As someone who did not attend Yale and Harvard, I'm glad we can agree those who graduated from those schools are poorly educated. It sure makes my Alma mater look better!
But where are you learning about the wrongs of these narrow-minded zealots? Other narrow-minded zealots on the opposite extreme? I can agree that there are a lot of crazy christian narrow-minded zealots, but I think there are just as many anti-religion narrow-minded zealots. Why can't we just have education books just present multiple popular theories along with the pros and cons of each?
An experienced C++ programmer rarely creates memory leaks, and they are easily detected by a variety of tools.
The REAL problem is that for every good experienced C++ program that doesn't leak memory, that same company has 10 who will. Tools and testing are really the only way.
Apparently you think distribution and availability have no value. You have a very peculiar notion of how people live and businesses work.
Honestly I do have a slightly difference perspective, with a little patience, I find I can buy almost everything I need off the internet at a fraction of the cost of the store. I raise my standard of living fairly significantly from this fact.
So shipping has suddenly become magically free and instantaneous?
In the same way the overhead difference between a shipping warehouse and a retail store is siginificant
I'm supposed to wait 3 days for my groceries to be delivered instead of stopping by the store on my way home?
Ordering them locally and planned ahead of time can get them there on the right day. With efficient warehouse distribution you can always be 1 shipping day from the warehouse
I'm supposed to pay UPS to ship my dry cleaning instead of just stopping by a store?
Many people ignore the overhead cost of maintain and fueling a car as opposed to shipping. The marginal cost of a trip to the dry cleaner if probably more then the UPS driver making just one more stop on his route
I'm supposed to order everything off the internet and wait for delivery instead of going to a store?
Honestly the patience can result in much lower prices for you
Seriously, you claimed that marginal cost has nothing to do with pricing which is a demonstrably false claim.
First of all, I am not claiming this. I am claiming that for the end-consumer market, marginal cost has very little to do with pricing.
My claim is that the large portion of the end-consumer market is largely uniformed and generally illogical. I don't claim this for small business or any other group, because they tend to be much better informed and intelligent on decisions. This causes the rules of economics to break down when applied to these uninformed consumers. I see this a lot in the real world, because everyday, I buy and resell stuff to the end consumer at tidy profit. The only reason I can do this is because a majority of people are too uninformed to buy off the internet. You have to realize that your consumption patterns are probably far different then the majority. The fact that you have taken or remember anything about Econ 101 puts you in the top echelon of intelligence.
From this claim that a large portion of the end-consumer market is uninformed and illogical, I propose the theory that pricing that has little to do with marginal cost can actually be optimum for the seller. While they might not optimize for percentage of rational consumers (at marginal revenue equals marginal cost). Since a larger percentage of revenue will come from the illogical consumer, they need to optimize profits there and that is what this type of pricing is doing.
Look at a lot of products, they advertise towards emotions, feeling and fear. They sell prestige and brand names. They really are trying to exploit the uninformed and illogical customer into making a higher profit on them. Honestly you could lots of groups of similar products where the cheapest one as far as marginal cost sells for the most. This is why I see marginal cost having less to do with pricing rather then the price a consumer is willing to pay.
Economics 101 doesn't account for the real world. The world is full of lazy people that often don't have access to good pricing information. If there was good information on pricing, Brick and Mortar store would practically cease to exist, except maybe Walmart. In the same ways, if people didn't want to pay for convenience then gas stations would only sell gas and not overpriced milk and food.
Essentially the market is splitting into 2 types, those whose research prices and don't pay for convenience and the opposite. Businesses have realized this and used it to their advantage with discriminatory pricing to these two groups. Consider the scam of most Cable companies with "promo" pricing that is practically renewable if you say you want to cancel. Lazy and uninformed end up paying more. This e-book pricing scheme is just discriminatory pricing to those lazy techies who have too much money.
You are under the false assumption that items are priced based on marginal cost. They aren't in practically any market, they are priced at what consumers will pay and what the competition is selling at. Fortunately for them consumers are still willing to pay extra for the digital "convenience" and the competition doesn't sell the same books.
It's is going to be more work finding something that works as opposed to just adjusting your usage. Sad, but true... Plus the more monitors you have the less workspaces you will use. I currently have a 6 monitor setup (4 linux, 2 windows) and from just setting up 4 on linux, I would go with whatever works first. I'm just glad maximize works to maximize the window to a single monitor.
It is a huge step backward, but that is the direction Mass Market Computing is going. Choice and openness generally only bring problems and fragmentation in the market. Look at windows, it can be a mess because of all the "choice" you have. Look at games, a majority of the market has gone to consoles. I believe that computing will go the same way. We, well maybe not slashdot members, but the mass market will all buy the same pre-made (and subsidized) box in exchange for lock-in. Fortunately it will succeed because it will work with less problems then the general platform. Just wait for the PS4 and Xbox 720, they will replace the PC for the majority of users. Apply is just trying to do this in a more portable fashion.
I'm 25, I am a Software Engineer. I make more money then all my friends, except possibly the pharmacist. However I get to do something I enjoy. The problem with programming is a lot of people go into for money and have found out they are a dime a dozen as programmers. It is almost impossible to tell how good of a programmer someone is in a 1 day interview, so companies are forced to hire people at this "skilled" labor rates and hope they pull in some decent programmers.
Well all the data (google) I can find on the timecapsule is that it takes approximately 12-13 watts. So payoff period is more like 8-10 years instead of 2
While Linux is nice (I develop on it for a living), I find that to many people blindly say its better. Even just considering power management, I find windows or even mac can save you a little money with better made drivers. You need to make sure you have the right device to do the job, and the upfront cost of linux doesn't always justify it's use.
By pulling a computer from a dumpster, outfitting it with a $100 hard disk, and installing Linux, I get a giant file server, saving me $200 on an easy backup solution (vs. Apple's Time Capsule). That makes me $200 richer than I would be otherwise, meaning I can use that money elsewhere. With the money I've saved over the years thanks to Linux and other open-source packages, I will soon be taking a Caribbean cruise. Has your "real" Mac ever paid for your vacation?
Little do you realize that your "dumpster" computer pulls quite a bit more power then the power miser time capsule (30w maximum). Considering the cost of electricity a 100w device costs around ~100 a year to run (24/7). So over two years, you are at a negative with your dumpster computer, not to mention the extra time spent setting it up.
Screens are always the weak point of a phone. I would surprised if any lcd screen can withstand a direct contact with only the screen (generally by corners or pointy objects). Thet have the drop issue solved because they assume the casing will absorb the shock on a flat surface.
Working for a phone manufacturer it took us month of back and forth with the LCD manufacturer and reinforcing plastic to make our phone's LCD not break from a 1.5 meter drop. So 10 stories is impressive!
Redbox sure isn't waiting 28 days on Warner Brother release (or Universal). I saw the Hangover(WB release) just a few days after the December 18th release from a redbox. From a previous post someone said that their brother works for Redbox and basically buys every copy from every walmart in the area at midnight and stock machines. If you don't sell to Redbox, they basically with use the First Sale Doctrine without you.
Netflix really only has a few reasons for doing this. They know streaming is the future, and they need to reduce costs to be more profitable. Netflix basically don't have much real competition left and have a lot of momentum. So now they are just focusing on profitability rather then growth and competition.
If they would integrate with the DVR capability of Windows Media Center well, I would consider paying paying for cable (although the $50 a month is still tough). Honestly Media Center with Over the Air broadcasts, 4 tuners, and 3 extenders is the only Microsoft product I have liked in a long time (and saved me tons of money not paying for cable). The first content provider that integrates into this system well with a decent pricing model (pay per channel is the best!) will win my business. Getting raped by cable companies only to get locked in to their junky DVR is not worth it.
And, with piracy being so prevalent now, how can you say harsh punishments have been working?
A crime is prevalent, punishment is not working, let's just make it legal!
It's not the one song that is the problem, it is that you are sharing on the internet. A public form that has billions of people on it. It is very possible that you shared that 1 song 100,000 times. Unfortunately you didn't keep track of everyone that downloaded it. However I bet if you did have nice logs, the court and any sane jury would easily reduce the fine to near copies * normal purchase cost
So fair use is a little different topic, how much control over derivative works a copyright owner has can be a big debate. But how many people are getting a judgment for $625,000 against someone who did a remix or mashup?
People aren't getting harsh punishments for derivative works (remix or mashups), they are getting in trouble for exactly copying an original work
I still think that the punishment weakly correlates with the crime. You shared a song with the entire internet for free. There is the small possibility that many people copied the work because of you and thus weakly correlates to lost money of the copyright owner. Because of the scale of the internet your sharing could approach $625,000 of lost revenue.
If that is too much for you, next time you share just put a logging mechanism on your sharing program. When the RIAA sues you and ask for $625,000, you can say I only have 1000 downloads, so I only should owe you $1000
Yes I don't think we can agree on that. Two wrongs don't make a right in my book. To a point I can agree with cheating a corrupt system, the problem with the copyright system is how do you draw up who is corrupt? There are people that don't abuse the copyright system, can we still steal from them? I personally just try and avoid the corrupt ones and deal as often as possible with those not abusing the system.
If a law is justified, and there aren't cases were breaking the law is justified, I don't see how a harsh punishment is bad. If it is something you shouldn't be doing, easy to know if you are doing and you willfully do it, you should be punished accordingly.
It's more of a matter of difficulty in detection. Consider a crime that is easy to commit, can be commit very often, has very non-obvious or long-term outcomes, and is very hard to detect. How do you stop such a crime? There really isn't anyway to stop such a crime, the only way to prevent it is to get people to agree that the crime is bad and not to do it, or fear the punishment. Harsh punishments work well in the situation.
There are many other Fabs and quality engineering other then intel. I don't think it's a stretch to say that without the burden of copyright one of these other fabs could easy mimic if not straight up copy an intel processor and sell it for a lot less then the cost that intel does. Intel is making a tidy profit, because their competition is low, and there are no new entrants into the x86 market because of copyright and patents
Cost structure is very important, let's take for example a normal cheap PC these days that cost $300. If we looked at all the components in that PC and evaluated them for the raw costs to produce that extra component (with no upfront development costs), I would guess that the PC has about $50-$100 dollar of costs if not less. With no copyright system enforced by the goverment, I propose that we would see intel go out of business because they would never recoup their billion dollar investment in there processor when others copy and sell it just above raw costs.
In fact I would say that a majority of copyrighted material would not be made, because the payback period becomes (profit margin) / (time it takes to copy the item) versus (profit margin) / (time of copyright), This is especially bad for digital media creators because copying is available immediately.
Jaywalking can kill you. It's not a great analogy because its a law design to protect yourself. There are also many situation where jaywalking is to your advantage without risk of injury, so the punishment for subverting the law is small and often unenforced. Walking and transportation are also an essential part of life.
Sharing songs that you didn't make with the entire internet doesn't seems very essential. It really seems like you are just saying a big middle finger to the people who made those songs. It's also a very difficult to come up with a scenario in which breaking the law is justified(Abandoned or lost work?). If it is something that has no justifiable reason, the punishment being harsh seems to be a reasonable deterrent.
Ha! I can see you agree in stronger copyright laws than I do, but only marginally.
Personally I believe there should be much stronger copyright laws with reasonable fair use provision for a much shorter but reasonable time period. This is the only logical conclusion I can come to. Honestly unless you are a commodity laborer, Your value to your company is the creativity and intelligence you put in your job. Trust me, if your company could steal similar creative and intelligent work for free they wouldn't be paying you. Since I contribute my works in exchange for cash, I feel like if I consume works, I should pay cash.
I do agree that the labels have a strangle hold and are abusing the system, but I choose not to cheat the system, but not to support the labels.
How sure are you that Intel needs government enforcement to protect their products?
>
Yes they absolutely do! Trust me the difference between the cost Intel pays for each chip and what you pay is padded with a huge profit and initial investment recoup cost. Copying the design wouldn't be very difficult. There are many methods. Electron Microscope to reverse engineer, paying an insider to give you trade secrets, stealing key employees with intimate knowledge of design. Even if they were 6 months behind technology wise, an x86 compatible computer that ran at 75% of Intel speed for $50-100 would crush Intel's market
Because of the current system, you almost never see Big Corporations subvert the Copyright system because they know they will get sued out of existence. Why worry about the guy in the garage? For the most point it has been ignored, however, the internet has made it so that the guy in a garage can do a lot of damage with little resources. However this doesn't mean we can throw out the copyright system, we just have to start enforcing it equally on everyone.
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who did not attend Yale and Harvard, I'm glad we can agree those who graduated from those schools are poorly educated. It sure makes my Alma mater look better!
But where are you learning about the wrongs of these narrow-minded zealots? Other narrow-minded zealots on the opposite extreme? I can agree that there are a lot of crazy christian narrow-minded zealots, but I think there are just as many anti-religion narrow-minded zealots. Why can't we just have education books just present multiple popular theories along with the pros and cons of each?
An experienced C++ programmer rarely creates memory leaks, and they are easily detected by a variety of tools.
The REAL problem is that for every good experienced C++ program that doesn't leak memory, that same company has 10 who will. Tools and testing are really the only way.
Apparently you think distribution and availability have no value. You have a very peculiar notion of how people live and businesses work.
Honestly I do have a slightly difference perspective, with a little patience, I find I can buy almost everything I need off the internet at a fraction of the cost of the store. I raise my standard of living fairly significantly from this fact.
So shipping has suddenly become magically free and instantaneous?
In the same way the overhead difference between a shipping warehouse and a retail store is siginificant
I'm supposed to wait 3 days for my groceries to be delivered instead of stopping by the store on my way home?
Ordering them locally and planned ahead of time can get them there on the right day. With efficient warehouse distribution you can always be 1 shipping day from the warehouse
I'm supposed to pay UPS to ship my dry cleaning instead of just stopping by a store?
Many people ignore the overhead cost of maintain and fueling a car as opposed to shipping. The marginal cost of a trip to the dry cleaner if probably more then the UPS driver making just one more stop on his route
I'm supposed to order everything off the internet and wait for delivery instead of going to a store?
Honestly the patience can result in much lower prices for you
Seriously, you claimed that marginal cost has nothing to do with pricing which is a demonstrably false claim.
First of all, I am not claiming this. I am claiming that for the end-consumer market, marginal cost has very little to do with pricing.
My claim is that the large portion of the end-consumer market is largely uniformed and generally illogical. I don't claim this for small business or any other group, because they tend to be much better informed and intelligent on decisions. This causes the rules of economics to break down when applied to these uninformed consumers. I see this a lot in the real world, because everyday, I buy and resell stuff to the end consumer at tidy profit. The only reason I can do this is because a majority of people are too uninformed to buy off the internet. You have to realize that your consumption patterns are probably far different then the majority. The fact that you have taken or remember anything about Econ 101 puts you in the top echelon of intelligence.
From this claim that a large portion of the end-consumer market is uninformed and illogical, I propose the theory that pricing that has little to do with marginal cost can actually be optimum for the seller. While they might not optimize for percentage of rational consumers (at marginal revenue equals marginal cost). Since a larger percentage of revenue will come from the illogical consumer, they need to optimize profits there and that is what this type of pricing is doing.
Look at a lot of products, they advertise towards emotions, feeling and fear. They sell prestige and brand names. They really are trying to exploit the uninformed and illogical customer into making a higher profit on them. Honestly you could lots of groups of similar products where the cheapest one as far as marginal cost sells for the most. This is why I see marginal cost having less to do with pricing rather then the price a consumer is willing to pay.
Economics 101 doesn't account for the real world. The world is full of lazy people that often don't have access to good pricing information. If there was good information on pricing, Brick and Mortar store would practically cease to exist, except maybe Walmart. In the same ways, if people didn't want to pay for convenience then gas stations would only sell gas and not overpriced milk and food.
Essentially the market is splitting into 2 types, those whose research prices and don't pay for convenience and the opposite. Businesses have realized this and used it to their advantage with discriminatory pricing to these two groups. Consider the scam of most Cable companies with "promo" pricing that is practically renewable if you say you want to cancel. Lazy and uninformed end up paying more. This e-book pricing scheme is just discriminatory pricing to those lazy techies who have too much money.
Oh that's right, zero.
You are under the false assumption that items are priced based on marginal cost. They aren't in practically any market, they are priced at what consumers will pay and what the competition is selling at. Fortunately for them consumers are still willing to pay extra for the digital "convenience" and the competition doesn't sell the same books.
It's is going to be more work finding something that works as opposed to just adjusting your usage. Sad, but true... Plus the more monitors you have the less workspaces you will use. I currently have a 6 monitor setup (4 linux, 2 windows) and from just setting up 4 on linux, I would go with whatever works first. I'm just glad maximize works to maximize the window to a single monitor.
It is a huge step backward, but that is the direction Mass Market Computing is going. Choice and openness generally only bring problems and fragmentation in the market. Look at windows, it can be a mess because of all the "choice" you have. Look at games, a majority of the market has gone to consoles. I believe that computing will go the same way. We, well maybe not slashdot members, but the mass market will all buy the same pre-made (and subsidized) box in exchange for lock-in. Fortunately it will succeed because it will work with less problems then the general platform. Just wait for the PS4 and Xbox 720, they will replace the PC for the majority of users. Apply is just trying to do this in a more portable fashion.
I'm 25, I am a Software Engineer. I make more money then all my friends, except possibly the pharmacist. However I get to do something I enjoy. The problem with programming is a lot of people go into for money and have found out they are a dime a dozen as programmers. It is almost impossible to tell how good of a programmer someone is in a 1 day interview, so companies are forced to hire people at this "skilled" labor rates and hope they pull in some decent programmers.
Well all the data (google) I can find on the timecapsule is that it takes approximately 12-13 watts. So payoff period is more like 8-10 years instead of 2
While Linux is nice (I develop on it for a living), I find that to many people blindly say its better. Even just considering power management, I find windows or even mac can save you a little money with better made drivers. You need to make sure you have the right device to do the job, and the upfront cost of linux doesn't always justify it's use.
By pulling a computer from a dumpster, outfitting it with a $100 hard disk, and installing Linux, I get a giant file server, saving me $200 on an easy backup solution (vs. Apple's Time Capsule). That makes me $200 richer than I would be otherwise, meaning I can use that money elsewhere. With the money I've saved over the years thanks to Linux and other open-source packages, I will soon be taking a Caribbean cruise. Has your "real" Mac ever paid for your vacation?
Little do you realize that your "dumpster" computer pulls quite a bit more power then the power miser time capsule (30w maximum). Considering the cost of electricity a 100w device costs around ~100 a year to run (24/7). So over two years, you are at a negative with your dumpster computer, not to mention the extra time spent setting it up.
We just need to make a law from the following principal:
Giving a discount based on the quantity a customer buys - Good Legal Business Idea
Giving less of a discount based on the quantity of competitors products a customer buys - Antitrust problem.
Looks both ways.
It's ok, you wife either doesn't read slashdot, or already knows she is a loon.
The worst part was that he freely admitted that his wife was a loon.
Don't most people freely admit that there wife is a loon?
Screens are always the weak point of a phone. I would surprised if any lcd screen can withstand a direct contact with only the screen (generally by corners or pointy objects). Thet have the drop issue solved because they assume the casing will absorb the shock on a flat surface.
Working for a phone manufacturer it took us month of back and forth with the LCD manufacturer and reinforcing plastic to make our phone's LCD not break from a 1.5 meter drop. So 10 stories is impressive!
Redbox sure isn't waiting 28 days on Warner Brother release (or Universal). I saw the Hangover(WB release) just a few days after the December 18th release from a redbox. From a previous post someone said that their brother works for Redbox and basically buys every copy from every walmart in the area at midnight and stock machines. If you don't sell to Redbox, they basically with use the First Sale Doctrine without you.
Netflix really only has a few reasons for doing this. They know streaming is the future, and they need to reduce costs to be more profitable. Netflix basically don't have much real competition left and have a lot of momentum. So now they are just focusing on profitability rather then growth and competition.
If they would integrate with the DVR capability of Windows Media Center well, I would consider paying paying for cable (although the $50 a month is still tough). Honestly Media Center with Over the Air broadcasts, 4 tuners, and 3 extenders is the only Microsoft product I have liked in a long time (and saved me tons of money not paying for cable). The first content provider that integrates into this system well with a decent pricing model (pay per channel is the best!) will win my business. Getting raped by cable companies only to get locked in to their junky DVR is not worth it.
And, with piracy being so prevalent now, how can you say harsh punishments have been working?
A crime is prevalent, punishment is not working, let's just make it legal!
It's not the one song that is the problem, it is that you are sharing on the internet. A public form that has billions of people on it. It is very possible that you shared that 1 song 100,000 times. Unfortunately you didn't keep track of everyone that downloaded it. However I bet if you did have nice logs, the court and any sane jury would easily reduce the fine to near copies * normal purchase cost
So fair use is a little different topic, how much control over derivative works a copyright owner has can be a big debate. But how many people are getting a judgment for $625,000 against someone who did a remix or mashup?
People aren't getting harsh punishments for derivative works (remix or mashups), they are getting in trouble for exactly copying an original work
I still think that the punishment weakly correlates with the crime. You shared a song with the entire internet for free. There is the small possibility that many people copied the work because of you and thus weakly correlates to lost money of the copyright owner. Because of the scale of the internet your sharing could approach $625,000 of lost revenue.
If that is too much for you, next time you share just put a logging mechanism on your sharing program. When the RIAA sues you and ask for $625,000, you can say I only have 1000 downloads, so I only should owe you $1000
Yes I don't think we can agree on that. Two wrongs don't make a right in my book. To a point I can agree with cheating a corrupt system, the problem with the copyright system is how do you draw up who is corrupt? There are people that don't abuse the copyright system, can we still steal from them? I personally just try and avoid the corrupt ones and deal as often as possible with those not abusing the system.
If a law is justified, and there aren't cases were breaking the law is justified, I don't see how a harsh punishment is bad. If it is something you shouldn't be doing, easy to know if you are doing and you willfully do it, you should be punished accordingly.
It's more of a matter of difficulty in detection. Consider a crime that is easy to commit, can be commit very often, has very non-obvious or long-term outcomes, and is very hard to detect. How do you stop such a crime? There really isn't anyway to stop such a crime, the only way to prevent it is to get people to agree that the crime is bad and not to do it, or fear the punishment. Harsh punishments work well in the situation.
Let me clarify.
There are many other Fabs and quality engineering other then intel. I don't think it's a stretch to say that without the burden of copyright one of these other fabs could easy mimic if not straight up copy an intel processor and sell it for a lot less then the cost that intel does. Intel is making a tidy profit, because their competition is low, and there are no new entrants into the x86 market because of copyright and patents
Cost structure is very important, let's take for example a normal cheap PC these days that cost $300. If we looked at all the components in that PC and evaluated them for the raw costs to produce that extra component (with no upfront development costs), I would guess that the PC has about $50-$100 dollar of costs if not less. With no copyright system enforced by the goverment, I propose that we would see intel go out of business because they would never recoup their billion dollar investment in there processor when others copy and sell it just above raw costs.
In fact I would say that a majority of copyrighted material would not be made, because the payback period becomes (profit margin) / (time it takes to copy the item) versus (profit margin) / (time of copyright), This is especially bad for digital media creators because copying is available immediately.
Jaywalking can kill you. It's not a great analogy because its a law design to protect yourself. There are also many situation where jaywalking is to your advantage without risk of injury, so the punishment for subverting the law is small and often unenforced. Walking and transportation are also an essential part of life.
Sharing songs that you didn't make with the entire internet doesn't seems very essential. It really seems like you are just saying a big middle finger to the people who made those songs. It's also a very difficult to come up with a scenario in which breaking the law is justified(Abandoned or lost work?). If it is something that has no justifiable reason, the punishment being harsh seems to be a reasonable deterrent.
Ha! I can see you agree in stronger copyright laws than I do, but only marginally.
Personally I believe there should be much stronger copyright laws with reasonable fair use provision for a much shorter but reasonable time period. This is the only logical conclusion I can come to. Honestly unless you are a commodity laborer, Your value to your company is the creativity and intelligence you put in your job. Trust me, if your company could steal similar creative and intelligent work for free they wouldn't be paying you. Since I contribute my works in exchange for cash, I feel like if I consume works, I should pay cash.
I do agree that the labels have a strangle hold and are abusing the system, but I choose not to cheat the system, but not to support the labels.
How sure are you that Intel needs government enforcement to protect their products?
>
Yes they absolutely do! Trust me the difference between the cost Intel pays for each chip and what you pay is padded with a huge profit and initial investment recoup cost. Copying the design wouldn't be very difficult. There are many methods. Electron Microscope to reverse engineer, paying an insider to give you trade secrets, stealing key employees with intimate knowledge of design. Even if they were 6 months behind technology wise, an x86 compatible computer that ran at 75% of Intel speed for $50-100 would crush Intel's market
Because of the current system, you almost never see Big Corporations subvert the Copyright system because they know they will get sued out of existence. Why worry about the guy in the garage? For the most point it has been ignored, however, the internet has made it so that the guy in a garage can do a lot of damage with little resources. However this doesn't mean we can throw out the copyright system, we just have to start enforcing it equally on everyone.