Why should we keep morality (or ethics) out of business? the obsession with profit only is highly dysfunctional and damaging. Society does not exist just to make profits. Companies only exist at the whim of the people. If the people want company executives to wear orange bunny-suits, then they can pass a law making them do that. Businesses today are far more powerful than individuals and politicians. This means they must wake up to ethics. With their disproportionate power, it makes individual ethics and morality almost meaningless, if we have no ability to make companies take responsibilities.
Corporations get the benefits of being considered legal persons - so why shouldn't they have the same ethical responsibilities as actual human persons?
It's easy for us to say "Hell with China, let us all withdraw our money and see what they can do".
What? Don't you mean "pay back all the money we borrowed from the Chinese"? I think the cash will be flowing in the opposite direction to what you assume.
Why can't Google use their software and networking geniuses to write a killer anti-censorship application, to help Chinese users access the outside world, and hide the access from the authorities? I mean, assuming they actually cared about freedom and information, "doing no evil," rather than just profits?
What the hell kind of sense does this make, scream at companies for aiding in the censorship abroad, and in the same breath ask them to help build a case for censorship at home.
It's perfectly cromulent, Rovian thinking. Anyone who disobeys or disagrees with the administration is a traitor, and deserves to go down. Even writing a letter to the editor gets you investigated for sedition.
If experienced users know how to use firewalls and proxies - then why is a censored local version needed? How does it add anything?
In reality, google has other options. It could, for example, make a free utility to help less-experienced users easily bypass the censorship and get to uncensored Google.com.
It could also take a stand, based on "do no evil" and use its vast online resources to speak out against the Chinese and other totalitarians, and educate people.
What the hell? It generally is the "USA #1!" type people who are all for Google going into China. While those that live outside the US, or can appreciate that there are more peaceful and free places than the US, are the main ones objecting to Google's move. Because Google's move is a combination of American imperialism, and sucking up to totalitarians.
As for "more peaceful" etc. - surely you can't be talking about China? I believe America is borderline fascist, and not much better than China. But things still aren't as bad as China. But if we continue sucking up to foreign fascists, that will only accelerate fascism back home.
We are not China nor do we have any power to tell China what to do.
Google is not a Chinese company, it is American. And Americans certainly have the right to regulate and impose ruiles on how US companies trade overseas.
If they want the censor the internet from their people, so be it. Let their people decide when enough is enough.
that's fine, but why does a US company have to help censor and oppress people? How will we know what they have decided for themselves, if the dissidents are censored?
Man, sometimes I wish freedom of speech didn't exist so morons like you would quit thinking everyone if the world needs to change to be more like the US.
Which very well demonstrates why you should not be taken seriously. Not only do you get the facts wrong, you have a lot of hate and contempt for people. I don't think anyone is saying this is about forcing China to do anything. It's about them simply refusing to get involved in human-rights abuses. Would you argue the same way about companies supplying poison gas to the Nazis to be explicitly used for human extermination? If not, what's the difference? If so - then you must be an evil person if you put corporate profits over people's lives, even if they do not live in your own country.
I suspect that your hatred for people might stem from hatred of yourself, and projection of your foul personal beliefs onto others.
Well then, shouldn't the law be changed so that shareholders cannot be the only consideration? In any case, your statement is incorrect. Companies have a legal duty to follow laws, even if they conflict with the wishes of shareholders.
You can't run a company using slave labor, even if it would make more profit.
No, it isn't. Fire a light-speed projectile through an enemy space-ship. In the vacuum of space, it is likely to come out the other side, and keep going. But it has still been very effective as a weapon. Or consider an electricity-based weapon. It is the transfer of energy - increased movement of particles - that caused the electrocutions of burns, not the lack of motion.
My blender would disagree with you, as would my flamethrower. Both are pretty harmless when stopped, but when they get started can cause all kids of carnage.
Such an act has an external appearance of a "sale" if money goes in the opposite direction but the thing being transmitted cannot be owned by anyone.
But no definition of "sale" requires that the recipient own anything in exchange for the sale. All that is required is an exchange of money:
sale n.
The exchange of goods or services for an amount of money or its equivalent; the act of selling.
An instance of selling.
An opportunity for selling or being sold; demand.
Availability for purchase: a store where pets are for sale.
A selling of property to the highest bidder; an auction.
A special disposal of goods at lowered prices: coats on sale this week.
sales
Activities involved in selling goods or services.
Gross receipts.
One does not own the babysitting service, when one buys babysitting services. Does this mean that one cannot sell a service? Of course not! the first definition of "sale" includes services.
The fact that "people" do something does not render it valid nor sane. What you just presented is a logical fallacy of Argumentum ad Populum.
I never said anything about the moral values of selling information. I just said it was possible, which it obviously is. I never said it was morally right. Many things are possible that are not morally right. Is it impossible to detonate a nuclear bomb, just because it is not morally correct?
Service falls under the category of labour. One can perform labour for pay and such labour can be measured by the change of state of physical objects,
But what if the service involves no labour?
By capturing the appropriate neural signals, measuring and digitizing them. The difficulty is merely technological.
But you are talking about a highly subjective thing. An orgasm is not just "neural impulses" - the same neural impulses in another person would not produce the same results in somebody else. Because my sexual preferences and experiences are different to yours. I am married to a different person than you, etc.
Anyway, I need sleep, and cannot reply to the rest of your post tonight. The rest of this is interesting trivia - but you will not understand my posts unless you address the first points I made about morality and the semantics of "selling."
More light can get through a big lens and strike a big CCD than can pass through the head of a pin.
No. the bigger the film/sensor area, the more the light has to "spread out" to cover the sensor. In other words, it needs to be magnified. This is why large format lenses let much less light through than small-format lenses. For example, you can get f1.0 lenses for 35mm film, and f0.8 lenses for smaller cinema or video and still film formats. Meanwhile, it is difficult (and expensive!) to get lenses faster than f2.8 for medium format, and f5.6 to f11 is a typical open aperture for a large-format camera.
Basically, you have it exactly backwards. Now, because of the pixel size for digital, or the size of the halide (grain) structure for film, it is easier to get high resolution in a larger sensor or film size. but to get that, you trade-off image brightness, and therefore have to increase film speed or increase grain if you want to use the same shutter speeds.
A physical object, which is subject of trade, has the following properties: it can only occupy one physical location and can be controlled by persons physically manipulating it. Thus when you sell me a chair, you no longer retain it, I walk away with it and you don't.
So what? Just because something is not physical, and can be copied, does not mean it can't be sold. people sell software all the time, and it can be copied.
This and many other, similar characteristcs (like for example a mathematical equivalence of a song and a large integer number) are what makes trade in information, in accordance with long established mercantile rules impossible.
But it obviously is possible, as it happens every day.
You are confusing a service of processing information, which Google provides and "trade" in it. No surprise here, really.
A service is just a concept, it has no physical presence. So how can one sell a service? What is the physical object that Google is selling?
I am not sure what your argument is here. That because people want enterntainment we have to treat information as if were physical object? Is that it?
When did I ever say that information should be treated like a physical object? Who is saying it should be?
Make sure you do not listen to the CD though, because if you do and then sell it, you already have two copies of the information present and, according to your convoluted logic you are a "thief", no? Same goes for playing it loud, in a non-sound proofed house as the passer bys are commiting "theft" as they walk by your window, right?
No. I never said that that copyright infringement was theft. And listening to someone else's music in that manner is not even copyright infringement. Why are you arguing with things I never said?
So let me get this straight, you are paying for something which took no effort to produce and which presumably existed outside the activities of the "seller" and which can be reproduced at will, which is what the "seller" does.
Yes, why not? It often good to pay for convenience, even if it might be available for free elsewhere.
Then you are being logically inconsistent. I simply assumed, wrongly it seems, that you would prefer to be consistent. The weather report is either someone's "intellectual property" or it is not.
Raw facts are not Intellectual Property. But facts are information. You claimed that one can't sell information. The fact is, you can. just because you can sell information, doesn't make it anyone's property.
For example, I meet a terrorist who knows where a nuclear bomb is planted. I offer him 10 million dollars if he tells me where the bomb is. Now, nobody "owns" the fact as such - but only he has access to it. So I buy the information from him. Now I have that information. Is that somehow not buying information?
Any information can be, as a matter of fact established long ago by Shannon's information theory,
I thought that one couldn't "own" ideas or information, yet you are saying that this theory belongs to Shannon? Not to mention that it is just a theory, that has not be experimentally proven. How do i represent the bliss of an orgasm in a number?
In any case, your point is rather irrelevant. Just because someone cannot own a number - does not mean that numbers cannot be sold. Selling is about the act of selling, not whether you get anything from it.
And then you claim that further reproduction of it constitutes "theft"? Am I missing something?
Yes. You are missing the fact that I never claimed anything about "theft."
Really? Then you can copy or retransmit the information you "purchased" to your heart content? Or perheaps copyright controls your actions in that regard? Which is it?
I have no need to copy or retransmit - so it can hardly be contyrolling me when that's something I never wanted to do, and I agreed to the licensing terms. Besides, I can restransmi
Why? If this were the case, why is content bought and sold every day? When a producer buys a film script, do you think they are buying the actual paper and ink? No, they are buying the story.
The content is ideas in somebody else's head.
Which they have written down or otherwise stored. And if it actually lives in someone else's head, what about dead people? What about authors who get amnesia? The content still exists, even though it is no longer in their head.Try to claim any ownership of the content after buying a copy of it and see how you are laughed all the way to you jail cell.
But accessing the information is not the same as claiming ownership of it. And also, it is true in some cases. Public Domain information is "owned" by everybody.
Also, in my field of work, people buy the actual content all the time. Never heard of selling a film script? Never heard of buying a copyright?
The device of copyright (right to copy, get it? Not right to buy) was devised precisely because ideas are completely different to physical objects.
I agree, but this has nothing to do with the fact that information can, and is bought and sold. None of these arguments saying that somehow you can't fundamentally sell information, are extremely lacking in logic and awareness of the real world. They seem to be emotional and political arguments based on how some slashdotters want the world to be, not based on how it actually is. Maybe you disagree with the buying and selling of information, but it is perfectly possible and legal.
That is merely your preception or perhaps your intent.
No, it's the reality.
In fact you do pay only for the media and the processing of it. Information simply has no attributes which would make a transaction of its sale possible.What the hell are you talking about? Why can't one make a transaction involving information? What are these "attributes" you are talking about? If I were just paying for the media - then I should be just as happy with a blank CD, as one with information on it. But I would be very angry if I did not get the information I paid for.
But you would be paying for the labour of producing the information, not the information itself as it has no possible way of being traded.
Are you stupid? I would not be paying for the labour. What if it took no labour to produce the information? That does not make the information any less useul. And yes, information can be traded. It can be stored electronically, or on paper, and sold.
Which knowledge becomes instantly reproductible, with no effort, by mere words of "It is going to rain tonight", uttered on the phone to a friend. Which, if you wish to remain logically consistent, constitutes a "theft" of that precious information, no?
No, it does not consitute theft. Tell me where I said it would. but the fact that I can hear the weather from a friend, does not stop that information from being sold to the first person. Your remarks about "leading to totalitarianism" and "defeating the fundamental properties of information" are also absurd.
Yes, you can trade information without being totalitarian. And no, you don't have to "defeat" anything in order to trade in information. Like Google, you can use the properties of information to your advantage, even though the same information is available to everyone else for the taking.
"Paying for the information" is a semantical construct resulting form the english language's inability to differentiate between such details in a simple sentence.
No, it's based on the reality of what people pay for. You are the one making semantic arguments. It does not matter one whit how much effort goes into gathering the information. It doesn't matter who owns it, or who transmits it. Totally irrelevant to the customer - the customer just wants information or entertainment.
Then you are not paying for any copyrighted or patented work, right? Because any attempts to enforce copyright or patents in a digital world must lead to tyranny in one way or another.
That's bullshit. Copyright law doesn't control me. It allows me to reimburse people for their efforts in publishing information. Now, groups like the RIAA may abuse this system for nefarious purposes. But I'm prefectly happy with reasonable copyright law.
There is simply no other way.
There are plenty of other ways, and you don't provide any evidence that copyright inexorably leads to tyranny. You say ANy attempt to enforce copyright law leads to this. How about if I attempt to enforce my copyright by saying "pretty please, don't copy my work." Is that tyranny in your world?
then the only possible outcome which would preserve that model is a total, complete lockdown of all digital equipment.
No. You could accept that in the digital age, people will violate copyright, and it's not worth going to ridiculous lengths to enforce or lock down content. You realize that most people want to pay for good products, and concentrate on making a product that can better compete in the modern world. Having a working copyright system does not mean you have to prevent all copying. After all, copying is allowed for "fair use" purposes. It does not mean you have to go nuts over every copyright violation.
Is it ignorance then which makes your payments "unwilling"?
Fuck you. Your post has been very offensive and made many assumptions about me so far, but this is just over the top.
Consider his point that pirates destroy the incentive to create new software. He's saying that the pirates are responsible for keeping people from releasing quality software.
Did you even read my post? You know, the part where I say I agree with this?
It's a reasonable idea in a reasonable letter.
No, I don't think it's reasonable to go around calling people thieves. It's not reasonable to go around with this aggressive attitude - computer clubs were very friendly and relaxed back then. Nobody had nefarious intent, even if Gates did consider them scum.
Maybe they should have read this letter and taken it seriously. =)
Which brings us back to my point - if he wanted people to take him seriously, he shouldn't have acted like a jerk. He could have said the same thing without being an asshole... Well, Gates might not have been able to say the same thing without being an assholes - because assholishness oozes from his every pore, and is encapsulated in everything he does. The guy must be a walking orifice.
the GIMP doesn't qualify as anywhere near professional. It is an underfeatured amateur raster editing app, that is no good for print work, and doesn't even support CMYK. And a graphic artist cannot work with just a raster programme, even if the GIMP was of a professional standard - you also need vector tools, layout tools and typography tools.
The GIMP is fine for simple web graphics, but not serious work.
If you don't buy iPods for Christ, God will kick your ass! I always thought just saying a prayer was more appropriate, but God is angry and Jesus knows Kung Fu.
Then lets examine each of these closer. What do you pay for in a book? The paper? The printing process or the ink?
I don't know about you, but I pay for the intellectual or creative content. The paper and ink is worthless to me. When I buy eBooks, I don't pay for the DRM, or the bytes. I pay for the content. I buy books, electronic or paper, based on whether they can inform me, emotionally or factually.
but if it were so, you would be entitled to move it out of the book to any other medium of your choice, in perpetuity. Is it so?
Yes, once the copyright expires. I buy lots of Shakespeare plays - but I can reproduce Shakespeare's insight as much as I please. Even under copyright, I can tranfer what I learned from the books to others, as long as I don't copy the text outright.
As a matter of fact, your mistaken presumption comes from the process of coupling the information and a physical object, such as a book or a vinyl record or a CD, and then claiming that the sale of the physical object constitutes a sale of the information.
No. I pay for the creation of the work. I would rather not pay for the compilation - but even if that were free, I would voluntarily pay people who provide me with unique or interesting information. Because of the history of the medium, the cost of creation tends to be bundled with the cost of compilation and distribution. I am in favor of all methods of unlinking these, so I can give more money to people who create intellectual value, rather than those who merely package it.
Then there is a service of providing information, like weather reports or newspapers. Which is a wholly different process, based upon not the sale of information itself, which has no attributes which could make that possible, but on the labour of gathering and disseminating it.
What the hell are you rambling about? People who buy weather information are paying for the information. They don't care how much effort it took to gather - they just want to know what the weather report is!
Some people take that as a license to attempt to control what we think in order to make us do things beneficial to them. This process of thought control is none other then the one advocated by the would be feudal lords of "Intellectual Property".
What does this have to do with anything I have said? I would never willingly pay for information from someone who sought to "control" me. I look for the opposite. The information I want to pay for is the information that is useful, or challenges me. If someone wants to control me, then I will do my best to thwart them, not give them money.
The Altair was not a "Personal Computer" by any means. It was an electronic hobbyist's computer. It was a kit, for fuck's sake. The Commodore and Apple machines were extremely popular, long after they were obsolete. The IBM PC was either a very expensive toy, or a business machine, until Windows 95 popularized it.
Information is not, under any possible definition that can withstand even a most cursory test of logic, an object which can be traded.
Sorry, that is plainly incorrect. People pay for books. People pay for newspapers and weather reports. People pay for employees who have knowledge. Information is an extremely valuable asset. "The pen is mightier than the sword" is an old saying.
I think the exact opposite - Gates is right that software piracy does not help advance the state of computer software. However, he was completely wrong to sound like a total prick when he said this. He was totally stupid to talk about "kicking people out of the club." That's just immature and smacks of personal insecurity. If he thought his idea had strength, he would not need to express it in such a childish manner.
The computing world might be a lot better today if Bill Gates wasn't such an insufferable prick with no social skills.
Slashdot Mirror
Does it happen to affect 51% of Americans?
More like a few cents each, depending on the quality of the caddy, could even be more.
Corporations get the benefits of being considered legal persons - so why shouldn't they have the same ethical responsibilities as actual human persons?
What? Don't you mean "pay back all the money we borrowed from the Chinese"? I think the cash will be flowing in the opposite direction to what you assume.
Why can't Google use their software and networking geniuses to write a killer anti-censorship application, to help Chinese users access the outside world, and hide the access from the authorities? I mean, assuming they actually cared about freedom and information, "doing no evil," rather than just profits?
It's perfectly cromulent, Rovian thinking. Anyone who disobeys or disagrees with the administration is a traitor, and deserves to go down. Even writing a letter to the editor gets you investigated for sedition.
In reality, google has other options. It could, for example, make a free utility to help less-experienced users easily bypass the censorship and get to uncensored Google.com.
It could also take a stand, based on "do no evil" and use its vast online resources to speak out against the Chinese and other totalitarians, and educate people.
As for "more peaceful" etc. - surely you can't be talking about China? I believe America is borderline fascist, and not much better than China. But things still aren't as bad as China. But if we continue sucking up to foreign fascists, that will only accelerate fascism back home.
Google is not a Chinese company, it is American. And Americans certainly have the right to regulate and impose ruiles on how US companies trade overseas.
If they want the censor the internet from their people, so be it. Let their people decide when enough is enough.
that's fine, but why does a US company have to help censor and oppress people? How will we know what they have decided for themselves, if the dissidents are censored?
Man, sometimes I wish freedom of speech didn't exist so morons like you would quit thinking everyone if the world needs to change to be more like the US.
Which very well demonstrates why you should not be taken seriously. Not only do you get the facts wrong, you have a lot of hate and contempt for people. I don't think anyone is saying this is about forcing China to do anything. It's about them simply refusing to get involved in human-rights abuses. Would you argue the same way about companies supplying poison gas to the Nazis to be explicitly used for human extermination? If not, what's the difference? If so - then you must be an evil person if you put corporate profits over people's lives, even if they do not live in your own country.
I suspect that your hatred for people might stem from hatred of yourself, and projection of your foul personal beliefs onto others.
You can't run a company using slave labor, even if it would make more profit.
No, it isn't. Fire a light-speed projectile through an enemy space-ship. In the vacuum of space, it is likely to come out the other side, and keep going. But it has still been very effective as a weapon. Or consider an electricity-based weapon. It is the transfer of energy - increased movement of particles - that caused the electrocutions of burns, not the lack of motion.
My blender would disagree with you, as would my flamethrower. Both are pretty harmless when stopped, but when they get started can cause all kids of carnage.
But no definition of "sale" requires that the recipient own anything in exchange for the sale. All that is required is an exchange of money:
One does not own the babysitting service, when one buys babysitting services. Does this mean that one cannot sell a service? Of course not! the first definition of "sale" includes services.
The fact that "people" do something does not render it valid nor sane. What you just presented is a logical fallacy of Argumentum ad Populum.
I never said anything about the moral values of selling information. I just said it was possible, which it obviously is. I never said it was morally right. Many things are possible that are not morally right. Is it impossible to detonate a nuclear bomb, just because it is not morally correct?
Service falls under the category of labour. One can perform labour for pay and such labour can be measured by the change of state of physical objects,
But what if the service involves no labour?
By capturing the appropriate neural signals, measuring and digitizing them. The difficulty is merely technological.
But you are talking about a highly subjective thing. An orgasm is not just "neural impulses" - the same neural impulses in another person would not produce the same results in somebody else. Because my sexual preferences and experiences are different to yours. I am married to a different person than you, etc.
Anyway, I need sleep, and cannot reply to the rest of your post tonight. The rest of this is interesting trivia - but you will not understand my posts unless you address the first points I made about morality and the semantics of "selling."
No. the bigger the film/sensor area, the more the light has to "spread out" to cover the sensor. In other words, it needs to be magnified. This is why large format lenses let much less light through than small-format lenses. For example, you can get f1.0 lenses for 35mm film, and f0.8 lenses for smaller cinema or video and still film formats. Meanwhile, it is difficult (and expensive!) to get lenses faster than f2.8 for medium format, and f5.6 to f11 is a typical open aperture for a large-format camera.
Basically, you have it exactly backwards. Now, because of the pixel size for digital, or the size of the halide (grain) structure for film, it is easier to get high resolution in a larger sensor or film size. but to get that, you trade-off image brightness, and therefore have to increase film speed or increase grain if you want to use the same shutter speeds.
So what? Just because something is not physical, and can be copied, does not mean it can't be sold. people sell software all the time, and it can be copied.
This and many other, similar characteristcs (like for example a mathematical equivalence of a song and a large integer number) are what makes trade in information, in accordance with long established mercantile rules impossible.
But it obviously is possible, as it happens every day.
You are confusing a service of processing information, which Google provides and "trade" in it. No surprise here, really.
A service is just a concept, it has no physical presence. So how can one sell a service? What is the physical object that Google is selling?
I am not sure what your argument is here. That because people want enterntainment we have to treat information as if were physical object? Is that it?
When did I ever say that information should be treated like a physical object? Who is saying it should be?
Make sure you do not listen to the CD though, because if you do and then sell it, you already have two copies of the information present and, according to your convoluted logic you are a "thief", no? Same goes for playing it loud, in a non-sound proofed house as the passer bys are commiting "theft" as they walk by your window, right?
No. I never said that that copyright infringement was theft. And listening to someone else's music in that manner is not even copyright infringement. Why are you arguing with things I never said?
So let me get this straight, you are paying for something which took no effort to produce and which presumably existed outside the activities of the "seller" and which can be reproduced at will, which is what the "seller" does.
Yes, why not? It often good to pay for convenience, even if it might be available for free elsewhere.
Then you are being logically inconsistent. I simply assumed, wrongly it seems, that you would prefer to be consistent. The weather report is either someone's "intellectual property" or it is not.
Raw facts are not Intellectual Property. But facts are information. You claimed that one can't sell information. The fact is, you can. just because you can sell information, doesn't make it anyone's property.
For example, I meet a terrorist who knows where a nuclear bomb is planted. I offer him 10 million dollars if he tells me where the bomb is. Now, nobody "owns" the fact as such - but only he has access to it. So I buy the information from him. Now I have that information. Is that somehow not buying information?
Any information can be, as a matter of fact established long ago by Shannon's information theory,
I thought that one couldn't "own" ideas or information, yet you are saying that this theory belongs to Shannon? Not to mention that it is just a theory, that has not be experimentally proven. How do i represent the bliss of an orgasm in a number?
In any case, your point is rather irrelevant. Just because someone cannot own a number - does not mean that numbers cannot be sold. Selling is about the act of selling, not whether you get anything from it.
And then you claim that further reproduction of it constitutes "theft"? Am I missing something?
Yes. You are missing the fact that I never claimed anything about "theft."
Really? Then you can copy or retransmit the information you "purchased" to your heart content? Or perheaps copyright controls your actions in that regard? Which is it?
I have no need to copy or retransmit - so it can hardly be contyrolling me when that's something I never wanted to do, and I agreed to the licensing terms. Besides, I can restransmi
Why? If this were the case, why is content bought and sold every day? When a producer buys a film script, do you think they are buying the actual paper and ink? No, they are buying the story.
The content is ideas in somebody else's head.
Which they have written down or otherwise stored. And if it actually lives in someone else's head, what about dead people? What about authors who get amnesia? The content still exists, even though it is no longer in their head.Try to claim any ownership of the content after buying a copy of it and see how you are laughed all the way to you jail cell.
But accessing the information is not the same as claiming ownership of it. And also, it is true in some cases. Public Domain information is "owned" by everybody.
Also, in my field of work, people buy the actual content all the time. Never heard of selling a film script? Never heard of buying a copyright?
The device of copyright (right to copy, get it? Not right to buy) was devised precisely because ideas are completely different to physical objects.
I agree, but this has nothing to do with the fact that information can, and is bought and sold. None of these arguments saying that somehow you can't fundamentally sell information, are extremely lacking in logic and awareness of the real world. They seem to be emotional and political arguments based on how some slashdotters want the world to be, not based on how it actually is. Maybe you disagree with the buying and selling of information, but it is perfectly possible and legal.
No, it's the reality.
In fact you do pay only for the media and the processing of it. Information simply has no attributes which would make a transaction of its sale possible.What the hell are you talking about? Why can't one make a transaction involving information? What are these "attributes" you are talking about? If I were just paying for the media - then I should be just as happy with a blank CD, as one with information on it. But I would be very angry if I did not get the information I paid for.
But you would be paying for the labour of producing the information, not the information itself as it has no possible way of being traded.
Are you stupid? I would not be paying for the labour. What if it took no labour to produce the information? That does not make the information any less useul. And yes, information can be traded. It can be stored electronically, or on paper, and sold.
Which knowledge becomes instantly reproductible, with no effort, by mere words of "It is going to rain tonight", uttered on the phone to a friend. Which, if you wish to remain logically consistent, constitutes a "theft" of that precious information, no?
No, it does not consitute theft. Tell me where I said it would. but the fact that I can hear the weather from a friend, does not stop that information from being sold to the first person. Your remarks about "leading to totalitarianism" and "defeating the fundamental properties of information" are also absurd.
Yes, you can trade information without being totalitarian. And no, you don't have to "defeat" anything in order to trade in information. Like Google, you can use the properties of information to your advantage, even though the same information is available to everyone else for the taking.
"Paying for the information" is a semantical construct resulting form the english language's inability to differentiate between such details in a simple sentence.
No, it's based on the reality of what people pay for. You are the one making semantic arguments. It does not matter one whit how much effort goes into gathering the information. It doesn't matter who owns it, or who transmits it. Totally irrelevant to the customer - the customer just wants information or entertainment.
Then you are not paying for any copyrighted or patented work, right? Because any attempts to enforce copyright or patents in a digital world must lead to tyranny in one way or another.
That's bullshit. Copyright law doesn't control me. It allows me to reimburse people for their efforts in publishing information. Now, groups like the RIAA may abuse this system for nefarious purposes. But I'm prefectly happy with reasonable copyright law.
There is simply no other way.
There are plenty of other ways, and you don't provide any evidence that copyright inexorably leads to tyranny. You say ANy attempt to enforce copyright law leads to this. How about if I attempt to enforce my copyright by saying "pretty please, don't copy my work." Is that tyranny in your world?
then the only possible outcome which would preserve that model is a total, complete lockdown of all digital equipment.
No. You could accept that in the digital age, people will violate copyright, and it's not worth going to ridiculous lengths to enforce or lock down content. You realize that most people want to pay for good products, and concentrate on making a product that can better compete in the modern world. Having a working copyright system does not mean you have to prevent all copying. After all, copying is allowed for "fair use" purposes. It does not mean you have to go nuts over every copyright violation.
Is it ignorance then which makes your payments "unwilling"?
Fuck you. Your post has been very offensive and made many assumptions about me so far, but this is just over the top.
Did you even read my post? You know, the part where I say I agree with this?
It's a reasonable idea in a reasonable letter.
No, I don't think it's reasonable to go around calling people thieves. It's not reasonable to go around with this aggressive attitude - computer clubs were very friendly and relaxed back then. Nobody had nefarious intent, even if Gates did consider them scum.
Maybe they should have read this letter and taken it seriously. =)
Which brings us back to my point - if he wanted people to take him seriously, he shouldn't have acted like a jerk. He could have said the same thing without being an asshole... Well, Gates might not have been able to say the same thing without being an assholes - because assholishness oozes from his every pore, and is encapsulated in everything he does. The guy must be a walking orifice.
The GIMP is fine for simple web graphics, but not serious work.
If you don't buy iPods for Christ, God will kick your ass! I always thought just saying a prayer was more appropriate, but God is angry and Jesus knows Kung Fu.
I don't know about you, but I pay for the intellectual or creative content. The paper and ink is worthless to me. When I buy eBooks, I don't pay for the DRM, or the bytes. I pay for the content. I buy books, electronic or paper, based on whether they can inform me, emotionally or factually.
but if it were so, you would be entitled to move it out of the book to any other medium of your choice, in perpetuity. Is it so?
Yes, once the copyright expires. I buy lots of Shakespeare plays - but I can reproduce Shakespeare's insight as much as I please. Even under copyright, I can tranfer what I learned from the books to others, as long as I don't copy the text outright.
As a matter of fact, your mistaken presumption comes from the process of coupling the information and a physical object, such as a book or a vinyl record or a CD, and then claiming that the sale of the physical object constitutes a sale of the information.
No. I pay for the creation of the work. I would rather not pay for the compilation - but even if that were free, I would voluntarily pay people who provide me with unique or interesting information. Because of the history of the medium, the cost of creation tends to be bundled with the cost of compilation and distribution. I am in favor of all methods of unlinking these, so I can give more money to people who create intellectual value, rather than those who merely package it.
Then there is a service of providing information, like weather reports or newspapers. Which is a wholly different process, based upon not the sale of information itself, which has no attributes which could make that possible, but on the labour of gathering and disseminating it.
What the hell are you rambling about? People who buy weather information are paying for the information. They don't care how much effort it took to gather - they just want to know what the weather report is!
Some people take that as a license to attempt to control what we think in order to make us do things beneficial to them. This process of thought control is none other then the one advocated by the would be feudal lords of "Intellectual Property".
What does this have to do with anything I have said? I would never willingly pay for information from someone who sought to "control" me. I look for the opposite. The information I want to pay for is the information that is useful, or challenges me. If someone wants to control me, then I will do my best to thwart them, not give them money.
The Altair was not a "Personal Computer" by any means. It was an electronic hobbyist's computer. It was a kit, for fuck's sake. The Commodore and Apple machines were extremely popular, long after they were obsolete. The IBM PC was either a very expensive toy, or a business machine, until Windows 95 popularized it.
If that were true, why is there no Free professional graphics software that comes anywhere near the commercial offerings in terms of quality?
Sorry, that is plainly incorrect. People pay for books. People pay for newspapers and weather reports. People pay for employees who have knowledge. Information is an extremely valuable asset. "The pen is mightier than the sword" is an old saying.
The computing world might be a lot better today if Bill Gates wasn't such an insufferable prick with no social skills.