A even better analogy, to give an example that is perfectly legal, it buying a slim-jim to open your car door because you locked your keys inside. Everything about this situation is legal until you use it on a car someone else owns...
"In a related press release, Barrel-Full-O-D!ckheads Inc. has introduced a handgun with a barrel that points back at the wielder, guaranteeing only a single use. BFOD Inc. claims that the new gun will help satisfy the growing demand for useless products, in the hopes that people will buy absolutely anything."
But seriously though, it should be obvious even to these people that this is a technology with a small niche, and will never fly when it comes to standard DVD movie distribution.
"to give good faith consideration, as our neighbor on the Internet, to concentrating the immoral and unethical harassment that is sometimes part of the eToys corporate message on eToys corporation's other websites."
"This is a simple, straightforward, good-faith effort on our part to resolve this matter. We are asking that they make good-faith efforts to put their message that most human beings find offensive on another part of the site."
If we are talking about computers that will reach appliance status, convergence will happen... if somebody realizes the one thing that has stopped it so far: configurability. Configurable computers will always have their place but they will never become as ubiquitous as the telephone or TV.
Consumers want function, reliablility, and low cost, and configurability works unacceptably against reliability and cost to buy excessive and useless functionality. (Keep in mind I'm not talking about the kinds of computers most of us use and will keep using, I'm talking about one grandma and little Timmy could use.)
When the motherboard/expansion card paradigm and harddrives came around and got cheap, computers moved radically away from the initial PC concepts that got them into homes in the first place. The PC-as-appliance will come, but it will be like a cross between an iMac and a game console:
1. It will have an OS in ROM and flash, and will boot in a few seconds (remember the C64?)
2. You will never have to install anything on it. The idea of having to install software is ridiculous for a computer appliance. You will just pop in the CD for the application you want to run. My grandma knows that to watch a movie she first has to pop the right tape in the VCR.
3. It will not be upgradeable, or if it is, the user better not ever notice that it is happening, and it will never screw up the software they already have. The successful maker will have figured out how to put as much as possible for the useful lifetime of the machine into it from the beginning. It is pointless to have an infinitely upgradable machine when chip and storage technology advances at the speed it does.
So who's gonna do it? Sony's got the best chance: they know how to make stuff cheap, they've got a big installed base, and they finally figured out you need backward compatibility, even in game consoles. Apple could also do it if they got the vision.
Who's never gonna do it? Who's completely incapable of even forming the thoughts necessary to accomplish such a machine? I think we all know who...
X-Box, phhhhhhhhhhtpt (now watch they go and do it:)
If you're really hurting for a cd player that plays MP3s, netdrives is supposed to be shipping their player in a week. Plays standard ISO9660 discs. Too bad they don't have a portable version to try yet. Also, the specs are pretty lacking; they don't even give the unit's SNR...
Back to Sony: if history is any guide, this thing will be only as popular as minidisc. MP3 is out of the bottle and here to stay, like it or not. But remember that Sony is a HUGE company that is not only a consumer electronics giant but also a big ol' recording label as well, so of course they're going to come up with a proprietary, copy-protected-up-Uranus, crippled format.
I don't think labels will totally die. There will probably always be a place for an industry that will forge teen candy (ala Spice Girls, Milli-Vanilli) from the talentless void. But people who seek out music, instead of waiting for it to be drilled into them, won't need record companies or the RIAA much longer for anything.
I don't know the statistics, but to throw this out: how does what the artist makes from CD sales compare to what they make from concerts, etc? A band just giving away music and making money off gigs I think is the future. A record company is totally useless in that scenario.
According to corporate law, if someone can prove that you don't enforce your trademark, it becomes dilluted and your right to use it is weakened.
Yep, this makes it hard to tell in a lot of cases whether the company feels compelled to attack or is just being a bully (c.f. Volkwagen's shenanigans where it seems like the latter...)
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A even better analogy, to give an example that is perfectly legal, it buying a slim-jim to open your car door because you locked your keys inside. Everything about this situation is legal until you use it on a car someone else owns...
But seriously though, it should be obvious even to these people that this is a technology with a small niche, and will never fly when it comes to standard DVD movie distribution.
"This is a simple, straightforward, good-faith effort on our part to resolve this matter. We are asking that they make good-faith efforts to put their message that most human beings find offensive on another part of the site."
Close enough...
Consumers want function, reliablility, and low cost, and configurability works unacceptably against reliability and cost to buy excessive and useless functionality. (Keep in mind I'm not talking about the kinds of computers most of us use and will keep using, I'm talking about one grandma and little Timmy could use.)
When the motherboard/expansion card paradigm and harddrives came around and got cheap, computers moved radically away from the initial PC concepts that got them into homes in the first place. The PC-as-appliance will come, but it will be like a cross between an iMac and a game console:
1. It will have an OS in ROM and flash, and will boot in a few seconds (remember the C64?)
2. You will never have to install anything on it. The idea of having to install software is ridiculous for a computer appliance. You will just pop in the CD for the application you want to run. My grandma knows that to watch a movie she first has to pop the right tape in the VCR.
3. It will not be upgradeable, or if it is, the user better not ever notice that it is happening, and it will never screw up the software they already have. The successful maker will have figured out how to put as much as possible for the useful lifetime of the machine into it from the beginning. It is pointless to have an infinitely upgradable machine when chip and storage technology advances at the speed it does.
So who's gonna do it? Sony's got the best chance: they know how to make stuff cheap, they've got a big installed base, and they finally figured out you need backward compatibility, even in game consoles. Apple could also do it if they got the vision.
Who's never gonna do it? Who's completely incapable of even forming the thoughts necessary to accomplish such a machine? I think we all know who...
X-Box, phhhhhhhhhhtpt (now watch they go and do it :)
Back to Sony: if history is any guide, this thing will be only as popular as minidisc. MP3 is out of the bottle and here to stay, like it or not. But remember that Sony is a HUGE company that is not only a consumer electronics giant but also a big ol' recording label as well, so of course they're going to come up with a proprietary, copy-protected-up-Uranus, crippled format.
I don't know the statistics, but to throw this out: how does what the artist makes from CD sales compare to what they make from concerts, etc? A band just giving away music and making money off gigs I think is the future. A record company is totally useless in that scenario.
Yep, this makes it hard to tell in a lot of cases whether the company feels compelled to attack or is just being a bully (c.f. Volkwagen's shenanigans where it seems like the latter...)