The only way eBook readers could become commonplace is if they give them away.
Not true. They do have to become more reasonably priced then $400 US, but you don't have to give them away to sell them. Many people have bought PDAs mainly to read e-books. They are convenient and easy to store (I can take 100 books in the amount of space needed for 1 book). Don't underestimate that factor alone. Besides which, there is a TON of content online (I don't like reading long stuff on the computer, but on the PDA, let alone this e-book reader, I don't mind at all) that is either free or not available in print.
I just want to remind everyone, before there was the RIAA, there were book publishers. And some of them make the RIAA look like Girl Scouts.
Some of them might, but that isn't having too much of an effect on E-book downloads (legal and otherwise). When was the last time someone was sued for downloading a book?
Personally I'm not going to pay 400bucks (+ whatever the book fee is) for a couple books I might read.
Which is why you're not the target demographic. Someone more along the lines of me (although unlike me, someone who already hasn't been introduced to e-books) with my library consisting of over 100 books, and me having a list of books in the hundreds that I do want to buy, but am limited by the time I have to read all the books.
Having said that, I find their DRM and price unappealing (however competitors will come along and prices will drop). But if I had not already been introduced to e-books, I might have been suckered into buying this.
Having said that, you won't save much money, if anything, buying e-books (I've found Australians will actually save some money though, because our prices are dearer, even once you take exchange rate into account). I still prefer the e-books because I'm running out of room in my house for dead tree books. I'm leaving the rest of the room to comic book collections and books not available electronically (although more and more books are being made available, such as Anne McCaffrey's books).
Having said that, inertia does appear to sometimes cause e-books to be priced dearer for a while longer then the paperbacks. An example is Robert J Sawyer's Hybrids which was kept at the hardcover price for a while after the paperback was released. But it has now finally come down in price. So if you're patient, you will get good prices for your e-books.
They'd have me if it was possible to install other readers onto it (I don't want Sony to write the programs, just make it so other people CAN write the programs and the user can install them on the reader). Alternately I'd be more tempted if their format wasn't DRM'd (yup, non-DRM e-books do exist. One store that sells quite a bit from numerous prominent authors (such as Kevin J Andserson) is Fictionwise).
I'm a big time e-book reader and I'm migrating to an e-book only library (for new books anyway). If Sony has success, that's great. But I'm finding it doubtful that they will, because if someone like me isn't interested, what is their demographic?
It sucks when stuff resists being copied, but how does that make it so fucking evil?
I love this. Whenever Microsoft does something people clamour to say how terrible it is. When Google does the same thing, the same people rush to Google's defense. I should be able to do the following things with products I buy: * Copy them onto storage media (such as CDs, USB, portable video players (insert tirade here on why google should use an open source codec to encode their videos)). * View them on any computer. * View them when not connected to the internet. * Be able to copy them as much as I like (for personal use). * Be able to have different IPs from time to time to download the product (if the store allows re-downloads).
There are plenty of times I would want to do those things. I have a download limit so I don't want to download video files more then once. So if I've brought it, I should be able to copy it onto a CD, without being limited to the amount of times I can copy it onto a CD (CDs break, get scratched, misplaced). I should be able to view it on more then one computer (not only do I own 2 computers, but I might want to watch it when I'm not at home). I shouldn't be forced to phone home to google in order to watch it (I often wait until I'm disconnected from the internet before watching stuff like this). And I should be allowed to download the video from multiple places (perhaps I'm on holidays and I -really-, really want to watch it. Although this is only applicable if Google does allow re-downloads).
If Google's DRM doesn't do any of the above, then I'll be quite shocked (and curious as to what their DRM actually does do). But chances are, it will do at least one of the above. And as a company that is evil towards its consumers. It won't stop piracy, all it will do is punish honest customers. That's evil.
I'm sure (for the near future anyway) Google will continue to produce good services and products. But the days of being able to say "don't worry, it's google" will be over. Now a much more critical eye will have to run over anything they do, because they've proved they are willing to screw over their customers in order to make a buck.
As a viewer of their content, I will merely vote with my wallet. I don't care if they use DRM, I care about if I have to suffer through DRM. By not buying DRM'd products, I no longer have to put up with their shit and can enjoy good quality entertainment from alternate venues.
I'm not convinced that the whole submarine patent thing can be excused.
It'd be possible to get rid of them if you forced people to exert their right to the patent the second they found out someone was infringing it (much like trademarks). Or you could always just get rid of patents completely. That'd work too.
I also think that when someone tries to exert their patent by suing, they should be forced to prove they're making a real effort to create a commercially viable product. That way companies will stop patenting stuff willy nilly and wait for someone else to come up with a working system using their patent.
Welcome to Speedy Recoveries, where if you have a fatal illness, we'll send you forward 5 years in the future continuously for just $5 million until a cure for your disease has been discovered. Goodbye Mr Jenson, I hope we've found a cure to your disease in 5 years time.
5 years later.
According to your RFID tag you got AIDS from your homosexual lover. I'm sorry, but we haven't found a cure for AIDS yet, better luck next time.
20 years later.
I'm sorry, but we've currently become owned but the Christian Right for Purity has taken over what was once known as America. I'm sorry, but you'll have to come with us to be tried and executed.
Hello Mr Jenson. Don't worry, we killed those christian nut-bags 5 years ago, but I'm afraid a cure still hasn't been found.
20 years later.
This is an automated message. I'm afraid the company you were using has gone bankrupt and they will no longer be able to provide you with time-travelling services. But would you like to try out one of our many friendly competitors in the time travel business?
What if my Apocalypse battleship slipped into a different dimension where the speed of light is slower, and it would take me another 200 years to move my finger to the 'OFF' switch 2cm away just to come back again.
Then for 200 years it would be presumed your dead and by the time you re-emerge they'll have fixed the flaw in the design and we'll have several colonies on different planets.
Pffft. That's what they want you to think. It's really been an (ongoing) 5-decade project and it's not to spy on the soviets, but to spy on American citizens.
Right, but why "get into" government? The goal is to influence policy, not necessarily to win a seat.
If the Green party had been elected back at the start of the millenium do you think there would have been a war with Iraq? The Bush administration shoehorned 9/11 into giving them an excuse for war, and I doubt the Greens would have done the same. To say the Green party should be content with only affecting the Big 2 in election policies is (IMO) ridiculous. Any American citizen (I include non-native Americans regardless of what American law says) should have the right to become president, and shouldn't have to join the Republicans or Democrats to do so. Creating a system that works against anyone but the big 2 in every way possible is IMO wrong.
As for your first paragraph: well, maybe. IANAL, but it seems very tenuous to me. It seems similar to going to a murder trial and presenting a log showing the accused visited a web site that talked about shovels,
Bullshit. Most people use p2p programs to download content without the copyright owner's permission. You can cite as many iso downloads as you want, unless you can show me some real statistics that show 51% of downloaders do so with the copyright owner's permission, I don't believe that. (If you wish to not believe me that most people downloading on p2p do so without the owner's permission, you're welcome to do so). As such, it's more like going to a gun store and looking around for a gun (one that while occassionally used for hunting deer, is primarily used for killing humans). I think that would certainly be admissable and be important as evidence (wouldn't make or break the case though).
As for saavy users mounting a defence. Well if they found themselves being sued with the fact they visited the website as evidence, then they certainly would need to explain it.
"Taking things which don't belong to you is wrong."
No it's illegal. Whether or not it is wrong is up to people's personal beliefs. What is right and wrong isn't carved in stone, but instead decided by each and every person.
Didn't Grokster enter a lawsuit with the RIAA arguing about whether or not it was doing anything illegal, and was found guilty and that part of the settlement was to display a message on their website?
Is this just an extension of that? Or are they mocking the RIAA?
It can be used to strengthen their case against you if they catch you uploading material to another P2P network. It certainly won't make or break the case, but it does offer another piece of evidence.
Plus it's propaganda for the masses to be used as a scare tactic. Those who know they're doing the wrong thing by infringing on people's copyright, but aren't very technically savy will be scared.
That Generation Y article is bunk. "They are asking for more flexibility and have no intentions of becoming a slave to their jobs." It makes it sound like a bad thing. Yeeesh.
Land animals have to do a lot more work than them in order to move in anything but the "plane" of the Earth.
But they can still do it (for instance moving down through the ground can be easier then moving up, but in some cases it can be easier to move up then down, and near cliffs or other walls it is just as easy to move up or down, then it is to move forward or side to side).
Slashdot Mirror
I meant more expensive. Odd that America doesn't have the term (I wonder if England does).
The dimensions are bigger (a LOT of people are put off by the small screen) and I believe it's battery life is much longer.
I prefer my Palm though, but in the future I can see me trading it in for a non-Sony ebook reader.
The only way eBook readers could become commonplace is if they give them away.
Not true. They do have to become more reasonably priced then $400 US, but you don't have to give them away to sell them. Many people have bought PDAs mainly to read e-books. They are convenient and easy to store (I can take 100 books in the amount of space needed for 1 book). Don't underestimate that factor alone. Besides which, there is a TON of content online (I don't like reading long stuff on the computer, but on the PDA, let alone this e-book reader, I don't mind at all) that is either free or not available in print.
I just want to remind everyone, before there was the RIAA, there were book publishers. And some of them make the RIAA look like Girl Scouts.
Some of them might, but that isn't having too much of an effect on E-book downloads (legal and otherwise). When was the last time someone was sued for downloading a book?
Personally I'm not going to pay 400bucks (+ whatever the book fee is) for a couple books I might read.
Which is why you're not the target demographic. Someone more along the lines of me (although unlike me, someone who already hasn't been introduced to e-books) with my library consisting of over 100 books, and me having a list of books in the hundreds that I do want to buy, but am limited by the time I have to read all the books.
Having said that, I find their DRM and price unappealing (however competitors will come along and prices will drop). But if I had not already been introduced to e-books, I might have been suckered into buying this.
Unfortunately with most ebook sellers pricing themselves higher than equivalent paperbacks
;)
For the majority of cases this isn't true. I buy from two stores, Ereader because I like their format and find their DRM non-intrusive nor limiting.
The other store which will appeal to slashdotters is Fictionwise. Both stores sell books for a comparable price to Amazon. such as The Footprints of God which is cheaper at Ereader. Another example is Blindfold for $8 from Fictionwise or second hand at Amazon. I know which I'd prefer
Having said that, you won't save much money, if anything, buying e-books (I've found Australians will actually save some money though, because our prices are dearer, even once you take exchange rate into account). I still prefer the e-books because I'm running out of room in my house for dead tree books. I'm leaving the rest of the room to comic book collections and books not available electronically (although more and more books are being made available, such as Anne McCaffrey's books).
Having said that, inertia does appear to sometimes cause e-books to be priced dearer for a while longer then the paperbacks. An example is Robert J Sawyer's Hybrids which was kept at the hardcover price for a while after the paperback was released. But it has now finally come down in price. So if you're patient, you will get good prices for your e-books.
They'd have me if it was possible to install other readers onto it (I don't want Sony to write the programs, just make it so other people CAN write the programs and the user can install them on the reader). Alternately I'd be more tempted if their format wasn't DRM'd (yup, non-DRM e-books do exist. One store that sells quite a bit from numerous prominent authors (such as Kevin J Andserson) is Fictionwise).
I'm a big time e-book reader and I'm migrating to an e-book only library (for new books anyway). If Sony has success, that's great. But I'm finding it doubtful that they will, because if someone like me isn't interested, what is their demographic?
It sucks when stuff resists being copied, but how does that make it so fucking evil?
I love this. Whenever Microsoft does something people clamour to say how terrible it is. When Google does the same thing, the same people rush to Google's defense. I should be able to do the following things with products I buy:
* Copy them onto storage media (such as CDs, USB, portable video players (insert tirade here on why google should use an open source codec to encode their videos)).
* View them on any computer.
* View them when not connected to the internet.
* Be able to copy them as much as I like (for personal use).
* Be able to have different IPs from time to time to download the product (if the store allows re-downloads).
There are plenty of times I would want to do those things. I have a download limit so I don't want to download video files more then once. So if I've brought it, I should be able to copy it onto a CD, without being limited to the amount of times I can copy it onto a CD (CDs break, get scratched, misplaced). I should be able to view it on more then one computer (not only do I own 2 computers, but I might want to watch it when I'm not at home). I shouldn't be forced to phone home to google in order to watch it (I often wait until I'm disconnected from the internet before watching stuff like this). And I should be allowed to download the video from multiple places (perhaps I'm on holidays and I -really-, really want to watch it. Although this is only applicable if Google does allow re-downloads).
If Google's DRM doesn't do any of the above, then I'll be quite shocked (and curious as to what their DRM actually does do). But chances are, it will do at least one of the above. And as a company that is evil towards its consumers. It won't stop piracy, all it will do is punish honest customers. That's evil.
I'm sure (for the near future anyway) Google will continue to produce good services and products. But the days of being able to say "don't worry, it's google" will be over. Now a much more critical eye will have to run over anything they do, because they've proved they are willing to screw over their customers in order to make a buck.
As a viewer of their content, I will merely vote with my wallet. I don't care if they use DRM, I care about if I have to suffer through DRM. By not buying DRM'd products, I no longer have to put up with their shit and can enjoy good quality entertainment from alternate venues.
I'd say it's safe to say "yes."
I'm not convinced that the whole submarine patent thing can be excused.
It'd be possible to get rid of them if you forced people to exert their right to the patent the second they found out someone was infringing it (much like trademarks). Or you could always just get rid of patents completely. That'd work too.
I also think that when someone tries to exert their patent by suing, they should be forced to prove they're making a real effort to create a commercially viable product. That way companies will stop patenting stuff willy nilly and wait for someone else to come up with a working system using their patent.
A woman slowing down the speed of light? Yeeesh, and I thought they were bad drivers.
I can just imagine it:
Welcome to Speedy Recoveries, where if you have a fatal illness, we'll send you forward 5 years in the future continuously for just $5 million until a cure for your disease has been discovered. Goodbye Mr Jenson, I hope we've found a cure to your disease in 5 years time.
5 years later.
According to your RFID tag you got AIDS from your homosexual lover. I'm sorry, but we haven't found a cure for AIDS yet, better luck next time.
20 years later.
I'm sorry, but we've currently become owned but the Christian Right for Purity has taken over what was once known as America. I'm sorry, but you'll have to come with us to be tried and executed.
Hello Mr Jenson. Don't worry, we killed those christian nut-bags 5 years ago, but I'm afraid a cure still hasn't been found.
20 years later.
This is an automated message. I'm afraid the company you were using has gone bankrupt and they will no longer be able to provide you with time-travelling services. But would you like to try out one of our many friendly competitors in the time travel business?
100 years later.
Chio daf dfo asd meri....
50 years later.
Ooog! OOh! Aaak!
Mr Jenson: Oh fuck!
What if my Apocalypse battleship slipped into a different dimension where the speed of light is slower, and it would take me another 200 years to move my finger to the 'OFF' switch 2cm away just to come back again.
Then for 200 years it would be presumed your dead and by the time you re-emerge they'll have fixed the flaw in the design and we'll have several colonies on different planets.
Pffft. That's what they want you to think. It's really been an (ongoing) 5-decade project and it's not to spy on the soviets, but to spy on American citizens.
Senator Orrin Hatch who once advocated putting malware on people's computers in order to stop them from downloading songs.
I take it once he retires he'll be joining Sony?
Right, but why "get into" government? The goal is to influence policy, not necessarily to win a seat.
If the Green party had been elected back at the start of the millenium do you think there would have been a war with Iraq? The Bush administration shoehorned 9/11 into giving them an excuse for war, and I doubt the Greens would have done the same. To say the Green party should be content with only affecting the Big 2 in election policies is (IMO) ridiculous. Any American citizen (I include non-native Americans regardless of what American law says) should have the right to become president, and shouldn't have to join the Republicans or Democrats to do so. Creating a system that works against anyone but the big 2 in every way possible is IMO wrong.
As for your first paragraph: well, maybe. IANAL, but it seems very tenuous to me. It seems similar to going to a murder trial and presenting a log showing the accused visited a web site that talked about shovels,
Bullshit. Most people use p2p programs to download content without the copyright owner's permission. You can cite as many iso downloads as you want, unless you can show me some real statistics that show 51% of downloaders do so with the copyright owner's permission, I don't believe that. (If you wish to not believe me that most people downloading on p2p do so without the owner's permission, you're welcome to do so). As such, it's more like going to a gun store and looking around for a gun (one that while occassionally used for hunting deer, is primarily used for killing humans). I think that would certainly be admissable and be important as evidence (wouldn't make or break the case though).
As for saavy users mounting a defence. Well if they found themselves being sued with the fact they visited the website as evidence, then they certainly would need to explain it.
Aaaah, but how much of the illegally downloading RIAA content population is outside of the USA? It could be 99%, but it might not be either.
"Taking things which don't belong to you is wrong."
No it's illegal. Whether or not it is wrong is up to people's personal beliefs. What is right and wrong isn't carved in stone, but instead decided by each and every person.
Didn't Grokster enter a lawsuit with the RIAA arguing about whether or not it was doing anything illegal, and was found guilty and that part of the settlement was to display a message on their website?
Is this just an extension of that? Or are they mocking the RIAA?
It can be used to strengthen their case against you if they catch you uploading material to another P2P network. It certainly won't make or break the case, but it does offer another piece of evidence.
Plus it's propaganda for the masses to be used as a scare tactic. Those who know they're doing the wrong thing by infringing on people's copyright, but aren't very technically savy will be scared.
That Generation Y article is bunk. "They are asking for more flexibility and have no intentions of becoming a slave to their jobs." It makes it sound like a bad thing. Yeeesh.
Because God didn't invent them, only godless heathens after they became impure invented them.
Land animals have to do a lot more work than them in order to move in anything but the "plane" of the Earth.
But they can still do it (for instance moving down through the ground can be easier then moving up, but in some cases it can be easier to move up then down, and near cliffs or other walls it is just as easy to move up or down, then it is to move forward or side to side).