This is what we have said all along: "Reasonably priced (according to cost, not to traditional prices and unencumbered by nasty DRM schemes, we are willing to pay for music"
If this indictment goes forward, it might give honest distributors the occasion to prove the point. The cost of downloading a song on the Internet is pennies. Even considering a decent profit, a reasonable pricing will do wonders to discourage pirating. The value is there for the consumer and the business model is simple.
The message of this is: stop suing your consumers or your consumers will beging to sue you back!
The EFF did not release the insecure patch. Sony did. What the EFF did was to allow Sony some time to release it:
In accordance with standard information security practices, EFF and iSEC delayed public disclosure of the details of the exploit to provide SunnComm the opportunity to develop an update.
IMHO: I admit that I don't know all the implications of the EFF move, probably no one does at this time. However, I would be prudent before blaming them. If Sony begins to listen to intelligent people instead of DRM vendors, it might not be a bad thing. In the end, their commercial interests might prevail, but at that time, the EFF will have earned a public recognition that can be used to access and mobilise public opinion.
... the company claimed it is already punching out BDs with a yield...
"BDs" is interesting: it suggests some sort of priority over CDs. I can see the next generations as being called ADs, but that's when the competition will come up with BCs...
I see a good reason for the EFF to get involved. Sony was succeding in keeping the two DRM issues separate, at least on the legal and larger public side (developers are (were?) seen as a negligible entity. The Agreement for the patch was for the EFF a way to get Sony to recognise the reality of the larger problem. I don't know if the EFF knew already what would follow, but I would not be surprised. Good move EFF!
Being moded "insightful" for casting this effort in the shadow of futility is beyond me.
Getting patents for things that have been in the public domain, sometimes for thousands of years, is the most graphic demonstration of the insanity of the current and recent abuses of the patent system and is probably one of the best example to use in the effort to convince public opinion around the world that something is amiss and that we need to take action.
What the Indian government is doing is far from being futile. It is what needs to be done, in that case and many others, and what ought to be emulated by other governments and public organisations.
From IBM letter to Trimarco:
As you have done so far, you should require evidence of broad implementation of a standard. ODF has real, multiple implementations and there are more organizations building in support for it right now. This broad acceptance of and support for ODF is fact today and not something that is wished or hoped for in the future. In this way you will guarantee that Massachusetts can obtain the necessary software to run its citizens' business in a cost effective way, while maintaining your historical legacy for all to read and access.
When they say "Massachusetts seems to have warmed...", does anyone know the political process that led to this ridiculously sheepish attitude, if true? Because we need to expose this to the face of the world. We need to make sure that this is no the end of the story.
So what exactly is your advice to this forum? Do nothing?
With a view like this, you miss most of the action: that this blog entry by a former Mac exec is most timely, at a time when the worst predictions by DRM opponents come true, as some DRM implementations lead to serious security breaches and when SONY is being sued in California and New York for this.
Expect DRM to take a new colour when this shit hit the fan of general media and consumers advocates get a wonderful occasion to turn the table of media conglomerates to portray everyone and his mother as a pirate.
Of course, I can't predict the outcome of the war, but this battle, contrary to the defeatist tone of your post, is most interesting.
The Internet itself has changed the rules of intellectual property. Without it, the media conglomerates would not be in the tizzy that they currently are in.
Berl2 has just written something insightful about this (up 2 or 3 posts). I would add that I don't know if the Internet has changed the rules of "intellectual property", whatever that is, but it certainly has changed the rules of its distribution. Note that the media conglomerates you mention being in a tizzy are mostly, if not overwhelmingly, distributors. Even those who pass as producers among them, under analysis, are really brokers and in the end merely distributors.
This is a powerfull message to anyone being involved in the decision process over the state of Massachusetts: "We do support the Open Document standard!". A welcome move at a critical time.
I wrote my PhD dissertation using Word back when you used two 360 KB floppies: one for the program and one where I could fit one chapter. I knew the program inside out. But then, with each upgrade it took me more and more time to stay afloat, until, after a few years, I stopped even trying to configure the damn thing to my needs altogether. They took a power user and transformed it in an utterly dependent being.
I can't understand the meaning of your assertion that Word is a good piece of software. It's unusable for me and for everyone I know.
...true cable a la carte, which consumers have been demanding for years and unable to get
You just nailed it, at least for me! I also watch fewer than 10 hours a month. Moreover, I would love to watch shows not available in North America (Canada, in my case), like outstanding documentaries from the BBC, which I only get to watch when I go there (no, BBC Canada does not include them). Or from there, why not the best public broadcating from around the world?
--
I don't sig, therefore I don't exist
... Such a policy might seem like something that should concern only a small group of technology professionals, but in fact the implications are staggering and far-reaching. The policy promises to burden taxpayers with new costs and to disrupt how state agencies interact with citizens, businesses and organizations.
I'm all for giving the issue a more public profile. I was wondering on how to achieve this but now, out of panic, they will help us do just that! Wonderful!
...having the impression that the list is not very impressive? Not very comprehensive and no mention of W3schools, for example. Is SitePro News a good site itself?
--
I prefer to remain silent.
And no matter how powerful the argument, the industry believes that every single time you download something, they lose a sale
They are shrewd businesspeople and they know as well as you and I that we will acquire music legally if given the occasion. The Economist has already revealed that their losses has little to do with music download and has helped if anything
What they want to do is to frame the question in such a way that they can promote legislation that will do away with fair use and will strenghten their (the distributors') control of the market.
MS has chosen to advertise to the world that they are losing their best people to competition. This is unwise. Their practices will also get further publicity by the same occasion.
This gives a new twist to (first Intel CEO) Andy Grove's motto that "only the paranoïds survive"...
A must read for European (and other) legislators
on
Ballmer on Innovation
·
· Score: 1
Q: Coming up with tough questions for you is pretty hard, if you were in my position, what tough questions would you be asking the CEO of Microsoft?
Ballmer: [...] I think you have to ask us are you gonna give us a way to have one plus one be three with other applications in terms of the way they communicate and work out on the Internet. We're working hard on strategies to facilitate that. With MSN and some of the other things we're doing. I think that's an important area. I think at the end of the day developers, though, more than almost anything wanna know "are you guys gonna win?"
Interesting... The question of inter-operability, which is at the centre of the issues addressed to Microsoft by users and legislators around the world is in this excerpt:
1. volunteered by Ballmer as the most important question that should be addressed to Microsoft
2. oxymoronniccally answered in terms of market dominance.
So... They are acutely conscious of what is at the source of the universal "unease" with Microsoft, and here Ballmer, in an act of unbelievable candor, offers a invaluable peek into how they approach the question.
He said such "abuses" should lead us to return to principles and the law. Big corporations were afraid of losing their protection, but the costs of patents were rising. "Freedom is better," said Mr Rocard, saying that those who opposed his position showed the weakness of their arguments by resorting to insults about returning to the middle ages. It was time to reconcile law with consistency and clarity. He called on corporations to adjust to this new situation.
Interesting that proponents of this directive could resort to an argument about returning to the middle ages, a time when an armed group could hold a corner of a river or a road and levy a "tax" on passer-by, so travel (exchange of goods, knowledge, etc) was expensive and hasardous. A time where people were serfs rather than citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone of us!
This is what we have said all along: "Reasonably priced (according to cost, not to traditional prices and unencumbered by nasty DRM schemes, we are willing to pay for music"
If this indictment goes forward, it might give honest distributors the occasion to prove the point. The cost of downloading a song on the Internet is pennies. Even considering a decent profit, a reasonable pricing will do wonders to discourage pirating. The value is there for the consumer and the business model is simple.
The message of this is: stop suing your consumers or your consumers will beging to sue you back!
The EFF did not release the insecure patch. Sony did. What the EFF did was to allow Sony some time to release it:
In accordance with standard information security practices, EFF and iSEC delayed public disclosure of the details of the exploit to provide SunnComm the opportunity to develop an update.
IMHO: I admit that I don't know all the implications of the EFF move, probably no one does at this time. However, I would be prudent before blaming them. If Sony begins to listen to intelligent people instead of DRM vendors, it might not be a bad thing. In the end, their commercial interests might prevail, but at that time, the EFF will have earned a public recognition that can be used to access and mobilise public opinion.
... the company claimed it is already punching out BDs with a yield...
"BDs" is interesting: it suggests some sort of priority over CDs. I can see the next generations as being called ADs, but that's when the competition will come up with BCs...
I see a good reason for the EFF to get involved. Sony was succeding in keeping the two DRM issues separate, at least on the legal and larger public side (developers are (were?) seen as a negligible entity. The Agreement for the patch was for the EFF a way to get Sony to recognise the reality of the larger problem. I don't know if the EFF knew already what would follow, but I would not be surprised. Good move EFF!
--
Think!
Being moded "insightful" for casting this effort in the shadow of futility is beyond me.
Getting patents for things that have been in the public domain, sometimes for thousands of years, is the most graphic demonstration of the insanity of the current and recent abuses of the patent system and is probably one of the best example to use in the effort to convince public opinion around the world that something is amiss and that we need to take action.
What the Indian government is doing is far from being futile. It is what needs to be done, in that case and many others, and what ought to be emulated by other governments and public organisations.
The more a song gets downloaded, the more it would cost
The reasoning is upside down. Cost per item goes down with increase in number of item sold, which allows to sell cheaper, which allows to sell more.
From IBM letter to Trimarco: As you have done so far, you should require evidence of broad implementation of a standard. ODF has real, multiple implementations and there are more organizations building in support for it right now. This broad acceptance of and support for ODF is fact today and not something that is wished or hoped for in the future. In this way you will guarantee that Massachusetts can obtain the necessary software to run its citizens' business in a cost effective way, while maintaining your historical legacy for all to read and access.
When they say "Massachusetts seems to have warmed...", does anyone know the political process that led to this ridiculously sheepish attitude, if true? Because we need to expose this to the face of the world. We need to make sure that this is no the end of the story.
Attach a bearded guy, and a couple of nails and it turns into Christianity
...???
So??? could we say then that, sort of, socialism is the opium of the masses???
Just joking, your point is valid, but that won't help with the sapping tactics used by Microsoft's friends.
So what exactly is your advice to this forum? Do nothing?
With a view like this, you miss most of the action: that this blog entry by a former Mac exec is most timely, at a time when the worst predictions by DRM opponents come true, as some DRM implementations lead to serious security breaches and when SONY is being sued in California and New York for this.
Expect DRM to take a new colour when this shit hit the fan of general media and consumers advocates get a wonderful occasion to turn the table of media conglomerates to portray everyone and his mother as a pirate.
Of course, I can't predict the outcome of the war, but this battle, contrary to the defeatist tone of your post, is most interesting.
This could end up being a turning point. The organisations pusing for DRM will easily and swiftly realise what this leads to:
All their heavy public relations work to portray the reluctant consumers as merely "pirates" is on for a trying test.
The Internet itself has changed the rules of intellectual property. Without it, the media conglomerates would not be in the tizzy that they currently are in.
Berl2 has just written something insightful about this (up 2 or 3 posts). I would add that I don't know if the Internet has changed the rules of "intellectual property", whatever that is, but it certainly has changed the rules of its distribution. Note that the media conglomerates you mention being in a tizzy are mostly, if not overwhelmingly, distributors. Even those who pass as producers among them, under analysis, are really brokers and in the end merely distributors.
This is a powerfull message to anyone being involved in the decision process over the state of Massachusetts: "We do support the Open Document standard!". A welcome move at a critical time.
I wrote my PhD dissertation using Word back when you used two 360 KB floppies: one for the program and one where I could fit one chapter. I knew the program inside out. But then, with each upgrade it took me more and more time to stay afloat, until, after a few years, I stopped even trying to configure the damn thing to my needs altogether. They took a power user and transformed it in an utterly dependent being.
I can't understand the meaning of your assertion that Word is a good piece of software. It's unusable for me and for everyone I know.
Publishers do this because Google Print does what publishers are supposed to do: making the book known.
The thing is that Google may very well end up doing it better
...true cable a la carte, which consumers have been demanding for years and unable to get
You just nailed it, at least for me! I also watch fewer than 10 hours a month. Moreover, I would love to watch shows not available in North America (Canada, in my case), like outstanding documentaries from the BBC, which I only get to watch when I go there (no, BBC Canada does not include them). Or from there, why not the best public broadcating from around the world? -- I don't sig, therefore I don't exist
... Such a policy might seem like something that should concern only a small group of technology professionals, but in fact the implications are staggering and far-reaching. The policy promises to burden taxpayers with new costs and to disrupt how state agencies interact with citizens, businesses and organizations.
I'm all for giving the issue a more public profile. I was wondering on how to achieve this but now, out of panic, they will help us do just that! Wonderful!
...having the impression that the list is not very impressive? Not very comprehensive and no mention of W3schools, for example. Is SitePro News a good site itself? -- I prefer to remain silent.
And no matter how powerful the argument, the industry believes that every single time you download something, they lose a sale
They are shrewd businesspeople and they know as well as you and I that we will acquire music legally if given the occasion. The Economist has already revealed that their losses has little to do with music download and has helped if anything
What they want to do is to frame the question in such a way that they can promote legislation that will do away with fair use and will strenghten their (the distributors') control of the market.
MS has chosen to advertise to the world that they are losing their best people to competition. This is unwise. Their practices will also get further publicity by the same occasion.
This gives a new twist to (first Intel CEO) Andy Grove's motto that "only the paranoïds survive"...
Ballmer: [...] I think you have to ask us are you gonna give us a way to have one plus one be three with other applications in terms of the way they communicate and work out on the Internet. We're working hard on strategies to facilitate that. With MSN and some of the other things we're doing. I think that's an important area. I think at the end of the day developers, though, more than almost anything wanna know "are you guys gonna win?"
Interesting... The question of inter-operability, which is at the centre of the issues addressed to Microsoft by users and legislators around the world is in this excerpt:
1. volunteered by Ballmer as the most important question that should be addressed to Microsoft
2. oxymoronniccally answered in terms of market dominance.
So... They are acutely conscious of what is at the source of the universal "unease" with Microsoft, and here Ballmer, in an act of unbelievable candor, offers a invaluable peek into how they approach the question.
He said such "abuses" should lead us to return to principles and the law. Big corporations were afraid of losing their protection, but the costs of patents were rising. "Freedom is better," said Mr Rocard, saying that those who opposed his position showed the weakness of their arguments by resorting to insults about returning to the middle ages. It was time to reconcile law with consistency and clarity. He called on corporations to adjust to this new situation. Interesting that proponents of this directive could resort to an argument about returning to the middle ages, a time when an armed group could hold a corner of a river or a road and levy a "tax" on passer-by, so travel (exchange of goods, knowledge, etc) was expensive and hasardous. A time where people were serfs rather than citizens.