So i guess the question is, did the price for VHS drop in '95, '97, or a few years after?
If it was '95, the theory that macrovision lead to lower prices for VHS tapes would seem to be more supported. '97 could go either way, but after '97 i think that the price drop would be more attributed to DVDs rather then macrovision.
Well you make a good arguement, i think its fundamentally flawed.
You're assuming someone is buying a computer (and broadband) soley to get music online rather then buy it from a record store. I doubt that many people will buy a computer and broadband access just for this purpose; its usually one of many things that someone wants to do with thier computer.
I have a computer because i like programming them, playing games on them, doing my bills on them, emailing. Downloading music is just another bonus. (The broadband i have basically because i don't like spending 2 days to download game demos or patches. I'm just that impatient)
I think the price of VHS tapes dropped because of DVD, not because they secured it and lowered the price.
I don't remember worrying about macrovision (or ever hearing about it) until well after DVDs started coming out. In fact, i thought it first appeared with DVDs.
Didn't the Treaty of Versailles already do just that?
Actually no that punished Germany and i'm willing to bet that alot of historians would say that if it wasn't as harsh as it was, hitler would not have had the right climate to come to power.
If i was 'president' and had the miltary watching the voters, i could probably get 100% of votes too. Fact of the matter is in any truely free election i don't think anyone would get 100% of the votes. Millions of people, and not ONE thinks someone else can do better? Please.
It is a free nation, of free people who have freely chosen their leader and support him freely.
Why can't the citizens protest whenever they want? why are they always organized by the gov? Why are political dissenters put in jail?
The US is a corrupt dictatorship; the 2000 election was stolen.
Yes, the election was poorly done. It was close, and many mistakes were made. It may have been stolen. That doesn't change the fact that we do have elections, and we can replace them every 4 years. We have a system of checks and balances that attempts to keep any one group from gaining too much power.
This criminality taints all allies and satellites of the USA, but Iraq is clean.
Iraq kills its own citizens. It used biological and chemical weapons quite frequently in the Iranian war. It invaded another sovreign nation. I hardly call this clean.
The USA is a criminal rogue nation, an arrogant bully
I agree the US abuses its power. I disagree with alot of our forgein policies. The US does try to bully other countries. But i can say this without being throw into jail. I can attempt to change the things i find wrong with my country.
This is axiomatic, and easily proven by the USA's great unearned wealth. This criminality also taints all the USA's allies, but again Iraq is morally clean.
Some of the wealth might be unjustifed, and i'm sure some is not. You're using a pretty broad brush, you're bound to paint a bad picture. Iraq is hardly morally clean.
. The USA believes in guilt by association, and that criminal practice too taints all of its allies and associates.
I don't believe that; i know alot of americans that don't. You seem to believe it though; because a country is allied with us, they are just as guilty you claim. Do all of our allies do all the awful things you claim the US does? Doubtful.
This is why the killing of Australian citizens is a justified act of self-defense, just like the killing of American citizens: All share guilt for the same horrific crimes against humanity. But here too, Iraq is clean.
Killing is wrong, there is no justification for it. However i'll think like you for a minute. Arab terrorists killed innocent US citizens, so killing Arabs and their allies is justified.
Spare me the childish red herrings about Kurds and Kuwait; you can't win the argument by changing the subject and I am not interested in your racist anti-Islamic propaganda.
Red herring? Interesting, so apperently it doesn't matter if iraq invades another sovriegn nation. The US bullies other nations by abuse of power and is wrong, but iraq can invade and forcibly take over any country it wants and is morally clean? Also very doubtful.
Let me leave you with this thought. Russia provides aid to iraq. Russia is provided with aid by the US. So russia is gulity by association, and therefore iraq is as well. So start blowing yourself up.
If you don't wnat your house to slide into the ocean, don't build that close to the ocean!
I have no sympahy for those that lose thier house to a flood when they live in a known flood plain.
The other problem with your attitude is that eventually we'll be the only living things left if we act like that...which would utimatly lead to our own demise.
Capitalism isn't the right way to run a government though. People that make the most money get to determine the laws and rights of others? I don't thinks so.
I think the origin of points for hitting people comes from the movie Death Race 2000. Go see it if you're curious, and aren't expecting a good film. (Although it is a good drinking movie).
If ignorance of the terms is a valid defense against complying with the terms, then I cannot have any terms at all because anyone can claim ignorance whenever they wish it.
I never argued that ignorance of the terms is a valid defense. i'm aruging that the timeframe in which the terms are presented (in this case, after the sale is completed) makes them invalid.
The point of the post I replied to was that a EULA is analogous to a "warning in a locked filing cabinet stored in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door that says 'beware of the leopard.'" If that analogy were true, it would mean that doing something which you explicitly said you would do in a EULA amounts to fraud, because you willfully misled the buyer.
And he's right. They can't say 'we're selling you this product, with terms that you must agree to being sealed inside the product, and which you can only read after buying the product.' It is misleading the buyer because the terms of the EULA are not known and agreed to BEFORE the sale. Most software i buy (games) doesn't even hint that there is an EULA at all. Even if it did, its irrelevent, because if they want me to agree to the terms, i MUST be able to read them BEFORE the sale.
That the terms be "reasonable" as opposed to "ridiculous" is not an objective requirement. Every person will have a different view of which terms belong in which set. If this is the requirement, then the terms are not under my control. They may at any point be labeled "ridiculous," and my rights as a creator are gone.
Your rights as creator of software are copyrights. By default, that is it. If you want to apply more terms, what you must do is provide a contract UP FRONT and BEFORE the sale, that a potential buyer must agree to before he purchases your software. Then, after collecting an appropriate digital signature (click here to agree is not enough), you can consider the buyer under the terms of the contract. Now if the buyer sees the EULA (reading it is up to the buyer), and purchases it anyway, then you have a valid EULA.
Now if for some reason the terms in the EULA are found invalid, that still doesn't take away your copyrights.
The terms of the EULA are properly the condition under which the seller is willing to sell the product to the buyer.
Thats my point; those conditions are not presented at time of sale, almost always they are presented after the fact. In this case, the EULA is meaningless. The seller agreed to sell me something BEFORE the terms of the EULA came up. The seller agreed to sell when he took my money.
The only limitation they should have is that they apply only to the buyer and the seller (i.e., they can't involve a violation of someone else's rights).
Thats not true either. You can't include a clause that says 'seller may kill or jail the buyer for violating this agreement.' I think its perfectly valid to say that such a clause may not be part of any agreement, dispite the circumstances.
The EULA is presented before installation of the program, not imposed on you after you've already been using the program. It applies only to future action, not to past. If you refuse to accept the EULA and the seller refuses to refund your money, you should be able to take them to court.
The EULA is meaningless. I OWN a copy of the software now. It doesn't matter what it applies to, the point is i didn't agree to it AT THE TIME OF SALE. Name something else that you buy that adds a contract after you purchased it, brought it home, and go to set it up.
If a toaster company put a paper in the box that said 'you may only toast Poptart brand products, if you don't agree to this EULA then return the toaster', would you actually take it seriously? Do you think any court would?
Even if that practice was legal, you still have the matter of there only being one copy of the 'agreement' that you signed. Where is the company's copy of the agreement? I don't know about you, but when i signed the lease on my apartment, a representive of the property management company sat down, and we both signed the lease. She then made a photocopy for me. It would be odd would it not, if I, and not the management company, possessed the ONLY copy of the signed agreement?
A contract is an agreement between two entities. There's nothing special about papers and signatures; they are just a way of proving that there was an agreement. The only reason that issue would be relevant is if you want to argue that you somehow installed the program without clicking on "I agree to the above terms."
So if my apartment complex said that to seal the deal we exchange paperclips, instead of signing anything, that would be legally binding? So why is it that we just don't inital contracts, instead of signing them? i've never seen any contract (or even credit card sale) that allows for just initials.
And again, isn't it odd that the company creating the EULA doesn't have a copy of the EULA with my 'signature'?
If you clicked on "I agree to the above terms," you agreed to the seller's terms.
Odd, because the company that sold me GTA3 didn't ask that i agree to an EULA. In fact, Gamespot doesn't appear anywhere in that agreement. Finally, THE TERMS WERE NOT A CONDITION OF THE SALE. The sale was completed when i gave them money, and they gave me a copy of the game and a receipt. Once that is done, the transaction is complete, and they are no longer capable of adding any more terms to the sale.
Yes, you also know if you're getting a lease or not up front. If you said 'i'm buying the car' and signed something that said it was a lease, i think you'd have grounds to take action against the dealer.
More likely, a court would say that in consideration for giving both a sum of money and agreeing to the EULA, the company is permitting you to use the software.
Wouldn't the EULA have to be present when the purchase is made though? I mean, if i buy a car, and then after driving away find in the glovebox a requirement that all service must be from the dealer (and i was not presented with THESE terms up front), would that be binding?
They most certainly should be (legally) excused. The alternative is that I as a creator have no say over the terms under which my product is sold.
So if you can't put any clause you like in your agreement, you cannot have any terms? I don't follow the logic. the point is that some of the terms are ridiculous. The whole point of the parent poster was that the terms be reasonable. I don't think that requirement prevents you from writing terms at all.
There quite a difference between physicaly signing a piece of paper (which almost never comes with anything free), and basically modifying some bits in a computers memory.
I don't recall congress saying that the simple act of 'clicking' some virtual button was legally binding.
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Actually i thought that natural gas burned cleanly.
I think the point is that our society would be plunged into chaos is such a thing were to happen. Can you imagine the riots etc that might occur?
Well the first time i saw a DVD was 1997.
So i guess the question is, did the price for VHS drop in '95, '97, or a few years after?
If it was '95, the theory that macrovision lead to lower prices for VHS tapes would seem to be more supported. '97 could go either way, but after '97 i think that the price drop would be more attributed to DVDs rather then macrovision.
It was my understanding that the Treaty made conditions in Germany much worse then elsewhere in the Western world.
:-)
Then again i'm trying to remember this from 9th grade history class, so i could be a bit fuzzy
Well you make a good arguement, i think its fundamentally flawed.
You're assuming someone is buying a computer (and broadband) soley to get music online rather then buy it from a record store. I doubt that many people will buy a computer and broadband access just for this purpose; its usually one of many things that someone wants to do with thier computer.
I have a computer because i like programming them, playing games on them, doing my bills on them, emailing. Downloading music is just another bonus. (The broadband i have basically because i don't like spending 2 days to download game demos or patches. I'm just that impatient)
I think the price of VHS tapes dropped because of DVD, not because they secured it and lowered the price.
I don't remember worrying about macrovision (or ever hearing about it) until well after DVDs started coming out. In fact, i thought it first appeared with DVDs.
Didn't the Treaty of Versailles already do just that?
Actually no that punished Germany and i'm willing to bet that alot of historians would say that if it wasn't as harsh as it was, hitler would not have had the right climate to come to power.
Didn't the recent Eminem album launch with a DVD in it? That's pretty damn cool.
That would be cool....but is it more expensive then just the CD without the DVD? If it is, there goes the appeal..
Tax avoidance is perfrectly legal; i.e. contributing to a 401K plan is tax avoidance.
i don't see how thats tax avoidence at all, since you pay taxes when you withdraw your money from your 401(k).
He got 100% of the vote. I repeat: 100%
If i was 'president' and had the miltary watching the voters, i could probably get 100% of votes too. Fact of the matter is in any truely free election i don't think anyone would get 100% of the votes. Millions of people, and not ONE thinks someone else can do better? Please.
It is a free nation, of free people who have freely chosen their leader and support him freely.
Why can't the citizens protest whenever they want? why are they always organized by the gov? Why are political dissenters put in jail?
The US is a corrupt dictatorship; the 2000 election was stolen.
Yes, the election was poorly done. It was close, and many mistakes were made. It may have been stolen. That doesn't change the fact that we do have elections, and we can replace them every 4 years. We have a system of checks and balances that attempts to keep any one group from gaining too much power.
This criminality taints all allies and satellites of the USA, but Iraq is clean.
Iraq kills its own citizens. It used biological and chemical weapons quite frequently in the Iranian war. It invaded another sovreign nation. I hardly call this clean.
The USA is a criminal rogue nation, an arrogant bully
I agree the US abuses its power. I disagree with alot of our forgein policies. The US does try to bully other countries. But i can say this without being throw into jail. I can attempt to change the things i find wrong with my country.
This is axiomatic, and easily proven by the USA's great unearned wealth. This criminality also taints all the USA's allies, but again Iraq is morally clean.
Some of the wealth might be unjustifed, and i'm sure some is not. You're using a pretty broad brush, you're bound to paint a bad picture. Iraq is hardly morally clean.
. The USA believes in guilt by association, and that criminal practice too taints all of its allies and associates.
I don't believe that; i know alot of americans that don't. You seem to believe it though; because a country is allied with us, they are just as guilty you claim. Do all of our allies do all the awful things you claim the US does? Doubtful.
This is why the killing of Australian citizens is a justified act of self-defense, just like the killing of American citizens: All share guilt for the same horrific crimes against humanity. But here too, Iraq is clean.
Killing is wrong, there is no justification for it. However i'll think like you for a minute. Arab terrorists killed innocent US citizens, so killing Arabs and their allies is justified.
Spare me the childish red herrings about Kurds and Kuwait; you can't win the argument by changing the subject and I am not interested in your racist anti-Islamic propaganda.
Red herring? Interesting, so apperently it doesn't matter if iraq invades another sovriegn nation. The US bullies other nations by abuse of power and is wrong, but iraq can invade and forcibly take over any country it wants and is morally clean? Also very doubtful.
Let me leave you with this thought. Russia provides aid to iraq. Russia is provided with aid by the US. So russia is gulity by association, and therefore iraq is as well. So start blowing yourself up.
If you don't wnat your house to slide into the ocean, don't build that close to the ocean!
I have no sympahy for those that lose thier house to a flood when they live in a known flood plain.
The other problem with your attitude is that eventually we'll be the only living things left if we act like that...which would utimatly lead to our own demise.
Capitalism isn't the right way to run a government though. People that make the most money get to determine the laws and rights of others? I don't thinks so.
Not to meantion the fact that they ignore ALL the people that play violent video games and don't become violent.
Almost everyone in my department at work plays GTA3, and none worry me that they will start stealing cars or shoot people.
I think the origin of points for hitting people comes from the movie Death Race 2000. Go see it if you're curious, and aren't expecting a good film. (Although it is a good drinking movie).
All you say is true (although fortunatly were i live most cars are not subject to luxury tax, even BMWs).
in many states to pay property taxes on the car.
Really, which states? Most of the ones i know about (those around PA) charge property tax only on land ownership.
At any rate, most of the taxes you describe do apply to alot of things, so i don't see why this is alarming.
What is alarming is that even with all these taxes, the roads in this state still suck!
If ignorance of the terms is a valid defense against complying with the terms, then I cannot have any terms at all because anyone can claim ignorance whenever they wish it.
I never argued that ignorance of the terms is a valid defense. i'm aruging that the timeframe in which the terms are presented (in this case, after the sale is completed) makes them invalid.
The point of the post I replied to was that a EULA is analogous to a "warning in a locked filing cabinet stored in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door that says 'beware of the leopard.'" If that analogy were true, it would mean that doing something which you explicitly said you would do in a EULA amounts to fraud, because you willfully misled the buyer.
And he's right. They can't say 'we're selling you this product, with terms that you must agree to being sealed inside the product, and which you can only read after buying the product.' It is misleading the buyer because the terms of the EULA are not known and agreed to BEFORE the sale. Most software i buy (games) doesn't even hint that there is an EULA at all. Even if it did, its irrelevent, because if they want me to agree to the terms, i MUST be able to read them BEFORE the sale.
That the terms be "reasonable" as opposed to "ridiculous" is not an objective requirement. Every person will have a different view of which terms belong in which set. If this is the requirement, then the terms are not under my control. They may at any point be labeled "ridiculous," and my rights as a creator are gone.
Your rights as creator of software are copyrights. By default, that is it. If you want to apply more terms, what you must do is provide a contract UP FRONT and BEFORE the sale, that a potential buyer must agree to before he purchases your software. Then, after collecting an appropriate digital signature (click here to agree is not enough), you can consider the buyer under the terms of the contract. Now if the buyer sees the EULA (reading it is up to the buyer), and purchases it anyway, then you have a valid EULA.
Now if for some reason the terms in the EULA are found invalid, that still doesn't take away your copyrights.
The terms of the EULA are properly the condition under which the seller is willing to sell the product to the buyer.
Thats my point; those conditions are not presented at time of sale, almost always they are presented after the fact. In this case, the EULA is meaningless. The seller agreed to sell me something BEFORE the terms of the EULA came up. The seller agreed to sell when he took my money.
The only limitation they should have is that they apply only to the buyer and the seller (i.e., they can't involve a violation of someone else's rights).
Thats not true either. You can't include a clause that says 'seller may kill or jail the buyer for violating this agreement.' I think its perfectly valid to say that such a clause may not be part of any agreement, dispite the circumstances.
The EULA is presented before installation of the program, not imposed on you after you've already been using the program. It applies only to future action, not to past. If you refuse to accept the EULA and the seller refuses to refund your money, you should be able to take them to court.
The EULA is meaningless. I OWN a copy of the software now. It doesn't matter what it applies to, the point is i didn't agree to it AT THE TIME OF SALE. Name something else that you buy that adds a contract after you purchased it, brought it home, and go to set it up.
If a toaster company put a paper in the box that said 'you may only toast Poptart brand products, if you don't agree to this EULA then return the toaster', would you actually take it seriously? Do you think any court would?
Even if that practice was legal, you still have the matter of there only being one copy of the 'agreement' that you signed. Where is the company's copy of the agreement? I don't know about you, but when i signed the lease on my apartment, a representive of the property management company sat down, and we both signed the lease. She then made a photocopy for me. It would be odd would it not, if I, and not the management company, possessed the ONLY copy of the signed agreement?
A contract is an agreement between two entities. There's nothing special about papers and signatures; they are just a way of proving that there was an agreement. The only reason that issue would be relevant is if you want to argue that you somehow installed the program without clicking on "I agree to the above terms."
So if my apartment complex said that to seal the deal we exchange paperclips, instead of signing anything, that would be legally binding? So why is it that we just don't inital contracts, instead of signing them? i've never seen any contract (or even credit card sale) that allows for just initials.
And again, isn't it odd that the company creating the EULA doesn't have a copy of the EULA with my 'signature'?
If you clicked on "I agree to the above terms," you agreed to the seller's terms.
Odd, because the company that sold me GTA3 didn't ask that i agree to an EULA. In fact, Gamespot doesn't appear anywhere in that agreement. Finally, THE TERMS WERE NOT A CONDITION OF THE SALE. The sale was completed when i gave them money, and they gave me a copy of the game and a receipt. Once that is done, the transaction is complete, and they are no longer capable of adding any more terms to the sale.
You do own it, but it is stil under copyright. So you can't make money off showing it, or producing copies for profit.
Yes, you also know if you're getting a lease or not up front. If you said 'i'm buying the car' and signed something that said it was a lease, i think you'd have grounds to take action against the dealer.
The EULA governs the terms of the sale.
And most EULAs are only available AFTER the sale is complete. So the terms of sale have already been completed.
More likely, a court would say that in consideration for giving both a sum of money and agreeing to the EULA, the company is permitting you to use the software.
Wouldn't the EULA have to be present when the purchase is made though? I mean, if i buy a car, and then after driving away find in the glovebox a requirement that all service must be from the dealer (and i was not presented with THESE terms up front), would that be binding?
Well i'd think you do, just that the other party can then refuse to sign the modified contract just as you may refuse to sign the unmodified one.
They most certainly should be (legally) excused. The alternative is that I as a creator have no say over the terms under which my product is sold.
So if you can't put any clause you like in your agreement, you cannot have any terms? I don't follow the logic. the point is that some of the terms are ridiculous. The whole point of the parent poster was that the terms be reasonable. I don't think that requirement prevents you from writing terms at all.
Actually, you're trying to tack on terms AFTER you already sent it.
if you really one someone to be bound by your terms, send them a paper contract to sign.
There quite a difference between physicaly signing a piece of paper (which almost never comes with anything free), and basically modifying some bits in a computers memory.
I don't recall congress saying that the simple act of 'clicking' some virtual button was legally binding.