A license is not a physical object, though it can be documented that way. It is a legal granting of rights. What you are purchasing is these rights, which are limited by who you are purchasing the rights from (and by law). You can't store your rights in a drawer, but if you have these documented then you can store the documents. You can't transfer your rights to someone else unless the grantor allows it (and they usually specifically forbid this for digital music purchases). Some software licenses are transferable and some are not, but the copyright holder is the one who decides.
I forgot to mention that while Sony does sell media, it was Sony that most aggressively pushed rootkits in trying to prevent people from making any copies of their music CDs.
You don't actually buy a song; it is not yours unless you purchase the copyright. You actually just purchase a license to use a copy of the song. Your hedge clipper example would be applicable to songs fixed to original physical media - you can loan and trade CDs, but you are not allowed to make copies of CDs other than for personal use. It's the same way you can trade and loan books, but you can't copy the book and share or loan the copy. Digital songs purchased online require you to agree to a license that prevents transfer for any purpose. It is the deal you agree to when you purchase the license.
The word "copyright" fundamentally means one has the right to control how copies are made and distributed.
If you really think the law has ever allowed you or the entertainment industry has ever condoned that you could "make bunch of copies and give them away to friends like candy" then you have a very twisted view of reality. Maybe you could "get away" with doing that, but it was not ever legally protected fair use.
Sony sells blank recording media and recorders because they are legal and they want the business, but the entertainment industry in the past has tried to make them illegal. The industry killed DAT as a general consumer product through government lobbying.
Selling used CD's has come under fire. The record industry hates it. They have lobbied strong trying to interfere with this. Maybe they have not been effective, but the concept has still come under fire.
Historically elements in the entertainment industry have tried to block blank recording media and recorders. A judge had to say it was okay to make a back-up copy because somebody was saying it wasn't. They also killed DAT as a general consumer product.
I did not say that it was illegal, I said it has come under fire. I personally think it is kind of crazy, but the record companies HATE for people to sell used CDs and have tried various means to stop it.
Your first two paragraphs are pretty much wrong. Some people seem to think giving their songs to friends is fair use, but that is not the case and the media industry has historically fought against even the existance of blank recording media and recorders. Selling used CD comes under fire often as well. Garth Brooks had some publicity a while back trying to stop it. There was some story recently about some state trying to regulate it even.
Rankin and Bass or whoever it was that did "The Hobbit" cartoon also did a "Return of the King" cartoon movie (it sucked of course). That was why the Bashki (sp?) LoTR film stopped at Helm's Deep - somebody else had the rights to the last book.
I never understood though why in the LoTR cartoon they made Boromir into a viking.
Most of my MMO experience is with Lord of the Rings Online, and I haven't experienced any of the juvenile stuff yet. Maybe with more time. I have only had one gold spammer message so far. I do look forward to the dancing naked elf chicks though.
By the time they are finished, they are going to have a pretty massive, highly developed world map (right now Rivendell is about as far east as you can go), and it would be a shame for that to go to waste. I think they should definately use the full map for a PvP campaign at some point.
I have heard that the PvP they have now is fun, but I haven't got that far yet (at level 10 you can take the role as a lvl 50 monster player, but you have to be level 40 to use your main character.)
How many expansion packs will we have to PAY for to reach the end game? Right now we can only go as far as Rivendell; how many times and how much money to make it to Mordor?
They seemed to have betted that most people would be most interested in helping out the main characters from the story, and they seemd intent on having the story follow and parallel the fellowship on its journey.
Personally, I think the war in the north and east of the Misty Mountains would be good area for a large PvP campaign. Lorien, Mirkwood, the Lonely Mountain, the Iron Hills, all saw major engagements in the War of the Ring, but these were just basically footnotes in the book. A very major campaign could be waged there without much interference to the main story line.
I don't know if it would be good or bad, but if crafting was separate, I bet a lot of players would use their main character for gathering and have an alt character or two camped in Bree to do all their crafting. I would. Some people do this to a degree now, but you have to level up both your crafter and gatherer for them to be any good.
It would probably make the economy more complex and more difficult to balance. It could be more interesting though.
Do you have a plan to deal with the destruction of the one ring, as in does the game end then? Any consideration of opening up the entire game map at that point for a massive PvP war?
I could see a blogger getting a lot of e-mail, doesn't that go with the territory. Especially a venture capitalst blogger, won't you get a lot of emails asking for money?
My spam filter works at removing the vast majority of my spam, but I only get 150-200 spam per day.
Email works for me because it doesn't force me to stop what I'm doing and pick up a phone. And you can send photos, documents, etc...
It would be funnier if they were reversed, Bill dressed up as Mac/Jobs and Jobs dressed as PC/Gates. Bill could say something like "Hi, I am a Mac, the 3rd most expensive purchase you will ever make". And Jobs could say "Hi, I am PC. Far from cool, but I do follow lemmings off cliffs". And so on and so on...
>>1. a spoof of those pc guy/ mac guy ads with jobs and gates in the appropriate roles. it will never happen, but still
I doubt it. Those commercials are partially an ego trip for Jobs, saying "see, *I* am cooler than Bill" just as much as Mac is cooler than PC. I don't see why Bill would give him the satisfaction of playing it out in real life.
Of course, I could see Jobs jumping out and saying "Hi, he's a PC and I'm a Mac"
But I thought this was how it has always worked, internet or not. Yes? Will the new law they are proposing only apply to internet purchases, or are they just saying that the internet has brought about the need to change the law? I'm curious what the internet angle is to this.
He is promoting fear, uncertainty, and doubt about some possible future consequences if these laws were to pass, based upon some random comments made almost 10 years ago. He is wanting people to believe there will be a tax on individual email messages. Look at many of the comments here on slashdot that seem to affirm this belief, made by people supposedly smarter than the average. Do you really think somebody is going to seriously try and tax your individiual email messages? The UN suggested such an idea years ago and immediately backed down.
If there is ever an email tax, it will be so in name only. It will be a flat rate tax attached to your ISP bill along with your backbone tax, your local access tax, your broadband tax, your VOIP tax, your instant messaging tax, etc..., like your cell phone bill is now. In reality, it will just be an internet tax.
I don't know if it is still the case, but in some states that do tax out-of-state orders, they have to tax you if you order by phone or snail-mail, but not if you use the internet. I think it these states that see the internet as a "loop hole" they want to close. Personally, I would not order from a state that charged me out-of-state sales' taxes.
Exactly, he is just trying to create FUD, and people all over slashdot are spreading the message "the government/Democrats want to tax my email" when it is nothing of the sort.
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A license is not a physical object, though it can be documented that way. It is a legal granting of rights. What you are purchasing is these rights, which are limited by who you are purchasing the rights from (and by law). You can't store your rights in a drawer, but if you have these documented then you can store the documents. You can't transfer your rights to someone else unless the grantor allows it (and they usually specifically forbid this for digital music purchases). Some software licenses are transferable and some are not, but the copyright holder is the one who decides.
I forgot to mention that while Sony does sell media, it was Sony that most aggressively pushed rootkits in trying to prevent people from making any copies of their music CDs.
You don't actually buy a song; it is not yours unless you purchase the copyright. You actually just purchase a license to use a copy of the song. Your hedge clipper example would be applicable to songs fixed to original physical media - you can loan and trade CDs, but you are not allowed to make copies of CDs other than for personal use. It's the same way you can trade and loan books, but you can't copy the book and share or loan the copy. Digital songs purchased online require you to agree to a license that prevents transfer for any purpose. It is the deal you agree to when you purchase the license.
The word "copyright" fundamentally means one has the right to control how copies are made and distributed.
If you really think the law has ever allowed you or the entertainment industry has ever condoned that you could "make bunch of copies and give them away to friends like candy" then you have a very twisted view of reality. Maybe you could "get away" with doing that, but it was not ever legally protected fair use.
Sony sells blank recording media and recorders because they are legal and they want the business, but the entertainment industry in the past has tried to make them illegal. The industry killed DAT as a general consumer product through government lobbying.
Selling used CD's has come under fire. The record industry hates it. They have lobbied strong trying to interfere with this. Maybe they have not been effective, but the concept has still come under fire.
Historically elements in the entertainment industry have tried to block blank recording media and recorders. A judge had to say it was okay to make a back-up copy because somebody was saying it wasn't. They also killed DAT as a general consumer product.
I did not say that it was illegal, I said it has come under fire. I personally think it is kind of crazy, but the record companies HATE for people to sell used CDs and have tried various means to stop it.
Your first two paragraphs are pretty much wrong. Some people seem to think giving their songs to friends is fair use, but that is not the case and the media industry has historically fought against even the existance of blank recording media and recorders. Selling used CD comes under fire often as well. Garth Brooks had some publicity a while back trying to stop it. There was some story recently about some state trying to regulate it even.
Rankin and Bass or whoever it was that did "The Hobbit" cartoon also did a "Return of the King" cartoon movie (it sucked of course). That was why the Bashki (sp?) LoTR film stopped at Helm's Deep - somebody else had the rights to the last book.
I never understood though why in the LoTR cartoon they made Boromir into a viking.
Most of my MMO experience is with Lord of the Rings Online, and I haven't experienced any of the juvenile stuff yet. Maybe with more time. I have only had one gold spammer message so far. I do look forward to the dancing naked elf chicks though.
After playing my first MMO, a non MMO seems rather "lonely" and "empty", and I am not even that social. I think that will be hard to overcome.
By the time they are finished, they are going to have a pretty massive, highly developed world map (right now Rivendell is about as far east as you can go), and it would be a shame for that to go to waste. I think they should definately use the full map for a PvP campaign at some point.
I have heard that the PvP they have now is fun, but I haven't got that far yet (at level 10 you can take the role as a lvl 50 monster player, but you have to be level 40 to use your main character.)
Oh, and a follow-up:
How many expansion packs will we have to PAY for to reach the end game? Right now we can only go as far as Rivendell; how many times and how much money to make it to Mordor?
What issues have stirred up the most ire in players?
They seemed to have betted that most people would be most interested in helping out the main characters from the story, and they seemd intent on having the story follow and parallel the fellowship on its journey.
Personally, I think the war in the north and east of the Misty Mountains would be good area for a large PvP campaign. Lorien, Mirkwood, the Lonely Mountain, the Iron Hills, all saw major engagements in the War of the Ring, but these were just basically footnotes in the book. A very major campaign could be waged there without much interference to the main story line.
I don't know if it would be good or bad, but if crafting was separate, I bet a lot of players would use their main character for gathering and have an alt character or two camped in Bree to do all their crafting. I would. Some people do this to a degree now, but you have to level up both your crafter and gatherer for them to be any good.
It would probably make the economy more complex and more difficult to balance. It could be more interesting though.
Do you have a plan to deal with the destruction of the one ring, as in does the game end then? Any consideration of opening up the entire game map at that point for a massive PvP war?
I could see a blogger getting a lot of e-mail, doesn't that go with the territory. Especially a venture capitalst blogger, won't you get a lot of emails asking for money?
My spam filter works at removing the vast majority of my spam, but I only get 150-200 spam per day.
Email works for me because it doesn't force me to stop what I'm doing and pick up a phone. And you can send photos, documents, etc...
Email is far from dead for the average person.
It would be funnier if they were reversed, Bill dressed up as Mac/Jobs and Jobs dressed as PC/Gates. Bill could say something like "Hi, I am a Mac, the 3rd most expensive purchase you will ever make". And Jobs could say "Hi, I am PC. Far from cool, but I do follow lemmings off cliffs". And so on and so on...
>>1. a spoof of those pc guy/ mac guy ads with jobs and gates in the appropriate roles. it will never happen, but still
I doubt it. Those commercials are partially an ego trip for Jobs, saying "see, *I* am cooler than Bill" just as much as Mac is cooler than PC. I don't see why Bill would give him the satisfaction of playing it out in real life.
Of course, I could see Jobs jumping out and saying "Hi, he's a PC and I'm a Mac"
But I thought this was how it has always worked, internet or not. Yes? Will the new law they are proposing only apply to internet purchases, or are they just saying that the internet has brought about the need to change the law? I'm curious what the internet angle is to this.
I live in a state without a state income tax (and I'm not a business), so I don't think that kind of law would apply to me, though I could be wrong.
He is promoting fear, uncertainty, and doubt about some possible future consequences if these laws were to pass, based upon some random comments made almost 10 years ago. He is wanting people to believe there will be a tax on individual email messages. Look at many of the comments here on slashdot that seem to affirm this belief, made by people supposedly smarter than the average. Do you really think somebody is going to seriously try and tax your individiual email messages? The UN suggested such an idea years ago and immediately backed down.
If there is ever an email tax, it will be so in name only. It will be a flat rate tax attached to your ISP bill along with your backbone tax, your local access tax, your broadband tax, your VOIP tax, your instant messaging tax, etc..., like your cell phone bill is now. In reality, it will just be an internet tax.
So right now if you use the internet to make a purchase you are exempt from these sales taxes? What's the internet angle to this?
I don't know if it is still the case, but in some states that do tax out-of-state orders, they have to tax you if you order by phone or snail-mail, but not if you use the internet. I think it these states that see the internet as a "loop hole" they want to close. Personally, I would not order from a state that charged me out-of-state sales' taxes.
Exactly, he is just trying to create FUD, and people all over slashdot are spreading the message "the government/Democrats want to tax my email" when it is nothing of the sort.