So does this mean that all the "lock-in" talk about MS is bubnk as well? Ms Office fully support not only.txt files, but also.rtf files. So that means there's no lock-in at all, since you can simply save as those, right? Or maybe the fact that something supports a lesser format that isn't really used (.txt and.rtf for document,.mp3 for commercially sold music) doesn't really matter?
The fact is, if you want to purchase a song and have an iPod, ITMS is your only real, viable option. Sure, there are other places like eMusic, but they have a very limited selection that only appeals to a very small minority of users.
You don't undersrtand the purpose of DRM. DRM is not meant to make sure there is anever a copy made. It is there to raise the bar so that most people can't make copies. If they can keep 95% of the people from copying the music, they have accomplished their goal. There will always be some people who can work around DRM, but as long as most people can't do it and have to buy the music, the DRM has accomplished it goal.
Well, they didn't sabotage it in that it doesn't work right, they just put so many limitations on it that people would want something with more functionality (ie the iPod). It works, and it works great with iTunes. But how many people are going to want more than 100 songs at a time? My guess woul dbe almost everyone. And in that case, they have to go to an iPod since they already purchased songs from iTunes. So basically the ROKR will get people in, and then they realize that it is WAY too limited, so they immediately have to upgrade to something usable.
It amazes me how much like MS Apple is in it's tactics. They are easily as manipulative and evil as MS, but they seem to get a free pass from most on/. because they aren't MS. Imaging for a second if there was no MS and Apple was the monopoly? How much worse would that be for consumers?
You do realize that a lot of spyware is user installed, correct? GAIN is usually approved by the user. Backweb installs with Logitec and Kodac software, so the use actually runs the program to install it. Many people LOVE weatherbug and make sure to install it on their system as soon as they get it. How exactly is MS supposed to stop this? Make it so people can't install software?
The iPod has anywhere from 82% to 87% of the portable market (based on a quick google search on iPod market share). That measn they own by far the majority of the market (I would guess their nearest competitor has 10% at most). This isn't too far off from the marketshare of Windows. I think that definitely puts them in monopoly territory. They have competitors, but then again, so does Windows. Just having competitors doesn't mean you aren't a monopoly. I would say that the iPod is at least borderline monopoly (if not outright so). They are making it difficult for other competitors to enter the market by making it so iTMS only operates with iPods (which leverages their monopoly to force users to use their services by linking them). They are putting undo burden on third party manufacturers because of this monopoly by forcing them to pay fees to simply make accesories for their product. Sure, they can make accessories for other products, but they are the big dog monopoly in town. It woul dbe akin ot MS charging a fee for someone to put out software that ran on windows. Sure, you can write your software for something else, but that doesn't mean it is okay for them to charge for that.
As far as Sony, I have no idea if they do use these agreements. But they also aren't a monopoly. They have 2 strong competitors, whereas the iPod has no strong competitors.
No, they couldn't do it to Sony (although I doubt Sony is making iPod accessories since they have their own MP3 player). But they certainly could do it with smaller accessories makers. They could force anyone who makes iPod accessories to not make accessories for other player or else they won't be "licensed" for the iPod. The fact is, anyone should be able to say their product works with the iPod, as long as they are not claiming it is endorsed by Apple. If this was MS or Sony or anyone else trying this, there would be a huge outcry. Apple is no better (and in some ways way worse) than many other corps. They often get a pass because of their cult following though.
Obviously, you have no idea how to leverage a monopoly. you leverage your monopoly by forcing people to accept things that rely upon what you have a monopoly. If you have a monopoly on MP3 player, you leverage it in the accessories department, or the MP3 department. If you do this, anyone who wants your product can still get it, but if they want anything to use with it, then they are stuck using your secondary product (or in this case, you will get paid no matter what secondary product they pick). You don't leverage a monopoly by cutting the number of people who can use your product.
MS is a perfect example. They had (have) a monopoly on OSes. They used to to push secondary products like office suites and internet browsers. They didn't say "from now on, you can only use windows on HP computers" because that would have driven people away from the product they had a monopoly on.
You use your monopoly to push products smaller than the one you have a monopoly on, but larger.
Don't forget the other regular software you get with it. Everytime someone orders Office or Symantec or whatever, Dell gets a cut of the sale. So yes, they aren't paying MS, but they aren't putting the trialware on it and they are cutting themselves off from other software sales as well. Plus potentially making support harder because now if something goes wrong, they have to try and troubleshoot it with whatever the person has on it (Linux, BEOS, BSD, etc). In the past, they could say "We can only troubleshoot with what came on it", but now they can't.
Napster was fully shutdown years ago, regardless of whether the songs on the network were legal. MP3.com had a vast free music network, but someone decided to upload music that wasn't theirs; mp3.com got sued and had to sell their domain (and no longer do we have access to those files). Limewire will now require licensing in its files, hardly something you'd do for your own personal files.
Even if you are sharing legal items, RIAA is making it harder to do so on p2p networks. While what you are saying is generally true, it isn't the RIAA that is making it harder to share legal items on P2P networks, it is the people using them to share copyrighted works (which is probably 95% or more of the people). If all copyrighted works were removed (or even a vast majority of them, the RIAA wouldn't be going afterp2p networks, because there would be nothing to go after them for. Unfortunately, most p2p exist only to trade copyrighted files (BitTorrent being the big exception, although a lot of its trafic is still copyrighted material. And yes, I know there are legal works on them, but they are a very small minority on most p2p networks). So instead of screaming about the RIAA enforcing their copyrights (and whether you like it or not, they own the copyrights and should have the power to stop people from infringing on them) why aren't you screaming about the people who are actually infringing the copyrights and causing the RIAA to go after the p2p networks.
And where exactly is the problem with this? When they sue people, they always claim they didn't do it, it was their kids. And many people stand up and say they shouldn't be sued because their kids did it, or someone else did it, or they didn't know it was on their computer. Now they are putting out software that will tell people exactly if something suspect in on their system and help get rid of it. Isn't this what we want, a way for people to actually know what is going on on their system? It's voluntary, and removes the BS excuse of "I didn't know" because now they have an easy way to know.
No company owns their employees. Make them an offer they can't refuse or eat it. These are the values we go to war and die for, after all. That is exactly what happened. They made him an offer for a job that he didn't refuse. Part of that offer was the non-compete clause. He knew what he was getting into and agreed to it. I have no problem with reasonable non-competes (and from what I have read, this was reasonable). If the company hires you and invests a boatload of money into you, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect you to not take that new training and knowledge and run ot their competitor and use it there.
DRM isn't being pushed as the only option. It is being pushed as the only option for the large record companies, but they are by far not the only choice in music. Show me where the government is passing the law that states all CDs and music downloads must have DRM? The fact of the matter is, just because the big companies are doing it doesn't mean everyone is. Find me one band that has been forced to put DRM on their CD (other than because they signed a contract giving up all rights to a major label, in which case they gave up their rights willingly). People act as if the major labels are the only place to get anything that resembles music. There are plenty of places to get downloads without DRM, and there are plenty of CDs (including major label CDs, but almost every independent CD) that have no copy protection. Until this changes, and it will take a national law to change it, you have all the choices in the world. Sure, you can't get your Jessica Simpson CD without DRM, but you can get plenty of others.
Now you have the choice in not buying it, but if millions of other people do buy it they essentially give the power to those services to make our law makers forbid any non DRM solution. Then your issue is with the law makers that may (which is a key word since you are assuming something that will happen in the future) try and limit your rights. I would have a huge problem with a law that said all music MUST have DRM on it, but that isn't what is happening. Companies are deciding to put DRM on their products, which is completely within their rights, just as it is within your rights to not by DRM music. There is no law (and I have yet to hear talk of a law except from scare-mongers) saying all music MUST be DRMed. It is legal to release your music without DRM and for free if you would like. As long as that is legal, everything is good.
I've never understood why so many people are against DRM in any format for anyone. I personally am not a fan of it, so I usually don't but anything with DRM. But I understand that if I want the benefits of buying from someplace like iTunes (lower price, being able to buy individual songs, etc), then that is the trade-off. If I don't want DRM, I will buy from someplace that doesn't use it, buy the CD (assuming it isn't broken), or not buy it at all. If you don't want DRM, don't buy it. But accept that there will HAVE to be trade-offs for buying music online (and at lower prices). If you don't want those trade-offs, that's okay, but plenty of people are willing to accept them. It's an agreement you enter into to get the music you want the way you want it. If you don't agree, don't enter into the agreement and go elsewhere for your music.
People do this all the time. They sign up for something, and then checka bunch of bozes for what they are interested in and would like to get info about. People act like it is impossible that someone would sign up for more information about something. Sure, it oftentimes get sold to someone else and then you get lots of spam, but there is nothing unimaginable about people signing up to get email about products.
While there has been ongoing attempts to level out server population (with varying degrees of sucess), one thing that has never been addressed is faction unbalance. On the far majority of servers, alliance players far outnumber horde players, to the point of being ridiculous on some servers. Are there any plans to try and help balance out the factions in some way (give horde something cool possibly)? As it stands now, I know of some people who are either quitting, switching from horde to alliance, or switching to PVE servers because the horrible faction imbalance makes it nearly impossible to just go somewhere and level without constantly being killed.
It seems that this is counter to what we shoul dbe doing. While some spammers use the unsubscribe links to verify your address, others actual use it to unsubscribe you. Do we really want to make it so every spammer will not unsubscribe you? It seems we should be encouraging unsubscribe links (and the proper use of them) rather than discouraging them.
Except if you were paying attention, you would see that this is not a web app, but a Win32 executable app. So they are developing for the standard, and the standard is still Win32, whether anyone likes it or not. So this isn't a case of purposely excluding people by bad design, but a choice to make an app, and apps generally only run on 1 platform, and they chose the biggest.
I don't know enough about Australian politics and taxes to know why it's an app instead of web-based, but I would assume there may be a good reason for it.
My first thought is that MS didn't even qualify as a monopoly in 1994. This was when Windows 3.1 was out, and there were still a few different versions of DOS. MS was not the juggernaut it is now, no where near. Many PCs shipped with OSes other than MS. If MS wasn't a monopoly at the time (and I think it would be hard to say they were) there was nothing wrong with them asking Intel not to invest in Go. If it happened today, there would be no question of the legality (as in none). But assuming it was malicious and illegal then based on MS now is just wrong.
Except if you look at the link from the archive (ie what he actual posted), the disclaimer at the top isn't there. I don't know when it was added, it may have just been added since this all came to light, I don't know.
I'm not saying whether what is happening is right or wrong, just that his disclaimer was added later, and was not a part of the original text.
his ruling's reasoning is not far from "My kid played GTA and shot a cop, it's partly the game publisher's fault." No, it's not. It's the (hypothetical) kid's fault...you know, the one who actually did something wrong? I don't know what they're smoking in the court these days, but it must be good. It's not far away, it's miles away. Unless GTA marketed itself as "play this game and learn how to kill cops" it wouldn't fall under this ruling. The software must be marketed with infringement as a primary purpose. So advertising "Buy our software and you can get any song you want for free" would be fall under this. Advertising "Buy our software and download any of the MP3s that we have legally available" would not be infringing. The difference is if you advertise and say that your product will help people break the law (whether criminal or civil) you will be held partially accountable when that happens.
You seem to completely miss what common carrier status is. Common carrier status lets you not be responsible for the things on your service, because there si too much and it would be too difficult and intrusive to monitor it all. But you MUST react when you are told of illegal things on your service. Just because you are a common carrier doesn't mean you can ignore illegal activity, it just means you don't have to active seek it out. And this is the way it should work. If you know of something illegal going on (because you happened to see it or because someone told you) you are then liable for it unless you take the proper action.
What I really find interesting about this Thievs/Hackers analogy is that you never hear people telling the victims of Theives that they should have had three deadbolts on the door, or saying "shame on you you don't have bars on your windows, of course you'll get broken into." No, but you vertainly will here people say "You didn't lock your car at all? You should have." If you leave your car windows open and $100 sitting on your car seat, it will be stolen, and you will be told you were stupid for doing it. People are expected to take basic precautions against thieves. They are expected to have locks and use them. Why would the same not be true for computers? You should be expecte to install updates on your system, as the basic precaution. It will keep you safe from 90% of the trouble out there, just as a simple lock will keep out 90% of the thieves who want to steal your stuff.
There is no other explanation for the recent series of coincidental stories and events. Except that maybe it is all just coincidence, just like he says. Not everything is a conspiracy, sometimes things just happen.
'They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.' I completely agree that this does not give a 100% accurate picture of the actual piracy going on. The question is, how else do you measure it? Do we guess and pretend that 50% of pirated programs wouldn't be purchased so they don't count? The fact is that if you doownload a program and run it and you have no rights to that program, you are breaking the law, and that is what they are measuring. Is it a perfect picture of lost revenue? No. But there isn't a perfect picture and this one at least is consistent. Until someone comes up with a better, more accurate method, this is all there is.
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So does this mean that all the "lock-in" talk about MS is bubnk as well? Ms Office fully support not only .txt files, but also .rtf files. So that means there's no lock-in at all, since you can simply save as those, right? Or maybe the fact that something supports a lesser format that isn't really used (.txt and .rtf for document, .mp3 for commercially sold music) doesn't really matter?
The fact is, if you want to purchase a song and have an iPod, ITMS is your only real, viable option. Sure, there are other places like eMusic, but they have a very limited selection that only appeals to a very small minority of users.
You don't undersrtand the purpose of DRM. DRM is not meant to make sure there is anever a copy made. It is there to raise the bar so that most people can't make copies. If they can keep 95% of the people from copying the music, they have accomplished their goal. There will always be some people who can work around DRM, but as long as most people can't do it and have to buy the music, the DRM has accomplished it goal.
Well, they didn't sabotage it in that it doesn't work right, they just put so many limitations on it that people would want something with more functionality (ie the iPod). It works, and it works great with iTunes. But how many people are going to want more than 100 songs at a time? My guess woul dbe almost everyone. And in that case, they have to go to an iPod since they already purchased songs from iTunes. So basically the ROKR will get people in, and then they realize that it is WAY too limited, so they immediately have to upgrade to something usable.
/. because they aren't MS. Imaging for a second if there was no MS and Apple was the monopoly? How much worse would that be for consumers?
It amazes me how much like MS Apple is in it's tactics. They are easily as manipulative and evil as MS, but they seem to get a free pass from most on
You do realize that a lot of spyware is user installed, correct? GAIN is usually approved by the user. Backweb installs with Logitec and Kodac software, so the use actually runs the program to install it. Many people LOVE weatherbug and make sure to install it on their system as soon as they get it. How exactly is MS supposed to stop this? Make it so people can't install software?
The iPod has anywhere from 82% to 87% of the portable market (based on a quick google search on iPod market share). That measn they own by far the majority of the market (I would guess their nearest competitor has 10% at most). This isn't too far off from the marketshare of Windows. I think that definitely puts them in monopoly territory. They have competitors, but then again, so does Windows. Just having competitors doesn't mean you aren't a monopoly. I would say that the iPod is at least borderline monopoly (if not outright so). They are making it difficult for other competitors to enter the market by making it so iTMS only operates with iPods (which leverages their monopoly to force users to use their services by linking them). They are putting undo burden on third party manufacturers because of this monopoly by forcing them to pay fees to simply make accesories for their product. Sure, they can make accessories for other products, but they are the big dog monopoly in town. It woul dbe akin ot MS charging a fee for someone to put out software that ran on windows. Sure, you can write your software for something else, but that doesn't mean it is okay for them to charge for that.
As far as Sony, I have no idea if they do use these agreements. But they also aren't a monopoly. They have 2 strong competitors, whereas the iPod has no strong competitors.
No, they couldn't do it to Sony (although I doubt Sony is making iPod accessories since they have their own MP3 player). But they certainly could do it with smaller accessories makers. They could force anyone who makes iPod accessories to not make accessories for other player or else they won't be "licensed" for the iPod. The fact is, anyone should be able to say their product works with the iPod, as long as they are not claiming it is endorsed by Apple. If this was MS or Sony or anyone else trying this, there would be a huge outcry. Apple is no better (and in some ways way worse) than many other corps. They often get a pass because of their cult following though.
Obviously, you have no idea how to leverage a monopoly. you leverage your monopoly by forcing people to accept things that rely upon what you have a monopoly. If you have a monopoly on MP3 player, you leverage it in the accessories department, or the MP3 department. If you do this, anyone who wants your product can still get it, but if they want anything to use with it, then they are stuck using your secondary product (or in this case, you will get paid no matter what secondary product they pick). You don't leverage a monopoly by cutting the number of people who can use your product.
MS is a perfect example. They had (have) a monopoly on OSes. They used to to push secondary products like office suites and internet browsers. They didn't say "from now on, you can only use windows on HP computers" because that would have driven people away from the product they had a monopoly on.
You use your monopoly to push products smaller than the one you have a monopoly on, but larger.
Don't forget the other regular software you get with it. Everytime someone orders Office or Symantec or whatever, Dell gets a cut of the sale. So yes, they aren't paying MS, but they aren't putting the trialware on it and they are cutting themselves off from other software sales as well. Plus potentially making support harder because now if something goes wrong, they have to try and troubleshoot it with whatever the person has on it (Linux, BEOS, BSD, etc). In the past, they could say "We can only troubleshoot with what came on it", but now they can't.
Napster was fully shutdown years ago, regardless of whether the songs on the network were legal. MP3.com had a vast free music network, but someone decided to upload music that wasn't theirs; mp3.com got sued and had to sell their domain (and no longer do we have access to those files). Limewire will now require licensing in its files, hardly something you'd do for your own personal files.
Even if you are sharing legal items, RIAA is making it harder to do so on p2p networks.
While what you are saying is generally true, it isn't the RIAA that is making it harder to share legal items on P2P networks, it is the people using them to share copyrighted works (which is probably 95% or more of the people). If all copyrighted works were removed (or even a vast majority of them, the RIAA wouldn't be going afterp2p networks, because there would be nothing to go after them for. Unfortunately, most p2p exist only to trade copyrighted files (BitTorrent being the big exception, although a lot of its trafic is still copyrighted material. And yes, I know there are legal works on them, but they are a very small minority on most p2p networks). So instead of screaming about the RIAA enforcing their copyrights (and whether you like it or not, they own the copyrights and should have the power to stop people from infringing on them) why aren't you screaming about the people who are actually infringing the copyrights and causing the RIAA to go after the p2p networks.
And where exactly is the problem with this? When they sue people, they always claim they didn't do it, it was their kids. And many people stand up and say they shouldn't be sued because their kids did it, or someone else did it, or they didn't know it was on their computer. Now they are putting out software that will tell people exactly if something suspect in on their system and help get rid of it. Isn't this what we want, a way for people to actually know what is going on on their system? It's voluntary, and removes the BS excuse of "I didn't know" because now they have an easy way to know.
No company owns their employees. Make them an offer they can't refuse or eat it. These are the values we go to war and die for, after all.
That is exactly what happened. They made him an offer for a job that he didn't refuse. Part of that offer was the non-compete clause. He knew what he was getting into and agreed to it. I have no problem with reasonable non-competes (and from what I have read, this was reasonable). If the company hires you and invests a boatload of money into you, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect you to not take that new training and knowledge and run ot their competitor and use it there.
DRM isn't being pushed as the only option. It is being pushed as the only option for the large record companies, but they are by far not the only choice in music. Show me where the government is passing the law that states all CDs and music downloads must have DRM? The fact of the matter is, just because the big companies are doing it doesn't mean everyone is. Find me one band that has been forced to put DRM on their CD (other than because they signed a contract giving up all rights to a major label, in which case they gave up their rights willingly). People act as if the major labels are the only place to get anything that resembles music. There are plenty of places to get downloads without DRM, and there are plenty of CDs (including major label CDs, but almost every independent CD) that have no copy protection. Until this changes, and it will take a national law to change it, you have all the choices in the world. Sure, you can't get your Jessica Simpson CD without DRM, but you can get plenty of others.
Now you have the choice in not buying it, but if millions of other people do buy it they essentially give the power to those services to make our law makers forbid any non DRM solution.
Then your issue is with the law makers that may (which is a key word since you are assuming something that will happen in the future) try and limit your rights. I would have a huge problem with a law that said all music MUST have DRM on it, but that isn't what is happening. Companies are deciding to put DRM on their products, which is completely within their rights, just as it is within your rights to not by DRM music. There is no law (and I have yet to hear talk of a law except from scare-mongers) saying all music MUST be DRMed. It is legal to release your music without DRM and for free if you would like. As long as that is legal, everything is good.
I've never understood why so many people are against DRM in any format for anyone. I personally am not a fan of it, so I usually don't but anything with DRM. But I understand that if I want the benefits of buying from someplace like iTunes (lower price, being able to buy individual songs, etc), then that is the trade-off. If I don't want DRM, I will buy from someplace that doesn't use it, buy the CD (assuming it isn't broken), or not buy it at all. If you don't want DRM, don't buy it. But accept that there will HAVE to be trade-offs for buying music online (and at lower prices). If you don't want those trade-offs, that's okay, but plenty of people are willing to accept them. It's an agreement you enter into to get the music you want the way you want it. If you don't agree, don't enter into the agreement and go elsewhere for your music.
People do this all the time. They sign up for something, and then checka bunch of bozes for what they are interested in and would like to get info about. People act like it is impossible that someone would sign up for more information about something. Sure, it oftentimes get sold to someone else and then you get lots of spam, but there is nothing unimaginable about people signing up to get email about products.
While there has been ongoing attempts to level out server population (with varying degrees of sucess), one thing that has never been addressed is faction unbalance. On the far majority of servers, alliance players far outnumber horde players, to the point of being ridiculous on some servers. Are there any plans to try and help balance out the factions in some way (give horde something cool possibly)? As it stands now, I know of some people who are either quitting, switching from horde to alliance, or switching to PVE servers because the horrible faction imbalance makes it nearly impossible to just go somewhere and level without constantly being killed.
It seems that this is counter to what we shoul dbe doing. While some spammers use the unsubscribe links to verify your address, others actual use it to unsubscribe you. Do we really want to make it so every spammer will not unsubscribe you? It seems we should be encouraging unsubscribe links (and the proper use of them) rather than discouraging them.
Except if you were paying attention, you would see that this is not a web app, but a Win32 executable app. So they are developing for the standard, and the standard is still Win32, whether anyone likes it or not. So this isn't a case of purposely excluding people by bad design, but a choice to make an app, and apps generally only run on 1 platform, and they chose the biggest.
I don't know enough about Australian politics and taxes to know why it's an app instead of web-based, but I would assume there may be a good reason for it.
My first thought is that MS didn't even qualify as a monopoly in 1994. This was when Windows 3.1 was out, and there were still a few different versions of DOS. MS was not the juggernaut it is now, no where near. Many PCs shipped with OSes other than MS. If MS wasn't a monopoly at the time (and I think it would be hard to say they were) there was nothing wrong with them asking Intel not to invest in Go. If it happened today, there would be no question of the legality (as in none). But assuming it was malicious and illegal then based on MS now is just wrong.
Except if you look at the link from the archive (ie what he actual posted), the disclaimer at the top isn't there. I don't know when it was added, it may have just been added since this all came to light, I don't know.
I'm not saying whether what is happening is right or wrong, just that his disclaimer was added later, and was not a part of the original text.
his ruling's reasoning is not far from "My kid played GTA and shot a cop, it's partly the game publisher's fault." No, it's not. It's the (hypothetical) kid's fault...you know, the one who actually did something wrong? I don't know what they're smoking in the court these days, but it must be good.
It's not far away, it's miles away. Unless GTA marketed itself as "play this game and learn how to kill cops" it wouldn't fall under this ruling. The software must be marketed with infringement as a primary purpose. So advertising "Buy our software and you can get any song you want for free" would be fall under this. Advertising "Buy our software and download any of the MP3s that we have legally available" would not be infringing. The difference is if you advertise and say that your product will help people break the law (whether criminal or civil) you will be held partially accountable when that happens.
You seem to completely miss what common carrier status is. Common carrier status lets you not be responsible for the things on your service, because there si too much and it would be too difficult and intrusive to monitor it all. But you MUST react when you are told of illegal things on your service. Just because you are a common carrier doesn't mean you can ignore illegal activity, it just means you don't have to active seek it out. And this is the way it should work. If you know of something illegal going on (because you happened to see it or because someone told you) you are then liable for it unless you take the proper action.
What I really find interesting about this Thievs/Hackers analogy is that you never hear people telling the victims of Theives that they should have had three deadbolts on the door, or saying "shame on you you don't have bars on your windows, of course you'll get broken into."
No, but you vertainly will here people say "You didn't lock your car at all? You should have." If you leave your car windows open and $100 sitting on your car seat, it will be stolen, and you will be told you were stupid for doing it. People are expected to take basic precautions against thieves. They are expected to have locks and use them. Why would the same not be true for computers? You should be expecte to install updates on your system, as the basic precaution. It will keep you safe from 90% of the trouble out there, just as a simple lock will keep out 90% of the thieves who want to steal your stuff.
There is no other explanation for the recent series of coincidental stories and events.
Except that maybe it is all just coincidence, just like he says. Not everything is a conspiracy, sometimes things just happen.
'They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.'
I completely agree that this does not give a 100% accurate picture of the actual piracy going on. The question is, how else do you measure it? Do we guess and pretend that 50% of pirated programs wouldn't be purchased so they don't count? The fact is that if you doownload a program and run it and you have no rights to that program, you are breaking the law, and that is what they are measuring. Is it a perfect picture of lost revenue? No. But there isn't a perfect picture and this one at least is consistent. Until someone comes up with a better, more accurate method, this is all there is.