I would say that most people think of a Computer with Internet the same as Television. If I just watch content then how could I get a virus? I was just watching! I have to agree with them at the most fundamental level.
The difference is that television is one-to-many communication and fundamentally one-way.
The Internet is many-to-many communication and fundamentally two-way.
The people who fail to recognize the difference and the implications of that difference are simply wrong. Fundamentally wrong, if you like. The fact that assuming security doesn't matter is a sure way to get 0wned is a very strong argument against them. I am all for advocating what someone believes is an ideal expectation, but not when it contradicts the manifest reality. Then it's just ignorance. Ignorance is not and has never been a solid foundation for good decision-making.
Because it comes pre-installed. And a lot of people want/need something that works out of the box. They don't know about add-ons. They don't care about security, they just want to surf the web.
If they choose not to care about security that's fine, but then I don't want to hear their complaints when they get some kind of infection.
Welcome to the world of responsible adulthood, where you make your bed and lay in it. The amount of effort people spend to fight against accepting this reality is quite a bit greater than the effort it would take to become decently secure.
The only injustice is that the black-hats can compromise the machines of those who don't care about security and use them to degrade the Internet experience of those who do, usually in the form of spam and DDoS attacks. So ultimately Microsoft getting its act together regarding security would be a good thing.
This is completely stupid. An ad-laden movie is still a movie, and they can put whatever they want in their movie. It's not "bait-and-switch" just because you don't like it.
While I hate to dilute your evaluation of my intelligence, or to contradict your quaint belief that anyone who disagrees with you must be a member of the peanut gallery (fucking people, how dare they have a different take on something), perhaps I can clarify my point for you.
The whole point of a market is that a willing buyer purchases a good or a service from a willing seller. Neither party uses force or deception.
When I am the buyer, I do not wish to pay for the privilege of watching an advertisement. I am unconcerned with whether you agree with that, approve of it, think it's a great idea, etc. You are free to spend your money that you earn as you see fit and you won't hear a word about that from me. It is yours.
Regarding the money that I earned, the money that is mine, I do not wish to purchase a movie with advertisements. It is only by a failure to disclose what I am actually buying, which is a form of deception, that anyone could get me to pay money for a movie that has advertisements. Had I known more about the movie I would not have purchased it. Again, this is about the freedom to decide not to patronize a business with which you disagree.
As a customer, I have every right to choose not to purchase something for any reason or for no reason at all, with or without explanation. I really don't care if you would make the same decision because you did not work to earn my money. It is the lack of disclosure that is at issue here.
If product placements are such a legitimate, good, useful, value-added practice, why are the marketers ashamed to disclose them up-front? If they have other sources of revenue from the movie, why do they charge the same full price as other movies that do not have the additional sources of revenue? They are double-dipping and as a customer I don't wish to reward this practice. If you do, that is your prerogative. It would never occur to me to insult your intelligence for having a different take on this matter, but then, I don't have the type of insecurity that makes me feel threatened by those who disagree with me. I don't know how to make it any simpler.
What is it about Apple articles on Slashdot that brings out the peanut gallery? There has never been such a high level of dumbness when it comes to Apple as there has been from Slashdotters lately, since the website first began in the late 90s.
You think I regard this as an Apple issue? Oh, I get it. You took it upon yourself to automatically assume that I have a big problem with Apple's product placements but that I have no problem with say, Coke or Pepsi or Microsoft. I certainly never made such a claim. Your assumption is faulty. I don't care to pay full price for any movie that contains any form of real-world advertising. My position would remain the same no matter who topped the product-placement charts. That's because my position is based on principle, not on my feelings about a particular company.
For someone who is so quick to call others stupid, you certainly have no problem making unfounded assumptions.
Perhaps you are the lesser-brained individual for watching said screen.
I could understand your point of view about this except that you aren't accounting for the very nature of product placements.
At its core, it's a (legal) form of bait-and-switch. You are led to believe you are purchasing a movie. You are purchasing an ad-laden movie. They certainly aren't doing that due to overwhelming customer demand. Of course, you don't actually know that this is what you were sold until you watch the movie. Ad-laden movies are sold alongside regular movies with no easy way to distinguish them, depriving the customer of the chance to decide whether they want to pay full price for something subsidized with advertising.
If movies with product placements had to carry a big safety-orange label saying "CONTAINS IN-MOVIE ADVERTISING" I would consider your point more valid.
That's odd, there's no hard rock/classic rock stations in your area? Here in Phoenix, we have 2 of them (I think). Of course, classic rock gets a little old after they keep playing the exact same Pink Floyd, Rush, Rolling Stones, etc. songs, but sometimes they'll play something different (esp. later at night). But Pink Floyd is always better to listen to than anything else on the radio, so if all I have available is a radio, a classic rock station will do.
Thanks for making a useful correction to my post. You're right, I left out the one or two classic rock stations. They're definitely the more amiable of the non-talk radio selection, by a long margin. Yet there is a limit to how many times I can hear the same 30 year old songs over and over again. I assumed that a lot of the commercial drive behind "classic rock" stations is that they avoid paying the higher royalties for the RIAA's "latest and greatest" (in quotes for a good reason), though I have no idea if that's how it actually works. I certainly wouldn't put it past the RIAA to charge the same amount for both.
Another thing I don't like about the classic rock stations is that they play the same small fraction of a given band's work. Maybe I should call them up to inform them that "Money" and "Another Brick in the Wall" are not the only songs Pink Floyd has written.
Concerning quality, I definitely agree about Pink Floyd. Unlike most of what gets radio air-time I can actually call them artists with a straight face. Still, it's trivial for me to make an MP3 CD from my own collection and listen to what I want, when I want, with no commercials and no DJ who's not nearly as funny as he thinks he is. Especially if you like (among others) hard rock, metal, reggae, and independent hip-hop then that pretty much rules out music radio.
While I agree that current copyright terms are too long (and, de facto unlimited due to Disney's lobbying in congress), if you shorten durations too much, there's the risk of companies sitting on a work and then publishing once it drops out of copyright, so that they don't have to pay royalties. Movie companies sit on scripts and completed movies alike, all the time, for various strategic reasons. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to see them doing the same if copyright term became, say, 5 years. ("Thanks, Mr. Tolkien, for your awesome books! We'll be sure to start printing them and making movies in 2016!")
They have one very strong incentive not to do that. If a company sits on a work, such as a movie, and publishes it only after the copyright expires, then guess what? It is now perfectly legal to openly and honestly obtain it from BitTorrent. Even the most law-abiding citizen who ever lived would have zero incentive to purchase the work. That's a good example of a company that wants to go bankrupt.
So the behaviour that intellectual property enables is frivolous lawsuits? Isn't that more of an issue with the courts in general?
I agree that frivolous lawsuits are a detriment to society. However, that isn't really germane to this incident.
The reason? This matter never went to court. Zazzle is so intimidated by just the possibility of such a lawsuit that they refused to sell the products, even though they would most likely prevail. This law is intimidating them into refusing to do something they should be able to do with impunity. You asked if there is a law enabling such behavior and yes, unfortunately there is.
Where can I find a rational, thoughtful discussion of the issues by someone who understands what they are?
You can create one yourself. It's sort of like that saying "if your happiness depends on what other people do, I guess you do have a problem."
Oh, of course. We should banish all patents and copyrights, and now trademarks, too, huh? Can we for once get an explanation of how this would benefit society? If someone could finally make a good argument, something beneficial might happen. Continually whining that you don't like certain laws and making slogans like "information wants to be free" or "I don't believe in imaginary property laws" won't cause any change.
Banishing all of it would mean moving from one extreme to another extreme. It's a failure to appreciate that the extreme is the problem.
Copyright was intended to be a balance, an equal exchange. The government is kind enough to grant creators a temporary monopoly over their works. That's society's end of the bargain. After that monopoly expires, the works become public domain and that enriches society by providing readily available art. That's the creator's end of the bargain. Simple.
Now then. The original duration of copyright was 14 years. This was during the late 18th century. At that time, the physical printing press was the most advanced way to distribute a written work. Here we are in the Information Age. In fourteen years' time an author can reach a much larger audience at significantly less cost than what anyone in the 18th century would have dreamed possible. Therefore, if anything, the original duration of 14 years should be reduced to maintain the same balance we once had.
That has not been the case. Instead copyright has been extended and in some cases it can be as long as the author's lifetime plus 120 years. There are no two ways about it: that means society is getting screwed over because the creators are no longer holding up their end of the bargain. It is no longer an equitable balance between the need to reward creators and the enrichment of the public domain. The reason why so many people no longer respect copyright is because it is no longer respectable. It has turned into a blatantly one-sided money grab. When people see that for what it is, they have contempt for what is obviously an unjust law.
The problem with patents is that too many of them are granted for "inventions" that are too obvious and/or have abundant prior art. It's difficult and potentially very expensive to invalidate a patent that should never have been granted. The other problem with patents is their use as an economic weapon, especially what are called submarine patents. None of this serves to incentivize innovation and invention. Patents are not nearly so broken as copyright but they're on the same path.
The problem with all of them, like the trademark in this case, is that the prospect of an extremely expensive lawsuit brought by an estate or corporation with very deep pockets is quite intimidating. This is not really an infringing use, but how many tens of thousands would someone want to spend to prove that? So Zazzle pulls the product because they are a business and even though they would likely prevail, defending against legal action brought by the Tolkien estate is not going to profit them.
Perhaps we need a "loser pays" system specifically for intellectual property laws. If you defend the lawsuit and win, the plaintiff gets to pay all of your legal expenses plus any time you missed from work plus any transportation costs and other related expenditures. Then if you know you're not actually infringing, you can go ahead and hire the best lawyers money can buy. That wouldn't fix copyright law but it would go a long way towards curbing the abuses that keep occurring around IP law in general.
everybody here dislikes the bullshit intellectual property laws that enable this behavior.
What law? There is no law enabling such behaviour.
Is this how intellectual property gleans so many negative myths?
There's absolutely a law enabling such behavior.
The only reason why Zazzle, as a storefront, is so (otherwise irrationally) paranoid about selling anything that might infringe on a trademark is.. wait for it... because they don't want the expense of defending against a trademark lawsuit that would be brought by an estate with deep pockets. If it were not possible to launch an expensive lawsuit over such a trivial and obviously non-infringing use of the word, Zazzle wouldn't have such a policy.
Without such IP laws, Zazzle would have no business reason to shut down one of their own customers. Because there are such IP laws, Zazzle is having to choose between one frustrated customer and one long, extremely expensive court battle. That's not really a choice especially for a business.
You see, that's the cause of this effect. You didn't realize that on your own because you're looking at the surface only. You need to look about 1mm beneath the surface to appreciate why this is happening.
It's just a simple repetition filter for any string. You'd have the same trouble typing in " Ha " too many times.
But from the Estate's point of view, they've just found a cheap form of advertisement. It costs them little to start an action like this and then everyone gets into it and, before you know it, everyone's discussing Tolkien again.
True but it seems they have about as much need to advertise as say, McDonalds (yes, I note that McDonalds still airs commercials...).
Tolkien is as well-known among people who read books as McDonalds is visible since there's one on every street corner.
See, you can't trademark someone's name. I was chatting with Tolkien last week. His name is actually Rob Tolkien. If I were to print this, would it suddenly be taken down by the "Tolkien estate"?
I don't think you understand how trademarks and licensing work.
I understand that the man is (unfortunately) deceased and has been for some time. Thanks to the legal fiction of his "estate" plus nearly perpetual copyright the rest of his family gets to sit on their asses and make money from his corpse since 1971. If that were how I obtained my livelihood I think I'd be a bit more meek about it.
I definitely wouldn't be making legal threats over a button that happens to mention the author's name. This is like Kraft Foods threatening legal action because you made a bumper sticker saying "while you were drinking Maxwell House I was drinking Folgers." That's protected speech. It is the expression of a personal preference. It does not threaten Kraft's ownership of the Maxwell House trademark. Likewise, saying "while you were reading Tolkien I was watching Evangelion" is a statement of a personal preference -- no claim is made that this is an official licensed product or represents an official position of the Tolkien estate. If such a claim were made I would support this maneuver, but that just isn't the case.
What a contrast to the way Hormel handled the use of the word "spam" to describe unsolicited commercial e-mail. "Spam" is a trademark of theirs. They could have gone apeshit and launched a ton of lawsuits over it if they really wanted. Instead they decided to allow this use. They were good sports about it. They earned some respect for that, because it's a respectable thing to do.
It's time to separate your personal feelings about a man who was, without a doubt, a great author from the actions of his estate which seem determined to give him a bad name. If I could make money from work that was entirely done by a long-dead ancestor I'd consider myself unusually fortunate. I wouldn't feel threatened by every little use of said ancestor's name so long as there was no blatant infringement, which this definitely is not.
The person who wrote the snarky comment wasn't the president, and I'm not the president, so suggesting he find an easier job is a bit off-topic.
I was already quite confident that you're not Barack H. Obama. That's why it wasn't a literal suggestion. It was a way of making a point. The point is that anyone who wants to be President is going to have the entire executive branch at his or her disposal if they are elected. If that is too much for them, if it is beyond their leadership abilities, then there are better and more fit candidates available. I'll never understand why people are so eager to give Obama a pass on this when the inability to get your subordinates on board with your intentions is a very bad trait for a President.
He (or she, some year or other) is legally responsible for everything his minions do, but unless he's omniscient and has infinite time, cannot be to blame for everything.
(emphasis added)
You don't understand why that statement contradicts itself, do you?
Also, do tell me why he would need infinite time? The President interacts with members of his Cabinet to get these things done. In case you don't know, that's a small roomful of people. Each person in the Cabinet is the head of an executive branch department. All Obama would need to do is announce to his Cabinet "from now on, this is how we're going to operate". It would be up to each department head to either get it done or be replaced by someone who can. Have you never seen how any large institution is managed? By your logic no CEO could ever be expected to have any control over a company. You're clutching at straws here.
Thus conscious, stated policies of president-and-administration X are legitimate targets for personal criticisms, but holdovers from X-1 are not.
Why not? At nothing more than a whim Obama can remove and replace those holdovers. His request is all it would take. In light of the very well-established fact that the President commands the executive branch, there can only be two possibilities: he doesn't change those "holdovers" because he approves of them, or, he would disapprove of them and would change them except that he's unaware of their existence because he's incompetent.
Bear in mind that his entire platform was "change". Specifically, he called it "change you can believe in". What part of retaining holdovers who still want to do things the way the old administration did things constitutes "change", exactly? One of the biggest reasons Obama was elected is because people were getting tired of the police-state bullshit Bush was doing. This is more of the same, only now it's not under Bush's watch. That means we can add hypocrisy to everything else I have already explained.
Look, if you think no one should ever call out Obama's failures because he's such a great guy, so charismatic, because you like him so much, etc., that's fine, but call it the emotional argument that it is and acknowledge that you are disregarding the facts of the matter. If you want to be consistent, you can also view Bush's actions through such rose-tinted "but he couldn't possibly have done any better" glasses, but it's understandable if that is too much to ask since he's far less charismatic. That charisma is more important than a hard look at the facts of the matter, isn't it? If you're likable you get away with murder. If you're not, people question your every step. How typical.
And people are more often ignorant than stupid...
Ignorance alone isn't so bad. Ignorance that does not recognize itself is a great definition of naivete. When people are ignorant about a thing and proceed as though they were not ignorant about that thing, then they are being stupid. For example, I am quite ignorant about neurosurgery, and that's okay because I won't be operating on anyone's brain. It
slightly off-topic, but what Obama did with regards DOMA was about as huge a grab on executive power as you can get. He's basically decided that he shall be King and decide which laws he likes to enforce and which he does not. We are now at the point that whatever political party comes to power will simply non-enforce laws with which they disagree. Even if Obama had legit concerns over this law (or any other) it is SCOTUS, not President, who determines the constitutionality.
I predict that anyone with media presence who seriously raises that question will be portrayed in the rest of the media as some kind of irrational lunatic. Just like the smear job that was performed against those who wanted to know if this man who was completely unknown prior to suddenly becoming President and spent a great deal of his childhood in Kenya does, in fact, meet the Constitutional requirement of being a natural-born citizen.
These days you're some kind of nutter if you want to know whether your elected leaders are legitimate. A nice catchy word will be coined for you, like "Birther", and by repeated association it will come to mean something like "devil". I say we should not have such unresolved questions about the holder of our highest office, and if someone wishes to have maximum privacy that person can always choose not to become a public figure with a great deal of political power. But what do we actually get? Excuses, obstruction, a "certificate of live birth" that means next to nothing, and a great deal of effort to make sure that attempts to resolve what should have been a simple and straightforward matter are widely ridiculed.
It's a group application of a similar strategy to the one that was used on Joe the Plumber, if you remember him. He asked the President some decently tough, decidedly non-scripted questions. Next thing you know, the media starts trying to dig up dirt on him and leaves no stone unturned in an effort to make him look bad. It's a classic smear job. The message there is quite clear: sit down and shut up, applaud when we tell you to, and enjoy the pep rally, or we will invade your privacy and air your dirty laundry. It's disgusting.
Being president of the USA sucks. people expect you to know every detail of the 10 million employees under you.
That sounds like yet another good argument in favor of a smaller, less powerful federal government. That would be more manageable and therefore more likely to ensure accountability. Though as far as how badly it sucks to be President, remember these are people who strongly desire power. Power can and should carry a great deal of responsibility. If anything, it doesn't carry enough. I have no sympathy whatsoever if someone's thirst for political power causes them some occasional discomfort.
While Bush can be blamed on lots of things and Obama is doing some really nasty shite themselves, not everything can be blamed on "the administration".
The meaningful question is: now that this has come to light and is being reported in the media, now that the President can no longer claim ignorance, what is he going to do about it? The likely answer: absolutely nothing. That can and should be blamed on his administration.
You're saying that Barack Obama instructed the Justice Department to obtain this information?
Wow, that's like no other government I've ever seen, and I've lived and paid taxes in a lot of countries. Mostly, what I've seen is governments that are not under the effective control of any one person. Most large bureacracies are so ponderous that even very deliberate changes in official policy have marginal effect on entrenched attitudes and behavior. But I guess the United States must be an exception. Obama has some special power to change all this, a power that he's failing to exercise?
In a word: yes. He has. The U.S. has three branches of government. The President has no direct control over the legislative and judicial branches. However, the President is the undisputed leader of the executive branch. Every other member of the executive branch is his subordinate. If the head of an executive department will not comply with the President's wishes, the President can fire that person and replace them with someone else.
For example, Obama disagrees with what is called the "Defense of Marriage Act". Eric Holder is the Attorney General, that is, Holder is the head of the Department of Justice. The DoJ is part of the executive branch. Obama has directly instructed Holder to refuse to enforce this particular law. Holder has three choices in the matter: 1) comply with Obama's order, 2) refuse to comply and be fired and replaced, or 3) resign and be replaced. (Incidentally, this is an attack against the concept of rule of law -- the way we are supposed to deal with laws we don't like is to get them changed, not to selectively enforce them, but I digress).
Obama could absolutely require the DoJ to stop obtaining this information. He doesn't do this for one reason and one reason alone: he does not wish to.
Worse, all those screaming voices on the Democratic side of Congress are woefully silent with regards to everything our President chooses to do.
Of course. These people have no principles. They believe in nothing other than their own indulgence and selfish advancement. Their most heart-felt beliefs are determined by the way the winds are blowing. They are utterly decadent and, if you will, soul-less. That's why the same police-state shit is okay if "their guy" is doing it, but a horrible outrage if the "other guy" does it. Really, the only thing they can't stand is that the puppet performing the action doesn't sport their logo.
If the press rode his ass like they did Bush we would be better off, it might make him live up to his promises/promise. Now all I want is to see him a one term President so we have a chance of something better next time.
It will be "change we can believe in!" all over again and people will eat that shit up because they so badly want to believe it. After the warm fuzzies start to fade away, it will be "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". The masses will be surprised by this because they are shallow, so they see that this puppet figurehead is different from the last puppet figurehead -- what they fail to see is that the exact same economic and political forces choose all of the puppet figureheads. Fish in a barrel is what they are. It is what they will remain until they wake up and start wanting something better for themselves.
To further reinforce the point, I'll borrow a quote from Matthew Parris, regarding television shows:
...is it dishonest for the presenter to imply that the pundit in the chair is free to offer any opinion, when the truth is that fifty pundits were telephoned, but only the fellow prepared to offer the requisite opinion was invited?
Yes, it is dishonest. They do that because it takes a lot of money and effort to produce a show and reach a large audience. The people who are putting up that money want some assurance that there will be a return on their investment. So they don't want just any person to offer just any opinion, because that's a wildcard, an unknown. They want exactly what they pay for.
Politics works this way. Only the fellow with the requisite political beliefs and lack of principles will be invited. The monied interests that lobby and pay for campaigns do this because it takes a lot of money and effort to fund a campaign and provide the support it takes to get someone into high office. They want a return on their investment in the form of someone who represents their interests. The voters are taken for granted, for time after time it is the well-funded darling of the media who is never seriously scrutinized, who is always portrayed as a great guy, who gets the votes.
Until you fix that it really doesn't matter what the President's name is.
It's a tiny bit dishonest to say "the X administration" unless it was a conscious policy of X, not something that you can expect to see from X-1 and x+1. It also appears in the topic sentence of the cited article, which is a tip-off:
Sorry but if someone is not prepared to take responsibility for the actions of their underlings then they are not fit to be in a position of authority. It's alright, plenty of people are not cut out for leadership just like plenty of people are not computer technicians. I don't buy the phony distinction of "conscious policies" and "unconscious policies". If you are in charge and you don't know what your underlings are doing, you're incompetent; if you're in charge and you know what your underlings are doing and you do not require them to change, it is because you approve whether this approval is stated or unstated.
Anyone who thinks that's a tough standard is free to find a job less demanding than the Presidency.
If someone wants you to believe something that isn't true, it will appear in the first sentence, even if it logically doesn't belong there or seems jarring. That's a psychological trick that dates back to the ancient Greeks. It was reputedly a specific teaching of the sophists[1].
I would say that if that's all it takes to get someone to believe a lie, especially about anything important, then their love of truth and commitment to objectivity were non-existent anyway. They are soft-minded, naive, and their deceit is inevitable. The only question is who will fool them first. I wish it weren't so easy to deceive so many people but that's the reality.
I usually don't respond to trolls except to call them out for being trolls. This one in particular though is a persistent bastard. If you have been around this site long enough to remember the user "twitter" (not to be confused with the Web site), the guy who had multiple sockpuppet accounts who would all chime in and agree with each other like some psychotic episode of multiple personality disorder, then you've already seen the type of uber-troll who doesn't just go away. So I figured I'd have some fun with him, and I certainly did.
Don't worry. I don't for a moment think that anything I say will change his ways. He's not the kind of person who wants to discover and remedy his faults. He hasn't the courage or insight for that. While I used valid reasoning, my comments toward him were for my amusement only. Uncreative trolls like him are a form of griefer; the best way to turn the tables on them is to be entertained instead of frustrated by their antics. It's pretty much the antithesis of what they want you to do.
I know I'm preaching to the converted here on Slashdot but the radio in the US is just terrible.
In my area the standard FM dial has the following selections at any given time:
Top-40 pop. Just in case I wanted to hear a shallow song about who loves whom or why someone wants their significant other back, performed by someone who thinks they're a philosopher.
Country. The most mainstream and uninteresting available, therefore another kind of pop. Not to be confused with bluegrass. It's little more than pop with a Southern accent and some cookie-cutter patriotism thrown in.
Rap. The most widely-promoted and mainstream available, therefore another kind of pop. Not to be confused with hip-hop. Despite its claims it didn't come from the streets of a rough neighborhood, though the performers themselves may have. The music and the willingness to promote it came from a review of market research in an executive boardroom by people who have never struggled to make ends meet.
Soft rock. Music designed to appeal to late-middle-aged women, but only because it was pop in their youth. It attempts to define "romance" as "a man sacrifices his dignity and whines and begs for a woman's attention while telling her how beautiful she is."
Christian music. Like soft rock, but about Jesus. Apparently a lot of Christians missed that part in the Bible about a man not being corrupted by what goes into him, but rather by what comes out. So it's exquisitely careful to never address anything intense, controversial, political, or insightful, and tries hard not to use a fast tempo.
Talk radio. There are some hosts who are really, really good. Then there are all the others who think that having a debate and muting your opponent's microphone (or telephone, as it were) makes you right and him wrong. Others are slightly more subtle and insist on an entirely one-way debate during which they ask all the questions, accept only yes/no as an answer, and will mute the opponent only if he/she has questions of their own and asks them as an equal.
What a great selection. I'm almost always listening to my own playlist. During the better shows I listen to talk radio. I really can't recall the last time I set my radio to a music station for any reason.
If this is mainstream America, if this is what the masses truly enjoy, then I am awed and amazed that we still have a functioning nation.
I live in a state similar to the previous poster. Why should I have to pay "court fees" when I don't contest the ticket? If I chose to simply pay it and move on with life there are no court costs and therefore no justification for "court fees".
I think a judge still has to sign off on it in order to make it official. I can see how there might be some non-zero cost for that.
What I don't understand is why I am paying state taxes if that money isn't for basic government functions like the court system. I should either pay usage fees or taxes. Requiring me to pay both is double-dipping.
"When Injustice Becomes Law - Resistance Becomes Duty"
Thomas Jefferson
slashdot = stagnated.
cower behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.
you're completely pathetic.
Prediction fulfilled. You have failed to answer a valid objection. Just like I said you would. You even failed the specific way I said you would.
For such a big brave man you certainly are afraid to answer a valid objection. Just think: you pride yourself on using your real name, and look down on everyone else for not doing the same. Yet you don't have the courage to do something almost everyone here is willing to do, and that's respond to a valid argument. You just provided one reason to consider you a coward and two reasons to consider you a hypocrite.
This is fun so far, at least for me. Though it's really not very sporting of me. It's like trying to have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent who can only repeat himself like a broken record.
"We have lost 20 million buyers in just five years," said Russ Crupnick, a president at the analyst firm NPD Group who spoke at the conference. Moreover, only about 14 percent of buyers account for 56 percent of revenue for the recording industry. In years past, the blame was put on digital music piracy. At this year's conference, however, the focus was on free streaming Internet services, such as Pandora, MySpace, Spotify and even YouTube.
They will clutch at every straw and leave no stone unturned in their quest to increase sales... except for the myriad ways that they are their own worst enemy. It will never occur to them that suing your own customers is not good for business. They will never think that what is in my opinion the obvious "buy-a-law" political corruption (designed to institute perpetual copyright) in which they engage makes people with a conscience decide not to support them.
They will never consider that threatening tens of thousands of people with lawyer letters demanding they either pay a settlement or face a lawsuit they could not possibly afford, with no regard for the fact that many of them were innocent, might earn them some ill will. Nor will they think that taking children to court and using interrogation procedures obviously designed to intimidate them is something that decent people don't care to reward financially.
Nope, it's them evil pirates, those horrible music streaming services, etc. Of course it is. That adequately explains everything.
It's at a base level and I openly acknowledge that, but I can't help but to smile when I see that they are showing signs of desperation. They deserve more failure than they are experiencing.
Slashdot Mirror
I would say that most people think of a Computer with Internet the same as Television.
If I just watch content then how could I get a virus? I was just watching!
I have to agree with them at the most fundamental level.
The difference is that television is one-to-many communication and fundamentally one-way.
The Internet is many-to-many communication and fundamentally two-way.
The people who fail to recognize the difference and the implications of that difference are simply wrong. Fundamentally wrong, if you like. The fact that assuming security doesn't matter is a sure way to get 0wned is a very strong argument against them. I am all for advocating what someone believes is an ideal expectation, but not when it contradicts the manifest reality. Then it's just ignorance. Ignorance is not and has never been a solid foundation for good decision-making.
Because it comes pre-installed. And a lot of people want/need something that works out of the box. They don't know about add-ons. They don't care about security, they just want to surf the web.
If they choose not to care about security that's fine, but then I don't want to hear their complaints when they get some kind of infection.
Welcome to the world of responsible adulthood, where you make your bed and lay in it. The amount of effort people spend to fight against accepting this reality is quite a bit greater than the effort it would take to become decently secure.
The only injustice is that the black-hats can compromise the machines of those who don't care about security and use them to degrade the Internet experience of those who do, usually in the form of spam and DDoS attacks. So ultimately Microsoft getting its act together regarding security would be a good thing.
While I hate to dilute your evaluation of my intelligence, or to contradict your quaint belief that anyone who disagrees with you must be a member of the peanut gallery (fucking people, how dare they have a different take on something), perhaps I can clarify my point for you.
The whole point of a market is that a willing buyer purchases a good or a service from a willing seller. Neither party uses force or deception.
When I am the buyer, I do not wish to pay for the privilege of watching an advertisement. I am unconcerned with whether you agree with that, approve of it, think it's a great idea, etc. You are free to spend your money that you earn as you see fit and you won't hear a word about that from me. It is yours.
Regarding the money that I earned, the money that is mine, I do not wish to purchase a movie with advertisements. It is only by a failure to disclose what I am actually buying, which is a form of deception, that anyone could get me to pay money for a movie that has advertisements. Had I known more about the movie I would not have purchased it. Again, this is about the freedom to decide not to patronize a business with which you disagree.
As a customer, I have every right to choose not to purchase something for any reason or for no reason at all, with or without explanation. I really don't care if you would make the same decision because you did not work to earn my money. It is the lack of disclosure that is at issue here.
If product placements are such a legitimate, good, useful, value-added practice, why are the marketers ashamed to disclose them up-front? If they have other sources of revenue from the movie, why do they charge the same full price as other movies that do not have the additional sources of revenue? They are double-dipping and as a customer I don't wish to reward this practice. If you do, that is your prerogative. It would never occur to me to insult your intelligence for having a different take on this matter, but then, I don't have the type of insecurity that makes me feel threatened by those who disagree with me. I don't know how to make it any simpler.
You think I regard this as an Apple issue? Oh, I get it. You took it upon yourself to automatically assume that I have a big problem with Apple's product placements but that I have no problem with say, Coke or Pepsi or Microsoft. I certainly never made such a claim. Your assumption is faulty. I don't care to pay full price for any movie that contains any form of real-world advertising. My position would remain the same no matter who topped the product-placement charts. That's because my position is based on principle, not on my feelings about a particular company.
For someone who is so quick to call others stupid, you certainly have no problem making unfounded assumptions.
Perhaps you are the lesser-brained individual for watching said screen.
I could understand your point of view about this except that you aren't accounting for the very nature of product placements.
At its core, it's a (legal) form of bait-and-switch. You are led to believe you are purchasing a movie. You are purchasing an ad-laden movie. They certainly aren't doing that due to overwhelming customer demand. Of course, you don't actually know that this is what you were sold until you watch the movie. Ad-laden movies are sold alongside regular movies with no easy way to distinguish them, depriving the customer of the chance to decide whether they want to pay full price for something subsidized with advertising.
If movies with product placements had to carry a big safety-orange label saying "CONTAINS IN-MOVIE ADVERTISING" I would consider your point more valid.
That's odd, there's no hard rock/classic rock stations in your area? Here in Phoenix, we have 2 of them (I think). Of course, classic rock gets a little old after they keep playing the exact same Pink Floyd, Rush, Rolling Stones, etc. songs, but sometimes they'll play something different (esp. later at night). But Pink Floyd is always better to listen to than anything else on the radio, so if all I have available is a radio, a classic rock station will do.
Thanks for making a useful correction to my post. You're right, I left out the one or two classic rock stations. They're definitely the more amiable of the non-talk radio selection, by a long margin. Yet there is a limit to how many times I can hear the same 30 year old songs over and over again. I assumed that a lot of the commercial drive behind "classic rock" stations is that they avoid paying the higher royalties for the RIAA's "latest and greatest" (in quotes for a good reason), though I have no idea if that's how it actually works. I certainly wouldn't put it past the RIAA to charge the same amount for both.
Another thing I don't like about the classic rock stations is that they play the same small fraction of a given band's work. Maybe I should call them up to inform them that "Money" and "Another Brick in the Wall" are not the only songs Pink Floyd has written.
Concerning quality, I definitely agree about Pink Floyd. Unlike most of what gets radio air-time I can actually call them artists with a straight face. Still, it's trivial for me to make an MP3 CD from my own collection and listen to what I want, when I want, with no commercials and no DJ who's not nearly as funny as he thinks he is. Especially if you like (among others) hard rock, metal, reggae, and independent hip-hop then that pretty much rules out music radio.
They have one very strong incentive not to do that. If a company sits on a work, such as a movie, and publishes it only after the copyright expires, then guess what? It is now perfectly legal to openly and honestly obtain it from BitTorrent. Even the most law-abiding citizen who ever lived would have zero incentive to purchase the work. That's a good example of a company that wants to go bankrupt.
So the behaviour that intellectual property enables is frivolous lawsuits? Isn't that more of an issue with the courts in general?
I agree that frivolous lawsuits are a detriment to society. However, that isn't really germane to this incident.
The reason? This matter never went to court. Zazzle is so intimidated by just the possibility of such a lawsuit that they refused to sell the products, even though they would most likely prevail. This law is intimidating them into refusing to do something they should be able to do with impunity. You asked if there is a law enabling such behavior and yes, unfortunately there is.
You can create one yourself. It's sort of like that saying "if your happiness depends on what other people do, I guess you do have a problem."
Banishing all of it would mean moving from one extreme to another extreme. It's a failure to appreciate that the extreme is the problem.
Copyright was intended to be a balance, an equal exchange. The government is kind enough to grant creators a temporary monopoly over their works. That's society's end of the bargain. After that monopoly expires, the works become public domain and that enriches society by providing readily available art. That's the creator's end of the bargain. Simple.
Now then. The original duration of copyright was 14 years. This was during the late 18th century. At that time, the physical printing press was the most advanced way to distribute a written work. Here we are in the Information Age. In fourteen years' time an author can reach a much larger audience at significantly less cost than what anyone in the 18th century would have dreamed possible. Therefore, if anything, the original duration of 14 years should be reduced to maintain the same balance we once had.
That has not been the case. Instead copyright has been extended and in some cases it can be as long as the author's lifetime plus 120 years. There are no two ways about it: that means society is getting screwed over because the creators are no longer holding up their end of the bargain. It is no longer an equitable balance between the need to reward creators and the enrichment of the public domain. The reason why so many people no longer respect copyright is because it is no longer respectable. It has turned into a blatantly one-sided money grab. When people see that for what it is, they have contempt for what is obviously an unjust law.
The problem with patents is that too many of them are granted for "inventions" that are too obvious and/or have abundant prior art. It's difficult and potentially very expensive to invalidate a patent that should never have been granted. The other problem with patents is their use as an economic weapon, especially what are called submarine patents. None of this serves to incentivize innovation and invention. Patents are not nearly so broken as copyright but they're on the same path.
The problem with all of them, like the trademark in this case, is that the prospect of an extremely expensive lawsuit brought by an estate or corporation with very deep pockets is quite intimidating. This is not really an infringing use, but how many tens of thousands would someone want to spend to prove that? So Zazzle pulls the product because they are a business and even though they would likely prevail, defending against legal action brought by the Tolkien estate is not going to profit them.
Perhaps we need a "loser pays" system specifically for intellectual property laws. If you defend the lawsuit and win, the plaintiff gets to pay all of your legal expenses plus any time you missed from work plus any transportation costs and other related expenditures. Then if you know you're not actually infringing, you can go ahead and hire the best lawyers money can buy. That wouldn't fix copyright law but it would go a long way towards curbing the abuses that keep occurring around IP law in general.
What law? There is no law enabling such behaviour.
Is this how intellectual property gleans so many negative myths?
There's absolutely a law enabling such behavior.
The only reason why Zazzle, as a storefront, is so (otherwise irrationally) paranoid about selling anything that might infringe on a trademark is .. wait for it ... because they don't want the expense of defending against a trademark lawsuit that would be brought by an estate with deep pockets. If it were not possible to launch an expensive lawsuit over such a trivial and obviously non-infringing use of the word, Zazzle wouldn't have such a policy.
Without such IP laws, Zazzle would have no business reason to shut down one of their own customers. Because there are such IP laws, Zazzle is having to choose between one frustrated customer and one long, extremely expensive court battle. That's not really a choice especially for a business.
You see, that's the cause of this effect. You didn't realize that on your own because you're looking at the surface only. You need to look about 1mm beneath the surface to appreciate why this is happening.
It's negative alright but it is no myth.
It's just a simple repetition filter for any string. You'd have the same trouble typing in " Ha " too many times.
But from the Estate's point of view, they've just found a cheap form of advertisement. It costs them little to start an action like this and then everyone gets into it and, before you know it, everyone's discussing Tolkien again.
True but it seems they have about as much need to advertise as say, McDonalds (yes, I note that McDonalds still airs commercials...).
Tolkien is as well-known among people who read books as McDonalds is visible since there's one on every street corner.
See, you can't trademark someone's name. I was chatting with Tolkien last week. His name is actually Rob Tolkien. If I were to print this, would it suddenly be taken down by the "Tolkien estate"?
I don't think you understand how trademarks and licensing work.
I understand that the man is (unfortunately) deceased and has been for some time. Thanks to the legal fiction of his "estate" plus nearly perpetual copyright the rest of his family gets to sit on their asses and make money from his corpse since 1971. If that were how I obtained my livelihood I think I'd be a bit more meek about it.
I definitely wouldn't be making legal threats over a button that happens to mention the author's name. This is like Kraft Foods threatening legal action because you made a bumper sticker saying "while you were drinking Maxwell House I was drinking Folgers." That's protected speech. It is the expression of a personal preference. It does not threaten Kraft's ownership of the Maxwell House trademark. Likewise, saying "while you were reading Tolkien I was watching Evangelion" is a statement of a personal preference -- no claim is made that this is an official licensed product or represents an official position of the Tolkien estate. If such a claim were made I would support this maneuver, but that just isn't the case.
What a contrast to the way Hormel handled the use of the word "spam" to describe unsolicited commercial e-mail. "Spam" is a trademark of theirs. They could have gone apeshit and launched a ton of lawsuits over it if they really wanted. Instead they decided to allow this use. They were good sports about it. They earned some respect for that, because it's a respectable thing to do.
It's time to separate your personal feelings about a man who was, without a doubt, a great author from the actions of his estate which seem determined to give him a bad name. If I could make money from work that was entirely done by a long-dead ancestor I'd consider myself unusually fortunate. I wouldn't feel threatened by every little use of said ancestor's name so long as there was no blatant infringement, which this definitely is not.
Name one president who kept every promise, or even most of them?
you can't because there are none.
what does that say about our government?
That it's the kind of government a bunch of fat, stupid, shallow, naive, emotionally childish busybodies have made for themselves.
You may think that's malicious. When it's not what anyone would ever want to hear, the truth can seem that way.
I was already quite confident that you're not Barack H. Obama. That's why it wasn't a literal suggestion. It was a way of making a point. The point is that anyone who wants to be President is going to have the entire executive branch at his or her disposal if they are elected. If that is too much for them, if it is beyond their leadership abilities, then there are better and more fit candidates available. I'll never understand why people are so eager to give Obama a pass on this when the inability to get your subordinates on board with your intentions is a very bad trait for a President.
(emphasis added)
You don't understand why that statement contradicts itself, do you?
Also, do tell me why he would need infinite time? The President interacts with members of his Cabinet to get these things done. In case you don't know, that's a small roomful of people. Each person in the Cabinet is the head of an executive branch department. All Obama would need to do is announce to his Cabinet "from now on, this is how we're going to operate". It would be up to each department head to either get it done or be replaced by someone who can. Have you never seen how any large institution is managed? By your logic no CEO could ever be expected to have any control over a company. You're clutching at straws here.
Why not? At nothing more than a whim Obama can remove and replace those holdovers. His request is all it would take. In light of the very well-established fact that the President commands the executive branch, there can only be two possibilities: he doesn't change those "holdovers" because he approves of them, or, he would disapprove of them and would change them except that he's unaware of their existence because he's incompetent.
Bear in mind that his entire platform was "change". Specifically, he called it "change you can believe in". What part of retaining holdovers who still want to do things the way the old administration did things constitutes "change", exactly? One of the biggest reasons Obama was elected is because people were getting tired of the police-state bullshit Bush was doing. This is more of the same, only now it's not under Bush's watch. That means we can add hypocrisy to everything else I have already explained.
Look, if you think no one should ever call out Obama's failures because he's such a great guy, so charismatic, because you like him so much, etc., that's fine, but call it the emotional argument that it is and acknowledge that you are disregarding the facts of the matter. If you want to be consistent, you can also view Bush's actions through such rose-tinted "but he couldn't possibly have done any better" glasses, but it's understandable if that is too much to ask since he's far less charismatic. That charisma is more important than a hard look at the facts of the matter, isn't it? If you're likable you get away with murder. If you're not, people question your every step. How typical.
Ignorance alone isn't so bad. Ignorance that does not recognize itself is a great definition of naivete. When people are ignorant about a thing and proceed as though they were not ignorant about that thing, then they are being stupid. For example, I am quite ignorant about neurosurgery, and that's okay because I won't be operating on anyone's brain. It
slightly off-topic, but what Obama did with regards DOMA was about as huge a grab on executive power as you can get. He's basically decided that he shall be King and decide which laws he likes to enforce and which he does not. We are now at the point that whatever political party comes to power will simply non-enforce laws with which they disagree. Even if Obama had legit concerns over this law (or any other) it is SCOTUS, not President, who determines the constitutionality.
I predict that anyone with media presence who seriously raises that question will be portrayed in the rest of the media as some kind of irrational lunatic. Just like the smear job that was performed against those who wanted to know if this man who was completely unknown prior to suddenly becoming President and spent a great deal of his childhood in Kenya does, in fact, meet the Constitutional requirement of being a natural-born citizen.
These days you're some kind of nutter if you want to know whether your elected leaders are legitimate. A nice catchy word will be coined for you, like "Birther", and by repeated association it will come to mean something like "devil". I say we should not have such unresolved questions about the holder of our highest office, and if someone wishes to have maximum privacy that person can always choose not to become a public figure with a great deal of political power. But what do we actually get? Excuses, obstruction, a "certificate of live birth" that means next to nothing, and a great deal of effort to make sure that attempts to resolve what should have been a simple and straightforward matter are widely ridiculed.
It's a group application of a similar strategy to the one that was used on Joe the Plumber, if you remember him. He asked the President some decently tough, decidedly non-scripted questions. Next thing you know, the media starts trying to dig up dirt on him and leaves no stone unturned in an effort to make him look bad. It's a classic smear job. The message there is quite clear: sit down and shut up, applaud when we tell you to, and enjoy the pep rally, or we will invade your privacy and air your dirty laundry. It's disgusting.
That sounds like yet another good argument in favor of a smaller, less powerful federal government. That would be more manageable and therefore more likely to ensure accountability. Though as far as how badly it sucks to be President, remember these are people who strongly desire power. Power can and should carry a great deal of responsibility. If anything, it doesn't carry enough. I have no sympathy whatsoever if someone's thirst for political power causes them some occasional discomfort.
The meaningful question is: now that this has come to light and is being reported in the media, now that the President can no longer claim ignorance, what is he going to do about it? The likely answer: absolutely nothing. That can and should be blamed on his administration.
You're saying that Barack Obama instructed the Justice Department to obtain this information?
Wow, that's like no other government I've ever seen, and I've lived and paid taxes in a lot of countries. Mostly, what I've seen is governments that are not under the effective control of any one person. Most large bureacracies are so ponderous that even very deliberate changes in official policy have marginal effect on entrenched attitudes and behavior. But I guess the United States must be an exception. Obama has some special power to change all this, a power that he's failing to exercise?
In a word: yes. He has. The U.S. has three branches of government. The President has no direct control over the legislative and judicial branches. However, the President is the undisputed leader of the executive branch. Every other member of the executive branch is his subordinate. If the head of an executive department will not comply with the President's wishes, the President can fire that person and replace them with someone else.
For example, Obama disagrees with what is called the "Defense of Marriage Act". Eric Holder is the Attorney General, that is, Holder is the head of the Department of Justice. The DoJ is part of the executive branch. Obama has directly instructed Holder to refuse to enforce this particular law. Holder has three choices in the matter: 1) comply with Obama's order, 2) refuse to comply and be fired and replaced, or 3) resign and be replaced. (Incidentally, this is an attack against the concept of rule of law -- the way we are supposed to deal with laws we don't like is to get them changed, not to selectively enforce them, but I digress).
Obama could absolutely require the DoJ to stop obtaining this information. He doesn't do this for one reason and one reason alone: he does not wish to.
Of course. These people have no principles. They believe in nothing other than their own indulgence and selfish advancement. Their most heart-felt beliefs are determined by the way the winds are blowing. They are utterly decadent and, if you will, soul-less. That's why the same police-state shit is okay if "their guy" is doing it, but a horrible outrage if the "other guy" does it. Really, the only thing they can't stand is that the puppet performing the action doesn't sport their logo.
It will be "change we can believe in!" all over again and people will eat that shit up because they so badly want to believe it. After the warm fuzzies start to fade away, it will be "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". The masses will be surprised by this because they are shallow, so they see that this puppet figurehead is different from the last puppet figurehead -- what they fail to see is that the exact same economic and political forces choose all of the puppet figureheads. Fish in a barrel is what they are. It is what they will remain until they wake up and start wanting something better for themselves.
To further reinforce the point, I'll borrow a quote from Matthew Parris, regarding television shows:
telephoned, but only the fellow prepared to offer the requisite opinion was invited?
Yes, it is dishonest. They do that because it takes a lot of money and effort to produce a show and reach a large audience. The people who are putting up that money want some assurance that there will be a return on their investment. So they don't want just any person to offer just any opinion, because that's a wildcard, an unknown. They want exactly what they pay for.
Politics works this way. Only the fellow with the requisite political beliefs and lack of principles will be invited. The monied interests that lobby and pay for campaigns do this because it takes a lot of money and effort to fund a campaign and provide the support it takes to get someone into high office. They want a return on their investment in the form of someone who represents their interests. The voters are taken for granted, for time after time it is the well-funded darling of the media who is never seriously scrutinized, who is always portrayed as a great guy, who gets the votes.
Until you fix that it really doesn't matter what the President's name is.
Sorry but if someone is not prepared to take responsibility for the actions of their underlings then they are not fit to be in a position of authority. It's alright, plenty of people are not cut out for leadership just like plenty of people are not computer technicians. I don't buy the phony distinction of "conscious policies" and "unconscious policies". If you are in charge and you don't know what your underlings are doing, you're incompetent; if you're in charge and you know what your underlings are doing and you do not require them to change, it is because you approve whether this approval is stated or unstated.
Anyone who thinks that's a tough standard is free to find a job less demanding than the Presidency.
I would say that if that's all it takes to get someone to believe a lie, especially about anything important, then their love of truth and commitment to objectivity were non-existent anyway. They are soft-minded, naive, and their deceit is inevitable. The only question is who will fool them first. I wish it weren't so easy to deceive so many people but that's the reality.
Don't feed trolls, man...
I usually don't respond to trolls except to call them out for being trolls. This one in particular though is a persistent bastard. If you have been around this site long enough to remember the user "twitter" (not to be confused with the Web site), the guy who had multiple sockpuppet accounts who would all chime in and agree with each other like some psychotic episode of multiple personality disorder, then you've already seen the type of uber-troll who doesn't just go away. So I figured I'd have some fun with him, and I certainly did.
Don't worry. I don't for a moment think that anything I say will change his ways. He's not the kind of person who wants to discover and remedy his faults. He hasn't the courage or insight for that. While I used valid reasoning, my comments toward him were for my amusement only. Uncreative trolls like him are a form of griefer; the best way to turn the tables on them is to be entertained instead of frustrated by their antics. It's pretty much the antithesis of what they want you to do.
In my area the standard FM dial has the following selections at any given time:
What a great selection. I'm almost always listening to my own playlist. During the better shows I listen to talk radio. I really can't recall the last time I set my radio to a music station for any reason.
If this is mainstream America, if this is what the masses truly enjoy, then I am awed and amazed that we still have a functioning nation.
This sure sounds like management at my job trying to solve a problem.
A must be causing this! Oh not A? Must be C then! Damnit if it's not C then it's gotta be B causing all our problems!
Like gasping for air underwater...
It's the result of Politician's Logic:
"We must do something. This is something, so it must be done!"
you certainly cowered as commanded.
the causality is you're completely pathetic.
At this point I am beginning to feel sorry for you.
I live in a state similar to the previous poster. Why should I have to pay "court fees" when I don't contest the ticket? If I chose to simply pay it and move on with life there are no court costs and therefore no justification for "court fees".
I think a judge still has to sign off on it in order to make it official. I can see how there might be some non-zero cost for that.
What I don't understand is why I am paying state taxes if that money isn't for basic government functions like the court system. I should either pay usage fees or taxes. Requiring me to pay both is double-dipping.
"When Injustice Becomes Law - Resistance Becomes Duty"
Thomas Jefferson
slashdot = stagnated.
cower behind your chosen pseudonym some more, feeb.
you're completely pathetic.
Prediction fulfilled. You have failed to answer a valid objection. Just like I said you would. You even failed the specific way I said you would.
For such a big brave man you certainly are afraid to answer a valid objection. Just think: you pride yourself on using your real name, and look down on everyone else for not doing the same. Yet you don't have the courage to do something almost everyone here is willing to do, and that's respond to a valid argument. You just provided one reason to consider you a coward and two reasons to consider you a hypocrite.
This is fun so far, at least for me. Though it's really not very sporting of me. It's like trying to have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent who can only repeat himself like a broken record.
They will clutch at every straw and leave no stone unturned in their quest to increase sales... except for the myriad ways that they are their own worst enemy. It will never occur to them that suing your own customers is not good for business. They will never think that what is in my opinion the obvious "buy-a-law" political corruption (designed to institute perpetual copyright) in which they engage makes people with a conscience decide not to support them.
They will never consider that threatening tens of thousands of people with lawyer letters demanding they either pay a settlement or face a lawsuit they could not possibly afford, with no regard for the fact that many of them were innocent, might earn them some ill will. Nor will they think that taking children to court and using interrogation procedures obviously designed to intimidate them is something that decent people don't care to reward financially.
Nope, it's them evil pirates, those horrible music streaming services, etc. Of course it is. That adequately explains everything.
It's at a base level and I openly acknowledge that, but I can't help but to smile when I see that they are showing signs of desperation. They deserve more failure than they are experiencing.