They ignored a court order because the court lacked jurisdiction. Not the greatest way of handling it, but ultimately, unless they have a presence in France, the French courts have no jurisdiction. What they should have done was shown up and filed the relevant motions to have the case dismissed with prejudice as they aren't a French firm or operating anywhere in France. The courts with relevant jurisdiction would be located elsewhere.
Those are sites that have a presence in the US, they had to go to the authorities in New Zealand to deal with the Megaupload problem, because the US has no jurisdiction over those servers in a foreign country.
This is no different. The French can get outraged, but unless Twitter has a presence in France, the French laws don't apply as they aren't located in France and aren't French nationals either.
In practice 192kbps variable Lame preset standard is good enough for pretty much anybody. Now, it might not quite beat uncompressed for some people, but it's close enough that I don't bother to worry too much about it. It's better than the head phones that most people use to listen to their music with.
This is always the case when going from analog down to digital. Digital requires a certain amount of rounding. And neither source is likely to be maximum. Ideally, you go with a substantially higher bitrate so that the rounding errors are minimum, then after you've finished wroking on whatever it is, you convert down to something that's much closer to what humans are capable of hearing.
It applies to pretty much anything where you're converting from analog into digital. Now if we had unlimited storage space and unlimited processing power, you could get very close to identical to the original analog source, but even if that were possible, it would be a waste to do that.
The point of the equipment is that you have quality in reserve as you go through the process of mastering the tracks. The more quality you have in reserve the more you're able to do before you start having to deal with artifacts and other nastiness. As with all such things, you have to think about the order in which you do things and the order in which you throw out data to get the best results.
The point of buying lossless music isn't so much that it's better for listening to, it's that you can compress it however you like later on without having to worry as much about the sound quality you get. Since you have more data to work with, you can get a better quality at a lower bitrate than if you were starting with an already compressed track.
They don't have to, but if you go into a dealership and try to buy a new car with cash, they're probably going to see that as suspicious. Very, very few people pay cash in the literal sense for a vehicle, those who do have the money will usually pay by cash, because carrying around $24k in unrefundable currency is pretty risky. Not to mention a real PITA to count and carry.
I used to get paid monthly in cash at a job I worked, and the 6500 would be a stack of hundreds about 2" high IIRC.
You still have to bring the money into the US if you're in the US. Unless you're suggesting breaking US law by sending packages of cash and not declaring them as such, the government will find out about it one way or another. And even if you do opt to go the boxes of cash route, you're stuck making small deposits into your account in order to avoid having your bank report it.
Bottom line is that the US government has plenty of tools to solve this particular problem. And I'd be very surprised if other governments didn't get their own provisions to deal with BTC.
OTOH, they could just wait until the whole thing blows up in people's faces and not waste time dealing with the problem. Anybody buying enough BTC to make this worthwhile as a money laundering avenue is going to see some major fluctuation in the rates they're dealing with.
Visa works in real currencies that you're guaranteed to be able to use, their main problem was a lack of outlets. Which does build over time, what's more they weren't limited to just one currency, they could expand into all currencies if need be.
In this case, you've got something starting small in a currency that's ultimately doomed from the start. Yeah, that's exactly the same thing as Visa's near unlimited flexibility. What's more, Visa was following the Diner's Club into the market, they already knew what the market was, they just needed to get enough POS locations and customers to make it worthwhile.
Not really, USD are taken by anybody in the US that lends money as well as for taxes. BTC are basically just useful by a small number of people that aren't very good at math. The rest of us stick to currency and barter of things that actually exist.
Now, if BTC was a mandatory option for payment and was likely to continue that way into the future, then it would be a closer analogy. But, even there with the fixed maximum supply and the curve at which they're being introduced, being what they are, even then it would be a stretch.
That's generally the case. Windows may not be free in any sense of the word, but the cost of the license is included in the cost of the computer. The only time you ever actually see a price is if you're upgrading or building your own computer.
That's ridiculous. The supply lines guys get hit as a side effect of their jobs, but with a cracker, they're nowhere near combat Killing those guys is just unnecessary homicide..
It's not an interstate commerce problem, the tax is the same for things in or out of the state that the resident pays. The tax is on the customer, not on the retailer. If there were differing rates, that would be an interstate commerce problem. What's going on here is that the Federal government is interfering with it.
Retailers are not forced to sell in all states if they find it to be onerous, this is just a matter of them trying to take advantage of a tax loophole to gain a competitive advantage over less fortunate companies.
It makes a huge difference whether somebody is armed or using a computer. So, what's next, we bomb Chinese factories because their goods harm Americans? Because that's about as rational as what you're suggesting.
Taking human life needs to be done thoughtfully, doing it because you can is something that states are supposed to aspire not to do. And really, they shouldn't be taking life over this sort of thing.
I'm sure that I don't know of a form to pay that. I'm also sure that the state doesn't go to any effort to make the people aware of said form nor does the state make any effort at enforcing the rule either.
And really, it shouldn't come down to self reporting anyways. It's incredibly burdensome for me to have to keep track of all that information, and provide it to the state, just so that I can pay taxes on it. Making the retailer keep track of it when they keep track of the rest of the billing information would go a long ways towards restoring some degree of sanity to the situation.
Because they're wanting to sell items to people who live in our state. This is fundamentally no different than requiring firearms manufacturers to understand to which states they can legally sell their wares and to whom.
If they want money from people in whatever jurisdiction, they have to know what the rules there are.
As for burden, those people would likely just subscribe to a service that handles that for them, or they would restrict their sales to the states where they have a presence. The states don't usually pay much attention to people that are only selling a couple things on eBay anyways, if you're actually making a living doing this, then you should be making sure you're doing it legally.
What would that have to do with anything? The state doesn't enforce that particular law because they don't have access to any of the information necessary to assess penalties, and there isn't even a tax form provided to people to pay it in the first place.
And no, I don't admit owing anything, I admit that the state does a shitty job of public awareness and enforcement. The fact is that it's not even commonly known that you're supposed to pay the use tax, nor is it commonly known where you would even go to get the forms. And lastly, because these are organizations from outside the state, the state has no means of evaluating how much money is owed and as a result you wind up with self reporting.
It's not more expensive for us as a society, it merely shifts around where the tax revenue is coming from.
The states have the right to tax their citizens however they like, provided they don't do so in an unconstitutional manner. Note, that it's a USE tax that's assessed in these cases and one that's there to offset the costs of providing services to the citizens, so that citizens can't get around the sales tax.
Just because you're too stupid to realize that this is already settled case law, doesn't mean that it's not the case. SCOTUS is what decides what is and is not constitutional, and it regularly deviates from what the literal meaning of the passage is. And with good reason, the Constitution was never intended to be taken completely literally, even though it often times has.
All the Federal Government is doing here is forcing retailers to collect and report the use taxes that the consumers were supposed to be paying. This isn't an interstate commerce issue.
What you're talking about is a pretty substantial violation of states' rights. The Supreme Court has already ruled that states can assess these taxes, just that the method of collection can't be unduly burdensome, and that ruling is 20 years old and done prior to the point when it was trivial to set up a database for all the retailers to reference.
And yes, they will complain loudly about it. My home state has no income tax, and OR has no sales tax. So, OR would see no difference at all from this, but my home state would have to give up revenue for which it is entitled. Doesn't seem like anything other than a Federal overreach of authority.
The only reason why the tax isn't presently being assessed is that the Federal Government has failed to provide the states with the backing to collect the taxes. So, asking the states to settle for anything less than the full sum they're asking for is unacceptable. The people of various states have elected officials and passed votes that have set the tax rates where they are, expecting them to give up some of their revenues over this is absurd.
You missed the point, there is no tax form for that in this state that I know of, and without really digging for it and keeping records it would be impossible to pay. The burden very quickly adds up to being more than the taxes that I would be on the hook for.
Yeah, legally we're supposed to, but the burden is far lower if the retailer just collects the tax and remits it to the state, AFAIK, they're permitted to keep a small portion to help cover the cost of collection.
The problem with that is that around here the sales tax is 9.5%, which would mean that the city and or state would be losing revenue that they're entitled to collect. Considering the state of the nation, it's not that burdensome, what would likely happen is they would just contract out the work of tracking such changes to a contractor.
It's not just 50 states, it's all the municipalities that are entitled to collect sales tax in various states. In Seattle that's about 3% on top of the state sales tax of 6.5%, which means that one or both entities would be shorted under that proposal.
Mostly brick and mortar retailers and retailers that have a presence in most states. They've been at a competitive disadvantage to online retailers that don't collect the sales tax. Around here sales tax is 9% and that's rather significant when you realize that in many cases that's more than the cost of shipping.
I'm not even sure how I would go about paying the sales tax on those purchases as my home state doesn't have an income tax so we don't fill out any state tax forms where one might normally declare the sum. What's more it's unduly burdensome on the consumer to have to keep track of such sales for the state. Especially given that the states don't generally have jurisdiction to compel retailers in other states to show their sales figures and addresses.
Smaller company's usually use PayPal or another 3rd party payment processor to handle the details and only have access to the transaction ID, and not the CC card number or any of the rest of that.
Doesn't work. At some point you have to either start charging for updates or you go out of business. Redchairsoftware chose the latter and DDISoftware chose to create a new line and effectively limit updates on the old one to the most minimal ones possible.
Other outfits I've seen that sold them had to give them up as well as the price you need in order to make that sustainable is way above what most folks are willing to pay. And if you don't charge enough, you wind up running out of funds.
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They ignored a court order because the court lacked jurisdiction. Not the greatest way of handling it, but ultimately, unless they have a presence in France, the French courts have no jurisdiction. What they should have done was shown up and filed the relevant motions to have the case dismissed with prejudice as they aren't a French firm or operating anywhere in France. The courts with relevant jurisdiction would be located elsewhere.
Those are sites that have a presence in the US, they had to go to the authorities in New Zealand to deal with the Megaupload problem, because the US has no jurisdiction over those servers in a foreign country.
This is no different. The French can get outraged, but unless Twitter has a presence in France, the French laws don't apply as they aren't located in France and aren't French nationals either.
In practice 192kbps variable Lame preset standard is good enough for pretty much anybody. Now, it might not quite beat uncompressed for some people, but it's close enough that I don't bother to worry too much about it. It's better than the head phones that most people use to listen to their music with.
This is always the case when going from analog down to digital. Digital requires a certain amount of rounding. And neither source is likely to be maximum. Ideally, you go with a substantially higher bitrate so that the rounding errors are minimum, then after you've finished wroking on whatever it is, you convert down to something that's much closer to what humans are capable of hearing.
It applies to pretty much anything where you're converting from analog into digital. Now if we had unlimited storage space and unlimited processing power, you could get very close to identical to the original analog source, but even if that were possible, it would be a waste to do that.
The point of the equipment is that you have quality in reserve as you go through the process of mastering the tracks. The more quality you have in reserve the more you're able to do before you start having to deal with artifacts and other nastiness. As with all such things, you have to think about the order in which you do things and the order in which you throw out data to get the best results.
The point of buying lossless music isn't so much that it's better for listening to, it's that you can compress it however you like later on without having to worry as much about the sound quality you get. Since you have more data to work with, you can get a better quality at a lower bitrate than if you were starting with an already compressed track.
They don't have to, but if you go into a dealership and try to buy a new car with cash, they're probably going to see that as suspicious. Very, very few people pay cash in the literal sense for a vehicle, those who do have the money will usually pay by cash, because carrying around $24k in unrefundable currency is pretty risky. Not to mention a real PITA to count and carry.
I used to get paid monthly in cash at a job I worked, and the 6500 would be a stack of hundreds about 2" high IIRC.
You still have to bring the money into the US if you're in the US. Unless you're suggesting breaking US law by sending packages of cash and not declaring them as such, the government will find out about it one way or another. And even if you do opt to go the boxes of cash route, you're stuck making small deposits into your account in order to avoid having your bank report it.
Bottom line is that the US government has plenty of tools to solve this particular problem. And I'd be very surprised if other governments didn't get their own provisions to deal with BTC.
OTOH, they could just wait until the whole thing blows up in people's faces and not waste time dealing with the problem. Anybody buying enough BTC to make this worthwhile as a money laundering avenue is going to see some major fluctuation in the rates they're dealing with.
Visa works in real currencies that you're guaranteed to be able to use, their main problem was a lack of outlets. Which does build over time, what's more they weren't limited to just one currency, they could expand into all currencies if need be.
In this case, you've got something starting small in a currency that's ultimately doomed from the start. Yeah, that's exactly the same thing as Visa's near unlimited flexibility. What's more, Visa was following the Diner's Club into the market, they already knew what the market was, they just needed to get enough POS locations and customers to make it worthwhile.
Not really, USD are taken by anybody in the US that lends money as well as for taxes. BTC are basically just useful by a small number of people that aren't very good at math. The rest of us stick to currency and barter of things that actually exist.
Now, if BTC was a mandatory option for payment and was likely to continue that way into the future, then it would be a closer analogy. But, even there with the fixed maximum supply and the curve at which they're being introduced, being what they are, even then it would be a stretch.
And your point is? Diamonds are free if you steal them as well, doesn't mean that it's actually free.
That's generally the case. Windows may not be free in any sense of the word, but the cost of the license is included in the cost of the computer. The only time you ever actually see a price is if you're upgrading or building your own computer.
That's ridiculous. The supply lines guys get hit as a side effect of their jobs, but with a cracker, they're nowhere near combat Killing those guys is just unnecessary homicide..
It's not an interstate commerce problem, the tax is the same for things in or out of the state that the resident pays. The tax is on the customer, not on the retailer. If there were differing rates, that would be an interstate commerce problem. What's going on here is that the Federal government is interfering with it.
Retailers are not forced to sell in all states if they find it to be onerous, this is just a matter of them trying to take advantage of a tax loophole to gain a competitive advantage over less fortunate companies.
Not really, if your infrastructure is that broken, then perhaps we should be fixing that problem.
It makes a huge difference whether somebody is armed or using a computer. So, what's next, we bomb Chinese factories because their goods harm Americans? Because that's about as rational as what you're suggesting.
Taking human life needs to be done thoughtfully, doing it because you can is something that states are supposed to aspire not to do. And really, they shouldn't be taking life over this sort of thing.
I'm sure that I don't know of a form to pay that. I'm also sure that the state doesn't go to any effort to make the people aware of said form nor does the state make any effort at enforcing the rule either.
And really, it shouldn't come down to self reporting anyways. It's incredibly burdensome for me to have to keep track of all that information, and provide it to the state, just so that I can pay taxes on it. Making the retailer keep track of it when they keep track of the rest of the billing information would go a long ways towards restoring some degree of sanity to the situation.
So, yes, I am sure.
Because they're wanting to sell items to people who live in our state. This is fundamentally no different than requiring firearms manufacturers to understand to which states they can legally sell their wares and to whom.
If they want money from people in whatever jurisdiction, they have to know what the rules there are.
As for burden, those people would likely just subscribe to a service that handles that for them, or they would restrict their sales to the states where they have a presence. The states don't usually pay much attention to people that are only selling a couple things on eBay anyways, if you're actually making a living doing this, then you should be making sure you're doing it legally.
What would that have to do with anything? The state doesn't enforce that particular law because they don't have access to any of the information necessary to assess penalties, and there isn't even a tax form provided to people to pay it in the first place.
And no, I don't admit owing anything, I admit that the state does a shitty job of public awareness and enforcement. The fact is that it's not even commonly known that you're supposed to pay the use tax, nor is it commonly known where you would even go to get the forms. And lastly, because these are organizations from outside the state, the state has no means of evaluating how much money is owed and as a result you wind up with self reporting.
It's not more expensive for us as a society, it merely shifts around where the tax revenue is coming from.
The states have the right to tax their citizens however they like, provided they don't do so in an unconstitutional manner. Note, that it's a USE tax that's assessed in these cases and one that's there to offset the costs of providing services to the citizens, so that citizens can't get around the sales tax.
Just because you're too stupid to realize that this is already settled case law, doesn't mean that it's not the case. SCOTUS is what decides what is and is not constitutional, and it regularly deviates from what the literal meaning of the passage is. And with good reason, the Constitution was never intended to be taken completely literally, even though it often times has.
In this case http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-0194.ZO.html
All the Federal Government is doing here is forcing retailers to collect and report the use taxes that the consumers were supposed to be paying. This isn't an interstate commerce issue.
What you're talking about is a pretty substantial violation of states' rights. The Supreme Court has already ruled that states can assess these taxes, just that the method of collection can't be unduly burdensome, and that ruling is 20 years old and done prior to the point when it was trivial to set up a database for all the retailers to reference.
And yes, they will complain loudly about it. My home state has no income tax, and OR has no sales tax. So, OR would see no difference at all from this, but my home state would have to give up revenue for which it is entitled. Doesn't seem like anything other than a Federal overreach of authority.
The only reason why the tax isn't presently being assessed is that the Federal Government has failed to provide the states with the backing to collect the taxes. So, asking the states to settle for anything less than the full sum they're asking for is unacceptable. The people of various states have elected officials and passed votes that have set the tax rates where they are, expecting them to give up some of their revenues over this is absurd.
You missed the point, there is no tax form for that in this state that I know of, and without really digging for it and keeping records it would be impossible to pay. The burden very quickly adds up to being more than the taxes that I would be on the hook for.
Yeah, legally we're supposed to, but the burden is far lower if the retailer just collects the tax and remits it to the state, AFAIK, they're permitted to keep a small portion to help cover the cost of collection.
The problem with that is that around here the sales tax is 9.5%, which would mean that the city and or state would be losing revenue that they're entitled to collect. Considering the state of the nation, it's not that burdensome, what would likely happen is they would just contract out the work of tracking such changes to a contractor.
It's not just 50 states, it's all the municipalities that are entitled to collect sales tax in various states. In Seattle that's about 3% on top of the state sales tax of 6.5%, which means that one or both entities would be shorted under that proposal.
Mostly brick and mortar retailers and retailers that have a presence in most states. They've been at a competitive disadvantage to online retailers that don't collect the sales tax. Around here sales tax is 9% and that's rather significant when you realize that in many cases that's more than the cost of shipping.
I'm not even sure how I would go about paying the sales tax on those purchases as my home state doesn't have an income tax so we don't fill out any state tax forms where one might normally declare the sum. What's more it's unduly burdensome on the consumer to have to keep track of such sales for the state. Especially given that the states don't generally have jurisdiction to compel retailers in other states to show their sales figures and addresses.
Smaller company's usually use PayPal or another 3rd party payment processor to handle the details and only have access to the transaction ID, and not the CC card number or any of the rest of that.
Doesn't work. At some point you have to either start charging for updates or you go out of business. Redchairsoftware chose the latter and DDISoftware chose to create a new line and effectively limit updates on the old one to the most minimal ones possible.
Other outfits I've seen that sold them had to give them up as well as the price you need in order to make that sustainable is way above what most folks are willing to pay. And if you don't charge enough, you wind up running out of funds.