When there's laws governing the transaction of said "intellectual property", it's no longer just a gentleman's agreement.
It still is if the thing being agreed is not self-evident or contrary to common sense. Stealing a physical object can be universally seen as theft in any culture and as far back in time as possible. Claiming to have stolen someone's "idea" would label you an insane person in any culture for the vast majority of human recorded history. Even now people laugh at a madman running around on the street screaming how the "government is stealing his thoughts". Yet they accept information as property without blinking when they go to the store. I disagree vehemently with "intellectual property" but I am playing by the rule of law, until someone like Valve decides to stick it to me. Two can play this game.
Yeah! That's a good idea!
Next time I go to a restaurant that charges me $100 for the meal, but it takes 30 mins for my order to arrive, I'll charge them $150 (cause it's always full charge within the first hour.)
This will be great!! I'll get free food, and cash back!
Thanks d00d, you're a genius!
Try it next time. Ask the matre'de how long does it take to prepare the meal and if they go over by 30 minutes raise hell. In a fancy restaurant, it is exceedingly likely you will get to eat for free and get the the chef to apologise to you in person.
hello my name is bill gates and you owe me $40,000 for reimbursement of my time spend reading your crappy post
Hello, Bill.
I will be pleased to reimburse you as soon as you present me with the receipt for the purchase of my comments from me or any of my authorized distributors as well as an example of my advertising of the said comments as "The Best Comments of 2004".
Comparing buying and not being able to play a game to getting a life-threatening illness.
These are extreme ends of the same case. I used the extreme example to illustrate the fallacy clearly. But the same principle applies. I was wronged by Valve in far lesser way then a drug user would be but I was still wronged.
Nice. You indeed should be compensated for you greef.
I already appologised for my spelling. When I get mad I tend to make all sorts of silly spelling mistakes. My bad.
The game developers have the right to release the game under any conditions they want.
Maybe in the US of A. Here they are bound by the Consumer Protection Act and the Charter of Rights. They do not get to do what they please whenever they please. They have obligations, which they failed to meet. Simple as that.
The fact that you are from Canada explains a lot. Go get a beer and watch Strange Brew again, okay hoser? Too bad there is no NHL since none of us that matter care about some bastard child of soccer and figure skating.
It must suck being the inferior little brother, eh, hosehead?
Here comes the predictable "we burned down the white house, so their(sic)" comments.
No I merely will stay satisifed that I am getting
what I rightfully deserve and you get to stay ever more subjegated by your corporations and increasingly insane taliban-like religious-political forces. As long as you stay on your side of the border and do not attempt to deprive me of my rights, I do not care what you do to each other. Come here and you will likely discover that we have enough know how to make really effective "improvised road-side explosives".
Since some Valve admirers are trying to mute me here by troll-rating, I will rephrase my reply in a more civilized way:
If you don't like the company, don't play the game. Don't pirate it, just ignore it and go on with your life
That was an option before I bought it and spent my money and time on it. I did my part of the bargain, they didnt. I now deserve compensation. No matter what various appologists of Valve are about to say.
. Congratulations, your morals suck. The people who worked 5 years on this won't get any of your money...and you are so proud of yourself, that you want them to pay you money. Beyond my comprehension...it's people like you who are the problem.
No, what is immoral is your insistence that only the game developers have rights because they are the ones bringing you new "oooh shiney" moments in exchange for you parting with some of your rights.
I will also add that yes, people like you are indeed the source of the problem. You are the ones who encourage Valve and others to take away more of your rights and institute tighter controls on you. Some of us are of the old school of individual liberties and rights and can still remember the days when the manufacturers had the obligation to make their products work and were not allowed to change conditions of the sale after the fact.
If I did not aleady have a remedy I described, I would set aside time to fuck around with idiots like Valve, I would have taken them to court. The EULA's are non binding when they contradict the Canadian Charter of Rights and or Consumer Protection laws and if I get any more of this crap from more software vendors, it will happen. I assure you, laughing is the last thing Valve will be doing.
You sir are ignorant. Hey, I bought this car and even though it had a big sign that said "MANUAL SHIFT" I was pissed that it wasn't automatic, so I returned it and went out and stole an automatic car.
It is you who is ignorant. Unlike a car or any other physical object a game is "property" only as far as we all agree to pretend it is in a gentlemen's agreement called "intellectual property rights". If you steal a car from a lot, that car is no longer available to someone else because it is a unique physical object. If I pirate or not pirate the game everyone who is foolish enought to submit to Valve still has it. The fact that you brought this utterly stupid "example" tells volumes about the level of brainwashing you are accepting.
Valve is a company that has been supporting a no-money-making game for the past 5 years with CounterStrike. Forgot that you haven't had to pay one penny to play it for the past 5 years??? Maybe they fucking deserve a little compensation, ok nitwit?
No it is you who is a nitwit and a scumbag since it is you who I did support with my original purchase of HalfLife. I never played CS and probably never will. So now how does it look like? I am the one who paid Valve for their original product which enabled you to ride on my coattails even though I never used the supposed "services" of Valve ever since. Now I come with my money agan... and guess what... I am to be screwed by Steam? You are a pathetic parasite..
Oh really? That dude who voluntarily bought that cough remedy and got cancer instead should also return it and go on with his life? No way! I voluntarily bought a game and got non working set of coasters and greef and frustration instead. I could sue and spend more money and time or I could do what I am doing. I do have my rights even thou you think noone but Valve does.
There is another option: Don't buy the game. No one is forcing you to. A legit protest is to just not buy it.
No there isn't. That was an option before I bought it and spent copious amount of my time on it. I held my end of the deal, they didnt and caused me greed and wasted my time. Now I do deserve compensation. I could go to court and spend some more time and expenses or I could do what I am doing.
It's like protesting against Nike sweat shop conditions by Stealing Nike shoes. STFU
No it isnt. The Nike shoes are a physical object and are subject to "real" theft. This game is "Intellectual Property" and thus only a "property" as far as gentlemen's agreement works treating it as such. They broke their part of the deal, now I am breaking mine. And no, I will not shut up just because some brainwashed appologists of "onnly corporations have rights, game corporations are Gods!" are going to whine at me.
If you don't like the company, don't play the game. Don't pirate it, just ignore it and go on with your life
No, dipshit. That was an option before I bought it and spent my money and time on it. I did my part of the bargain, they didnt. I now deserve compensation. No matter what dimwitted appologists of Valve are about to say in between the bouts of licking their master's balls.
. Congratulations, your morals suck. The people who worked 5 years on this won't get any of your money...and you are so proud of yourself, that you want them to pay you money. Beyond my comprehension...it's people like you who are the problem.
No, what is immoral is your spineless insistence that only the game developers have rights because they are the ones bringing you new "oooh shiney" moments in exchange for you parting with some of your rights. And yes indeed, all of this is bound to be "beyond your comprehension". No suprise there.
I will let you in on a secret: I just returned HL2 to EB and I am downloading the said cracked version. It is the first time ever I am pirating a game. This is my answer to Steam.
Not only the fucking thing did not work, I object to the idea of Steam on principle. I do not care if those morons at Valve figure that they will get rich by trying to chain me down by my balls so that every time they yank the chain, I will have to part with more of my money.
I did my duty as a consumer, I went to the store, bought the thing and followed the instructions. They failed their duty as manufacturer and treated me like a thief and via their extreme "protection" measures not only failed to make their product opearational buy also attempted to violate my privacy and take control of my computer.
I have news for you Valve. If you are going to treat me like a thief, assume that only your time is worth something and mine is utterly worthless, treat me with contempt as your "technical support" isn't, I will resort to one of the remedies available to me: I will do the "thieving" you are accusing me of, because if I am going to get the treatment, I might as well get the benefits.
Oh and by now it is you who ows me money since the cost of your "product" is far less then the expense of my time attempting to make it work. The going rate for my type of services is ~$150/hr and I spend in exceess of 10 hours allready on this crap troubleshooting it. Let it be lesson to you! You just turned someone who despite his view of "Intellecual Property" bullshit was up to now a law-obiding consumer into your dreaded nemesis: a "pirate"! Arghhh mateys!
No more of this nonsense. The gravvy train has ended for you scumbags.
Yea but I can see a lot of pain with the project itself having to keep everything on foreign servers and continuing harassment of the hosting companies by the likes of MPAA etc. Since they will likely outlaw all P2P networks, getting the MythTV stuff will be like buying dope or something.
A) Find oil wherever we can and take it B) Kill anyone that gets in our way
While I agree with you, these are only some of the components of the mosaic of motivations and goals of the present US administration. Bush understands oil well, but at the same time he and his crew are hate-filled megalomaniacs. While Hitler really believed that expansion East was crutial for his Third Reich to become powerful economically, his disdain and hatred of Slavs and Jews was a core element of that plan. The same is true of Bush. While an imperial power struggle to secure oil and energy sources is on the mind of some neocons, their disdain and hatered of Arabs and love for Israel is also the heart of their actions.
Now before you go about praising China to be some great utopia,
Who is praising China as a utopia? I was merely pointing out that China (at least nominally) is a communist country and does not appear to be in any danger of collapsing, while it seems to be becoming the engine of manufacturing for most of the planet. His point was that Regan defeated communism, which is patently and obviously untrue.
Say, what are the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists nurished by, anyway?
Very observant. Yes indeed they are nurished by the same thing. While King George seeks to remake the world into a neo-con Christian-capitalist utopia, Osama and crew seek to remake the world into a Islamic Empire known as the Caliphate. They are the two sides of a very ugly coin. You should also realise that they need each other badly. In the absence of Osama, Bush would have difficulties frightening his sheeple into spending trillions and giving him near absolute power. In the absence of the Bush's Crusdade, Osama would have to deal with a reasoned and shrewd leader who would alter US policies in the Middle East, thus making Osama to be considered by Muslims to be a criminal instead of a hero and thus cought in a short order and his group rendered powerless.
Never mind the fact that we bailed out Europe (twice)
Oh goodey. You mean in the First World War there were Good Guys vs Bad Guys as opposed to a bunch of brainless empires killing each other's cannon fodder off? News to me!
And in the WWII I seem to recall something about that Red Army thing who seem to have captured some city called Berlin despite the fact that the Germans had 190 divisions fighting in the East compared to 59 in the West..
and saved the entire globe from Communism
Err..no. Mr. Regan taking credit notwithstanding (he was fond of that particular gig) the USSR collapsed from within due to its loooong lasting structural weakneses which were seeded at the time of its creation. As far as Communism is concerned, it merely underwent some transformations and is alive and well, last time seen spending lavishly in China while sipping Martinis.
To these people the US and everything that we stand for is evil and they are rooting for us to lose
You see the saddest part is that the US was at a time a beacon of freedom and Enlightement, to which most of the world looked up in awe and inspiration. Then people like you, who use terms like "niggerlovers" got in power. Now the US is a rotting corpse of its former ideals, a zombie lurching about looking for blood and brains, a terryfing and sad sight, made more frightening by the fact that the rest of the world now knows with certainty that even the fairest and healthiest of nations are not immune to this terrible disease which seeks to lower the curtain of Dark Age back on our civilization. A disease feeding on greed, ignorance, hubris but most nurished by religious bigotry and zeal. This sad truth is only reinforced by the images of toys and candy handed out to children whose parents are murdered that same evening as "collateral damage" or "insurgents and terrorists".
It's better to just ignore them and their message of hate and move on knowing that the vast majority of us stand for the right thing
Right. Ignore discourse, ignore dissent, ignore information, ignore facts because you are Right by nature. Or perheaps made Right by your religion. Or a word of your pious leader. Onward Christian Soldiers.
but it did have ties to those that supported Al Qaeda
This is fascinating! Really. Could you enlighten poor uneducated me how did those ties between a secular Baath party dictator whom Osama Bin Laden called with disdain "a communist" and a pan-arab Islamic Fundamentalist movement seeking to restore the Caliphate worked? You mean they were about to share Bagdad as the capitol of the Caliphate and Saddam's Socialist Baath state?
Actually... I am not sure I want to hear the answer to that, we here in the reality based community might be frightened should you present us with some of the more impressive of the delusions you seem to be full of.
No, idiot. This is the classic whine of a religious wacko. It is not our job to prove that your particular lunacy is wrong. You make the claim that is the truth as given to you via direct pipe to an unseeable and unknowable supernatural deity. It is your fundamentalist drooling imbecilism, thus it is your job to prove it to us, not the other way around. Next thing you will be claiming to have the ability to see planets in a galaxy on the other end of a universe and demand that we prove that you dont. Nice try. You just exposed the rot that passes for thought in a religious zealot's mind.
Yes it is. It is you Mr. Dim Bulb, who has no idea that Intellectual Property just isn't and all the bullshit about "ownership" and "theft" of information is corporate propaganda concocted by people who would have humanity robbed of what are our most basic and innate rights so they can make a buck. Translation for the benefit of common-sense deficient: that is by the greedy, filthy, thieving, manipulative and ruthless people. The very definition of "immoral". Oh, and to achieve that little gem, they only need to brainwash some dimwits and turn them into self-righteous propaganda dispensers for them. Why dont you slither off and report some of your nighboughrs to the MPAA, it will make you feel more "wholesome".
A little addendum (I was being rushed when I replied first):
When I said that some things will always be difficult due to energy and materials, add to this the computational power and simply lack of understanding of the underlying processes. Without adequate models of the physical principles, one cannot fully utilize them.
Additionally:
brand loyalty
This has two components: one is pure, mindless adherance to some image burned into the animal brain of the "consumer" by a competent marketing machinery to associate that "brand" with good things, very much the same way the Pavlov's dogs salivate at the ring of a bell. This is one of the failing of capitalism because the entire model was predicated on educated consumer choice. It is also the reason market controls are needed to prevent abuse of this phenomenon. The second part of "brand" recognition can be sane, it can be predicated on empirical quality of products. In this case a company that innovates continuously has a great advantage because even in a world with no patents and copyrights, it is always ahead of its competitors. After a while the market will be divided in minds of consumers into "leaders" and "followers" and I am sure a skillful marketer can make that quite useful.
uneducated consumers
Again, a major flaw in the model of Capitalism. Uneducated consumers break the premise of a "better mousetrap" model of innovation. They simply have no clue which is "better" and buy stuff they are lead to believe is "better". In this scenario no amount of innovation is going to help because con-men will always make consumers buy their snake oil. This also is one of those key imperfections of the "free-market" model which require market controls, so loathed by evangelists of "pure" capitalism.
Slashdot Mirror
It still is if the thing being agreed is not self-evident or contrary to common sense. Stealing a physical object can be universally seen as theft in any culture and as far back in time as possible. Claiming to have stolen someone's "idea" would label you an insane person in any culture for the vast majority of human recorded history. Even now people laugh at a madman running around on the street screaming how the "government is stealing his thoughts". Yet they accept information as property without blinking when they go to the store. I disagree vehemently with "intellectual property" but I am playing by the rule of law, until someone like Valve decides to stick it to me. Two can play this game.
Try it next time. Ask the matre'de how long does it take to prepare the meal and if they go over by 30 minutes raise hell. In a fancy restaurant, it is exceedingly likely you will get to eat for free and get the the chef to apologise to you in person.
Hello, Bill.
I will be pleased to reimburse you as soon as you present me with the receipt for the purchase of my comments from me or any of my authorized distributors as well as an example of my advertising of the said comments as "The Best Comments of 2004".
Sincerely, IM
These are extreme ends of the same case. I used the extreme example to illustrate the fallacy clearly. But the same principle applies. I was wronged by Valve in far lesser way then a drug user would be but I was still wronged.
Nice. You indeed should be compensated for you greef.
I already appologised for my spelling. When I get mad I tend to make all sorts of silly spelling mistakes. My bad.
Maybe in the US of A. Here they are bound by the Consumer Protection Act and the Charter of Rights. They do not get to do what they please whenever they please. They have obligations, which they failed to meet. Simple as that.
No I merely will stay satisifed that I am getting what I rightfully deserve and you get to stay ever more subjegated by your corporations and increasingly insane taliban-like religious-political forces. As long as you stay on your side of the border and do not attempt to deprive me of my rights, I do not care what you do to each other. Come here and you will likely discover that we have enough know how to make really effective "improvised road-side explosives".
If you don't like the company, don't play the game. Don't pirate it, just ignore it and go on with your life
That was an option before I bought it and spent my money and time on it. I did my part of the bargain, they didnt. I now deserve compensation. No matter what various appologists of Valve are about to say.
. Congratulations, your morals suck. The people who worked 5 years on this won't get any of your money...and you are so proud of yourself, that you want them to pay you money. Beyond my comprehension...it's people like you who are the problem.
No, what is immoral is your insistence that only the game developers have rights because they are the ones bringing you new "oooh shiney" moments in exchange for you parting with some of your rights.
I will also add that yes, people like you are indeed the source of the problem. You are the ones who encourage Valve and others to take away more of your rights and institute tighter controls on you. Some of us are of the old school of individual liberties and rights and can still remember the days when the manufacturers had the obligation to make their products work and were not allowed to change conditions of the sale after the fact.
If I did not aleady have a remedy I described, I would set aside time to fuck around with idiots like Valve, I would have taken them to court. The EULA's are non binding when they contradict the Canadian Charter of Rights and or Consumer Protection laws and if I get any more of this crap from more software vendors, it will happen. I assure you, laughing is the last thing Valve will be doing.
It is you who is ignorant. Unlike a car or any other physical object a game is "property" only as far as we all agree to pretend it is in a gentlemen's agreement called "intellectual property rights". If you steal a car from a lot, that car is no longer available to someone else because it is a unique physical object. If I pirate or not pirate the game everyone who is foolish enought to submit to Valve still has it. The fact that you brought this utterly stupid "example" tells volumes about the level of brainwashing you are accepting.
Valve is a company that has been supporting a no-money-making game for the past 5 years with CounterStrike. Forgot that you haven't had to pay one penny to play it for the past 5 years??? Maybe they fucking deserve a little compensation, ok nitwit?
No it is you who is a nitwit and a scumbag since it is you who I did support with my original purchase of HalfLife. I never played CS and probably never will. So now how does it look like? I am the one who paid Valve for their original product which enabled you to ride on my coattails even though I never used the supposed "services" of Valve ever since. Now I come with my money agan... and guess what... I am to be screwed by Steam? You are a pathetic parasite..
yes I do. Sorry about these typos, but I am fuming about this crap.
Oh really? That dude who voluntarily bought that cough remedy and got cancer instead should also return it and go on with his life? No way! I voluntarily bought a game and got non working set of coasters and greef and frustration instead. I could sue and spend more money and time or I could do what I am doing. I do have my rights even thou you think noone but Valve does.
"caused me greef and wasted my time"
No there isn't. That was an option before I bought it and spent copious amount of my time on it. I held my end of the deal, they didnt and caused me greed and wasted my time. Now I do deserve compensation. I could go to court and spend some more time and expenses or I could do what I am doing.
It's like protesting against Nike sweat shop conditions by Stealing Nike shoes. STFU
No it isnt. The Nike shoes are a physical object and are subject to "real" theft. This game is "Intellectual Property" and thus only a "property" as far as gentlemen's agreement works treating it as such. They broke their part of the deal, now I am breaking mine. And no, I will not shut up just because some brainwashed appologists of "onnly corporations have rights, game corporations are Gods!" are going to whine at me.
No, dipshit. That was an option before I bought it and spent my money and time on it. I did my part of the bargain, they didnt. I now deserve compensation. No matter what dimwitted appologists of Valve are about to say in between the bouts of licking their master's balls.
. Congratulations, your morals suck. The people who worked 5 years on this won't get any of your money...and you are so proud of yourself, that you want them to pay you money. Beyond my comprehension...it's people like you who are the problem.
No, what is immoral is your spineless insistence that only the game developers have rights because they are the ones bringing you new "oooh shiney" moments in exchange for you parting with some of your rights. And yes indeed, all of this is bound to be "beyond your comprehension". No suprise there.
I will let you in on a secret: I just returned HL2 to EB and I am downloading the said cracked version. It is the first time ever I am pirating a game. This is my answer to Steam.
Not only the fucking thing did not work, I object to the idea of Steam on principle. I do not care if those morons at Valve figure that they will get rich by trying to chain me down by my balls so that every time they yank the chain, I will have to part with more of my money.
I did my duty as a consumer, I went to the store, bought the thing and followed the instructions. They failed their duty as manufacturer and treated me like a thief and via their extreme "protection" measures not only failed to make their product opearational buy also attempted to violate my privacy and take control of my computer.
I have news for you Valve. If you are going to treat me like a thief, assume that only your time is worth something and mine is utterly worthless, treat me with contempt as your "technical support" isn't, I will resort to one of the remedies available to me: I will do the "thieving" you are accusing me of, because if I am going to get the treatment, I might as well get the benefits.
Oh and by now it is you who ows me money since the cost of your "product" is far less then the expense of my time attempting to make it work. The going rate for my type of services is ~$150/hr and I spend in exceess of 10 hours allready on this crap troubleshooting it. Let it be lesson to you! You just turned someone who despite his view of "Intellecual Property" bullshit was up to now a law-obiding consumer into your dreaded nemesis: a "pirate"! Arghhh mateys!
No more of this nonsense. The gravvy train has ended for you scumbags.
Yea but I can see a lot of pain with the project itself having to keep everything on foreign servers and continuing harassment of the hosting companies by the likes of MPAA etc. Since they will likely outlaw all P2P networks, getting the MythTV stuff will be like buying dope or something.
You are missing the obvious here. MythTV will be illegal if this legislation gets passed and is enforced.
B) Kill anyone that gets in our way
While I agree with you, these are only some of the components of the mosaic of motivations and goals of the present US administration. Bush understands oil well, but at the same time he and his crew are hate-filled megalomaniacs. While Hitler really believed that expansion East was crutial for his Third Reich to become powerful economically, his disdain and hatred of Slavs and Jews was a core element of that plan. The same is true of Bush. While an imperial power struggle to secure oil and energy sources is on the mind of some neocons, their disdain and hatered of Arabs and love for Israel is also the heart of their actions.
Who is praising China as a utopia? I was merely pointing out that China (at least nominally) is a communist country and does not appear to be in any danger of collapsing, while it seems to be becoming the engine of manufacturing for most of the planet. His point was that Regan defeated communism, which is patently and obviously untrue.
Very observant. Yes indeed they are nurished by the same thing. While King George seeks to remake the world into a neo-con Christian-capitalist utopia, Osama and crew seek to remake the world into a Islamic Empire known as the Caliphate. They are the two sides of a very ugly coin. You should also realise that they need each other badly. In the absence of Osama, Bush would have difficulties frightening his sheeple into spending trillions and giving him near absolute power. In the absence of the Bush's Crusdade, Osama would have to deal with a reasoned and shrewd leader who would alter US policies in the Middle East, thus making Osama to be considered by Muslims to be a criminal instead of a hero and thus cought in a short order and his group rendered powerless.
Oh goodey. You mean in the First World War there were Good Guys vs Bad Guys as opposed to a bunch of brainless empires killing each other's cannon fodder off? News to me!
And in the WWII I seem to recall something about that Red Army thing who seem to have captured some city called Berlin despite the fact that the Germans had 190 divisions fighting in the East compared to 59 in the West..
and saved the entire globe from Communism
Err..no. Mr. Regan taking credit notwithstanding (he was fond of that particular gig) the USSR collapsed from within due to its loooong lasting structural weakneses which were seeded at the time of its creation. As far as Communism is concerned, it merely underwent some transformations and is alive and well, last time seen spending lavishly in China while sipping Martinis.
To these people the US and everything that we stand for is evil and they are rooting for us to lose
You see the saddest part is that the US was at a time a beacon of freedom and Enlightement, to which most of the world looked up in awe and inspiration. Then people like you, who use terms like "niggerlovers" got in power. Now the US is a rotting corpse of its former ideals, a zombie lurching about looking for blood and brains, a terryfing and sad sight, made more frightening by the fact that the rest of the world now knows with certainty that even the fairest and healthiest of nations are not immune to this terrible disease which seeks to lower the curtain of Dark Age back on our civilization. A disease feeding on greed, ignorance, hubris but most nurished by religious bigotry and zeal. This sad truth is only reinforced by the images of toys and candy handed out to children whose parents are murdered that same evening as "collateral damage" or "insurgents and terrorists".
It's better to just ignore them and their message of hate and move on knowing that the vast majority of us stand for the right thing
Right. Ignore discourse, ignore dissent, ignore information, ignore facts because you are Right by nature. Or perheaps made Right by your religion. Or a word of your pious leader. Onward Christian Soldiers.
This is fascinating! Really. Could you enlighten poor uneducated me how did those ties between a secular Baath party dictator whom Osama Bin Laden called with disdain "a communist" and a pan-arab Islamic Fundamentalist movement seeking to restore the Caliphate worked? You mean they were about to share Bagdad as the capitol of the Caliphate and Saddam's Socialist Baath state?
Actually... I am not sure I want to hear the answer to that, we here in the reality based community might be frightened should you present us with some of the more impressive of the delusions you seem to be full of.
No, idiot. This is the classic whine of a religious wacko. It is not our job to prove that your particular lunacy is wrong. You make the claim that is the truth as given to you via direct pipe to an unseeable and unknowable supernatural deity. It is your fundamentalist drooling imbecilism, thus it is your job to prove it to us, not the other way around. Next thing you will be claiming to have the ability to see planets in a galaxy on the other end of a universe and demand that we prove that you dont. Nice try. You just exposed the rot that passes for thought in a religious zealot's mind.
Yes it is. It is you Mr. Dim Bulb, who has no idea that Intellectual Property just isn't and all the bullshit about "ownership" and "theft" of information is corporate propaganda concocted by people who would have humanity robbed of what are our most basic and innate rights so they can make a buck. Translation for the benefit of common-sense deficient: that is by the greedy, filthy, thieving, manipulative and ruthless people. The very definition of "immoral". Oh, and to achieve that little gem, they only need to brainwash some dimwits and turn them into self-righteous propaganda dispensers for them. Why dont you slither off and report some of your nighboughrs to the MPAA, it will make you feel more "wholesome".
When I said that some things will always be difficult due to energy and materials, add to this the computational power and simply lack of understanding of the underlying processes. Without adequate models of the physical principles, one cannot fully utilize them.
Additionally:
brand loyalty
This has two components: one is pure, mindless adherance to some image burned into the animal brain of the "consumer" by a competent marketing machinery to associate that "brand" with good things, very much the same way the Pavlov's dogs salivate at the ring of a bell. This is one of the failing of capitalism because the entire model was predicated on educated consumer choice. It is also the reason market controls are needed to prevent abuse of this phenomenon. The second part of "brand" recognition can be sane, it can be predicated on empirical quality of products. In this case a company that innovates continuously has a great advantage because even in a world with no patents and copyrights, it is always ahead of its competitors. After a while the market will be divided in minds of consumers into "leaders" and "followers" and I am sure a skillful marketer can make that quite useful.
uneducated consumers
Again, a major flaw in the model of Capitalism. Uneducated consumers break the premise of a "better mousetrap" model of innovation. They simply have no clue which is "better" and buy stuff they are lead to believe is "better". In this scenario no amount of innovation is going to help because con-men will always make consumers buy their snake oil. This also is one of those key imperfections of the "free-market" model which require market controls, so loathed by evangelists of "pure" capitalism.