Except of course Obama has said he's going to Iraq soon.
Therefore Obama should not be president.
Moreover the Washington Post had talked about Obama going to Iraq. So they have extensively compromised the candidate's security. Dozens of news outlets had said that Obama is about to depart for Afghanistan and Iraq. Before McCain said a word.
So McCain should not be President, because he repeated a widely reported 100% factually correct story that will have no real bearing on anyone's security. Fair enough.
The suggestion that McCain is trying to "manipulate elections" "another way" is spin worthy of Karl Rove.
You're actually suggesting (as far as I can tell) that McCain is setting his opponent up for something very nasty.
That's just... wow. Words fail me. If you genuinely believe that, you're in a whole different world from the one I'm in.
And I'm no fan of John McCain. I think he's too old. But that's altogether different from saying he's trying to manipulate elections by having his opponent die.
Worse than this even. I've been redirected to Rogers Search pages, replete with advertising, for domains that I know exist, and that I know have been entered correctly (e.g. via a bookmark).
It used to happen a lot with http://ragnartornquist.com/ (Tornquist is a senior game designer for Funcom). Granted that's a tough name to spell properly for a North American, but since I'd click on a bookmarked link, or a google page, I was sure it wasn't a problem with my typing.
What started to give it away as being something at Rogers (rather than my computer infected with malware) was that this was happening on every device I connected to the net -- Lynx on BSD, Safari on Apple, Opera on Maemo, Iceweasel on Ubuntu, and, of course, Firefox/IE/Opera on Windows.
(Yeah, I have a lot of different OS's sitting around!)
For a while I then became convinced my router had been compromised, but even switching routers didn't fix it.
Concluding it was unlikely that five different OSes and myriad different browsers had all been compromised, as well as two different routers, I contacted Rogers.
They said they were experimenting with "Software Improvements" and that the problem should go away for existing domains.
Well, using a proxy fixed it for me. But not a pleasant solution.
Software Improvements.
And the problem did go away for me at least. But I wonder if anyone else is being redirected to Rogers garbage pages for domains which exist.
You clearly want to say that because mohamed was commander of this army, he was responsible for everything anyone did while under his command... Get real, that's not how it works. I've no comment on the rest of your argument; getting involved in a debate with anyone with strong views on religion be they pro or con is generally futile.
That said, widespread rape by the soldiers most certainly would be the responsibility of the commander. You might want to look at the way the military works and check out the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
As a minimum such a commander would be relieved and disciplined; at a maximum he (or she) might be looking at hard time and a dishonorable discharge.
True, I suppose you could counter argue that this is merely our culture and our norms, and that you see no reason for a commander to take responsibility for the widespread and notorious actions of his troops.
The earlier poster has a point, though it's a weak one. Christ indeed didn't lead around armies that raped and pillaged. He spoke against such things, according to the record Christ's followers accept.
But those who came after him from St. Paul on? Many were happy to inject all sorts of things Christ never said. And as the centuries passed, and Christianity gained in temporal power, there was no shortage of 'Holy' Christian Armies ready to ransack, pillage, and, yes, rape.
Dude, you are a brainwashed fool completely incapable of thinking critically, just like the hordes of dhimmi-wannabes. ad hominems really aren't impressive. They don't bolster your argument the way you think they do. They just make you look like, in your words, "a fool".
You're talking about two different things -- you're talking about a collective power, the power of a majority collectivity to read signs in the language they wish to, and their power to ban, fine and imprison those who put up a sign in another language or try to speak another language in the workplace. (Read Bill 101, the Quebec sign law, and its successors if you're not familiar with it).
I cannot believe you have any significant familiarity with the concept of freedom if you truly believe that arresting people who put up a sign in English represents "freedom". No one could credibly claim this is "freedom" in any reasonable sense of the word.
Having a state police force to monitor people's speech and signs is "freedom"?
The earlier poster was talking about the freedom of individuals to put up signs in whatever language they wish.
In any non-Orwellian fashion, freedom of speech refers to the latter, not the former.
If any English-first people in the US try to pass laws forcing private businesses to put up signs only in English, I predict they'll be shot down by the First Amendment. I certainly hope they will.
Now, does that mean the US is "freer" than any other country? I'd say no. While the US has an extremely strong Bill of Rights, the tentacles of federal agencies and departments -- ATF, Justice have remorselessly expanded over the last few decades.
There was RICO -- to be used only against organized crime. Now it's used routinely. Then there were all the drug laws, and confiscation laws for the "War on Drugs". Look at how widespread that's gotten. Now there's the Patriot Act, to be used only on terrorists.
Does anyone seriously believe that Patriot Act provisions won't be routinely used ten years from now against ordinary citizens in the same way that RICO provisions are now?
The state will monitor people's speech in the US in exactly the same way that it does in Quebec. The ostensible goals will be different, "to prevent terrorism" vs. "preserve linguistic purity", but the effect will be similar.
It's a shame that a giant ad urging me to upgrade my ISP service with Rogers is obscuring most of this thread, or I'd be able to make a cogent and intelligent comment.
Six hundred dollars for a usable -- even decent -- system is perfectly practical, though not, admittedly, if you want Windows Vista Ultimate on it. Or OS X for that matter.
I'll say this here (and below): this isn't a Mac vs PC/Dell/Ubuntu argument. Macs have their advantages (design, OSX); Dells have their advantages (windows games); custum configured ubuntu's have their advantages (inexpensive, expandable). What someone chooses is up to his or her tastes and needs.
Note that this isn't intended to create the best system for $600, or even the most fantastic to upgrade. It's simply to indicate that you can quickly configure a $600 system running on your *nix OS of choice that will be very capable, very practical, and very expandable. (So please, no nitpicks about "you should have chosen component XYZ instead of ABC or a different merchant; take it as read that this can be improved on).
Just quickly grabbing parts from decent manufacturers off the shelf at my local computer outlet (http://shoprbc.com/), with no particular eye for what's on sale:
(Prices in C$; US prices at Newegg are even cheaper despite the dollar, but I can't find a good system quote feature at Newegg).
That gives you a 64-bit X86 dual core machine with decent graphics (more than adequate for any flavor of Vista, and basic 3D gaming). A 15" LCD display, mouse, keyboard and speakers. You've got 2GB of RAM (admittedly only 533MHz) which is enough to run Vista if some particular moment of masochism seizes you. (or you need to). You've got quite a respectable power supply and case, though you'll never do SLI.
This machine will run pretty much anything one could reasonably throw at it. Games a couple of years old, fairly heavy office/browsing/email use.
Expansion?
Want to run AutoCad in a few months? Pop in 2 more GB of RAM, install whatever OS and software is needed, and pop in a 6400+ AMD CPU. $53 for the RAM, $190 for a 6400+ cpu. (You might need a better monitor though!)
Want a nice gaming machine in a few months? Install Windows XP SP3 OEM, and an Nvidia 8800GT. $200-$250 for the card, $100 or so for the OS. (The power supply is good enough, though if you wanted to splurge for an Antec Earthwatts 85% efficient 500W power supply you could do that.)
I really don't understand the OP's objections to a decent system at $600.
It's eminently possible.
Will it be as good as a Mac Mini? That's entirely in the eye of the beholder. It won't run OS X which is a huge strike against it for many people, and fair enough. It won't be as elegant and small. It will be more powerful and expandable, though those count for little if you want a small elegant machine running OS X.
This isn't a Dell vs Apple or even PC vs Mac or even Linux vs Mac post. Different horses for different courses. It's simply an effort to show that $600 buys you a pretty decent system.
Of course it's not rhetorically valid. I quite agree. My argument is simply that it should be legally valid for people to make fair use of copyrighted work, even if they are making polemical points.
And note, I wasn't trying to justify DI's use by noting this; I was simply responding to the poster who argued "It's quite another to argue that it's okay to chop up, re-arrange, and misrepresent the message for propaganda purposes, and call that "freedom."".
DI fails that test in my view, because unlike Moore's brief snippets, they reproduced virtually the entire video, substituting their own narrative. That doesn't strike me as "fair use" as I understand it.
My sole point was that simply because someone indulges in what might be odious propaganda to many people (DI for some, Moore for others) is not on its own any reason to deny them "fair use" protections under copyright law.
Well, thanks for your sarcasm and condescension, Lained. "Are you this dumb" and "Tought [sic] I wouldn't have to explain everything like done [sic] to little kids... I was wrong."
That sort of response elevates dialog everywhere.
Now, take a deep breath. You evidently didn't read the post -- mine or the one above it. I'll try and refrain from casting sneering aspersions on your intelligence, but I certainly will raise an eyebrow at your limited reading comprehension.
That OP (above my OP) made an argument that people who aren't having valid debate (in his view) aren't entitled to the defense of fair use in copyright. To cite again, since you must have missed it even though I quoted it right at the top of my post:
It's quite another to argue that it's okay to chop up, re-arrange, and misrepresent the message for propaganda purposes, and call that "freedom."
My argument was very simply that freedom depends on people being able to do precisely that. (I also noted that I don't think the DI passes as they didn't engage in fair use as I see it).
I cited the Moore example: by sneakily chopping up entirely separate speeches of Heston's and splicing them together (with a cut in between the two sentences to obscure the fact that Heston was wearing a different tie in the second).
It surely would be a bad thing to declare that Moore is "violating freedom" and deserves some judicial sanctions for that, would it not?
Now, in your continuing effort to entirely miss the point, you say:
"Depends... Did the viewers understood it was taken from two different footages?"
This utterly irrelevant to the argument above, and shows an appalling degree of cluelessness, but ok, I'll bite. No, the viewers did not understand this. You know, I know, and the GP knows because we've read about it. I didn't notice the first time I saw the film because of the clever cutting of scenes.
The Discovery Institute didn't cut&pasted the scenes... they striped the film of Harvards narrations and copyright info, and placed instead their own narrations, with no reference to the original author. So, for the Bowling for Columbine example to be comparable, Michael Moore would have to: have done the entire film on top of the original footage (all of the film, nothing more, nothing less of), and dub Charlton Heston voice
And you're still entirely missing the point. For a sneering fellow who calls others dumb and muppets and dumb kids, you are remarkably dull-witted, aren't you?
Read what I wrote above. No, go back. Read it ten times if you have to.
The Moore response was not to justify (or attack) what DI had done. It was to comment on the item I quoted at the top of my post which was the original slashdot conversation, now repeated here, again:
It's quite another to argue that it's okay to chop up, re-arrange, and misrepresent the message for propaganda purposes, and call that "freedom."
Moore did exactly that: chopped up, rearranged, and misrepresented someone else's message for propaganda purposes (possibly good propaganda purposes if you happen to agree with his views). And that is indeed freedom. He has a right to take copyrighted video and do that; You and I have a right to take copyrighted words, statements and of Moores and present them to make our point.
It's called fair use and the First Amendment.
The clue to bad speech isn't to silence it by making it unprotected by fair use doctrines, it's to have good speech countering it.
Yet you failed utterly to grasp this point, and instead launched off into a set of ad hominem sneers about the intellects of those adults around you.
I agree that the Discovery Institute seems to fail, because it took an entire work and ran it in sequence. That doesn't look like fair use to me.
The analogy is exact. And I am stunned that you are not only incapable of seeing it but that you fee
It's quite another to argue that it's okay to chop up, re-arrange, and misrepresent the message for propaganda purposes, and call that "freedom."
One man's propaganda is another man's truth.
And what you decry is a vital part of freedom, in my view.
In the film "Bowling for Columbine", Michael Moore chopped up (and spliced in) copywritten videos of Charlton Heston speaking a set of words he actually uttered months apart.
This was a distortion, a misrepresentation and, yes I suppose it could be said to be propaganda. It also made the point that a lot of people believe the NRA is too cold and uncaring about things like school shootings.
He won an academy award for that film.
Whether one is pro or anti Moore's arguments, surely we could agree that what he did should be constitutionally protected?
And yet he did exactly what you decry.
I'm not sure that what the DI did meets that test though. They apparently reproduced nearly the entire film, stripping out the narration. Unless we accept, as one commenter above argues, that the narration was the core of the copy written material, I don't think their actions pass muster.
But I think that's because it's reproducing too much of the copy written material and not putting in enough of their own.
If you don't agree with me, think about it like this. If you "chop up and re-arrange and 'misrepresent', what I've just said to argue against me, then you would, by your arguments, be breaking the law. This post, after all, is copyright and owned by me. It says so right at the very bottom of this page!
Sique, what you're saying doesn't quite seem to make sense. You argue that "the narrative is the core of the video, and the pictures are merely there to illustrate". Fair enough. (Not sure I agree, but let's take it your way for the sake of argument).
DI didn't copy the narrative. They didn't copy the "core" of the video, by your argument. (Indeed, who owns the copyright to the images and animations? Is it all Harvard? Or a mix? This seems to weaken any argument they violated copyright -- by your assertions as to the "core" of the item in question.
Misinterpretation of a sequence of pictures is thus no "scientific discourse".
It may or may not be valid scientific discourse (I lean to no), but if your argument is that someone making a mistaken (or even flawed or foolish argument) is therefore guilty of copyright violation when someone who does exactly the same thing but makes a valid argument isn't, then that would place a very unhealthy chill on free expression.
You seem to argue that we should then ultimately accept endless litigation (or would you posit some Scientific Council to decide what is valid?) in order to determine what is valid science and what isn't. This seems antithetical to free speech, good peer review and well established journals.
If I'm misinterpreting you, my apologies.
My own view is that we should be very careful about attacking even foolish, stupid and wrong people using legal tools if their actions would otherwise be legally and constitutionally protected if they happened to be correct, or at least possibly correct.
(Many European countries believe differently; Holocaust denial, for example is illegal and unprotected).
Turn it around another way. Suppose you are a physicist and I am someone who believes that Newton's Laws are incorrect, ditto General Relativity. I assert that the movement of planetary bodies (for example) is not explained by Relativity and Gravitation, but by the fact that large invisible angels carry the planets about on their backs.
I'd be a fool, a crank, or both. But if I then reproduced a paper you wrote on gravitation, and annotated it copiously (especially if I didn't reproduce the "core" of your paper) with my arguments significantly outweighing yours in space consumed, then I don't think one could make the case I was violating copyright. This would be a classic example of fair use/fair dealing, particularly given that large portions of your paper were not being reproduced.
I'll grant and salute your geekiness. I tried doing the same on a Palm Pilot (I'm sure inferior resolution, but comparable screen size) to your HP PDA. Couldn't do it. Most people feel the same way.
If you want a device that's much closer to being a good ebook reader, that's the Nokia 770/N8xx line. These are not phones, but small, 8oz hand-held internet tablets with Bluetooth, wireless... and... a 4.1" 800x480 275dpi 16-bit color screen. That size and resolution smokes the iPhone and any PDA I've seen. (Not saying other attributes of the devices do so; e.g. the color depth is only 16-bits which is inferior; moreover the OS is a Linux derivative which is arguably inferior to the elegance of the OS-X variant on the iPhone).
They sell for (circa) $120, $250, $450 depending on which variant you buy, but all have the same screen. And no $2000 2-year contract with AT&T. Of course, no cell phone service either.
But the iPhone? 320x480. 40% the number of pixels of the Nokia devices screens. More or less expensive (generally more) and a hefty contract with ATT.
The Kindle? Much bigger screen, lower power consumption, free wireless, but very limited access (e.g. only Wikipedia + Kindle store I believe). And circa $400.
None of these three devices are ideal though.
The iPhone comes bundled with extensive DRM and is closely tied to service providers.
The Kindle's black and white and tied closely to Amazon. It also looks kind of ugly.
The Nokia N8xx are a little clunky, lack polish, and, while admirably DRM-free, and untied to service providers, that places compatibility costs.
We're evolving towards some quite interesting devices. When you get pixel dpi's onto low power screens that are comparable to paper, it's not inconceivable we could find something better than books. (I speak as someone who owns about 5000 books, taking up two large rooms in my house. I love books.)
But we're not there yet. The iPhone isn't even close. Yet. Amazon port the reader to commercial success? I doubt it. Anything's possible, but that screen is pretty bad for reading books.
Assume for a moment that a benevolent business point blank asks their customer, "Do you mind if we root-kit your computer for additional security?" If the customer agrees, they either trust the company or don't know what they're doing.
Actually, if I "agree" (i.e., say yes), it means I *do* mind being root-kitted. If the company then proceeds to root-kit my machine, they are definitely opening themselves up for a lawsuit.
That question is almost as bad as the infamous:
Yes means No and No means Yes. Format computer now, Yes/No?
But really, this error reinforces some of the disturbing aspects of the original question as cited. Users who answer "Yes" to using a more secure question may be idiots who always click yes; they may be knowledgeable users who expect something like SSL. They are unlikely to be sophisticated users that expect to be root-kitted.
I certainly agree with parent about the dangers of assuming benevolence -- from corporations, or governments.
Well, first, many versions of Nethack now have sophisticated graphics... tiles! And color! Granted, they doesn't require the latest board from Nvidia or ATI/AMD to run.
Second, I had to wonder at how well-researched the review was when I hit this line:
You'll occasionally do a stealth-style mission aided by nightvision (obviously absent from WWII)
No nightvision in WW2? The Americans -- who were probably behind the Germans -- deployed primitive nightvision sniper scopes to the Pacific Theatre in 1945. http://www.nvl.army.mil/about/index.php
Granted, it's picking at a minor technical error, but, hey this is Slashdot!
Personally, I like the eyecandy, but not if it gets in the way of a good story. I'll see anyone's Nethack, and raise you a Zork I, II, III.
And rather sadly, Google didn't observe the day in Canada at least. Given that Canada's got a whole new series of combat veterans (returning from Afghanistan) in numbers unprecedented since the 1950's, that's rather sad.
As to the posters wondering about it affecting more than Americans, Canada was in the war from 1914 on. The US, from 1917 to 1918. Both countries, nearly 60,000 dead from combat. Of course that was out of a population one tenth the size of the United States.
I find it reprehensible that we really want people to suffer instead of losing a small bit of our own money.
Most of those who approach welfare from a libertarian perspective don't want people to suffer. Nor is it about a small amount of money. (And compared to overall spending, welfare in most parts of the world is indeed relatively modest).
Sometimes, it's appropriate to spend significantly; for example, care for the seriously mentally-ill or severely disabled. (And yes, many mentally ill and disabled people can work, though may require some degree of assistance).
However, unlimited welfare, especially when spread over several generations, seems to have some very negative social consequences. I'm thinking (as an example) about third-generation unemployment in Belfast slums -- "housing estates" if you prefer. These are people who've never known a parent or even grandparent who's been employed, and who've lived off welfare for generations. This is a pretty monstrous thing to do to human beings, in my view: to turn them from free human beings into life-long wards of the State.
Sadly, this is something that some of a liberal (I'm not American, so don't view it as a dirty word) persuasion don't seem to grasp. They genuinely seem to believe that those who oppose unlimited welfare are either greedy, stupid, or evil. Or perhaps all three. To them, it's either a full-blown welfare state or Dickensian workhouses. The idea that life isn't binary, and that there might be alternatives between extremes seems unfathomable.
(I don't accuse the parent of this perspective; he notes "I do think we need some welfare reform, though, to keep it from habitualizing the system". Indeed.)
As for the actual topic, tax-payer funded parties at NASA are definitely bad optics, but the arguments in favor seem not unreasonable.
The company that sold you the dead parrot... err... dog... might well be required to refund you your purchase price, sure.
The distinction is, if the dog they sold you fails to apprehend an intruder who robs you blind, they're not liable for everything he stole.
Similarly, if some piece of software you purchase for $500 crashes and corrupts your hard drive, the developer isn't liable for the $100,000 (pick a number) worth of data you have on the drive.
Limitation of liability is important, and not just for 'evil' big companies and their presumably not-so-evil shareholders and employees. Would you like unlimited personal liability for every piece of code you write?
Fable was clever; a good storyline with decent graphics. True, not everyone's cup of tea is an RPG, but it was well-crafted, with an interesting approach to morality and decision-making.
That they fall in the normal range of 20 to 50%. What did we learn? Nothing.
Actually, at 36-47%, we learned that they fall in at the high end of the range. Perhaps you don't see that as being of any value, but if I'm a carrier(or distributor) -- or a supplier -- negotiating with that vendor, it's helpful to know they have margins at above the middle of the scale, and quite possibly near the top.
It relies on faulty analysis for people to make that claim and gives them a quasi-factual, half-true basis to do so. This can only cause harm.
No, it relies on analysis that is, by definition, imprecise. Engineering is often about answering questions like "how many golfballs can you fit in a suitcase" -- estimating, in other words. As for "this can only cause harm"... well... that's a little overstated, don't you think?
Anyone offering you any level of accuracy beyond that without specific documentation is lying.
I'm not sure why you impute such base motives "can only cause harm... lying" to people.
I think you've got a very legitimate criticism that points to the need to take such public estimates with a large grain of salt. But to suggest that this equates to liars causing actual real harm... yikes.
To return to your example ($58 cost, $100 retail), even at 20% error, you're looking at margins of between 30 and 54%. This tells us the product is well above the bottom of the 20-50% range, and is probably (though by no means definitely) again above the halfway mark of the 20-50% range.
Either one sees a use for this or one doesn't. Obviously, you not only don't see a use, you see it as a harmful lie. Fair enough, but I can't possibly agree.
It's the nature of engineering and cost estimates. Of course they are going to be inaccurate to some degree. If you can point to more accurate estimates that are publicly available then great. If there are better firms than iSuppli at cost estimating, then wonderful.
Getting to within 10% of the cost of goods sounds fantastic to me. Within 20-25% still sounds not bad. It's a lot better than a total guess, which seems to be what you're suggesting. (gross margins of between 20 and 50 %).
Incidentally, on the whole matter of Apple making money:
I'm not a big fan of the iPhone -- it's simply not the product for me. Part of that's price, much of that's the lockin -- on apps and to a carrier if you want stable seamless firmware upgrades.
But I'm delighted to see it succeed and delighted to see Apple making lots of money off it. I doubt Apple's going to take 70-90% of the smartphone market, and if they do, it'll be because they deserve to. People like RIM and Nokia will have manifestly failed to execute.
Apple making lots of money off of smartphones means, ultimately, cheaper and better smartphones for everyone.
I have a fantastic Samsung media player. It plays Ogg Vorbis. Terrific features. Inexpensive, too. And an absolutely horrible interface. The iPod's wiping out players with horrible interfaces. Great. That's good for us all. The latest Samsungs are immeasurably better.
Smartphones will get better and cheaper because of the iPhone. That's good for everyone.
What's really ironic and sad was that the actual email was setting up some sensible standards for control and hearing of complaints (see the link).
That said, the headline is reasonable.
This was a Democratic initiative, and possibly quite a good one until this.
The Democrats are in charge. Yes, there are Republican staffers, but are you going to suggest the Majority staffers said to the Republicans "We want a long weekend, you guys take over sending out these emails."
That would make the Democrats lazy, reckless and negligent as well as stupid.
Admittedly it would still leave us wondering if the Republicans were stupid or malicious. (I know, many would say both).
I'm still paying $46 for stuff I can get in the states for $32. (And no idea if Verbatim are better or worse than Maxell). My point remains: Canadians pay a lot more -- frequently close to double -- for CD-R's.
Sure, I can pay less still from blankmedia.ca, and I can pay less still from a US blankmedia retailer. That's not the point; the point is to try and compare apples to apples what prices for the same goods from the same retailer in both countries are like.
I agree with parent. Sure, charge for service. Sure, nickel and dime us if that's the way you want to run your airline.
But... I have to wonder if there isn't a market for a new kind of Airline with a motto something like this:
"We charge you a bit more because we don't screw you".
We serve hot meals on flights over one hour. (Just to be safe, we do so on any flight that's scheduled for 50 minutes or longer). If our planes are delayed by more than 30 minutes, please accept this 50% off coupon as our apology. We'll let you know in advance if you're on some mysterious "no-fly" list because you have the same name as "Bob Smith", noted terrorist, and have to show up at the airport 2 hours early.
"Flying can suck. We don't. We'll never be the cheapest way to get around, but we aim to be the best."
But maybe I'm dreaming. Maybe we really do want every airline to be the lowest common denominator.
"Piracy" might be higher in Canada than the US. Certainly the RIAA and MPAA would like us all to think so.
In part, that's because of an unwritten compact. The article mentions that blank CD's have been taxed in Canada. They don't really explain viscerally how heavily.
Take a look at these two products from the same retail chain -- Best Buy -- in Canada and the US. The Canadian dollar, to everyone's astonishment, is about $1.02 US as of this writing, i.e., worth a little more than the US dollar. So dollar to dollar price comparisons are reasonably fair.
In the United States, if I want to wander into Best Buy and pick up a 100-pack of Maxell CD-R's I'm going to pay $32.99 as of this weekend.
The same retail chain, in Canada, the same product... $69.99.
(By contrast, a Maxell 50-pack of DVD-R's is 19.99 in Canada this weekend, regularly 31.99, and 30.99 in the US).
Not, of course, that I recommend Best Buy as a store or Maxell as media. Just easy quick comparisons.
That's right. In Canada this weekend, you'll pay more than double for CD-R's than in the States, and, at least for DVD-R's purchased from Best Buy, about two thirds of what you'll pay in the States.
The difference goes to the music industry and, ultimately, artists.
So Canada has this unwritten compact whereby everyone who purchases CD-R's is assumed to be using them for copied music and pays a hefty tax.
And, in turn, so far the courts have been highly resistant to industry attempts to get ISP's to divulge who's at what IP. And downloading... stuff.
I don't suggest that the two are directly connected, but there is probably a moral connection in more than one person's mind and more than one judge's mind.
The industry, of course, hates this.
People who used CD-R's for backup have, not surprisingly, moved on to using DVD-/+R's, and don't really mind.
Personally, I lean to the view that the sensible way forward is to charge a Canadian CD-R type levy on personal internet usage, and let people do what they want. You might even make it something people can opt out of, but if they're then caught downloading music/video without permission of the copyright holder, they get hit with a full-blown RIAA legal assault. And fair enough then. They had a nice easy way to legally comply and still do something that socially is very popular... and they chose to break the law.
Make legal (monitored for market share) downloads so compelling and interesting that the illegal alternatives fade away.
True, we can simply treat it as piracy and let the *AA continue to sue people, but that didn't work very well in the case of people taping programs on VCR's.
This move, though, to tax legal downloads is just plain bizarre as others have suggested.
Slashdot Mirror
So McCain has said Obama is going to Iraq soon.
Therefore McCain should not be president.
Except of course Obama has said he's going to Iraq soon.
Therefore Obama should not be president.
Moreover the Washington Post had talked about Obama going to Iraq. So they have extensively compromised the candidate's security. Dozens of news outlets had said that Obama is about to depart for Afghanistan and Iraq. Before McCain said a word.
So McCain should not be President, because he repeated a widely reported 100% factually correct story that will have no real bearing on anyone's security. Fair enough.
The suggestion that McCain is trying to "manipulate elections" "another way" is spin worthy of Karl Rove.
You're actually suggesting (as far as I can tell) that McCain is setting his opponent up for something very nasty.
That's just... wow. Words fail me. If you genuinely believe that, you're in a whole different world from the one I'm in.
And I'm no fan of John McCain. I think he's too old. But that's altogether different from saying he's trying to manipulate elections by having his opponent die.
Interesting?
No. Crazy.
Worse than this even. I've been redirected to Rogers Search pages, replete with advertising, for domains that I know exist, and that I know have been entered correctly (e.g. via a bookmark).
It used to happen a lot with http://ragnartornquist.com/ (Tornquist is a senior game designer for Funcom). Granted that's a tough name to spell properly for a North American, but since I'd click on a bookmarked link, or a google page, I was sure it wasn't a problem with my typing.
What started to give it away as being something at Rogers (rather than my computer infected with malware) was that this was happening on every device I connected to the net -- Lynx on BSD, Safari on Apple, Opera on Maemo, Iceweasel on Ubuntu, and, of course, Firefox/IE/Opera on Windows.
(Yeah, I have a lot of different OS's sitting around!)
For a while I then became convinced my router had been compromised, but even switching routers didn't fix it.
Concluding it was unlikely that five different OSes and myriad different browsers had all been compromised, as well as two different routers, I contacted Rogers.
They said they were experimenting with "Software Improvements" and that the problem should go away for existing domains.
Well, using a proxy fixed it for me. But not a pleasant solution.
Software Improvements.
And the problem did go away for me at least. But I wonder if anyone else is being redirected to Rogers garbage pages for domains which exist.
Holmwood.
That said, widespread rape by the soldiers most certainly would be the responsibility of the commander. You might want to look at the way the military works and check out the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
As a minimum such a commander would be relieved and disciplined; at a maximum he (or she) might be looking at hard time and a dishonorable discharge.
True, I suppose you could counter argue that this is merely our culture and our norms, and that you see no reason for a commander to take responsibility for the widespread and notorious actions of his troops.
The earlier poster has a point, though it's a weak one. Christ indeed didn't lead around armies that raped and pillaged. He spoke against such things, according to the record Christ's followers accept.
But those who came after him from St. Paul on? Many were happy to inject all sorts of things Christ never said. And as the centuries passed, and Christianity gained in temporal power, there was no shortage of 'Holy' Christian Armies ready to ransack, pillage, and, yes, rape. Dude, you are a brainwashed fool completely incapable of thinking critically, just like the hordes of dhimmi-wannabes. ad hominems really aren't impressive. They don't bolster your argument the way you think they do. They just make you look like, in your words, "a fool".
Holmwood.
You're talking about two different things -- you're talking about a collective power, the power of a majority collectivity to read signs in the language they wish to, and their power to ban, fine and imprison those who put up a sign in another language or try to speak another language in the workplace. (Read Bill 101, the Quebec sign law, and its successors if you're not familiar with it).
I cannot believe you have any significant familiarity with the concept of freedom if you truly believe that arresting people who put up a sign in English represents "freedom". No one could credibly claim this is "freedom" in any reasonable sense of the word.
Having a state police force to monitor people's speech and signs is "freedom"?
The earlier poster was talking about the freedom of individuals to put up signs in whatever language they wish.
In any non-Orwellian fashion, freedom of speech refers to the latter, not the former.
If any English-first people in the US try to pass laws forcing private businesses to put up signs only in English, I predict they'll be shot down by the First Amendment. I certainly hope they will.
Now, does that mean the US is "freer" than any other country? I'd say no. While the US has an extremely strong Bill of Rights, the tentacles of federal agencies and departments -- ATF, Justice have remorselessly expanded over the last few decades.
There was RICO -- to be used only against organized crime. Now it's used routinely. Then there were all the drug laws, and confiscation laws for the "War on Drugs". Look at how widespread that's gotten. Now there's the Patriot Act, to be used only on terrorists.
Does anyone seriously believe that Patriot Act provisions won't be routinely used ten years from now against ordinary citizens in the same way that RICO provisions are now?
The state will monitor people's speech in the US in exactly the same way that it does in Quebec. The ostensible goals will be different, "to prevent terrorism" vs. "preserve linguistic purity", but the effect will be similar.
-Holmwood
Come on, this deserves at least a +1 funny.
IP - intellectual property vs. IP - Internet Protocol.
I can't have been the only slashdot reader who thought that with that juicy headline on the OP.
It's a shame that a giant ad urging me to upgrade my ISP service with Rogers is obscuring most of this thread, or I'd be able to make a cogent and intelligent comment.
- Holmwood
I beg to differ.
Six hundred dollars for a usable -- even decent -- system is perfectly practical, though not, admittedly, if you want Windows Vista Ultimate on it. Or OS X for that matter.
I'll say this here (and below): this isn't a Mac vs PC/Dell/Ubuntu argument. Macs have their advantages (design, OSX); Dells have their advantages (windows games); custum configured ubuntu's have their advantages (inexpensive, expandable). What someone chooses is up to his or her tastes and needs.
Note that this isn't intended to create the best system for $600, or even the most fantastic to upgrade. It's simply to indicate that you can quickly configure a $600 system running on your *nix OS of choice that will be very capable, very practical, and very expandable. (So please, no nitpicks about "you should have chosen component XYZ instead of ABC or a different merchant; take it as read that this can be improved on).
Just quickly grabbing parts from decent manufacturers off the shelf at my local computer outlet (http://shoprbc.com/), with no particular eye for what's on sale:
$088.00 - AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ AM2 Dual-Core 65W Processor
$053.00 - Asus M2N-MX SE AM2 Gf6100 mATX Mainboard
$052.50 - *Crucial Rendition 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory KIT
$071.00 - Seagate 7200.10 250GB SATAII Hard Drive, 5Yr
$029.00 - LG GSA-H55N 20X DVD+/-RW Drive BLACK, OEM
$097.00 - Antec NSK6580 Mid-Tower Case w/430Watt PSU, Black/Silver
$181.00 - Acer AL1516AB 15" 600:1 12ms Black LCD Monitor
$021.00 - Apevia Multimedia Keyboard/Mouse Kit, Black
$010.00 - Cyber Acoustics CA-2012RB 2.0 Desktop Speaker System, Black
$000.00 - Ubuntu 7.10
$000.00 - OpenOffice Suite
$000.00 - Assembly - Special offer - OEM warranty.
Total: $602.50
(Prices in C$; US prices at Newegg are even cheaper despite the dollar, but I can't find a good system quote feature at Newegg).
That gives you a 64-bit X86 dual core machine with decent graphics (more than adequate for any flavor of Vista, and basic 3D gaming). A 15" LCD display, mouse, keyboard and speakers. You've got 2GB of RAM (admittedly only 533MHz) which is enough to run Vista if some particular moment of masochism seizes you. (or you need to). You've got quite a respectable power supply and case, though you'll never do SLI.
This machine will run pretty much anything one could reasonably throw at it. Games a couple of years old, fairly heavy office/browsing/email use.
Expansion?
Want to run AutoCad in a few months? Pop in 2 more GB of RAM, install whatever OS and software is needed, and pop in a 6400+ AMD CPU. $53 for the RAM, $190 for a 6400+ cpu. (You might need a better monitor though!)
Want a nice gaming machine in a few months? Install Windows XP SP3 OEM, and an Nvidia 8800GT. $200-$250 for the card, $100 or so for the OS. (The power supply is good enough, though if you wanted to splurge for an Antec Earthwatts 85% efficient 500W power supply you could do that.)
I really don't understand the OP's objections to a decent system at $600.
It's eminently possible.
Will it be as good as a Mac Mini? That's entirely in the eye of the beholder. It won't run OS X which is a huge strike against it for many people, and fair enough. It won't be as elegant and small. It will be more powerful and expandable, though those count for little if you want a small elegant machine running OS X.
This isn't a Dell vs Apple or even PC vs Mac or even Linux vs Mac post. Different horses for different courses. It's simply an effort to show that $600 buys you a pretty decent system.
Holmwood
Of course it's not rhetorically valid. I quite agree. My argument is simply that it should be legally valid for people to make fair use of copyrighted work, even if they are making polemical points.
And note, I wasn't trying to justify DI's use by noting this; I was simply responding to the poster who argued "It's quite another to argue that it's okay to chop up, re-arrange, and misrepresent the message for propaganda purposes, and call that "freedom."".
DI fails that test in my view, because unlike Moore's brief snippets, they reproduced virtually the entire video, substituting their own narrative. That doesn't strike me as "fair use" as I understand it.
My sole point was that simply because someone indulges in what might be odious propaganda to many people (DI for some, Moore for others) is not on its own any reason to deny them "fair use" protections under copyright law.
Ha! Thanks. You are quite correct. "Copyrighted" is what I should have used, of course.
That sort of response elevates dialog everywhere.
Now, take a deep breath. You evidently didn't read the post -- mine or the one above it. I'll try and refrain from casting sneering aspersions on your intelligence, but I certainly will raise an eyebrow at your limited reading comprehension.
That OP (above my OP) made an argument that people who aren't having valid debate (in his view) aren't entitled to the defense of fair use in copyright. To cite again, since you must have missed it even though I quoted it right at the top of my post:
My argument was very simply that freedom depends on people being able to do precisely that. (I also noted that I don't think the DI passes as they didn't engage in fair use as I see it).
I cited the Moore example: by sneakily chopping up entirely separate speeches of Heston's and splicing them together (with a cut in between the two sentences to obscure the fact that Heston was wearing a different tie in the second).
It surely would be a bad thing to declare that Moore is "violating freedom" and deserves some judicial sanctions for that, would it not?
Now, in your continuing effort to entirely miss the point, you say:
"Depends... Did the viewers understood it was taken from two different footages?"
This utterly irrelevant to the argument above, and shows an appalling degree of cluelessness, but ok, I'll bite. No, the viewers did not understand this. You know, I know, and the GP knows because we've read about it. I didn't notice the first time I saw the film because of the clever cutting of scenes.
And you're still entirely missing the point. For a sneering fellow who calls others dumb and muppets and dumb kids, you are remarkably dull-witted, aren't you?
Read what I wrote above. No, go back. Read it ten times if you have to.
The Moore response was not to justify (or attack) what DI had done. It was to comment on the item I quoted at the top of my post which was the original slashdot conversation, now repeated here, again:
Moore did exactly that: chopped up, rearranged, and misrepresented someone else's message for propaganda purposes (possibly good propaganda purposes if you happen to agree with his views). And that is indeed freedom. He has a right to take copyrighted video and do that; You and I have a right to take copyrighted words, statements and of Moores and present them to make our point.
It's called fair use and the First Amendment.
The clue to bad speech isn't to silence it by making it unprotected by fair use doctrines, it's to have good speech countering it.
Yet you failed utterly to grasp this point, and instead launched off into a set of ad hominem sneers about the intellects of those adults around you.
I agree that the Discovery Institute seems to fail, because it took an entire work and ran it in sequence. That doesn't look like fair use to me.
The analogy is exact. And I am stunned that you are not only incapable of seeing it but that you fee
And what you decry is a vital part of freedom, in my view.
In the film "Bowling for Columbine", Michael Moore chopped up (and spliced in) copywritten videos of Charlton Heston speaking a set of words he actually uttered months apart.
This was a distortion, a misrepresentation and, yes I suppose it could be said to be propaganda. It also made the point that a lot of people believe the NRA is too cold and uncaring about things like school shootings.
He won an academy award for that film.
Whether one is pro or anti Moore's arguments, surely we could agree that what he did should be constitutionally protected?
And yet he did exactly what you decry.
I'm not sure that what the DI did meets that test though. They apparently reproduced nearly the entire film, stripping out the narration. Unless we accept, as one commenter above argues, that the narration was the core of the copy written material, I don't think their actions pass muster.
But I think that's because it's reproducing too much of the copy written material and not putting in enough of their own.
If you don't agree with me, think about it like this. If you "chop up and re-arrange and 'misrepresent', what I've just said to argue against me, then you would, by your arguments, be breaking the law. This post, after all, is copyright and owned by me. It says so right at the very bottom of this page!
Regards,
-Holmwood
DI didn't copy the narrative. They didn't copy the "core" of the video, by your argument. (Indeed, who owns the copyright to the images and animations? Is it all Harvard? Or a mix? This seems to weaken any argument they violated copyright -- by your assertions as to the "core" of the item in question.
It may or may not be valid scientific discourse (I lean to no), but if your argument is that someone making a mistaken (or even flawed or foolish argument) is therefore guilty of copyright violation when someone who does exactly the same thing but makes a valid argument isn't, then that would place a very unhealthy chill on free expression.
You seem to argue that we should then ultimately accept endless litigation (or would you posit some Scientific Council to decide what is valid?) in order to determine what is valid science and what isn't. This seems antithetical to free speech, good peer review and well established journals.
If I'm misinterpreting you, my apologies.
My own view is that we should be very careful about attacking even foolish, stupid and wrong people using legal tools if their actions would otherwise be legally and constitutionally protected if they happened to be correct, or at least possibly correct.
(Many European countries believe differently; Holocaust denial, for example is illegal and unprotected).
Turn it around another way. Suppose you are a physicist and I am someone who believes that Newton's Laws are incorrect, ditto General Relativity. I assert that the movement of planetary bodies (for example) is not explained by Relativity and Gravitation, but by the fact that large invisible angels carry the planets about on their backs.
I'd be a fool, a crank, or both. But if I then reproduced a paper you wrote on gravitation, and annotated it copiously (especially if I didn't reproduce the "core" of your paper) with my arguments significantly outweighing yours in space consumed, then I don't think one could make the case I was violating copyright. This would be a classic example of fair use/fair dealing, particularly given that large portions of your paper were not being reproduced.
Regards,
Holmwood
I'll grant and salute your geekiness. I tried doing the same on a Palm Pilot (I'm sure inferior resolution, but comparable screen size) to your HP PDA. Couldn't do it. Most people feel the same way.
If you want a device that's much closer to being a good ebook reader, that's the Nokia 770/N8xx line. These are not phones, but small, 8oz hand-held internet tablets with Bluetooth, wireless... and... a 4.1" 800x480 275dpi 16-bit color screen. That size and resolution smokes the iPhone and any PDA I've seen. (Not saying other attributes of the devices do so; e.g. the color depth is only 16-bits which is inferior; moreover the OS is a Linux derivative which is arguably inferior to the elegance of the OS-X variant on the iPhone).
They sell for (circa) $120, $250, $450 depending on which variant you buy, but all have the same screen. And no $2000 2-year contract with AT&T. Of course, no cell phone service either.
But the iPhone? 320x480. 40% the number of pixels of the Nokia devices screens. More or less expensive (generally more) and a hefty contract with ATT.
The Kindle? Much bigger screen, lower power consumption, free wireless, but very limited access (e.g. only Wikipedia + Kindle store I believe). And circa $400.
None of these three devices are ideal though.
The iPhone comes bundled with extensive DRM and is closely tied to service providers.
The Kindle's black and white and tied closely to Amazon. It also looks kind of ugly.
The Nokia N8xx are a little clunky, lack polish, and, while admirably DRM-free, and untied to service providers, that places compatibility costs.
We're evolving towards some quite interesting devices. When you get pixel dpi's onto low power screens that are comparable to paper, it's not inconceivable we could find something better than books. (I speak as someone who owns about 5000 books, taking up two large rooms in my house. I love books.)
But we're not there yet. The iPhone isn't even close. Yet. Amazon port the reader to commercial success? I doubt it. Anything's possible, but that screen is pretty bad for reading books.
Holmwood
Actually, if I "agree" (i.e., say yes), it means I *do* mind being root-kitted. If the company then proceeds to root-kit my machine, they are definitely opening themselves up for a lawsuit.
That question is almost as bad as the infamous:
But really, this error reinforces some of the disturbing aspects of the original question as cited. Users who answer "Yes" to using a more secure question may be idiots who always click yes; they may be knowledgeable users who expect something like SSL. They are unlikely to be sophisticated users that expect to be root-kitted.
I certainly agree with parent about the dangers of assuming benevolence -- from corporations, or governments.
Holmwood
Second, I had to wonder at how well-researched the review was when I hit this line:
No nightvision in WW2? The Americans -- who were probably behind the Germans -- deployed primitive nightvision sniper scopes to the Pacific Theatre in 1945. http://www.nvl.army.mil/about/index.php
Granted, it's picking at a minor technical error, but, hey this is Slashdot!
Personally, I like the eyecandy, but not if it gets in the way of a good story. I'll see anyone's Nethack, and raise you a Zork I, II, III.
And rather sadly, Google didn't observe the day in Canada at least. Given that Canada's got a whole new series of combat veterans (returning from Afghanistan) in numbers unprecedented since the 1950's, that's rather sad.
As to the posters wondering about it affecting more than Americans, Canada was in the war from 1914 on. The US, from 1917 to 1918. Both countries, nearly 60,000 dead from combat. Of course that was out of a population one tenth the size of the United States.
Holmwood.
Sometimes, it's appropriate to spend significantly; for example, care for the seriously mentally-ill or severely disabled. (And yes, many mentally ill and disabled people can work, though may require some degree of assistance).
However, unlimited welfare, especially when spread over several generations, seems to have some very negative social consequences. I'm thinking (as an example) about third-generation unemployment in Belfast slums -- "housing estates" if you prefer. These are people who've never known a parent or even grandparent who's been employed, and who've lived off welfare for generations. This is a pretty monstrous thing to do to human beings, in my view: to turn them from free human beings into life-long wards of the State.
Sadly, this is something that some of a liberal (I'm not American, so don't view it as a dirty word) persuasion don't seem to grasp. They genuinely seem to believe that those who oppose unlimited welfare are either greedy, stupid, or evil. Or perhaps all three. To them, it's either a full-blown welfare state or Dickensian workhouses. The idea that life isn't binary, and that there might be alternatives between extremes seems unfathomable.
(I don't accuse the parent of this perspective; he notes "I do think we need some welfare reform, though, to keep it from habitualizing the system". Indeed.)
As for the actual topic, tax-payer funded parties at NASA are definitely bad optics, but the arguments in favor seem not unreasonable.
Holmwood.
The company that sold you the dead parrot... err... dog... might well be required to refund you your purchase price, sure.
The distinction is, if the dog they sold you fails to apprehend an intruder who robs you blind, they're not liable for everything he stole.
Similarly, if some piece of software you purchase for $500 crashes and corrupts your hard drive, the developer isn't liable for the $100,000 (pick a number) worth of data you have on the drive.
Limitation of liability is important, and not just for 'evil' big companies and their presumably not-so-evil shareholders and employees. Would you like unlimited personal liability for every piece of code you write?
Fable was clever; a good storyline with decent graphics. True, not everyone's cup of tea is an RPG, but it was well-crafted, with an interesting approach to morality and decision-making.
Not sure why the hate.
-Holmwood
I think you've got a very legitimate criticism that points to the need to take such public estimates with a large grain of salt. But to suggest that this equates to liars causing actual real harm... yikes.
To return to your example ($58 cost, $100 retail), even at 20% error, you're looking at margins of between 30 and 54%. This tells us the product is well above the bottom of the 20-50% range, and is probably (though by no means definitely) again above the halfway mark of the 20-50% range.
Either one sees a use for this or one doesn't. Obviously, you not only don't see a use, you see it as a harmful lie. Fair enough, but I can't possibly agree.
Holmwood
It's the nature of engineering and cost estimates. Of course they are going to be inaccurate to some degree. If you can point to more accurate estimates that are publicly available then great. If there are better firms than iSuppli at cost estimating, then wonderful.
Getting to within 10% of the cost of goods sounds fantastic to me. Within 20-25% still sounds not bad. It's a lot better than a total guess, which seems to be what you're suggesting. (gross margins of between 20 and 50 %).
Incidentally, on the whole matter of Apple making money:
I'm not a big fan of the iPhone -- it's simply not the product for me. Part of that's price, much of that's the lockin -- on apps and to a carrier if you want stable seamless firmware upgrades.
But I'm delighted to see it succeed and delighted to see Apple making lots of money off it. I doubt Apple's going to take 70-90% of the smartphone market, and if they do, it'll be because they deserve to. People like RIM and Nokia will have manifestly failed to execute.
Apple making lots of money off of smartphones means, ultimately, cheaper and better smartphones for everyone.
I have a fantastic Samsung media player. It plays Ogg Vorbis. Terrific features. Inexpensive, too. And an absolutely horrible interface. The iPod's wiping out players with horrible interfaces. Great. That's good for us all. The latest Samsungs are immeasurably better.
Smartphones will get better and cheaper because of the iPhone. That's good for everyone.
What's really ironic and sad was that the actual email was setting up some sensible standards for control and hearing of complaints (see the link).
That said, the headline is reasonable.
This was a Democratic initiative, and possibly quite a good one until this.
The Democrats are in charge. Yes, there are Republican staffers, but are you going to suggest the Majority staffers said to the Republicans "We want a long weekend, you guys take over sending out these emails."
That would make the Democrats lazy, reckless and negligent as well as stupid.
Admittedly it would still leave us wondering if the Republicans were stupid or malicious. (I know, many would say both).
Holmwood
I'm still paying $46 for stuff I can get in the states for $32. (And no idea if Verbatim are better or worse than Maxell). My point remains: Canadians pay a lot more -- frequently close to double -- for CD-R's.
Sure, I can pay less still from blankmedia.ca, and I can pay less still from a US blankmedia retailer. That's not the point; the point is to try and compare apples to apples what prices for the same goods from the same retailer in both countries are like.
-Holmwood
I agree with parent. Sure, charge for service. Sure, nickel and dime us if that's the way you want to run your airline. But... I have to wonder if there isn't a market for a new kind of Airline with a motto something like this: "We charge you a bit more because we don't screw you". We serve hot meals on flights over one hour. (Just to be safe, we do so on any flight that's scheduled for 50 minutes or longer). If our planes are delayed by more than 30 minutes, please accept this 50% off coupon as our apology. We'll let you know in advance if you're on some mysterious "no-fly" list because you have the same name as "Bob Smith", noted terrorist, and have to show up at the airport 2 hours early. "Flying can suck. We don't. We'll never be the cheapest way to get around, but we aim to be the best." But maybe I'm dreaming. Maybe we really do want every airline to be the lowest common denominator.
"Piracy" might be higher in Canada than the US. Certainly the RIAA and MPAA would like us all to think so.
In part, that's because of an unwritten compact. The article mentions that blank CD's have been taxed in Canada. They don't really explain viscerally how heavily.
Take a look at these two products from the same retail chain -- Best Buy -- in Canada and the US. The Canadian dollar, to everyone's astonishment, is about $1.02 US as of this writing, i.e., worth a little more than the US dollar. So dollar to dollar price comparisons are reasonably fair.
In the United States, if I want to wander into Best Buy and pick up a 100-pack of Maxell CD-R's I'm going to pay $32.99 as of this weekend.
The same retail chain, in Canada, the same product... $69.99.
(By contrast, a Maxell 50-pack of DVD-R's is 19.99 in Canada this weekend, regularly 31.99, and 30.99 in the US).
Not, of course, that I recommend Best Buy as a store or Maxell as media. Just easy quick comparisons.
That's right. In Canada this weekend, you'll pay more than double for CD-R's than in the States, and, at least for DVD-R's purchased from Best Buy, about two thirds of what you'll pay in the States.
The difference goes to the music industry and, ultimately, artists.
So Canada has this unwritten compact whereby everyone who purchases CD-R's is assumed to be using them for copied music and pays a hefty tax.
And, in turn, so far the courts have been highly resistant to industry attempts to get ISP's to divulge who's at what IP. And downloading... stuff.
I don't suggest that the two are directly connected, but there is probably a moral connection in more than one person's mind and more than one judge's mind.
The industry, of course, hates this.
People who used CD-R's for backup have, not surprisingly, moved on to using DVD-/+R's, and don't really mind.
Personally, I lean to the view that the sensible way forward is to charge a Canadian CD-R type levy on personal internet usage, and let people do what they want. You might even make it something people can opt out of, but if they're then caught downloading music/video without permission of the copyright holder, they get hit with a full-blown RIAA legal assault. And fair enough then. They had a nice easy way to legally comply and still do something that socially is very popular... and they chose to break the law.
Make legal (monitored for market share) downloads so compelling and interesting that the illegal alternatives fade away.
True, we can simply treat it as piracy and let the *AA continue to sue people, but that didn't work very well in the case of people taping programs on VCR's.
This move, though, to tax legal downloads is just plain bizarre as others have suggested.