I work for a drivesystem-manufacturer for certain types of ships and my company is holding various patents on the process of fabricating driveshafts. It is simply illegal for other companies to build compatible ones; I hope that's outlawed as well. Patents should be used for rewarding innovation, not enforcing lock-in.
So what? You can run almost any Windows app under Virtual PC. That doesn't mean it "works on a Mac"; it means it works on Windows in an emulator. You have not made anything resembling a point in saying this. Sure I have: "I have a Mac, so PlaysForSure doesn't work for me" is false, because Mac users aren't locked out. They just have to use an emulator.
Competitors are free to sell files compatible with the iPod. In fact, many do. Not if they want to sell music from a label that demands DRM. You know, the music that most people want to buy.
That Apple has chosen not to license a competitors DRM system isn't "going out of their way". That wasn't what I meant. Are you seriously unaware that Apple refuses to license FairPlay to anyone else, and that when Real reverse-engineered FairPlay so that they could sell songs, Apple changed it to thwart them?
"Figures it out" is not a good description of Real's Harmony or DoubleTwist's product. All they do is make fake FairPlay files. Oh, so you did know about that.. then you have no excuse.
PlaysForSure DRM can be set to only allow certain numbers of plays [etc.] Yes, that's true. It's more restrictive in terms of how you can use the purchased files, but it's less restrictive in terms of freely moving between brands (i.e. it allows a more competitive market), which government tends to be more concerned with.
Apple does prevent third party stores from selling DRM'd music for the iPod. Because the record companies demand DRM, that means only Apple is allowed to sell popular music to iPod users. That's analogous enough.
A part of the market gets saturated without any product being sold. Thus you lose potential buyers. That's hardly a real loss, since you never had their money in the first place, and they never owed it to you. Negative reviews do the same thing, but that doesn't mean negative reviews are inherently bad.
If you don't like this business model try to think of an alternative that works without requiring the goodwill of people with too much money. The current system works fairly well for tying media into the capitalist reward system and works fairly well for spreading the cost of R&D over so many buyers that each one can pay a reasonable price. My alternative is simple enough, it doesn't require any altruism, and there's a web site called Sellaband that implements something very close to it. You find a group of fans, and then you get them to pool their money together to pay you for your work. Once you've been paid, your work becomes free for everyone to use, whether they contributed or not.
We've already seen in the past few election cycles how thousands of small, voluntary contributions can add up to millions of dollars; you just need to apply that kind of organization to funding production. Let artists advertise themselves, show examples of their past work, share their ideas of what they plan to produce with the money, and set their own monetary goals. Let fans discover artists through the site, contribute what they feel comfortable with, and get their money back if the production doesn't actually go through.
Usually at this point in my explanation, I hear one of these objections:
Q. But why would someone want to "donate" money if they can just wait and enjoy the work for free?
A. It's not a donation, it's payment for a service. They know that the work won't get made at all if no one pays for it, which means if they want to enjoy it, they likely have to contribute. Each person's likelihood to contribute is directly related to his desire to see the work released. If your favorite band came up to you and said "We need $10 or we won't be able to release another album", you'd probably spend $10 for the chance to hear more from them, right?
Q. But what if the work isn't very good once it's made?
A. What if you pay for a haircut and it isn't very good? Same thing here. You come to an agreement beforehand, in which you describe objectively what it is you expect to receive. The artist (or barber) interprets that description. If you ask for half an inch off the top and he shaves you bald instead, then he's broken the agreement and he owes you compensation. OTOH, if you just ask for "a little shorter" and he cuts it even shorter than you hoped, then too bad; at least you've only lost a few bucks, and next time you'll be more specific.
(If you have another objection, please try the "barber test" first to make sure you're really objecting to this proposal, and not objecting to all trade in general: e.g. "but what happens if the [barber] takes the money and runs off without [cutting your hair]" - this is addressed by general fraud laws and/or escrow services.)
Except for Microsoft. They are not legally obligated to sell you a playsforsure license, just like a nightclub is not legally obligated to let you in. Obligated, no--perhaps they should be--but they've clearly demonstrated that they're willing to license PFS to other companies. I've seen no evidence that they've ever turned anyone away, and certainly you can't blame FairPlay lock-in on MS's supposed unwillingness to license PlaysforSure to a company like Apple. Do you have some evidence? Or are you just speculating wildly?
Is it? Nothing in the Constitution mentions "consumers." Well, I don't read Norwegian: you are talking about the Constitution of Norway, right? Nevertheless, every civilized country regulates trade and protects consumers from fraud, monopolies, and other abuses. If you're going to argue that government has no place doing that, then prepare to be dismissed as a kook.
And I don't see how having iTunes available limits choice. If the government bans the iTunes store, that reduces choice. So, isn't this an argument for not banning the iTunes store? Only in a superficial analysis. Think deeper: the success of iTunes leads to a situation in which many consumers do not have much of a choice, because they're locked into Apple products. Banning iTunes prevents that situation from arising.
And by banning it, the government is preventing you from making the choice of purchasing from the iTunes store. If people want to use a closed system, shouldn't that be their choice? "And by banning [the sale of meat infected with Mad Cow Disease], the government is preventing you from making the choice of [eating infected meat]. If people want to [die of Mad Cow Disease], shouldn't that be their choice?"
Perhaps it should, but there are other ways to kill yourself if you really want; banning infected meat hardly eliminates the overall ability to choose suicide. Similarly, there are other ways to piss your money away or make yourself dependent on a specific company; banning one particular lock-in scheme hardly eliminates the overall choice to do such a thing.
In any case, how is the iTunes buyer forced to use an iPod, when it is simple to burn the songs to CD and play them on another device? Do you realize how long it'd take to do that with a decent-sized music library? It's so tedious and inconvenient that it isn't a real alternative. If you have enough music that it'd take days of work to convert it all, that's just as effective (as a lock-in scheme) as if it were simply impossible.
Not necessarily. For example, a company might collect used cartridges, pull the print heads off, and attach the heads to their own ink tanks.
I suppose HP might play a few tricks to make it difficult for third parties to recycle cartridges, making it impossible to sell third party cartridges without infringing the patent; in that case I believe the patent should be suspended, partly to allow interoperability, but also as a punitive measure for abusing the patent system.
Are you sure of that? It's likely that Microsoft has other restrictions apart from just paying the licensing fee. I doubt that Joe Bloggs could just walk up to Microsoft and say "I'd like one license to develop playsforsure devices." They would probably laugh in his face. This is pure speculation, and it's almost certainly wrong. The PFS license terms have been explained elsewhere in the thread; nothing's stopping a company like Apple from licensing PlaysForSure.
So what? Nobody but Sony is allowed to make a device supporting Playstation games. What's the big deal? Well, maybe they should be, huh? ISTR Sega getting slapped when they tried to prevent Accolade from making Genesis games.
But why should it be illegal to make a closed system? Because closed systems are harmful to consumer freedom. The government's job, among other things, is to protect consumer choice. If you're effectively forced to keep buying Apple (or MS) products because you have a big collection of music from the iTunes (or Zune) store, which you got because that was the only place to download music for your iPod (or Zune), then you're a victim of a predatory company, and the government is right to step in and keep the same thing from happening in the future.
So what? That tying-down aspect still exists, nevertheless. I guess the only relevant difference here is that the subtlety caused the Norwegian government to overlook it. I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. "PlaysForSure compatible hardware" is not a single line of devices. You might as well complain that CDs are unfair because they only play in CD players.
Everyone else here is capable of noticing the difference between "this song plays on any player from any company, as long as it incorporates technology XYZ (which anyone can license)" and "this song only plays on players from one specific company". If you can't make that distinction, you have my pity, and I hope you're still able to become a functioning member of society despite this handicap.
Currently I have an iPod and an iMac. I can't use Napster, playsforsure doesn't work for me. Napster: You can run it under Virtual PC. Napster isn't going out of their way to lock Mac users out in the same way that Apple goes out of their way to lock out competitors (e.g. changing their DRM system when a competing store figures it out).
PlaysForSure not working with your iPod: And who's to blame for that? Apple. Microsoft is happy to license PFS to other manufacturers. If Apple ever tries to license PFS and gets turned away, then you can blame MS.
Attacking only Apples DRM isn't really an attack on DRM, it actually becomes a battle to entrench more DRM that is even more draconian than fairplay. Which DRM are you thinking of? Certainly not PFS, which works with several stores and several brands of player.
My HP ink cartridge only works in my model of HP printer. Should that also be illegal? Yes, it probably should be illegal for HP to make their printers only work with ink cartridges from HP--or at least it should be legal for competing companies to make HP-compatible cartridges.
Or hitting closer to home on your exampe, the ECU in my Ford only works in a Ford Exporer. So it should be illegal for Ford to sell that ECU? That doesn't make sense. No, it doesn't, but that's because you're missing the point.
What's stopping a competing company from making aftermarket ECUs? Nothing, I suspect. Ford hasn't done anything to stop third parties from making parts that fit in a Ford, nor have they done anything to stop competing auto companies from making cars that accept Ford parts.
Apple, OTOH, has done exactly that.
The reality of the situation is that the DRM is not there to prevent competition as its primary purpose. [...] but that the actual primary reason for the DRM is to satisfy the recording industry's conditions for playing ball with Apple. If that were true, then Apple would license FairPlay to other music stores and hardware manufacturers, wouldn't they? That's what Microsoft did with PlaysForSure, but Apple has reacted quite fiercely when competitors have tried to get in on FairPlay.
One purpose of FairPlay is to appease the record company. The other purpose, which is arguably more important, is to enforce lock-in between iPod and iTunes. This promotes the iPod by (1) tying the most popular, best-known music store to a single line of players, and (2) encouraging iPod users to build up a library of songs that will become practically useless if they switch brands, effectively threatening iPod owners to keep buying Apple (except those who get all their music by ripping CDs rather than from iTMS).
So it's perfectly ok, huh? I hate the **AA, but it's still taking someone else's work and not giving anything in return...just not right, is it? It's not especially nice, but it's not wrong per se. You see, that work was already done for free, without anyone promising to pay for it.
Suppose you're in your car, stopped at a red light, when someone walks up and washes your windshield. You never asked him to do it, and he never made an offer; he just starts doing it. Then, when he's done, he demands $10 for this service. Do you owe him $10?
I say no. That's not how working works - you don't do the work first, unsolicited and without a promise of payment, and then demand that whoever benefitted from it has to pay you.
If you want to be a janitor for the city, you can't just go pick up some garbage at the park, and then march down to city hall demanding to get paid for the hours you put in. You have to offer them your services first and come to an agreement as to what they want you to do and how much you want to get paid for it. You have to face the possibility that maybe they aren't willing to pay you as much as you think your time is worth, and if that's the case, you can choose to spend your time doing something else.
It's the same with this. If you want to get paid for writing a song, it's stupid to write the song first, for free, and then demand payment from everyone who listens to it or downloads it. You can't demand payment later for unsolicited work you did earlier. If you want to get paid, you should find someone who'll agree to pay you for your time, then start working.
Or are you ok working hard all day and someone else using it without paying you? Just curious... See, I don't have that problem, because my employer and I have an understanding: if I do X hours of work, I'm entitled to Y dollars. If my employer doesn't want to pay me anymore, then I don't have to do the work anymore. (Of course, he still has to compensate me for the work I did while the promise to pay was still in effect.)
A person downloading music, however, has not made any promises to the artist. An artist is not morally entitled to payment just because the downloader listened to his song, or made a copy of it, or shared that copy with a friend. The downloader didn't ask him to write it; the artist made that choice on his own, perhaps hoping to get paid, but knowing full well that he can't control what other people do with his song once they hear it.
Nah, it's just that your argument is totally off the mark.
Stealing physical products deprives someone of something. Downloading doesn't. Stealing requires an attitude that says it's OK to harm others. Downloading doesn't. The only common thread is that they both make people upset, but that isn't inherently bad: every time you choose not to buy something, you disappoint the person who wants to sell it to you.
Here let me point it out for you. Regardless of physicality, the attitude behind both acts is the same. It's about benefitting at the expense* of others. Nope. One is about taking something away from someone else in order to have it yourself. The other is about benefitting by making a new copy, without harming anyone else. One requires a willingness to harm others; the other doesn't. That's why these 25 million people aren't out stealing DVDs from store shelves - they're different acts requiring a completely different attitude.
Try this on for size. Invite over to your house all the people you've "borrowed" from, and download in front of them. See how well that works out. Without performing that experiment, I can predict how it'll turn out: they'll be upset. They'd prefer that I buy a copy from them, but unfortunately for them, they aren't morally entitled to make a sale, nor to keep me from downloading bits.
Perhaps you should try this one: go down to the Ford dealership, get a few salesmen to talk to you about their most expensive truck, and then invite them to come watch you buy a Chevrolet down the street instead. They'll be upset too, but that doesn't mean you should buy a Ford just to make the salesmen happy. They'd like to make a sale, but that doesn't mean you owe it to them.
But there isn't really any "loss"; you're just not making as many sales as you'd like. Negative reviews have the same effect, as does overpricing. This is an unavoidable fact of the flawed business model at work: spend all your time and money up front, then try to make it back later by selling copies, knowing full well that people can make their own copies just as easily as you can.
Not every television purchase is a 90" super-sharp plasma-flatscreen home-theater football-humper yet. In fact, hardly any of them are. You wouldn't know it from reading tech sites like this one, or visiting Best Buy where they blast you with "WE DO HD RIGHT!" as soon as you walk in the door... but 89% of American households are still using good old 4:3 480i.
Most people just don't want to spend $750-$3000 on a TV, even if it does have six times as many pixels. All these HD-focused consumer devices (HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, Apple TV, etc.) are wasted effort until the prices come way down.
I bought one for $250 at CompUSA yesterday. No bundling, no warranty, no scalping, no waiting in line. I just walked up to the desk and asked if they had a Wii in stock. They had seven.
However, this was after I couldn't find one at Best Buy, Circuit City, or Costco.
Also, don't you have to pass real assets onto some sucker to get your money, too? Depends on what you mean by "sucker". If someone is buying your assets just because they hope to resell them later at a higher price--to someone else who will also be buying them just to resell them at a higher price--then they're likely a sucker. Collectibles markets are full of suckers - remember Beanie Babies? You might buy a case of dolls for $10 each, expecting that someone will buy them for $20 each next month, but in the end they're still just dolls, and eventually the fact that most people have no use for dolls will catch up with you.
But in most markets, the people buying your assets are doing it because they value the assets themselves, not because they hope to pass them on to someone else. You're not a sucker if you buy a sandwich because you're hungry, or a car because you need to drive somewhere.
That A110 held up for a few years, but it did break eventually. Now I've got a Philips DVP-642, which feels a lot shoddier (the UI and remote are designed horribly, and the player itself is flimsy) but plays more formats and costs a fraction as much.
If you buy a standalone player (such as a PS3), the DRM should be transparent. I guess you missed the recent story about the PS3 not working with certain displays because of a failed HDMI handshake. DRM is just one more component that can fail, and when it does, it's anything but transparent.
Apple may be grudgingly accepted as doing some good things, but DRM as an article of faith to be bad by most people here Bullshit. It's not accepted on faith; DRM is considered bad by most people here because of logical, rational reasons that, frankly, should be obvious to any observer.
DRM restricts consumer choice by locking the users of certain services into certain devices and vice versa, it restricts our ability to use the files we pay for, and it brings with it laws like the DMCA that outlaw various technologies with non-infringing uses.
The retail price of DVDs started low and got lower. I bought my first DVD for $20, and nowadays you can find B-list titles, used DVDs, etc. for $5 or less. They may have started lower than VHS started, but not that low. My first three DVDs were $30-$40 each--well over the price of VHS tapes at the time--and the player (Panasonic DVD-A110, IIRC) was $300+.
What do you mean by "high end"? I'm basing my comparisons on the MacBook and MacBook Pro vs. competing laptops. Last I checked, the low-end MBP is still at least $500 more than a near-identical model from HP, and the price differential only gets worse with the higher models.
It's less than the typical $infinity that other manufacturers charge for OS X and Linux drivers. Does Boot Camp come with Linux drivers, or does Apple charge $infinity for those too?
No, it seems to me that I still have the better deal. Or did Vista suddenly get a utility to make it easy (and supporrted!) to install other OSs on the box? Did that happen and I just missed it? You don't need a utility to install other OSes on a PC. If you want to install a different version of Windows than the one it came with, you can download all the drivers you need from the manufacturer's web site. Apple made the decision to charge for Windows drivers for their hardware, which every other hardware manufacturer provides for free.
And let's be honest here. You're thinking of installing Linux on your PC. I can do that, too, and completely without Apple's permission. No, I'm not. My Mac is only a Powerbook G4, but if I had an Intel Mac, I'd want to install Windows on it, not Linux. All the Linux software I'd want to use already runs on OS X.
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Apple does prevent third party stores from selling DRM'd music for the iPod. Because the record companies demand DRM, that means only Apple is allowed to sell popular music to iPod users. That's analogous enough.
We've already seen in the past few election cycles how thousands of small, voluntary contributions can add up to millions of dollars; you just need to apply that kind of organization to funding production. Let artists advertise themselves, show examples of their past work, share their ideas of what they plan to produce with the money, and set their own monetary goals. Let fans discover artists through the site, contribute what they feel comfortable with, and get their money back if the production doesn't actually go through.
Usually at this point in my explanation, I hear one of these objections:
Q. But why would someone want to "donate" money if they can just wait and enjoy the work for free?
A. It's not a donation, it's payment for a service. They know that the work won't get made at all if no one pays for it, which means if they want to enjoy it, they likely have to contribute. Each person's likelihood to contribute is directly related to his desire to see the work released. If your favorite band came up to you and said "We need $10 or we won't be able to release another album", you'd probably spend $10 for the chance to hear more from them, right?
Q. But what if the work isn't very good once it's made?
A. What if you pay for a haircut and it isn't very good? Same thing here. You come to an agreement beforehand, in which you describe objectively what it is you expect to receive. The artist (or barber) interprets that description. If you ask for half an inch off the top and he shaves you bald instead, then he's broken the agreement and he owes you compensation. OTOH, if you just ask for "a little shorter" and he cuts it even shorter than you hoped, then too bad; at least you've only lost a few bucks, and next time you'll be more specific.
(If you have another objection, please try the "barber test" first to make sure you're really objecting to this proposal, and not objecting to all trade in general: e.g. "but what happens if the [barber] takes the money and runs off without [cutting your hair]" - this is addressed by general fraud laws and/or escrow services.)
Perhaps it should, but there are other ways to kill yourself if you really want; banning infected meat hardly eliminates the overall ability to choose suicide. Similarly, there are other ways to piss your money away or make yourself dependent on a specific company; banning one particular lock-in scheme hardly eliminates the overall choice to do such a thing. In any case, how is the iTunes buyer forced to use an iPod, when it is simple to burn the songs to CD and play them on another device? Do you realize how long it'd take to do that with a decent-sized music library? It's so tedious and inconvenient that it isn't a real alternative. If you have enough music that it'd take days of work to convert it all, that's just as effective (as a lock-in scheme) as if it were simply impossible.
Not necessarily. For example, a company might collect used cartridges, pull the print heads off, and attach the heads to their own ink tanks.
I suppose HP might play a few tricks to make it difficult for third parties to recycle cartridges, making it impossible to sell third party cartridges without infringing the patent; in that case I believe the patent should be suspended, partly to allow interoperability, but also as a punitive measure for abusing the patent system.
Everyone else here is capable of noticing the difference between "this song plays on any player from any company, as long as it incorporates technology XYZ (which anyone can license)" and "this song only plays on players from one specific company". If you can't make that distinction, you have my pity, and I hope you're still able to become a functioning member of society despite this handicap.
PlaysForSure not working with your iPod: And who's to blame for that? Apple. Microsoft is happy to license PFS to other manufacturers. If Apple ever tries to license PFS and gets turned away, then you can blame MS. Attacking only Apples DRM isn't really an attack on DRM, it actually becomes a battle to entrench more DRM that is even more draconian than fairplay. Which DRM are you thinking of? Certainly not PFS, which works with several stores and several brands of player.
What's stopping a competing company from making aftermarket ECUs? Nothing, I suspect. Ford hasn't done anything to stop third parties from making parts that fit in a Ford, nor have they done anything to stop competing auto companies from making cars that accept Ford parts.
Apple, OTOH, has done exactly that. The reality of the situation is that the DRM is not there to prevent competition as its primary purpose. [...] but that the actual primary reason for the DRM is to satisfy the recording industry's conditions for playing ball with Apple. If that were true, then Apple would license FairPlay to other music stores and hardware manufacturers, wouldn't they? That's what Microsoft did with PlaysForSure, but Apple has reacted quite fiercely when competitors have tried to get in on FairPlay.
One purpose of FairPlay is to appease the record company. The other purpose, which is arguably more important, is to enforce lock-in between iPod and iTunes. This promotes the iPod by (1) tying the most popular, best-known music store to a single line of players, and (2) encouraging iPod users to build up a library of songs that will become practically useless if they switch brands, effectively threatening iPod owners to keep buying Apple (except those who get all their music by ripping CDs rather than from iTMS).
Suppose you're in your car, stopped at a red light, when someone walks up and washes your windshield. You never asked him to do it, and he never made an offer; he just starts doing it. Then, when he's done, he demands $10 for this service. Do you owe him $10?
I say no. That's not how working works - you don't do the work first, unsolicited and without a promise of payment, and then demand that whoever benefitted from it has to pay you.
If you want to be a janitor for the city, you can't just go pick up some garbage at the park, and then march down to city hall demanding to get paid for the hours you put in. You have to offer them your services first and come to an agreement as to what they want you to do and how much you want to get paid for it. You have to face the possibility that maybe they aren't willing to pay you as much as you think your time is worth, and if that's the case, you can choose to spend your time doing something else.
It's the same with this. If you want to get paid for writing a song, it's stupid to write the song first, for free, and then demand payment from everyone who listens to it or downloads it. You can't demand payment later for unsolicited work you did earlier. If you want to get paid, you should find someone who'll agree to pay you for your time, then start working. Or are you ok working hard all day and someone else using it without paying you?
Just curious... See, I don't have that problem, because my employer and I have an understanding: if I do X hours of work, I'm entitled to Y dollars. If my employer doesn't want to pay me anymore, then I don't have to do the work anymore. (Of course, he still has to compensate me for the work I did while the promise to pay was still in effect.)
A person downloading music, however, has not made any promises to the artist. An artist is not morally entitled to payment just because the downloader listened to his song, or made a copy of it, or shared that copy with a friend. The downloader didn't ask him to write it; the artist made that choice on his own, perhaps hoping to get paid, but knowing full well that he can't control what other people do with his song once they hear it.
Nah, it's just that your argument is totally off the mark.
Stealing physical products deprives someone of something. Downloading doesn't. Stealing requires an attitude that says it's OK to harm others. Downloading doesn't. The only common thread is that they both make people upset, but that isn't inherently bad: every time you choose not to buy something, you disappoint the person who wants to sell it to you.
Perhaps you should try this one: go down to the Ford dealership, get a few salesmen to talk to you about their most expensive truck, and then invite them to come watch you buy a Chevrolet down the street instead. They'll be upset too, but that doesn't mean you should buy a Ford just to make the salesmen happy. They'd like to make a sale, but that doesn't mean you owe it to them.
But there isn't really any "loss"; you're just not making as many sales as you'd like. Negative reviews have the same effect, as does overpricing. This is an unavoidable fact of the flawed business model at work: spend all your time and money up front, then try to make it back later by selling copies, knowing full well that people can make their own copies just as easily as you can.
Most people just don't want to spend $750-$3000 on a TV, even if it does have six times as many pixels. All these HD-focused consumer devices (HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, Apple TV, etc.) are wasted effort until the prices come way down.
So what if they do? Leaving a few MP3s on your hard drive doesn't harm anyone.
I bought one for $250 at CompUSA yesterday. No bundling, no warranty, no scalping, no waiting in line. I just walked up to the desk and asked if they had a Wii in stock. They had seven.
However, this was after I couldn't find one at Best Buy, Circuit City, or Costco.
But in most markets, the people buying your assets are doing it because they value the assets themselves, not because they hope to pass them on to someone else. You're not a sucker if you buy a sandwich because you're hungry, or a car because you need to drive somewhere.
That A110 held up for a few years, but it did break eventually. Now I've got a Philips DVP-642, which feels a lot shoddier (the UI and remote are designed horribly, and the player itself is flimsy) but plays more formats and costs a fraction as much.
DRM restricts consumer choice by locking the users of certain services into certain devices and vice versa, it restricts our ability to use the files we pay for, and it brings with it laws like the DMCA that outlaw various technologies with non-infringing uses.
What do you mean by "high end"? I'm basing my comparisons on the MacBook and MacBook Pro vs. competing laptops. Last I checked, the low-end MBP is still at least $500 more than a near-identical model from HP, and the price differential only gets worse with the higher models.