"If you buy a software CD box in a store, you OWN that software and can use it as long as you can find some hardware that will run it."
Not necessarily. If I go buy some boxed software, I automatically agree to the EULA. To install that software, I must explicitely agree to that EULA. That License Agreement could state something like "You may only use this software for 1 year." Come one year's time, the software manufacturer could demand that I either: 1. pay more money to renew the license, or 2. stop using the software. If I refuse, using the defense "Well, some guy on slashdot told me what's printed on the box or inside somewhere is totally irrelevant," I will probably get sued.
What you just described is pretty darn close to U.S. Law as it stands right now. Bits vary from state to state, mostly regarding hand-guns and concealed weapons.
My professor requires that we fully document are code (to an almost insane degree). That's including a full psuedo-code version of the program at the top of the file. Mostly it's to fight plagiarism, but it's also there to document your train of thought.
He couldn't care less how we place our semicolins, or if we choose to use Hungarian notation or not. But he does care about consistancy, and if the program is human readable. It's a small part of the grade, but it's part of the grade.
Enforcing names which meet the "fantasy" guideline can become very subjective. It's not like WoW is a perfect fantasy world anyways.
CmdrTaco is neither offensive nor does it display a rank which is already used in WoW. They ought to have a system in place to deal with situations like these.
'"...the government doesn't have time to spy on little old you, so quit being paranoid". This is true....'
Computers, database system intercompatibility, and laws which require mass issued ID cards and registration automate this process. The "time" it takes to spy on everyone, using a completely automated spying system, doesn't matter anymore.
I'm agreeing with you 100%. The ID cards are here, the registration is here, the databases are here. The only thing left to do is to make it all compatible and pass a few more laws. Do you feel more secure?
Artists don't even need labels anymore. It's now feasible for composers to do business directly with online music providers... it doesn't cost much to upload a few megabytes of info. After it's been on iTunes, Napster, or whatever; and has made some money, then produce the CD, using profit money from distributing online.
The only reason the RIAA is useful to new artists is for advertising purposes, which is IMO isn't that great anyways. They are increasingly advertising the the artists they think can make the most money, not necessarily the artists that make the best music.
The only thing they're really doing now is desperately holding on for their survival. If they persuade congress to pass enough laws in their favor maybe they'll stick around for a while...
The RIAA today, is like the horse and buggy businesses when the automobile hit mainstream. They're obsolete.
You just gave a pretty good example of vendor lock-in. Too bad that company went with the proprietary MS Excel format...
The whole point of the Massachusetts decision is avoid this type of situation by using open, standard file-formats.
At the heart, this isn't about OpenOffice vs MS Office, or any product vs another. It's about the file format. Microsoft or any other vendor is free to add support for the open format to their product (and not their own competing "open" format which they have IP rights over).
If I was in charge of a company in the situation you just outlined, I would develop a new system and migrate the data. The new system would not be based on another proprietary format. That's just me though; I like to keep my options open. Apparently the state of Massachusetts is thinking along the same line.
And if the market only offers one solution (one which you happen to loathe), then it would seem to me that it's a perfect time for you to enter the market with your own HDDVD solution.
Unless the law states that anyone building an HDDVD player must include DRM into it...
Or maybe that won't even matter, considering no one's going to create movies for your player since it's not DRM enabled.
It may turn out that the only thing the consumer CAN do is not buy. That works great as long as DRM only affects the entertainment market, but what happens when digital control works its way into the more essential parts of life?
"Sorry pal, you can't pay in cash. We only take transactions via human RFID chip implants. What, you don't have one? You know that RFID chip implants are the law right?? You must be a terrorist! I'm calling homeland security!"
You don't own the media that you buy. You own a license to that media. Take for example Napster's Terms of Service:
"Tracks and Materials. The Tracks and Materials are owned by Napster, its business partners, affiliates and/or licensors, as applicable, and are protected by intellectual property laws....You may not authorize, encourage or allow any Tracks or Materials used or obtained by you to be reproduced, modified, displayed, performed, transferred, distributed or otherwise used by anyone else..."
But wait, there's more.
"You may burn each Purchased Track to a CD up to seven (7) times as part of any particular playlist of songs.... Once you have burned a Purchased Track to a CD, you agree not to copy, distribute, or transfer the track from that CD to any other media or device."
And a little further down...
"You may transfer a Purchased Track an unlimited number of times to portable devices that are compatible with the Service's Usage Rules and security requirements. Once you have transferred a Purchased Track to a compatible portable device, you agree not to copy, distribute, or transfer it from that device to any other media or device."
Oh how nice of them!
The truth is that copywrited media has always had these types of restrictions, it's just that DRM enforces those restrictions, where as non-DRMed media trusts the end user to follow the rules like good little boys and girls.
In reality, most people in SWA don't follow the apperance regulations fully. Unlike being stationed back in the States, in Iraq it's business first; or at least that's the way it used to be during the initial stages. The last trip I was on the Wing Commander didn't like that people were hanging sunglasses on their flight suits, lol. I hate stupid regulations, just let me do my job. Who the fuck cares if I hang my sunglasses on my uniform? Or roll up my sleeves? (not that I'm bitter or anything)
This all coming from an Airforce guy (3 trips to the desert). We got to wear civilian clothes off duty, which was nice. At least until the SECAF came to visit the base, and saw people running around with their non-conservative bling-bling and sagging pants. He made a little comment about it, and wa-la, now everyone wears the PT uniform off duty! I can't make this stuff up.
Typical military-style: one person fucks up, everyone pays the price.
I can guarentee you if they up the subscription fee they'll also up the price per song.
If all you want is 60 songs or so, then by all means just buy them. But I don't want just 60 songs, I want about 10,000. I sure as hell ain't going to lay down $8000.00 for that though.
I love YME, it's AWESOME. I've never experienced any pain, nor torture by using it. Just the opposite in fact (even though it's still beta). My only complaint is that it's windows based, but there's rumors that that could change.
That being said, there is a hole in your analogy. I'm not going to just spend $60 on music. If $60 was all I was going to spend, then I would have just bought the CDs. With my case I want about 10,000 songs. Do you expect me to pay $7900.00 for them? Heck no. No way. For that money, I can listen to 10,000 song via the subscription model for 131 years (which should be enough).
What they hope that people won't notice is that this means that if you stop paying, it all goes away. So let's say you spend $60.00 at iTMS, you (theoretically) can play your 60 favorite songs FOREVER.
This is interesting. However I'm not going to live forever, so using "forever" is kind of silly. Let's throw out the extremes and use a model which is a little more realistic...
My library of "must have" music is about 3000 songs. If I want to listen to that music for say, 40 years, here's how it would work out:
$0.79/song x 3000 songs = $2370.00
$60/year x 40 years = $2400.00
Hmm, that's pretty even, but here's the thing most people overlook: With the subscription model, I'm free to discover new music much more freely than I am with the pay per song model. With YME, if I like a song, I just click "create similar song playlist", which I can then listen to and rate. With the subscription model I can listen to them all without paying a dime more than I already have, if I don't like them, no big deal. With the pay per song model I have to pay ($0.79 in this case with YME) for every song I listen to (you can only listen to a preview for free). That means I'm much less likely to pay for a song that I might like. That fact alone makes the subscription model vastly superior.
And don't forget that I can always buy the song too (or just buy the CD). In reality I listen to much more than 3000 songs (especially over 40 years), so I'm being very kind in these analogies.
Songs are priced between 150yen and 200yen (0.76-1.01pounds; $1.34-$1.79),
somewhat more expensive than those sold at the American iTMS and possibly also those of the UK.
Apple, the article notes, had wanted to have one price for all tracks, but faced opposition
from record companies and performers' organisations. That said, it appears that 90% of
the tracks are to be priced at 150yen.
That sucks for them. $0.99 is bad enough for one song. I personally think the subscription
model is superior. I use Yahoo Music Unlimited (beta); it's $5.00/month (or $0.79/song), which I believe is the
cheapest service out there right now.
I think it's fair to say that when introduced to any computer system, you're going to need at least a little training. The real problem is that people are so familiar with the Windows Way(TM) that they have a hard time adjusting to anything else. You could put the theoretically perfect GUI in front of Joe WinXP, and he's still going to have to learn....
Maybe, instead of making Windows-like GUIs for Linux (for easy adoptability), we should walk our own path.
Slashdot Mirror
Not necessarily. If I go buy some boxed software, I automatically agree to the EULA. To install that software, I must explicitely agree to that EULA. That License Agreement could state something like "You may only use this software for 1 year." Come one year's time, the software manufacturer could demand that I either: 1. pay more money to renew the license, or 2. stop using the software. If I refuse, using the defense "Well, some guy on slashdot told me what's printed on the box or inside somewhere is totally irrelevant," I will probably get sued.
What you just described is pretty darn close to U.S. Law as it stands right now. Bits vary from state to state, mostly regarding hand-guns and concealed weapons.
You like to modify your problems? I usually leave that up to the vendors. :-)
My professor requires that we fully document are code (to an almost insane degree). That's including a full psuedo-code version of the program at the top of the file. Mostly it's to fight plagiarism, but it's also there to document your train of thought.
He couldn't care less how we place our semicolins, or if we choose to use Hungarian notation or not. But he does care about consistancy, and if the program is human readable. It's a small part of the grade, but it's part of the grade.
Enforcing names which meet the "fantasy" guideline can become very subjective. It's not like WoW is a perfect fantasy world anyways.
CmdrTaco is neither offensive nor does it display a rank which is already used in WoW. They ought to have a system in place to deal with situations like these.
Computers, database system intercompatibility, and laws which require mass issued ID cards and registration automate this process. The "time" it takes to spy on everyone, using a completely automated spying system, doesn't matter anymore.
I'm agreeing with you 100%. The ID cards are here, the registration is here, the databases are here. The only thing left to do is to make it all compatible and pass a few more laws. Do you feel more secure?
We've been waiting how long for this to happen on its own? I don't think it's going to happen friend.
Artists don't even need labels anymore. It's now feasible for composers to do business directly with online music providers... it doesn't cost much to upload a few megabytes of info. After it's been on iTunes, Napster, or whatever; and has made some money, then produce the CD, using profit money from distributing online.
The only reason the RIAA is useful to new artists is for advertising purposes, which is IMO isn't that great anyways. They are increasingly advertising the the artists they think can make the most money, not necessarily the artists that make the best music.
The only thing they're really doing now is desperately holding on for their survival. If they persuade congress to pass enough laws in their favor maybe they'll stick around for a while...
The RIAA today, is like the horse and buggy businesses when the automobile hit mainstream. They're obsolete.
Go away RIAA, nobody likes you.
I've been through Eielson AFB/North Pole/Fairbanks a couple of times. It was -35F in mid-march!
Out of all the places I've been in the world, the folks in central Alaska have been by far the friendliest.
Sorry for the OT post. Have a nice day.
You just gave a pretty good example of vendor lock-in. Too bad that company went with the proprietary MS Excel format...
The whole point of the Massachusetts decision is avoid this type of situation by using open, standard file-formats. At the heart, this isn't about OpenOffice vs MS Office, or any product vs another. It's about the file format. Microsoft or any other vendor is free to add support for the open format to their product (and not their own competing "open" format which they have IP rights over).
If I was in charge of a company in the situation you just outlined, I would develop a new system and migrate the data. The new system would not be based on another proprietary format. That's just me though; I like to keep my options open. Apparently the state of Massachusetts is thinking along the same line.
You don't own the content, the copyright holders do.
TiVo is just enforcing the law...
Yummy.
Whoa, for a second there I read the title as a "Big Mac" virus.
Mmm, Big Mac.
Or maybe that won't even matter, considering no one's going to create movies for your player since it's not DRM enabled.
It may turn out that the only thing the consumer CAN do is not buy. That works great as long as DRM only affects the entertainment market, but what happens when digital control works its way into the more essential parts of life?
"Sorry pal, you can't pay in cash. We only take transactions via human RFID chip implants. What, you don't have one? You know that RFID chip implants are the law right?? You must be a terrorist! I'm calling homeland security!"
But wait, there's more. And a little further down... Oh how nice of them!
The truth is that copywrited media has always had these types of restrictions, it's just that DRM enforces those restrictions, where as non-DRMed media trusts the end user to follow the rules like good little boys and girls.
Samba
Well, it's not always just about saving money. There's a lot of open source projects out there that are much less painful to work with.
Not having to worry about CD keys, crazy EULAs, spy/adware, and vendor lock-in are big pluses of most FOSS.
In reality, most people in SWA don't follow the apperance regulations fully. Unlike being stationed back in the States, in Iraq it's business first; or at least that's the way it used to be during the initial stages. The last trip I was on the Wing Commander didn't like that people were hanging sunglasses on their flight suits, lol. I hate stupid regulations, just let me do my job. Who the fuck cares if I hang my sunglasses on my uniform? Or roll up my sleeves? (not that I'm bitter or anything)
This all coming from an Airforce guy (3 trips to the desert). We got to wear civilian clothes off duty, which was nice. At least until the SECAF came to visit the base, and saw people running around with their non-conservative bling-bling and sagging pants. He made a little comment about it, and wa-la, now everyone wears the PT uniform off duty! I can't make this stuff up.
Typical military-style: one person fucks up, everyone pays the price.
$60/year doesn't equal $15/month smart guy, it's $5.
I can guarentee you if they up the subscription fee they'll also up the price per song.
If all you want is 60 songs or so, then by all means just buy them. But I don't want just 60 songs, I want about 10,000. I sure as hell ain't going to lay down $8000.00 for that though.
I love YME, it's AWESOME. I've never experienced any pain, nor torture by using it. Just the opposite in fact (even though it's still beta). My only complaint is that it's windows based, but there's rumors that that could change.
That being said, there is a hole in your analogy. I'm not going to just spend $60 on music. If $60 was all I was going to spend, then I would have just bought the CDs. With my case I want about 10,000 songs. Do you expect me to pay $7900.00 for them? Heck no. No way. For that money, I can listen to 10,000 song via the subscription model for 131 years (which should be enough).
My library of "must have" music is about 3000 songs. If I want to listen to that music for say, 40 years, here's how it would work out:
$0.79/song x 3000 songs = $2370.00
$60/year x 40 years = $2400.00
Hmm, that's pretty even, but here's the thing most people overlook: With the subscription model, I'm free to discover new music much more freely than I am with the pay per song model. With YME, if I like a song, I just click "create similar song playlist", which I can then listen to and rate. With the subscription model I can listen to them all without paying a dime more than I already have, if I don't like them, no big deal. With the pay per song model I have to pay ($0.79 in this case with YME) for every song I listen to (you can only listen to a preview for free). That means I'm much less likely to pay for a song that I might like. That fact alone makes the subscription model vastly superior.
And don't forget that I can always buy the song too (or just buy the CD). In reality I listen to much more than 3000 songs (especially over 40 years), so I'm being very kind in these analogies.
Comments?
Paranoia, always.
Your comment is a little harsh there.
I think it's fair to say that when introduced to any computer system, you're going to need at least a little training. The real problem is that people are so familiar with the Windows Way(TM) that they have a hard time adjusting to anything else. You could put the theoretically perfect GUI in front of Joe WinXP, and he's still going to have to learn....
Maybe, instead of making Windows-like GUIs for Linux (for easy adoptability), we should walk our own path.