There should be just 1 version, and it should be a house hold liscense for no mre then 150 bucks.
Microsoft is a commercial company. Other than the laws of the land (and in this case that's China) there is no 'should'. They can sell their product in whatever way they wish at whatever price they want. And this is what they have done. The idea that they are totally unaware of the realities of the software market in China is incredibly naive.
In China's case, it would not matter if Microsoft were selling their OS at the price of a single bland DVD. The pirates have the market sewn up, and will keep it sewn up until forced otherwise by the Chinese authorities. Microsoft are fully aware of this, and all their marketing efforts at present are simply "loss-leaders" towards potential future profits (or so they hope).
Seriously. What do you want/expect Microsoft to do about this? Realise that piracy is rampant in China? Realise that people can always get a pirated copy cheaper than a licensed copy, no matter how cheap it is?
I think we can assume that Microsoft already know this. So what do you want them to wake up to? Do you want them to under-cut the pirates???
When a group starts making life Hell for everyone else, their lives become without worth
Thanks for putting the issue in perspective. If only more people would speak out on the living Hell being created here. We'll look back on you as a visionary after the dust has settled on the great DRM wars of the 21st century. Millions may die, and billions left in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but as long as we can share our emo MP3s without fear there will be hope for humanity!
The notion that 1's and 0's arranged in a certain way on certain media have intrinsic value is silly.
And yet people still want them. Therefore they must be of value somehow. Did the 1's and 0's arrange themselves? I think someone arranged them, and that takes time. Sometimes lots of time. If someone is to make a fulltime job out of arranging 1's and 0's then they need to be paid. The only realistic way of doing this is to pay them for the item of value that they are producing.
Unless you are suggesting that producers of arranged 1's and 0's should be paid according to some kind of communist ideal, while the rest of society works to other criteria?
If we take away the expectation that a weekend in the studio means a life of private jets and bling out the ears, maybe "crap" will disappear.
You have a misguided idea of what it takes to be a musician, and also a simplistic notion that you can define what constitutes "crap".
When art becomes a business, the art suffers.
Isn't it funny how people have this romantic idea that artists shouldn't exploit their talent for money, when it's ok for everyone else?
By definition, a troll is a post that is principally designed to provoke argument without any real concern for the topic of the discussion.
The article is clearly about people who write and distribute malicious programs for the criminal purpose of stealing information, and thereafter actual property and/or money. We can all complain about some aspects of Microsoft's software (yes, really), but its 'spying' is nothing like the same. Legislation may yet change their behaviour here, but suggesting they are in danger of prison is hyperbole.
So introducing the subject is going to divert discussion off-topic, and either just another attempt at starting a fan-boy argument, or yet another boring round of Microsoft bashing.
The "Me Too" argument is the reverse side of the "Change your business model you dinosaur!" argument on the same coin. It didn't matter which way Microsoft had chosen to respond to this development. There would still have been posters on slashdot whining about it. Just. cos. it's. Microsoft.
Does this mean that I can make a copy of the ogg file and put it up on my web site?
The answer is no.
Besides, there is a difference between a lecture, which can't be mass marketed in its primary format, and a book, which may be the guy's primary way of earning a living. How about if your guru was a "self-help" guru and made a living selling audio tapes? Do you still think it would be ok to put a copy of the lecture online?
I don't think any of our supposed examples, or the band in question, would be overly worried about sharing the material with a few friends. Putting it online for the world to access is a whole other matter.
Hmm, targeting your own fans in a publicity campaign??? Outragous!
I don't find it sad, ironic or funny. Who better to give free giveaways too than your paying fans? Who better to prevent obtaining free giveaways than P2P freeloaders?
If it worked as you're suggesting then the minute a song was broadcast on the radio, its copyright would vanish. It doesn't, so you must be totally wrong.
Nonsense.
Say I attend a convention (let's say it's a Linux convention) and hear a great presentation by a Linux guru, full of great tips and insights. At the end he gives me a signed free copy of his new book! Sweet!
I did not buy this book. I did not enter into any contract in obtaining this book. Does this mean I can scan the book and put it up on my website? No, because the writer retains copyright and I'd be depriving him of sales. I guess what he was saying when he gave me his book was "Only those people at this convention get a publicity copy of my new book for free. It doesn't mean you can give it to everyone else a copy too so that I never make any money from it".
Now, explain to me why music is different?
You misunderstand. The article can be used to show once more how the RIAA are the hub of all evil who eat children and crush daisies under hob-nailed boots. Therefore details like logic and facts are irrelevant.
In an ideal world they'd keep pushing it back until the start and end finally met, and then abolish it entirely, leaving the clocks on summer time all year round.
Yeah, that'd be a great idea. So that you spend all winter getting up in the middle of the night because the clock says its morning. A proposal like yours really shafts those in more northern latitudes.
The only way that students can really plagiarize their term paper is if the question being asked is so banal that thousands of other students have already beaten it to death.
Well of course! Teaching is pretty much a continual process of going back over the well worn ground for the millionth time. That what happens when every year there's a new class of empty heads to fill with the same old stuff. Do you honestly expect to read anything completely original from a 12 year old? Do you honestly expect teachers to come up with a completely new angle every year of their career? That's not teaching, that's research.
If you want originality you have to wait until the students have enough grounding in the basics to embark on their own original research.
Nice reasoning cyber-boy, but I'm afraid that according to all physical laws, where we all live, the server location is totally relevant. As is the location of the company that owns it. Pretending the internet is separate and unique will cut no ice with the taxman or the judge.
It's not anti-competitive, because if the copyright limitations are lifted, then Apple will create a single EU store (with different language interfaces), and there won't be any benefit to shopping around because the price and selection will be identical.
Eh? But you've already said that we can't shop around while sitting within the one country due to the copyright restrictions. So how would lifting these limitations remove a benefit we don't have???
I actually wasn't criticizing you. Just commenting that you've provided the much needed excuse. You might have a point, but I do seem to recall one of the justification bleats for not buying music online legally was that it just wasn't high enough quality and that DRM should properly be regarded as a degradation of the music. So is there anything wrong with asking people to pay more for a better quality product? Capitalism has been asking people to do this since forever. Why should this be any different?
Yes, P2P helps artists and labels, does NOT hurt them. Every sihngle study save the RIAA-funded one has shown this.
Unfortunately these (unquoted) studies are only true in a system where most other music isn't online, or has DRM. Remove these parameters to your equation and your studies are no longer valid. Make all music free and suddenly maybe you'll find that the other free music doesn't seem quite so attractive any more. Would I investigate that new act with the free downloads when I can download an act I do know for free too?
Which is why the RIAA doesn't want you trading songs; you might trade Mad Donna for somebody who will open your brainwashed mind to something that will make you realize you've been listening to lowest common denominator commercial pap.
Please! Not this old chestnut! The RIAA doesn't give a damn what type of music you listen to, or who performs it. Why would they? They just care you've bought it off them. And the vast majority of P2P music file-sharing is not a wonderland of obscure acts and exotic styles. It's the exact same "commercial pap". It's what most people want. That's what "lowest common denominator" means. Do you honestly believe that if all music filesharing was made legal tomorrow, then suddenly everyone would be listening to obscure, minority taste acts that you personally judge better than "commercial pap"?
Well thank goodness! With DRM (thankfully) dead, I was thinking for a moment there that people would have to start thinking up yet another excuse as to why pirating music was not only ok, but in fact a good thing.
But here's a ready made one! Let the file sharing and self-serving moral posturing continue!
You under estimate the paranoia of some protesters. Search in YouTube or Google video on 'conspiracy' and you'll find a never-ending stream of conspiracy videos; 911, illuminatii, apollo, jews, united nations, heretics, occult, aliens. They're all in there.
And the beauty is, if no-one watches them and they sink without trace its not because you're wrong, its because Youtube/Google are suppressing them. They're part of the conspiracy! All your suspicions are confirmed, you get the positive feedback you crave no matter what happens, and the protest goes on.
Exactly. I can't understand why people are rejoicing as if albums were fundamentally bad things.
There has been a fairly distinct split in popular music acts for some while. Singles acts, who can knock out a popular 3 minute song, and album acts, who produce longer, more involved, recordings. Both have their place and both have their suitable formats. Those who complain about albums with 1 or 2 decent songs, and then filler need to be slapped around the head. You're buying the wrong act on the wrong format!! The solution to your complaints are obvious and in your own hands!
And I don't need to hear any more moaning about "there's no decent albums any more". Face facts; you're getting older, your tastes will change. You can't expect the same styles of music to mean the same to you. If you want to hear music that you will enjoy you need to stop listening to the same sources you were listening to 10 years ago. There's just as much decent music as there ever was, you're just looking in the wrong places.
Slashdot Mirror
- drugs
- drug legislation
- bad law enforcement
- punk band I've never heard of
- humour???
Nope. Absolutely nothing IT. Guess slashdot is branching out...
Microsoft is a commercial company. Other than the laws of the land (and in this case that's China) there is no 'should'. They can sell their product in whatever way they wish at whatever price they want. And this is what they have done. The idea that they are totally unaware of the realities of the software market in China is incredibly naive.
In China's case, it would not matter if Microsoft were selling their OS at the price of a single bland DVD. The pirates have the market sewn up, and will keep it sewn up until forced otherwise by the Chinese authorities. Microsoft are fully aware of this, and all their marketing efforts at present are simply "loss-leaders" towards potential future profits (or so they hope).
Seriously. What do you want/expect Microsoft to do about this? Realise that piracy is rampant in China? Realise that people can always get a pirated copy cheaper than a licensed copy, no matter how cheap it is?
I think we can assume that Microsoft already know this. So what do you want them to wake up to? Do you want them to under-cut the pirates???
Chinese Microsoft Genuine Advantage register stored on one Excel spreadsheet.
The very first filter line of adblock on my computer. I wouldn't have a web-browser without it.
When a group starts making life Hell for everyone else, their lives become without worth
Thanks for putting the issue in perspective. If only more people would speak out on the living Hell being created here. We'll look back on you as a visionary after the dust has settled on the great DRM wars of the 21st century. Millions may die, and billions left in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but as long as we can share our emo MP3s without fear there will be hope for humanity!
And yet people still want them. Therefore they must be of value somehow. Did the 1's and 0's arrange themselves? I think someone arranged them, and that takes time. Sometimes lots of time. If someone is to make a fulltime job out of arranging 1's and 0's then they need to be paid. The only realistic way of doing this is to pay them for the item of value that they are producing.
Unless you are suggesting that producers of arranged 1's and 0's should be paid according to some kind of communist ideal, while the rest of society works to other criteria?
If we take away the expectation that a weekend in the studio means a life of private jets and bling out the ears, maybe "crap" will disappear.
You have a misguided idea of what it takes to be a musician, and also a simplistic notion that you can define what constitutes "crap".
When art becomes a business, the art suffers.
Isn't it funny how people have this romantic idea that artists shouldn't exploit their talent for money, when it's ok for everyone else?
The article is clearly about people who write and distribute malicious programs for the criminal purpose of stealing information, and thereafter actual property and/or money. We can all complain about some aspects of Microsoft's software (yes, really), but its 'spying' is nothing like the same. Legislation may yet change their behaviour here, but suggesting they are in danger of prison is hyperbole.
So introducing the subject is going to divert discussion off-topic, and either just another attempt at starting a fan-boy argument, or yet another boring round of Microsoft bashing.
The "Me Too" argument is the reverse side of the "Change your business model you dinosaur!" argument on the same coin. It didn't matter which way Microsoft had chosen to respond to this development. There would still have been posters on slashdot whining about it. Just. cos. it's. Microsoft.
The answer is no.
Besides, there is a difference between a lecture, which can't be mass marketed in its primary format, and a book, which may be the guy's primary way of earning a living. How about if your guru was a "self-help" guru and made a living selling audio tapes? Do you still think it would be ok to put a copy of the lecture online?
I don't think any of our supposed examples, or the band in question, would be overly worried about sharing the material with a few friends. Putting it online for the world to access is a whole other matter.
Are other members of the Free Software Foundation equally misinformed about copyright law? Cos I don't think they should be.
I don't find it sad, ironic or funny. Who better to give free giveaways too than your paying fans? Who better to prevent obtaining free giveaways than P2P freeloaders?
If it worked as you're suggesting then the minute a song was broadcast on the radio, its copyright would vanish. It doesn't, so you must be totally wrong.
Nonsense. Say I attend a convention (let's say it's a Linux convention) and hear a great presentation by a Linux guru, full of great tips and insights. At the end he gives me a signed free copy of his new book! Sweet! I did not buy this book. I did not enter into any contract in obtaining this book. Does this mean I can scan the book and put it up on my website? No, because the writer retains copyright and I'd be depriving him of sales. I guess what he was saying when he gave me his book was "Only those people at this convention get a publicity copy of my new book for free. It doesn't mean you can give it to everyone else a copy too so that I never make any money from it". Now, explain to me why music is different?
You misunderstand. The article can be used to show once more how the RIAA are the hub of all evil who eat children and crush daisies under hob-nailed boots. Therefore details like logic and facts are irrelevant.
In an ideal world they'd keep pushing it back until the start and end finally met, and then abolish it entirely, leaving the clocks on summer time all year round.
Yeah, that'd be a great idea. So that you spend all winter getting up in the middle of the night because the clock says its morning. A proposal like yours really shafts those in more northern latitudes.
The only way that students can really plagiarize their term paper is if the question being asked is so banal that thousands of other students have already beaten it to death.
Well of course! Teaching is pretty much a continual process of going back over the well worn ground for the millionth time. That what happens when every year there's a new class of empty heads to fill with the same old stuff. Do you honestly expect to read anything completely original from a 12 year old? Do you honestly expect teachers to come up with a completely new angle every year of their career? That's not teaching, that's research.
If you want originality you have to wait until the students have enough grounding in the basics to embark on their own original research.
The location of a server is irrelevant
Nice reasoning cyber-boy, but I'm afraid that according to all physical laws, where we all live, the server location is totally relevant. As is the location of the company that owns it. Pretending the internet is separate and unique will cut no ice with the taxman or the judge.
It's not anti-competitive, because if the copyright limitations are lifted, then Apple will create a single EU store (with different language interfaces), and there won't be any benefit to shopping around because the price and selection will be identical.
Eh? But you've already said that we can't shop around while sitting within the one country due to the copyright restrictions. So how would lifting these limitations remove a benefit we don't have???
Can you understand this?
No.
I actually wasn't criticizing you. Just commenting that you've provided the much needed excuse. You might have a point, but I do seem to recall one of the justification bleats for not buying music online legally was that it just wasn't high enough quality and that DRM should properly be regarded as a degradation of the music. So is there anything wrong with asking people to pay more for a better quality product? Capitalism has been asking people to do this since forever. Why should this be any different?
Unfortunately these (unquoted) studies are only true in a system where most other music isn't online, or has DRM. Remove these parameters to your equation and your studies are no longer valid. Make all music free and suddenly maybe you'll find that the other free music doesn't seem quite so attractive any more. Would I investigate that new act with the free downloads when I can download an act I do know for free too?
Which is why the RIAA doesn't want you trading songs; you might trade Mad Donna for somebody who will open your brainwashed mind to something that will make you realize you've been listening to lowest common denominator commercial pap.
Please! Not this old chestnut! The RIAA doesn't give a damn what type of music you listen to, or who performs it. Why would they? They just care you've bought it off them. And the vast majority of P2P music file-sharing is not a wonderland of obscure acts and exotic styles. It's the exact same "commercial pap". It's what most people want. That's what "lowest common denominator" means. Do you honestly believe that if all music filesharing was made legal tomorrow, then suddenly everyone would be listening to obscure, minority taste acts that you personally judge better than "commercial pap"?
Well thank goodness! With DRM (thankfully) dead, I was thinking for a moment there that people would have to start thinking up yet another excuse as to why pirating music was not only ok, but in fact a good thing.
But here's a ready made one! Let the file sharing and self-serving moral posturing continue!
Sounds like your problem is with the people you share cars with. Perhaps they have guns to their head? Or are they part of the music industry?
You under estimate the paranoia of some protesters. Search in YouTube or Google video on 'conspiracy' and you'll find a never-ending stream of conspiracy videos; 911, illuminatii, apollo, jews, united nations, heretics, occult, aliens. They're all in there.
And the beauty is, if no-one watches them and they sink without trace its not because you're wrong, its because Youtube/Google are suppressing them. They're part of the conspiracy! All your suspicions are confirmed, you get the positive feedback you crave no matter what happens, and the protest goes on.
Please explain this 'forcing' you speak of. Does it involve taking you down to the record store with a gun at your head?
There has been a fairly distinct split in popular music acts for some while. Singles acts, who can knock out a popular 3 minute song, and album acts, who produce longer, more involved, recordings. Both have their place and both have their suitable formats. Those who complain about albums with 1 or 2 decent songs, and then filler need to be slapped around the head. You're buying the wrong act on the wrong format!! The solution to your complaints are obvious and in your own hands!
And I don't need to hear any more moaning about "there's no decent albums any more". Face facts; you're getting older, your tastes will change. You can't expect the same styles of music to mean the same to you. If you want to hear music that you will enjoy you need to stop listening to the same sources you were listening to 10 years ago. There's just as much decent music as there ever was, you're just looking in the wrong places.