mod both of these guys up. They're offtopic, but I'm so sick of the Slashbot mentality I don't care.