This is the kind of thing that is a big problem for Open Source and Linux in particular. When I first read about Kororaa I downloaded it and of course the feature that I wanted to see (the 3D) didn't work, no ATI driver included. Then I read about a second version that included the drivers, so I downloaded that and walla the thing worked as expected, with all the bells and whistles.
Now SUSE 10.1 is supposed to have the same feature. I have it installed exclusively on one of the hard drives, and this feature does not work by default, nor will it work until I jump through hoops and try to find and install the driver. So what is the point of spinning this feature when it does not work?
No matter what version of Linux that I have installed and run, the printer has never worked. If Linux and Open Source want to get into the game they are going to have to come up with a solution for this. Today's consumer expectation is that you install software and it "Just Works", like the way Microsoft does, security bugs and all.
ATI nor Nividia, nor the printer companies are going to Open Source their drivers. Because if you know how the software works, it probably goes a long way to reverse engineering both the hardware and the drivers. There goes your trade secrets and competitive advantage. So Linux and the Open Source community is going to have to find a way to get along with this, and add some kind of driver operating layer that allows non infringing inclusion of propriety drivers on the install disk. If they cannot find a way to do this "just works" operation, then Linux will never be my primary desktop, and I imigine the same goes for millions of others.
I think that there might be some businesses that run their business apps on Linux. What about the banking houses? But if they wrote their business apps in-house then writing in-house Linux apps would be no problem.
In the end it will all be about how badly they hate M$ lock-in. I think that the word on that is already out.
ODF is the file format, not the accessibility tool. ODF itself does not cause any accessibility issues for the disabled. It is the programs that support ODF, or not, that are the source of the problem.
The plug-in that lets MS Office 2003 read and save files in ODF is one solution. KDE Office and Open Office developing accessibility functions in the programs is another. It is not intentional nor inconsideration for the disabled, but timing that is the issue. This functionality is not available now but it will be in the future.
The media marketing, distribution, recording, landscape is changing. The recording companies know this, except that are powerless to stop it. The RIAA tactics are just reactionary to this situation, soon they will be no more.
Have you seen many typewriters or LP Records lately? 5 years tops and the recording companies will be the same. No more "money for nothing, and the checks for free" gravy train. Already Apple has a stronger hand than they do.
A very lame argument. The TV stealer's actually took physical things that were built by someone else. They did not copy the assembly modeling of the TVs, and build different TVs and leave the original TVs where they were.
Copying music actually created by musicians, (not recording companies) onto media that is not owned by the recording companies, cannot by the widest stretch be classified as theft. The fact that is inescapable is that content CANNOT EXIST without the media on which it exists. So in that sense the content and the media are ONE. A blank CD costs less than a dollar, a music CD cost upwards on twenty. Is there 19 dollars of music on it? The artists THE PEOPLE WHO CREATE THE CONTENT, get less than a dollar of all that. A good scam would you say?
What the recording companies are trying to hide under all this FUD is that the role of the recording companies is no longer needed. THEY DO NOT ADD VALUE TO THE PROCESS. And there is no current business model for profiting without adding value. (theft, extortion maybe?) Recording, distribution, marketing can all be done over the internet, directly to the fans and customers, by the musicians and artists. No need for useless profit scammers in between. In the last days of the horse carriage manufacturers, when automobiles were coming along, did the carriage manufacturers petition Washington and kick up the same kind of death throes hubbub.
To Bill it's always a war, so in wartime everyone pulls out their "dirty tricks" agendas. That's the way it has always been done. If the game has no rules, then you burn the Geneva convention, and carry on regardless.
Well is that not what you get from any dictatorship? When the checks and balances that the founding fathers put in place are removed? No longer a government of the people, with the right to free speech, the right to bear arms against a dictatorship.
You want to give your rights away then go ahead, Guantanamo is not that far away, Auschwich is just a little further. Watergate all over again.
A good pick-up on the irony part. But it is also time the artists woke up to all this abusive behaviour. The services of recording companies stuck in the middle between the artists and the customers is no longer required because of today's technology. The artists could have their own web sites and sell directly to the customer with no middle man.
Nobody seems to see this but the panicking recording companies. They are the ones pushing the DRM, but the artists could make a good living without it, if the recording companies were not stealing from everyone, (artists and customers) and the artists sold directly to the customers.
Then there is the technology and the content divide. Some of the technology companies want to get into the content business, and some of the content companies want to get into the technology business. This should be regulated as a required segregation of business, because this can definitely lead to monopoly that is in conflict with the customers interests. What would the market be like if say Sony controlled just about all the content, and all of the recording technology.
No, not the ancient Dinosaur Netscape business model, but like todays Google model or the FOSS model. Bill can give his products away for free, but it will not effect these business models, the same way it did Netscape. Because the profit is not off the product itself, but off the services surrounding the product.
Even IBM is smart enough to know that in this business era you cannot market compete on quality or price alone, because you can never hold a long enough lead time in any of these advantages. So you compete on service, at a people satisfaction level. This is achieved by hiring people who understand what other people want. This is far away from Bill's megalomaniac view of the world.
You are just waking up to this now? And the big lie about free speech. There is no free speech if the powers that be control the media, and not the backroom internet media, but the out front stuff that the world at large sees. That might actually influence public opinion.
For years the US government has been spouting rhetoric about free speech, freedom of information, democracy etc etc. While little by little they are stealthily taking these all away, and one day you will wake up and China will be the democracy, and the US the fascist state. Look at Hitlers reasons for invading Poland, and Bush's reason for invading Iraq. Which one is really more credible, "more living space" or "more oil"?
Well now the US is going around the world pressuring other governments to adopt their laws, especially patent, IP, and copyright laws. In other words the other countries laws must give US companies a market advantage. But this sword is two edged, so it cuts both ways, as M$ will find out.
The number of lawyers turned out by the US is more that their engineers. Even more arts degrees than engineering degrees. And they expect that will not eventually create an economic collapse? Too many drones and not worker bees in the hive, results in no honey.
The Japanese auto manufacturer analogy is very good, for those of us old enough to remember. Their first auto import efforts were absolute garbage, a kind of laughable joke, when compared to the North American autos.
But along came an oil shortage and high gas prices, and coupled with the "continuous improvement" cycles of the Japanese auto manufacturers, in a matter of years they had arguably a better product than the domestic autos. Wooing the customer with things like no argument warranty also got them market share.
Reminds me of an IBM training course I took several years back. The general theme was that no company will be able to differentiate themselves in the market on a price or quality basis in the future, because of the relatively short periods that they can hold a price or quality advantage. So their contention was make the best and competitively priced products, but compete on customer service, and that will be your competitive edge. "delight your customer" was the slogan.
It was the actual experience of war (living through it and in the middle of it) and the way it changes attitudes that I was trying to describe. The war itself is of no benefit, it is the circumstances and attitudes AFTER the war or revolution is over, that makes the social change, for better or for worse.
The transformation of a nation is not a lot different than for an individual, most times it takes a traumatic experience to bring about personal change. In all of the instances that you note about the nations, the common thread is significant change after a war. For a nation to change, there has to be change of attitude by all, including the leaders. For the English the change in attitude was that colonization is not a viable model, because like individuals, nations also crave a minimum level of independence.
War and revolution has been going on from tribal societies, and possibly has been the major agent of social change. Yes theoretically transformation and social change can come about willfully, peacefully, and gradually, but the ones who like things the way they are are usually the leaders. And the axiom that applies, "people don't resist change, people resist being changed", so hence revolution and war actually becomes a "necessary" agent of change. Even a political party system, is actually a take sides internal non-violent war model.
It promotes an ingrained human attitude, of "us and them", when elected government would work perfectly well without parties, because the real government issues are not about political or military opposition, but about what is best for all. So in that respect, good or bad government, and the spectre of war, cannot be separated from the nature of the people involved. If we want non-corrupt government, then there has to be non-corrupt politicians.
So where we started was centred around a notion of a "natural need for revolution and war", as a mechanism of social change, and so far in human history that has been so. "Teach a thief accounting, and all you have done is teach him a better way to steal". So in essence it is not so much the political and legal systems that need to be changed, but the characters of the leaders, and in the case of the US, the lawyers and politicians.
By way of illustration of a present situation, to avert a revolution and war in Nepal, the King will have to have a significant attitude change.
It is just an observation, but the significant change paradigm shift always seems to come about through war and revolution. I'm not recommending this, just recommending that change is needed.
The war and revolution is always about some set of circumstances and ideals, and maybe not always immediately beneficial. People do learn from the experience, and maybe even have a mass change of attitude.
For instance Russia also had a revolution, but the circumstances and ideals were somewhat different from the US revolution. France had a revolution with different circumstances and ideals again. England had a revolution and civil war way back, possibly before most. The point is that the circumstances and ideals were different so the results and outcomes were different.
Europe has been in some sort of war and turmoil for a thousand or more years. Deposing power structures and reorganizing. You might notice this difference of attitude, between nations that have been defeated and invaded during war, and those that have not. Most of the nations supporting the Iraq war were in this last category, and the ones that opposed it have had comparatively recent experience in the defeated category. Just a point about connections between war, revolution, attitude and cultural change.
There was shifting mass attitude during the VietNam war, the ideals clash between different political systems got initial support, but when sons started to come home maimed and in body bags, there was concern in the populace that the war might not be about these ideals, but just to justify military budgets and put money in the pockets of the arms companies.
Surprise, Surprise, where ever did Intel learn these tactics. Don't these tactics sound a lot like the behaviour of another company whose software runs on Intel products.
And I have not used either one's products in years. Right after Intel first changed the CPU socket to edge connect on the pretense of technical innovation (cooler, faster CPUs) when in fact it was all about hanging AMD with proprietary technology. AMD then developed their own CPU sockets, and of course their own motherboard designs, that are now arguably superior to Intel's.
This is a mainframe mentality with dumb terminals. And we CONTROL your life and your data, and you have to kiss our ass to get at it. Been there, done that, don't want to kiss any more IT ass.
Men are only men, and when not called into account and their actions measured against ideals and standards, will have their own personal agendas, and that most times are not generally in the interests of other citizens. But that does not mean that there not are ideals for which we should strive, even though sometimes in practice they may be compromised.
But if it never was an ideal or a standard in the first place then it is hardly going to be achieved accidentally. The original Constitution was such an ideal, and yes the men who framed it were less than perfect. But I think that you will agree that the US Government, Legal System, and Business interests of today, has slipped far away from that original ideal.
There is a revolution needed today, and where is it? Because historically significant change to existing power structures does not come with complacency, but with a significant shake-up, like a revolution. Even the evolutionists are changing their concept, from gradual change, to forced change caused by periodic upheavals to the status quo.
The US dis-information, misinformation machine goes a lot further than that. It is rotten right down to the core, take any of the present laws and test them against the constitution of the founding fathers, you know the one that is supposed to protect the interests of "we the people". This constitution does not mention "we the lobbyists", "we the special interests groups, "we big business", "we Microsoft" etc., etc.
Did the president of the largest nation in the world visit your home? The bigger question is, why was "a head of state" involved in any private interests at all.
The big lie, the one that gets foisted on the citizens, is that the US is a democracy. This could not be further from the truth, the interests of the people are last in consideration, and the interests of maintaining the power structure come first. What do you imagine that they were discussing then the people of New-Orleans were being washed away? Do you imagine that they set any of this other crap aside to deal with a huge human crisis?
There is no real security for the ordinary citizen, but there is security for those in power, that is why they were not on any of the low security 9/11 planes.
Before the last 5 years or so there was not any affordable effective way for the masses to digitally copy or transmit. So in that respect the Movie and recoding companies had the monopoly on the means to record. And that is all copyright is, it was a royal decree that only the favourite buddies had a right to have a printing press.
In case you hadn't noticed those days are gone, adjustments are required. People have new unique ideas every day, other people copy them, that is how economic and social progress is made. Even when they study chimp communities, this also happens this way.
This requires some revision of thinking, that the RIAA cannot seem to grasp. Their FUD is still theft. How if someone buys a blank CD and copies information onto it, does that information belong to a recording company? If none of that existed in the first place, and since the content cannot exist without the containing media, the theft definition is a long stretch. It is the concept that only a privileged few have the right to copy that needs to be revisited.
Because much as I try to grasp this concept it eludes me. If the content cannot exist without the media that it resides in, and cannot be accessed without the playback technology, why do the inventors, creators and owners of this technology not have the same rights as the creators of the content. Because the content is nothing without this technology. And if this technology did not exist it would still all be pay for admission to stage theatre, and live bands. How come only the content creators get a special privilege, and not also the technology creators that makes it even possible?
Do the recording companies license the recording equipment, and pay a license fee to the manufacturers for each copy that they make? Or do they buy this equipment and own it the same as Joe citizen?
"do you think any seller of legal electronic media (movies, music, photographs) is not going to be a large enough company to plan on compliance with their local laws?"
do you think any seller of legal electronic media (movies, music, photographs) is not going to be a large enough, or smart enough company to plan on setting up their business where these tax laws don't apply?
If it is about value, and they always preach that it is, then spending money on supporting services, instead of raw software licenses, is in fact better value for the client, and a more beneficial boost to the economy.
How often do the M$ licensing dollars go round and round, or are they locked up in a vault somewhere?
That licensee concept that you describe may be according to the US Big Business bought laws. But UK and EU laws are leaning more toward the consumers, who in a real democracy are the actual voters. (you know "for the people, by the people") In the US it is only capitalism and fascism pretending to be a democracy, basically a masquerade.
Bill Gates said that Linux is communism, another lie, if the truth be known it is licensing that is more like communism, because it presumes that there cannot be individual ownership. Whereas democracy and capitalism, have individual ownership as the central tenet.
Business after all is conducted by people for people. So people are a very important ingredient of business, and this is a lot of times ignored as the actual "key success factor" (KSF).
I have often heard is said, "show me a company who treats their employees well, and I will show you a company who also treats their customers well" the two are generally linked, and the flip side is also true. "Dissatisfied employees means dissatisfied customers". This business model is only ultra examination of the people factor. (the KSF).
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This is the kind of thing that is a big problem for Open Source and Linux in particular. When I first read about Kororaa I downloaded it and of course the feature that I wanted to see (the 3D) didn't work, no ATI driver included. Then I read about a second version that included the drivers, so I downloaded that and walla the thing worked as expected, with all the bells and whistles.
Now SUSE 10.1 is supposed to have the same feature. I have it installed exclusively on one of the hard drives, and this feature does not work by default, nor will it work until I jump through hoops and try to find and install the driver. So what is the point of spinning this feature when it does not work?
No matter what version of Linux that I have installed and run, the printer has never worked. If Linux and Open Source want to get into the game they are going to have to come up with a solution for this. Today's consumer expectation is that you install software and it "Just Works", like the way Microsoft does, security bugs and all.
ATI nor Nividia, nor the printer companies are going to Open Source their drivers. Because if you know how the software works, it probably goes a long way to reverse engineering both the hardware and the drivers. There goes your trade secrets and competitive advantage. So Linux and the Open Source community is going to have to find a way to get along with this, and add some kind of driver operating layer that allows non infringing inclusion of propriety drivers on the install disk. If they cannot find a way to do this "just works" operation, then Linux will never be my primary desktop, and I imigine the same goes for millions of others.
I think that there might be some businesses that run their business apps on Linux. What about the banking houses? But if they wrote their business apps in-house then writing in-house Linux apps would be no problem.
In the end it will all be about how badly they hate M$ lock-in. I think that the word on that is already out.
ODF is the file format, not the accessibility tool. ODF itself does not cause any accessibility issues for the disabled. It is the programs that support ODF, or not, that are the source of the problem.
The plug-in that lets MS Office 2003 read and save files in ODF is one solution. KDE Office and Open Office developing accessibility functions in the programs is another. It is not intentional nor inconsideration for the disabled, but timing that is the issue. This functionality is not available now but it will be in the future.
The media marketing, distribution, recording, landscape is changing. The recording companies know this, except that are powerless to stop it. The RIAA tactics are just reactionary to this situation, soon they will be no more.
Have you seen many typewriters or LP Records lately? 5 years tops and the recording companies will be the same. No more "money for nothing, and the checks for free" gravy train. Already Apple has a stronger hand than they do.
A very lame argument. The TV stealer's actually took physical things that were built by someone else. They did not copy the assembly modeling of the TVs, and build different TVs and leave the original TVs where they were.
Copying music actually created by musicians, (not recording companies) onto media that is not owned by the recording companies, cannot by the widest stretch be classified as theft. The fact that is inescapable is that content CANNOT EXIST without the media on which it exists. So in that sense the content and the media are ONE. A blank CD costs less than a dollar, a music CD cost upwards on twenty. Is there 19 dollars of music on it? The artists THE PEOPLE WHO CREATE THE CONTENT, get less than a dollar of all that. A good scam would you say?
What the recording companies are trying to hide under all this FUD is that the role of the recording companies is no longer needed. THEY DO NOT ADD VALUE TO THE PROCESS. And there is no current business model for profiting without adding value. (theft, extortion maybe?) Recording, distribution, marketing can all be done over the internet, directly to the fans and customers, by the musicians and artists. No need for useless profit scammers in between. In the last days of the horse carriage manufacturers, when automobiles were coming along, did the carriage manufacturers petition Washington and kick up the same kind of death throes hubbub.
To Bill it's always a war, so in wartime everyone pulls out their "dirty tricks" agendas. That's the way it has always been done. If the game has no rules, then you burn the Geneva convention, and carry on regardless.
Well is that not what you get from any dictatorship? When the checks and balances that the founding fathers put in place are removed? No longer a government of the people, with the right to free speech, the right to bear arms against a dictatorship.
You want to give your rights away then go ahead, Guantanamo is not that far away, Auschwich is just a little further. Watergate all over again.
A good pick-up on the irony part. But it is also time the artists woke up to all this abusive behaviour. The services of recording companies stuck in the middle between the artists and the customers is no longer required because of today's technology. The artists could have their own web sites and sell directly to the customer with no middle man.
Nobody seems to see this but the panicking recording companies. They are the ones pushing the DRM, but the artists could make a good living without it, if the recording companies were not stealing from everyone, (artists and customers) and the artists sold directly to the customers.
Then there is the technology and the content divide. Some of the technology companies want to get into the content business, and some of the content companies want to get into the technology business. This should be regulated as a required segregation of business, because this can definitely lead to monopoly that is in conflict with the customers interests. What would the market be like if say Sony controlled just about all the content, and all of the recording technology.
No, not the ancient Dinosaur Netscape business model, but like todays Google model or the FOSS model. Bill can give his products away for free, but it will not effect these business models, the same way it did Netscape. Because the profit is not off the product itself, but off the services surrounding the product.
Even IBM is smart enough to know that in this business era you cannot market compete on quality or price alone, because you can never hold a long enough lead time in any of these advantages. So you compete on service, at a people satisfaction level. This is achieved by hiring people who understand what other people want. This is far away from Bill's megalomaniac view of the world.
"its easier to obscure facts"
You are just waking up to this now? And the big lie about free speech. There is no free speech if the powers that be control the media, and not the backroom internet media, but the out front stuff that the world at large sees. That might actually influence public opinion.
For years the US government has been spouting rhetoric about free speech, freedom of information, democracy etc etc. While little by little they are stealthily taking these all away, and one day you will wake up and China will be the democracy, and the US the fascist state. Look at Hitlers reasons for invading Poland, and Bush's reason for invading Iraq. Which one is really more credible, "more living space" or "more oil"?
Well now the US is going around the world pressuring other governments to adopt their laws, especially patent, IP, and copyright laws. In other words the other countries laws must give US companies a market advantage. But this sword is two edged, so it cuts both ways, as M$ will find out.
The number of lawyers turned out by the US is more that their engineers. Even more arts degrees than engineering degrees. And they expect that will not eventually create an economic collapse? Too many drones and not worker bees in the hive, results in no honey.
The Japanese auto manufacturer analogy is very good, for those of us old enough to remember. Their first auto import efforts were absolute garbage, a kind of laughable joke, when compared to the North American autos.
But along came an oil shortage and high gas prices, and coupled with the "continuous improvement" cycles of the Japanese auto manufacturers, in a matter of years they had arguably a better product than the domestic autos. Wooing the customer with things like no argument warranty also got them market share.
Reminds me of an IBM training course I took several years back. The general theme was that no company will be able to differentiate themselves in the market on a price or quality basis in the future, because of the relatively short periods that they can hold a price or quality advantage. So their contention was make the best and competitively priced products, but compete on customer service, and that will be your competitive edge. "delight your customer" was the slogan.
It was the actual experience of war (living through it and in the middle of it) and the way it changes attitudes that I was trying to describe. The war itself is of no benefit, it is the circumstances and attitudes AFTER the war or revolution is over, that makes the social change, for better or for worse.
The transformation of a nation is not a lot different than for an individual, most times it takes a traumatic experience to bring about personal change. In all of the instances that you note about the nations, the common thread is significant change after a war. For a nation to change, there has to be change of attitude by all, including the leaders. For the English the change in attitude was that colonization is not a viable model, because like individuals, nations also crave a minimum level of independence.
War and revolution has been going on from tribal societies, and possibly has been the major agent of social change. Yes theoretically transformation and social change can come about willfully, peacefully, and gradually, but the ones who like things the way they are are usually the leaders. And the axiom that applies, "people don't resist change, people resist being changed", so hence revolution and war actually becomes a "necessary" agent of change. Even a political party system, is actually a take sides internal non-violent war model.
It promotes an ingrained human attitude, of "us and them", when elected government would work perfectly well without parties, because the real government issues are not about political or military opposition, but about what is best for all. So in that respect, good or bad government, and the spectre of war, cannot be separated from the nature of the people involved. If we want non-corrupt government, then there has to be non-corrupt politicians.
So where we started was centred around a notion of a "natural need for revolution and war", as a mechanism of social change, and so far in human history that has been so. "Teach a thief accounting, and all you have done is teach him a better way to steal". So in essence it is not so much the political and legal systems that need to be changed, but the characters of the leaders, and in the case of the US, the lawyers and politicians.
By way of illustration of a present situation, to avert a revolution and war in Nepal, the King will have to have a significant attitude change.
It is just an observation, but the significant change paradigm shift always seems to come about through war and revolution. I'm not recommending this, just recommending that change is needed.
The war and revolution is always about some set of circumstances and ideals, and maybe not always immediately beneficial. People do learn from the experience, and maybe even have a mass change of attitude.
For instance Russia also had a revolution, but the circumstances and ideals were somewhat different from the US revolution. France had a revolution with different circumstances and ideals again. England had a revolution and civil war way back, possibly before most. The point is that the circumstances and ideals were different so the results and outcomes were different.
Europe has been in some sort of war and turmoil for a thousand or more years. Deposing power structures and reorganizing. You might notice this difference of attitude, between nations that have been defeated and invaded during war, and those that have not. Most of the nations supporting the Iraq war were in this last category, and the ones that opposed it have had comparatively recent experience in the defeated category. Just a point about connections between war, revolution, attitude and cultural change.
There was shifting mass attitude during the VietNam war, the ideals clash between different political systems got initial support, but when sons started to come home maimed and in body bags, there was concern in the populace that the war might not be about these ideals, but just to justify military budgets and put money in the pockets of the arms companies.
Surprise, Surprise, where ever did Intel learn these tactics. Don't these tactics sound a lot like the behaviour of another company whose software runs on Intel products.
And I have not used either one's products in years. Right after Intel first changed the CPU socket to edge connect on the pretense of technical innovation (cooler, faster CPUs) when in fact it was all about hanging AMD with proprietary technology. AMD then developed their own CPU sockets, and of course their own motherboard designs, that are now arguably superior to Intel's.
This is a mainframe mentality with dumb terminals. And we CONTROL your life and your data, and you have to kiss our ass to get at it. Been there, done that, don't want to kiss any more IT ass.
Men are only men, and when not called into account and their actions measured against ideals and standards, will have their own personal agendas, and that most times are not generally in the interests of other citizens. But that does not mean that there not are ideals for which we should strive, even though sometimes in practice they may be compromised.
But if it never was an ideal or a standard in the first place then it is hardly going to be achieved accidentally. The original Constitution was such an ideal, and yes the men who framed it were less than perfect. But I think that you will agree that the US Government, Legal System, and Business interests of today, has slipped far away from that original ideal.
There is a revolution needed today, and where is it? Because historically significant change to existing power structures does not come with complacency, but with a significant shake-up, like a revolution. Even the evolutionists are changing their concept, from gradual change, to forced change caused by periodic upheavals to the status quo.
The US dis-information, misinformation machine goes a lot further than that. It is rotten right down to the core, take any of the present laws and test them against the constitution of the founding fathers, you know the one that is supposed to protect the interests of "we the people". This constitution does not mention "we the lobbyists", "we the special interests groups, "we big business", "we Microsoft" etc., etc.
Did the president of the largest nation in the world visit your home? The bigger question is, why was "a head of state" involved in any private interests at all.
The big lie, the one that gets foisted on the citizens, is that the US is a democracy. This could not be further from the truth, the interests of the people are last in consideration, and the interests of maintaining the power structure come first. What do you imagine that they were discussing then the people of New-Orleans were being washed away? Do you imagine that they set any of this other crap aside to deal with a huge human crisis?
There is no real security for the ordinary citizen, but there is security for those in power, that is why they were not on any of the low security 9/11 planes.
Before the last 5 years or so there was not any affordable effective way for the masses to digitally copy or transmit. So in that respect the Movie and recoding companies had the monopoly on the means to record. And that is all copyright is, it was a royal decree that only the favourite buddies had a right to have a printing press.
In case you hadn't noticed those days are gone, adjustments are required. People have new unique ideas every day, other people copy them, that is how economic and social progress is made. Even when they study chimp communities, this also happens this way.
This requires some revision of thinking, that the RIAA cannot seem to grasp. Their FUD is still theft. How if someone buys a blank CD and copies information onto it, does that information belong to a recording company? If none of that existed in the first place, and since the content cannot exist without the containing media, the theft definition is a long stretch. It is the concept that only a privileged few have the right to copy that needs to be revisited.
Because much as I try to grasp this concept it eludes me. If the content cannot exist without the media that it resides in, and cannot be accessed without the playback technology, why do the inventors, creators and owners of this technology not have the same rights as the creators of the content. Because the content is nothing without this technology. And if this technology did not exist it would still all be pay for admission to stage theatre, and live bands. How come only the content creators get a special privilege, and not also the technology creators that makes it even possible?
Do the recording companies license the recording equipment, and pay a license fee to the manufacturers for each copy that they make? Or do they buy this equipment and own it the same as Joe citizen?
I didn't see Zimbra mentioned here, and it is possibly the best internet calendar that there presently is.
"do you think any seller of legal electronic media (movies, music, photographs) is not going to be a large enough company to plan on compliance with their local laws?"
do you think any seller of legal electronic media (movies, music, photographs) is not going to be a large enough, or smart enough company to plan on setting up their business where these tax laws don't apply?
If it is about value, and they always preach that it is, then spending money on supporting services, instead of raw software licenses, is in fact better value for the client, and a more beneficial boost to the economy.
How often do the M$ licensing dollars go round and round, or are they locked up in a vault somewhere?
That licensee concept that you describe may be according to the US Big Business bought laws. But UK and EU laws are leaning more toward the consumers, who in a real democracy are the actual voters. (you know "for the people, by the people") In the US it is only capitalism and fascism pretending to be a democracy, basically a masquerade.
Bill Gates said that Linux is communism, another lie, if the truth be known it is licensing that is more like communism, because it presumes that there cannot be individual ownership. Whereas democracy and capitalism, have individual ownership as the central tenet.
Business after all is conducted by people for people. So people are a very important ingredient of business, and this is a lot of times ignored as the actual "key success factor" (KSF).
I have often heard is said, "show me a company who treats their employees well, and I will show you a company who also treats their customers well" the two are generally linked, and the flip side is also true. "Dissatisfied employees means dissatisfied customers". This business model is only ultra examination of the people factor. (the KSF).