" Do you really think the big pulishers give a shit about the small bookstores? Hint, they don't."
Why wouldn't they? The record companies care about small record stores (and even got nailed on an antitrust when they were trying to stop Best Buy and Wal-Mart from having too much power). We in the computer industry care about the so-called "non-named" resellers for similar reasons.
If you meant "give a shit" in the sense of that they hope the small bookstore owners have clever, popular children with straight teeth, then perhaps they don't -- but keeping the independents and regional resellers happy is crucial in lots of industries, and I'd be surprised if the book industry wasn't the same.
Heh. No worries, lots of people aren't aware of the distinction. I can't speak to the vagaries of the European music licensing system, but here in the US, ASCAP and BMI are non-profit societies run by and for artists. Some songwriters and composers often make much more money through performance and publishing rights than they do from the record companies through sales of the recordings.
Even though they are in business to look after artists' rights, and artists are the "good guys," this does not mean that the rights organizations are by any means good guys in the minds of many Slashdotters. ASCAP and BMI are the heavies who crack down on bars and restaurants who play music without paying a licensing fee. If the legend is correct, they are the ones who went after the Girl Scouts for singing songs at campfires without paying their tithe.
"typically there is one authority which has exclusive rights in a state..."
Interesting. BMI and SESAC offer their services in Europe. Are there some EU nations in which they're prevented from operating because of a country-wide monopoly?
"I wonder how those organisations (and those in other countries) are going to react to the prospect that most, if not all of them would become irrelevant in the face of a Europe-wide organisation?"
They would not like it.
"That being said, record labels may like it at a very senior level - they could save a lot of money."
Can you explain what the record companies would have to do with this? We're talking about rights management for artists here -- the money that gets paid to composers and songwriters. The record companies aren't part of these transactions.
"First of all, everywhere in the article, we get excerpts saying "the artists pay too much money", "it costs the artists too much". Which is of course, totally BS, because the labels pay for these, as the artists don't own the copyright!"
Are you positive about that? It's usually the case that the record company (along with the producer) own the copyright on the recording, but the words and music, of course, remain with the authors. It's these copyrights that the article is referring to, and it's these copyrights which can make lots of money for composers and songwriters. This is what the article stated:
"Musicians make money from their music after registering copyrights with collective rights managers. Those managers then license songs to on-line services, radio stations, dance clubs and other outlets. All these registrations are complex and costs artists a lot of money."
The rights managers to which the article refers are organizations like ASCAP and BMI (US companies that also provide services in the EU) and the local EU societies like PRS, STIM, et al. Here in the US, the record companies do not pay for getting artists registered with ASCAP/BMI, because they have no financial incentive to do so -- the licensing fees for radio stations, clubs, jukeboxes, etc. don't go to them. Here in the US, ASCAP and BMI are non-profit societies run by and for artists. They are unconnected to the record companies. This page explains it a little better.
If things are different in Europe, can you clarify? If record companies in Europe pay for artists to register their works with ASCAP, BMI, and the local EU performance rights organizations, that's absolutely terrific news -- and news which we should be getting out to the musicians. If you're correct, it's an act of generosity which I wouldn't associate with the way that record companies typically do business.
"If I read this correctly the venerability lies in how these blogging programs fetch RSS feeds from various places in that they don't check the input first. What are the chances that any popular blogs will link to sites likely to exploit this? And know how?"
XML-RPC, actually -- or is that what you meant to type when you wrote "RSS"? It's push vs. pull. Both use XML, but XML-RPC deals with the art of posting to a blog (with a tool like w.bloggar, for example) using the Blogger API, the MT API, and so on. RSS involves pulling content.
This isn't a worm-like situation (e.g. an RSS feed with some malicious SQL injection) but instead an opportunity for a hacker to compromise a system that's known to use PHP and have an XML-RPC interface.
"I'd like to see the law that says if you have X trademarks for a word, you own it in every use"
Your understanding is right on the money. There are, however, some brands that are so huge that you can't touch their mark in any space. For instance, one would not be able to get away with branding a PC "Chevrolet" or "Pepsi". But, as you've pointed out, this "Stealth" nitwit is not entitled to that same protection... not by a long shot.
"how can he get the rights for a word that is in PUBLIC DOMAIN?"
In the same way that the names "Tide" and "Crest" are trademarked. Next time you're at the supermarket, take note of how many products take their names from words in the dictionary.
This isn't endemic to stuff you'll find at your grocer's. Computer companies have successfully trademarked the words "sun" and "apple," too.
"How are you supposed to read the minds of the developers to figure out if they "intended" to promote illegal use?"
That's a bit like asking "how are you supposed to read the minds of Michael Jackson and his accuser to see if the molestation occurred?". The answer is, of course, that you don't. Instead, you take depositions, grill some witnesses, examine a lot of evidence, and then make your best decision -- sometimes, with the help of twelve people picked at random.
"So if you write a p2p app and declare it to be content-neutral (i.e "I don't care what you use it for") is that "promoting infringing uses"? What if you put a lot of ads in it saying "Sharing copyrighted material is very, Very Naughty. Please don't do it." Would that get you off the hook?"
It's all trees falling in the forest unless there's a tort. It's because of these ambiguities that the court system exists. If an instance very similar to what you've described occurs and somebody presses charges, then this ruling will be tested. Otherwise, there's no way for anybody to answer your question without conjecture.
"by comparision, a device that may or may not be designed for, but is certainly capable of, infringing copyright is deemed illegal."
No... see the "promoting" part of the write-up, or better yet, follow some of the links. This is a key thing to understand, but many people around here will not. iPod: not illegal. P2P software which which is promoted for copyright infringement: potentially illegal. The sky is not falling.
"question for the supreme court: do you really believe the the copyright of the bay city rollers first album is more deserving of legal protection than a human life?"
This is the classic "don't the police have more important things to do?" retort given when one is pulled over for speeding or the law is otherwise applied against one's self. Comparisons like this are interesting, but ultimately meaningless. The issue of armor-piercing ammunition was not brought up in this case.
Yet tracker sites which specialize in pirated material are constantly taken down. It looks like that excuse just isn't working. The fact that your post is presently "4, Informative" shows that this may take a while to sink in on/.
What will it be tomorrow? Pirates bit-shifting files so they claim that they're not trading the real data, then continuing to watch as sites are taken down? It seems like a better use of effort to trade files provided by artists who want their music to be freely traded -- and then supporting those artists by going to their concerts or whatever. Create a real revolution by showing the world that the traditional "pay me in advance for music" concept isn't the only way. Pretending that the concept of a.torrent file will give you legal protection, while the pirate torrent sites continue to go down, is not the answer.
It's clear that you're smarter than the folks at Swiftel. Their To report copyright infringement page clearly lists email and telephone numbers first in the instructions for reporting piracy. Their postal address is listed as the last bullet.
You'd think it's common sense: if you're writing a contact page, and you don't want to get certain things via email (because you have a spam filter, because you don't have the time to read email, or whatever reason you chose), then don't list an email address as your first contact point -- and certainly don't try to use the "it's your fault for sending me email just like my contact page asked you to" excuse. But it looks like this fundamental bit of obviousness is lost on Swiftel.
Then they should not have gone out of their way to list their email address and telephone number first in their To report copyright infringement page. This is really just common sense -- if they only wanted to be notified by mail, and did not wish to receive emails or phone calls with piracy reports, then they should have said so.
Writing a contact page correctly is just one of those basic life skills. You and I can grasp the simple concept of omitting our email or telephone number from our contact page -- or at the very least, not listing them first -- if we only want to be contacted by post. Swiftel doesn't get a free pass here.
"So why didn't the music industry send them ACTUAL notarized letters in the first place?"
Perhaps they took the Swiftel instructions for reporting copyright infringement in good faith. The instructions list first an email address, and then a phone number, and then a fax, and then finally an address. If Swiftel does not want copyright infringement notices to be reported via email or phone calls, and only wants them via postal mail, they should not list the email and phone numbers first and the postal address last in their copyright infringement reporting instructions.
Since you're an admin for many sites and, as you've mentioned, email is an unreliable way to contact you, then you've probably done the smart thing and written something to the effect of "send us a letter, as email is unreliable" on your contact page. Too bad the Swiftel folks didn't think things through as clearly as you have.
"Does wikipedia seriously need all that? I thought the data they were serving up was mostly just text and wasn't really a huge problem. As in, weren't their current servers enough? Or am I missing something?"
You're not missing anything. It's because they're generally proactive in adding servers that you tend to think of Wikipedia as being fast. All else being equal, this is the proper way to do it... to add more iron before you need it, and not adopting an interrupt-driven hardware acquisition policy.
"Shouldnt we be saving money when buying from Itunes? After all they dont need to make disks, buy case's, print the disks or booklets, they dont need to hire people to work in the plants etc, so why are Itunes files priced at $1?"
Because that's what the market will bear. The iTMS has been wildly successful.
"I would buy twice as much music from them if it was 50 cents per song and I wouldnt feel cheated either, I've stopped buying from Itunes for just that reason, $1 is to much for a single song, even more so since its crippled and I have to remove the DRM to play the files as mp3's in my car."
Interesting. I, on the other hand, probably would not buy more music if it were less than $1. I only have a finite desire for music, and I buy all I want without leaving my comfort zone for my music budget.
There are probably lots of people like you, so your position is certainly valid. My guess is that Apple have done their homework and found that there are more people like me -- or at the least, a sufficient mass of people like me so that they don't need to consider selling tracks for less than $1.
The paid download market is exploding. Sales are up something like 10X this year over last. The record companies probably think that a carrot and stick method is best. As long as the online music market continues to be wildly successful, it will be tough to dissuade them from continuing to take legal action.
"Stop forcing DRM on customers."
The other side of the coin is that while DRM-laden stores like the iTMS are doing amazing business, the sites that specialize in legal, DRM-free music are just having trouble getting an audience -- or content. We can sit here and say that what the customer really wants is to buy music from Magnatunes or MP3Tunes, but the fact is that they're not doing one hundred of one percent of the iTMS' business. Consumer acceptance of DRM is probably not seen as a big deal by the record companies, given these numbers.
"Sell cheaper, and make up the difference on volume. More people would buy an album for $7.99 than they would at $21.99."
Agreed. And, so do the record companies -- they're way ahead of us. FWIW, I know that $7.99 and $21.99 are just two imaginary numbers you pulled out for the purpose of making a point, but we can't expect $7.99 prices any time soon. Despite the cries of the "I buy CD-Rs for $0.25 so a record company could make money selling CDs at $5.00" geniuses, the realities of the costs of a two-tier distribution system and the expenses of producing CDs won't let that happen.
"Those are the facts. It's a shame the RIAA (and the Canuck equivilent) won't accept them."
This is one of those pot/kettle/black situations -- and I'm not referring specifically to you, but to Slashdotters in general. As I covered above, the phenomenal success of online music resellers like iTMS/Rhapsody/Napster demonstrates that the "add DRM / sue your customers" method is working just fine. We can say that perhaps if Apple hadn't added DRM, or if the record labels hadn't litigated, the online music industry might have grown 1,500% year over year rather than merely 1,000%, but I don't buy that -- particularly in light of the relative failure of the DRM-free MP3 stores.
"So as long as there is no one in line to get their tires rebalanced, you're not depriving anyone of any revenue, so it should be fine to just take off without paying, right? The mechanic would have just been sitting around doing nothing, so it was only "potential" revenue."
Another similar analogy: your local club has a $10 cover charge to come in and see a live band. There's no way in hell that you'd pay the $10, so (assuming the club isn't past capacity and you're otherwise not ruining somebody else's fun by being there), is it morally acceptable to sneak in the back?
My guess is that a common/. answer to that question is "yes, because it increases the odds that I might like what I hear, and end up buying that band's album. In fact, the band should be playing for free."
"Okay, if I've downloaded an iTunes song in Apple format, it would seem obvious that I have an iPod. Why would I want to have it in another format?"
Microsoft has apparently done their homework. Without even asking me, they've figured out that this is exactly what I'm looking for.
I've had an iPod for a while. I like it just fine, but for my next player I'd like to try a Zen Micro. The big thing holding me back right now? My huge library of songs I bought from the iTMS store. Right now I'd either have to re-buy the music, or build a second library from the ground up. Or, begin the cumbersome task of converting gigabytes of music to MP3.
If this boggles you, no worries. Microsoft isn't after 100% of the market... just that segment that I'm in. If this doesn't appeal to you, it doesn't mean their model is flawed.
"So far, Apple format is superiour to mp3, from what I understand. M$ will need to improve upon the quality in order to steal people away."
"better" does not mean "more sales." OSX is arguably a better OS than Windows XP, but they haven't won. MP3 is a better format than Apple's, yet Apple has sold a metric buttload of DRMed songs. I think you're making the mistake of thinking that typical Slashdotters = the market as a whole. This isn't correct.
"Not only that, if I have a large number of files purchased from iTunes how will this help me? Is M$ saying they will let me have the same songs for free? If this is the case, they only get revenue on new song purchases."
Ye olde "the first one's free" model for attracting new customers has been around for literally centuries. It works. The practice of selling at a loss to capture recurring income is also very, very well known. This is what Microsoft does with the XBox.
"Not sayin they can't make money that way, I'm just saying I'm not sure you're going to have a mass exodus from iTunes with just this set of features."
I'm not sure either, and I'll bet Microsoft isn't. But they're willing to give it a try, because they want to make more money.
Slashdot Mirror
" Do you really think the big pulishers give a shit about the small bookstores? Hint, they don't."
Why wouldn't they? The record companies care about small record stores (and even got nailed on an antitrust when they were trying to stop Best Buy and Wal-Mart from having too much power). We in the computer industry care about the so-called "non-named" resellers for similar reasons.
If you meant "give a shit" in the sense of that they hope the small bookstore owners have clever, popular children with straight teeth, then perhaps they don't -- but keeping the independents and regional resellers happy is crucial in lots of industries, and I'd be surprised if the book industry wasn't the same.
Heh. No worries, lots of people aren't aware of the distinction. I can't speak to the vagaries of the European music licensing system, but here in the US, ASCAP and BMI are non-profit societies run by and for artists. Some songwriters and composers often make much more money through performance and publishing rights than they do from the record companies through sales of the recordings.
Even though they are in business to look after artists' rights, and artists are the "good guys," this does not mean that the rights organizations are by any means good guys in the minds of many Slashdotters. ASCAP and BMI are the heavies who crack down on bars and restaurants who play music without paying a licensing fee. If the legend is correct, they are the ones who went after the Girl Scouts for singing songs at campfires without paying their tithe.
"typically there is one authority which has exclusive rights in a state..."
Interesting. BMI and SESAC offer their services in Europe. Are there some EU nations in which they're prevented from operating because of a country-wide monopoly?
"I wonder how those organisations (and those in other countries) are going to react to the prospect that most, if not all of them would become irrelevant in the face of a Europe-wide organisation?"
They would not like it.
"That being said, record labels may like it at a very senior level - they could save a lot of money."
Can you explain what the record companies would have to do with this? We're talking about rights management for artists here -- the money that gets paid to composers and songwriters. The record companies aren't part of these transactions.
"First of all, everywhere in the article, we get excerpts saying "the artists pay too much money", "it costs the artists too much". Which is of course, totally BS, because the labels pay for these, as the artists don't own the copyright!"
Are you positive about that? It's usually the case that the record company (along with the producer) own the copyright on the recording, but the words and music, of course, remain with the authors. It's these copyrights that the article is referring to, and it's these copyrights which can make lots of money for composers and songwriters. This is what the article stated:
"Musicians make money from their music after registering copyrights with collective rights managers. Those managers then license songs to on-line services, radio stations, dance clubs and other outlets. All these registrations are complex and costs artists a lot of money."
The rights managers to which the article refers are organizations like ASCAP and BMI (US companies that also provide services in the EU) and the local EU societies like PRS, STIM, et al. Here in the US, the record companies do not pay for getting artists registered with ASCAP/BMI, because they have no financial incentive to do so -- the licensing fees for radio stations, clubs, jukeboxes, etc. don't go to them. Here in the US, ASCAP and BMI are non-profit societies run by and for artists. They are unconnected to the record companies. This page explains it a little better.
If things are different in Europe, can you clarify? If record companies in Europe pay for artists to register their works with ASCAP, BMI, and the local EU performance rights organizations, that's absolutely terrific news -- and news which we should be getting out to the musicians. If you're correct, it's an act of generosity which I wouldn't associate with the way that record companies typically do business.
"If I read this correctly the venerability lies in how these blogging programs fetch RSS feeds from various places in that they don't check the input first. What are the chances that any popular blogs will link to sites likely to exploit this? And know how?"
XML-RPC, actually -- or is that what you meant to type when you wrote "RSS"? It's push vs. pull. Both use XML, but XML-RPC deals with the art of posting to a blog (with a tool like w.bloggar, for example) using the Blogger API, the MT API, and so on. RSS involves pulling content.
This isn't a worm-like situation (e.g. an RSS feed with some malicious SQL injection) but instead an opportunity for a hacker to compromise a system that's known to use PHP and have an XML-RPC interface.
No, that's not infringement. This page explains the concepts of fair use and nominative use as they apply to trademark law.
"Time to reform trademark law."
Nope -- as you've correctly pointed out, the guy doesn't have a case. The law's working just fine; he's just an idiot.
"I'd like to see the law that says if you have X trademarks for a word, you own it in every use"
Your understanding is right on the money. There are, however, some brands that are so huge that you can't touch their mark in any space. For instance, one would not be able to get away with branding a PC "Chevrolet" or "Pepsi". But, as you've pointed out, this "Stealth" nitwit is not entitled to that same protection... not by a long shot.
"Stealth has been a word used since the time of Shakespeare. How the heck does someone get to trademark a frickin' word?"
This page may clear up some of your questions.
By the way, I used Explorer to look up that page on Yahoo.
"how can he get the rights for a word that is in PUBLIC DOMAIN?"
In the same way that the names "Tide" and "Crest" are trademarked. Next time you're at the supermarket, take note of how many products take their names from words in the dictionary.
This isn't endemic to stuff you'll find at your grocer's. Computer companies have successfully trademarked the words "sun" and "apple," too.
"How are you supposed to read the minds of the developers to figure out if they "intended" to promote illegal use?"
That's a bit like asking "how are you supposed to read the minds of Michael Jackson and his accuser to see if the molestation occurred?". The answer is, of course, that you don't. Instead, you take depositions, grill some witnesses, examine a lot of evidence, and then make your best decision -- sometimes, with the help of twelve people picked at random.
"So if you write a p2p app and declare it to be content-neutral (i.e "I don't care what you use it for") is that "promoting infringing uses"? What if you put a lot of ads in it saying "Sharing copyrighted material is very, Very Naughty. Please don't do it." Would that get you off the hook?"
It's all trees falling in the forest unless there's a tort. It's because of these ambiguities that the court system exists. If an instance very similar to what you've described occurs and somebody presses charges, then this ruling will be tested. Otherwise, there's no way for anybody to answer your question without conjecture.
"by comparision, a device that may or may not be designed for, but is certainly capable of, infringing copyright is deemed illegal."
No... see the "promoting" part of the write-up, or better yet, follow some of the links. This is a key thing to understand, but many people around here will not. iPod: not illegal. P2P software which which is promoted for copyright infringement: potentially illegal. The sky is not falling.
"question for the supreme court: do you really believe the the copyright of the bay city rollers first album is more deserving of legal protection than a human life?"
This is the classic "don't the police have more important things to do?" retort given when one is pulled over for speeding or the law is otherwise applied against one's self. Comparisons like this are interesting, but ultimately meaningless. The issue of armor-piercing ammunition was not brought up in this case.
"That's the beauty of Bittorrent you see.."
Yet tracker sites which specialize in pirated material are constantly taken down. It looks like that excuse just isn't working. The fact that your post is presently "4, Informative" shows that this may take a while to sink in on /.
What will it be tomorrow? Pirates bit-shifting files so they claim that they're not trading the real data, then continuing to watch as sites are taken down? It seems like a better use of effort to trade files provided by artists who want their music to be freely traded -- and then supporting those artists by going to their concerts or whatever. Create a real revolution by showing the world that the traditional "pay me in advance for music" concept isn't the only way. Pretending that the concept of a .torrent file will give you legal protection, while the pirate torrent sites continue to go down, is not the answer.
It's clear that you're smarter than the folks at Swiftel. Their To report copyright infringement page clearly lists email and telephone numbers first in the instructions for reporting piracy. Their postal address is listed as the last bullet.
You'd think it's common sense: if you're writing a contact page, and you don't want to get certain things via email (because you have a spam filter, because you don't have the time to read email, or whatever reason you chose), then don't list an email address as your first contact point -- and certainly don't try to use the "it's your fault for sending me email just like my contact page asked you to" excuse. But it looks like this fundamental bit of obviousness is lost on Swiftel.
Then they should not have gone out of their way to list their email address and telephone number first in their To report copyright infringement page. This is really just common sense -- if they only wanted to be notified by mail, and did not wish to receive emails or phone calls with piracy reports, then they should have said so.
Writing a contact page correctly is just one of those basic life skills. You and I can grasp the simple concept of omitting our email or telephone number from our contact page -- or at the very least, not listing them first -- if we only want to be contacted by post. Swiftel doesn't get a free pass here.
"So why didn't the music industry send them ACTUAL notarized letters in the first place?"
Perhaps they took the Swiftel instructions for reporting copyright infringement in good faith. The instructions list first an email address, and then a phone number, and then a fax, and then finally an address. If Swiftel does not want copyright infringement notices to be reported via email or phone calls, and only wants them via postal mail, they should not list the email and phone numbers first and the postal address last in their copyright infringement reporting instructions.
Since you're an admin for many sites and, as you've mentioned, email is an unreliable way to contact you, then you've probably done the smart thing and written something to the effect of "send us a letter, as email is unreliable" on your contact page. Too bad the Swiftel folks didn't think things through as clearly as you have.
"Does wikipedia seriously need all that? I thought the data they were serving up was mostly just text and wasn't really a huge problem. As in, weren't their current servers enough? Or am I missing something?"
You're not missing anything. It's because they're generally proactive in adding servers that you tend to think of Wikipedia as being fast. All else being equal, this is the proper way to do it... to add more iron before you need it, and not adopting an interrupt-driven hardware acquisition policy.
"Shouldnt we be saving money when buying from Itunes? After all they dont need to make disks, buy case's, print the disks or booklets, they dont need to hire people to work in the plants etc, so why are Itunes files priced at $1?"
Because that's what the market will bear. The iTMS has been wildly successful.
"I would buy twice as much music from them if it was 50 cents per song and I wouldnt feel cheated either, I've stopped buying from Itunes for just that reason, $1 is to much for a single song, even more so since its crippled and I have to remove the DRM to play the files as mp3's in my car."
Interesting. I, on the other hand, probably would not buy more music if it were less than $1. I only have a finite desire for music, and I buy all I want without leaving my comfort zone for my music budget.
There are probably lots of people like you, so your position is certainly valid. My guess is that Apple have done their homework and found that there are more people like me -- or at the least, a sufficient mass of people like me so that they don't need to consider selling tracks for less than $1.
"Stop suing your customers."
The paid download market is exploding. Sales are up something like 10X this year over last. The record companies probably think that a carrot and stick method is best. As long as the online music market continues to be wildly successful, it will be tough to dissuade them from continuing to take legal action.
"Stop forcing DRM on customers."
The other side of the coin is that while DRM-laden stores like the iTMS are doing amazing business, the sites that specialize in legal, DRM-free music are just having trouble getting an audience -- or content. We can sit here and say that what the customer really wants is to buy music from Magnatunes or MP3Tunes, but the fact is that they're not doing one hundred of one percent of the iTMS' business. Consumer acceptance of DRM is probably not seen as a big deal by the record companies, given these numbers.
"Sell cheaper, and make up the difference on volume. More people would buy an album for $7.99 than they would at $21.99."
Agreed. And, so do the record companies -- they're way ahead of us. FWIW, I know that $7.99 and $21.99 are just two imaginary numbers you pulled out for the purpose of making a point, but we can't expect $7.99 prices any time soon. Despite the cries of the "I buy CD-Rs for $0.25 so a record company could make money selling CDs at $5.00" geniuses, the realities of the costs of a two-tier distribution system and the expenses of producing CDs won't let that happen.
"Those are the facts. It's a shame the RIAA (and the Canuck equivilent) won't accept them."
This is one of those pot/kettle/black situations -- and I'm not referring specifically to you, but to Slashdotters in general. As I covered above, the phenomenal success of online music resellers like iTMS/Rhapsody/Napster demonstrates that the "add DRM / sue your customers" method is working just fine. We can say that perhaps if Apple hadn't added DRM, or if the record labels hadn't litigated, the online music industry might have grown 1,500% year over year rather than merely 1,000%, but I don't buy that -- particularly in light of the relative failure of the DRM-free MP3 stores.
"So as long as there is no one in line to get their tires rebalanced, you're not depriving anyone of any revenue, so it should be fine to just take off without paying, right? The mechanic would have just been sitting around doing nothing, so it was only "potential" revenue."
Another similar analogy: your local club has a $10 cover charge to come in and see a live band. There's no way in hell that you'd pay the $10, so (assuming the club isn't past capacity and you're otherwise not ruining somebody else's fun by being there), is it morally acceptable to sneak in the back?
My guess is that a common /. answer to that question is "yes, because it increases the odds that I might like what I hear, and end up buying that band's album. In fact, the band should be playing for free."
Thank you to you and Neff for linking to the Angry Flower guide! I was thinking of that when I made my post but didn't think to look for it online.
"Has IT Marketing learned it's history lesson"
Here's A page on how to use the apostrophe in the English language, and another.
"Okay, if I've downloaded an iTunes song in Apple format, it would seem obvious that I have an iPod. Why would I want to have it in another format?"
Microsoft has apparently done their homework. Without even asking me, they've figured out that this is exactly what I'm looking for.
I've had an iPod for a while. I like it just fine, but for my next player I'd like to try a Zen Micro. The big thing holding me back right now? My huge library of songs I bought from the iTMS store. Right now I'd either have to re-buy the music, or build a second library from the ground up. Or, begin the cumbersome task of converting gigabytes of music to MP3.
If this boggles you, no worries. Microsoft isn't after 100% of the market... just that segment that I'm in. If this doesn't appeal to you, it doesn't mean their model is flawed.
"So far, Apple format is superiour to mp3, from what I understand. M$ will need to improve upon the quality in order to steal people away."
"better" does not mean "more sales." OSX is arguably a better OS than Windows XP, but they haven't won. MP3 is a better format than Apple's, yet Apple has sold a metric buttload of DRMed songs. I think you're making the mistake of thinking that typical Slashdotters = the market as a whole. This isn't correct.
"Not only that, if I have a large number of files purchased from iTunes how will this help me? Is M$ saying they will let me have the same songs for free? If this is the case, they only get revenue on new song purchases."
Ye olde "the first one's free" model for attracting new customers has been around for literally centuries. It works. The practice of selling at a loss to capture recurring income is also very, very well known. This is what Microsoft does with the XBox.
"Not sayin they can't make money that way, I'm just saying I'm not sure you're going to have a mass exodus from iTunes with just this set of features."
I'm not sure either, and I'll bet Microsoft isn't. But they're willing to give it a try, because they want to make more money.