Depending on what one would call Software Architecture, most of these "expanding" fields are ones that require higher education than those who were displaced. The jobs that have been lost are the ones of entry level programmers, IT support individuals-- in fact, the expanding opportunities are ones that have not been moved, or have been minimally affected. The problem with the statement "everything is going to be ok" is that it's not ok for everyone.
You said:
NOWHERE in the paper does it describe exactly what types of jobs are being gained/lost, apart from the very general description you cite. So, please admit you made the rest of that shit up, or give us a link to credible source.
In spite of the article not speaking to this, I think he is spot-on. I recently had a discussion with an old buddy of mine who is a professional programmer and taught programming at the local university for a while. I was telling him how I finally finished my B.S. in Computer Science after working on it for some 17 years, and how I'm kind of glad I missed the whole Dot Com bubble (I'm in mechanical engineering), as it seems like nowadays you have to be a guru if you want to make it in the IT industry these days.
He agreed completely. He said he told his students, "Look, guys, if you want to go into Computer Science - great! There are still jobs out there in Computer Science. But there is no room for "C" students anymore."
So TFA or no TFA, we've got three people here who are all getting the same whiff of scent in the air. Mundane IT jobs have been farmed out. If you want to make some money in senior position these days you definitely can't have average skills.
Taking away a job from someone and then saying there's another job available but that it requires more skills is like taking a bone away from a dog and putting it onto of the fridge and saying "if you can get it, it's yours". Yes, the jobs are there, but unless you provide some assistance in training those displaced to fill those jobs then it still doesn't help those whos jobs were outsourced in the first place.
I think this is a great analogy, but I'm not terribly concerned about it, nor do I think "assistance" is required. After all, how did the dog get the bone in the first place? It wasn't handed to him then, either. The goalposts in life are constantly in flux. Very few have the luxury of being able to rest on their laurels securely for very long. The technology field changes so fast that this is even more true for those of us in it.
It is not the responsibility of others to help you get get your bone, no matter where it is.
But maybe there's another way to do this- monthly fees based upon data transfer. I pay it now as the host, but maybe the consumer should pay some metered/scaled/tiered rate?
Back in the bad old days of pre-dialup, most services WERE pay-by-the-minute services. I HATE that kind of plan. I hate pay-per-minute usage for phones and cell phones. I can't stand every time I go to use the thing constantly fretting about how many minutes are ticking away. I want a flat rate that I can count on being the same no matter how much or little I use it.
I do not mind the idea of tiered service pricing. We already have it. You can pay X dollars for dialup, a little more for broadband, and my broadband provider has different levels of broadband service for which you can pay more for each step up in speed. I have no problem with that. You want to go faster, you pay more.
BUT - I should get a guarantee that I'm getting what I paid for. If I'm paying for X level of speed, then I expect that level of speed. If the Telcos want to throttle data based on how much the SENDER of the data has paid them, how do I know, as a receiver, what level of service the sender has paid for? It's no use to pay a Bazzillion dollars amonth for ultra-high bandwidth if all the content providers are throttled down to 56k.
I already hear from my friends sometimes that our phone service (via Vonage) sounds like it has a delay or echo in it. Sometimes I can hear it on my end, too.
I sometimes wonder if my content is getting "throttled" by some carrier along the way...
You are blurring the lines a little here. Sure, the MPAA, RIAA and many high dollar entertainment values would dissappear. That does not mean that there would be no more Photoshop and no more app developer market. Software products can generate revenue from support and timely updates. Look at Red Hat or IBM. Their revenue stream is primarily support and consulting.
But how many digital products are so complicated they require support? Not many. Updates can be copied just like the original content.
Photoshop may not be $800 each, and sales may be lower, but Adobe can definitely leverage their product and still make money for it.
Photoshop may be one of those digital products that is so complicated that they could make money off of support and/or training. But the digital product itself - the software - is worthless.
Likewise, there will always be businesses that want custom apps developed. The market may decline, mostly because we won't have to redesign the wheel all the time, but there will still be a market.
I think the wheel will get re-invented more and more. If a business is now forced to commission a custom application made specifically for them, rather than an application that traditionally would have been made and sold to millions of people, that application is going to cost them a WHOLE lot more money. Once they do this, do you think they are going to release that custom commissioned software product to the world? I wouldn't. If I were a business and I commissioned a custom application for my business, I'd keep it closely guarded to aid in my competitiveness. Aside from the fact that I paid a crap-load of money for it and don't want my competitors to get their hands on it for free.
Musicians will still get paid for live shows, artists will still be needed to provide original content, writers will write online books and such.
I think the TFA was right on the money, though. Since you can't make any money selling the content digitally anymore, the only people who will be able to commission new works will be wealthy patrons, just like in the age before recorded music. And if this comes to pass, just like above, there is no guarantee that such patrons will share their well-paid-for comissions with the rest of the world for free. If you have to comission Stephen King to write you a novel, you may well decide to hold onto that sucker.
As for live shows, man I haven't been to one in over 10 years. Really, I have no desire to go to them. I guess if that is the only way to hear new music, that will be your only option.
Ultimately we don't NEED to sell the infinitely reproducible product and make a profit. Sell the peripheral items. Sell the connected products that are not infinitely reproducible.
This is exactly what I think will happen. Digital content will be worthless, and won't be sold - it will be used as "bait" to get you to a web site associated with "peripheral items" that are not infinitely and instantly reproducible.
...to sell infinitely reproducible information at a profit?
Would it be worth making every piece of film, art, music, literature, and software available to every human being on Earth if it meant that there could no longer be a profitable industry in any of those fields?
It would mean no more MPAA, and no more Matrix. No more RIAA, and no more "getting discovered." No more $800 Photoshop, and no more app developer market. No more IP lawyers, and no more living off of your art. What if you could press a button and choose one or the other?
It is no longer profitable to sell an infinitely and instantly reproduceable product. Because producing one digital content piece is equivalent to producing an infinite number of them, the supply, for practical purposes, is infinite. Thus the demand, and the price that can be demanded, is practically zero.
We are heading into an era where content will be created to be used as "bait", where it will then be linked to physical products in an attempt to get you to purchase those instead.
Clearly most people have no problems copying digital content. Consequently, digital content is quickly becoming worthless - you can't sell it if everyone can get it for free.
I think in the very near future people are going to give up trying to get people to pay for it, and instead use it as "bait" to get people to visit regular content outlets, where they can be exposed to advertisements for "real" (non-digitial) products.
Digital content will continue to be the "free coffee" from TFA.
People are stupid, sensationalism sells, and the people who are looking for actual news are being disenfranchised by things such as the Jackson trial and the latest political "scandal". If the papers want money, maybe they should improve the quality of their stories, eh?
Quality doesn't matter. What matters is that people want the content for free. If it was the most incredible awesome stupendous quality in the world, people would still want it for free. Digital property has no monetary value. The newspapers are starting to find that out.
The easy way to get around all these registrations is to use BugMeNot
I'm willing to bet most of middle class America would pay 200-300 dollars a month FLAT FEE to get all their voice, tv, and internet from one provider that they can use anywhere (when in reality, it's just providing internet with other services on top of it).
I was with you up until there.
I currently pay:
~$50/month for basic cable TV + internet access
~$80/month for 2 cell phones
~$25/month for Vonage
TOTAL: ~$155
Even that is too much for us. We are cancelling the cell phones very soon. We had cell phones to replace the land-line phone, but now that we have the Vonage VOIP phones we will be ditching the cell phones. We'll miss the convenience but not the expense.
I'm uncomfortable with any "communications" bill that crests $100. Any more than that and I start thinking about what I'm really getting for my money, and what I can cut out.
Also, I don't think there needs to be VOIP fees in your vision of the future, either. The only reason we need to pay a VOIP service provider is so he can integrate the system with the old POTS system. If everyone was on the internet you can make VOIP calls just by knowing their IP address.
3G internet costs a fortune to use (it's a total scam). I think Vodafone would actually be delighted if you were foolish enough to use VOIP over 3G. MS might make it "free" to call fellow MS Office licensees, but the internet access isn't free.
I think this is the key point.
If "free" internet access were available everywhere cell phone coverage was available, then this would be a no-brainer. Cell phones would merely become batter-powered wireless LAN cards with a microphone and a speaker attached to them.
Technical issues with VOIP quality over 802 standards aside, somehow you have to roll out Wi-Fi to match cell phone coverage, and someone has to pay for that.
I could see the cell phone companies re-configuring their cell towers to also support WiFi. Your phone will need to be able to identify itself, and you will then be billed for WiFi access minutes instead of cell phone minutes. Of course, if you were in a "free" hotspot you could operate for "free".
I am starting to believe that a national WiFi Network might be something I would be interested in paying my taxes for, much like libraries. This could be a service that is of great benefit to all citizens, businesses, and government agencies - a true national asset.
Well, I want to thank you for changing my mind on this.
I think you are right. Digital property can't be stolen, because it has no inherent value. People might buy boxed linux distributions, but they are paying for the convenience of the package, not the digital content, which is freely available.
Clearly we have the right to be secure in our person and our property, but being secure in our property doesn't mean securing the monetary value of that property, only the physical posession of it. I have the right to own a piece of land, and to not have it taken away from me, but there is no right to preserve the monetary value of that land. Digital property is the same way.
Music, movies, books - none of them have monetary value in the digital realm, because they are freely available. As long as we don't deprive the owners of their own physical property, the copies have no monetary value. It's very liberating, actually.
It affects them in a similar manner in certain areas, but as a whole, the effect is not the same. If you have a work you produced and I actually take the physical work as a whole from you, you can no longer as for compensation from another party in return for giving them that work because it is no longer in your possession, the actual thing you were going to part with for compensation is gone. If I see that work you have produced, or if you have three of them and I buy one, then start making my own examples of that work, you still have the concept of how to produce that work, but because you are not the only one who can produce them now, we can be in competition now.
Copyright issues aside, it is one thing if you can produce my product by going to the same level of effort that I do to create it. But if you are simply clicking a button and replicating months or years of work in a second, that is not competition. Competition means a test of skills where the person with better skills has a chance at prevailing over others. No one can prevail against digital copying of their product. You can't possibly get efficient enough to be competitive against a duplication cost that is essentially zero.
If I am willing to offer them up for less compensation than you, I am undercutting your valuation of the work. Since you expended more effort in the first place to come up with the original idea, it is even understandable that you would feel slighted by me and in some sense feel that I had stolen value from you. You have no inherent right to receive compensation equal to your valuation of a work if there is a way of acquiring that work without infringing on your rights such as the right to be secure in your person and property.
What this means, then, is that digital property is worthless. Without copyright protection, I can't imagine a scenario where you could sell it. Can you?
Heh, take a look at the guy's final diagram. Programmers are at the end of the chain. The poo hasn't disappeared from the process, it's just that now all the poo is upstream of the programmer and it's up to him to juggle it until it doesn't look like poo anymore.
It's a bizarre argument. If I steal, the owner has to replace the property, and find someone else to sell it to. If I infringe copyright, the owner does not have to replace the copy but still has to find someone else to sell it to.
That's exactly my point. You're right - if you infringe copyright, the owner doesn't have to replace the copy, and still has to find someone else to sell it to.
What happens when everyone infringes on his copyright? Who will he sell it to then? The answer is, of course, no one. The value of his property has been reduced to null as surely as if it has been stolen.
So what happens if I'm actually capable of sculpting a replica of David in one week? What if I do it in a single day? If it takes me let's say twenty minutes to commit to memory all the nuances of the surface of David, and from then on I can pound one out in six minutes? Rather than marble, sometimes people come to me and say you know I would be just as happy if you made me a replica out of ice?
As long as it is your own skill and talent being used to create the new work based on the old one, I have no problem with it.
If you are saying that the issue is dependant on "your own skill, talent, time, and effort" then does that mean if it took me a hundred days to copy a retail disk to my hard drive and transfer a 1:1 image of it to somebody else on the internet then that would be enough time and effort? Or maybe it needs to take 3 years and that's enough time? Maybe I've gotten pretty good at doing it, maybe I can break a copy protection scheme in a day or two and start transferring images, would that represent enough skill and talent?
That is an interesting arguement.
I think the difference here is that you are not using your artistic skill, talent, time, and effort to create artwork. You are using your computer skills, talent, time, and effort to copy someone else's art. Basically in order to replicate a piece of art "by hand" you have to become as talented and invest as much effort as the original author did. As long as you are doing that, I don't have a problem with it. For one thing, if it takes you as long to copy content as it takes others to create it, and you are equally talented, odds are you would simply be creating new content. Further, if it is as costly for you to make a copy as it is for the original author to make the original work, your copies will probably not devalue his work much. But when you can push a button and in seconds replicate what may have taken months or even years to create, that devalues the sale value of the original work.
Whether or not you think it is right, what is being done is not stealing, is not a theft.
OK, it's not theft. However, it has the same effect on the person who's work you copied.
Don't sue ATI. Don't even buy ATI or NVidia if you don't have to. Keep your current video card for the next 3 years and stick to good old DVDs--at least until someone figures out what great/cheap HD-DVD player has a secret "strip HDMI" code and we get our fair use rights back.
I'm so confused by all this damn HDCP and HDMI mumbo-jumbo that I think I'm going to be on my old TV and DVD player for a loooooong time. It sure sounds to me like if everything isn't juuuuuust right, with the planets all in alignment and everything, your content is going to get stepped down to low-resolution anyway.
I don't want to have to think about all this crap when I try and buy a piece of audiovisual equipment, or buy or rent a movie. I just want to put it in and know it's working. I don't mind them protecting the content - I just want to have some confidence that what I paid for is actually working!
I'm just going to stick with my DVDs. My 27" TV in the living room isn't HDCP/HDMI compliant, I think it's like 8 years old now. All it has are RCA and coax inputs. Unless it breaks, I don't plan on replacing it. I don't know what's supposed to happen when everything is switched over to hi-def. I'm sure not paying the cable company to rent a set-top box converter just so I can watch the TV I'm already paying for. I guess if the content stops working on my TV one day I'll just miss that content. The only reason I have the cable subscription is for the internet access anyway (it was cheaper to get it with basic TV than without).
The end result does not matter for defining the action, stealing. I never claimed end results have no meaning, just that they don't define what it and is not stealing (an action). Sheesh!
Bottom line: copyright infringment is functionally identical to stealing.
This is called a false dichotomy. There are more than two possibilities here.
I don't believe there are.
I don't know if you know this, but before copyrights, people still made music, art, literature, etc. They got paid for it too.
My bet is there were far, far fewer of them making a living at it, and even fewer getting rich at it, compared with today.
Copyright is by no means the only way to make money off of content.
No, selling it is. Without protection from copying, it becomes much harder to sell it, as most people would rather just have a free copy.
Ask 95% of musicians where they make their money and they'll tell you it isn't from copyrighted songs, it is from touring, concerts, appearances, and merchandise.
I highly doubt this is true. And even if it were, without the huge marketing machine that pushes their content out to the market, most artists couldn't get known well enough to fill a cofee house, let alone a stadium.
Without copyright it would be from the same thing and probably from commissions and donations as well.
And wouldn't that just be great for our world-vision of free content for everyone. If you reduce art to only those who are willing to pay to commission it, it is REALLY going to get locked away from the rest of the world. You think I'm going to commission someone to compose me a song, or a movie, or a picture, and pay good money for it, only to let the rest of the world copy it for free? Hell no, it's going in my vault.
No, we're talking about your laughably bad new definition for the word stealing. Which receiving a gift fits into. I don't care how much lipstick you put on your pig, it is still a pig.
Speaking of pigs, I've given up trying to teach you how to sing. If you don't agree with me that copyright infringement is functionally equivalent to stealing, I give up.
Most of the artists who made the works are dead, and they still are being compensated so that they will make more art. It's a steaming load of crap.
No, the owner of the copyright is still being compensated. They paid the artist, dead or not, for the work, which they now own and are selling. In turn, they will pay more artists to make more art, so long as it is profitable to do so.
Gee, a product is basically producible for free due to technology, but we're all expected to pay extortionate fees for it due to legal shenanigans. It sounds like the law is holding back progress to me.
No, the product is not producible for free. It is reproducable for free. There is a huge difference here that you seem unable to grasp. Someone has to pay for the production of the original content. You can either commission it privately (in which case the work will likely stay locked up in a private collection), or you can spread the cost of the production by selling copies of it to many people.
No you can't. It is perpetually copyrighted due to our corrupt laws and non-commercial use clauses were removed in the 70s. It is illegal to sing happy birthday without permission. You're 30 years out of date.
"Does this mean that everyone who warbles "Happy Birthday to You" to family members at birthday parties is engaging in copyright infringement if they fail to obtain permission from or pay royalties to the song's publisher? No. Royalties are due, of course, for commercial uses of the song, such as playing or singing it for profit, using it in movies, television programs, and stage shows, or incor
You're ignoring the very reason why stealing is wrong: because the victim is deprived of the stolen item. If that weren't true, there'd be no reason to condemn stealing at all; there's nothing wrong with getting something for free as long as you aren't taking it away from someone else. And it isn't true of copyright infringement.
But it is!
The fallacy that you and many others are making here is that copyright infringement allows you to get something for free without taking it away from someone else. There is no free lunch, folks. Creating digital content involves a cost to the content creator. This cost is accepted by the content creator because they have some expectation of selling their content to recoup those costs. In fact, most people want to do better than just break even, they want to actually make a profit, too.
When you copy someone elses work, you are getting all the benefit of their costs with no cost to yourself. The more people who do this the fewer people there are to pay to cover those costs. If enough people copy his work without paying, he won't make a profit, or even recoup his costs. That's taking something away from him, in my book.
Further, stealing is not wrong just because I'm deprived of a physical object. It also deprives me of value. If you steal a $10 bill from me, I don't miss the piece of paper. I miss the monetary value of that piece of paper. Copyright infringement destroys the monetary value of the content being copied because it drives the monetary vale of the content to zero.
Theft is wrong because someone is deprived of their property. Not because someone gains. Gaining without causing loss to others is not, in itself, wrong. The whole concept of capitalism is based on doing just this.
The thing is, gains are almost never possible without some expenditure. Someone is paying to produce the gain, with the hope that the gain will be enough so that they at least break even, and usually with some expectation of making a profit. If that doesn't happen, the guy who is paying to produce the gain looses.
Thus gaining through no expenditure of effort of your own, but entirely through the effort of someone else, is wrong, unless we are talking about gifts, loans, or finding bars of gold on the bottom of the ocean as someone tried to argue.
But it doesn't matter. If copyright infringement is wrong, justify it on the grounds that copyright infringement is wrong. Not on the grounds that its sort of like stealing, and stealing is wrong. Otherwise I'll counter with "There's nothing wrong with stealing".
Make no mistake - I'm not arguing that copyright infringemetn is "sort of like" stealing, I'm arguing that it is identical to stealing, in terms of the effect it has on the content creator/owner. And if you don't think there's anything wrong with stealing, well, there's no point in having this discussion.
So many words for so many different ways to take $1000 from you. But the effect is the same - I've taken $1000 from you illegally - so why don't we just call all of them "stealing" ?
And in fact, I'd be half tempted to, but you do have a point.
The thing is, I would consider all of the things you listed equally bad, no matter what you call them. And that is what the point here really is. So the physical act of deprivation is different in each case. The end result is the same - you're depriving me of $1000.
Most everyone here seems to dismiss "copyright infringement" as not being equally as bad as "theft". Many are even making the case that it's OK!
I don't care what you call digital content copying. Piracy. Illegal Downloading. Copyright Infringement. Theft. Whatever. The point is, it is equivalent to theft in terms of the damage it does to the content owner.
So I'll make you a deal. I'll conceed and call digital content copying whatever you want, as long as you conceed it has the same effect on the content owner as stealing.
I want to know why you feel that if somebody acquires the good there is some inherent SHOULD that dictates they need to have paid for it, regardless of whether or not they are actually obtaining a physical material good in the possession of another party.
Because the good could not have been acquired except for the labor of the man who created the original. It's a free ride, and that's not fair unless the man who created the original decided to give it away for free. But you don't have the right to make that decision for him.
A man who works to produce a good deserves to be able to sell the fruits of his labor at some price to those who want those fruits.
If I find out that you really like the sculpture of David and choose to sculpt for you a perfect replica of David, allowing you to now enjoy the presence of that artwork where you choose to place it, have I become a thief?
Of course not. Because if you, by your own skill, talent, time, and effort, can produce a perfect replica of David, then you have paid for that copy with your skills, your talent, your time, your effort, and whatever it cost you to acquire a good slab of marble and the tools to work it. This is called "creating value", and that statue would be the embodiment of the costs you had to spent to create it. You would be able to sell it or give it away as you may. The fundamental difference here is that when you copy a CD, the copy cost virtually nothing to create. Your copy, on the other hand, would be quite costly.
This is why, demand issues aside, when Chevy manufactures two identical Corvettes they both have the same value, even though one is technically a "copy" of the other.
Now if you are making the case that it would OK for someone to hire a band and sound staff and rent a recording studio and have a nearly perfect copy of some song made for your personal use, hey, I have no problem with that at all. Or if you want to hire some actors and support crew, rent a movie soundstage, and hire some FX to make your own perfect copy of some movie for your own personal use, sure, that's fine with me, too.
The fundamental difference here is if you want to make a perfect copy of something by the fruits of your own labor, I don't have a problem with it. It's when you want to make a copy of something by the fruits of someone else's labor, at virtually no cost to yourself, that I think it's not right.
But as to whether someone should pay for something or get it for free is merely a matter of opinion. If I find a block of gold on the ocean floor in unclaimed waters, who should I have paid for it?
I'm not very familiar with salvage law, but my understanding is if it is in unclaimed waters then it's yours and you owe no one.
Come on, guys, quit grasping at straws and burrying me in caveats. They shouldn't be necessary. This is a very plain and simple situation. We're not talking about finding a lost CD on the bottom of the ocean floor, or even on the sidewalk. We aren't talking about gifts. We aren't talking about loans. We aren't talking about going over to your buddy's house and watching his DVD.
We're talking about people who are actively going out and, through their own actions, aquiring valuable digital data for free from someone who didn't intend to give it away for free.
So If I shoot someone in the head, they are dead and I have committed murder. But if I sell someone a gun and they shoot themselves in the head I have still committed murder? After all, the end result of my actions is the same, right?
This is not a good analogy. The difference is that in my example, you are responsible for BOTH actions - you stole the CD and you downloaded the CD. In your example, you are not responsible for the later action.
P.S. Your caps lock seems to be broken.
No, I'm just too lazy to type HTML. Happy now?
Steve
"Tell me how the end result for you is different?"
>Civil tort vs. felony car theft.
No, as I'm sure you know, I'm not talking about what are the consequences of your actions.
I'm talking about how is it different in terms of the end product in your hands?
How is walking out of a store with a CD different, in terms of what you possess after the deed, different from downloading it for free off the internet? Answer: Except for a few pennies worth of plastic and paper, it isn't any different.
Slashdot Mirror
He said:
Depending on what one would call Software Architecture, most of these "expanding" fields are ones that require higher education than those who were displaced. The jobs that have been lost are the ones of entry level programmers, IT support individuals-- in fact, the expanding opportunities are ones that have not been moved, or have been minimally affected. The problem with the statement "everything is going to be ok" is that it's not ok for everyone.
You said: NOWHERE in the paper does it describe exactly what types of jobs are being gained/lost, apart from the very general description you cite. So, please admit you made the rest of that shit up, or give us a link to credible source.
In spite of the article not speaking to this, I think he is spot-on. I recently had a discussion with an old buddy of mine who is a professional programmer and taught programming at the local university for a while. I was telling him how I finally finished my B.S. in Computer Science after working on it for some 17 years, and how I'm kind of glad I missed the whole Dot Com bubble (I'm in mechanical engineering), as it seems like nowadays you have to be a guru if you want to make it in the IT industry these days.
He agreed completely. He said he told his students, "Look, guys, if you want to go into Computer Science - great! There are still jobs out there in Computer Science. But there is no room for "C" students anymore."
So TFA or no TFA, we've got three people here who are all getting the same whiff of scent in the air. Mundane IT jobs have been farmed out. If you want to make some money in senior position these days you definitely can't have average skills.
Taking away a job from someone and then saying there's another job available but that it requires more skills is like taking a bone away from a dog and putting it onto of the fridge and saying "if you can get it, it's yours". Yes, the jobs are there, but unless you provide some assistance in training those displaced to fill those jobs then it still doesn't help those whos jobs were outsourced in the first place.
I think this is a great analogy, but I'm not terribly concerned about it, nor do I think "assistance" is required. After all, how did the dog get the bone in the first place? It wasn't handed to him then, either. The goalposts in life are constantly in flux. Very few have the luxury of being able to rest on their laurels securely for very long. The technology field changes so fast that this is even more true for those of us in it.
It is not the responsibility of others to help you get get your bone, no matter where it is.
Steve
But maybe there's another way to do this- monthly fees based upon data transfer. I pay it now as the host, but maybe the consumer should pay some metered/scaled/tiered rate?
Back in the bad old days of pre-dialup, most services WERE pay-by-the-minute services. I HATE that kind of plan. I hate pay-per-minute usage for phones and cell phones. I can't stand every time I go to use the thing constantly fretting about how many minutes are ticking away. I want a flat rate that I can count on being the same no matter how much or little I use it.
I do not mind the idea of tiered service pricing. We already have it. You can pay X dollars for dialup, a little more for broadband, and my broadband provider has different levels of broadband service for which you can pay more for each step up in speed. I have no problem with that. You want to go faster, you pay more.
BUT - I should get a guarantee that I'm getting what I paid for. If I'm paying for X level of speed, then I expect that level of speed. If the Telcos want to throttle data based on how much the SENDER of the data has paid them, how do I know, as a receiver, what level of service the sender has paid for? It's no use to pay a Bazzillion dollars amonth for ultra-high bandwidth if all the content providers are throttled down to 56k.
Steve
I already hear from my friends sometimes that our phone service (via Vonage) sounds like it has a delay or echo in it. Sometimes I can hear it on my end, too.
I sometimes wonder if my content is getting "throttled" by some carrier along the way...
Steve
You are blurring the lines a little here. Sure, the MPAA, RIAA and many high dollar entertainment values would dissappear. That does not mean that there would be no more Photoshop and no more app developer market. Software products can generate revenue from support and timely updates. Look at Red Hat or IBM. Their revenue stream is primarily support and consulting.
But how many digital products are so complicated they require support? Not many. Updates can be copied just like the original content.
Photoshop may not be $800 each, and sales may be lower, but Adobe can definitely leverage their product and still make money for it.
Photoshop may be one of those digital products that is so complicated that they could make money off of support and/or training. But the digital product itself - the software - is worthless.
Likewise, there will always be businesses that want custom apps developed. The market may decline, mostly because we won't have to redesign the wheel all the time, but there will still be a market.
I think the wheel will get re-invented more and more. If a business is now forced to commission a custom application made specifically for them, rather than an application that traditionally would have been made and sold to millions of people, that application is going to cost them a WHOLE lot more money. Once they do this, do you think they are going to release that custom commissioned software product to the world? I wouldn't. If I were a business and I commissioned a custom application for my business, I'd keep it closely guarded to aid in my competitiveness. Aside from the fact that I paid a crap-load of money for it and don't want my competitors to get their hands on it for free.
Musicians will still get paid for live shows, artists will still be needed to provide original content, writers will write online books and such.
I think the TFA was right on the money, though. Since you can't make any money selling the content digitally anymore, the only people who will be able to commission new works will be wealthy patrons, just like in the age before recorded music. And if this comes to pass, just like above, there is no guarantee that such patrons will share their well-paid-for comissions with the rest of the world for free. If you have to comission Stephen King to write you a novel, you may well decide to hold onto that sucker.
As for live shows, man I haven't been to one in over 10 years. Really, I have no desire to go to them. I guess if that is the only way to hear new music, that will be your only option.
Ultimately we don't NEED to sell the infinitely reproducible product and make a profit. Sell the peripheral items. Sell the connected products that are not infinitely reproducible.
This is exactly what I think will happen. Digital content will be worthless, and won't be sold - it will be used as "bait" to get you to a web site associated with "peripheral items" that are not infinitely and instantly reproducible.
Steve
...to sell infinitely reproducible information at a profit?
Would it be worth making every piece of film, art, music, literature, and software available to every human being on Earth if it meant that there could no longer be a profitable industry in any of those fields?
It would mean no more MPAA, and no more Matrix. No more RIAA, and no more "getting discovered." No more $800 Photoshop, and no more app developer market. No more IP lawyers, and no more living off of your art. What if you could press a button and choose one or the other?
It is no longer profitable to sell an infinitely and instantly reproduceable product. Because producing one digital content piece is equivalent to producing an infinite number of them, the supply, for practical purposes, is infinite. Thus the demand, and the price that can be demanded, is practically zero.
We are heading into an era where content will be created to be used as "bait", where it will then be linked to physical products in an attempt to get you to purchase those instead.
Steve
Clearly most people have no problems copying digital content. Consequently, digital content is quickly becoming worthless - you can't sell it if everyone can get it for free.
I think in the very near future people are going to give up trying to get people to pay for it, and instead use it as "bait" to get people to visit regular content outlets, where they can be exposed to advertisements for "real" (non-digitial) products.
Digital content will continue to be the "free coffee" from TFA.
Steve
People are stupid, sensationalism sells, and the people who are looking for actual news are being disenfranchised by things such as the Jackson trial and the latest political "scandal". If the papers want money, maybe they should improve the quality of their stories, eh?
Quality doesn't matter. What matters is that people want the content for free. If it was the most incredible awesome stupendous quality in the world, people would still want it for free. Digital property has no monetary value. The newspapers are starting to find that out.
The easy way to get around all these registrations is to use BugMeNot
http://www.bugmenot.com/
Steve
I'm willing to bet most of middle class America would pay 200-300 dollars a month FLAT FEE to get all their voice, tv, and internet from one provider that they can use anywhere (when in reality, it's just providing internet with other services on top of it).
I was with you up until there.
I currently pay: ~$50/month for basic cable TV + internet access ~$80/month for 2 cell phones ~$25/month for Vonage TOTAL: ~$155
Even that is too much for us. We are cancelling the cell phones very soon. We had cell phones to replace the land-line phone, but now that we have the Vonage VOIP phones we will be ditching the cell phones. We'll miss the convenience but not the expense.
I'm uncomfortable with any "communications" bill that crests $100. Any more than that and I start thinking about what I'm really getting for my money, and what I can cut out.
Also, I don't think there needs to be VOIP fees in your vision of the future, either. The only reason we need to pay a VOIP service provider is so he can integrate the system with the old POTS system. If everyone was on the internet you can make VOIP calls just by knowing their IP address.
Steve
3G internet costs a fortune to use (it's a total scam). I think Vodafone would actually be delighted if you were foolish enough to use VOIP over 3G. MS might make it "free" to call fellow MS Office licensees, but the internet access isn't free.
I think this is the key point. If "free" internet access were available everywhere cell phone coverage was available, then this would be a no-brainer. Cell phones would merely become batter-powered wireless LAN cards with a microphone and a speaker attached to them.
Technical issues with VOIP quality over 802 standards aside, somehow you have to roll out Wi-Fi to match cell phone coverage, and someone has to pay for that.
I could see the cell phone companies re-configuring their cell towers to also support WiFi. Your phone will need to be able to identify itself, and you will then be billed for WiFi access minutes instead of cell phone minutes. Of course, if you were in a "free" hotspot you could operate for "free".
I am starting to believe that a national WiFi Network might be something I would be interested in paying my taxes for, much like libraries. This could be a service that is of great benefit to all citizens, businesses, and government agencies - a true national asset.
Steve
How long until you can buy a fake thumb with Elvis Presley's print on it? :)
Steve
Well, I want to thank you for changing my mind on this.
I think you are right. Digital property can't be stolen, because it has no inherent value. People might buy boxed linux distributions, but they are paying for the convenience of the package, not the digital content, which is freely available.
Clearly we have the right to be secure in our person and our property, but being secure in our property doesn't mean securing the monetary value of that property, only the physical posession of it. I have the right to own a piece of land, and to not have it taken away from me, but there is no right to preserve the monetary value of that land. Digital property is the same way.
Music, movies, books - none of them have monetary value in the digital realm, because they are freely available. As long as we don't deprive the owners of their own physical property, the copies have no monetary value. It's very liberating, actually.
Take care,
Steve
It affects them in a similar manner in certain areas, but as a whole, the effect is not the same. If you have a work you produced and I actually take the physical work as a whole from you, you can no longer as for compensation from another party in return for giving them that work because it is no longer in your possession, the actual thing you were going to part with for compensation is gone. If I see that work you have produced, or if you have three of them and I buy one, then start making my own examples of that work, you still have the concept of how to produce that work, but because you are not the only one who can produce them now, we can be in competition now.
Copyright issues aside, it is one thing if you can produce my product by going to the same level of effort that I do to create it. But if you are simply clicking a button and replicating months or years of work in a second, that is not competition. Competition means a test of skills where the person with better skills has a chance at prevailing over others. No one can prevail against digital copying of their product. You can't possibly get efficient enough to be competitive against a duplication cost that is essentially zero.
If I am willing to offer them up for less compensation than you, I am undercutting your valuation of the work. Since you expended more effort in the first place to come up with the original idea, it is even understandable that you would feel slighted by me and in some sense feel that I had stolen value from you. You have no inherent right to receive compensation equal to your valuation of a work if there is a way of acquiring that work without infringing on your rights such as the right to be secure in your person and property.
What this means, then, is that digital property is worthless. Without copyright protection, I can't imagine a scenario where you could sell it. Can you?
Steve
But that's an argument against copyright infringement. Not that copyright infringemnt is exactly the same as theft
You agree, though, that in the end, the content owner is out his money, right? Call it whatever you want then.
Steve
Heh, take a look at the guy's final diagram. Programmers are at the end of the chain. The poo hasn't disappeared from the process, it's just that now all the poo is upstream of the programmer and it's up to him to juggle it until it doesn't look like poo anymore.
Steve
It's a bizarre argument. If I steal, the owner has to replace the property, and find someone else to sell it to. If I infringe copyright, the owner does not have to replace the copy but still has to find someone else to sell it to.
That's exactly my point. You're right - if you infringe copyright, the owner doesn't have to replace the copy, and still has to find someone else to sell it to.
What happens when everyone infringes on his copyright? Who will he sell it to then? The answer is, of course, no one. The value of his property has been reduced to null as surely as if it has been stolen.
Steve
So what happens if I'm actually capable of sculpting a replica of David in one week? What if I do it in a single day? If it takes me let's say twenty minutes to commit to memory all the nuances of the surface of David, and from then on I can pound one out in six minutes? Rather than marble, sometimes people come to me and say you know I would be just as happy if you made me a replica out of ice?
As long as it is your own skill and talent being used to create the new work based on the old one, I have no problem with it.
If you are saying that the issue is dependant on "your own skill, talent, time, and effort" then does that mean if it took me a hundred days to copy a retail disk to my hard drive and transfer a 1:1 image of it to somebody else on the internet then that would be enough time and effort? Or maybe it needs to take 3 years and that's enough time? Maybe I've gotten pretty good at doing it, maybe I can break a copy protection scheme in a day or two and start transferring images, would that represent enough skill and talent?
That is an interesting arguement.
I think the difference here is that you are not using your artistic skill, talent, time, and effort to create artwork. You are using your computer skills, talent, time, and effort to copy someone else's art. Basically in order to replicate a piece of art "by hand" you have to become as talented and invest as much effort as the original author did. As long as you are doing that, I don't have a problem with it. For one thing, if it takes you as long to copy content as it takes others to create it, and you are equally talented, odds are you would simply be creating new content. Further, if it is as costly for you to make a copy as it is for the original author to make the original work, your copies will probably not devalue his work much. But when you can push a button and in seconds replicate what may have taken months or even years to create, that devalues the sale value of the original work.
Whether or not you think it is right, what is being done is not stealing, is not a theft.
OK, it's not theft. However, it has the same effect on the person who's work you copied.
Steve
Don't sue ATI. Don't even buy ATI or NVidia if you don't have to. Keep your current video card for the next 3 years and stick to good old DVDs--at least until someone figures out what great/cheap HD-DVD player has a secret "strip HDMI" code and we get our fair use rights back.
I'm so confused by all this damn HDCP and HDMI mumbo-jumbo that I think I'm going to be on my old TV and DVD player for a loooooong time. It sure sounds to me like if everything isn't juuuuuust right, with the planets all in alignment and everything, your content is going to get stepped down to low-resolution anyway.
I don't want to have to think about all this crap when I try and buy a piece of audiovisual equipment, or buy or rent a movie. I just want to put it in and know it's working. I don't mind them protecting the content - I just want to have some confidence that what I paid for is actually working!
I'm just going to stick with my DVDs. My 27" TV in the living room isn't HDCP/HDMI compliant, I think it's like 8 years old now. All it has are RCA and coax inputs. Unless it breaks, I don't plan on replacing it. I don't know what's supposed to happen when everything is switched over to hi-def. I'm sure not paying the cable company to rent a set-top box converter just so I can watch the TV I'm already paying for. I guess if the content stops working on my TV one day I'll just miss that content. The only reason I have the cable subscription is for the internet access anyway (it was cheaper to get it with basic TV than without).
Steve
The end result does not matter for defining the action, stealing. I never claimed end results have no meaning, just that they don't define what it and is not stealing (an action). Sheesh!
Bottom line: copyright infringment is functionally identical to stealing.
This is called a false dichotomy. There are more than two possibilities here.
I don't believe there are.
I don't know if you know this, but before copyrights, people still made music, art, literature, etc. They got paid for it too.
My bet is there were far, far fewer of them making a living at it, and even fewer getting rich at it, compared with today.
Copyright is by no means the only way to make money off of content.
No, selling it is. Without protection from copying, it becomes much harder to sell it, as most people would rather just have a free copy.
Ask 95% of musicians where they make their money and they'll tell you it isn't from copyrighted songs, it is from touring, concerts, appearances, and merchandise.
I highly doubt this is true. And even if it were, without the huge marketing machine that pushes their content out to the market, most artists couldn't get known well enough to fill a cofee house, let alone a stadium.
Without copyright it would be from the same thing and probably from commissions and donations as well.
And wouldn't that just be great for our world-vision of free content for everyone. If you reduce art to only those who are willing to pay to commission it, it is REALLY going to get locked away from the rest of the world. You think I'm going to commission someone to compose me a song, or a movie, or a picture, and pay good money for it, only to let the rest of the world copy it for free? Hell no, it's going in my vault.
No, we're talking about your laughably bad new definition for the word stealing. Which receiving a gift fits into. I don't care how much lipstick you put on your pig, it is still a pig.
Speaking of pigs, I've given up trying to teach you how to sing. If you don't agree with me that copyright infringement is functionally equivalent to stealing, I give up.
Most of the artists who made the works are dead, and they still are being compensated so that they will make more art. It's a steaming load of crap.
No, the owner of the copyright is still being compensated. They paid the artist, dead or not, for the work, which they now own and are selling. In turn, they will pay more artists to make more art, so long as it is profitable to do so.
Gee, a product is basically producible for free due to technology, but we're all expected to pay extortionate fees for it due to legal shenanigans. It sounds like the law is holding back progress to me. No, the product is not producible for free. It is reproducable for free. There is a huge difference here that you seem unable to grasp. Someone has to pay for the production of the original content. You can either commission it privately (in which case the work will likely stay locked up in a private collection), or you can spread the cost of the production by selling copies of it to many people.
No you can't. It is perpetually copyrighted due to our corrupt laws and non-commercial use clauses were removed in the 70s. It is illegal to sing happy birthday without permission. You're 30 years out of date.
Please see Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp
"Does this mean that everyone who warbles "Happy Birthday to You" to family members at birthday parties is engaging in copyright infringement if they fail to obtain permission from or pay royalties to the song's publisher? No. Royalties are due, of course, for commercial uses of the song, such as playing or singing it for profit, using it in movies, television programs, and stage shows, or incor
You're ignoring the very reason why stealing is wrong: because the victim is deprived of the stolen item. If that weren't true, there'd be no reason to condemn stealing at all; there's nothing wrong with getting something for free as long as you aren't taking it away from someone else. And it isn't true of copyright infringement.
But it is!
The fallacy that you and many others are making here is that copyright infringement allows you to get something for free without taking it away from someone else. There is no free lunch, folks. Creating digital content involves a cost to the content creator. This cost is accepted by the content creator because they have some expectation of selling their content to recoup those costs. In fact, most people want to do better than just break even, they want to actually make a profit, too.
When you copy someone elses work, you are getting all the benefit of their costs with no cost to yourself. The more people who do this the fewer people there are to pay to cover those costs. If enough people copy his work without paying, he won't make a profit, or even recoup his costs. That's taking something away from him, in my book.
Further, stealing is not wrong just because I'm deprived of a physical object. It also deprives me of value. If you steal a $10 bill from me, I don't miss the piece of paper. I miss the monetary value of that piece of paper. Copyright infringement destroys the monetary value of the content being copied because it drives the monetary vale of the content to zero.
Steve
>The two cases are morally and legally completely different.
And yet, to the content owner, they are functionally equivalent.
Steve
Theft is wrong because someone is deprived of their property. Not because someone gains. Gaining without causing loss to others is not, in itself, wrong. The whole concept of capitalism is based on doing just this.
The thing is, gains are almost never possible without some expenditure. Someone is paying to produce the gain, with the hope that the gain will be enough so that they at least break even, and usually with some expectation of making a profit. If that doesn't happen, the guy who is paying to produce the gain looses.
Thus gaining through no expenditure of effort of your own, but entirely through the effort of someone else, is wrong, unless we are talking about gifts, loans, or finding bars of gold on the bottom of the ocean as someone tried to argue.
But it doesn't matter. If copyright infringement is wrong, justify it on the grounds that copyright infringement is wrong. Not on the grounds that its sort of like stealing, and stealing is wrong. Otherwise I'll counter with "There's nothing wrong with stealing".
Make no mistake - I'm not arguing that copyright infringemetn is "sort of like" stealing, I'm arguing that it is identical to stealing, in terms of the effect it has on the content creator/owner. And if you don't think there's anything wrong with stealing, well, there's no point in having this discussion.
Steve
So many words for so many different ways to take $1000 from you. But the effect is the same - I've taken $1000 from you illegally - so why don't we just call all of them "stealing" ?
And in fact, I'd be half tempted to, but you do have a point.
The thing is, I would consider all of the things you listed equally bad, no matter what you call them. And that is what the point here really is. So the physical act of deprivation is different in each case. The end result is the same - you're depriving me of $1000.
Most everyone here seems to dismiss "copyright infringement" as not being equally as bad as "theft". Many are even making the case that it's OK!
I don't care what you call digital content copying. Piracy. Illegal Downloading. Copyright Infringement. Theft. Whatever. The point is, it is equivalent to theft in terms of the damage it does to the content owner.
So I'll make you a deal. I'll conceed and call digital content copying whatever you want, as long as you conceed it has the same effect on the content owner as stealing.
Steve
I want to know why you feel that if somebody acquires the good there is some inherent SHOULD that dictates they need to have paid for it, regardless of whether or not they are actually obtaining a physical material good in the possession of another party.
Because the good could not have been acquired except for the labor of the man who created the original. It's a free ride, and that's not fair unless the man who created the original decided to give it away for free. But you don't have the right to make that decision for him.
A man who works to produce a good deserves to be able to sell the fruits of his labor at some price to those who want those fruits.
If I find out that you really like the sculpture of David and choose to sculpt for you a perfect replica of David, allowing you to now enjoy the presence of that artwork where you choose to place it, have I become a thief?
Of course not. Because if you, by your own skill, talent, time, and effort, can produce a perfect replica of David, then you have paid for that copy with your skills, your talent, your time, your effort, and whatever it cost you to acquire a good slab of marble and the tools to work it. This is called "creating value", and that statue would be the embodiment of the costs you had to spent to create it. You would be able to sell it or give it away as you may. The fundamental difference here is that when you copy a CD, the copy cost virtually nothing to create. Your copy, on the other hand, would be quite costly.
This is why, demand issues aside, when Chevy manufactures two identical Corvettes they both have the same value, even though one is technically a "copy" of the other.
Now if you are making the case that it would OK for someone to hire a band and sound staff and rent a recording studio and have a nearly perfect copy of some song made for your personal use, hey, I have no problem with that at all. Or if you want to hire some actors and support crew, rent a movie soundstage, and hire some FX to make your own perfect copy of some movie for your own personal use, sure, that's fine with me, too.
The fundamental difference here is if you want to make a perfect copy of something by the fruits of your own labor, I don't have a problem with it. It's when you want to make a copy of something by the fruits of someone else's labor, at virtually no cost to yourself, that I think it's not right.
Steve Steve
But as to whether someone should pay for something or get it for free is merely a matter of opinion. If I find a block of gold on the ocean floor in unclaimed waters, who should I have paid for it?
I'm not very familiar with salvage law, but my understanding is if it is in unclaimed waters then it's yours and you owe no one.
Come on, guys, quit grasping at straws and burrying me in caveats. They shouldn't be necessary. This is a very plain and simple situation. We're not talking about finding a lost CD on the bottom of the ocean floor, or even on the sidewalk. We aren't talking about gifts. We aren't talking about loans. We aren't talking about going over to your buddy's house and watching his DVD.
We're talking about people who are actively going out and, through their own actions, aquiring valuable digital data for free from someone who didn't intend to give it away for free.
So If I shoot someone in the head, they are dead and I have committed murder. But if I sell someone a gun and they shoot themselves in the head I have still committed murder? After all, the end result of my actions is the same, right?
This is not a good analogy. The difference is that in my example, you are responsible for BOTH actions - you stole the CD and you downloaded the CD. In your example, you are not responsible for the later action.
P.S. Your caps lock seems to be broken.
No, I'm just too lazy to type HTML. Happy now? Steve
"Tell me how the end result for you is different?"
>Civil tort vs. felony car theft.
No, as I'm sure you know, I'm not talking about what are the consequences of your actions.
I'm talking about how is it different in terms of the end product in your hands?
How is walking out of a store with a CD different, in terms of what you possess after the deed, different from downloading it for free off the internet? Answer: Except for a few pennies worth of plastic and paper, it isn't any different.
Steve