Amazon is making a killing off of Kindle books and they're not passing that on to subsidize the price of the Kindle device. Without subsidies, they could sell that device for almost half and make a decent living on it. With subsidies, they could those suckers for $50 - easily.
I think part of the problem is that they can't make them fast enough to meet demand. This is just speculation based on the availability problems the Kindle has had, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. E-Ink displays aren't exactly a common consumer technology at the moment. When it does become common, and manufacturing issues are sorted out, you probably will see those kind of prices.
If you can't make enough to meet demand, why would you lower prices?
You can go on all you like about how evil and stupid publishers are,
Yes, we can.
I'm not so sure about evil, but most publishers really are fucking stupid. Not just slightly dumb, but so stupid you wonder how they put on their shoes in the morning. Which makes it unsurprising that they would fall for a plan like "Skiff." I can just see them ooohhhing and aaahhhing at the Powerpoint presentation and the fancy buzzwords.
Are you 13 years old or something? It is one of the more famous and influential online journals. It would be pretty difficult to have not heard of it, unless you just play video games and don't actually read anything intelligent online.
When I pay you to give me information, I do not become the owner of that information.
You don't become the owner, but you become an owner.
Those aren't mutually exclusive. I'm paying you for the service because I want the information.
The "service" you speak of is called "selling" - therefore, the information is sold to you. Once again, you continue to twist common words whose meaning is quite settled and well understood.
You're the one trying to redefine the term, pal. The common meaning of ownership is all about exclusivity.
Assuming it is (is isn't) - if I was the only person in the world in possession of a certain piece of information, wouldn't that make me the owner, as I have exclusive control over it? I don't see how you could argue otherwise (unless you were being disingenuous or stupid) - thus your claim that "information is not subject to ownership" is falsified.
After all, if information could be owned by everyone who heard it, that "would mean that effectively, the property belongs to The People - society as a whole. Quite a socialistic/communistic idea, wouldn't you say?" [slashdot.org]
Indeed. The mistake you make is thinking that my calling something socialistic means I disagree with it. I don't. I have no problem with collective ownership of ideas and information. What I was doing there was arguing rhetorically against idiotic hardline libertarian/capitalist ideals.
No, you can't sell it to me. What you can do is charge me for the service of disclosing that information to me.
Also known as "selling the information to you". You are just playing stupid semantic games to push an agenda. This is as stupid as saying that when you buy a book, you are paying for the service of me handing you the book, rather than the book itself. You are not paying me a for a service, you are paying me because you want the information.
I'll know that information, but I won't have control of it; I'll have no ability to stop anyone else who knows that information from doing whatever they want with it.
Actually, copyright and patent laws do give you the ability to stop people from "doing whatever they want" with it.
You know it, but you only control your own actions; you have no control over what anyone else does with that information once they learn it.
How does that make it not ownership? If I download a piece of FOSS software, I own that copy, despite the fact that plenty of other people own copies. Your argument makes no sense from a linguistic or logical perspective, unless you redefine how "ownership" is commonly meant. Hint: nothing about "ownership" requires it to be exclusive. For example, all Americans "own" the National Parks - but by your initial logic, this is impossible. But in the real world, collective ownership is a common phenomenon and principle.
You know it, but you only control your own actions; you have no control over what anyone else does with that information once they learn it.
An invention is both a concept and implementation - but calling it a "fact" would be a very unusual use of the English language. Not surprising, really, because you've been twisting the language this entire discussion.
Ownership is a means to resolve usage conflicts, and it only applies to things for which those conflicts exist.
Simply untrue. In its most basic form, ownership is simply to possess something. Since I can possess information, I can own it. And somebody else also owning it doesn't make me a non-owner.
Information, on the other hand, is not subject to any of these conflicts. I can listen to a song without interfering with your ability to listen to it. I can watch a movie while you're re-editing it.
But if I keep the information to myself, I own it exclusively, and you can't use it. I could sell it to you. That's why we have things like trade secrets and Non-Disclosure Agreements. That's why companies value the commercial information they own so highly.
Regardless of your theoretical fantasy world, ownership of information is actually codified into law and society. Even the laws are unnecessary. If I see your wife sleeping with somebody, I could say "do you want to know who's sleeping with your wife? Give me two goats and a piece of cheese."
Inventions are facts
No, inventions are implementations. They may use facts and principles, but it is odd to call them "facts". "Devices" would be a more useful term.
Uh... no. Does the number 123 belong to The People? How about the fact that Albany is the capital of New York, does that belong to The People?
Aside from your utter wrongness about information not being subject to ownership, even more bizarre is the way you equate software with widely available facts. Do you believe that software somehow exists in nature, and is just waiting to be stumbled across?
Software is not a product of nature. It is the fruit of human labor and intellect. It must be written, you don't just discover it. Furthermore, it is non-obvious. Ask 10 programmers to write a video compression routine, and you'll get 10 different routines. There's almost unlimited scope for creativity and innovation. There isn't just one true way of compressing video that's obvious - new techniques continue to be invented and evolved.
So software is an invention, not a a fact. And patents apply to inventions. In any case, nobody suggested that facts like capital cities should be patentable, so why would you use that as an example in a discussion about software patents?
But otherwise capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production and property. Patents are neither.
Patents are both, and to say that capitalism is against them is absurd. you are confusing capitalism with the "free market" when the two are usually at odds.
While 37 cars are certainly a real thing, and a piece of paper that happens to have the number 37 written on it is certainly a real thing, most people do not consider the number 37 to be an actual "real thing".
37 is a real number, and most people consider it so. In fact, it's defined in mathematics as a"real number". Only the insane or stupid would deny the reality of 37.
most people do not consider addition or other math functions to be an actual "real thing".
Where did you get this idea from? Did you do a poll, because you must live among some weird people, or just be making this up. And why are you attaching "thingness" to the concept of reality? What do you mean by that, a physical object? because a thing doesn't have to be a physical object. Ask somebody is slavery is a real thing or not.
I'm not sure why you're changing the argument. the post I was replying to did not say software is not a "real thing," it software isn't real, full stop. You attached the "thing," but even that doesn't change the matter at hand.
Paper or a computer disk with with numbers or mathematical functions on it is real paper and a real disk, but the numbers and math on them are not commonly considered to possess "reality" themselves.
Apart from the fact that people do commonly assign reality to numbers and mathematical functions, and other concepts, of course.
Of course, software is real, and it also exists as more than a concept. "Firefox" exists as actual working code. Moreover that code physically alters reality. Software changes the way electrons flow through your computer. It changes the light being emitted from your monitor. For you to argue software isn't real, you'd have to deny the reality of electrons and light.
We could go even further - bugs in software can kill people. Or I could program a robot to hunt down and kill you. Would you say software wasn't real then? Would you dismiss a ten ton robot with kill-blades chasing you as imaginary? That would not be a wise choice.
On the other hand, I could invent a new corkscrew or mousetrap with a few hours tooling around in the workshop. While developing complex new software might take a team of people two years of hard work.
I don't think this argument really holds up, unless you are willing to invalidate hardware patents that didn't take much time and money, while validating software patents that did take time and money. And then you end up penalizing the inventor with the brilliant stroke of genius for a simple yet effective idea, while rewarding the inventor who toils over a mediocre idea that isn't very effective.
Wait, what? If software isn't real, then how does your computer run? Do you also think that electrons aren't real? Are you saying that programmers are just scam artists who invoke mass hallucination in the public who uses their software?
I know slashdot is pretty crazy when it comes to IP and copyright - but this is a new level of insanity. Software most certainly is real.
Walling off sections of the free market through legal force? If you think opposing patents is "socialist", you don't know what the word means.
Patents are a form of property right - a very capitalistic thing. Not having patents or other IP protections would mean that effectively, the property belongs to The People - society as a whole. Quite a socialistic/communistic idea, wouldn't you say?
That seems very weird to me. A "techie" should be embracing (good) disruptive technology. It would bother me to employ or work with a technician who was afraid of change and new ideas. It would indicate that you aren't really interested in technology - but you just want a nice, safe job where you don't have to learn anything new.
Before the Internet nobody but those with lots of money could ever transmit their ideas broadly. Before, say, the 1900's, nobody could, period.
Hold on a minute. This statement is patently absurd on its face.
There were mass religious movements prior to 1900 which propagated their ideas broadly. There were empires such as the Roman and British which transmitted their ideas across continents. They sure as hell had a lot bigger audience than the typical internet user does today. Sure, you might be globally accessible, but nobody is listening yo your ideas.
... so he’d have to be extradited, unless he foolishly decided to come here for some reason
Oh, that's easy. Just send him an email claiming to be from a former New Zealand prince and ambassador to the US, who has $1 million locked up in a US bank account which can't be accessed unless someone travels to the US to make the withdrawal on his behalf.
That doesn't help, as that is a particularly useless pairing of words that borders on being meaningless. Does that mean that somebody who prints books on a manual offset printer is in IT? After all, he's manipulating information with technology.
That will probably happen to computers too, and is most likely already happening.
Where have you been for the last 20 years? That is exactly what has been going on. Did you not notice that Microsoft and Intel have become industry giants on the back of crappy clone hardware?
The computing industry is plagued with this problem. For some reason, when it comes to cars or clothes, people understand that sometimes it's better to pay more to get a quality product. But when it comes to computing, it's almost always a race to the bottom, to buy the cheapest junk possible. We even have the situation where people are infecting their own machines with dangerous malware because they are too cheap to buy software.
Things are changing, though. I think this has been the case in the past because people didn't really like computers, or identify with them. They were just necessary evils that one had to buy for work or study. But now that computers are an essential part of daily life, and increasingly status symbols or social identifiers, people are starting to recognize quality in both hardware and software.
So, you're saying that Intellectual Property laws don't exist? That's on a similar level of reality denial as believing in Santa God or the Tooth Bunny.
They don't see brands as being important. They buy Nike because they're being played like a fiddle by experienced marketers
It's kind of irrelevant if they are being scammed or not, one could make the same argument about Americans. The fact is that the consumers are buying "brands" - whether because of the marketing or the perceived or actual quality. I know that fashion labels are huge for the Chinese upper-middle class. So, there is obviously some importance being attached to them.
"Chinese manufacturers just don't see brands as being important."
That sounds more on the money to me, but I'm not entirely convinced. Does the fact that China has few wildly successful brands mean that companies don't understand the value of branding, or just that they haven't had much success in their attempts at it? I know that there are Chinese artists who have become very successful at selling and branding their works.
If we look at it on a another level, Mao was a very successful brand in China (and the Little Red Book has enormous brand success worldwide). Perhaps we are only seeing the emergence of multiple brands, where previously there was only one?
Slashdot Mirror
Amazon is making a killing off of Kindle books and they're not passing that on to subsidize the price of the Kindle device. Without subsidies, they could sell that device for almost half and make a decent living on it. With subsidies, they could those suckers for $50 - easily.
I think part of the problem is that they can't make them fast enough to meet demand. This is just speculation based on the availability problems the Kindle has had, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. E-Ink displays aren't exactly a common consumer technology at the moment. When it does become common, and manufacturing issues are sorted out, you probably will see those kind of prices.
If you can't make enough to meet demand, why would you lower prices?
You can go on all you like about how evil and stupid publishers are,
Yes, we can.
I'm not so sure about evil, but most publishers really are fucking stupid. Not just slightly dumb, but so stupid you wonder how they put on their shoes in the morning. Which makes it unsurprising that they would fall for a plan like "Skiff." I can just see them ooohhhing and aaahhhing at the Powerpoint presentation and the fancy buzzwords.
Yeah, god forbid they run stories about topics that you personally aren't interested in, or acknowledge the existence of women.
Are you 13 years old or something? It is one of the more famous and influential online journals. It would be pretty difficult to have not heard of it, unless you just play video games and don't actually read anything intelligent online.
When I pay you to give me information, I do not become the owner of that information.
You don't become the owner, but you become an owner.
Those aren't mutually exclusive. I'm paying you for the service because I want the information.
The "service" you speak of is called "selling" - therefore, the information is sold to you. Once again, you continue to twist common words whose meaning is quite settled and well understood.
You're the one trying to redefine the term, pal. The common meaning of ownership is all about exclusivity.
Assuming it is (is isn't) - if I was the only person in the world in possession of a certain piece of information, wouldn't that make me the owner, as I have exclusive control over it? I don't see how you could argue otherwise (unless you were being disingenuous or stupid) - thus your claim that "information is not subject to ownership" is falsified.
After all, if information could be owned by everyone who heard it, that "would mean that effectively, the property belongs to The People - society as a whole. Quite a socialistic/communistic idea, wouldn't you say?" [slashdot.org]
Indeed. The mistake you make is thinking that my calling something socialistic means I disagree with it. I don't. I have no problem with collective ownership of ideas and information. What I was doing there was arguing rhetorically against idiotic hardline libertarian/capitalist ideals.
No, you can't sell it to me. What you can do is charge me for the service of disclosing that information to me.
Also known as "selling the information to you". You are just playing stupid semantic games to push an agenda. This is as stupid as saying that when you buy a book, you are paying for the service of me handing you the book, rather than the book itself. You are not paying me a for a service, you are paying me because you want the information.
I'll know that information, but I won't have control of it; I'll have no ability to stop anyone else who knows that information from doing whatever they want with it.
Actually, copyright and patent laws do give you the ability to stop people from "doing whatever they want" with it.
You know it, but you only control your own actions; you have no control over what anyone else does with that information once they learn it.
How does that make it not ownership? If I download a piece of FOSS software, I own that copy, despite the fact that plenty of other people own copies. Your argument makes no sense from a linguistic or logical perspective, unless you redefine how "ownership" is commonly meant. Hint: nothing about "ownership" requires it to be exclusive. For example, all Americans "own" the National Parks - but by your initial logic, this is impossible. But in the real world, collective ownership is a common phenomenon and principle.
You know it, but you only control your own actions; you have no control over what anyone else does with that information once they learn it.
An invention is both a concept and implementation - but calling it a "fact" would be a very unusual use of the English language. Not surprising, really, because you've been twisting the language this entire discussion.
Go back and read PoIR's essay linked to above. He proves the exact opposite of what you just said (Goedel numbers, Turing equivalence, etc.).
I could also come up with all kinds of bogus theories, but that wouldn't make them true.
Ownership is a means to resolve usage conflicts, and it only applies to things for which those conflicts exist.
Simply untrue. In its most basic form, ownership is simply to possess something. Since I can possess information, I can own it. And somebody else also owning it doesn't make me a non-owner.
Information, on the other hand, is not subject to any of these conflicts. I can listen to a song without interfering with your ability to listen to it. I can watch a movie while you're re-editing it.
But if I keep the information to myself, I own it exclusively, and you can't use it. I could sell it to you. That's why we have things like trade secrets and Non-Disclosure Agreements. That's why companies value the commercial information they own so highly.
Regardless of your theoretical fantasy world, ownership of information is actually codified into law and society. Even the laws are unnecessary. If I see your wife sleeping with somebody, I could say "do you want to know who's sleeping with your wife? Give me two goats and a piece of cheese."
Inventions are facts
No, inventions are implementations. They may use facts and principles, but it is odd to call them "facts". "Devices" would be a more useful term.
P.S:
Uh... no. Does the number 123 belong to The People? How about the fact that Albany is the capital of New York, does that belong to The People?
Aside from your utter wrongness about information not being subject to ownership, even more bizarre is the way you equate software with widely available facts. Do you believe that software somehow exists in nature, and is just waiting to be stumbled across?
Software is not a product of nature. It is the fruit of human labor and intellect. It must be written, you don't just discover it. Furthermore, it is non-obvious. Ask 10 programmers to write a video compression routine, and you'll get 10 different routines. There's almost unlimited scope for creativity and innovation. There isn't just one true way of compressing video that's obvious - new techniques continue to be invented and evolved.
So software is an invention, not a a fact. And patents apply to inventions. In any case, nobody suggested that facts like capital cities should be patentable, so why would you use that as an example in a discussion about software patents?
But otherwise capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production and property. Patents are neither.
Patents are both, and to say that capitalism is against them is absurd. you are confusing capitalism with the "free market" when the two are usually at odds.
They're information, which is not subject to ownership at all.
Uhh, what? How is information not subject to ownership? Owning information can be a very lucrative business.
While 37 cars are certainly a real thing, and a piece of paper that happens to have the number 37 written on it is certainly a real thing, most people do not consider the number 37 to be an actual "real thing".
37 is a real number, and most people consider it so. In fact, it's defined in mathematics as a"real number". Only the insane or stupid would deny the reality of 37.
most people do not consider addition or other math functions to be an actual "real thing".
Where did you get this idea from? Did you do a poll, because you must live among some weird people, or just be making this up. And why are you attaching "thingness" to the concept of reality? What do you mean by that, a physical object? because a thing doesn't have to be a physical object. Ask somebody is slavery is a real thing or not.
I'm not sure why you're changing the argument. the post I was replying to did not say software is not a "real thing," it software isn't real, full stop. You attached the "thing," but even that doesn't change the matter at hand.
Paper or a computer disk with with numbers or mathematical functions on it is real paper and a real disk, but the numbers and math on them are not commonly considered to possess "reality" themselves.
Apart from the fact that people do commonly assign reality to numbers and mathematical functions, and other concepts, of course.
Of course, software is real, and it also exists as more than a concept. "Firefox" exists as actual working code. Moreover that code physically alters reality. Software changes the way electrons flow through your computer. It changes the light being emitted from your monitor. For you to argue software isn't real, you'd have to deny the reality of electrons and light.
We could go even further - bugs in software can kill people. Or I could program a robot to hunt down and kill you. Would you say software wasn't real then? Would you dismiss a ten ton robot with kill-blades chasing you as imaginary? That would not be a wise choice.
On the other hand, I could invent a new corkscrew or mousetrap with a few hours tooling around in the workshop. While developing complex new software might take a team of people two years of hard work.
I don't think this argument really holds up, unless you are willing to invalidate hardware patents that didn't take much time and money, while validating software patents that did take time and money. And then you end up penalizing the inventor with the brilliant stroke of genius for a simple yet effective idea, while rewarding the inventor who toils over a mediocre idea that isn't very effective.
Software *isn't real*.
Wait, what? If software isn't real, then how does your computer run? Do you also think that electrons aren't real? Are you saying that programmers are just scam artists who invoke mass hallucination in the public who uses their software?
I know slashdot is pretty crazy when it comes to IP and copyright - but this is a new level of insanity. Software most certainly is real.
Walling off sections of the free market through legal force? If you think opposing patents is "socialist", you don't know what the word means.
Patents are a form of property right - a very capitalistic thing. Not having patents or other IP protections would mean that effectively, the property belongs to The People - society as a whole. Quite a socialistic/communistic idea, wouldn't you say?
as a techie, I cringe when I hear this.
That seems very weird to me. A "techie" should be embracing (good) disruptive technology. It would bother me to employ or work with a technician who was afraid of change and new ideas. It would indicate that you aren't really interested in technology - but you just want a nice, safe job where you don't have to learn anything new.
Why is Google even able to review the content? Content should be encrypted.
Ummm, because the story is about sharing the content. If you want others to see your content, encryption is not the best way to go about it.
Before the Internet nobody but those with lots of money could ever transmit their ideas broadly. Before, say, the 1900's, nobody could, period.
Hold on a minute. This statement is patently absurd on its face.
There were mass religious movements prior to 1900 which propagated their ideas broadly. There were empires such as the Roman and British which transmitted their ideas across continents. They sure as hell had a lot bigger audience than the typical internet user does today. Sure, you might be globally accessible, but nobody is listening yo your ideas.
... so he’d have to be extradited, unless he foolishly decided to come here for some reason
Oh, that's easy. Just send him an email claiming to be from a former New Zealand prince and ambassador to the US, who has $1 million locked up in a US bank account which can't be accessed unless someone travels to the US to make the withdrawal on his behalf.
It's a bit like calling a secretary an "office girl".
Or calling an administrative assistant a "secretary."
It means "information technology".
That doesn't help, as that is a particularly useless pairing of words that borders on being meaningless. Does that mean that somebody who prints books on a manual offset printer is in IT? After all, he's manipulating information with technology.
Deptartment
You're right - misspelling "department" in the name of your department is not going to go down well with educated people.
That will probably happen to computers too, and is most likely already happening.
Where have you been for the last 20 years? That is exactly what has been going on. Did you not notice that Microsoft and Intel have become industry giants on the back of crappy clone hardware?
The computing industry is plagued with this problem. For some reason, when it comes to cars or clothes, people understand that sometimes it's better to pay more to get a quality product. But when it comes to computing, it's almost always a race to the bottom, to buy the cheapest junk possible. We even have the situation where people are infecting their own machines with dangerous malware because they are too cheap to buy software.
Things are changing, though. I think this has been the case in the past because people didn't really like computers, or identify with them. They were just necessary evils that one had to buy for work or study. But now that computers are an essential part of daily life, and increasingly status symbols or social identifiers, people are starting to recognize quality in both hardware and software.
So, you're saying that Intellectual Property laws don't exist? That's on a similar level of reality denial as believing in Santa God or the Tooth Bunny.
They don't see brands as being important. They buy Nike because they're being played like a fiddle by experienced marketers
It's kind of irrelevant if they are being scammed or not, one could make the same argument about Americans. The fact is that the consumers are buying "brands" - whether because of the marketing or the perceived or actual quality. I know that fashion labels are huge for the Chinese upper-middle class. So, there is obviously some importance being attached to them.
"Chinese manufacturers just don't see brands as being important."
That sounds more on the money to me, but I'm not entirely convinced. Does the fact that China has few wildly successful brands mean that companies don't understand the value of branding, or just that they haven't had much success in their attempts at it? I know that there are Chinese artists who have become very successful at selling and branding their works.
If we look at it on a another level, Mao was a very successful brand in China (and the Little Red Book has enormous brand success worldwide). Perhaps we are only seeing the emergence of multiple brands, where previously there was only one?