I know you can't electronically, but entertainment on physical media ain't going anywhere for a long time. Find a good used CD shop and give them your business.
Scientology probably will wake up one day and notice that bad press isn't too good. Come to think of it, they know that in one way, that's why they are going against these sites in the first place, now if they realize that their actions are actually generating way more awareness in a week than the site alone would do in a year, if they have minimal judgment, they'll do the math and stop being high-tech bullies. I have no clue about scientology....
Which is why you'd think that those folks think rationally. These guys have been getting bad press for YEARS and they haven't changed their tactics. If you write something bad about them they will come down on you like a tonne of bricks. Why? For the same reason other people do nutty things: they sincerely believe what they're doing is right. LRH was a paranoid nutjob, his teachings are full of paranoia, consequently his religion is full of paranoid nutjobs; nutjobs who feel that the law is something to only be used when in their favor. Don't expect anything to change in the near future.
Taxes and user fees are no different if the copyright law assumes a fixed dollar amount $X as the value of a work and then charges Y% of $X as the property tax^W^W renewal fee.
Which I'd argue then isn't much of a property tax. That's like saying 100 acres of land in Arkansas is going to be taxed at the same rate as 100 acres in Southern Manhatten.
Copyright fees are interesting (and not necc a bad thing as you explained in your previous post), but not the tax revenue generator that gov't likes. There's a reason you pay standard fees for inspection, registration, etc in Va, and pay a seperate property tax that's based on the Va Gov'ts assesment of the value of your car.
Certainly the government uses percieved value of land to tax it, without regard for whether or not that land is generating the earnings it is capable of.
I understand that Property=IP. I just happen to believe that property taxes (on real property such as land, autos, jewelry, etc) is shady at best. With something as amorphous as intellectual property things would get really, really messy. When your local tax district falls a little short some fiscal year you know they'll just do some creative "re-evaluation" of IP owned.
This is called a "copyright renewal." It was a feature of the Copyright Act of 1909, abolished for new works in 1976 and for all post-1964 works in 1992.
Was this a fee that was paid for renewal, or a tax on the percieved value of the copyright? (I'm asking because I honestly don't know). From the sound of it it sounds like the former, and that's different than a property tax.
After ten years, how much value do you still perceive in that code? You could just donate the code to the PD and stop paying the renewal fees.
Linux is 10 years old (I think NT is close, if not already 10). I still see lots of value in both products.
Taxes are different than fees. Paying a fixed fee for a copyright is different than paying taxes on a percieved value of said copyrighted material.
True, as do a lot of other companies. I remember Sun getting into a lot of stick because they claimed that Kevin Mitnick cost them "billions" (or maybe it was lots of millions). IIRC The IRS came sniffing around, basically saying "Oh really? Why haven't you reported these 'billions'?" I think Sun quickly retracted their statements.
As for taxes, property taxes are a really squishy area. It depends all on how the gov't decides to assess your "property." Of course, they're the ones assessing and collecting, so it always smacks of a conflict of interest. I say stick to taxing the things that require no guesswork. Tax monitary transactions (sales taxes) and income if you have to tax. Maybe property in terms of real estate. But that's about it. IP is a very, very, very vague thing that would lead to a lot of abuse (both by the gov't and large corperations trying to dodge it).
The gov't here in VA is already values my car more than the market would should I sell it now (and taxes me accordingly), I don't want some gov't accountant telling me that the software my company creates is worth $X (for very large values of X) and tax me annually on it (above and beyond the sales taxes, income taxes, SS taxes, etc that we already pay)
Not at all... MS are claiming that they *already* pay taxes, and that this is above and beyond taxation already in place.
I have to agree with Microsoft on this one. This is one bad law.
Should Authors be taxed by the gov't for the gov't's perceived value of an Author's work? If a book is out of print and no longer being sold, should the gov't have the right to continue to tax the author simply because the gov't feels that IP has value?
If I create a GPL'ed program, retain the copyright to it many folks the world over find it to be an incredibly useful bit of code (one that helps lots of companies save money / generate revenue) should I (as the owner of the IP) be taxed year after year because the gov't determines that bit of code has value?
I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. It looks like Seattle are trying to levy something that smells awfully like a property type tax, in which case they'll tax you on their percieved value of the software, not on revenue you generate from selling it.
Why should intellectual property be treated any differently than physical property when it comes to tax laws?
Because it opens a pandora's box of issues.
Can you assign a $ ammount of wealth to software in terms of property (not revenue from selling)? If so, then you could assign a value to any type of software, regardless of how much was paid for it. Thus, if you use software that didn't cost you anything, but is important to you/your company and contributes to the profits that your company generates, then the Tax Man will assign a $ ammount of value to it and tax you every year for simply owning the software.
Of course, this begs other questions. Since almost all software is licenced (including BSD, GPL, etc) and ownership of the IP resides with the creators (or the FSF), does that mean that GPL software authors (who retain copyright, or the FSF if givn to them) will be on the hook to pay all the taxes assesed on their software?
I've mentioned this before, if MS wants to get back into the Unix field (and I think legally they cannot without Caldera's permission, since they signed a contract saying they'd stay out of the Unix biz when they sold Xenix) they'll do it via *BSD. A licence that allows them to make a Unix that isn't quite a unix and can run Linux apps via the BSD emulation layer.
Of course, I'd say hell freezes over (or windows drops to 25% on the desktop.. same thing) before any of this happens.
Or, why don't people just move to a different root system. If a lot of the root servers are really being run sans ICANN money, all it would take would be a few large root servers to say "fuck it, we're going to do it ourselves/move to someone else" to make ICANN powerless.
Is it written anywhere that the major (or even minor) ISPs "have" to hit ICANN's (er.. Network Solutions') root server?
Technical solutions are usually simpler, cheaper and, in the end, more effective than political ones.
Why yes it can. Now, how well it does with complex documents I have no idea, but for your average everyday.doc document (at least all the one's I've seen at work and play) it works dandy.
Nope... my beef was with the statement "indisputably might be" true, which is true in all cases except when the thing in question is definitely false. My point is that the phrase "indisputably might not be" true is equally correct in all cases except when the thing in question is definitely true.
Thus, if you're going to argue "Personally, I am of the opinion that we need to enforce much stricter emission, land development, and recycling standards not because I believe that these activities are damaging the environment, but because they indisputably might be damaging the environment" then its just as valid to make the arguement "Personally, I am of the opinion that we need to throw out stricter emission, land development, and recycling standards not because I believe that these activities are not damaging the environment, but because they indisputably might not be damaging the environment."
Basically, you're saying you'd do something because something else *might* be true (and throwing the "idisputably" in there to make something that is vague sound concrete). If that's the case, then its equally valid to say you'd do something becase something else *might not* be true.
As for the pregnancy analagy, its not flawed. The point I was trying to make is that someone could go to a doctor, ask if they were pregnant, and the doctor could say "you indisputably might be," and be perfectly correct, logically. They would also be grossly incompetent. Which is what I'm implying about the "but because they indisputably might be damaging the environment" logic.
My beef was the "better to be safe than sorry" attitude, which is applicable to anything.
As for the odds, those were scientificly pulled from my ass, but the odds were not important. Again, you can use the "better safe than sorry" arguement to justify anything.
Show me exactly why spending a certain amount of money on a problem is good for me in the long run, and you may have my support. Just saying "even though we cannot show conclusively that this is true, you should do it anyway because its better to be safe than sorry" and you get squat. And that's EXACTLY what you were implying at the end of your first post.
but because they indisputably might be damaging the environment.
Wonderful logic there. I could just as easily say "I am of the opinion that we do not need to enforce much stricter emission, land development, and recycling standards not because I believe that these activities are not damaging the environment, but because they indisputably might not be damaging the environment."
Still, Apple should be rolling up its sleeves and Aqua-izing Open Office ASAP
I don't think they'll be doing that any time soon. They already have AppleWorks, and it does a pretty good job of opening MS Office docs. I'd expect them to beef up Works if they were going to push Office type apps.
Lets use that "better safe than sorry" arguement for EVERYTHING.
There's a billion to one chance that a asteroid will crash into the earth. Let's spend billions and billions of dollars on an asteroid defense system.
There's a 1000 to 1 chance that the SDI/Star Wars defense system will work as advertised. Let's just give all the Gov't contractors all the money that they want anyway.
...
Better safe than sorry works well when there's little or no cost involved. Its a big waste of cash otherwise.
Musicians are *musicians.* They aren't lawyers, they aren't rocket scientists, they aren't MBA's. Many spend 8 hours a day practicing - and as a rule, they aren't all that worldly-wise.
Wow, so you're basically saying your average musician is a moron. I bet they're all glad they have someone as smart as you to look after dumb old them. What an elitist attitude.
Sorry, I don't buy it. I'm not a lawyer, rocket scientist nor MBA either. And I spend 8+ hours a day locked in my office doing things that aren't exactly worldly wise either. But I wouldn't say I'm dumber than the average person. Frankly I, like most people I would imagine, only have a layman's knowledge of law at best. So, when things of a legal nature come down the pike, especially contractual things involving my livelihood, I go to lawyer for their advice / council. I find out what the contract entails, and I decide whether or not it's worth accepting. *That* is not rocket science.
No one *deserves* to be shit on if they don't have obvious available alternatives, and it's wrong-headed to invoke that sort of granite-fisted Darwinism to this sort of activity.
Ignorance is no excuse. Unless you're legally mentally deficient or are coerced you have get no sympathy from me if you sign a legal contract. Musicians are adults just like the rest of us. If they sign away their rights on the slim chance they might make it big they have no one to blame but themselves.
I wouldn't go that far. AFAIK they still have stock holders and are trying to disolve the company. Some of the stockholders may not want any more money wasted and just liquidate what's left.
Of course, since the potential payout is much, much larger if they sue I doubt anyone would pitch a fit, but you never know.
It's not an issue of being dumb. The Big Five have a virtual monopoly on distribution, and a de facto monopoly on airplay and tour support. If you want your band to make money and be known, even on a relatively small level, you have no choice but to sign that contract.
I disagree. You can go the independent route. Sure, you won't get the exposure that a major *might* give you, but you have a lot more control. You may not get filthy rich, but (assuming you have talent and there's a certain audience that appreciates your music) you can make a living.
This, by the way, is a pretty good way to position yourself for a good contract with a major. Play, build up a fan base, release some records, tour your ass off and show that you have an audience and you have a hell of a lot more leverage when it comes to signing a contract.
Just because you want your cake and eat it too doesn't mean that everyone should bend over backwards for you. You have to earn it, just like anything else in life. If you want to jump at the first contract dangled in front of you, fine. Be prepared to give away the rights to your recordings, and be prepared to be dropped like a bad habit if/when you don't provide the kinds of returns the record company expected when they invested in you. You want a good contract, then demand it, and don't sign anything that you don't like. Sure, its a harder row to hoe, but, like I said so are most tings in life. No one forces these musicians to sign fucked up contrats. They have the power to say no.
Are the record companies fair? From what I know about them I say hell no. But if I sign a contract with them I have no one to blame but myself.
Slashdot Mirror
Why in god's name should they subsidize it? If people don't want it they don't want it.
Since there's no demand for solid gold toilets should the gov't subsidize it to generate interest?
... buy used.
I know you can't electronically, but entertainment on physical media ain't going anywhere for a long time. Find a good used CD shop and give them your business.
Scientology probably will wake up one day and notice that bad press isn't too good. Come to think of it, they know that in one way, that's why they are going against these sites in the first place, now if they realize that their actions are actually generating way more awareness in a week than the site alone would do in a year, if they have minimal judgment, they'll do the math and stop being high-tech bullies.
I have no clue about scientology....
Which is why you'd think that those folks think rationally. These guys have been getting bad press for YEARS and they haven't changed their tactics. If you write something bad about them they will come down on you like a tonne of bricks. Why? For the same reason other people do nutty things: they sincerely believe what they're doing is right. LRH was a paranoid nutjob, his teachings are full of paranoia, consequently his religion is full of paranoid nutjobs; nutjobs who feel that the law is something to only be used when in their favor. Don't expect anything to change in the near future.
Taxes and user fees are no different if the copyright law assumes a fixed dollar amount $X as the value of a work and then charges Y% of $X as the property tax^W^W renewal fee.
Which I'd argue then isn't much of a property tax. That's like saying 100 acres of land in Arkansas is going to be taxed at the same rate as 100 acres in Southern Manhatten.
Copyright fees are interesting (and not necc a bad thing as you explained in your previous post), but not the tax revenue generator that gov't likes. There's a reason you pay standard fees for inspection, registration, etc in Va, and pay a seperate property tax that's based on the Va Gov'ts assesment of the value of your car.
Certainly the government uses percieved value of land to tax it, without regard for whether or not that land is generating the earnings it is capable of.
I understand that Property=IP. I just happen to believe that property taxes (on real property such as land, autos, jewelry, etc) is shady at best. With something as amorphous as intellectual property things would get really, really messy. When your local tax district falls a little short some fiscal year you know they'll just do some creative "re-evaluation" of IP owned.
This is called a "copyright renewal." It was a feature of the Copyright Act of 1909, abolished for new works in 1976 and for all post-1964 works in 1992.
Was this a fee that was paid for renewal, or a tax on the percieved value of the copyright? (I'm asking because I honestly don't know). From the sound of it it sounds like the former, and that's different than a property tax.
After ten years, how much value do you still perceive in that code? You could just donate the code to the PD and stop paying the renewal fees.
Linux is 10 years old (I think NT is close, if not already 10). I still see lots of value in both products.
Taxes are different than fees. Paying a fixed fee for a copyright is different than paying taxes on a percieved value of said copyrighted material.
Well, Microsoft sure tries!
True, as do a lot of other companies. I remember Sun getting into a lot of stick because they claimed that Kevin Mitnick cost them "billions" (or maybe it was lots of millions). IIRC The IRS came sniffing around, basically saying "Oh really? Why haven't you reported these 'billions'?" I think Sun quickly retracted their statements.
As for taxes, property taxes are a really squishy area. It depends all on how the gov't decides to assess your "property." Of course, they're the ones assessing and collecting, so it always smacks of a conflict of interest. I say stick to taxing the things that require no guesswork. Tax monitary transactions (sales taxes) and income if you have to tax. Maybe property in terms of real estate. But that's about it. IP is a very, very, very vague thing that would lead to a lot of abuse (both by the gov't and large corperations trying to dodge it).
The gov't here in VA is already values my car more than the market would should I sell it now (and taxes me accordingly), I don't want some gov't accountant telling me that the software my company creates is worth $X (for very large values of X) and tax me annually on it (above and beyond the sales taxes, income taxes, SS taxes, etc that we already pay)
Not at all... MS are claiming that they *already* pay taxes, and that this is above and beyond taxation already in place.
I have to agree with Microsoft on this one. This is one bad law.
Should Authors be taxed by the gov't for the gov't's perceived value of an Author's work? If a book is out of print and no longer being sold, should the gov't have the right to continue to tax the author simply because the gov't feels that IP has value?
If I create a GPL'ed program, retain the copyright to it many folks the world over find it to be an incredibly useful bit of code (one that helps lots of companies save money / generate revenue) should I (as the owner of the IP) be taxed year after year because the gov't determines that bit of code has value?
I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. It looks like Seattle are trying to levy something that smells awfully like a property type tax, in which case they'll tax you on their percieved value of the software, not on revenue you generate from selling it.
Why should intellectual property be treated any differently than physical property when it comes to tax laws?
Because it opens a pandora's box of issues.
Can you assign a $ ammount of wealth to software in terms of property (not revenue from selling)? If so, then you could assign a value to any type of software, regardless of how much was paid for it. Thus, if you use software that didn't cost you anything, but is important to you/your company and contributes to the profits that your company generates, then the Tax Man will assign a $ ammount of value to it and tax you every year for simply owning the software.
Of course, this begs other questions. Since almost all software is licenced (including BSD, GPL, etc) and ownership of the IP resides with the creators (or the FSF), does that mean that GPL software authors (who retain copyright, or the FSF if givn to them) will be on the hook to pay all the taxes assesed on their software?
This is a bad, bad law.
Show me the "average" user who even knows what Mozilla is!
I'm not knocking the browser, its the browser of choice on my Lin box, but lets face facts: its a geek browser. Joe user has no idea what it is.
I've mentioned this before, if MS wants to get back into the Unix field (and I think legally they cannot without Caldera's permission, since they signed a contract saying they'd stay out of the Unix biz when they sold Xenix) they'll do it via *BSD. A licence that allows them to make a Unix that isn't quite a unix and can run Linux apps via the BSD emulation layer.
Of course, I'd say hell freezes over (or windows drops to 25% on the desktop.. same thing) before any of this happens.
Has anyone ever eBayed a slashdot UID before? I wonder what a 7000s level UID would fetch :)
/. for six months.... DOH!!!!)
N.
(who's only registered after lurking
Or, why don't people just move to a different root system. If a lot of the root servers are really being run sans ICANN money, all it would take would be a few large root servers to say "fuck it, we're going to do it ourselves/move to someone else" to make ICANN powerless.
Is it written anywhere that the major (or even minor) ISPs "have" to hit ICANN's (er.. Network Solutions') root server?
Technical solutions are usually simpler, cheaper and, in the end, more effective than political ones.
Why yes it can. Now, how well it does with complex documents I have no idea, but for your average everyday .doc document (at least all the one's I've seen at work and play) it works dandy.
Every computer generted graphic movie thus far has failed
Uh... Toy Story I/II, Bugs Life, Monster's Inc, Shrek, Antz (which I think sucked but did good business)... I wouldn't exactly call them failures.
Nope... my beef was with the statement "indisputably might be" true, which is true in all cases except when the thing in question is definitely false. My point is that the phrase "indisputably might not be" true is equally correct in all cases except when the thing in question is definitely true.
Thus, if you're going to argue "Personally, I am of the opinion that we need to enforce much stricter emission, land development, and recycling standards not because I believe that these activities are damaging the environment, but because they indisputably might be damaging the environment" then its just as valid to make the arguement "Personally, I am of the opinion that we need to throw out stricter emission, land development, and recycling standards not because I believe that these activities are not damaging the environment, but because they indisputably might not be damaging the environment."
Basically, you're saying you'd do something because something else *might* be true (and throwing the "idisputably" in there to make something that is vague sound concrete). If that's the case, then its equally valid to say you'd do something becase something else *might not* be true.
As for the pregnancy analagy, its not flawed. The point I was trying to make is that someone could go to a doctor, ask if they were pregnant, and the doctor could say "you indisputably might be," and be perfectly correct, logically. They would also be grossly incompetent. Which is what I'm implying about the "but because they indisputably might be damaging the environment" logic.
My beef was the "better to be safe than sorry" attitude, which is applicable to anything.
As for the odds, those were scientificly pulled from my ass, but the odds were not important. Again, you can use the "better safe than sorry" arguement to justify anything.
Show me exactly why spending a certain amount of money on a problem is good for me in the long run, and you may have my support. Just saying "even though we cannot show conclusively that this is true, you should do it anyway because its better to be safe than sorry" and you get squat. And that's EXACTLY what you were implying at the end of your first post.
but because they indisputably might be damaging the environment.
Wonderful logic there. I could just as easily say "I am of the opinion that we do not need to enforce much stricter emission, land development, and recycling standards not because I believe that these activities are not damaging the environment, but because they indisputably might not be damaging the environment."
"Doctor, am I pregnant?"
"Its an idisputable fact that you might be."
Still, Apple should be rolling up its sleeves and Aqua-izing Open Office ASAP
I don't think they'll be doing that any time soon. They already have AppleWorks, and it does a pretty good job of opening MS Office docs. I'd expect them to beef up Works if they were going to push Office type apps.
Lets use that "better safe than sorry" arguement for EVERYTHING.
There's a billion to one chance that a asteroid will crash into the earth. Let's spend billions and billions of dollars on an asteroid defense system.
There's a 1000 to 1 chance that the SDI/Star Wars defense system will work as advertised. Let's just give all the Gov't contractors all the money that they want anyway.
...
Better safe than sorry works well when there's little or no cost involved. Its a big waste of cash otherwise.
"I posted first, therefor I didn't even read the review."
Thanks for pointing out what was already in his review.
Musicians are *musicians.* They aren't lawyers, they aren't rocket scientists, they aren't MBA's. Many spend 8 hours a day practicing - and as a rule, they aren't all that worldly-wise.
Wow, so you're basically saying your average musician is a moron. I bet they're all glad they have someone as smart as you to look after dumb old them. What an elitist attitude.
Sorry, I don't buy it. I'm not a lawyer, rocket scientist nor MBA either. And I spend 8+ hours a day locked in my office doing things that aren't exactly worldly wise either. But I wouldn't say I'm dumber than the average person. Frankly I, like most people I would imagine, only have a layman's knowledge of law at best. So, when things of a legal nature come down the pike, especially contractual things involving my livelihood, I go to lawyer for their advice / council. I find out what the contract entails, and I decide whether or not it's worth accepting. *That* is not rocket science.
No one *deserves* to be shit on if they don't have obvious available alternatives, and it's wrong-headed to invoke that sort of granite-fisted Darwinism to this sort of activity.
Ignorance is no excuse. Unless you're legally mentally deficient or are coerced you have get no sympathy from me if you sign a legal contract. Musicians are adults just like the rest of us. If they sign away their rights on the slim chance they might make it big they have no one to blame but themselves.
Nothing to lose.
I wouldn't go that far. AFAIK they still have stock holders and are trying to disolve the company. Some of the stockholders may not want any more money wasted and just liquidate what's left.
Of course, since the potential payout is much, much larger if they sue I doubt anyone would pitch a fit, but you never know.
It's not an issue of being dumb. The Big Five have a virtual monopoly on distribution, and a de facto monopoly on airplay and tour support. If you want your band to make money and be known, even on a relatively small level, you have no choice but to sign that contract.
I disagree. You can go the independent route. Sure, you won't get the exposure that a major *might* give you, but you have a lot more control. You may not get filthy rich, but (assuming you have talent and there's a certain audience that appreciates your music) you can make a living.
This, by the way, is a pretty good way to position yourself for a good contract with a major. Play, build up a fan base, release some records, tour your ass off and show that you have an audience and you have a hell of a lot more leverage when it comes to signing a contract.
Just because you want your cake and eat it too doesn't mean that everyone should bend over backwards for you. You have to earn it, just like anything else in life. If you want to jump at the first contract dangled in front of you, fine. Be prepared to give away the rights to your recordings, and be prepared to be dropped like a bad habit if/when you don't provide the kinds of returns the record company expected when they invested in you. You want a good contract, then demand it, and don't sign anything that you don't like. Sure, its a harder row to hoe, but, like I said so are most tings in life. No one forces these musicians to sign fucked up contrats. They have the power to say no.
Are the record companies fair? From what I know about them I say hell no. But if I sign a contract with them I have no one to blame but myself.