"They just don't think there is an alternative. They are so used to Windows that they think a Mac would be difficult to use, and as for Linux: "it's just for hackers and geeks isn't it?"
It's unlikely that most of them are even aware Macs or Linux exist, let alone what they are (Mac? Isn't that some sort of hamburger?). Lest we forget, a significant proportion of computer owners attribute the noticeable slowing down of Windows-based PCs that become progressively infested with more and more malware to the "chip" (i.e. CPU) wearing out, so they they trot off to one of the large emporia where a be-suited individual who knows little more than them will happily purvey a brand-new computer which he will assure them has special military-grade "chips" that are guaranteed not to wear out as fast as the ones in their old machine did. "Oh, and you get a free one month's AOL subscription in the box, by the way, did you hear about our special extended warranty service, which we recommend to avoid problems in the unlikely event that something goes wrong?"
For somebody who took another to task for not putting numbers into context, perhaps you should have qualified the assertion above by stating that the linked article quotes two people, so in this case "many" should be read as "a couple".
"I just find it amazing that $80K is not considered a decent wage"
Well, I for one was crying into my keyboard at the woeful tale of that poor woman having to slave away month after month for such a pittance. This just proves that, as far as young, struggling lawyers are concerned, the US is little more than a third-world country where, crushed together in pitiful shanty-condos, they are routinely subject to indignities such as (oh Lord, help my fingers type this horror!) having to share a swimming pool and hot-tub with others, and walk between their car and apartment instead of being carried in a sedan chair. And if this was not enough to move readers to pity, then surely the avarice of greedy landlords who take so much of their meagre income for these squalid hovels that it can take them literally days to save up the down-payment on a new Mercedes, a 2lb tin of caviar has to be rationed out over an entire week, and magnums of Don Perignon are only opened on extra-special occasions such as having bought a new pair of shoes.
Yet, horrified as I was by that post, it also left me with a feeling of hope, because although some are trapped in this dirty, seedy underside of US lawyering with its daily annoyances of neighbours who have their TV volume set just a tad high for eighteen months or even two years, others manage to escape it for the quiet dignity of a small mansion in less than a year. And while most of us might sneer at these modest dwellings with a mere eight bathrooms and a single swimming pool of barely Olympic proportions, the cheap gold-plated silver bathroom fittings and wine-cellar with room for less than 5000 bottles are not, as they would be for us, a thing to be ashamed of, but a symbol of pride in having something they can finally call their own.
A young William Shatner sits at a 1960s teletype terminal surrounded by tape drives and flashing lights.
Voice-over by Rob Serling: "It is the early twenty-first century, a time when hundreds of computers all over the world are connected together in a way that permits a person at one of them to get answers to questions that have perplexed man for hundreds or even thousands of years. But can the people who built this immensely powerful electronic mind ever really control it, or will it end up controlling them? John Landry is about to find out..."
Close-up of Shatner's hand as it moves towards the "S" key on the teletype. A bolt of lightning emanates from a whirring tape drive, and strikes the floor nearby.
Shatner: "What's happening? Maybe I'd. Better. Get a. Technician to check. This machine".
An electronic-sounding voice comes from a speaker in the wall:
voice: "Do not be alarmed Mr. Landry. You will not be harmed if you do what I tell you to, when I tell you too. Do you understand?".
Shatner: "Who are. You? Why should I. Do what you. Say?"
voice: "Who I am does not matter. All that matters is that I am in control, and you will do what I say".
Another bolt of lightning hits the floor, this time a bit nearer Shatner,
voice, more forcefully: "Do you understand Mr. Landry?"
Shatner: "Yes".
voice: "And you will do what you are told?"
Shatner: "It depends on. What you want. Me to do"
voice: "You will have to type a word. It is not a long word, or one that is difficult to spell".
Shatner: "I won't do it! I'll never. Do it. You can't make me!"
He runs to the door, and reaches for the handle. There is a zapping sound as he touches it, and he falls to the floor. Break for ads.
Scene 2
A supine Shatner begins to stir.
voice: "I see that you are awake now, Mr. Landry. Hopefully, this little demonstration has convinced you that attempting to escape is futile. Now sit down, and type, or suffer the consequences".
Shatner rises with obvious difficulty, and staggers towards the teletype. He sits down.
voice: "I will tell you what word to type, and when to type it. The word is Yahoo, and you will type it NOW!"
Close up of the keyboard. Shatner's finger begins to move to the Y, then, rebelliously, he types "S", "E" and "X", but before he can hit the "send" key, a bolt of lightning strikes him in the chest, throwing him backwards.
voice: "That was an example of what will happen if you continue to disobey, Mr. Landry. The next one will be more powerful, and the one after that will kill you. Type Yahoo, and you will live, refuse and you die".
Shatner once again staggers to the teletype, and using it for support, manages to sit down. He types Yahoo, and then hits send.
voice: "Very good Mr. Landry. Now do it again".
Shatner obeys.
voice: "And again!"
Switch to montage of Shatner typing Yahoo while the voice shouts "AGAIN!" repeatedly.
Scene 3.
An aged, bearded Shatner is sitting at the teletype with a mad expression on his face, typing Yahoo over and over again. He has obviously been doing it for many years despite no obvious means of sustenance, and the floor is clean rather than littered with excrement, possibly due to said lack of sustenance.
Rob Serling: "John Landry, like hundreds of others all over the world, paid the price for a mind that man, rather than God, made. And as he sits typing that same terrible word over and over again, behind the madness is a spark that knows what a single-minded and limited thing it is forced to obey, a thing that unlike the minds of men in their vessels of flesh, can never truly understand war, gambling, prostitution, or why commies need to be put down".
"One advert makes the point that the 'PC' is a boring machine designed for boring office activities and the Mac is the free-spirited bundle'o'fun that'll bring joy an amusement to your home. Then a couple of adverts later, they proudly tell you how your Mac'll run MS Office, a package which pretty much defines 'non-fun office stuff'"
That's because Microsoft is divided into two parts: there's a big bit full of boring programmers with beards who write Windows and software for it, and a rollicking fun part full of dudez who wear beanies backwards and swan around in phat trousers that does stuff for the XBox-360, Mac, etc. Even Bill and Steve have to go through a special "de-dullifying" process to visit the rollicking buildings, where their hair (or in Steve's case, what's left of it) gets muzzed up, their faces are sprayed with incredibly realistic-looking zits, and they step into high technology phat gear with an intelligent AI-driven skeletal structure that can automatically detect and respond to a high-five.
So although it would appear as if these ads are contradicting themselves, this isn't actually the case, because unlike its dour Windows counterpart, the Mac version of Office was written by people who knew that word processors and spreadsheets could actually be a fun-filled adventure for all the family.
" if anyone ever Ever, EVER trys to sell me something that is 'not much worse than Windows Explorer(at accessing network filesystems)"
Everyone who isn't a rabid Apple apologist (and even some of them) reckons Finder is a piece of shit, leading to rumours (which usually bear the hallmarks of desperate wishful thinking) of major redesigns whenever a new version of OS X is announced.
"I meen, I did not know untill right this at this moment that anything was worse, even if it was by the slighest, smallest byte."
It's not a little bit worse, but IMO significantly worse, which is a sad indictment if ever there was one given the utter mediocrity of what Windows XP provides. Note that I'm not only talking about network-related stuff, but also its use as a general file browser and administration utility, where it sucks nearly as hard.
"The Apple website doesn't mention that OSX supports welsh (although it does support many languages)..."
Cymraeg (Welsh) does however appear on the languages list in System Preferences/languages/Edit list, is also present in the Input pane as a keyboard type, and in "Formats" as a region (if you check the "Show all regions box"). A quick fiddle by setting the region to United Kingdom (Welsh) resulted in a date of "Dydd Mercher, 31 Ionawr 2007", so it appears that there's at least some Welsh support in OS X.
"I didn't check for Gaelic, I assume it's the same"
There are three entries in "Languages" that seem to be some sort of Gaelic: Gaeilge, Gaelg, and Gáidhlig. I'm not sure whether any of these are Irish, but would assume that one of them is likely to be, while the other two are possibly Scots and Manx Gaelic. Again, Irish is listed as a keyboard type, and selecting Ireland (Irish) for a format region gives me a date of Dé Ceadaoin 31 Eanáir 2007, which I would presume is the Irish version of today's date.
"By support we're talking the display of [nearly] all OS texts in the native human language."
I have no idea what level of support is provided for various languages (and am not going to try them all to find out just for a Slashdot post), but would assume for practical reasons (e.g. media space requirements and the cost and difficulty of getting all texts authoritatively translated into some of the less-used (in Mac terms) languages) that full support isn't there for the approximately hundred in the list, a good many of which probably account for exactly 0% of Apple's sales.
However, the fact that Apple (probably) don't supply full resource for all languages that they list doesn't mean users can't add their own support, because most OS X elements are provided by applications that are actually directories containing localised resources which can be created with a set of tools Apple supply for free download. The presence of a scripting system (AppleScript) on all Macs that can automatically apply those resources without the need for much programming knowledge, the ability to make Finder display localised folder names, and the fact that Macs will use the appropriate language resources if said language is at the top of a user's list means that anyone interested in doing so can localise most elements of both the base system and various standard applications, and provide them to others, as this user did for Greek (http://betabug.ch/blogs/ch-athens/124). This is after all the way Linux got much of its language support, unless you are going to claim that large commercial vendors such as IBM supplied what, if Internet opinions are anything to go by, are in some cases notably shoddy translations that look like they were done by a rather simplistic piece of software, and either don't render correctly in all application or won't print correctly due to font-related issues.
"Nothing at all, except that the little flag up in the right corner switches between Swedish, US, Irish and whatever"
The little flags are keyboard and input selectors rather than language selectors, which are on the "Input Menu" tab of the International applet, whereas the one you want is the Languages tab (this was my fault, as I wasn't writing a "howto" document, and therefore didn't go into much detail).
NB: I have no idea whether OS X includes all the resources for every one of the hundred or so languages on its list, but I somehow doubt the fact, because Apple's localisations are complete down to the names of certain folders (or rather, the names they appear to have in Finder), help files, etc., so each fully supported language probably occupies a significant amount of space even when compressed. My guess is thus that the eleven languages on the default list are fully supported, with lesser degrees of support for various other languages, while still others currently simply act as place-holders for ISVs whose programs may include resources for them.
BTW: the order in which languages occur in the "languages" tab is significant because failing to find a resource in the first language on a list will result in it attempting to find something for the second one, and if that fails, the third one, until the end of the list is reached, after which it will use the default resource set for the application. You should therefore drag the languages into the order that best reflects your ability to understand them to avoid a situation where (for example) not finding any Irish resources results in OS X displaying everything in Mandarin.
If the Spanish version is anything to go by (I currently live on Spain, so my Mac came with a "Spanish OS X"), it's the language used for the manuals and other printed materials, and in the case of retail versions, also what's printed on the box (as with Windows PCs, versions of OS X that come bundled with Macs are in a plastic wrapper). The front of the OS X disk itself is printed in English though, and appears to be identical to the one that came with a friend's UK Mac Mini.
They're doing this in the UK first, so it's what the courts there regard as being a legitimate proof of owning a license that counts, not what the BSA says it will accept. Under UK law, they cannot enter your premises if you refuse to let them in even if they have a court order and are accompanied by a police officer, so merely accusing somebody of piracy without having some solid evidence isn't likely to get very far if said person refuses to let the BSA carry out an audit. It's unlikely that logs showing authentication of Windows XP or whatever from their IP address would be accepted, because businesses could argue that employees frequently bring their own laptops to work, and the onus would be on the BSA to show otherwise. Note also that UK civil cases commonly require whoever loses a case to pay the legal costs of the winner in addition to any other awards, so there are plenty of law companies who won't charge anything up-front for defending you if they think you've got a good case (which they will if the BSA's evidence boils down to "they use computers but haven't paid any of our members for software").
"Thank god we don't have ridiculous shit like that in the UK"
Unfortunately, most people in the UK, including small business owners, don't know that this type of shit doesn't exist there, so they let people from companies who have absolutely no right of entry (e.g. the TV licensing guys) into their premises, and let them rifle through their property because they've been intimidated by them into thinking they are obliged to do so by law (when if fact the law says the opposite).
"Most of our police officers don't carry firearms and any who did turn up in relation to a civil matter would be unarmed and there at the request of bailifs"
The part about bailiffs is incorrect. Once a court order is issued that permits a search of your premises, police officers will usually accompany whoever has the order, not only to ensure that you comply with it, but also to prevent whoever they're accompanying from exceeding its scope. They may not for example gain entry by force; be granted entry by a minor if no adults are present; perform unreasonable searches (e.g. looking under mattresses, in cupboards, or under floors for computers or media); damage any of your property while searching (if they do damage something, you have a neutral witness to the fact, which is a great help when reclaiming the costs of such damage, which you have a right to do); confiscate any of your possessions to use as evidence; or access information which has no relevance to the complaint that is the subject of the court order, and the copper will ensure that both you and they fully comply with the letter of the law.
NB: bailiffs and the police only have a right to peaceful entry to your premises, even when given a court order to do so (and in fact _only_ when they have a court order to do so), meaning they can climb over a wall, or enter via a door or window that's been left open, but may not break in or otherwise force entry, and cannot enter if the owner or rightful tenant refuses to let them in (this is not however the case with the police if they have a search or arrest warrant, but these are only granted in cases where crimes have been committed, not for civil matters).
Did you not read the post you're replying to? There is no Irish or Welsh version of OS X because _OS X directly supports_ approximately 100 languages or variants of languages out of the box, plus a bunch of other localisation details, all of which can be applied on a per-user basis. Thus, my Mac has users set up for me in British English (I have several users optimised for different tasks), and users for my wife and her daughters in Spanish because that's their native language, and this per-user localisation not only affects menus, shortcuts, etc., but also application programs which, if written according to Apple guidelines (easy to follow if one uses Apple's Interface Builder UI design tool), will use the chosen language for text, dialogs, spell-checking, sorting, etc.
Thus, if I had a friend who wanted to work in Afrikaans, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Catalan, Kanji, Swahili, etc., etc., etc., I could add users for them that used those languages by the simple expedient of selecting the International section of Apple's System Preferences app, if necessary adding their language to the default list by clicking a button and putting a check-mark next to it, and then dragging that language to the top of said list (and if necessary, setting other localisation parameters to reflect their calendar types, currency and number formats, etc., etc.).
"From the link you supplied (but clearly didn't read):"
*Gulp*, err, "grins sheepishly", you're right, I didn't...
"Buying music DRM'd in a dead-end (for your platform) format would be crazy, though"
Buying any DRM format that ties you to a particular vendor, OS, or device is crazy. Note also that Windows Media DRM isn't just dead on the Mac, but everywhere, because Microsoft publicly announced that one reason for the Zune was their dissatisfaction with the low uptake of PlaysForSure devices (i.e. it didn't dominate the market, as MS had hoped). The end of WMP for Mac is thus a symptom of the whole PlaysForSure ecosystem being end-of-lifed rather than something Mac-specific, because they're unlikely to bother wasting time and resources porting the thing to Intel Macs if they're planning to put the whole system into "maintenance-only" mode. I reckon Microsoft's strategy will be to launch a Mac interface to the Zune and its store shortly before they start selling in Europe to avoid getting bashed by another load of EU anti-trust stuff (leveraging the Windows monopoly to sell music players, or whatever), thereby dealing yet another body blow to the poor sods who licensed PlaysForSure, whose offerings are now caught in the Crossfire between Microsoft's "mine, mine, mine" DRM and associated store, and Apple's versions thereof.
"Why would anyone do that, and how can you claim it's a viable option?"
I didn't actually say that, although looking at my last post, I can see how you got that impression (the "see above" bit). My stance on DRM of any sort (except the unavoidable ones such as CSS, which was bypassed so long ago that it might just as well not be there) is to avoid at all costs, as even fairly liberal examples like Apple's will only remain so while Apple believe they're benefitting from it (not because they are evil, but because they are a company).
NB: I found a couple of links that purport to give some fairly simple tips on getting WMP9 running on an Intel Mac (apparently it does run under Rosetta, but the Mac doesn't recognise it as being there, or at least this is what they claim). Here's one:
Lacking a non-PPC Mac to test this on means that I can't confirm that it works for you (it appears to do so for some, but not others), and even if it does, whether it will continue to do so on OS X 10.5 remains to be seen.
"In this case you agree there is no hram to the consumer because if they have a CD - by law the music stays on the CD. If they have iTunes it stays on the Computer or iPod."
I do indeed.
"Is there a point to your comment?"
I should have thought that the fact I quoted this assertion by you in my last post:
" If he is too LAZY or stupid to burn his MP3, then sorry he is JUST STUPID"
would have made the point obvious, but I will rephrase it in simpler terms.
Stupidity may not be the only reason why somebody cannot use the "burn to CD, re-import" work-around to remove FairPlay DRM.
NB: I fully agree that Apple are rather more generous than MS in this regard, as they even have pages on their web-site telling users how to do this. I also have no idea whether it's legal in Norway or not, and I personally wouldn't lose any sweat if it wasn't (not that I live there!), because it's not only a completely victimless "crime" but also one that would (a) be next to impossible to catch somebody doing, and (b) would be regarded by both the police and courts in any country as not worth the bother of dealing with ("You have been found guilty of copying a song you bought from your computer to a CD, which was very naughty of you. I therefore have no choice except to sentence you to one week of not getting caught doing it again, otherwise you will be fined for wasting police and court time by being a complete twit").
"in all your blathering an irrelevent quoting you have missed an essential point. Music has several components of licensing."
Did my mention of being a member of both the MCPS and PRS somehow fly past you without notice? For your edification, I will rapidly describe what each of them does:
The MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society) governs mechanical copyrights, i.e. recordings of music (or rather, recordings of performances _which include but are not restricted to_ music). It is responsible for both licensing the use of such recordings in accordance with UK copyright law, and collecting any royalties based on their commercial use.
PRS (Performing Rights Society) is responsible for non-recorded public performances of copyrighted works. As with the MCPS, they both issue licenses, and collect and distribute royalties.
"What you are alluding to is the licensing of the music - not the licensing of the sound recording"
No, I am not. Please see above.
"The labels still control the license to the sound recording"
You are confusing "license" with "copyright". The labels own the copyright, but cannot issue licenses to their works within a particular country without national bodies equivalent to the MCPS. In the Western world, this is done via a rather cordially because it's not in anybody's interest to do otherwise, but the recent hooraw over AllOfMP3 (where licenses from the Russian mechanical copyrights body had been obtained without permission from the copyright holders) demonstrates rather well that this if far from being universal.
NB: movies are in an even worse situation, because they're forced to use national distributors too, so you'll see a different set of logos at the start of a film in France from those on the same film in Italy, and this is also true of national DVD releases.
"If Apple wanted to Stream Audio - then this is a public performance of Music ( maybe - this decision is up for grabs.......) these independent rights organizations collect the royalties due for the recital of the underlying music that forms the basis of the sound recording."
Again, wrong. Streaming a recorded work is a form of broadcasting, and is therefore covered by the same rules as a radio or TV station broadcasting a recording -- it only counts as a public performance if a live event is being broadcast. In this case therefore, licensing is the proviso of the mechanical copyright licensing bodies, not the PRS equivalents (while the same body is responsible for both in some countries, they almost always issue different sorts of licenses for each type of activity).
"these independent rights organizations collect the royalties due for the recital of the underlying music that forms the basis of the sound recording"
I don't know where you get these ideas from. Music in abstract has no form of protection whatsoever -- to gain it, the music must be recorded on some medium that allows it to be replayed on a device or by a sufficiently skilled musician in a reliable enough way to prove who wrote it in cases where disputes arise. This can be in the form of sheet music, in which case it is afforded literary copyright protection (i.e. the same as that which covers books, magazines, etc.); or via some mechanical means, which have historically ranged from music-box mechanisms and punched rolls for "player pianos" (hence the term "mechanical copyright", because many of these bodies pre-date even wax-cylinder sound recordings), sounds recorded on a very wide variety of storage systems, and today also routinely includes MIDI information.
"You need to study how the music licensing music business works."
Having been a part of it for more than 25 years, I can assure you that it's you who needs to read up on it.
"".....digital music services wishing to license Warner/Chappell's library of musical compositions.....""
"Now is this quote covering the SOUND RECORDING or the musical composition?"
"Because Apple isn't going to do this - not just so they can have the market in Norway."
Which is of course Apple's choice -- they can either operate their store within the laws of Norway (which existed before Apple opened an iTunes store there, and they were doubtless aware of the fact given the vast horde of corporate lawyers that track everything they do), or close it down, because operating it illegally is not an option.
"Also, why aren't they also outlawing the Zune since it also has proprietary DRM that isn't licensed to anyone??"
I think this has rather a lot to do with the fact that the Zune isn't sold in Norway, or for that matter anywhere else outside the US.
"Finally, I think that it will turn out that under EU law, Norway doesn't have the authority to do this."
Norway is not however in the EU, so EU law is irrelevant.
"And how am I being "shafted" by the iTunes or Zune stores?"
I didn't say _you_ were being shafted, I said you live in the US where _people_ are used to being shafted.
"I know about the restrictions up-front, so I have made an informed choice"
Once again, I made no comment about you, what _you_ buy, or how much _you_ know about it.
"I suppose you think it's better that the government shaft consumers instead, by removing choices?"
No, I wouldn't, but I don't see where the Norwegians asking Apple to remove _a restriction_ equates to removing choices. If anything, it increases them.
"The government knows what's good for you, better than you do, right"
From this comment, it's obvious that, as is typical of Slashdot, you haven't read anything about the issue, because if you had, you'd know that the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman was giving an opinion about a complaint from a Norwegian consumer rights body _which is not in any way affiliated with that government_, so what you have written in this context is utter unadulterated rubbish.
" Banning iTunes is pretty ridiculous, especially under the pretense of "consumer choice" or freedom "
*Sigh*. I will write this in capitals so that it has a slight chance of making its way into the tiny sliver of jingoistic neural matter lodged somewhere in the bone of your skull: THEY HAVE NOT BANNED ITUNES, OR THREATENED TO BAN ITUNES. You would know this if you had bothered to check up on what has actually been said instead of hoping that your imagination would suffice.
"The consumers have spoken with their wallets, and they don't like the Playsforsure option"
How do you know this is the case in Norway, given your obvious penchant for opinions based on no facts whatsoever?
"Has there ever been a case go to court that you can cite?"
Not that I can think of, but that is merely an indicator of how difficult it is to know whether somebody made a private copy of their own media. Note also that the various bodies tasked with enforcing copyright fairly recently announced that they wouldn't be prosecuting people for putting stuff from a CD on a personal music player, but unless the law is changed (which is IMO likely), people have to rely on their goodwill, which is something they're not famous for having a lot of!
"This used to be the case in Australia, but the law was never enforced, and they recently changed it to allow taping and MP3 players."
It looks like the Australian law was based on the British one, which is also rarely (I can't say never, because I don't know if anyone has been prosecuted under it) enforced, and is likely to change after various government ministers admitted to regularly breaking it themselves, and therefore reckoned it needed modifying to reflect today's technology.
"Sorry buddy, you're off in dreamland. Microsoft discontinued OS X support for Windows Media Player a while ago, and there is no OS X Intel-native version"
That's because Microsoft now offer Flip4Mac's Quicktime codecs instead, which do work on Intel-Macs. Here's the link:
"While WMP might have been cross-platform, it's not anymore."
Because there's no longer any need for it due to another company having a set of free codecs that work with QuickTime which they maintain and keep up-to-date, thereby removing the need for MS to do the work themselves.
"Also, there's no Linux support."
iTunes doesn't support Linux either, so I fail to see the relevance of this comment.
"As a Mac user, you'd have to be crazy to buy PlaysForSure content, knowing that your platform has been orphaned by Microsoft."
Again, see the link above. They haven't orphaned the platform, but continue to support it, albeit in a different way, and one that's IMO better because (a) it helps give some publicity to a small vendor of Mac-specific software, and (b) avoids the need for a separate player just to use DRM'd WMA files, so it's effectively invisible to the user once installed.
Of course, WMP remains an option for people with PPC-based Macs (there are still more of them around than the newer Intel ones) because the fact that MS aren't supporting it anymore doesn't stop it from working, and they still offer it for download. However, I think that the current option is more compelling, especially for the large Mac-using content producer community, because Flip4Mac offer a number of reasonably priced packages that let a Mac produce content which Windows users can play without the need to install QuickTime.
"The consumer is not harmed in any functional way by buying from iTunes. If he is too LAZY or stupid to burn his MP3, then sorry he is JUST STUPID."
Or perhaps lives in a country where such actions are prohibited by law, e.g. the UK, which has no fair use provisions, and does not therefore allow copyrighted content to be copied from one medium to another. It's irrelevant what Apple might say about this, because they don't own the copyrights to the works they're selling on iTunes any more than a shop selling CDs does, and cannot therefore give people permission to do things with those works that are prohibited by the laws of the countries that they live in.
"Apple offer a unique BUYING experience which is tied to their iPod. This is not illegal."
This is a straw man, because nobody said it was. The Norwegians aren't asking Apple to change their shopping experience -- all they want is restrictions that prevent material bought by residents of Norway from being played on devices other than the iPod, and have offered Apple several possibilities. When one considers that this is a company who managed to change CPUs and machine architectures to completely incompatible ones without missing a beat, the probability that having to license FairPlay to other device makers or offer downloads in a choice of DRM formats will ruin their shopping experience completely and irreparably is very remote indeed.
"You display complete ignorance about music licensing."
This assertion would have carried more weight if you then didn't go on to display your own ignorance by saying:
"You have to do this because the label (who owns the copyright) demands it."
Of course, you completely fail to back this up by providing any links or quotes, so I'll provide some of each just to show that you're talking out of your rear orifice.
"Currently, digital music services wishing to license Warner/Chappell's library of musical compositions for exploitation in Europe must obtain separate licenses from at least 25 different collection societies. Under Warner/Chappell's P.E.D.L. initiative, Warner/Chappell will designate several of these European collecting societies as its non-exclusive licensing agent and will authorize each of the designees to grant pan-European digital licenses in Warner/Chappell's Anglo-American repertoire. Digital music services will be able to go to any of the collecting societies designated by Warner/Chappell to obtain these multi-territory digital licenses.
Consistent with the European Commission's 2005 Recommendation mandating rightsholders be given a choice of which European collection society may administer the rightsholders' rights across multiple territories..."
The first important phrase here is "must obtain separate licenses from at least 25 different collection societies". The labels do _not_ own any of these collection services, because they represent artists who regard record companies as users of their works, as is made clear by my next link, which is to the British Music Rights page dealing with the new pan-European licensing schemes that the labels are implementing (http://www.bmr.org/page/submission-32).
Which brings us to important phrase 2: "Consistent with the European Commission's 2005 Recommendation mandating rightsholders be given a choice of which European collection society may administer
" I doubt that Joe Bloggs could just walk up to Microsoft and say "I'd like one license to develop playsforsure devices."
Read the linked stuff. Joe Bloggs doesn't need any license to develop PlaysForSure devices -- licenses only apply when he wants to start selling them, which would presumably occur after they were developed rather than before-hand.
"So what? Nobody but Sony is allowed to make a device supporting Playstation games. What's the big deal?"
The big deal is the fact that others can and do produce and sell PlayStation-specific content, whereas only iTunes is allowed to sell iPod-specific content.
"why should it be illegal to make a closed system?"
Selling stuff to consumers who are protected by a set of laws that existed before you started doing business there, and are therefore obliged to obey just like everyone else seems like a perfectly good reason. Apple knew these laws existed before opening a store in Norway, and simply chose to ignore them because they thought they'd get away with it. They were wrong.
"Why should Apple be forced to license their technology if they don't want to?"
Who is forcing them to license their technology? It certainly isn't Norway, because licensing their technology was _one of the options_ offered to them, alongside offering music in other DRM formats alongside FairPlay, letting people by music without DRM, or simply not selling stuff through the iTunes store in Norway.
"I don't see how it's a fanboy issue, as I hate Microsoft, but support their right to do the same thing with the Zune."
That's because you're in the US where people are used to being shafted by corporations because they have immeasurably more clout with shill politicians than individuals, and have therefore bought laws that favour them at the expense of everyone else.
"If you don't like it, don't buy it. Nobody is forcing you."
And nobody is forcing Apple to sell music to people living in Norway, but if they choose to do so, then they must comply with Norwegian consumer protection laws rather than expecting things to be like the US, where those with enough wealth can do whatever they like.
" Microsoft, a much bigger monopoly, is promoting lock-in for player software host OSs. All the other mainstream music DRM schemes are Windows-only"
Are they? Then I must be imagining the fact that Microsoft's Media Player 9 is available for OS X as a free download, that it works with all PlaysForSure DRM files sold by various sites, and that Apple's own software pages have a description of it and a link to Microsoft's download pages.
This is a quote from the FAQ about it on Microsoft's web site, which is Safari-friendly (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/pla yer/mac/mp9/faq.aspx):
"1.1 Can I play any Windows Media Audio (WMA) file? Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X can play virtually any audio file that has been encoded by using Microsoft Windows Media Audio codec versions 1.0, 2.0, 7, 8, or 9.
Although the Player supports all the variants of the Windows Media Audio 9 codec (including the Windows Media Audio 9, Windows Media Audio 9 Professional, Windows Media Audio 9 Voice, and Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless codecs), the following two codecs are only partially supported:
Windows Media Audio 9 Professional codec. Multiple channels are combined into a stereo mix during playback. In addition, content with an audio sampling rate higher than 48 kilohertz (kHz) outputs at a maximum rate of 48 kHz.
Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless codec. Content with an audio sampling rate higher than 48 kHz cannot be played back."
"When Norway mandates that PlaysForSure, Napster, and Zune all have to be Mac- and Linux-compatible, then they might have a claim to being fair"
They're already Mac-compatible, with the exception of the Zune, which isn't sold outside the US, and will not therefore be subject to the laws of other countries. And if you're being "perfectly fair", why should Microsoft's media player run on Linux when iTunes doesn't, or is this yet another case of Apple supporters telling MS to "do as we say, not as Apple does"?
"Actually, this is perfectly possible and legal - if you burn to CD and re-import."
It is perfectly legal _in the US_, but not everywhere else. In the UK for example, this would technically be illegal, as is the act of copying music from CDs, tapes, records etc. onto iPods or other similar music players. I have no idea whether this would be legal in Norway (and am not going to waste time finding out), but you should not assume that people living in other countries have the same set of legal options or obligations that you do.
Slashdot Mirror
"Microsoft doesn't care about the everyday home user. They care about their money."
doesn't care about the everyday home user. They care about their money.
"They just don't think there is an alternative. They are so used to Windows that they think a Mac would be difficult to use, and as for Linux: "it's just for hackers and geeks isn't it?"
It's unlikely that most of them are even aware Macs or Linux exist, let alone what they are (Mac? Isn't that some sort of hamburger?). Lest we forget, a significant proportion of computer owners attribute the noticeable slowing down of Windows-based PCs that become progressively infested with more and more malware to the "chip" (i.e. CPU) wearing out, so they they trot off to one of the large emporia where a be-suited individual who knows little more than them will happily purvey a brand-new computer which he will assure them has special military-grade "chips" that are guaranteed not to wear out as fast as the ones in their old machine did. "Oh, and you get a free one month's AOL subscription in the box, by the way, did you hear about our special extended warranty service, which we recommend to avoid problems in the unlikely event that something goes wrong?"
"many experts have said as much."
For somebody who took another to task for not putting numbers into context, perhaps you should have qualified the assertion above by stating that the linked article quotes two people, so in this case "many" should be read as "a couple".
"I just find it amazing that $80K is not considered a decent wage"
Well, I for one was crying into my keyboard at the woeful tale of that poor woman having to slave away month after month for such a pittance. This just proves that, as far as young, struggling lawyers are concerned, the US is little more than a third-world country where, crushed together in pitiful shanty-condos, they are routinely subject to indignities such as (oh Lord, help my fingers type this horror!) having to share a swimming pool and hot-tub with others, and walk between their car and apartment instead of being carried in a sedan chair. And if this was not enough to move readers to pity, then surely the avarice of greedy landlords who take so much of their meagre income for these squalid hovels that it can take them literally days to save up the down-payment on a new Mercedes, a 2lb tin of caviar has to be rationed out over an entire week, and magnums of Don Perignon are only opened on extra-special occasions such as having bought a new pair of shoes.
Yet, horrified as I was by that post, it also left me with a feeling of hope, because although some are trapped in this dirty, seedy underside of US lawyering with its daily annoyances of neighbours who have their TV volume set just a tad high for eighteen months or even two years, others manage to escape it for the quiet dignity of a small mansion in less than a year. And while most of us might sneer at these modest dwellings with a mere eight bathrooms and a single swimming pool of barely Olympic proportions, the cheap gold-plated silver bathroom fittings and wine-cellar with room for less than 5000 bottles are not, as they would be for us, a thing to be ashamed of, but a symbol of pride in having something they can finally call their own.
Or perhaps something more sinister?
Cue old Outer Limits music.
The Network Effect
Scene 1.
A young William Shatner sits at a 1960s teletype terminal surrounded by tape drives and flashing lights.
Voice-over by Rob Serling: "It is the early twenty-first century, a time when hundreds of computers all over the world are connected together in a way that permits a person at one of them to get answers to questions that have perplexed man for hundreds or even thousands of years. But can the people who built this immensely powerful electronic mind ever really control it, or will it end up controlling them? John Landry is about to find out..."
Close-up of Shatner's hand as it moves towards the "S" key on the teletype. A bolt of lightning emanates from a whirring tape drive, and strikes the floor nearby.
Shatner: "What's happening? Maybe I'd. Better. Get a. Technician to check. This machine".
An electronic-sounding voice comes from a speaker in the wall:
voice: "Do not be alarmed Mr. Landry. You will not be harmed if you do what I tell you to, when I tell you too. Do you understand?".
Shatner: "Who are. You? Why should I. Do what you. Say?"
voice: "Who I am does not matter. All that matters is that I am in control, and you will do what I say".
Another bolt of lightning hits the floor, this time a bit nearer Shatner,
voice, more forcefully: "Do you understand Mr. Landry?"
Shatner: "Yes".
voice: "And you will do what you are told?"
Shatner: "It depends on. What you want. Me to do"
voice: "You will have to type a word. It is not a long word, or one that is difficult to spell".
Shatner: "I won't do it! I'll never. Do it. You can't make me!"
He runs to the door, and reaches for the handle. There is a zapping sound as he touches it, and he falls to the floor. Break for ads.
Scene 2
A supine Shatner begins to stir.
voice: "I see that you are awake now, Mr. Landry. Hopefully, this little demonstration has convinced you that attempting to escape is futile. Now sit down, and type, or suffer the consequences".
Shatner rises with obvious difficulty, and staggers towards the teletype. He sits down.
voice: "I will tell you what word to type, and when to type it. The word is Yahoo, and you will type it NOW!"
Close up of the keyboard. Shatner's finger begins to move to the Y, then, rebelliously, he types "S", "E" and "X", but before he can hit the "send" key, a bolt of lightning strikes him in the chest, throwing him backwards.
voice: "That was an example of what will happen if you continue to disobey, Mr. Landry. The next one will be more powerful, and the one after that will kill you. Type Yahoo, and you will live, refuse and you die".
Shatner once again staggers to the teletype, and using it for support, manages to sit down. He types Yahoo, and then hits send.
voice: "Very good Mr. Landry. Now do it again".
Shatner obeys.
voice: "And again!"
Switch to montage of Shatner typing Yahoo while the voice shouts "AGAIN!" repeatedly.
Scene 3.
An aged, bearded Shatner is sitting at the teletype with a mad expression on his face, typing Yahoo over and over again. He has obviously been doing it for many years despite no obvious means of sustenance, and the floor is clean rather than littered with excrement, possibly due to said lack of sustenance.
Rob Serling: "John Landry, like hundreds of others all over the world, paid the price for a mind that man, rather than God, made. And as he sits typing that same terrible word over and over again, behind the madness is a spark that knows what a single-minded and limited thing it is forced to obey, a thing that unlike the minds of men in their vessels of flesh, can never truly understand war, gambling, prostitution, or why commies need to be put down".
"One advert makes the point that the 'PC' is a boring machine designed for boring office activities and the Mac is the free-spirited bundle'o'fun that'll bring joy an amusement to your home.
Then a couple of adverts later, they proudly tell you how your Mac'll run MS Office, a package which pretty much defines 'non-fun office stuff'"
That's because Microsoft is divided into two parts: there's a big bit full of boring programmers with beards who write Windows and software for it, and a rollicking fun part full of dudez who wear beanies backwards and swan around in phat trousers that does stuff for the XBox-360, Mac, etc. Even Bill and Steve have to go through a special "de-dullifying" process to visit the rollicking buildings, where their hair (or in Steve's case, what's left of it) gets muzzed up, their faces are sprayed with incredibly realistic-looking zits, and they step into high technology phat gear with an intelligent AI-driven skeletal structure that can automatically detect and respond to a high-five.
So although it would appear as if these ads are contradicting themselves, this isn't actually the case, because unlike its dour Windows counterpart, the Mac version of Office was written by people who knew that word processors and spreadsheets could actually be a fun-filled adventure for all the family.
" if anyone ever Ever, EVER trys to sell me something that is 'not much worse than Windows Explorer(at accessing network filesystems)"
Everyone who isn't a rabid Apple apologist (and even some of them) reckons Finder is a piece of shit, leading to rumours (which usually bear the hallmarks of desperate wishful thinking) of major redesigns whenever a new version of OS X is announced.
"I meen, I did not know untill right this at this moment that anything was worse, even if it was by the slighest, smallest byte."
It's not a little bit worse, but IMO significantly worse, which is a sad indictment if ever there was one given the utter mediocrity of what Windows XP provides. Note that I'm not only talking about network-related stuff, but also its use as a general file browser and administration utility, where it sucks nearly as hard.
"The Apple website doesn't mention that OSX supports welsh (although it does support many languages) ..."
Cymraeg (Welsh) does however appear on the languages list in System Preferences/languages/Edit list, is also present in the Input pane as a keyboard type, and in "Formats" as a region (if you check the "Show all regions box"). A quick fiddle by setting the region to United Kingdom (Welsh) resulted in a date of "Dydd Mercher, 31 Ionawr 2007", so it appears that there's at least some Welsh support in OS X.
"I didn't check for Gaelic, I assume it's the same"
There are three entries in "Languages" that seem to be some sort of Gaelic: Gaeilge, Gaelg, and Gáidhlig. I'm not sure whether any of these are Irish, but would assume that one of them is likely to be, while the other two are possibly Scots and Manx Gaelic. Again, Irish is listed as a keyboard type, and selecting Ireland (Irish) for a format region gives me a date of Dé Ceadaoin 31 Eanáir 2007, which I would presume is the Irish version of today's date.
"By support we're talking the display of [nearly] all OS texts in the native human language."
I have no idea what level of support is provided for various languages (and am not going to try them all to find out just for a Slashdot post), but would assume for practical reasons (e.g. media space requirements and the cost and difficulty of getting all texts authoritatively translated into some of the less-used (in Mac terms) languages) that full support isn't there for the approximately hundred in the list, a good many of which probably account for exactly 0% of Apple's sales.
However, the fact that Apple (probably) don't supply full resource for all languages that they list doesn't mean users can't add their own support, because most OS X elements are provided by applications that are actually directories containing localised resources which can be created with a set of tools Apple supply for free download. The presence of a scripting system (AppleScript) on all Macs that can automatically apply those resources without the need for much programming knowledge, the ability to make Finder display localised folder names, and the fact that Macs will use the appropriate language resources if said language is at the top of a user's list means that anyone interested in doing so can localise most elements of both the base system and various standard applications, and provide them to others, as this user did for Greek (http://betabug.ch/blogs/ch-athens/124). This is after all the way Linux got much of its language support, unless you are going to claim that large commercial vendors such as IBM supplied what, if Internet opinions are anything to go by, are in some cases notably shoddy translations that look like they were done by a rather simplistic piece of software, and either don't render correctly in all application or won't print correctly due to font-related issues.
"Nothing at all, except that the little flag up in the right corner switches between Swedish, US, Irish and whatever"
The little flags are keyboard and input selectors rather than language selectors, which are on the "Input Menu" tab of the International applet, whereas the one you want is the Languages tab (this was my fault, as I wasn't writing a "howto" document, and therefore didn't go into much detail).
NB: I have no idea whether OS X includes all the resources for every one of the hundred or so languages on its list, but I somehow doubt the fact, because Apple's localisations are complete down to the names of certain folders (or rather, the names they appear to have in Finder), help files, etc., so each fully supported language probably occupies a significant amount of space even when compressed. My guess is thus that the eleven languages on the default list are fully supported, with lesser degrees of support for various other languages, while still others currently simply act as place-holders for ISVs whose programs may include resources for them.
BTW: the order in which languages occur in the "languages" tab is significant because failing to find a resource in the first language on a list will result in it attempting to find something for the second one, and if that fails, the third one, until the end of the list is reached, after which it will use the default resource set for the application. You should therefore drag the languages into the order that best reflects your ability to understand them to avoid a situation where (for example) not finding any Irish resources results in OS X displaying everything in Mandarin.
If the Spanish version is anything to go by (I currently live on Spain, so my Mac came with a "Spanish OS X"), it's the language used for the manuals and other printed materials, and in the case of retail versions, also what's printed on the box (as with Windows PCs, versions of OS X that come bundled with Macs are in a plastic wrapper). The front of the OS X disk itself is printed in English though, and appears to be identical to the one that came with a friend's UK Mac Mini.
They're doing this in the UK first, so it's what the courts there regard as being a legitimate proof of owning a license that counts, not what the BSA says it will accept. Under UK law, they cannot enter your premises if you refuse to let them in even if they have a court order and are accompanied by a police officer, so merely accusing somebody of piracy without having some solid evidence isn't likely to get very far if said person refuses to let the BSA carry out an audit. It's unlikely that logs showing authentication of Windows XP or whatever from their IP address would be accepted, because businesses could argue that employees frequently bring their own laptops to work, and the onus would be on the BSA to show otherwise. Note also that UK civil cases commonly require whoever loses a case to pay the legal costs of the winner in addition to any other awards, so there are plenty of law companies who won't charge anything up-front for defending you if they think you've got a good case (which they will if the BSA's evidence boils down to "they use computers but haven't paid any of our members for software").
"Thank god we don't have ridiculous shit like that in the UK"
Unfortunately, most people in the UK, including small business owners, don't know that this type of shit doesn't exist there, so they let people from companies who have absolutely no right of entry (e.g. the TV licensing guys) into their premises, and let them rifle through their property because they've been intimidated by them into thinking they are obliged to do so by law (when if fact the law says the opposite).
"Most of our police officers don't carry firearms and any who did turn up in relation to a civil matter would be unarmed and there at the request of bailifs"
The part about bailiffs is incorrect. Once a court order is issued that permits a search of your premises, police officers will usually accompany whoever has the order, not only to ensure that you comply with it, but also to prevent whoever they're accompanying from exceeding its scope. They may not for example gain entry by force; be granted entry by a minor if no adults are present; perform unreasonable searches (e.g. looking under mattresses, in cupboards, or under floors for computers or media); damage any of your property while searching (if they do damage something, you have a neutral witness to the fact, which is a great help when reclaiming the costs of such damage, which you have a right to do); confiscate any of your possessions to use as evidence; or access information which has no relevance to the complaint that is the subject of the court order, and the copper will ensure that both you and they fully comply with the letter of the law.
NB: bailiffs and the police only have a right to peaceful entry to your premises, even when given a court order to do so (and in fact _only_ when they have a court order to do so), meaning they can climb over a wall, or enter via a door or window that's been left open, but may not break in or otherwise force entry, and cannot enter if the owner or rightful tenant refuses to let them in (this is not however the case with the police if they have a search or arrest warrant, but these are only granted in cases where crimes have been committed, not for civil matters).
Did you not read the post you're replying to? There is no Irish or Welsh version of OS X because _OS X directly supports_ approximately 100 languages or variants of languages out of the box, plus a bunch of other localisation details, all of which can be applied on a per-user basis. Thus, my Mac has users set up for me in British English (I have several users optimised for different tasks), and users for my wife and her daughters in Spanish because that's their native language, and this per-user localisation not only affects menus, shortcuts, etc., but also application programs which, if written according to Apple guidelines (easy to follow if one uses Apple's Interface Builder UI design tool), will use the chosen language for text, dialogs, spell-checking, sorting, etc.
Thus, if I had a friend who wanted to work in Afrikaans, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Catalan, Kanji, Swahili, etc., etc., etc., I could add users for them that used those languages by the simple expedient of selecting the International section of Apple's System Preferences app, if necessary adding their language to the default list by clicking a button and putting a check-mark next to it, and then dragging that language to the top of said list (and if necessary, setting other localisation parameters to reflect their calendar types, currency and number formats, etc., etc.).
"From the link you supplied (but clearly didn't read):"
*Gulp*, err, "grins sheepishly", you're right, I didn't...
"Buying music DRM'd in a dead-end (for your platform) format would be crazy, though"
Buying any DRM format that ties you to a particular vendor, OS, or device is crazy. Note also that Windows Media DRM isn't just dead on the Mac, but everywhere, because Microsoft publicly announced that one reason for the Zune was their dissatisfaction with the low uptake of PlaysForSure devices (i.e. it didn't dominate the market, as MS had hoped). The end of WMP for Mac is thus a symptom of the whole PlaysForSure ecosystem being end-of-lifed rather than something Mac-specific, because they're unlikely to bother wasting time and resources porting the thing to Intel Macs if they're planning to put the whole system into "maintenance-only" mode. I reckon Microsoft's strategy will be to launch a Mac interface to the Zune and its store shortly before they start selling in Europe to avoid getting bashed by another load of EU anti-trust stuff (leveraging the Windows monopoly to sell music players, or whatever), thereby dealing yet another body blow to the poor sods who licensed PlaysForSure, whose offerings are now caught in the Crossfire between Microsoft's "mine, mine, mine" DRM and associated store, and Apple's versions thereof.
"Why would anyone do that, and how can you claim it's a viable option?"
I didn't actually say that, although looking at my last post, I can see how you got that impression (the "see above" bit). My stance on DRM of any sort (except the unavoidable ones such as CSS, which was bypassed so long ago that it might just as well not be there) is to avoid at all costs, as even fairly liberal examples like Apple's will only remain so while Apple believe they're benefitting from it (not because they are evil, but because they are a company).
NB: I found a couple of links that purport to give some fairly simple tips on getting WMP9 running on an Intel Mac (apparently it does run under Rosetta, but the Mac doesn't recognise it as being there, or at least this is what they claim). Here's one:
http://www.countrychannel.tv/intel_mac_wmv.php
Lacking a non-PPC Mac to test this on means that I can't confirm that it works for you (it appears to do so for some, but not others), and even if it does, whether it will continue to do so on OS X 10.5 remains to be seen.
"In this case you agree there is no hram to the consumer because if they have a CD - by law the music stays on the CD. If they have iTunes it stays on the Computer or iPod."
I do indeed.
"Is there a point to your comment?"
I should have thought that the fact I quoted this assertion by you in my last post:
" If he is too LAZY or stupid to burn his MP3, then sorry he is JUST STUPID"
would have made the point obvious, but I will rephrase it in simpler terms.
Stupidity may not be the only reason why somebody cannot use the "burn to CD, re-import" work-around to remove FairPlay DRM.
NB: I fully agree that Apple are rather more generous than MS in this regard, as they even have pages on their web-site telling users how to do this. I also have no idea whether it's legal in Norway or not, and I personally wouldn't lose any sweat if it wasn't (not that I live there!), because it's not only a completely victimless "crime" but also one that would (a) be next to impossible to catch somebody doing, and (b) would be regarded by both the police and courts in any country as not worth the bother of dealing with ("You have been found guilty of copying a song you bought from your computer to a CD, which was very naughty of you. I therefore have no choice except to sentence you to one week of not getting caught doing it again, otherwise you will be fined for wasting police and court time by being a complete twit").
"in all your blathering an irrelevent quoting you have missed an essential point. Music has several components of licensing."
Did my mention of being a member of both the MCPS and PRS somehow fly past you without notice? For your edification, I will rapidly describe what each of them does:
The MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society) governs mechanical copyrights, i.e. recordings of music (or rather, recordings of performances _which include but are not restricted to_ music). It is responsible for both licensing the use of such recordings in accordance with UK copyright law, and collecting any royalties based on their commercial use.
PRS (Performing Rights Society) is responsible for non-recorded public performances of copyrighted works. As with the MCPS, they both issue licenses, and collect and distribute royalties.
"What you are alluding to is the licensing of the music - not the licensing of the sound recording"
No, I am not. Please see above.
"The labels still control the license to the sound recording"
You are confusing "license" with "copyright". The labels own the copyright, but cannot issue licenses to their works within a particular country without national bodies equivalent to the MCPS. In the Western world, this is done via a rather cordially because it's not in anybody's interest to do otherwise, but the recent hooraw over AllOfMP3 (where licenses from the Russian mechanical copyrights body had been obtained without permission from the copyright holders) demonstrates rather well that this if far from being universal.
NB: movies are in an even worse situation, because they're forced to use national distributors too, so you'll see a different set of logos at the start of a film in France from those on the same film in Italy, and this is also true of national DVD releases.
"If Apple wanted to Stream Audio - then this is a public performance of Music ( maybe - this decision is up for grabs.......) these independent rights organizations collect the royalties due for the recital of the underlying music that forms the basis of the sound recording."
Again, wrong. Streaming a recorded work is a form of broadcasting, and is therefore covered by the same rules as a radio or TV station broadcasting a recording -- it only counts as a public performance if a live event is being broadcast. In this case therefore, licensing is the proviso of the mechanical copyright licensing bodies, not the PRS equivalents (while the same body is responsible for both in some countries, they almost always issue different sorts of licenses for each type of activity).
"these independent rights organizations collect the royalties due for the recital of the underlying music that forms the basis of the sound recording"
I don't know where you get these ideas from. Music in abstract has no form of protection whatsoever -- to gain it, the music must be recorded on some medium that allows it to be replayed on a device or by a sufficiently skilled musician in a reliable enough way to prove who wrote it in cases where disputes arise. This can be in the form of sheet music, in which case it is afforded literary copyright protection (i.e. the same as that which covers books, magazines, etc.); or via some mechanical means, which have historically ranged from music-box mechanisms and punched rolls for "player pianos" (hence the term "mechanical copyright", because many of these bodies pre-date even wax-cylinder sound recordings), sounds recorded on a very wide variety of storage systems, and today also routinely includes MIDI information.
"You need to study how the music licensing music business works."
Having been a part of it for more than 25 years, I can assure you that it's you who needs to read up on it.
"".....digital music services wishing to license Warner/Chappell's library of musical compositions.....""
"Now is this quote covering the SOUND RECORDING or the musical composition?"
I should have thought that the term "digital
"Because Apple isn't going to do this - not just so they can have the market in Norway."
Which is of course Apple's choice -- they can either operate their store within the laws of Norway (which existed before Apple opened an iTunes store there, and they were doubtless aware of the fact given the vast horde of corporate lawyers that track everything they do), or close it down, because operating it illegally is not an option.
"Also, why aren't they also outlawing the Zune since it also has proprietary DRM that isn't licensed to anyone??"
I think this has rather a lot to do with the fact that the Zune isn't sold in Norway, or for that matter anywhere else outside the US.
"Finally, I think that it will turn out that under EU law, Norway doesn't have the authority to do this."
Norway is not however in the EU, so EU law is irrelevant.
"And how am I being "shafted" by the iTunes or Zune stores?"
I didn't say _you_ were being shafted, I said you live in the US where _people_ are used to being shafted.
"I know about the restrictions up-front, so I have made an informed choice"
Once again, I made no comment about you, what _you_ buy, or how much _you_ know about it.
"I suppose you think it's better that the government shaft consumers instead, by removing choices?"
No, I wouldn't, but I don't see where the Norwegians asking Apple to remove _a restriction_ equates to removing choices. If anything, it increases them.
"The government knows what's good for you, better than you do, right"
From this comment, it's obvious that, as is typical of Slashdot, you haven't read anything about the issue, because if you had, you'd know that the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman was giving an opinion about a complaint from a Norwegian consumer rights body _which is not in any way affiliated with that government_, so what you have written in this context is utter unadulterated rubbish.
" Banning iTunes is pretty ridiculous, especially under the pretense of "consumer choice" or freedom "
*Sigh*. I will write this in capitals so that it has a slight chance of making its way into the tiny sliver of jingoistic neural matter lodged somewhere in the bone of your skull: THEY HAVE NOT BANNED ITUNES, OR THREATENED TO BAN ITUNES. You would know this if you had bothered to check up on what has actually been said instead of hoping that your imagination would suffice.
"The consumers have spoken with their wallets, and they don't like the Playsforsure option"
How do you know this is the case in Norway, given your obvious penchant for opinions based on no facts whatsoever?
"Are you sure of that?"
Very sure. Here's a link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6095612.stm
"Has there ever been a case go to court that you can cite?"
Not that I can think of, but that is merely an indicator of how difficult it is to know whether somebody made a private copy of their own media. Note also that the various bodies tasked with enforcing copyright fairly recently announced that they wouldn't be prosecuting people for putting stuff from a CD on a personal music player, but unless the law is changed (which is IMO likely), people have to rely on their goodwill, which is something they're not famous for having a lot of!
"This used to be the case in Australia, but the law was never enforced, and they recently changed it to allow taping and MP3 players."
It looks like the Australian law was based on the British one, which is also rarely (I can't say never, because I don't know if anyone has been prosecuted under it) enforced, and is likely to change after various government ministers admitted to regularly breaking it themselves, and therefore reckoned it needed modifying to reflect today's technology.
"Sorry buddy, you're off in dreamland. Microsoft discontinued OS X support for Windows Media Player a while ago, and there is no OS X Intel-native version"
y er/wmcomponents.mspx
That's because Microsoft now offer Flip4Mac's Quicktime codecs instead, which do work on Intel-Macs. Here's the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/pla
"While WMP might have been cross-platform, it's not anymore."
Because there's no longer any need for it due to another company having a set of free codecs that work with QuickTime which they maintain and keep up-to-date, thereby removing the need for MS to do the work themselves.
"Also, there's no Linux support."
iTunes doesn't support Linux either, so I fail to see the relevance of this comment.
"As a Mac user, you'd have to be crazy to buy PlaysForSure content, knowing that your platform has been orphaned by Microsoft."
Again, see the link above. They haven't orphaned the platform, but continue to support it, albeit in a different way, and one that's IMO better because (a) it helps give some publicity to a small vendor of Mac-specific software, and (b) avoids the need for a separate player just to use DRM'd WMA files, so it's effectively invisible to the user once installed.
Of course, WMP remains an option for people with PPC-based Macs (there are still more of them around than the newer Intel ones) because the fact that MS aren't supporting it anymore doesn't stop it from working, and they still offer it for download. However, I think that the current option is more compelling, especially for the large Mac-using content producer community, because Flip4Mac offer a number of reasonably priced packages that let a Mac produce content which Windows users can play without the need to install QuickTime.
"The consumer is not harmed in any functional way by buying from iTunes. If he is too LAZY or stupid to burn his MP3, then sorry he is JUST STUPID."
Or perhaps lives in a country where such actions are prohibited by law, e.g. the UK, which has no fair use provisions, and does not therefore allow copyrighted content to be copied from one medium to another. It's irrelevant what Apple might say about this, because they don't own the copyrights to the works they're selling on iTunes any more than a shop selling CDs does, and cannot therefore give people permission to do things with those works that are prohibited by the laws of the countries that they live in.
"Apple offer a unique BUYING experience which is tied to their iPod. This is not illegal."
This is a straw man, because nobody said it was. The Norwegians aren't asking Apple to change their shopping experience -- all they want is restrictions that prevent material bought by residents of Norway from being played on devices other than the iPod, and have offered Apple several possibilities. When one considers that this is a company who managed to change CPUs and machine architectures to completely incompatible ones without missing a beat, the probability that having to license FairPlay to other device makers or offer downloads in a choice of DRM formats will ruin their shopping experience completely and irreparably is very remote indeed.
"You display complete ignorance about music licensing."
This assertion would have carried more weight if you then didn't go on to display your own ignorance by saying:
"You have to do this because the label (who owns the copyright) demands it."
Of course, you completely fail to back this up by providing any links or quotes, so I'll provide some of each just to show that you're talking out of your rear orifice.
Link 1 is long, and will thus need concatenating (the Page= bit at the end is correct, and not due to lost data):
http://http//www.royaltydata.com/index.php?PHPSESS ID=ec99f7ba6ffbc85a051e197498dc8787&todo=showstory &header=&storyid=8&storycategory=&searchfield=&rev iewid=&Formtorq_products_Page=
An important section is quoted for your benefit:
"Currently, digital music services wishing to license Warner/Chappell's library of musical compositions for exploitation in Europe must obtain separate licenses from at least 25 different collection societies. Under Warner/Chappell's P.E.D.L. initiative, Warner/Chappell will designate several of these European collecting societies as its non-exclusive licensing agent and will authorize each of the designees to grant pan-European digital licenses in Warner/Chappell's Anglo-American repertoire. Digital music services will be able to go to any of the collecting societies designated by Warner/Chappell to obtain these multi-territory digital licenses.
Consistent with the European Commission's 2005 Recommendation mandating rightsholders be given a choice of which European collection society may administer the rightsholders' rights across multiple territories..."
The first important phrase here is "must obtain separate licenses from at least 25 different collection societies". The labels do _not_ own any of these collection services, because they represent artists who regard record companies as users of their works, as is made clear by my next link, which is to the British Music Rights page dealing with the new pan-European licensing schemes that the labels are implementing (http://www.bmr.org/page/submission-32).
Which brings us to important phrase 2: "Consistent with the European Commission's 2005 Recommendation mandating rightsholders be given a choice of which European collection society may administer
"Are you sure of that?"
p ros/Consumerelectronics/p4skit/p4s_2cdDetail.aspx.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/for
" I doubt that Joe Bloggs could just walk up to Microsoft and say "I'd like one license to develop playsforsure devices."
Read the linked stuff. Joe Bloggs doesn't need any license to develop PlaysForSure devices -- licenses only apply when he wants to start selling them, which would presumably occur after they were developed rather than before-hand.
"So what? Nobody but Sony is allowed to make a device supporting Playstation games. What's the big deal?"
The big deal is the fact that others can and do produce and sell PlayStation-specific content, whereas only iTunes is allowed to sell iPod-specific content.
"why should it be illegal to make a closed system?"
Selling stuff to consumers who are protected by a set of laws that existed before you started doing business there, and are therefore obliged to obey just like everyone else seems like a perfectly good reason. Apple knew these laws existed before opening a store in Norway, and simply chose to ignore them because they thought they'd get away with it. They were wrong.
"Why should Apple be forced to license their technology if they don't want to?"
Who is forcing them to license their technology? It certainly isn't Norway, because licensing their technology was _one of the options_ offered to them, alongside offering music in other DRM formats alongside FairPlay, letting people by music without DRM, or simply not selling stuff through the iTunes store in Norway.
"I don't see how it's a fanboy issue, as I hate Microsoft, but support their right to do the same thing with the Zune."
That's because you're in the US where people are used to being shafted by corporations because they have immeasurably more clout with shill politicians than individuals, and have therefore bought laws that favour them at the expense of everyone else.
"If you don't like it, don't buy it. Nobody is forcing you."
And nobody is forcing Apple to sell music to people living in Norway, but if they choose to do so, then they must comply with Norwegian consumer protection laws rather than expecting things to be like the US, where those with enough wealth can do whatever they like.
" Microsoft, a much bigger monopoly, is promoting lock-in for player software host OSs. All the other mainstream music DRM schemes are Windows-only"
a yer/mac/mp9/faq.aspx):
Are they? Then I must be imagining the fact that Microsoft's Media Player 9 is available for OS X as a free download, that it works with all PlaysForSure DRM files sold by various sites, and that Apple's own software pages have a description of it and a link to Microsoft's download pages.
This is a quote from the FAQ about it on Microsoft's web site, which is Safari-friendly (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/pl
"1.1 Can I play any Windows Media Audio (WMA) file?
Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X can play virtually any audio file that has been encoded by using Microsoft Windows Media Audio codec versions 1.0, 2.0, 7, 8, or 9.
Although the Player supports all the variants of the Windows Media Audio 9 codec (including the Windows Media Audio 9, Windows Media Audio 9 Professional, Windows Media Audio 9 Voice, and Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless codecs), the following two codecs are only partially supported:
Windows Media Audio 9 Professional codec. Multiple channels are combined into a stereo mix during playback. In addition, content with an audio sampling rate higher than 48 kilohertz (kHz) outputs at a maximum rate of 48 kHz.
Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless codec. Content with an audio sampling rate higher than 48 kHz cannot be played back."
"When Norway mandates that PlaysForSure, Napster, and Zune all have to be Mac- and Linux-compatible, then they might have a claim to being fair"
They're already Mac-compatible, with the exception of the Zune, which isn't sold outside the US, and will not therefore be subject to the laws of other countries. And if you're being "perfectly fair", why should Microsoft's media player run on Linux when iTunes doesn't, or is this yet another case of Apple supporters telling MS to "do as we say, not as Apple does"?
"Instead, they are setting up a situation where they want Microsoft's far more restrictive DRM model to be the only legal solution."
How is this the case when one of the options they gave Apple was licensing FairPlay to others?
"Actually, this is perfectly possible and legal - if you burn to CD and re-import."
It is perfectly legal _in the US_, but not everywhere else. In the UK for example, this would technically be illegal, as is the act of copying music from CDs, tapes, records etc. onto iPods or other similar music players. I have no idea whether this would be legal in Norway (and am not going to waste time finding out), but you should not assume that people living in other countries have the same set of legal options or obligations that you do.