This sort of story indicates something about Microsoft's priorities. It doesn't mean they're evil and/or going to software hell. It just indicates something about their priorities.
That's some pretty good devil's advocating there. Well done, pretty balanced.
what if I and a hundred thousand others all of a sudden start downloading a few 1 gig movies from a legitimate commercial provider every other night between 6 and 10pm. What happens is that we fill up the tubes with enormous amounts of material. Seriuosly. But the response is that we pick a less-congested time to download, we forego the download, or we call up Verizon: "Geez, I need some more bandwidth I guess... $90 bucks! Why?! And they explain that using an internet connection as an always-on TV is pretty expensive."
Bird's-eye view, though, I think these problems solve themselves. Based on my rule: Any time you dramatically increase the amount of information being transferred among people, you get a net plus. You often, in fact, get an economic boom. Remember the 90s? Me too. Boring old plant html web pages, mostly. But geez the publishing industry (which those web pages were essentially re-creating) didn't go under. In fact almost every industry enjoyed huge growth.
Broadband has the potential to do this again. Keep in mind that it's not just "Gilmore Girls" reruns that will be filling up the pipes. It'll be educational programs, interactive coursework, free software, information in ever-more useful configurations.
My rule, part 2: when the information is transferred through viewer-select (pull) technology rather than broadcast (push) technologies, the effect i heightened, because the feedback loop from the market is shorter.
As in, home of Verizon. Home of Kenny Marchant, who (I swear) basically has as his platform statement "I'm Bush's lapdog". Who opposes Net Neutrality (surprise) because he thinks the market should decide.
"And users would just say "Fuck you" to said site and move on to the next one."
Okay but what if the next one says the same thing or something similar. Or not the next site, but another one, later that day. Or the following day. Then another one. At some point the users gonna say "why are all these people pist at IE?"
The point of boycott-type pressure is not to create an immediate and complete crumbling of the other side's support. It's to build up a groundswell until the other side can no longer ignore the voice of a few (hundred? thousand? million?) disgruntled weirdos.
I think "winning" here might just mean: preventing governments all over the world from sending half of their IT budget to Redmond as pure profit, in exchange for the privilege of... um... sending half their IT budget to Redmond.
This morning, as I was filling my swimming pool with gasoline, I was thinking "gosh, I guess it's kind of a bummer that 5 or 6 digits' worth of Iraqis and Americans have been killed over this, but that Uber-cheap oil sure makes that medicine go down..."
"For some reason extreme partisanship and polarisation has become an integral part of US culture"
1. The nature of our elections (see above on need for proportional voting) strongly inclines decision-making to a simple choice between two views. 2. Media theory: our sources of information and discourse do not profit from making peope informed -- they profit from making people *feel informed. This is accomplished much more efficiently by saying "the administration has _______; critics, however, say that ________" and moving on. In point of fact it would take multiple points of view and multiple assertion-response cycles to become even moderately informed on any political issue. 3. Frontier/Pioneer theory: perhaps Americans have a sort of Messiah complex, a feeling that they represent the good side in a civilization-versus-chaos struggle. 3A. One source for this: the (incorrect) perception that the original colonists landed in an uncivilized wilderness, a blank slate. 3B. The reason for (some of) the original colonists' departure from Europe: persecution, and determination to self-identify as they choose. These combine to inculcate a sort of us-versus-them mentality. This complex might be traced back to the moment of
One question, though: is this really more of a problem in America than in other places? Partly this seems a result of normal human intellectual laziness -- it's easier to paint a person/issue "black" or "white" and get on with your life...
Well, it seems you know more about this stuff than I thought you did, so I apologize if I slighted you. It was an honest mistake, since my arguments again IP usually meet with responses of the type "people can do whatever they want with their intellectual property" and respondent doesn't want to go any deeper than that.
Resuming...
It is true that by conventional property right I cannot secretly steal your bling off your land while you're away. You own stuff even when you have no physical relationship with it. This convention (in contrast to "intellectual propery") is extremely cost-effective, and an argument could be made that not only do private property rights & conventions account for the majority of economic growth in the past several centuries, but for a good deal of the political enlightenment over the same period.
So please don't assume that I'm a total anarchist. My point is only that these conventions are not the only possible ones. Remember in grade school learning about how bewildered native Americans were about the concept of "owning" land?
I believe the natural ground of property right is physical violence. The societal ground is a set of goals (autonomy, economic "progress") and the usual "western liberal" approach to physical property is demonstrably cost-effective toward these goals. A society with different goals might have less (or no) private property rights.
In any case, the argument against IP doesn't rely on the association with violence; that's me staring at my own navel. The more important point is that when I obtain your "intellectual property" you still have it. Where there is no loss there is no theft. (you should know that I don't buy the whole lost-sales argument at all. That's another conversation...)
As it turns out, I this the state should be very active in encouraging the arts & creativity & science and all that stuff. Way more active than most libertarians, probably. I just don't think the way to do that is by pretending that unauthorized copying is "theft" or pretending that ideas and numbers are "property". Maybe once, but not anymore.
I'm not totally sure what you mean by this revision, but if you're wondering here's the difference between physical property and that dubious concept "intellectual property": To deprive you of physical property, I must do violence to you, but I and millions of other people could help ourselves to your "intellectual property" without you even being aware of it. The non-critical assumption that intellectual property is the same as other kinds of property is precisely why no state has bothered to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of copyright laws. They just parrot on about how everyone "owns" everything she ever thinks, and you can't use those thoughts without her permission 'cause they're her property, and so on. It's a laugh riot for people who actually think about these things. Like for example Thomas Jefferson.
the blanket claim that artists produce exactly the same amount, irrespective of any compensation they get -- that's just stupid. I know you didn't say that outright, but you're hinting at it with the bit that artists "need" to create
The position is quite simple: copyright is a state-granted monopoly on certain actions that would otherwise be perfectly licit. It is a truism that a certain kind and quantity of art is going to exist without copyright. The burden is on the state to demonstrate a interest in whatever kind of art requires copyright protection to exist. Then they have to demonstrate that the term is cost-effective.
No state that I know of has ever got within a thousand miles of making such a demonstration. I bet that if one of them tried, a 10-year (or so) copyright would prove reasonable in our present technological situation.
At the beginning of the 20th century it was thought that recording technology would destroy the music industry. Why the hell would someone go pay to see a concert when they could listen to the music as much as they want at home?
Everyone who thinks "omg how will people get paid!?!?!" write this down: disruptive technologies require that businesses rethink their strategy. If someone figured out how to make cars run on happy thoughts, would you go "omg how will we keep the oil companies in business?"
Slashdot Mirror
Art is not a business.
After reading some of the details of the deal -- viz., how badly fuctup the files you receive are -- I cap my bid at $2.50/movie.
At 1/3 to 1/2 this price I'd go on a spree.
This sort of story indicates something about Microsoft's priorities. It doesn't mean they're evil and/or going to software hell. It just indicates something about their priorities.
Be like that other desktop and call them
Notes application: Gnotes
Menu editor: Megnu editor
Disk usage analyzer: Disk Gnusage Analyzer
video player: Gnideo Player
Also it doesn't seem to go in for micropayments everywhere.
I'm not sure how this post got marked+4 Interesting, but it really smells of disillusioned communism.
Dude, you owe me a new keyboard.
If you upgrade to Nose 3.6 Ultimate Edition, you can pick up on scents that are even more subtle than this one!
The GP was pretty-obviously sarcasm.
I'd be ashamed to be Michael Geist. That's the dumbest lead paragraph I've seen in years.
no text I say
That's some pretty good devil's advocating there. Well done, pretty balanced.
what if I and a hundred thousand others all of a sudden start downloading a few 1 gig movies from a legitimate commercial provider every other night between 6 and 10pm. What happens is that we fill up the tubes with enormous amounts of material. Seriuosly. But the response is that we pick a less-congested time to download, we forego the download, or we call up Verizon: "Geez, I need some more bandwidth I guess... $90 bucks! Why?! And they explain that using an internet connection as an always-on TV is pretty expensive."
Bird's-eye view, though, I think these problems solve themselves. Based on my rule: Any time you dramatically increase the amount of information being transferred among people, you get a net plus. You often, in fact, get an economic boom. Remember the 90s? Me too. Boring old plant html web pages, mostly. But geez the publishing industry (which those web pages were essentially re-creating) didn't go under. In fact almost every industry enjoyed huge growth.
Broadband has the potential to do this again. Keep in mind that it's not just "Gilmore Girls" reruns that will be filling up the pipes. It'll be educational programs, interactive coursework, free software, information in ever-more useful configurations.
My rule, part 2: when the information is transferred through viewer-select (pull) technology rather than broadcast (push) technologies, the effect i heightened, because the feedback loop from the market is shorter.
I don't see a copyright notice on that page... ;)
As in, home of Verizon. Home of Kenny Marchant, who (I swear) basically has as his platform statement "I'm Bush's lapdog". Who opposes Net Neutrality (surprise) because he thinks the market should decide.
"And users would just say "Fuck you" to said site and move on to the next one."
Okay but what if the next one says the same thing or something similar. Or not the next site, but another one, later that day. Or the following day. Then another one. At some point the users gonna say "why are all these people pist at IE?"
The point of boycott-type pressure is not to create an immediate and complete crumbling of the other side's support. It's to build up a groundswell until the other side can no longer ignore the voice of a few (hundred? thousand? million?) disgruntled weirdos.
1. 20,000 Google Points 2. Wife 3. ... ?
4. ... !
I'm not sure why... Google's brilliance shines through again.
that is all
...and even that's just an estimate. In a bad mood today.
I think "winning" here might just mean: preventing governments all over the world from sending half of their IT budget to Redmond as pure profit, in exchange for the privilege of ... um... sending half their IT budget to Redmond.
This morning, as I was filling my swimming pool with gasoline, I was thinking "gosh, I guess it's kind of a bummer that 5 or 6 digits' worth of Iraqis and Americans have been killed over this, but that Uber-cheap oil sure makes that medicine go down..."
"For some reason extreme partisanship and polarisation has become an integral part of US culture"
1. The nature of our elections (see above on need for proportional voting) strongly inclines decision-making to a simple choice between two views.
2. Media theory: our sources of information and discourse do not profit from making peope informed -- they profit from making people *feel informed. This is accomplished much more efficiently by saying "the administration has _______; critics, however, say that ________" and moving on. In point of fact it would take multiple points of view and multiple assertion-response cycles to become even moderately informed on any political issue.
3. Frontier/Pioneer theory: perhaps Americans have a sort of Messiah complex, a feeling that they represent the good side in a civilization-versus-chaos struggle.
3A. One source for this: the (incorrect) perception that the original colonists landed in an uncivilized wilderness, a blank slate.
3B. The reason for (some of) the original colonists' departure from Europe: persecution, and determination to self-identify as they choose.
These combine to inculcate a sort of us-versus-them mentality. This complex might be traced back to the moment of
One question, though: is this really more of a problem in America than in other places? Partly this seems a result of normal human intellectual laziness -- it's easier to paint a person/issue "black" or "white" and get on with your life...
Well, it seems you know more about this stuff than I thought you did, so I apologize if I slighted you. It was an honest mistake, since my arguments again IP usually meet with responses of the type "people can do whatever they want with their intellectual property" and respondent doesn't want to go any deeper than that.
Resuming...
It is true that by conventional property right I cannot secretly steal your bling off your land while you're away. You own stuff even when you have no physical relationship with it. This convention (in contrast to "intellectual propery") is extremely cost-effective, and an argument could be made that not only do private property rights & conventions account for the majority of economic growth in the past several centuries, but for a good deal of the political enlightenment over the same period.
So please don't assume that I'm a total anarchist. My point is only that these conventions are not the only possible ones. Remember in grade school learning about how bewildered native Americans were about the concept of "owning" land?
I believe the natural ground of property right is physical violence. The societal ground is a set of goals (autonomy, economic "progress") and the usual "western liberal" approach to physical property is demonstrably cost-effective toward these goals. A society with different goals might have less (or no) private property rights.
In any case, the argument against IP doesn't rely on the association with violence; that's me staring at my own navel. The more important point is that when I obtain your "intellectual property" you still have it. Where there is no loss there is no theft. (you should know that I don't buy the whole lost-sales argument at all. That's another conversation...)
As it turns out, I this the state should be very active in encouraging the arts & creativity & science and all that stuff. Way more active than most libertarians, probably. I just don't think the way to do that is by pretending that unauthorized copying is "theft" or pretending that ideas and numbers are "property". Maybe once, but not anymore.
I'm not totally sure what you mean by this revision, but if you're wondering here's the difference between physical property and that dubious concept "intellectual property": To deprive you of physical property, I must do violence to you, but I and millions of other people could help ourselves to your "intellectual property" without you even being aware of it. The non-critical assumption that intellectual property is the same as other kinds of property is precisely why no state has bothered to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of copyright laws. They just parrot on about how everyone "owns" everything she ever thinks, and you can't use those thoughts without her permission 'cause they're her property, and so on. It's a laugh riot for people who actually think about these things. Like for example Thomas Jefferson.
the blanket claim that artists produce exactly the same amount, irrespective of any compensation they get -- that's just stupid. I know you didn't say that outright, but you're hinting at it with the bit that artists "need" to create
The position is quite simple: copyright is a state-granted monopoly on certain actions that would otherwise be perfectly licit. It is a truism that a certain kind and quantity of art is going to exist without copyright. The burden is on the state to demonstrate a interest in whatever kind of art requires copyright protection to exist. Then they have to demonstrate that the term is cost-effective.
No state that I know of has ever got within a thousand miles of making such a demonstration. I bet that if one of them tried, a 10-year (or so) copyright would prove reasonable in our present technological situation.
Your favorite artist -- how did you hear about him/her? legaltorrents.com; why do you ask?
At the beginning of the 20th century it was thought that recording technology would destroy the music industry. Why the hell would someone go pay to see a concert when they could listen to the music as much as they want at home?
Everyone who thinks "omg how will people get paid!?!?!" write this down: disruptive technologies require that businesses rethink their strategy. If someone figured out how to make cars run on happy thoughts, would you go "omg how will we keep the oil companies in business?"